In the philosophical theory of communicative action, rationality refers to interpersonal communication rather than to a knowing subject. Thus, a social view of rationality is suggested. The theory differentiates between two kinds of rationality, the emancipative communicative and the strategic or instrumental reasoning. Using experimental designs in an fMRI setting, recent studies explored simi...

in this article, after reviewing the difference between fundamentalist and anti-fundamentalist philosophy, the features of the rationality will be explained from the perspective of five anti-fundamentalist philosophers (habermas, richard rorty, macintyre, michel foucault and hayek). the common point stated by all these philosophers is that they all criticize metaphysics and doubt about the basi...

Settling disputes, even disputes about meaning, by third party arbitration is different from settling them by negotiation. Moreover, disputes can be settled by a procedure in which the disputing parties follow a protocol that prohibits them from simply following their original aims. They can collectively constitute an arbitrator. This provides an alternative model for resolving differences in m...

In this article the following thesis is explained and substantiared: Sense and meaning of mathematics finally lie in the fact that mathematics is able to support the rational communication of humans. The essence of the argumentation is that the effective support becomes possible by the close connection between mathematics and logic (in the sense of Peirce’s late philosophy) by which, in his tur...

Inspired by Habermasian critiques of liberalism, supporters of deliberative democracy seek an extension of social democratic institutions to further a reinvigorated communicative rationality against the ‘atomism’ of market processes. This paper offers a critique of deliberative democratic theory from a Hayekian perspective. For Hayek, the case against the social democratic state rests with the ...

Theoretical rationality and practical rationality are, respectively, properties of an individual's belief system and decision system. While reasoning about instrumental actions complies with practical rationality, understanding communicative actions complies with the principle of relevance. Section 2 reviews the evidence showing that young infants can reason about an agent's instrumental action...