″… natural science has shown a curious mixture of rationalism and irrationalism. Its prevalent tone of thought has been ardently rationalistic within its own borders, and dogmatically irrational beyond those borders. In practice such an attitude tends to become a dogmatic denial that there are any factors in the world not fully expressible in terms of its own primary notions devoid of further generalization. Such a denial is the self-denial of thought.”
- A.N. Whitehead, Process and Reality
I can’t really tell yet, but David Chapman’s work seems to be trying to hint at this phenomenon all the time. See his How to Think Real Good, for example, even if you don’t agree with his characterization of Bayesian rationality. There’s also Fixation and Denial, where he goes into some failure modes when dealing with hard-to-fully-formalize things. Meta-rationality seems to be mostly about this, AFAICT.
I have to say, most of Chapman’s stuff feels like pure lampshading, ie acknowledging that there is a problem and then simply moving on. I suppose he’s building up to more practical advice.
If you’re getting frustrated (I certainly am) that all everyone seems to be doing about this is offering loose and largely unhelpful tips, I think that’s something Alan Perlis anticipated: “One can’t proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means.”
(of course, that’s just another restatement of the fact that there is a problem.)
″… natural science has shown a curious mixture of rationalism and irrationalism. Its prevalent tone of thought has been ardently rationalistic within its own borders, and dogmatically irrational beyond those borders. In practice such an attitude tends to become a dogmatic denial that there are any factors in the world not fully expressible in terms of its own primary notions devoid of further generalization. Such a denial is the self-denial of thought.”
- A.N. Whitehead, Process and Reality
I can’t really tell yet, but David Chapman’s work seems to be trying to hint at this phenomenon all the time. See his How to Think Real Good, for example, even if you don’t agree with his characterization of Bayesian rationality. There’s also Fixation and Denial, where he goes into some failure modes when dealing with hard-to-fully-formalize things. Meta-rationality seems to be mostly about this, AFAICT.
I have to say, most of Chapman’s stuff feels like pure lampshading, ie acknowledging that there is a problem and then simply moving on. I suppose he’s building up to more practical advice.
If you’re getting frustrated (I certainly am) that all everyone seems to be doing about this is offering loose and largely unhelpful tips, I think that’s something Alan Perlis anticipated: “One can’t proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means.”
(of course, that’s just another restatement of the fact that there is a problem.)