True and Rational

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Rational:
What is rational is subject to a bit more controversy than how truth is understood. Accordingly I am just going to gloss over some ideas that I tend to believe about what it means to be rational.

First I think I would distinguish the irrationality of people who are insane. It seems to me that this sort of irrationality is beyond the person’s control. We are trying to be rational. To the extent we are trying to become rational we to some extent believe we have some control over this. Indeed I would say that an important part of being rational is recognizing what is beyond our control and acting accordingly.
I also tend to think of being rational in terms of game theory. That is make rational or irrational choices. This I think can extend to what beliefs we hold – to the extent we can choose them.
So just a quick outline of what it means to be rational would be:
1) Not be illogical
2) Not be overly concerned with things beyond your control
3) Make choices based on analysis of the risks and benefits of your alternatives
4) Rational people tend not to go on emotion.

Some people will notice that I do not include Clifford’s claim “it is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.” Frankly this claim has always seemed self-defeating and therefore in violation of the first principle I outlined – don’t be illogical.

That is, I do not have sufficient evidence to believe “it is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence” and so believing that principle would violate it.

This is just an off the cuff outline. Perhaps we could add some other concepts to this outline. For example I think rational people consider evidence for and against their position. But I think to the extent there is a difference between being “rational” and being “reasonable” I would say that belongs more along the lines of being reasonable, but think it could fit here as well. And the terms reasonable and being rational are very close anyway.

In Real Life and Reasonable

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I think we all know what truth is, or at least we know the concept. Before my daughters were even in kindergarten they would sometimes listen to what I said, and then ask “In real life?” What they wanted to know is whether what I said was something made up, or whether what I said was true.

In philosophy we would say something like “a proposition is true if, and only if, it corresponds with reality.” This classic understanding of truth isn’t dependent on what people think but rather what is. It is this understanding that makes Plato’s allegory of the cave so powerful. We may not agree with everything Plato attempts to establish, but we do all agree we would rather not have all of our beliefs be based off of the shadows on the wall. We want to know reality.

I bring this up because I was amazed when I went to law school that there were professors and highly respected judges who seemed unfamiliar with this understanding of what it means to be true.

Of course, with any word we can change what it means by simply saying over time that this or that concept no longer applies to that collection of letters. “Truth” can start to mean what most people believe etc. But we still would want to know what reality is. That is what makes the truth significant. In other words kids and adults will still wonder whether what they hear is “in real life.”