rationality

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The notion of rationality, which is used to define the capability of proper reasoning or of justifying thoughts, has prevailed in wide range of scholarship, including religion or anthropology, due to the inability to create a universal definition on what is rational. How can one collectively decide what is “irrational” or “rational” in a world with an immense variety of cultural practices and beliefs, when what is accepted in one area may not be tolerated in another? Perhaps the general opinion that Westernized societies have the correct interpretation of rationality is a legitimate conclusion, yet this agreement may just be the result of the influence and power they have held over how the world have been conducted for such an expansive period of time. In order to study the topic of rationality, including the ideas stated above, Paul Stoller presents three approaches in his essay about rationally. These different tactics are: universalist, relativist, and phenomenological. (240)
The idea of rationality is viewed as a more recent construct based loosely in European Enlightenment thought and then coined in the late nineteenth century as a result of the study of human evolution. However, this expansion was limited to European culture until French philosopher Lucian Levy-Bruhl included and elaborated upon the rationality of “primitive” societies. While most thinkers dismissed the possibility that any civilization that strayed from European custom could act “rationally”, Levy-Bruhl stated they simply were at an earlier stage of societal advancements in science, and then religion. His ideas are used to justify the practice of magic and mystic in cultures, like in the West African town of Wanzerbe. (241)
A universalist lens ass...

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...o interpret or react to events, or realities, and what determines what is rational is designating the most “natural” attitude. Schutz argued that the resulting “natural” attitude” is the most rational in the setting of the person in question because their most innate response reflects the most revered social beliefs. (249) In defense of non-Western practices, phenomenologists focus on the idea of embodiment, a concept which discredits a separation of a mind and body. An example of this idea are Songhay sorcerers and griots, who allow themselves to be overtaken by the intricate elements of the world so that they may become linked with the rationality of it all. (252) Therefore, determining what is “rational” is a complex, and ultimately undefinable task since the very concept elicits a wide variety of interpretations, even in the favor of primitive societies.

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