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Rational Action
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Book Synopsis Rationality in Action by : John R. Searle
Download or read book Rationality in Action written by John R. Searle and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2003-01-24 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The study of rationality and practical reason, or rationality in action, has been central to Western intellectual culture. In this invigorating book, John Searle lays out six claims of what he calls the Classical Model of rationality and shows why they are false. He then presents an alternative theory of the role of rationality in thought and action. A central point of Searle's theory is that only irrational actions are directly caused by beliefs and desires—for example, the actions of a person in the grip of an obsession or addiction. In most cases of rational action, there is a gap between the motivating desire and the actual decision making. The traditional name for this gap is "freedom of the will." According to Searle, all rational activity presupposes free will. For rationality is possible only where one has a choice among various rational as well as irrational options. Unlike many philosophical tracts, Rationality in Action invites the reader to apply the author's ideas to everyday life. Searle shows, for example, that contrary to the traditional philosophical view, weakness of will is very common. He also points out the absurdity of the claim that rational decision making always starts from a consistent set of desires. Rational decision making, he argues, is often about choosing between conflicting reasons for action. In fact, humans are distinguished by their ability to be rationally motivated by desire-independent reasons for action. Extending his theory of rationality to the self, Searle shows how rational deliberation presupposes an irreducible notion of the self. He also reveals the idea of free will to be essentially a thesis of how the brain works.
Book Synopsis Communicative Action and Rational Choice by : Joseph Heath
Download or read book Communicative Action and Rational Choice written by Joseph Heath and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2003-01-24 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book Joseph Heath brings Jürgen Habermas's theory of communicative action into dialogue with the most sophisticated articulation of the instrumental conception of practical rationality-modern rational choice theory. Heath begins with an overview of Habermas's action theory and his critique of decision and game theory. He then offers an alternative to Habermas's use of speech act theory to explain social order and outlines a multidimensional theory of rational action that includes norm-governed action as a specific type. In the second part of the book Heath discusses the more philosophical dimension of Habermas's conception of practical rationality. He criticizes Habermas's attempt to introduce a universalization principle governing moral discourse, as well as his criteria for distinguishing between moral and ethical problems. Heath offers an alternative account of the level of convergence exhibited by moral argumentation, drawing on game-theoretic models to specify the burden of proof that the theory of communicative action and discourse must assume.
Book Synopsis Reactive Risk and Rational Action by : Carol A. Heimer
Download or read book Reactive Risk and Rational Action written by Carol A. Heimer and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2023-04-28 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1985.
Book Synopsis Risk, Uncertainty and Rational Action by : Carlo C. Jaeger
Download or read book Risk, Uncertainty and Rational Action written by Carlo C. Jaeger and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-11-05 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Risk as we now know it is a wholly new phenomenon, the by-product of our ever more complex and powerful technologies. In business, policy making, and in everyday life, it demands a new way of looking at technological and environmental uncertainty. In this definitive volume, four of the world's leading risk researchers present a fundamental critique of the prevailing approaches to understanding and managing risk - the 'rational actor paradigm'. They show how risk studies must incorporate the competing interests, values, and rationalities of those involved and find a balance of trust and acceptable risk. Their work points to a comprehensive and significant new theory of risk and uncertainty and of the decision making process they require. The implications for social, political, and environmental theory and practice are enormous. Winner of the 2000-2002 Outstanding Publication Award of the Section on Environment and Technology of the American Sociological Association
Book Synopsis Rational Choice Theory by : Margaret S. Archer
Download or read book Rational Choice Theory written by Margaret S. Archer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-04-03 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rational Choice Theory is flourishing in sociology and is increasingly influential in other disciplines. Contributors to this volume are convinced that it provides an inadequate conceptualization of all aspects of decision making: of the individuals who make the decisions, of the process by which decisions get made and of the context within which decisions get made. The ciritique focuses on the four assumptions which are the bedrock of rational choice: rationality: the theory's definition of rationality is incomplete, and cannot satisfactorily incorporate norms and emotions individualism: rational choice is based upon atomistic, individual decision makers and cannot account for decisions made by ;couples', 'groups' or other forms of collective action process: the assumption of fixed, well-ordered preferences and 'perfect information' makes the theory inadequate for situations of change and uncertainty aggregation: as methodological individualists, rational choice theorists can only view structure and culture as aggregates and cannot incorporate structural or cultural influences as emergent properties which have an effect upon decision making. The critique is grounded in discussion of a wide range of social issues, including race, marriage, health and education.
