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3 ideas
22650 | How can the ground of rationality be itself rational? [James] |
Full Idea: Can that which is the ground of rationality in all else be itself properly called rational? | |
From: William James (The Sentiment of Rationality [1882], p.25) | |
A reaction: This is the perennial problem in deciding grounds, and in deciding what to treat as primitive. The stoics see the whole of nature as rational. Cf how can the ground of what is physical be itself physical? |
22643 | It seems that we feel rational when we detect no irrationality [James] |
Full Idea: I think there are very good grounds for upholding the view that the feeling of rationality is constituted merely by the absence of any feelings of irrationality. | |
From: William James (The Sentiment of Rationality [1882], p.20) | |
A reaction: A very interesting proposal. Nothing is more basic to logic (well, plausible versions of logic) than the principle of non-contradiction - perhaps because it is the foundation of our natural intellectual equipment. |
23300 | Aristotle and the Stoics denied rationality to animals, while Platonists affirmed it [Aristotle, by Sorabji] |
Full Idea: Aristotle, and also the Stoics, denied rationality to animals. …The Platonists, the Pythagoreans, and some more independent Aristotelians, did grant reason and intellect to animals. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Richard Sorabji - Rationality 'Denial' | |
A reaction: This is not the same as affirming or denying their consciousness. The debate depends on how rationality is conceived. |