Decision Theory and Rationality - Hardcover

Bermúdez, José Luis

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0199548021 ISBN 13: 9780199548026

Verlag: OUP Oxford, 2009

Inhaltsangabe

The concept of rationality is a common thread through the human and social sciences - from political science to philosophy, from economics to sociology, and from management science to decision analysis. But what counts as rational action and rational behavior?

José Luis Bermúdez explores decision theory as a theory of rationality. Decision theory is the mathematical theory of choice and for many social scientists it makes the concept of rationality mathematically tractable and scientifically legitimate.

Yet rationality is a concept with several dimensions and the theory of rationality has different roles to play. It plays an action-guiding role (prescribing what counts as a rational solution of a given decision problem). It plays a normative role (giving us the tools to pass judgment not just on how a decision problem was solved, but also on how it was set up in the first place). And it plays a predictive/explanatory role (telling us how rational agents will behave, or why they did what they did).

This controversial but accessible book shows that decision theory cannot play all of these roles simultaneously. And yet, it argues, no theory of rationality can play one role without playing the other two. The conclusion is that there is no hope of taking decision theory as a theory of rationality.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

José Luis Bermúdez is Professor of Philosophy at Washington University in St Louis, where he is director of the Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology program and of the Center for Programs in Arts and Sciences. His books include The Paradox of Self-Consciousness (MIT: 1998), Thinking without Words (OUP: 2003), and Philosophy of Psychology: A Contemporary Introduction (Routledge: 2005).

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: OUP Oxford
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2009
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0199548021
• ISBN 13: 9780199548026
• Einband: Tapa dura
• Anzahl der Seiten: 208
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Ufficio Anagrafiche Messaggerie; ufficio.anagrafiche@meli.it; ; Via Verdi, 8; Assago Milano; 20090; Italien