What Do We Mean When We Say "Rationality" in Public Affairs?

What Do We Mean When We Say "Rationality" in Public Affairs?Author(s): Charles J. FoxSource: Administrative Theory & Praxis, Vol. 24, No. 2 (Jun., 2002), pp. 347-354Published by: M.E. Sharpe, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25611582 .

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Administrative Theory & Praxis Vol. 24, No. 2, 2002: 347-354

Forum What Do We Mean When We Say "Rationality" in Public Affairs?

Charles J. Fox Texas Tech University

ABSTRACT

This paper is an attempt at what Habermas has called "discursive

redemption." I ask, what does it mean when people complement or accuse

one another of being "rational"? Three goals are incorporated in this

task. First, I survey the various meanings of rationality in the intellectual

history of philosophy. In particular I cover Hume, Kant, instrumental

rationality and the analytical school of logic. Second, frankly, I interweave a reply to critics of Fox/Miller's Postmodern Public

Administration, as being too rational. Third, I attempt a positive and

more constructive (I think) understanding of the underlying rationality of even the supposedly irrationalists.

INTRODUCTION

The question posed in the title cannot, of course, be comprehensively answerable. Nonetheless, I urge, more clarity can be purchased by a closer

examination of the way the term and its complements (rationalism, irrationality, anti-rationalism, logical and not logical) are used in the discourse of public affairs. More bluntly than I intend, these words are too often used

imprecisely. They are, at the risk of committing jargon, conflated

aggregations. This is to say that a single term denotes more signified things than can be immediately embraced by humans whether utterers or hearers. Such terms mean more than they say and simultaneously say more than their intended meaning. Now, I do not intend a polemic against the evolution of

metaphorical meanings in discourse. No, I only want to reaffirm the Habermasian point, and the point that Miller and I made in Postmodern Public Administration (1995) that authentic discourse sometimes calls forth "discursive redemption": (what do you mean?). We, Miller and me, have been oft criticized for being too rational in our theorizing nudging us closer and

?2002, Public Administration Theory Network



348 Administrative Theory & Praxis Vol. 24, No. 2

closer to the dreaded "rational man" (gender intended) (McSwite, 1997) by which is generally implied the hierarchical model of command-control, top down, industrial-rational, instrumental rationality model classically intellectualized by Weber. One of the better articulations of this tendency is from our friend King (2000, p. 272):

Although discourse theorists reject received views of rationality, there is

not a concomitant acceptance of the irrational, or non-rational,

particularly for Fox and Miller (1995) the most widely cited discourse theorists in public administration [blush]. Using theoretical streams that

do not reject the non-rational, I suggest elements of discourse that are not

tied to claims that the means of a well managed discursive process of

"arguments, claiming, and counterclaiming" (Fox & Miller, 1995, p. 11) will lead to the right ends.

King's intelligent and even complementary remarks are a good jumping off

point to discuss the issue. Two things stand out to me. First, and most

importantly, King suggests that we assume that some standard of rationality has been collapsed into warrants for discourse (that is: Goffman-like social constraints on human interactions especially related to group interaction for

purpose). This is not something that we have ever stated. We are process theorists and have assiduously avoided the attempt to distinguish true from

false, fact from value, rational from irrational claims, even emotional from

objective claims. These distinctions, if they are to be made, are functions of human interaction, using the artillery available to them in agonistic discourse,

using whatever cultural/signifier resources available to them. (For instance, everyone in discourse commits what is called by social scientists the genetic fallacy). When these resources are doubtful, discursive redemption is

suggested. So, from our point of view no emotionalism, ideologies, perceptual points of view can be ruled out a-priori. Rationality in any sense that we have used it does not rule out those other human cognitions because they are not "other." Indeed, they are collapsed, gathered up, subsumed under whatever we

have termed "rational" discourse (insofar as we can be caught using the term

imprecisely). How could it be otherwise? We have no God's eye view that can

distinguish between these things. I believe the second misinterpretation made by King and others is that we

believe that the best argument will out. (Perhaps an understandable

misapprehension based on our sometimes reliance of the thoughts of

Habermas) But, be clear, a postmodern process theory just flat out cannot tell

anyone what the BEST outcome has been, might be, or will be. Discourse

theory does not take, again, a God's eye on what ought to occur unless we

ourselves are reporting the result of what is seemingly an authentic discourse.



