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137-413: Generative semantics is no longer practiced under that name, though many of its central ideas have blossomed in the cognitive linguistics tradition. It is also regarded as a key part of the intellectual heritage of head-driven phrase structure grammar (HPSG) and construction grammar , and some of its insights live on in mainstream generative grammar. Pieter Seuren has developed a semantic syntax which

274-411: A certain ideal of perfection, either moral or non-moral, is the goal of rationality. According to the intuitionist perspective, something is rational "if and only if [it] conforms to self-evident truths, intuited by reason". These different perspectives diverge a lot concerning the behavior they prescribe. One problem for all of them is that they ignore the role of the evidence or information possessed by

411-445: A cognitive semantics that studies the contextual–conceptual nature of meaning. Cognitive linguistics offers a scientific first principle direction for quantifying states-of-mind through natural language processing . As mentioned earlier Cognitive Linguistics, approaches grammar with a nontraditional view. Traditionally grammar has been defined as a set of structural rules governing the composition of clauses, phrases and words in

548-493: A computer, a word is merely a symbol, which is a symbol for another symbol and so on in an unending chain without grounding in human experience. The broad set of tools and methods of computational linguistics are available as natural language processing or NLP. Cognitive linguistics adds a new set of capabilities to NLP. These cognitive NLP methods enable software to analyze sub-context in terms of internal embodied experience. The goal of natural language processing (NLP)

685-504: A direction to identify and quantify the contextual nuances, the why and how in text – in linguistics terms, the implied pragmatic meaning or pragmatics of text. The three NLP approaches to understanding literal semantics in text based on traditional linguistics are symbolic NLP, statistical NLP, and neural NLP. The first method, symbolic NLP (1950s – early 1990s) is based on first principles and rules of traditional linguistics. The second method, statistical NLP (1990s–2010s), builds upon

822-479: A lack of experimental testing of hypotheses and little integration of findings from other fields of cognitive science . Some researchers go as far as to consider calling the field 'cognitive' at all a misnomer. "It would seem to me that [cognitive linguistics] is the sort of linguistics that uses findings from cognitive psychology and neurobiology and the like to explore how the human brain produces and interprets language. In other words, cognitive linguistics

959-626: A means. Proceduralists hold that this is the only way a desire can be irrational. Substantivists, on the other hand, allow that noninstrumental desires may also be irrational. In this regard, a substantivist could claim that it would be irrational for Jack to lack his noninstrumental desire to be healthy. Similar debates focus on the rationality of emotions . Theoretical and practical rationality are often discussed separately and there are many differences between them. In some cases, they even conflict with each other. However, there are also various ways in which they overlap and depend on each other. It

1096-422: A natural language. From the perspective of Cognitive Linguistics, grammar is seen as the rules of arrangement of language which best serve communication of the experience of the human organism through its cognitive skills which include perception, attention, motor skills, and visual and spatial processing. Such rules are derived from observing the conventionalized pairings of meaning to understand sub-context in

1233-466: A negative evaluation of the agent in terms of responsibility but remains silent on normative issues. On a competence-based account, which defines rationality in terms of the competence of responding to reasons, such behavior can be understood as a failure to execute one's competence. But sometimes we are lucky and we succeed in the normative dimension despite failing to perform competently, i.e. rationally, due to being irresponsible. The opposite can also be

1370-404: A person believes in the axioms of Euclidean geometry and is nonetheless convinced that it is possible to square the circle . Positive coherence refers to the support that different mental states provide for each other. For example, there is positive coherence between the belief that there are eight planets in the solar system and the belief that there are less than ten planets in the solar system:

1507-407: A picture of the hypothesised language faculty . Generative grammar promotes a modular view of the mind, considering language as an autonomous mind module. Thus, language is separated from mathematical logic to the extent that inference cannot explain language acquisition. The generative conception of human cognition is also influential in cognitive psychology and computer science . One of

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1644-411: A proposition. Various theories of rationality assume some form of ideal rationality, for example, by demanding that rational agents obey all the laws and implications of logic . This can include the requirement that if the agent believes a proposition , they should also believe in everything that logically follows from this proposition. However, many theorists reject this form of logical omniscience as

1781-493: A requirement for rationality. They argue that, since the human mind is limited, rationality has to be defined accordingly to account for how actual finite humans possess some form of resource-limited rationality. According to the position of bounded rationality , theories of rationality should take into account cognitive limitations, such as incomplete knowledge, imperfect memory, and limited capacities of computation and representation. An important research question in this field

1918-462: A shift of focus from empiricism to mentalism in psychology under the new concepts of cognitive psychology and cognitive science . Chomsky considered linguistics as a subfield of cognitive science in the 1970s but called his model transformational or generative grammar . Having been engaged with Chomsky in the linguistic wars , George Lakoff united in the early 1980s with Ronald Langacker and other advocates of neo-Darwinian linguistics in

2055-432: A similar fashion, which proved to be a challenge given the tools available at the time. Second, the theory had a pleasingly intuitive structure: the form of a sentence was quite literally derived from its meaning via transformations. To some, interpretive semantics seemed rather "clunky" and ad hoc in comparison. This was especially so before the development of trace theory . Despite its opposition to generative grammar,

2192-509: A so-called "Lakoff–Langacker agreement". It is suggested that they picked the name "cognitive linguistics" for their new framework to undermine the reputation of generative grammar as a cognitive science. Consequently, there are three competing approaches that today consider themselves as true representatives of cognitive linguistics. One is the Lakoffian–Langackerian brand with capitalised initials ( Cognitive Linguistics ). The second

2329-400: A substantive account of rationality in contrast to structural accounts. One important argument in favor of the normativity of rationality is based on considerations of praise- and blameworthiness. It states that we usually hold each other responsible for being rational and criticize each other when we fail to do so. This practice indicates that irrationality is some form of fault on the side of

