▨ rationality

distinguished from reason:

"One principal distinction underlies most of the others; [...] This is the distinction between, on the one hand, Greek nous (or noos), Latin intellectus, German Vernunft, English reason ([...]) and, on the other, Greek logos/dianoia, Latin ratio, German Verstand, English rationality. The first of these – flexible, resisting fixed formulation, shaped by experience, and involving the whole living being – is congenial to the operations of the right hemisphere; the second – more rigid, rarified, mechanical, governed by explicit laws – to those of the left. " p. 330f

"My quarrel is only with an excessive and misplaced rationalism which has never been subjected to the judgment of reason, and is in conflict with it" p. 7

"it is reason, not its unfettered disregard, that leads to scepticism about misplaced and excessive rationalism" p. 130f

nature of rationality and paradox:

"the Prisoner’s Dilemma – see below – appears to demonstrate that the rational person should not in fact act selfishly, another paradox that illuminates one of the ‘Gödelian’ points within the left hemisphere’s system" p. 145

"[Elster] mentions wisdom, humility, virtue, courage, love, sympathy, admiration, faith and understanding"
"If pursued for their utility, they vanish into nothing."
"It is yet another Gödelian point of weakness in rationalism"
[...] The values of the useful and pleasurable[...] are often self-defeating to pursue (as the paradox of hedonism demonstrates)" p. 161

"‘Paradox is everything simultaneously good and great’, wrote Friedrich Schlegel
[...] there are always elements that arise from within the system (rationally conceived goals) that cannot be achieved by the system (rational means of pursuit)" p. 200-2

"[The] belief that any good – happiness, for example – should be susceptible to the pursuit of the will, aided by rationality [...] has illuminated the paradoxical nature of rationality: that while the rational mind must pursue ‘the good’, the most valuable things cannot be pursued (the pursuit of happiness has not generally led to happiness). Such valuable things can come only as side effects of something else." p. 345

"it was the clashes of theory with experience that showed up the cracks in the edifice of rationalism
[...] Its [the left hemisphere's] weakness, therefore, will be exposed when attention is turned to those elements within the system that point to something beyond it
[...] Montesquieu was aware that the belief that ‘man is everywhere different’ is as important and as true as the assertion that ‘man is everywhere the same’. This perception leads from the premises of the system itself – that generalisation is the route to truth, and that all generalisations should be compatible – straight to a paradox" p. 353