I think it was important to have something like this post exist. However, I now think it’s not fit for purpose. In this discussion thread, rohinmshah, abramdemski and I end up spilling a lot of ink about a disagreement that ended up being at least partially because we took ‘realism about rationality’ to mean different things. rohinmshah thought that irrealism would mean that the theory of rationality was about as real as the theory of liberalism, abramdemski thought that irrealism would mean that the theory of rationality would be about as real as the theory of population genetics, and I leaned towards rohinmshah’s position but also thought that it referred to something more akin to a mood than a proposition. I think that a better post would distinguish these three types of ‘realism’ and their consequences. However, I’m glad that this post sparked enough conversation for the better post to become real.
I think it was important to have something like this post exist. However, I now think it’s not fit for purpose. In this discussion thread, rohinmshah, abramdemski and I end up spilling a lot of ink about a disagreement that ended up being at least partially because we took ‘realism about rationality’ to mean different things. rohinmshah thought that irrealism would mean that the theory of rationality was about as real as the theory of liberalism, abramdemski thought that irrealism would mean that the theory of rationality would be about as real as the theory of population genetics, and I leaned towards rohinmshah’s position but also thought that it referred to something more akin to a mood than a proposition. I think that a better post would distinguish these three types of ‘realism’ and their consequences. However, I’m glad that this post sparked enough conversation for the better post to become real.