Reason and the Brain Reason is often contrasted with emotion. This strikes me as a rather inappropriate contrast. For starters, they're different types of things. Reason is either an ideal or an activity, while emotion is a family of states. Anger, fear, love, intrique, these are all examples of the emotions. There is no corresponding list of "the reasons". The closest I could come

There has been a significan amount of research on the neurobiology of emotions
Antonio Damasio has written the most widely read popular books on this topic. Damasio's thesis is that the emotions have an under appreciated role in how reasoning works. His picture of reason, however, is an activity in which people engage. This activity does not have a particular seat in the brain, but calls on various neural systems in various ways. He doesn't spell this out in too much detail except to dispell the commonly held belief that "reason" is a neocortical function. The emotions, on the other hand, do seem to be tied to particular neural functions.

Even though Damasio doesn't go this far, one might conclude that reason and emotion are really both parts of the same phenomena (deliberate human decision making) looked at on different scales. In any case, it is pretty clear that emotions have a straight-forward physiological explanation while reason does not. This could mean that emotions are "real" in a sense that reason isn't. It could also just hightlight that these two concepts don't make any sort of useful contrast. One captures a set of states that we all pass through and the other a standard of excellence to which we might aspire, and there's at least some evidence that those states make that standard achievable.
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  Reason, Reasons and Rationalizations, Part 3 In an effort to inspire honesty in those who may find it easier to be otherwise, the phrase "rationalization" has come to mean the process of giving inappropriate reasons for some explanadum. This means, act first, find reasons for it after the fact. Rationalization can wait until someone is actually called on to explain their actions. This sort of rationalization is often associated with the morally immature and active alcoholics. Those who have to deal with these people or, worse, depend upon them may find the procedure frustrating.

Rationalization can also be something that one does to a production process. Rationalizing a process means considering each of the parts of the process and putting them together in a more effecient manner. Rationalzing a factory floor means placing the end point of each sub-process as close as possible to the next sub-processes in a production line. It also means making sure that only the appropriate number of people are hired to work on the process and that they carry out their tasks in a way that maximizes effeciency. Minimal time should be lost to unrequired movements or interactions. This sort of rationalization is often associated with industrialists and consults. Those who have to deal with these people or, worse, depend upon them may find the procedure frustrating.

Since the Enligtenment, an emphasis on reason and effeciency as primary values has eroded the skeptical impulses that lead Enlightenment thinkers to carry out their various projects. This can happen if one simply assumes that there must be an explanation for some possible subject and then proceeds to construct one based on little but this assumption. The same goes for construction solutions which may not have an optimal solution (or, at least, may not have a method for determining an optimal solution, such problems are everywhere). A disciplined reason giving project, however, should be limited by some sceptical guidelines. Don't conjecture beyond the available data. Or, if you must, then recognize that this is what you're doing.

Appendix: I've been discussing very impressionistic notions of what reason means, and making something of an attempt to defend "Enlightenment rationality" from what I've been assuming is a commonly held set of criticisms of the role of reason since the Enlightenment. Of course, these criticisms aren't all that common, and there's no way that I could reasonably expect my intended audience to be familiar with them.

I would suggest that the following two books typify this criticism:

Voltaire's Bastards by John Ralston Saul
and
Cosmopolis by Stephen Toulmin.

I've linked to the Amazon pages for both texts, but if you're really interesting in reading either of them, I would strongly suggest borrowing them from the library.
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  The 3 Rs part 2 Consider the proposition, "Everything happens for a reason.". What does this mean?

I can think of at least two very different intepretations for this little nugget. I'm pretty sure that I've heard both of these senses in ordinary conversation.

First, when presented with truly unexpected data a lab scientist can't use the data to support or falsify a proposed theory. This doesn't mean that they just throw the material away. The unexpected data is a sign that either something interesting is happening or there's wrong with the set up (has the animal colony been infected?, is there a leak somewhere that's letting heat escape? ). One can also easily imagine a plumber or electrician using the same reasoning. Presented with some unexpected occurence in either the plumbing or electrical system, they're at least as likely to say "Everything happens for reason" and then go looking for the reason as they are to shrug and say "You know sometimes things just happen." How many cars have been completely taken apart by enthusiats working on this sort of motivation? We could call the "effecient" interpretation of the truism.