2466-408: A visual or sensorimotoric 'metaphor'. Constructions , as the basic units of grammar, are conventionalised form–meaning pairings which are comparable to memes as units of linguistic evolution. These are considered multi-layered. For example, idioms are higher-level constructions which contain words as middle-level constructions, and these may contain morphemes as lower-level constructions. It

2603-450: A way to adapt to the limitations of the human mind, especially in complex cases where these limitations make brute calculations impossible or very time- and resource-intensive. Most discussions and research in the academic literature focus on individual rationality. This concerns the rationality of individual persons, for example, whether their beliefs and actions are rational. But the question of rationality can also be applied to groups as

2740-406: A weaker criterion of coherence to avoid cases of necessary irrationality: rationality requires not to obey all norms of coherence but to obey as many norms as possible. So in rational dilemmas, agents can still be rational if they violate the minimal number of rational requirements. Another criticism rests on the claim that coherence-based accounts are either redundant or false. On this view, either

2877-400: A whole on the social level. This form of social or collective rationality concerns both theoretical and practical issues like group beliefs and group decisions. And just like in the individual case, it is possible to study these phenomena as well as the processes and structures that are responsible for them. On the social level, there are various forms of cooperation to reach a shared goal. In

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3014-536: Is Hume's law , which states that one cannot deduce what ought to be based on what is. So just because a certain heuristic or cognitive bias is present in a specific case, it should not be inferred that it should be present. One approach to these problems is to hold that descriptive and normative theories talk about different types of rationality. This way, there is no contradiction between the two and both can be correct in their own field. Similar problems are discussed in so-called naturalized epistemology . Rationality

3151-436: Is cognitive NLP . This method is a rules based approach which involves assigning meaning to a word, phrase, sentence or piece of text based on the information presented before and after the piece of text being analyzed. The specific meaning of cognitive linguistics, the proper address of the name, and the scientific status of the enterprise have been called into question. Criticism includes an overreliance on introspective data,

3288-612: Is a cognitive science, whereas Cognitive Linguistics is not. Most of generative linguistics, to my mind, is not truly cognitive either." There has been criticism regarding the brain-related claims of both Chomsky's generative grammar, and Lakoff's Cognitive Linguistics. These are said to advocate too extreme views on the axis of modular versus general processing . The empirical evidence points to language being partially specialized and interacting with other systems. However, to counter behaviorism , Chomsky postulated that language acquisition occurs inside an autonomous module, which he calls

3425-651: Is a good reason for them and irrational otherwise. It is not clear in all cases what belongs to the domain of rational assessment. For example, there are disagreements about whether desires and emotions can be evaluated as rational and irrational rather than arational. The term "irrational" is sometimes used in a wide sense to include cases of arationality. The meaning of the terms "rational" and "irrational" in academic discourse often differs from how they are used in everyday language. Examples of behaviors considered irrational in ordinary discourse are giving into temptations , going out late even though one has to get up early in

3562-494: Is about how cognitive agents use heuristics rather than brute calculations to solve problems and make decisions. According to the satisficing heuristic, for example, agents usually stop their search for the best option once an option is found that meets their desired achievement level. In this regard, people often do not continue to search for the best possible option, even though this is what theories of ideal rationality commonly demand. Using heuristics can be highly rational as

3699-429: Is accepted that deductive reasoning in the form of modus ponens leads to rational beliefs. This claim can be investigated using methods like rational intuition or careful deliberation toward a reflective equilibrium . These forms of investigation can arrive at conclusions about what forms of thought are rational and irrational without depending on empirical evidence . An important question in this field concerns

3836-409: Is also the rational choice. This thought experiment indicates that rationality and normativity coincide since what is rational and what one ought to do depends on the agent's mind after all. Some theorists have responded to these thought experiments by distinguishing between normativity and responsibility . On this view, critique of irrational behavior, like the doctor prescribing drug B, involves

3973-404: Is argued that humans do not only share the same body type, allowing a common ground for embodied representations; but constructions provide common ground for uniform expressions within a speech community. Like biological organisms, constructions have life cycles which are studied by linguists. According to the cognitive and constructionist view, there is no grammar in the traditional sense of

4110-425: Is based on the controversial claim that we can decide what to believe. It can take the form of epistemic decision theory , which states that people try to fulfill epistemic aims when deciding what to believe. A similar idea is defended by Jesús Mosterín . He argues that the proper object of rationality is not belief but acceptance . He understands acceptance as a voluntary and context-dependent decision to affirm

4247-473: Is becoming more and more specialty based, each implementation needs a separate training model and specialized human verification raising Inter-rater reliability issues. However, the accuracy is considered generally acceptable for use in evaluating emotional context at a statistical or group level. A developmental trajectory of NLP to understand contextual pragmatics in text involving emulating intelligent behavior and apparent comprehension of natural language

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4384-462: Is between ideal rationality, which demands that rational agents obey all the laws and implications of logic, and bounded rationality , which takes into account that this is not always possible since the computational power of the human mind is too limited. Most academic discussions focus on the rationality of individuals. This contrasts with social or collective rationality, which pertains to collectives and their group beliefs and decisions. Rationality

4521-475: Is between negative and positive coherence. Negative coherence is an uncontroversial aspect of most such theories: it requires the absence of contradictions and inconsistencies . This means that the agent's mental states do not clash with each other. In some cases, inconsistencies are rather obvious, as when a person believes that it will rain tomorrow and that it will not rain tomorrow. In complex cases, inconsistencies may be difficult to detect, for example, when

4658-535: Is claimed that humans are rational animals , this usually refers to the ability to think and act in reasonable ways. It does not imply that all humans are rational all the time: this ability is exercised in some cases but not in others. On the other hand, the term can also refer to the process of reasoning that results from exercising this ability. Often many additional activities of the higher cognitive faculties are included as well, such as acquiring concepts, judging , deliberating , planning, and deciding as well as

