Abstract
Human beings often accept beliefs and reasons in ways that are considered irrational because they do not conform to given canons of rationality. These conventional canons stem, generally, from the main formal models of deduction and induction. There is a great deal of dissatisfaction in accepting this kind of normative judgement. The acceptance of a particular formal canon seems arbitrary and its foundation generates the well known “trilemma of Münchausen” (Albert 1968). This uneasiness has produced two different reactions. The first is the nihilist one. There is no need to establish any normative account of rationality because “anything goes” and every reason should be accepted. The second is what can be labelled, to a great extent, as a “naturalizing epistemology” programme (Quine 1969). According to it, the normative account of rationality should be generated by the descriptive account of how individuals reason and generate their beliefs.
The present chapter is a modified version of Viale, R. (2000). Reasons and Reasoning: What comes First? In R. Boudon, P. Demeulenaere & R. Viale (eds.). L’explication des normes sociales, Presses Universitaire de France. With kind permission from the Publishers.
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Notes
- 1.
The “trilemma of Münchausen” according to Hans Albert (1968) is about the foundation of a theory. A theory is founded either on first propositions that are not founded, and on propositions that are founded on other propositions that must be founded on others and so on according to a “regressum ad infinitum” process, and on propositions that are their own logical consequences.
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Viale, R. (2012). Adaptive Theory Change as Epistemological Universal. In: Methodological Cognitivism. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-24743-9_15
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