Rethinking rationality

pp. 9-63

in: Stephen Petro, Rationality, virtue, and liberation, Berlin, Springer, 2014

Abstract

In this chapter, I attempt to establish the preliminary foundations which demonstrate the possibility of a post-dialectical, assertoric value theory. I set out to demonstrate that the schools of ethical rationalism, ethical naturalism, virtue ethics, and the methods of the biological and social sciences, while often opposed theoretically, in fact offer each other support and justification. In order to set this relationship right, and before exploring dialectical theory itself, I argue that it is necessary to radically revise the concept of rationality to one that has joint scientific, social-scientific, and phenomenological support. Classic analytic and critical-theoretical characterizations, I argue, are inadequate.