The dictionary of the rational

This being the second post inspired by reference 1, with the first being at reference 2.

The reason being that this afternoon, wearying a little of reading many pages of stuff about rational beings and reasons, I thought I would look them up in the dictionary: ratio and some of its more important derivatives – ratiocination, rational, rationale and reason. All from the Latin ‘ratio’, which one online resource translates as ‘reckoning, account, reason, judgement, consideration, system, manner or method’.

Ratio

Half of a column and four meanings, the first of which is reason or rationale, marked as obsolete. The second of which is mathematical.

Ratiocination

Quarter of a column. The process, power or habit of reasoning. Or, rare, a conclusion arrived at by reasoning.

Rational

First meaning, two and a half columns, twelve sub-meanings, all to do with reasonable in one way or another. Adjective. For example, a sort of ancient doctor, a particular sort of Christian, a sensible sort of dress for ladies, perhaps knickerbockers for cycling. Obsolete sub-meaning: existing only in the mind, as opposed to being something out in the real world.

Second meaning, half a column, three sub-meanings. One the breast plate worn by the Jewish High Priest of old. Two the breast ornament worn by Christian bishops of old. Three a ceremonial, usually religious in flavour or tone.

Third meaning, quarter of a column. An accountant or auditor.

Rationale

An explanation or statement of reasons for doing something or other.

Reason

Near three pages, more than eight columns. More than two pages of this is the first nominal meaning. About a column inch for the second nominal meaning and the balance for a verbal meaning. From the Latin ‘ratio’ via various old French words, now the modern French word ‘raison’.

The first nominal meaning runs to twenty eight sub meanings. Mostly straightforward, but including a few oddities. The useful tenth sub-meaning is ‘that intellectual power or faculty (usually regarded as characteristic of mankind but sometimes also attributed in a certain degree to the lower animals) which is ordinarily employed in adapting some thought or action to some end; the guiding principle of the human mind in the process of thinking’.

The second nominal meaning is something like the modern wall-plate, the plank set on top of an inner wall to act as a bearer for the joists running between two such walls. From an old word meaning to raise. Nothing to do with the Latin ‘ratio’.

The verbal meaning has a modest eight sub-meanings, all to do with the business of reasoning with oneself or with others.

Conclusions

Mercier and Sperber seem keen to demonstrate that thinking, rational or otherwise, is largely the product of the subconscious and is nothing much to do with logic, in the sense that a mathematician might use the word. Or with the syllogisms invented by the ancient Greeks. Reasons tend to come into it after the event, after the thought, in order to provide some justification of that thought, either to oneself or to others. Reasons which may or may not have much to do with said unconscious processing – bearing in mind Freud’s exposé of the sometimes bizarre or otherwise discreditable workings of that unconscious.

Entertainment aside, the dictionary has cunningly avoided getting into logic at all and the tenth meaning for reason, while telling us what reason is for, tells us nothing about how reasoning might work. So, as it has turned out, it has successfully sat on the fence awaiting developments – developments which did not really start to flow until half a century after publication.

All of which leaves me with the working definition that a rational man is one who can exhibit plausible reasons for his conclusions, decisions and actions – a capability which requires sanity and speech but not literacy. Exhibition which provides a vehicle for discussion, development and hopefully agreement. We do not require that these reasons should have had anything much to do with the process, unconscious or otherwise, by which he came to those conclusions, decisions and actions in the first place. That is asking too much.

Note that this definition excludes animals and infants, this despite both groups being able to exhibit entirely sensible behaviour. What they can’t do is share.

No so far from my ponderings on choice from a couple of years back, ponderings to which one can gain access via reference 4.

References

Reference 1: The Enigma of Reason: A New Theory of Human Understanding – Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber – 2017.

Reference 2: http://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/02/areas.html.

Reference 3: A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles – Volume VIII, Part I, Q and R – W. A. Craigie – 1910. Also known as the Oxford English Dictionary or OED.

Reference 4: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2016/09/consciousness-of-choice.html.