4795-642: Is discussed in a great variety of fields, often in very different terms. While some theorists try to provide a unifying conception expressing the features shared by all forms of rationality, the more common approach is to articulate the different aspects of the individual forms of rationality. The most common distinction is between theoretical and practical rationality. Other classifications include categories for ideal and bounded rationality as well as for individual and social rationality. The most influential distinction contrasts theoretical or epistemic rationality with practical rationality. Its theoretical side concerns

4932-416: Is either arational , if it is outside the domain of rational evaluation, or irrational , if it belongs to this domain but does not fulfill its standards. There are many discussions about the essential features shared by all forms of rationality. According to reason-responsiveness accounts, to be rational is to be responsive to reasons. For example, dark clouds are a reason for taking an umbrella , which

5069-427: Is generative grammar, while the third approach is proposed by scholars whose work falls outside the scope of the other two. They argue that cognitive linguistics should not be taken as the name of a specific selective framework, but as a whole field of scientific research that is assessed by its evidential rather than theoretical value. Generative grammar functions as a source of hypotheses about language computation in

5206-544: Is important for solving all kinds of problems in order to efficiently reach one's goal. It is relevant to and discussed in many disciplines. In ethics , one question is whether one can be rational without being moral at the same time. Psychology is interested in how psychological processes implement rationality. This also includes the study of failures to do so, as in the case of cognitive biases . Cognitive and behavioral sciences usually assume that people are rational enough to predict how they think and act. Logic studies

5343-415: Is impossible to be rational, no matter which norm is privileged. Some defenders of coherence theories of rationality have argued that, when formulated correctly, the norms of rationality cannot enter into conflict with each other. That means that rational dilemmas are impossible. This is sometimes tied to additional non-trivial assumptions, such that ethical dilemmas also do not exist. A different response

5480-432: Is in tune with the agent's beliefs and realizes their desires. Externalists, on the other hand, see reasons as external factors about what is good or right. They state that whether an action is rational also depends on its actual consequences. The difference between the two positions is that internalists affirm and externalists reject the claim that rationality supervenes on the mind. This claim means that it only depends on

5617-414: Is no clear consensus on whether they belong to this domain or not. For example, concerning the rationality of desires, two important theories are proceduralism and substantivism. According to proceduralism, there is an important distinction between instrumental and noninstrumental desires . A desire is instrumental if its fulfillment serves as a means to the fulfillment of another desire. For example, Jack

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5754-494: Is often argued that to be rational, the believer has to respond to the impressions or reasons presented by these sources. For example, the visual impression of the sunlight on a tree makes it rational to believe that the sun is shining. In this regard, it may also be relevant whether the formed belief is involuntary and implicit The second factor pertains to the norms and procedures of rationality that govern how agents should form beliefs based on this evidence. These norms include

5891-436: Is practically rational to take medicine if one has the desire to cure a sickness. But it is theoretically irrational to adopt the belief that one is healthy just because one desires this. This is a form of wishful thinking . In some cases, the demands of practical and theoretical rationality conflict with each other. For example, the practical reason of loyalty to one's child may demand the belief that they are innocent while

6028-436: Is rational depends on the agent's experience. Since different people make different experiences, there are differences in what is rational for them. Rationality is normative in the sense that it sets up certain rules or standards of correctness: to be rational is to comply with certain requirements. For example, rationality requires that the agent does not have contradictory beliefs. Many discussions on this issue concern

6165-457: Is rational to bring an umbrella if the agent has strong evidence that it is going to rain. But without this evidence, it would be rational to leave the umbrella at home, even if, unbeknownst to the agent, it is going to rain. These versions avoid the previous objection since rationality no longer requires the agent to respond to external factors of which they could not have been aware. A problem faced by all forms of reason-responsiveness theories

6302-559: Is regarded as being based on the embodiment of knowledge, building on physical experience of vision and motion. For example, the 'metaphor' of emotion builds on downward motion while the metaphor of reason builds on upward motion, as in saying “The discussion fell to the emotional level, but I raised it back up to the rational plane." It is argued that language does not form an independent cognitive function but fully relies on other cognitive skills which include perception, attention, motor skills, and visual and spatial processing. Same

6439-512: Is related to something else. But there are disagreements as to what it has to be related to and in what way. For reason-based accounts, the relation to a reason that justifies or explains the rational state is central. For coherence-based accounts, the relation of coherence between mental states matters. There is a lively discussion in the contemporary literature on whether reason-based accounts or coherence-based accounts are superior. Some theorists also try to understand rationality in relation to

6576-418: Is said of various other cognitive phenomena such as the sense of time : In Cognitive Linguistics, thinking is argued to be mainly automatic and unconscious. Cognitive linguists study the embodiment of knowledge by seeking expressions which relate to modal schemas . For example, in the expression "It is quarter to eleven", the preposition to represents a modal schema which is manifested in language as

6713-500: Is seen as a road into the human mind. There has been scientific and terminological controversy around the label "cognitive linguistics"; there is no consensus on what specifically is meant with the term. The roots of cognitive linguistics are in Noam Chomsky 's 1959 critical review of B. F. Skinner 's Verbal Behavior . Chomsky's rejection of behavioural psychology and his subsequent anti-behaviourist activity helped bring about

6850-406: Is sick and wants to take medicine to get healthy again. In this case, the desire to take the medicine is instrumental since it only serves as a means to Jack's noninstrumental desire to get healthy. Both proceduralism and substantivism usually agree that a person can be irrational if they lack an instrumental desire despite having the corresponding noninstrumental desire and being aware that it acts as

6987-414: Is sometimes claimed that theoretical rationality aims at truth while practical rationality aims at goodness . According to John Searle , the difference can be expressed in terms of " direction of fit ". On this view, theoretical rationality is about how the mind corresponds to the world by representing it. Practical rationality, on the other hand, is about how the world corresponds to the ideal set up by

