Friends, i'm interested in the difference between rational and irrational. My central question is, who decides whether someone or something is rational or irrational? In the first place, by posing this question itself am I not working under the assumption that I'm rational and hence this question itself needs to be rational (again assuming there is perfect correlation between my question being rational and me being rational along with a whole set of other assumptions)?
If this is an assumption that you need to make before engaging in any discourse, how can there ever be something like perfect truth? Because, if there is perfect truth why is there a need for any assumption? (I tried to solve the problem by tautology, but i gave up finally)
Note, I'm just trying to understand the sociological concepts...so, please try to make the answer as lucid as possible keeping in mind that my basic qualification is Engineering...
5 comments:
Rationality to my mind is which cannot be changed by individuals perception...its like theorems in mathematics which are true for you, me and every one else.
Irrational could be a
1) something which is yet to be proven rational (like Einstein’s relativity theory--people that time called it irrational but later on accepted it)
2) emotional - things which mind cannot understand and explain
3) Things which seems illogical
it could be any of the three
Thanks Goel...but i have some reservations about your answer
From your answer, i get the feeling that you consider rationality and truth to be the same.
Let me try to explain(to the best of my ability) this using the concept of god. You might have 'rational' explanations as to why God exists. But, as to whether god really exists is the 'truth'. I think we try to find truth by 'rational (or logical)' arguments.
My original question was, how can we be absolutely sure that our arguments are rational?
Your answer seems to point to the fact that I should consider myself rational until someone proves that I'm irrational. Hence, i think what you are implicitly saying is that there can be no 'absolute truth', only relative truths which can be falsified any time in the future. Am I right?
dear joseph,
there is nothing like true or false.something true for you may be false for someone else.so,the first thing is to put yourself in comparison of some standard.like the relative velocity concept.for measuring speed,we need to fix any one of them.
just try to do something and you find that way of doing is easy than thinking.you can enjoy every moment of life or can cry for whole the life.its all depend on our view.so, think which is better for society.
Joseph dear u put all my definitions of rationality upside down..
the term rational generally implies acting in self-interest. (thats my understanding)so you can safely say that the point of reference can only be you if u are talking about individual level rationality. on the other hand if we talk about rationality at society level then certainly power relations come into play.
I want to mention a wonderful saying of Gandhiji which i remember from school and which may seem awkward to define individual rationality but does a great job of defining morality or the "other" kind of rationality.
He said that whenever you are in doubt of your actions think about the poorest person you have ever met and see if your actions can do any good to him.
A little preachy it may sound but makes sense to me..!!
What do you say??
yes aman...after todays class i have come to the same conclusion...rationality at individual level is performing according to self-interest...nd at the society level it is related to who holds power...
on a lighter note, we take what gandhiji told as granted bcos of the power bestowed upon his image by the indian sate...
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