Rational requirements have a special status in the theory of rationality. This is obvious in one sense: they supply the content of that theory. But I want to suggest that rational requirements have another special status—as objects of the theory of rationality. In slogan form, my thesis is: Fixed Point Thesis: Mistakes about the requirements of rationality are mistakes of rationality. The key c...

We propose an abstract framework to analyse the rationality of change operators deened in a syntactical way. More precisely we propose \syntactical" postulates of rationality stemming from AGM ones. Then we introduce ve change operators based on forward chaining. Finally we apply our abstract framework to analyse the rationality of our operators.

A growing body of studies suggests that neurological and mental abnormalities foster conformity to norms of rationality that are widely endorsed in economics and psychology, whereas normality stands in the way of rationality thus defined. Here, we outline the main findings of these studies, discuss their implications for experimental design, and consider how 'sane' some benchmarks of rationalit...

In modern cognitive science, rationality and intelligence are measured using different tasks and operations. Furthermore, in several contemporary dual process theories of cognition, rationality is a more encompassing construct than intelligence. Researchers need to continue to develop measures of rational thought without regard to empirical correlations with intelligence. The measurement of ind...

I discuss the rhetorical dimensions of bounded rationality in two different, yet related, contexts, namely in the practice of organizational economists and in Herbert Simon’s key attempts to persuade economists to take bounded rationality seriously, his Ely lecture and his Nobel Prize lecture. I discuss various reasons why Simon failed to convince his contemporaries, among other things, the abs...

This paper proposes an alternative psychological explanation for bounded rationality. According to Herbert Simon, bounded rationality arises from human cognitive limitations. Following the suggestion of institutional economist John R. Commons, I argue that extremes in emotional arousal also contribute to bounded rationality. This idea is formalized and developed using the Yerkes± Dodson law fro...

This paper discusses Herbert A. Simon’s conception of rationality in two of its principal general definitions: bounded rationality and procedural rationality. It ar‐ gues that the latter is the one that better synthesizes the author’s view about rational behavior and that the former fills mainly a critical function. They are complemen‐ tarily used by Simon in this sense. In spite of that, it is...

The received concept of strategic (game-theoretic) rationality is attended by a formidable list of paradoxes, anomalies, and empirical failures. This paper reviews three well-known and problematic decision contexts and diagnoses as a common source of difficulty the failure in the received view of rationality to adequately recognize risk-return tradeoffs. This diagnosis is then supported by comp...

The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) within cognitive science (CogSci) necessitates further elaborations on, and modelings of, several indispensable cognitive criteria. We approach this issue by emphasizing the close relation between artificial general intelligence (AGI) and CogSci, and discussing, particularly, “rationality” as one of such indispensable criteria. We give arguments e...

Debates around the assumption of rationality in economic theory abound and are too numerous to be listed here. Traditionally, rationality of a decision maker is captured by a set of (testable) axioms, whose meaning and strength can be discussed. These rationality axioms however do not all have the same status in the sense that they bear on different things. One could actually distinguish three ...