Download or read book Rational Action written by William Thomas and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2015-04-10 with total page 413 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The evolution of a set of fields—including operations research and systems analysis—intended to improve policymaking and explore the nature of rational decision-making. During World War II, the Allied military forces faced severe problems integrating equipment, tactics, and logistics into successful combat operations. To help confront these problems, scientists and engineers developed new means of studying which equipment designs would best meet the military's requirements and how the military could best use the equipment it had on hand. By 1941 they had also begun to gather and analyze data from combat operations to improve military leaders' ordinary planning activities. In Rational Action, William Thomas details these developments, and how they gave rise during the 1950s to a constellation of influential new fields—which he terms the “sciences of policy”—that included operations research, management science, systems analysis, and decision theory. Proponents of these new sciences embraced a variety of agendas. Some aimed to improve policymaking directly, while others theorized about how one decision could be considered more rational than another. Their work spanned systems engineering, applied mathematics, nuclear strategy, and the philosophy of science, and it found new niches in universities, in businesses, and at think tanks such as the RAND Corporation. The sciences of policy also took a prominent place in epic narratives told about the relationships among science, state, and society in an intellectual culture preoccupied with how technology and reason would shape the future. Thomas follows all these threads to illuminate and make new sense of the intricate relationships among scientific analysis, policymaking procedure, and institutional legitimacy at a crucial moment in British and American history.
Book Synopsis Politics as Rational Action by : L. Lewin
Download or read book Politics as Rational Action written by L. Lewin and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most promising trends in modem political science is the develop ment of a theory of politics as rational action. Focussing on choice as the central topic of study, rational choice theorists set out to specify what alter native an actor should prefer if he has some given knowledge of the conse quences of each alternative and wants to see his preference system as fully realized as possible. But rational choice theory is not confmed to the norma tive sphere of science. It can also be used for explanatory purposes. Then, the alternatives actually chosen are specified and the task is to explain the decisions by fmding out what considerations lay behind them. The starting point for an emerging research program at the Department of Government, Uppsala University, on 'Politics as Rational Action' is to describe the major choices in fifteen different policy areas of Swedish domes tic politics and explain why they were made.
Download or read book Rational Action written by Ross Harrison and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-06-24 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume is concerned with the concepts of rationality, belief and desire in the explanation and evaluation of human action.
Book Synopsis Rational Powers in Action by : Sergio Tenenbaum
Download or read book Rational Powers in Action written by Sergio Tenenbaum and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-11-05 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Human actions unfold over time, in pursuit of ends that are not fully specified in advance. Rational Powers in Action locates these features of the human condition at the heart of a new theory of instrumental rationality. Where many theories of rational agency focus on instantaneous choices between sharply defined outcomes, treating the temporally extended and partially open-ended character of action as an afterthought, this book argues that the deep structure of instrumental rationality can only be understood if we see how it governs the pursuit of long-term, indeterminate ends. These are ends that cannot be realized through a single momentary action, and whose content leaves partly open what counts as realizing the end. Sergio Tenenbaum argues that we need to focus on temporal duration and the indeterminacy of ends in intentional action, even to explain the rational governance of relatively simple actions. Theories of moment-by-moment preference maximization, or indeed any understanding of instrumental rationality on the basis of momentary mental items, cannot capture the fundamental structure of our instrumentally rational capacities. Tenenbaum provides a new theory of instrumental rationality as rationality in action.
Book Synopsis Rational Choice Sociology by : Michael Hechter
Download or read book Rational Choice Sociology written by Michael Hechter and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2019-12-27 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rational Choice Sociology shows that despite the scepticism of many sociologist, rational choice theory indeed can account for a variety of non-market outcomes, including those concerning social norms, family dynamics, crime, rebellion, state formation and social order.
Book Synopsis Is Rational Choice Theory All of Social Science? by : Mark I. Lichbach
Download or read book Is Rational Choice Theory All of Social Science? written by Mark I. Lichbach and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2009-12-11 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Advocates of rational choice theory in political science have been perceived by their critics as attempting to establish an intellectual hegemony in contemporary social science, to the detriment of alternative methods of research. The debate has gained a nonacademic audience, hitting the pages of the New York Times and the New Republic. In the academy, the antagonists have expressed their views in books, journal articles, and at professional conferences. Mark I. Lichbach addresses the question of the place of rational choice theory in the social sciences in general and in political science in particular. He presents a typology of the antagonists as either rationalist, culturalist, or structuralist and offers an insightful examination of the debate. He reveals that the rationalist bid for hegemony and synthesis is rooted in the weaknesses, not the strengths, of rationalist thought. He concludes that the various theoretical camps are unlikely to accept the claimed superiority of the rationalist approach but that this opposition is of value in itself to the social sciences, which requires multiple perspectives to remain healthy. With its penetrating examination of the assumptions and basic arguments of each of the sides to this debate, this book cuts through the partisan rhetoric and provides an essential roadmap for the future of the discipline. Mark I. Lichbach is Professor of Government and Politics, University of Maryland.
Book Synopsis The Rational Choice Controversy by : Jeffrey Friedman
Download or read book The Rational Choice Controversy written by Jeffrey Friedman and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1996-01-01 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pathologies of Rational Choice Theory, a book written by Donald Green and Ian Shapiro and published in 1994, excited much controversy among political scientists and promoted a dialogue among them that was printed in a double issue of the journal Critical Review in 1995. This new book reproduces thirteen essays from the journal written by senior scholars in the field, along with an introduction by the editor of the journal, Jeffrey Friedman, and a rejoinder to the essays by Green and Shapiro. The scholars--who include John Ferejohn, Morris P. Fiorina, Stanley Kelley, Jr., Robert E. Lane, Peter C. Ordeshook, Norman Schofield, and Kenneth A. Shepsle--criticize, agree with, or build on the issues raised by Green and Shapiro s critique. Together the essays provide an interesting and accessible way of focusing on competing approaches to the study of politics and the social sciences.
