There is a myth that Western culture is based on rationality. It is, according to this myth, because of the rationality of the Western mind, that Western culture produced all the great wonders of the modern world from culture to modern industry to modern arms. The rest of the world is characterised by a lack of rationality. Even in this decade Western philosophers can give talks at professional gatherings questioning whether Chinese are ‘rational’. Leigh Jenco suggests a tripartite categorisation of ‘rational’ (Western), non-rational (Chinese) and irrational. She even has a category of ‘Chinese thought’ as a specific kind of thinking unique to Chinese people. This I found extremely strange. Chinese people are good at mathematics, is there a Chinese way of mathematics? This trope is so dominant that Kishore Mahbubani wrote a book ‘Can Asian think?’ Note 2.
Part of the 19th century movement to idolise Western culture was to create a myth that ALL major inventions were made by White males. This then allowed the development of the idea that there was something special about ‘White men’ which was identified as ‘rationality’. Originally, women did not share this trait. But this idea required the falsification of history, the denial of the non-European origin of major mathematics, astronomical and medical knowledge. It is not possible to believe that ‘rationality’ is unique to Western men if major scientific and cultural developments were made by non-whites. Steam engines were invented before 100 AD in West Asia but are imagined as an English invention. There are many other similar situations in respect of inventions.
What is behind this is of great importance so let us start at the beginning. Many start with logic and mathematics as the gold standard of rationality. But first of all logic is empty as Hegel so forcefully put it. You cannot get out of the pipe of a logical argument anything that you did not stuff in at the top as an assumption. No new knowledge ever arose from logic. In formal arguments the best logic can do is to pose a challenge: you cannot believe in A and C at the same time! One of these beliefs must be abandoned as together they generate a contradiction. However, logic cannot tell you which assumption/belief to abandon.
What most people experience as logic is a syllogism i.e. if A then B and if B then C , so if A then C. Syllogisms look convincing but are utter rubbish. Simply put, there is no A that only has B as a consequence and similarly there is no B that has only C as a consequence. To follow a syllogism correctly you would need ALL the consequences of A and ALL the consequences of B. The consequences must be for all time in the future. So let us look again at the syllogism. If A then B should be rewritten if A then B ( and every other consequence of A for all time), and if B then C ( and every other consequences of B for all time). Now no one would accept If A then C, because they hear If A then C and every other consequence of A and B for all time. Now, there is clearly nothing intrinsically even reasonable about the ‘syllogism’.
Mathematics is far more complicated. Mathematical formulae are very powerful, but when it comes to human life or practical matters, the key issue is : what do th terms mean in this situation? We all know what it means to say X has ten times as much money as Y. But how about the square root of minus ten pounds? I can map a 2-dimensional shadow of a 3-dimensional object. That is commonplace. How about a three-dimensional shadow of a four-dimensional object? The mathematics is simple enough but what does it mean?
‘Rationality’ is often used in this rhetorical manner. Who would want to be irrational? This is the most important question. An example is often given, that it would be irrational to do something that does not follow logically from one’s premises. However, anyone dealing with the real world would soon discover that some players achieve stock market success by adopting ‘alternative’ strategies such as tracking for cyclical patterns, phases of the moon and stars etc. This begins to reveal the ultimate faultline. If following the phases of the moon leads to stock market success, then the strategy is rational! Then what counts as irrational other than failure? But there are many strategies that follow strict ‘rational economic principles’ that have failed spectacularly. Note 3.
But the general behaviour of teachers and other authority figures is to predict that an ‘irrational’ strategy will fail but never to test it.
In the world of politics, rationality is deemed to be to behave in accord with neo-con principles. We offer you more money/benefits to do X and so you would be irrational not to do what we ask. If you do not do what we ask, you prove that you are irrational and you now justify the use of violence, as that is all you understand.
The appeal to rationality is here an appeal to power. Do what I want you to do – which is the rational thing to do because I am much more powerful than you. If you do not, I will use violence because you have shown yourself to be irrational, and the only thing you understand will be violence.
This appeal to ‘rationality’ when attached to neo-liberal economics is a serious departure from the early history of Western economics, where the leaders of the economics profession always acknowledged that people’s culture and values could legitimately override the simple calculation of economic advantage. Marshall ‘regarded work not as a ‘pain’, but as ‘a creative activity in itself, leading to constructive developments in “character”’ ….. It was not enough that work created opportunities for consumption; rather, it was also important that it enabled those performing it to develop and realise their talents.’ Note 4.
That anyone should always do what is in their simple economic interests is a contestible, if not absurd, assumption. Such a proposal makes the general population tools of the mega-rich, as they can always make it ‘worth your while’ to do as they wish. It also encourages the mega-rich to behave like gangsters. They would have sought to imitate Didius Julianus, who bought by open auction the position of Emperor of Rome. He was assassinated by his guards a few months later.
Clearly, the worst outcome has been the constant repetition of the syllogistic defence of ‘rationality’ which eventually induces a hypnotic state in students and listeners.
This paper deserves a more thorough exposition, but I have been sitting on these ideas for over 50 years, dating back to my graduate days in Cambridge. I feel that there is relevance to today that requires a simple and urgent exposition.
Note 1: https://african-century.org/?s=jenco
Note 2: ‘Can Asians Think?’ Kishore Mahbubani – 2002
Note 3: ‘When genius failed: the rise and fall of long-term capital management’. Roger Lowenstein, 2001
Note 4: ‘Marshall’s economics of work: a reassessment’ by David A Spencer.