If you pursue rationality as a means to some end, you will reject it if it ever comes into conflict with your deeper priority.
Never happens unless you get your concept of “rationality” wrong. How exactly does knowingly being irrational actually help you to build a space shuttle? Or a steam shovel? Or cure a disease? Only people with mistaken ideas about “rationality” will find themselves believing that “irrationality” will help.
In like sense, you are far better off wanting to know whether the sky is blue or green, than wanting to know The Truth About The Sky. “Truth” and “rationality” only work as top-level goals if you phrase them exactly correctly on the first try; otherwise you’re a lot better off as a rationalist if your real goal is to build a steam shovel, because then you can notice what works and what doesn’t.
This is why progress from the ancient Greeks was driven by empirical discovery rather than philosophy. Philosophy just compares the current conception of “rationality” to itself.
If you pursue rationality as a means to some end, you will reject it if it ever comes into conflict with your deeper priority.
Never happens unless you get your concept of “rationality” wrong. How exactly does knowingly being irrational actually help you to build a space shuttle? Or a steam shovel? Or cure a disease? Only people with mistaken ideas about “rationality” will find themselves believing that “irrationality” will help.
In like sense, you are far better off wanting to know whether the sky is blue or green, than wanting to know The Truth About The Sky. “Truth” and “rationality” only work as top-level goals if you phrase them exactly correctly on the first try; otherwise you’re a lot better off as a rationalist if your real goal is to build a steam shovel, because then you can notice what works and what doesn’t.
This is why progress from the ancient Greeks was driven by empirical discovery rather than philosophy. Philosophy just compares the current conception of “rationality” to itself.
See Why truth?, Doublethink, and the nameless virtue.