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7124-457: Is that "reason is the slave of the passions". This is often understood as the claim that rationality concerns only how to reach a goal but not whether the goal should be pursued at all. So people with perverse or weird goals may still be perfectly rational. This position is opposed by Kant, who argues that rationality requires having the right goals and motives . According to William Frankena there are four conceptions of rationality based on

7261-424: Is that rationality is relative to the person's perspective or mental states. Whether a belief or an action is rational usually depends on which mental states the person has. So carrying an umbrella for the walk to the supermarket is rational for a person believing that it will rain but irrational for another person who lacks this belief. According to Robert Audi , this can be explained in terms of experience : what

7398-499: Is that there are usually many reasons relevant and some of them may conflict with each other. So while salmonella contamination is a reason against eating the fish, its good taste and the desire not to offend the host are reasons in favor of eating it. This problem is usually approached by weighing all the different reasons. This way, one does not respond directly to each reason individually but instead to their weighted sum . Cases of conflict are thus solved since one side usually outweighs

7535-468: Is the quality of being guided by or based on reason . In this regard, a person acts rationally if they have a good reason for what they do, or a belief is rational if it is based on strong evidence . This quality can apply to an ability, as in a rational animal , to a psychological process , like reasoning , to mental states , such as beliefs and intentions , or to persons who possess these other forms of rationality. A thing that lacks rationality

7672-421: Is the case. But one can assess what is the case independently of knowing what should be done. So in this regard, one can study theoretical rationality as a distinct discipline independent of practical rationality but not the other way round. However, this independence is rejected by some forms of doxastic voluntarism. They hold that theoretical rationality can be understood as one type of practical rationality. This

7809-455: Is the quality of being guided by reasons or being reasonable. For example, a person who acts rationally has good reasons for what they do. This usually implies that they reflected on the possible consequences of their action and the goal it is supposed to realize. In the case of beliefs , it is rational to believe something if the agent has good evidence for it and it is coherent with the agent's other beliefs. While actions and beliefs are

7946-467: Is to bite the bullet and allow that rational dilemmas exist. This has the consequence that, in such cases, rationality is not possible for the agent and theories of rationality cannot offer guidance to them. These problems are avoided by reason-responsiveness accounts of rationality since they "allow for rationality despite conflicting reasons but [coherence-based accounts] do not allow for rationality despite conflicting requirements". Some theorists suggest

8083-453: Is to enable a computer to "understand" the contents of text and documents, including the contextual nuances of the language within them. The perspective of traditional Traditional Chomskyan Linguistics offers NLP three approaches or methods to identify and quantify the literal contents, the who, what, where and when in text – in linguistic terms, the semantic meaning or semantics of the text. The perspective of cognitive linguistics offers NLP

8220-445: Is usually accepted, but many theorists have raised doubts that rationality can be identified with normativity. On this view, rationality may sometimes recommend suboptimal actions, for example, because the agent lacks important information or has false information. In this regard, discussions between internalism and externalism overlap with discussions of the normativity of rationality. An important implication of internalist conceptions

8357-452: Is usually understood as conservative in the sense that rational agents do not start from zero but already possess many beliefs and intentions. Reasoning takes place on the background of these pre-existing mental states and tries to improve them. This way, the original beliefs and intentions are privileged: one keeps them unless a reason to doubt them is encountered. Some forms of epistemic foundationalism reject this approach. According to them,

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8494-413: Is very close in spirit to the original generative semantics framework, which he played a role in developing. The controversy surrounding generative semantics stemmed in part from the competition between two fundamentally different approaches to semantics within transformational generative syntax . In the 1960s, work in the generative tradition assumed that semantics was interpretive in the sense that

8631-501: Is why it is rational for an agent to do so in response. An important rival to this approach are coherence-based accounts, which define rationality as internal coherence among the agent's mental states. Many rules of coherence have been suggested in this regard, for example, that one should not hold contradictory beliefs or that one should intend to do something if one believes that one should do it. Goal-based accounts characterize rationality in relation to goals, such as acquiring truth in

8768-605: The Port-Royal Grammar (1660), Saussure's Course in General Linguistics (1916), and Tesnière's dependency grammar (1957) among others. By contrast, generative semantics was faced with the problem of explaining the emergence of meaning in neuro-biological rather than social and rational terms. This problem was solved in the 1980s by Lakoff in his version of Cognitive Linguistics , according to which language generates through sensory experience . Thus, engaging with

8905-399: The language faculty , thus suggesting a very high degree of specialization of language in the brain. To offer an alternative to his view, Lakoff, in turn, postulated the opposite by claiming that language acquisition is not specialized at all because language does not constitute a cognitive capacity of its own but occurs in the sensory domains such as vision and kinesthesis . According to

9042-657: The mind should work. Descriptive theories, on the other hand, investigate how the mind actually works. This includes issues like under which circumstances the ideal rules are followed as well as studying the underlying psychological processes responsible for rational thought. Descriptive theories are often investigated in empirical psychology while philosophy tends to focus more on normative issues. This division also reflects how different these two types are investigated. Descriptive and normative theorists usually employ different methodologies in their research. Descriptive issues are studied by empirical research . This can take

9179-491: The rules of inference discussed in regular logic as well as other norms of coherence between mental states. In the case of rules of inference, the premises of a valid argument offer support to the conclusion and make therefore the belief in the conclusion rational. The support offered by the premises can either be deductive or non-deductive . In both cases, believing in the premises of an argument makes it rational to also believe in its conclusion. The difference between

9316-562: The absence of new evidence, it is rational to keep the mental states one already has. According to foundationalism, the burden of proof is always in favor of suspending mental states. For example, the agent reflects on their pre-existing belief that the Taj Mahal is in Agra but is unable to access any reason for or against this belief. In this case, conservatists think it is rational to keep this belief while foundationalists reject it as irrational due to

