As far as I can tell, from the little that I know, we're rational creatures and inshallah we shall remain so for as long as possible ... for our own sake!

we're rational creatures — Agent Smith

...potentially rational?

...potentially rational? — Pantagruel

Well, ok, but actually as well!

We're talking about different aspects of thought. — Vera Mont

I guess you just have a different experience of thinking than I do.

I guess you just have a different experience of thinking than I do. — T Clark

Right?

Yes. Another thought is that when reasoning, there are moments of 'microintuitions'. They can be all sorts of things - moments of feeling into semantics, the 'I have checked that enough' qualia, 'it feels like some step is missing here' qualia, tiny thought experiments where one circles around a step in reasoning, quick dashes into memory looking for counterevidence and so on. All these little tweaks and checks. — Bylaw

Agreed. Reason and rationality don't have to be done formally, in writing, with little checklists. We can do it on the fly. Did I say this before? - Maybe the difference between reason and rationality is that reason welcomes intuition and insight into the process.

Right? — Pantagruel

Not sure what you're asking. Did I mean what I wrote? Yes. Does it seem wrong to you?

deduction, induction and abduction — Bylaw

I had not heard of "abduction" used in the context of logic before, so I looked it up. What I found was interesting and relevant. From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy?

In the philosophical literature, the term “abduction” is used in two related but different senses. In both senses, the term refers to some form of explanatory reasoning. However, in the historically first sense, it refers to the place of explanatory reasoning in generating hypotheses, while in the sense in which it is used most frequently in the modern literature it refers to the place of explanatory reasoning in justifying hypotheses. In the latter sense, abduction is also often called “Inference to the Best Explanation.”

This entry is exclusively concerned with abduction in the modern sense, although there is a supplement on abduction in the historical sense, which had its origin in the work of Charles Sanders Peirce — SEP - Abduction

And then:

The term “abduction” was coined by Charles Sanders Peirce in his work on the logic of science. He introduced it to denote a type of non-deductive inference that was different from the already familiar inductive type. It is a common complaint that no coherent picture emerges from Peirce’s writings on abduction. (Though perhaps this is not surprising, given that he worked on abduction throughout his career, which spanned a period of more than fifty years. For a concise yet thorough account of the development of Peirce’s thoughts about abduction, see Fann 1970.) Yet it is clear that, as Peirce understood the term, “abduction” did not quite mean what it is currently taken to mean (see Campos 2011 and McAuliffe 2015). One main difference between his conception and the modern one is that, whereas according to the latter, abduction belongs to what the logical empiricists called the “context of justification”—the stage of scientific inquiry in which we are concerned with the assessment of theories—for Peirce abduction had its proper place in the context of discovery, the stage of inquiry in which we try to generate theories which may then later be assessed. As he says, “[a]bduction is the process of forming explanatory hypotheses. It is the only logical operation which introduces any new idea” (CP 5.172); elsewhere he says that abduction encompasses “all the operations by which theories and conceptions are engendered” (CP 5.590). Deduction and induction, then, come into play at the later stage of theory assessment: deduction helps to derive testable consequences from the explanatory hypotheses that abduction has helped us to conceive, and induction finally helps us to reach a verdict on the hypotheses, where the nature of the verdict is dependent on the number of testable consequences that have been verified. (As an aside, it is to be noted that Gerhard Schurz has recently defended a view of abduction that is again very much in the Peircean spirit. On this view, “the crucial function of a pattern of abduction … consists in its function as a search strategy which leads us, for a given kind of scenario, in a reasonable time to a most promising explanatory conjecture which is then subject to further test” (Schurz 2008, 205). The paper is also of interest because of the useful typology of patterns of abduction that it puts forth.)

As Harry Frankfurt (1958) has noted, however, the foregoing view is not as easy to make sense of as might at first appear. Abduction is supposed to be part of the logic of science, but what exactly is logical about inventing explanatory hypotheses? According to Peirce (CP 5.189), abduction belongs to logic because it can be given a schematic characterization, to wit, the following:

The surprising fact, C, is observed.
But if A were true, C would be a matter of course.
Hence, there is reason to suspect that A is true.

But Frankfurt rightly remarks that this is not an inference leading to any new idea. After all, the new idea—the explanatory hypothesis A—must have occurred to one before one infers that there is reason to suspect that A is true, for A already figures in the second premise.

