Under the regime of “rationality is winning” there is no room for being skeptical about rationality if rationality is simply what you would most prefer.
Rationality is patterns of systematically desirable/correct/winning/relevant cognition. It is (in part) about (or for) winning, the way a spoon is about eating, it’s not winning itself. There is lots of room for being skeptical about spoons being useful for eating. If a pattern of reasoning doesn’t offer systematic correctness/winning/etc., it’s not part of rationality, that’s how skepticism of rationality works.
Rationality is not what you would most prefer, the way a spoon is not the most eatworthy object, what you would prefer is captured by goals. Rationality is not just about achieving goals, patterns of reasoning conductive to achieving goals, it’s also about correct/relevant understanding of facts, that are not tethered to any goals (epistemic rationality).
That’s true, but I intentionally wrote “if rationality is simply what you would most prefer” i.e. if it really is the case that it is the most preferred means to the end. In your spoon example, it really may be the case that a spoon is the means you would most prefer to eat something with. A quibble, but yes.
I agree there is also a normative epistemic aspect to rationality, which could either complicate or be subsumed by the slogan “rationality is winning”.
You were replying to someone new here, with statements that are very easy to read in very confused ways. So I attempted to reformulate them clearly, with a secondary objective of possibly catching something that you were also conflating in your own mind.
There is actually something directly relevant to flaritza’s question in an expanded definition of rationality, though not useful. If rationality comprises patterns of thought that help with cognition and its many purposes, and there is a cognition-related problem like emotions acting up in nonstandard ways, perhaps interfering with usual communication norms or objecting to usual communication norms, this calls for patterns of emotional rationality that improve the situation. This is not useful because I don’t have (references about) particular patterns of emotional rationality to offer. But there might be some discussion of this, and should be even if there isn’t.
Rationality is patterns of systematically desirable/correct/winning/relevant cognition. It is (in part) about (or for) winning, the way a spoon is about eating, it’s not winning itself. There is lots of room for being skeptical about spoons being useful for eating. If a pattern of reasoning doesn’t offer systematic correctness/winning/etc., it’s not part of rationality, that’s how skepticism of rationality works.
Rationality is not what you would most prefer, the way a spoon is not the most eatworthy object, what you would prefer is captured by goals. Rationality is not just about achieving goals, patterns of reasoning conductive to achieving goals, it’s also about correct/relevant understanding of facts, that are not tethered to any goals (epistemic rationality).
That’s true, but I intentionally wrote “if rationality is simply what you would most prefer” i.e. if it really is the case that it is the most preferred means to the end. In your spoon example, it really may be the case that a spoon is the means you would most prefer to eat something with. A quibble, but yes.
I agree there is also a normative epistemic aspect to rationality, which could either complicate or be subsumed by the slogan “rationality is winning”.
You were replying to someone new here, with statements that are very easy to read in very confused ways. So I attempted to reformulate them clearly, with a secondary objective of possibly catching something that you were also conflating in your own mind.
There is actually something directly relevant to flaritza’s question in an expanded definition of rationality, though not useful. If rationality comprises patterns of thought that help with cognition and its many purposes, and there is a cognition-related problem like emotions acting up in nonstandard ways, perhaps interfering with usual communication norms or objecting to usual communication norms, this calls for patterns of emotional rationality that improve the situation. This is not useful because I don’t have (references about) particular patterns of emotional rationality to offer. But there might be some discussion of this, and should be even if there isn’t.