DOI: 10.17072/2078-7898/2017-1-57-62

About the rationality of the human thinking

Uskova Ekaterina Viktorovna
Ph.D. in Philosophy, Associate Professor of the Department
of Human Resources Management and Psychology

Ural Federal University named after
the first President of Russia B.N. Yeltsin,
19, Mira str., Ekaterinburg, 620002, Russia;
e-mail: uskova80@mail.ru
ORCID: 0000-0002-4531-7285

Author considers rationality as a special human phenomenon, features and descriptions of which are studied by social anthropology, through the concepts of form and content. Article also describes connection between rationality, realism and relativism. Irrationality may be understood as «self-alien» of rationality and as inalienable part of the human thinking in general. There is shown a differ between theoretical and practical rationality. Also author considers categorizing as cogitative procedure. The classics of philosophy and psychology characterize human actions as rational if they have aim, plan of action, and if they were reflexed. Modern psychologists and philosophers consider that human rationality has limits and even doubt that rationality correlates with consciousness (our ideas, desires, actions). Consciousness may be understood as separate function, which appears in addition to our mental conditions. These reasons cause a question about rationality of human behavior and thinking. Are all our actions, intentions, thoughts a result of preliminary consciousness and reflection or maybe many mental processes occur automatically and recognized by us in hindsight? Because of it we have a question about connection between rationality and conciousness: what is rationality? is it a priori attribute of our thinking or it appears after the realization of the object of which we are thinking about?

Keywords: rationality, irrationality, realism, relativism, categorizing, consciousness, psychological states.

References

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The date of the manuscript receipt 21.02.2016

Please cite this article in English as:

Uskova E.V.About the rationality of the human thinking // Perm University Herald. Series «Philosophy. Psychology. Sociology». 2017. Iss. 1. P.57–62. DOI: 10.17072/2078-7898/2017-1-57-62