9453-513: The academic literature. The most influential distinction is between theoretical and practical rationality. Theoretical rationality concerns the rationality of beliefs. Rational beliefs are based on evidence that supports them. Practical rationality pertains primarily to actions. This includes certain mental states and events preceding actions, like intentions and decisions . In some cases, the two can conflict, as when practical rationality requires that one adopts an irrational belief. Another distinction

9590-491: The actually correct path goes right. Bernard Williams has criticized externalist conceptions of rationality based on the claim that rationality should help explain what motivates the agent to act. This is easy for internalism but difficult for externalism since external reasons can be independent of the agent's motivation. Externalists have responded to this objection by distinguishing between motivational and normative reasons . Motivational reasons explain why someone acts

9727-514: The agent does not need to respond to reasons in general, but only to reasons they have or possess. The success of such approaches depends a lot on what it means to have a reason and there are various disagreements on this issue. A common approach is to hold that this access is given through the possession of evidence in the form of cognitive mental states , like perceptions and knowledge . A similar version states that "rationality consists in responding correctly to beliefs about reasons". So it

9864-416: The agent should always choose the option with the highest expected value. However, calculating the expected value of each option may take a very long time in complex situations and may not be worth the trouble. This is reflected in the fact that actual reasoners often settle for an option that is good enough without making certain that it is really the best option available. A further difficulty in this regard

10001-489: The agent should change their plans and intentions. Theoretical rationality concerns the rationality of cognitive mental states, in particular, of beliefs. It is common to distinguish between two factors. The first factor is about the fact that good reasons are necessary for a belief to be rational. This is usually understood in terms of evidence provided by the so-called sources of knowledge , i.e. faculties like perception , introspection , and memory . In this regard, it

10138-645: The agent to be irrational, leading to a rational dilemma. For example, if terrorists threaten to blow up a city unless the agent forms an irrational belief, this is a very weighty reason to do all in one's power to violate the norms of rationality. An influential rival to the reason-responsiveness account understands rationality as internal coherence. On this view, a person is rational to the extent that their mental states and actions are coherent with each other. Diverse versions of this approach exist that differ in how they understand coherence and what rules of coherence they propose. A general distinction in this regard

10275-435: The agent. In this regard, it matters for rationality not just whether the agent acts efficiently towards a certain goal but also what information they have and how their actions appear reasonable from this perspective. Richard Brandt responds to this idea by proposing a conception of rationality based on relevant information: "Rationality is a matter of what would survive scrutiny by all relevant information." This implies that

10412-419: The approach was appealing in several respects. First, it offered a powerful mechanism for explaining synonymity. In his initial work in generative syntax, Chomsky motivated transformations using active / passive pairs such as "I hit John" and "John was hit by me", which have different surface forms despite their identical truth conditions. Generative semanticists wanted to account for all cases of synonymity in

10549-495: The approaches to cognitive linguistics is called Cognitive Linguistics, with capital initials, but it is also often spelled cognitive linguistics with all lowercase letters. This movement saw its beginning in early 1980s when George Lakoff 's metaphor theory was united with Ronald Langacker 's cognitive grammar , with subsequent models of construction grammar following from various authors. The union entails two different approaches to linguistic and cultural evolution : that of

10686-488: The arrangement of products in a supermarket can be rational if it is based on a rational plan. The term "rational" has two opposites: irrational and arational . Arational things are outside the domain of rational evaluation, like digestive processes or the weather. Things within the domain of rationality are either rational or irrational depending on whether they fulfill the standards of rationality. For example, beliefs, actions, or general policies are rational if there

10823-474: The case of theoretical rationality. Internalists believe that rationality depends only on the person's mind . Externalists contend that external factors may also be relevant. Debates about the normativity of rationality concern the question of whether one should always be rational. A further discussion is whether rationality requires that all beliefs be reviewed from scratch rather than trusting pre-existing beliefs. Various types of rationality are discussed in

10960-417: The case: bad luck may result in failure despite a responsible, competent performance. This explains how rationality and normativity can come apart despite our practice of criticizing irrationality. The concept of normativity can also be used to distinguish different theories of rationality. Normative theories explore the normative nature of rationality. They are concerned with rules and ideals that govern how

11097-526: The claim that, in order to respond to reasons, people have to be aware of them, i.e. they have some form of epistemic access. But lacking this access is not automatically irrational. In one example by John Broome , the agent eats a fish contaminated with salmonella , which is a strong reason against eating the fish. But since the agent could not have known this fact, eating the fish is rational for them. Because of such problems, many theorists have opted for an internalist version of this account. This means that

11234-778: The conceptual metaphor, and the construction. Cognitive Linguistics defines itself in opposition to generative grammar, arguing that language functions in the brain according to general cognitive principles. Lakoff's and Langacker's ideas are applied across sciences. In addition to linguistics and translation theory, Cognitive Linguistics is influential in literary studies , education , sociology , musicology , computer science and theology . According to American linguist George Lakoff, metaphors are not just figures of speech, but modes of thought. Lakoff hypothesises that principles of abstract reasoning may have evolved from visual thinking and mechanisms for representing spatial relations that are present in lower animals. Conceptualisation

11371-405: The critical view, these ideas were not motivated by brain research but by a struggle for power in linguistics. Members of such frameworks are also said to have used other researchers' findings to present them as their own work. While this criticism is accepted for most part, it is claimed that some of the research has nonetheless produced useful insights. Rational thinking Rationality

11508-452: The different sets of rules they require. One problem with such coherence-based accounts of rationality is that the norms can enter into conflict with each other, so-called rational dilemmas . For example, if the agent has a pre-existing intention that turns out to conflict with their beliefs, then the enkratic norm requires them to change it, which is disallowed by the norm of persistence. This suggests that, in cases of rational dilemmas, it

11645-401: The earlier belief implies the latter belief. Other types of support through positive coherence include explanatory and causal connections. Coherence-based accounts are also referred to as rule-based accounts since the different aspects of coherence are often expressed in precise rules. In this regard, to be rational means to follow the rules of rationality in thought and action. According to

