Theoretical and Practical Rationality: Understanding Knowledge
Theoretical and Practical Rationality
Reason can be understood as the power to argue about something or justify it. Generally, theoretical reason is directed towards the contemplation of this world; it is knowledge of reality (unravel, explain, and understand). Practical reason is the use of reason to guide action, by which it is imposed to guide us towards a moral ideal.
Philosophical knowledge, in its theoretical dimension, configures the call to theoretical philosophy, which aims at creatures whose principles cannot be otherwise; just by looking at them, we know them. In this dimension of philosophy, reason, in its theoretical use, is to know reality with more truth and rigor.
Metaphysical Knowledge
Metaphysical knowledge aims to go beyond scientific explanations. The latter is one of the basic features of metaphysics. It is an attempt to reach the last issues, those whose questions do not allow further questioning. Metaphysics aims to approach the study from a universal perspective and feels the need to interpret experiences and sort of give an account of what there is, what happens, and what will happen.
What is Discovered?
The subject seeks to know the object, falls on the action, and can also distinguish the activity and the result known as knowledge.
Realism vs. Idealism
Realism defends that reality exists independently from it.
Idealism underlines that reality does not exist independently of the subject, and what is certain is the existence of a security awareness that I am thinking or knowing.
Certainty Against Truth
- Ignorance: The state of mind in knowing that is supported on a given topic.
- Doubt: Being unsure whether to affirm or deny the truth of a trial because the reasons for and against have a similar force.
- Certainty: A subjective state of mind that affirms the truth of a trial without admitting any possibility of error.
Criteria of Truth
A criterion of truth is a feature or procedure by which we distinguish truth from falsehood and are sure of the value of a statement. We can mention the following:
- Authority: An affirmation is accepted as true because it comes from someone who is granted credit for their knowledge on a subject.
- Tradition: What over time has been accepted as true and enjoys popular or institutional support.
- Correspondence between thought and reality: What we think is true if, when checked, it matches the empirical reality.
- Logical consistency: A logical-mathematical approach of checking that there is no contradiction between statements of the same system.
- Utility: A statement will be true when it is profitable and useful for us.
- Clear evidence: The fundamental criterion is that which is presented as indisputable, although it is often necessary to show reasoning.
Types of Knowledge
Theoretical knowledge: All information that describes and explains the natural world around us; it is knowledge that arises simply because of knowledge.
Practical knowledge: This does not describe or explain the world without knowing how to act in it.
What Does Action Mean?
Involuntary Actions
- Forced: Actions that are forcibly done, whose origin is beyond us, and contributed to making.
- Circumstances: Ignorance of the action, such as when a driver hits a pedestrian because they did not see them.
Voluntary Actions
Some of them are joint actions. The subject can choose them or not but does not like to have absolute control over them. Voluntary actions are not performed by the subject in a situation where they would not otherwise act.
Theoretical and Practical Knowledge
Theoretical knowledge: The permanent, and the study does not change.
Practical knowledge: The person may act differently, causing change.
Moral Knowledge and Know-How
Distinguishes between two kinds of practical wisdom: the wisdom that aims at the action itself (praxis) and the technique that aims at a type of action called production (poiesis).
They differ:
- In purpose: The wise person performs good deeds in themselves and, therefore, does not do them for a purpose other than themselves. Technicians perform them in order to get something.
- By the kind of virtue: Whoever is able to produce beautiful and useful objects has the virtue of technique; whoever knows how to do well has the virtue of prudence.
- By type of property: Technique produces goods, while prudence organizes all of your life to achieve the goal of happiness, which is a moral goal.
Morality and Ethics
From the etymological point of view, the term ethics comes from the Greek ethos, meaning way of being, and moral character comes from the Latin mos.
We act when we have to choose between different possibilities and justify the one we have chosen in relation to some moral code.
Moral Relativism
Relativism was born in Greece with the Sophists and is still present in various positions:
- Cultural relativism: The moral criterion depends on the different cultures.
- Contextualism: According to which we know whether a proposal is morally wrong or correct if we consider each context of action.
- Ethnocentrism: Asserts the impossibility of justifying the goodness of an action by taking any social part of humans; we can only justify a decision to those who share our way of life, for only they can understand.
- Skepticism: We cannot really distinguish between right and wrong. Although we are forced to make decisions, we will never find a rationale for them.
- Subjectivism: It has spread around the world, resulting in instrumental rationality, but evaluators responsible for setting goals or values have regressed to the point where there is no reason to convince of our positions.
- Emotivism: Moral statements are intended only to express emotion and feeling and not to increase our knowledge. The wickedness or goodness of an act is perceived by the sense of experience before this has a dual function: to express feelings or subjective emotions and to influence interlocutors to bring about the same attitude.