“Reason” does not appear to be the right term here. “Cleverness” comes to mind as a better substitute, though I suspect there are better terms. The banking crisis occurred because people thought they were too clever. The various problematic causes you mention all appear to overestimate their own cleverness. It’s also unclear to me what it would mean for them to rely on reason less, and how this would cause their worldview to better match reality.
I think this might be best phrased as an objection to an overreliance on clever theories and a tendency to eschew evidence in favor of cleverness. Insofar as that is your point, it is an excellent if not novel one. But the way this is phrased is a bit more antagonistic than I think is merited, and seems to attack a type of thought rather than a specific error that a type of thought is prone to.
If my semantic distinction does not make sense, let me just explain my connotations. When I hear “reason,” I tend to think of it much like “rational;” one definitionally cannot make a mistake through being too rational, in that rationality is the thing that having more of it causes you not to make mistakes. “Cleverness,” on the otherhand, brings the same intellectual sleight-of-hand without any connotation of accuracy. The sentence, “Bob lost all his money because he was too reasonable,” does not really make sense, whereas, “Bob lost all of his money because he was too clever,” does. A good example of being too clever would be the demise of Vizzini from the Princess Bride.
The things Shalmanese is labeling “reason” and “evidence” seem to closely correspond to what have been previously been called the inside view and outside view, respectively (both of which are modes of reasoning, under the more common definition).
Yes, that was going to be my comment. The outside view also uses “reason” but with wider and shallower chains of reasoning. The inside view is more fragile, requiring more assumptions and longer chains of reasoning.
Or “Hubris”. In the examples, the people go wrong not because they are using reason and they should not use reason, but because they falsely imagine they are capable of using reason sufficiently to deal with the particular issue.
I’d add that “reason” is here taken as something like “abstract deduction.”
Far from reason and evidence being in conflict on occasion, the former strictly requires the latter.
Indeed, it is precisely when we start thinking of reason as disconnected from evidence that it turns into cleverness. Reason is attached to no particular ritual of cognition but rather to Winning.
“Reason” does not appear to be the right term here. “Cleverness” comes to mind as a better substitute, though I suspect there are better terms. The banking crisis occurred because people thought they were too clever. The various problematic causes you mention all appear to overestimate their own cleverness. It’s also unclear to me what it would mean for them to rely on reason less, and how this would cause their worldview to better match reality.
I think this might be best phrased as an objection to an overreliance on clever theories and a tendency to eschew evidence in favor of cleverness. Insofar as that is your point, it is an excellent if not novel one. But the way this is phrased is a bit more antagonistic than I think is merited, and seems to attack a type of thought rather than a specific error that a type of thought is prone to.
If my semantic distinction does not make sense, let me just explain my connotations. When I hear “reason,” I tend to think of it much like “rational;” one definitionally cannot make a mistake through being too rational, in that rationality is the thing that having more of it causes you not to make mistakes. “Cleverness,” on the otherhand, brings the same intellectual sleight-of-hand without any connotation of accuracy. The sentence, “Bob lost all his money because he was too reasonable,” does not really make sense, whereas, “Bob lost all of his money because he was too clever,” does. A good example of being too clever would be the demise of Vizzini from the Princess Bride.
Yes.
The things Shalmanese is labeling “reason” and “evidence” seem to closely correspond to what have been previously been called the inside view and outside view, respectively (both of which are modes of reasoning, under the more common definition).
Yes, that was going to be my comment. The outside view also uses “reason” but with wider and shallower chains of reasoning. The inside view is more fragile, requiring more assumptions and longer chains of reasoning.
Thanks for that comment, it made something click for me.
Or “Hubris”. In the examples, the people go wrong not because they are using reason and they should not use reason, but because they falsely imagine they are capable of using reason sufficiently to deal with the particular issue.
Voted up, because it so well voices the thoughts I had when I read the OP in my RSS reader.
I’d add that “reason” is here taken as something like “abstract deduction.”
Far from reason and evidence being in conflict on occasion, the former strictly requires the latter.
Indeed, it is precisely when we start thinking of reason as disconnected from evidence that it turns into cleverness. Reason is attached to no particular ritual of cognition but rather to Winning.