@misc{Lexicon of Arguments, title = {Quotation from: Lexicon of Arguments – Concepts - Ed. Martin Schulz, 29 Mar 2024}, author = {Bennett,Jonathan}, subject = {Rationality}, note = {Millikan I 66 Rationality/Bennett/Millikan: it seems that a rational person should not take "shortcuts". I.e., he must consider not only positive evidence, but also negative evidence. >Evidence, >Knowledge, >Meaning/intending, >Beliefs. General/formal: Suppose John believes. "usually: if A then B" and furthermore: "non-(usually: if A-and-not-C, then B)" rational: would it then follow that John must believe a) "usually: if A then C" and b) if A-and-C, then B. Then there are the following possible cases. 1. the only evidence for C comes from the fact that John knows that usually if A then C. Then he should simply move from A to B. 2. John has independent ways of believing C based on evidence. And he comes across A while he already has evidence for non-C. I 67 Then he should rationally also believe that non-C and not infer B from A. 3. John has independent evidence according to which he could know C, but this time he does not know beforehand whether C. Question: then, to be rational, does he have to check C beforehand? Millikan: let us assume that he must. Problem: if that now again depends solely on his believing: "usually, if D, then C", etc. Rationality/Millikan: Problem: the more knowledge one then acquires, the more he has to exert himself to be rational at all. Wouldn't it be better if he refrained from all the checking? >Review, >Contradictions, >Consistency.}, note = { Bennett I Jonathan Bennett "The Meaning-Nominalist Strategy" in: Foundations of Language, 10, 1973, pp. 141-168 In Handlung, Kommunikation, Bedeutung, Georg Meggle, Frankfurt/M. 1979 Millikan I R. G. Millikan Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories: New Foundations for Realism Cambridge 1987 Millikan II Ruth Millikan "Varieties of Purposive Behavior", in: Anthropomorphism, Anecdotes, and Animals, R. W. Mitchell, N. S. Thomspon and H. L. Miles (Eds.) Albany 1997, pp. 189-1967 In Der Geist der Tiere, D Perler/M. Wild, Frankfurt/M. 2005 }, file = {http://philosophy-science-humanities-controversies.com/listview-details.php?id=260080} url = {http://philosophy-science-humanities-controversies.com/listview-details.php?id=260080} }