11782-428: The enkratic rule, for example, rational agents are required to intend what they believe they ought to do. This requires coherence between beliefs and intentions. The norm of persistence states that agents should retain their intentions over time. This way, earlier mental states cohere with later ones. It is also possible to distinguish different types of rationality, such as theoretical or practical rationality, based on

11919-459: The evidence linking them to the crime may demand a belief in their guilt on the theoretical level. But the two domains also overlap in certain ways. For example, the norm of rationality known as enkrasia links beliefs and intentions. It states that "[r]ationality requires of you that you intend to F if you believe your reasons require you to F". Failing to fulfill this requirement results in cases of irrationality known as akrasia or weakness of

12056-436: The evolution of language patterns. The cognitive approach to identifying sub-context by observing what comes before and after each linguistic construct provides a grounding of meaning in terms of sensorimotoric embodied experience. When taken together, these two perspectives form the basis of defining approaches in computational linguistics with strategies to work through the symbol grounding problem which posits that, for

12193-438: The fact that a food is healthy is a reason to eat it. So this reason makes it rational for the agent to eat the food. An important aspect of this interpretation is that it is not sufficient to merely act accidentally in accordance with reasons. Instead, responding to reasons implies that one acts intentionally because of these reasons. Some theorists understand reasons as external facts. This view has been criticized based on

12330-403: The field of actions but not of behavior in general. The difference between the two is that actions are intentional behavior, i.e. they are performed for a purpose and guided by it. In this regard, intentional behavior like driving a car is either rational or irrational while non-intentional behavior like sneezing is outside the domain of rationality. For various other practical phenomena, there

12467-489: The first method with a layer of human curated & machine-assisted corpora for multiple contexts. The third approach neural NLP (2010 onwards), builds upon the earlier methods by leveraging advances in deep neural network -style methods to automate tabulation of corpora & parse models for multiple contexts in shorter periods of time. All three methods are used to power NLP techniques like stemming and lemmatisation in order to obtain statistically relevant listing of

12604-400: The form of formal and informal fallacies is another cause of theoretical irrationality. All forms of practical rationality are concerned with how we act. It pertains both to actions directly as well as to mental states and events preceding actions, like intentions and decisions . There are various aspects of practical rationality, such as how to pick a goal to follow and how to choose

12741-406: The form of studies that present their participants with a cognitive problem. It is then observed how the participants solve the problem, possibly together with explanations of why they arrived at a specific solution. Normative issues, on the other hand, are usually investigated in similar ways to how the formal sciences conduct their inquiry. In the field of theoretical rationality, for example, it

12878-441: The formation of desires and intentions. These processes usually affect some kind of change in the thinker's mental states. In this regard, one can also talk of the rationality of mental states, like beliefs and intentions. A person who possesses these forms of rationality to a sufficiently high degree may themselves be called rational . In some cases, also non-mental results of rational processes may qualify as rational. For example,

13015-467: The generative semantics project operated largely in Chomskyan terms. Most importantly, the generative semanticists, following Chomsky, were opposed to behaviorism and accepted his idea that language is acquired and not learned. Chomsky and Lakoff were united by their opposition to the establishment of formal semantics in the 1970s. The notion that meaning generates grammar is itself old and fundamental to

13152-402: The goals it tries to achieve. They correspond to egoism , utilitarianism , perfectionism , and intuitionism . According to the egoist perspective, rationality implies looking out for one's own happiness . This contrasts with the utilitarian point of view, which states that rationality entails trying to contribute to everyone's well-being or to the greatest general good. For perfectionism,

13289-452: The goals it tries to realize. Other disputes in this field concern whether rationality depends only on the agent's mind or also on external factors, whether rationality requires a review of all one's beliefs from scratch, and whether we should always be rational. A common idea of many theories of rationality is that it can be defined in terms of reasons. On this view, to be rational means to respond correctly to reasons. For example,

13426-426: The lack of reasons. In this regard, conservatism is much closer to the ordinary conception of rationality. One problem for foundationalism is that very few beliefs, if any, would remain if this approach was carried out meticulously. Another is that enormous mental resources would be required to constantly keep track of all the justificatory relations connecting non-fundamental beliefs to fundamental ones. Rationality

13563-472: The laws of probability theory when assessing the likelihood of future events. This article focuses mainly on irrationality in the academic sense. The terms "rationality", " reason ", and "reasoning" are frequently used as synonyms. But in technical contexts, their meanings are often distinguished. Reason is usually understood as the faculty responsible for the process of reasoning. This process aims at improving mental states. Reasoning tries to ensure that

13700-422: The laws of correct arguments . These laws are highly relevant to the rationality of beliefs. A very influential conception of practical rationality is given in decision theory , which states that a decision is rational if the chosen option has the highest expected utility . Other relevant fields include game theory , Bayesianism , economics , and artificial intelligence . In its most common sense, rationality

13837-467: The meaning of a sentence was computed on the basis of its syntactic structure rather than the other way around. In these approaches, syntactic structures were generated by rules stated in terms of syntactic structure alone, with no reference to meaning. Once generated, these structures would serve as the input to a semantic computation which would output a denotation. This approach captured the relationship between syntactic and semantic patterns, while allowing

13974-442: The means for reaching this goal. Other issues include the coherence between different intentions as well as between beliefs and intentions. Some theorists define the rationality of actions in terms of beliefs and desires. On this view, an action to bring about a certain goal is rational if the agent has the desire to bring about this goal and the belief that their action will realize it. A stronger version of this view requires that

14111-476: The mind and brain. It is argued to be the study of 'the cognitive neuroscience of language'. Generative grammar studies behavioural instincts and the biological nature of cognitive-linguistic algorithms, providing a computational–representational theory of mind. This in practice means that sentence analysis by linguists is taken as a way to uncover cognitive structures. It is argued that a random genetic mutation in humans has caused syntactic structures to appear in

