Rationality and Interpretive Methodology
Transformations in the Apparent Irrationality Debate
In: Stephen Turner and the Philosophy of the SocialSearch for other papers by Mark Risjord in
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Abstract
The problem of apparent irrationality was a question about how to understand speech or behavior that was, from the interpreter’s point of view, irrational. The ensuing debate concerned the role of rationality in interpretation. Localists contended that norms of rationality were embedded in cultural practices, and the range of discoverable variation was as broad as the possible variation of cultures. Neo-rationalists contended that norms of logic were presupposed by the activity of interpretation, and hence that there were a priori limits on the forms of rationality. Expanding on the mutual constraints of the cognitive and social sciences for which Turner argues in Cognitive Science and the Social: A Primer, this essay contends that the debate over apparent irrationality depended on two assumptions: that culture is bounded while rationality is unbounded. Both of these assumptions have been shown false by developments in anthropology and psychology. In its canonical form, then, the question that generated the problem of apparent irrationality cannot be answered, and the canonical positions in the debate are undermined.