Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site utcsstat.UUCP
Path: utzoo!utcsstat!laura
From: laura@utcsstat.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: A Consistantly answered question
Message-ID: <1332@utcsstat.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 25-Oct-83 18:36:48 EDT
Article-I.D.: utcsstat.1332
Posted: Tue Oct 25 18:36:48 1983
Date-Received: Tue, 25-Oct-83 19:35:09 EDT
References: <411@houca.UUCP>
Organization: U. of Toronto, Canada
Lines: 63

Response to Tom Craver's response to STLH (Stanley Shebs):

First you define rationalise:

This is a useful definition and elaboration (although it is useful to remember
that this is not the only definition of rationalisation -- my OED says

rationalise:	Explain (away) by rationalism, bring into conformity with
		reason; (Math.) clear of surds; make (an industry) more
		efficient by scientifically reducing or eliminating waste
		of labour, time or materials.

		Be or act as a rationalist; (colloq.) find `reasons' for
		irrational or unworthy behavior.

rationalism:	Practice of explaining te supernatural in religion in a way
		consonant with reason, or of treating reason as the ultimate
		authority in religion as in elsewhere; the theory that reason
		is the foundation of certainty in knowledge (opp. empiricism
		sensationalism)

Which leads me to believe that you think that rationalisation is a very good
thing. Unfortunately, the pop psychology and coloquial definition seems to
be so widely known that the original meaning has become at the least obscured
and perhaps contaminated. 

But after accpeting your definition, I am still in a lot of trouble since there
is no way that I can determine whether I am being rational or whether I am
rationalising. if I cannot tell the difference then chaos should ensue.

Also there are strains of the "if everyone were rational there would be
no disagreements" belief. I still do not know where the basis for this
belief comes from. What guarantee do you have that 2 perfectly rational
people will not disagree? 

And as for:

	Reason is the faculty that allows humans to create, hold, and
	manipulate concepts that represent things and which is capable
	of representing *real* things. Rationality is the state or process
	of using that faculty *fully* to accept (hold) and use concepts
	that represent things in reality.

Did you know that you have just condemned all the works of Hume, Locke,
and the other Empiricists as being irrational? And that you have done
the same for most Eastern thought? Is this, therefore, a useful definition?

	It was the combination of
	the man's opposition to a just cause, combined with his refusal
	to even think and choose whether he should submit to force to
	save his life - let alone consider whether the cause behind the
	force was just.

Hmm. This asumes that Dagney must be able to judge that the cause was just,
and that the man was refusing to think. What if Dagney was wrong? How can
Dagney be assured that she is not making a terrible mistake? What if the man
was thinking, but very, very slowly. What if he was thinking but not commenting
on his thinking or letting her know that he was thinking. What if he had thought
for hours the night before and decided that he was perfectly rational and thus
any opposition he met was based on somebody else behaving irrationally?

Laura Creighton
utzoo!utcsstat!laura