14248-415: The mind and how it should be changed. Another difference is that arbitrary choices are sometimes needed for practical rationality. For example, there may be two equally good routes available to reach a goal. On the practical level, one has to choose one of them if one wants to reach the goal. It would even be practically irrational to resist this arbitrary choice, as exemplified by Buridan's ass . But on

14385-400: The mind. Proponents of the third view argue that, according to brain research, language processing is specialized although not autonomous from other types of information processing. Language is thought of as one of the human cognitive abilities , along with perception, attention, memory, motor skills, and visual and spatial processing, rather than being subordinate to them. Emphasis is laid on

14522-592: The mind. Therefore, the fact that people have language does not rely on its communicative purposes. For a famous example, it was argued by linguist Noam Chomsky that sentences of the type " Is the man who is hungry ordering dinner " are so rare that it is unlikely that children will have heard them. Since they can nonetheless produce them, it was further argued that the structure is not learned but acquired from an innate cognitive language component. Generative grammarians then took as their task to find out all about innate structures through introspection in order to form

14659-431: The morning, smoking despite being aware of the health risks, or believing in astrology . In the academic discourse, on the other hand, rationality is usually identified with being guided by reasons or following norms of internal coherence. Some of the earlier examples may qualify as rational in the academic sense depending on the circumstances. Examples of irrationality in this sense include cognitive biases and violating

14796-709: The most paradigmatic forms of rationality, the term is used both in ordinary language and in many academic disciplines to describe a wide variety of things, such as persons , desires , intentions , decisions , policies, and institutions. Because of this variety in different contexts, it has proven difficult to give a unified definition covering all these fields and usages. In this regard, different fields often focus their investigation on one specific conception, type, or aspect of rationality without trying to cover it in its most general sense. These different forms of rationality are sometimes divided into abilities , processes , mental states , and persons. For example, when it

14933-474: The norms of rationality obtain. It differs from rationality nonetheless since other psychological processes besides reasoning may have the same effect. Rationality derives etymologically from the Latin term rationalitas . There are many disputes about the essential characteristics of rationality. It is often understood in relational terms: something, like a belief or an intention, is rational because of how it

15070-466: The other hand, aims at non-epistemic goals, like moral , prudential, political, economic, or aesthetic goals. This is usually understood in the sense that rationality follows these goals but does not set them. So rationality may be understood as a " minister without portfolio " since it serves goals external to itself. This issue has been the source of an important historical discussion between David Hume and Immanuel Kant . The slogan of Hume's position

15207-453: The other. So despite the reasons cited in favor of eating the fish, the balance of reasons stands against it, since avoiding a salmonella infection is a much weightier reason than the other reasons cited. This can be expressed by stating that rational agents pick the option favored by the balance of reasons. However, other objections to the reason-responsiveness account are not so easily solved. They often focus on cases where reasons require

15344-463: The passive verb ("The ball was kicked by John "). Cognitive linguistics Cognitive linguistics is an interdisciplinary branch of linguistics , combining knowledge and research from cognitive science , cognitive psychology , neuropsychology and linguistics. Models and theoretical accounts of cognitive linguistics are considered as psychologically real, and research in cognitive linguistics aims to help understand cognition in general and

15481-400: The patient's death. The doctor's problem is that they cannot tell which of the drugs B and C results in a complete cure and which one in the patient's death. The objectively best case would be for the patient to get drug B, but it would be highly irresponsible for the doctor to prescribe it given the uncertainty about its effects. So the doctor ought to prescribe the less effective drug A, which

15618-408: The person's mind whether they are rational and not on external factors. So for internalism, two persons with the same mental states would both have the same degree of rationality independent of how different their external situation is. Because of this limitation, rationality can diverge from actuality. So if the agent has a lot of misleading evidence, it may be rational for them to turn left even though

15755-496: The physical world provides the person with visual , tactile and other sensory input, which crystallizes into language in the form of conceptual metaphors , organizing rational thinking . Such a view of the mind has not been fully approved by neuroscientists. ^ There is little agreement concerning the question of whose idea generative semantics was. All of the people mentioned here have been credited with its invention (often by each other). ^ Strictly speaking, it

15892-478: The premises make it more likely that the conclusion is true. In this case, it is usually demanded that the non-deductive support is sufficiently strong if the belief in the conclusion is to be rational. An important form of theoretical irrationality is motivationally biased belief, sometimes referred to as wishful thinking . In this case, beliefs are formed based on one's desires or what is pleasing to imagine without proper evidential support. Faulty reasoning in

16029-523: The question of what exactly these standards are. Some theorists characterize the normativity of rationality in the deontological terms of obligations and permissions . Others understand them from an evaluative perspective as good or valuable. A further approach is to talk of rationality based on what is praise- and blameworthy. It is important to distinguish the norms of rationality from other types of norms. For example, some forms of fashion prescribe that men do not wear bell-bottom trousers . Understood in

16166-456: The rationality of beliefs : whether it is rational to hold a given belief and how certain one should be about it. Practical rationality, on the other hand, is about the rationality of actions , intentions , and decisions . This corresponds to the distinction between theoretical reasoning and practical reasoning: theoretical reasoning tries to assess whether the agent should change their beliefs while practical reasoning tries to assess whether

16303-492: The relation between descriptive and normative approaches to rationality. One difficulty in this regard is that there is in many cases a huge gap between what the norms of ideal rationality prescribe and how people actually reason. Examples of normative systems of rationality are classical logic , probability theory , and decision theory . Actual reasoners often diverge from these standards because of cognitive biases , heuristics, or other mental limitations. Traditionally, it

16440-403: The responsible beliefs and desires are rational themselves. A very influential conception of the rationality of decisions comes from decision theory . In decisions, the agent is presented with a set of possible courses of action and has to choose one among them. Decision theory holds that the agent should choose the alternative that has the highest expected value . Practical rationality includes

