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'Irrationality: A History of the Dark Side of Reason' by Professor Justin E. H. Smith

In “Irrationality: A History of the Dark Side of Reason” Professor Justin E. H. Smith presents his view on the dialectic between rationality and irrationality.

First, Professor Smith explains how irrationality is both a cognitive and a moral failure: on the one hand, it is the failure to draw the right conclusion from a given set of premises; on the other, it is the refusal to do so. Indeed, given that in syllogistic reasoning the conclusion follows necessarily, i.e., logically, from the given premises, not to infer the right conclusion from its valid premises amounts to, Professor Smith claim, refuting to acknowledge something that one already knows. This is the moral failure attached to irrationality. Professor Smith, then, goes on and illustrates how irrationality stems from rationality. He does so by providing some concrete examples. For instance, he recalls how, despite worshipping reason, the Pythagoreans acted irrationally when they drowned one of their members (Hippasus) in the ocean for having discovered irrational numbers. The irrationality of this act lies in that a blameworthy and highly irrational act was accomplished in the name of reason. Finally, Professor Smith presents his main thesis: ir-rationality is complementary to reason as its correlative.

Learning motivation and outcome

I found this topic appealing because, while I have explored philosophical literature about the essence of reason in terms of ‘rationality’, I had not yet come across a systematic philosophical investigation of the concept of ‘irrationality’.

What appeals me more about Professor Smith’s approach to the concept of irrationality is that it keeps the latter within the boundaries of reason. Indeed, rather than reducing the ir-rational to the a-rational or non-rational – to the traditionally called opponents of reason, e.g., emotions, feelings, passions, and the like (irrationalism) – Professor Smith sees irrationality as the counterpart of reason, as inhabiting it, as ontologically belonging to it.

Justin Smith’s Profile

Justin Erik Halldór Smith is Professor of Philosophy in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Paris. His area of specialisation includes Early Modern Philosophy, Philosophy of Science, and Philosophy of Biology. He has published several articles in international peer-review journals and five books, among which there is Irrationality: A History of the Dark Side of Reason, which addresses the topic of the above podcast. His forthcoming book, A Global History of Philosophy, to 1750, will be published by Princeton University Press.

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‘The Case Against Reality’ and The Hard Problem of Consciousness’ by Professor Donald D. Hoffman

In ‘The Case Against Reality’ and The Hard Problem of Consciousness’ the cognitive scientist Donald D. Hoffman addresses two long-standing philosophical issues: the metaphysical issues concerning the first cause or principle of reality ('What is the nature of reality?'), and the epistemological issue concerning the nature, limits, and purposes of human knowledge ('How do we know reality?').

At the beginning of the podcast, Professor Hoffman recalls two well-known scientific theses: (a) the fundamental nature of reality is space and time (naturalism), and (b) consciousness can be explained by resorting to mechanical systems – more precisely, to the neural system (physicalism). The latter thesis is one of the current scientific approaches to the ‘Hard Problem of Consciousness’, i.e., the problem of determining what grounds phenomenal consciousness (‘what it is like for me’). He then goes on to address the epistemological relation between consciousness and reality. Here Professor Hoffman rejects the main thesis of Darwin’s natural selection theory. He does so by resorting to the concept of payoff function — a function used by mathematicians to model human behaviour. In a nutshell, he says that there is no homomorphism between our perceptive systems and the world out there. Evolutionary theorists, therefore, have wrongly overestimated sensory perception by considering it as able to grasp reality in its entirety. In fact, Professor Hoffman continues, perception gives us access only to that which can best guide our adaptive skills. This is the “Fitness-Beats-Truth” (FBT) thesis: “our perceptual systems have evolved to provide a species-specific interface to guide adaptive behaviour, and not to provide a veridical representation of objective reality” (As Prakash et al. 2020).

Let me now turn to the above-mentioned scientific approach to the ‘hard problem’. According to Professor Hoffman, that approach is reductionist and should be rejected. First, in opposition to (a) naturalism, he recalls how the space-time model advocated by the classical (Einsteinian) physics can no longer be considered as the fundamental structure of reality. Second, he argues against (b) physicalism by advocating for a non-physicalist understanding of the nature of consciousness. His reasoning goes as follows: if space and time are no longer the holy grail of physics, then also neurons ought not to be thought as the building blocks of consciousness. Indeed, neurons are nothing more than little spatial elements placed in time.

Learning motivation and outcome

I chose this topic because I am interested in interdisciplinary approaches to issues concerning the perception of reality. In particular, I was keen to see how Professor Hoffman’s combination of philosophy and cognitive science contributes to a better understanding of consciousness.

What I find particularly appealing about Professor Hoffman’s research is the dialectic he creates between space-time and consciousness. With the overcoming of naturalism, the traditional understanding of space-time as containing, among other things, consciousness is, for Professor Hoffman, to be replaced by a new model: it is not consciousness that is in space and time, but rather space and time that are inside consciousness – in the form of data structure. Now, if this is the case, then consciousness itself is to be considered as the most fundamental reality, the real archē. Notwithstanding the potential solipsistic implications of such an approach, I believe that Professor Hoffman’s research can provide important scientific insights to researchers working not only in the cognitive science field, but also in non- (strictly speaking) scientific disciplines dealing with the nature of consciousness, for example, phenomenology.

Donald D. Hoffman’s Profile

Donald D. Hoffman is Full Professor of Cognitive Science at the University of California, Irvine, where he holds joint appointments in three departments: the Department of Philosophy, the Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science, and the School of Computer Science. His research interests span Vision, Cognitive Science, Consciousness, and Evolution of Perception. He was awarded the Distinguished Scientific Award for Early Career Contribution of the American Psychological Association, the Rustum Roy Award of the Chopra Foundation, and the Troland Research Award of the US National Academy of Sciences. Professor Hoffman has published extensively on issues concerning perception, evolution, and consciousness. Among his publications, ought to be mentioned The Case Against Reality: Why Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes (published by W. W. Norton & Company in 2019), which was shortlisted for the Physics World’s 2019 Book of the Year.