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Rationalization, Evidence, and Pretense
Author(s) -
D'Cruz Jason
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
ratio
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.475
H-Index - 29
eISSN - 1467-9329
pISSN - 0034-0006
DOI - 10.1111/rati.12072
Subject(s) - rationalization (economics) , irrationality , possession (linguistics) , epistemology , cognition , psychology , parallels , philosophy , rationality , social psychology , positive economics , cognitive psychology , economics , linguistics , neuroscience , operations management
In this paper I distinguish the category of “rationalization” from various forms of epistemic irrationality. I maintain that only if we model rationalizers as pretenders can we make sense of the rationalizer's distinctive relationship to the evidence in her possession. I contrast the cognitive attitude of the rationalizer with that of believers whose relationship to the evidence I describe as “waffling” or “intransigent”. In the final section of the paper, I compare the rationalizer to the Frankfurtian bullshitter.