16577-540: The rules recommend the same option as the balance of reasons or a different option. If they recommend the same option, they are redundant. If they recommend a different option, they are false since, according to its critics, there is no special value in sticking to rules against the balance of reasons. A different approach characterizes rationality in relation to the goals it aims to achieve. In this regard, theoretical rationality aims at epistemic goals, like acquiring truth and avoiding falsehood. Practical rationality, on

16714-424: The sense that rationality only depends on the reasons accessible to the agent or how things appear to them. What one ought to do, on the other hand, is determined by objectively existing reasons. In the ideal case, rationality and normativity may coincide but they come apart either if the agent lacks access to a reason or if he has a mistaken belief about the presence of a reason. These considerations are summed up in

16851-416: The statement that rationality supervenes only on the agent's mind but normativity does not. But there are also thought experiments in favor of the normativity of rationality. One, due to Frank Jackson , involves a doctor who receives a patient with a mild condition and has to prescribe one out of three drugs: drug A resulting in a partial cure, drug B resulting in a complete cure, or drug C resulting in

16988-415: The strongest sense, a norm prescribes what an agent ought to do or what they have most reason to do. The norms of fashion are not norms in this strong sense: that it is unfashionable does not mean that men ought not to wear bell-bottom trousers. Most discussions of the normativity of rationality are interested in the strong sense, i.e. whether agents ought always to be rational. This is sometimes termed

17125-528: The subject repeatedly reflects on all the relevant facts, including formal facts like the laws of logic. An important contemporary discussion in the field of rationality is between internalists and externalists . Both sides agree that rationality demands and depends in some sense on reasons. They disagree on what reasons are relevant or how to conceive those reasons. Internalists understand reasons as mental states, for example, as perceptions, beliefs, or desires. On this view, an action may be rational because it

17262-450: The subject that should not be the case. A strong counterexample to this position is due to John Broome , who considers the case of a fish an agent wants to eat. It contains salmonella, which is a decisive reason why the agent ought not to eat it. But the agent is unaware of this fact, which is why it is rational for them to eat the fish. So this would be a case where normativity and rationality come apart. This example can be generalized in

17399-671: The syntax to work independently of the semantics, as Chomsky and others had argued for on the basis of empirical observations such as the famous " colorless green ideas sleep furiously " sentence. The generative semantics framework took the opposite view, positing that syntactic structures are computed on the basis of meanings. In this approach, meanings were generated directly by the grammar as deep structures , and were subsequently transformed into recognizable sentences by transformations. This approach necessitated more complex underlying structures than those proposed by Chomsky, and thus more complex transformations. Despite this additional complexity,

17536-469: The theoretical cases, a group of jurors may first discuss and then vote to determine whether the defendant is guilty. Or in the practical case, politicians may cooperate to implement new regulations to combat climate change . These forms of cooperation can be judged on their social rationality depending on how they are implemented and on the quality of the results they bear. Some theorists try to reduce social rationality to individual rationality by holding that

17673-463: The theoretical level, one does not have to form a belief about which route was taken upon hearing that someone reached the goal. In this case, the arbitrary choice for one belief rather than the other would be theoretically irrational. Instead, the agent should suspend their belief either way if they lack sufficient reasons. Another difference is that practical rationality is guided by specific goals and desires, in contrast to theoretical rationality. So it

17810-408: The two is given by how the premises support the conclusion. For deductive reasoning, the premises offer the strongest possible support: it is impossible for the conclusion to be false if the premises are true. The premises of non-deductive arguments also offer support for their conclusion. But this support is not absolute: the truth of the premises does not guarantee the truth of the conclusion. Instead,

17947-554: The way they do while normative reasons explain why someone ought to act in a certain way. Ideally, the two overlap, but they can come apart. For example, liking chocolate cake is a motivational reason for eating it while having high blood pressure is a normative reason for not eating it. The problem of rationality is primarily concerned with normative reasons. This is especially true for various contemporary philosophers who hold that rationality can be reduced to normative reasons. The distinction between motivational and normative reasons

18084-421: The who, what, where & when in text through named-entity recognition and Topic model programs. The same methods have been applied with NLP techniques like a bag-of-words model to obtain statistical measures of emotional context through sentiment analysis programs. The accuracy of a sentiment analysis system is, in principle, how well it agrees with human judgments. Because evaluation of sentiment analysis

18221-431: The whole system of beliefs is to be justified by self-evident beliefs. Examples of such self-evident beliefs may include immediate experiences as well as simple logical and mathematical axioms . An important difference between conservatism and foundationalism concerns their differing conceptions of the burden of proof . According to conservativism, the burden of proof is always in favor of already established belief: in

18358-466: The will . Another form of overlap is that the study of the rules governing practical rationality is a theoretical matter. And practical considerations may determine whether to pursue theoretical rationality on a certain issue as well as how much time and resources to invest in the inquiry. It is often held that practical rationality presupposes theoretical rationality. This is based on the idea that to decide what should be done, one needs to know what

18495-438: The word. What is commonly perceived as grammar is an inventory of constructions; a complex adaptive system ; or a population of constructions. Constructions are studied in all fields of language research from language acquisition to corpus linguistics . There is also a third approach to cognitive linguistics, which neither directly supports the modular (Generative Grammar) nor the anti-modular (Cognitive Linguistics) view of

18632-404: Was not the fact that active/passive pairs are synonymous that motivated the passive transformation, but the fact that active and passive verb forms have the same selectional requirements . For example, the agent of the verb kick (i.e. the thing that's doing the kicking) must be animate whether it is the subject of the active verb (as in " John kicked the ball") or appears in a by phrase after

18769-447: Was often assumed that actual human reasoning should follow the rules described in normative theories. On this view, any discrepancy is a form of irrationality that should be avoided. However, this usually ignores the human limitations of the mind. Given these limitations, various discrepancies may be necessary (and in this sense rational ) to get the most useful results. For example, the ideal rational norms of decision theory demand that

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