Knowledge, Rationality, and Irrationality

The Enlightenment refers to a period centered around the eighteenth century when philosophers argued over the need to focus on the use of reason to justify opinions and actions.  This was an era where the goal was to establish rules for society in which the dominance of religious faith and monarchical power were diminished and were replaced by principles that were “rational” and evidence-based.  This “Age of Reason” has always been viewed as a mixed blessing for humanity.  Reason has led to mankind’s greatest advances as well as its most horrendous errors; producing both tremendous advances in health and longevity as well as repeated instances of genocide. And if one defines a rational person as one who uses reason and logic to form opinions and guide actions, why do we feel that we are surrounded by so many irrational people?  Could it be that we are inherently irrational, or could it be that we misunderstand the concept of rationality?

Kwame Anthony Appiah discusses some of the philosophical contentions surrounding rationality and irrationality that exist to this day in Dialectics of Enlightenment for the New York Review of Books.  In the process, he discusses things of interest to philosophers, but also produces some illuminating thoughts for the rest of us.  On the topic of what is rational and what is not, Appiah refers to his father’s cultural belief systems.

“My father, as was the norm among Asante of his generation, thought that there were many invisible spirits in the world, who could advance his causes if he conformed to rules they had laid down, and he was taught that ‘avoid eating bush meat,’ a stipulation of his particular Asante clan, was one of those rules. He was being reasonable, therefore, in his avoidance of eating bush meat. From an outside perspective, though, we can see that it was not rational, because there are no such spirits. (Sorry, Dad.)”

Appiah fails to quote the source for his conclusion that “there are no such spirits.”  It would seem it continues to be just as difficult to prove there are no gods or spirits as it is to prove that they exist.  Yet, without proof, Appiah defines his father to be irrational by a perspective of his choosing.  He goes further and allows that his father’s views were “reasonable” given his father’s state of knowledge at the time.

“To learn about an illness, my Asante ancestors might have consulted a fetish priest; today we might send a blood sample off to a lab. On an individual level, my Asante ancestors, acting on the basis of trusted authority, weren’t less reasonable than we are.”

So how can it be that Appiah uses reason and logic and is rational, while his father used reason and logic and was deemed irrational?  An explanation for this is provided which implies that individuals are incapable, on their own, of acquiring the knowledge required to act rationally.  They must be supported by a “rational” knowledge infrastructure that can assist them.

“…the analysis of rationality must expand beyond the individual level. Where traditional belief practices and natural science differ is as institutions: the social organization of inquiry makes all the difference.”

“It’s a critical fact that the cognitive division of labor in advanced societies provides each of us with epistemological resources far greater than any that would fit between our ears. We can talk casually about entangled electrons, the Bantu migration, gram-negative diplococci, and Petrarchan sonnets because there are communities of researchers who know about these things. ‘Meanings’ just ain’t in the head!’ the philosopher Hilary Putnam once observed: that is, the meaning of our sentences involves both a particular relation to reality and a particular relation to other, expert users of the language. Rationality, a fortiori, isn’t in the head, either. It’s something we do with one another and the world.”

Appiah seems to be claiming that modern people have access to knowledge canonized by agreement of experts on particular topics.  He doesn’t say whether that agreement has to be unanimous or could result from mere majority rule, but he does imply that belief in these collective conclusions forms the basis for rational deliberations on the part of a “rational” individual.  This dependence on unknown others as a basis for individual analyses is rather disturbing.  It is well documented that consensus opinions by economists, historians, and scientists have often been found to be in error.  In the medical sciences, errors, inaccuracies, and outright fraud are exposed almost daily.  In addition, this reliance on “recognized” experts reeks of conformity rather than cognitive deliberation.  Disagreement with conventional wisdom is not necessarily irrational; and how can progress ever be made without the questioning of conventional wisdoms?

As society has become more complex, individual success has become more dependent on becoming expert in a few particular things.  We are guided to “learn more and more about less and less.”  It can be exciting and entertaining to become an intellectual gadfly, wondering about asking annoying and troubling questions of these experts, but it is difficult to earn a living that way.  This enforced specialization may produce an “efficient” economy, but it does not necessarily produce good citizens.  Citizenship requires time and effort spent deliberating on issues, but our “efficient” economy produces wealth and the perverse need to work ever-longer hours in pursuit of that wealth.  A more ideal society might focus more on the creation of leisure time than on the creation of wealth.

Meanwhile, given the society we live in, we should recognize that one person’s treasure can be another person’s trash, and one person’s rationality can be another person’s irrationality.