Reason and rationality

88 Pages·2009·0.293 MB·English

by  Rendall, Steven F.;Elster, Jon

Reason
and
Rationality
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Reason
and
Rationality
Jon Elster
Translated by Steven Rendall
princeton university press
Princeton & Oxford
Copyright © 2009 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street
Princeton, New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press,
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All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Elster, Jon, 1940–
[Raison et raisons. English]
Reason and rationality / Jon Elster ; translated by Steven
Rendall.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-691-13900-5 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Practical reason. 2. Rational choice theory.
3. Philosophy and social sciences. I. Title.
BC177.E4713 2009
128'.33—dc22 2008029705
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available
Th is book has been composed in Adobe Garamond and
Goudy Trajan
Printed on acid-free paper.∞
press.princeton.edu
Printed in the United States of America
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
< Contents >
Reason and Rationality
Works Cited
v
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Reason
and
Rationality
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=
In analytical approaches to human behav-
iors, the same Latin word, ratio, is at the
root of two intellectual traditions that are
at once very diff erent and interconnected.
On the one hand, there is the tradition
that opposes reason to the passions and,
more recently, to interests. Seneca’s trea-
tise On Anger, for instance, is organized
around the opposition between reason and
passion, whereas the French moralists of
the seventeenth century added the notion
of self-interest. La Bruyère, in a famous