Frankfurt then goes on to argue that a number of passages in Peirce’s work suggest an understanding of abduction not so much as a process of inventing hypotheses but rather as one of adopting hypotheses, where the adoption of the hypothesis is not as being true or verified or confirmed, but as being a worthy candidate for further investigation. On this understanding, abduction could still be thought of as being part of the context of discovery. It would work as a kind of selection function, or filter, determining which of the hypotheses that have been conceived in the stage of discovery are to pass to the next stage and be subjected to empirical testing. The selection criterion is that there must be a reason to suspect that the hypothesis is true, and we will have such a reason if the hypothesis makes whichever observed facts we are interested in explaining a matter of course. This would indeed make better sense of Peirce’s claim that abduction is a logical operation.

Nevertheless, Frankfurt ultimately rejects this proposal as well. Given, he says, that there may be infinitely many hypotheses that account for a given fact or set of facts—which Peirce acknowledged—it can hardly be a sufficient condition for the adoption of a hypothesis (in the above sense) that its truth would make that fact or set of facts a matter of course. — SEP - Pierce on Abduction

I bolded text I think is especially relevant.

No but often it seems that very different perspectives on the mind do suggest that some people do have fundamentally different experiences of thought.

No but often it seems that very different perspectives on the mind do suggest that some people do have fundamentally different experiences of thought. — Pantagruel

I think that's true, but I don't think a difference in the experience means there is a difference in the mechanisms or processes of thought among different people.

I think that's true, but I don't think a difference in the experience means there is a difference in the mechanisms or processes of thought among different people. — T Clark

Ok. But if experience is empirically contingent, then there must be some empirical differentiator? Even if it is like the same light shining on two differently coloured plates. The plates absorb different spectrums of the light, so are experiencing very different aspects of the same thing. (Which reflects in the colours they reflect.)

Ok. But if experience is empirically contingent, then there must be some empirical differentiator? Even if it is like the same light shining on two differently coloured plates. The plates absorb different spectrums of the light, so are experiencing very different aspects of the same thing. (Which reflects in the colours they reflect.) — Pantagruel

People are aware of their own experiences at different levels and in different ways. I don't think that means the processes themselves are different. If you and I look at exactly the same image under the same conditions we are likely to have somewhat different experiences.

Thinking, from the perspective of an individual is (IMO) almost always strategic and goal driven. — Bret Bernhoft

I don't see that as true in my case. Based on my experience of my own thinking, much of it is wandering and playful. Curiosity leads me off in directions with no obvious utility. It's possible to let thinking take you where it wants to go with no clear goal. That's the kind of thinking that's the most fun. Thinking is, or at least can be, play.

But standards of rationality change. Slavery was an accepted institution in ancient Greece. The slave Epictetus was a Stoic, which makes sense. But then so was Marcus Aurelius. So rejection of an argument at a social level could be the institution of a new rational standard — Pantagruel

I don't understand what you're saying. My claim is that to be rational is to be reason-responsive. that is, it is to recognize and respond to reasons to do things and reasons to believe things.

But you have said something quite different and that does not challenge what I have said, whether it is true or not.

Let's say that the character of Reason has changed over time such that, other things being equal, what we have reason to do today in circumstances S we would not have had reason to do 1,000 years ago in exactly the same circumstances.

How does that challenge the idea that being rational involves being reason-responsive? A highly rational person today would get the impression, today, that they have reason to do X in circumstances S. But if they had been around 1000 years ago in identical circumstances they would have had the impression that they have reason to do Y in circumstances S.

So it seems to me that you are mixing two quite different topics. There is the question of how stable the rational aspect to reality is (the aspect that 'being rational' involves recognizing and responding to). And then there is what it is to be rational.

For an analogy: imagine you had asked 'what is it to see things?' And someone offers an answer. It is no response to say "but things people saw 1,000 years ago they do not see today".

I have always thought of 'rational' as related to 'ratio', which suggests comparison, measurement, determination and balance.

A rational or reasonable conclusion is a balanced conclusion. The tricky thing about intuition is that we don't know whether these processes of comparison, measurement etc.,have gone on subconsciously.

The tricky thing about intuition is that we don't know whether these processes of comparison, measurement etc.,have gone on subconsciously. — Janus

I don't know if you saw the excerpts from the SEP about abduction I posted in a response to ByLaw previously. The issue discussed in those texts is the distinction between generating hypotheses and validating them. Yes, intuition might miss something important. Brainstorming is a process of quickly tossing out ideas without trying to exclude those that probably won't work. The process is meant to generate a lot of hypotheses for further testing. That's where reason/rationality comes in.