Book Synopsis Rational Choice Theory And Large-Scale Data Analysis by : Hans-peter Blossfeld
Download or read book Rational Choice Theory And Large-Scale Data Analysis written by Hans-peter Blossfeld and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-09-16 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The relationship between rational choice theory and large-scale data analysis has become an important issue for sociologists. Though rational choice theory is well established in both sociology and economics, its influence on quantitative empirical sociology has been surprisingly limited. This book examines why there is hardly a link between the t
Book Synopsis The Oxford Handbook of Social Movements by : Donatella Della Porta
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Social Movements written by Donatella Della Porta and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015 with total page 865 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Handbook presents a most updated and comprehensive exploration of social movement research. It not only maps, but also expands the field of social movement studies, taking stock of recent developments in cognate areas of studies, within and beyond sociology and political science. While structured around traditional social movement concepts, each section combines the mapping of the state of the art with attempts to broaden our knowledge of social movements beyond classic theoretical agendas, and to identify the contribution that social movement studies can give to other fields of knowledge.
Book Synopsis The Limits of Rationality by : Karen Schweers Cook
Download or read book The Limits of Rationality written by Karen Schweers Cook and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2008-10-03 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Prevailing economic theory presumes that agents act rationally when they make decisions, striving to maximize the efficient use of their resources. Psychology has repeatedly challenged the rational choice paradigm with persuasive evidence that people do not always make the optimal choice. Yet the paradigm has proven so successful a predictor that its use continues to flourish, fueled by debate across the social sciences over why it works so well. Intended to introduce novices to rational choice theory, this accessible, interdisciplinary book collects writings by leading researchers. The Limits of Rationality illuminates the rational choice paradigm of social and political behavior itself, identifies its limitations, clarifies the nature of current controversies, and offers suggestions for improving current models. In the first section of the book, contributors consider the theoretical foundations of rational choice. Models of rational choice play an important role in providing a standard of human action and the bases for constitutional design, but do they also succeed as explanatory models of behavior? Do empirical failures of these explanatory models constitute a telling condemnation of rational choice theory or do they open new avenues of investigation and theorizing? Emphasizing analyses of norms and institutions, the second and third sections of the book investigate areas in which rational choice theory might be extended in order to provide better models. The contributors evaluate the adequacy of analyses based on neoclassical economics, the potential contributions of game theory and cognitive science, and the consequences for the basic framework when unequal bargaining power and hierarchy are introduced.
Book Synopsis Handbook on Securing Cyber-Physical Critical Infrastructure by : Sajal K Das
Download or read book Handbook on Securing Cyber-Physical Critical Infrastructure written by Sajal K Das and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2012-01-25 with total page 849 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The worldwide reach of the Internet allows malicious cyber criminals to coordinate and launch attacks on both cyber and cyber-physical infrastructure from anywhere in the world. This purpose of this handbook is to introduce the theoretical foundations and practical solution techniques for securing critical cyber and physical infrastructures as well as their underlying computing and communication architectures and systems. Examples of such infrastructures include utility networks (e.g., electrical power grids), ground transportation systems (automotives, roads, bridges and tunnels), airports and air traffic control systems, wired and wireless communication and sensor networks, systems for storing and distributing water and food supplies, medical and healthcare delivery systems, as well as financial, banking and commercial transaction assets. The handbook focus mostly on the scientific foundations and engineering techniques – while also addressing the proper integration of policies and access control mechanisms, for example, how human-developed policies can be properly enforced by an automated system. Addresses the technical challenges facing design of secure infrastructures by providing examples of problems and solutions from a wide variety of internal and external attack scenarios Includes contributions from leading researchers and practitioners in relevant application areas such as smart power grid, intelligent transportation systems, healthcare industry and so on Loaded with examples of real world problems and pathways to solutions utilizing specific tools and techniques described in detail throughout
Book Synopsis Rational Choice and Politics by : Stephen Parsons
Download or read book Rational Choice and Politics written by Stephen Parsons and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2005-03-18 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rational Choice Theory claims to be able to explain how all individuals make not just some of their choices, but all of their choices, all of the time. According to the theory, there is no difference in principle between choosing whether to buy apples rather than bananas or choosing whether to join a political revolution instead of staying at home and watching television. Given these claims to universal applicability, it is perhaps not surprising to find that over the last three or four decades Rational Choice Theory has become increasingly influential as a means of providing explanations in politics. The textbook introduces the premises of Rational Choice Theory and illustrates how this theory can be applied to political studies. The book concludes with an assessment of the usefulness of the model in the light of the problems highlighted. -"Parson's book provides a lucid presentation and a cogent critique of Rational Choice Theory in economics and politics." Professor Steve Pressman, Department of Economics and Finance, Monmouth University, USA
