Rationality and coherence

✍ Scribed by John Kekes

• Publisher: Springer Netherlands
• Year: 1974
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 637 KB
• Volume: 26
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0031-8116
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00376056

✦ Synopsis

The purpose of this paper is to show the untenability of Peter Wineh's theory of rationality implicit in The Idea of a Social Science and in 'Understanding a Primitive Society'. 1 Winch, of course, is a Wittgensteinian, but it is unclear both to what extent Winch's position is derived from Wittgenstein and whether or not other Wittgensteinians are also committed to the same mistaken theory of rationality. This paper is a criticism of Winch's position, beyond this the chips will be allowed to fall as they may.

Winch's view is that 'rational', 'irrational', and their cognates have meaning, application, or use only within a form of life. Thus it is proper to inquire about the rationality of what exists in a form of life, but improper to question the rationality or irrationality of a form of life itself.

Part of the significance of this theory is that its correctness would licence the rationality of anything that was a rule-conforming part of any bona fide form of life. Thus if religion and magic, for instance, qualified as forms of life, then both themselves and any conventional religious or magical practice would, for that reason, become automatically immune to any charge of irrationality.

The criticism will show that Winch's theory faces problems that it can neither avoid nor solve. The problems arise because of the incompatibility of Winch's account of forms of life, rules, and his theory of rationality. The obvious starting point is to ask: what does Winch mean by 'form of life' and by 'rule'?

II

The expression, 'form of life', comes from Wittgenstein, 2 but neither Wittgenstein nor Winch offer a straightforward account of its meaning.