Rationality and irrationality are not mutually exclusive, they can exist at the same place and at the same time. Someone can be rational to an irrational extent. Someone else can be irrational but express themselves perfectly rationally (that's what I aim for). My interest in rationality is related to this idea of "iron cage of rationality" which is about social control. When I read the discussion topic 'questioning rationality' I automatically think of becoming free, not necessarily pondering 'what is rational?'. Was Socrates rational for challenging ideas that could get him killed by an irrational society, or does rationality always correspond to the society and its constructs that we live in? In the latter case Socrates was irrational, but super-ironically became the rational example of Western Civilization. It is a complicated question that I wont solve. My bias is that rationality is socially constructed, Socrates was irrational, and of course, that irony prevailed.

I'll have a read. I am familiar with the concept of abduction from reading of and about Peirce. I think of it as the imaginative generation of hypotheses. I think there must be a rational element in there, though, since I imagine the abductive inferences to best explanation must possess some plausible causal relationship with what is purporting to be explained.

I wasn't so much concerned about intuition missing anything, but more about the implicit rational thinking that might have been going on sub-consciously when we find that an intuitive response has suddenly appeared in our consciousness.

I wasn't so much concerned about intuition missing anything, but more about the implicit rational thinking that might have been going on sub-consciously when we find that an intuitive response has suddenly appeared in our consciousness. — Janus

This comment took me by surprise, even startled me a bit. You are proposing that intuition includes some sort of secret logic we are not aware of. My first reaction is that the idea is absurd, but I'll try to give a more thoughtful, perhaps reasoned, even rational response than just that.

I see two possibilities. 1) There is no secret rational component to intuition. And 2) It doesn't matter one way or the other. Let's start with 1. In my experience, intuition works by making non-rational connections between unlike ideas. That's consistent with reading I've done that claims that fundamental mental processes work by making analogical, metaphorical connections rather than linear ones. I'm not capable of taking that argument any further at this point, so we'll leave it at that.

On to 2. It seems clear to me that rational processes are ones we have to be conscious, aware, of. They have to be put into a language, possibly mathematics or logic. It is the essence of reason that it has to be transparent. You cannot claim to be rational if you can't provide a description of the chain of logic you've followed to reach a conclusion for others to examine and validate. Again in my experience, rational evaluation is something I have to apply to a hypothesis after I come up with it.

Maybe the difference between reason and rationality is that reason welcomes intuition and insight into the process. — T Clark

I tend to react to the words this way also. Rationality seems focused, even if it is on the fly or just in the head, on (intended to be) logical verbal processes, whereas reason seems to mean something processes of good thinking, whatever they are like. I don't tend to keep the terms separate and I think others will not have this way of separating them, but I do have a dash of that tendency myself.

The process is meant to generate a lot of hypotheses for further testing. That's where reason/rationality comes in. — T Clark

Though I want to add that those rational processes of further testing need to use intution right through. They are not just intuition, but the process relies on it.

I will admit that my own approach to the reasonable-rational problem relies heavily on exemplary usages in ordinary language. I don't see a problem with this. Examples are good precisely as exemplary of common experience. Versus highly specialized, technical, neologized or otherwise contrived terminology, which loses in generality what it gains in specificity. That's another issue.

Continuing this approach, having a reason versus having a rationale. A reason is offered as causally sufficient and self-evident. I used metal to build this wheel instead of wood so it will last longer. A rationale is an internally coherent explanatory framework which is invoked precisely when there is no exemplary reason. I do not know where I dropped my watch, so I chose to search for it under the streetlamp because there is more light there. A rationale is invoked as a reason when no more specific reason exists.

If thinking is strategic, is it therefore also rational? Is it possible to be a criminal, and also rational, in the strictest sense of the word? What about reasonable? — Pantagruel

I think it is possible to be criminal and also rational in the case that the law is irrational.

Which is entirely possible as laws are ammended because they recognise they didn't consider a specific situation whereby one is deemed criminal under current legal constraints but the general populous empathises with them on the grounds that they believe the persons intentions were good and their options to minimise harm were not available to them legally.

For example, imagine a person whos loved one is severely depressed, and nothing legally available to them appears to be potent enough to rid that depression. They're sure their loved one will take their own life if no one does anything fast and effective soon. They're desperate to save them.

So that person considers say some drug that they researched is effective against depression - perhaps a hallucinogen or cannabis. So they buy it despite the fact that they're aware its illegal in their country.

It has the desired effect, and their loved one appears to be improving. So they continue to purchase it. On the third instance they're caught and taken to court. They plead guilty but only because they were doing everything and anything necessary to spare their loved one from suicide.

In this case is it really fair to consider them a criminal and penalise them thus? Or ought the law be ammended based on empirical evidence and rationality?