Second, we could compare this to the "teleogical" interpretation, that the event that requires an explanation will receive an explanation not from its causal antecedents, but from its place in some larger scheme of things. That larger scheme, may or may not correspond to the plans of a grand designer (and who has set things up according to their own reasons).

Modern and Enlightenment figures tend to be committed to the first interpretation over the second. What evidence could there be for either of them being true?
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  A recent selection from Salon, Salon.com Books | The confessions of a semi-successful author, captures some of the frustration of a mid-list author. It also effectively conveys book-lust. Jane Austen Doe isn't happy unless she's writing, but not just any kind of writing, she needs to be writing books.

The world has been changing, and we've known that this change was coming for a long time. The price of freedom is that the older ways don't work as well as they once did.

Back when the middle men, the editors and publishers and book-binders were able to make a handsome profit by distributing content, it was in their interest to support a stable supply of content, that is writers. Now that the distribution channel is no longer a guarantee of profit, there's no particular value in keeping

The truly important stories and the stories that author's feel that they absolutely must tell however, are still going to find a home. Its the writer's that needed the income and the defense of the editorial process that are going to suffer. Those who don't require the cache of publishing a book have a problem.
Writing for its own sake is easily accomplished. Finding an audience for writing produced mostly to satisfy a writer's needs is not nearly so easy.

Inherently valuable writing, the sort of writing that either inspires or conveys ground breaking new wisdom, is more difficult to produce. However, it doesn't have trouble finding an audience once its produced.

Of course, the day of the book has not yet past.

Finally, its been said that there are too many books published each year. Even more, its been said that there are too many philosophy books published each year, I'm sure other disciplines have similar difficulties. There are only too many books being published if the criteria is that some signficant portion of the reading public reads every book worthy of note. This is not necessarily our goal.
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  Reason vs. Reasons vs. Rationalization In both of my current classes I have tried to emphasize the argument over the conclusion. Granted, there is an important degree of cultural literacy that comes from knowing what each philosophy said. After reading Plato, a student is in a much better position to figure out what is meant by Platonism next time it comes up, and that phrase seems to come up a lot. But that might just reflect the sorts of things that I tend to read.

By emphasizing the argument over the conclusion, I'm aiming to get students to evaluate the philosopher's writings based on the way in which the conclusion depends on the premises, independently of whether or not one believes in the conclusion. I think that this message began to get through in our discussion of David Hume's On Miracles last night in "Intro to Philosophy". Many find the implied conclusion of the passage distressing, but the argument itself is compact and efficient.

The emphasis on reason giving is important for philosophy for at least two reasons:

1. Sometimes,the strength of the argument is all there is in a philosophical discussion. What sets philosophy apart somewhat in this regard is that considering the method of argumentation is sometimes the entire story.

2. If no reasons are given, then it's not philosophy. This is a cheap way to keep those impulse purchase books next the book store register from counting as philosophical. The analysis of how reasons are presented for accepting a conclusion is clearly not limited to philosophy. Every type of inquiry has its own methodology.


That is, "No philosophy involves not giving reasons", and "All non-reasoning activities are non-philosophical". Put that way, there's only really one reason, because these two formulations are logically equivalent (they're very close to being contrapositives of each other). This may seem like a small point, but I'm getting nervous about the different ways that I'm using the term "reason" in the paragraph.

Hume is also an interesting case because of his skepticism. Hume brings skepticism to new depths. This skepticism is a defining characteristic of Enlightenment philosophy, but its not the only one. Many have argued that the Enlightenment was also defined by a crippling dependences on reason over other forms of "knowing". In order to say this , one needs a substantial notion of Reason that is different than "the disciplined giving of reasons". But if there is a human faculty or substantial source of Reason, then the sorts of skepticism used by Descartes and Hume would tend to weaken other sources of knowledge by making them subject to Reason. Possible candidates for weakened knowledge sources include, but are not limited to: tradition, intuition, direct revelation and various varieties of perception that go beyond the Enlightenment theories of perception. If reason is only meant in the "thin sense" of "giving reasons", then its not clear what it would mean for a source of knowledge to be anything other than rational.

In case, it has been argued that the Enligtenment emphasis on Reason has had disastrous consequences.

I'll pursue these thoughts next time.  ¶ #

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