“Would not conversation be more
rational than dancing?” said Jane Austen’s Miss Bingley
in Pride and Prejudice. “Much more rational,” replied Mr. Bingley, “but much less like a ball.” Not of all life requires that we are rational,
and nor should we divide all human actions into irrationality and
rationality. Much of what we do is
neither rational nor irrational. It is
fun, fulfilling, meaningful, but has little to do with thought and discourse,
at least at an elevated level. But there
are times that we must be rational, binding ourselves to principles of
empirical adequacy and rational coherency.
Empirical adequacy requires that the concept under question be amendable
to empirical verification and asks the question: does it meet the
evidence? Rational coherency requires
that the concept should be consistent with other concepts that were arrived at
rationally. It asks the question: is it
consistent within itself? These tests in
themselves don’t prove or confirm truth or falsehood. But they do provide a construct within which
to think clearly and rationally. And we
must keep challenging ourselves to revisit our presuppositions and the
information we use to arrive at our conclusions. For so much that we call thinking is nothing
more than the rearranging our prejudices.