In my opinion law does try it's best to uphold justice, but like any human institution it is not without flaw. And therefore should always be open to improvement.

I don't tend to keep the terms separate and I think others will not have this way of separating them, but I do have a dash of that tendency myself. — Bylaw

Yes. As I noted, that difficulty in separating the concepts is the reason I didn't start a discussion like this one previously. As it is though, this has turned out to be a really good one for me. I've really been able to make what I think clearer to myself.

Though I want to add that those rational processes of further testing need to use intution right through. They are not just intuition, but the process relies on it. — Bylaw

Yes. Reason is an iterative process. Rough and tumble.

Continuing this approach, having a reason versus having a rationale. A reason is offered as causally sufficient and self-evident. I used metal to build this wheel instead of wood so it will last longer. A rationale is an internally coherent explanatory framework which is invoked precisely when there is no exemplary reason. I do not know where I dropped my watch, so I chose to search for it under the streetlamp because there is more light there. A rationale is invoked as a reason when no more specific reason exists. — Pantagruel

Your example is a good example of the problem with making a definitive distinction between the two concepts. I think calling "I used metal to build this wheel instead of wood so it will last longer" a rationale would be just as accurate as calling it a reason.

I think it is possible to be criminal and also rational in the case that the law is irrational. — Benj96

Why does it matter whether or not the crime is rational? Seems to me that robbing a bank so I can be rich could be just as rational as buying illegal drugs to help my friend. Which is not to say they are morally equivalent.

Which is not to say they are morally equivalent.
now — T Clark

They're not morally equivalent which is exactly what laws are based on. Giving to charity and murdering 300 people are also not morally equivalent and yes the law has something to say about the distinction.

So whats your point?

Moral is about helping others not to suffer not serving yourself for your own benefit to the detriment of others (all the people that suffer because you robbed their savings in the bank) .

Both may be rational on a personal basis but they're not both ethical (on a collective basis).

Hence what is rational to save another person from suicide (a selfless act ie risking your own wellbeing for another's) is ethically higher than risking others wellbeing for your own.

The two examples are entirely different so your fixation on the fact that they are both rational in relativity to the person acting completely ignore ethics - what's more prudent to do.

If thinking is strategic, is it therefore also rational? Is it possible to be a criminal, and also rational, in the strictest sense of the word? What about reasonable? — Pantagruel

I was thinking of a criminal. Who can have high situational-awareness and make complex plans. But is that sufficient to rationality? — Pantagruel

I'm late in the game, and lots of rational thinking on this thread.

But my response to the above is:
Yes, one can be strategic (based on how you define it) but not rational. Sociopaths can be highly strategic and able to make complex plans, but they are not rational. Their thinking patterns are done in a vacuum, without regard to the people around them, their own situation or location, or their environment. Not sure if you've heard or read about a brief comic illustration of the mind of a sociopath. Here's a version of that example:

A man attended his uncle's funeral and saw a beautiful woman among the mourners. Knowing nothing else of the woman, but wanting to see her again, he killed his aunt.

So whats your point? — Benj96

You say:

I think it is possible to be criminal and also rational in the case that the law is irrational. — Benj96

From that I infer that in cases where a law is rational, you think criminal acts are not rational. I was disagreeing that is necessarily true.

You are proposing that intuition includes some sort of secret logic we are not aware of. — T Clark

Not exactly, I am just saying that rational thought processes may be going on that we are not aware of. There doesn't seem to be any logical contradiction or impossibility in that conjecture.

I see two possibilities. 1) There is no secret rational component to intuition. And 2) It doesn't matter one way or the other. Let's start with 1. In my experience, intuition works by making non-rational connections between unlike ideas. That's consistent with reading I've done that claims that fundamental mental processes work by making analogical, metaphorical connections rather than linear ones. I'm not capable of taking that argument any further at this point, so we'll leave it at that. — T Clark

I agree that intuition probably works by associating images, impressions and concepts. Alchemy, astrology, acupuncture, hermeticism and homeopathy are some examples of ways of intuitively associating qualities of elements, things and processes via perceived similarities or affinities. There is a logic to this, which is not empirically based in our modern scientific understanding, but I would call it rational nonetheless,

On to 2. It seems clear to me that rational processes are ones we have to be conscious, aware, of. They have to be put into a language, possibly mathematics or logic. It is the essence of reason that it has to be transparent. — T Clark

I see no reason to believe that rational thought processes must be executed consciously. If the brain/mind can do strict logic or any other form of associating ideas consciously,why could it not carry on with such processes in the absence of conscious awareness. I mean, maybe it can't do that; but if that were so we would need evidence and an argument to establish it.