SPP 1516: New Frameworks of Rationality

理性是心理学和哲学中的一个核心概念。然而，心理学和哲学之间的分而治之的方法，阻止了这两个学科考虑彼此的进步。哲学的使命一直是描述理性意味着什么，并提出定义理性的一般原则、理论和公理。相比之下，心理学的使命一直是经验性地调查人们的认知和行为在多大程度上符合这些理性标准，如果出现偏差，解释为什么会发生偏差。这种分工的结果是，心理学家专注于分析人们如何以及为什么偏离特定的规范理性理论，但却禁止自己对理解人类理性的本质做出真正的贡献。对其他学科的类似忽视也在哲学中占据主导地位。然而，近十年来，理论哲学经历了“认知转向”的复兴，这为心理学与哲学的合作提供了良好的基础。这两个学科之间的一个重要联系是，几个研究小组已经开始质疑理性和心理之间的对立。这些研究人员表明，考虑到环境施加的认知和外部限制，人们通常在实现目标方面非常成功。当以这些成就来衡量时，人们大多数时候确实是理性的。根据这一观点，规范理性理论与人们日常认知之间的分歧可能不是人类非理性的标志，而是使用狭隘的规范理性理论的结果。优先方案的目标是在心理学家和哲学家之间就人类理性的性质建立一种新的论述。其假设是，缺乏描述性和规范性理性理论之间的互动是不合时宜的，新的理性概念将挑战关于人类本质上是“非理性”或“不合逻辑”的猜想。因此，关键问题是‘什么是理性？’而不是‘我们理性吗？’优先方案将探讨最近关于理性的规范性理论对模拟人类思维和决策的价值。同时，它将探索心理学的哪些经验发现可以为修订旧的理性规范理论和发展新的规范理性理论做出贡献。因此，我们相信，心理学和哲学之间的这种论述将在这两个学科之间建立持久的桥梁，并促进对人类理性本质的更深层次理解。

Rationality is a key concept in psychology and philosophy. A divide and conquer approach between psychology and philosophy, however, has prevented both disciplines from taking into account one another's progress. Philosophy's mission has been to characterise what it means to be rational, and to put forth general principles, theories and axioms defining rationality. In contrast, psychology's mission has been to empirically investigate to what extent people's cognition and behaviour conform to those norms of rationality, and if deviations occur, explain why they occur. The consequence of this division of labour was that psychologists focussed on the analysis of how and why people deviate from specific normative theories of rationality, but barred themselves from making genuine contributions to the understanding of the nature of human rationality. A similar neglect of the other discipline has also dominated in philosophy. However, in the last decade, theoretical philosophy has experienced a renaissance of the 'cognitive turn', which provides a good basis for collaboration between psychology and philosophy. An important link between the two disciplines is that several research groups have started to question the opposition between the rational and the psychological. These researchers have shown that people are generally remarkably successful in achieving goals, given the cognitive and the external constraints imposed by the environment. When measured in terms of these achievements, people most of the time are indeed rational. According to this view, the divergence between normative theories of rationality and people's everyday cognition might be not a sign of human irrationality, but the consequence of using narrow normative theories of rationality. The goal of the Priority Programme is to establish a new discourse between psychologists and philosophers on the nature of human rationality. The assumption is that the lack of interaction between descriptive and normative theories of rationality is anachronistic and new concepts of rationality would challenge the conjecture of human beings as intrinsically 'irrational' or 'illogical'. Thus, the key question is 'What is rational?' rather than 'Are we rational?'. The Priority Programme will explore the value of recent normative theories of rationality for modelling human thinking and decision making. In parallel, it will explore, which empirical findings from psychology can contribute to the revision of old and the development of new normative theories of rationality. Such a discourse between psychology and philosophy, so we believe, will foster durable bridges between the two disciplines and promote a deeper understanding of the nature of human rationality.