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Single Idea 11068

[filed under theme 18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 5. Rationality / a. Rationality ]

Full Idea

In the tradition of Descartes, Chomsky and Davidson, rational animals are essentially talking animals. But in the view of Kant, and perhaps Fodor, it is the cognitive capacity for logic that is the essence of human rationality.

Gist of Idea

One tradition says talking is the essence of rationality; the other says the essence is logic

Source

Robert Hanna (Rationality and Logic [2006], 4.9)

Book Ref

Hanna,Robert: 'Rationality and Logic' [MIT 2006], p.110

The 28 ideas from 'Rationality and Logic'

11045 Most psychologists are now cognitivists [Hanna]
11047 Hegelian holistic rationality is the capacity to seek coherence [Hanna]
11048 Humean Instrumental rationality is the capacity to seek contingent truths [Hanna]
11046 Kantian principled rationality is recognition of a priori universal truths [Hanna]
11053 Explanatory reduction is stronger than ontological reduction [Hanna]
11051 Frege's logical approach dominates the analytical tradition [Hanna]
11055 Supervenience can add covariation, upward dependence, and nomological connection [Hanna]
11054 Scientism says most knowledge comes from the exact sciences [Hanna]
11058 Logic is explanatorily and ontologically dependent on rational animals [Hanna]
11059 Circular arguments are formally valid, though informally inadmissible [Hanna]
11061 Intensional consequence is based on the content of the concepts [Hanna]
11063 Logicism struggles because there is no decent theory of analyticity [Hanna]
11067 Rational animals have a normative concept of necessity [Hanna]
11068 One tradition says talking is the essence of rationality; the other says the essence is logic [Hanna]
11070 'Denying the antecedent' fallacy: φ→ψ, ¬φ, so ¬ψ [Hanna]
11071 'Affirming the consequent' fallacy: φ→ψ, ψ, so φ [Hanna]
11072 Logic is personal and variable, but it has a universal core [Hanna]
11078 Intuition is only outside the 'space of reasons' if all reasons are inferential [Hanna]
11077 Intuition includes apriority, clarity, modality, authority, fallibility and no inferences [Hanna]
11080 Intuition is more like memory, imagination or understanding, than like perception [Hanna]
11081 Imagination grasps abstracta, generates images, and has its own correctness conditions [Hanna]
11082 Should we take the 'depictivist' or the 'descriptivist/propositionalist' view of mental imagery? [Hanna]
11084 Logical necessity is truth in all logically possible worlds, because of laws and concepts [Hanna]
11086 Metaphysical necessity can be 'weak' (same as logical) and 'strong' (based on essences) [Hanna]
11085 Nomological necessity is truth in all logically possible worlds with our laws [Hanna]
11083 A sentence is necessary if it is true in a set of worlds, and nonfalse in the other worlds [Hanna]
11088 We can list at least fourteen informal fallacies [Hanna]
11089 Formally, composition and division fallacies occur in mereology [Hanna]