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Neurath's ship: The constitutive relation between normative and descriptive theories of rationality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 October 2011

Michael R. Waldmann
Michael R. Waldmann
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Göttingen, 37073 Göttingen, Germany. [email protected]://www.psych.uni-goettingen.de/waldmann
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Abstract

I defend the claim that in psychological theories concerned with theoretical or practical rationality there is a constitutive relation between normative and descriptive theories: Normative theories provide idealized descriptive accounts of rational agents. However, we need to resist the temptation to collapse descriptive theories with any specific normative theory. I show how a partial separation is possible.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 34 , Issue 5 , October 2011 , pp. 273 - 274
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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