Fox 349

HUMEAN RATIONALITY

Where to go from here? I propose that we rehearse the various meanings of

rationality/rationalism. Again, no space, much less this one, can aspire to

comprehensiveness (think of the etymology of grasp, a tactile metaphor). Based only on my own familiarity with the intellectual history of philosophy (a field no one can master) let me begin with what I think is the strictest

understanding of rationality and move to more accommodating views. I abandon chronological articulation and ignore such important rationalists as

Plato, Aristotle, and Descartes because theories have been either incorporated in more modern articulations or made irrelevant by appeals to God (in

Descartes) or their cognates (The Form of the Good or "Nous") Understand that this is already problematic. My approach amputates "rationality" from

much larger philosophical contexts in which considerations of it occur.

Following Lyotard (1993) the history of philosophy has evolved (not to be understood as progressed), from the truth project (ancient/medieval through modernity) to the emancipation project (Marxism, Freudianism etc.) to the

interpretation project (postmodernism). To anticipate later remarks, much/some of the discursive oppositions (agon) over rationalism owe their

origins to foundational intentional differences in projects. I intend to discuss

first, the analytical grasp of rationality of David Hume. Second, I turn to Kant.

Third, I turn to instrumental rationality. Fourth, I opine about logic. Fifth, I will address what is left of rationality in the postmodern turn. Intertwined in these discussions of the meanings of "rationality," will be, what can only be termed a reply to critics of the Fox/ Miller approach to discourse theory.

The strictest definition of rationality of which I am aware is that of David Hume. As philosophers go, Hume was a logician's logician. Anglo-American devotees of the analytical school love him and so do I. Hume's project was to

prick the bubble of enlightenment arrogance: the faith that all of the world, including human affairs, was amenable and correctable by the powers of human reason. Ironically, using logical analysis to undermine logical analysis, Hume in domino like order destroyed arguments supporting cause and effect, any ability to reason by induction, and any scientific certainty based on

empirical observation. (That such destruction was based on a questionable psychological theory called sense data atomisim is beyond the scope of this

essay). Without putting too fine a point on it, Hume meticulously used the

rigor of analytical techniques to confute broader claims of rationalism. Hume's view can be simply put: The only secure truths are propositions that are true by syllogistic, tautological definition. Everything else is conjectural and in a phrase borrowed (by me) from Nietzsche "human, all too human." So, if we follow Hume, the only truly rational humans are those who speak in

tautologies; Aristotelian syllogisms; stick figures mouthing slogans true only




by definition. Hume is among the first to imply that rationalism, narrowly conceived, is a psychological disorder. The "rational man" of the Progressive Era, opposition to which unites PAT-Net members more than anything else, was already a crumbling icon in the 18th Century. So, if one accuses another in

this postmodern age of rationalism s/he cannot mean rational in the Humeian sense.

Now Hume, along with Burke and Rousseau (to mention only landmark

figures), were reacting to the arrogance of the British and French

enlightenment. The enlightenment movement had tremendous faith in the

ability of human reason to discover the laws of the physical universe and as

well the laws governing human affairs. Newton is associated with the former

and Locke with the latter. The image used was that the universe was a giant clock and we had but to open up the back, look inside, learn its workings, and

fix it when it goes awry. As a matter of intellectual history the attack against the enlightenment faith in rationality by Burke (who thought tradition more

important) Rousseau (who thought that emotion was) and Hume who turned

the tools of rationalism against itself had the effect of undermining all of the

advances that the enlightenment supposed itself to be fomenting.

KANTIAN RATIONALITY

But the enlightenment was not dead, it went to Germany, most importantly embodied in the watershed philosopher Emmanuel Kant. Kant attempted to

save rationality, science, ethics and aesthetics in a momentous body of works

inspired by the critique of rationality by Hume. Space does not allow the

intricacies of his argument so we must oversimplify the point. The point was, contra the British Empiricists, all knowledge was affirmed not in objects (in

itself) but subjects (for itself). What underpins knowledge is not some sort of

objective reality but human rationality. The giant clock is us. This move was

accomplished by urging that all humans were, as it were, "wired" alike. It is

the commonality of human minds that founds science, ethics and aesthetics

and all other provinces of endeavor. Rationality, then, is the confluence of

innate, a priori, intuitional and indeed, logical apperception of humans. If that

is what is meant by rational, Fox and Miller plead not guilty. It is only a short philosophical step from Kantian idealism (i.e. ideas are

real and founded on human commonality of mind) to a view of what in the

history of philosophy is called the transcendental ego. By this step what is

constructed is a kind of ideal realm of ego from which and within which all of

our individual egos participate. Our individual rationality is, as it were,

commonly sourced in this realm. This is a fundamental premise of various

schools of depth psychology and the structuralism of Levi-Strauss. Typical of

these tendencies is the view that there are archetypical myths to which all



Fox 351

humans and their cultures abide. Many have been enticed by this vision

including Freud, Karl Jung, Edmund Husserl, and our friendly critics McSwite. McSwite have, at least in the past, trumpeted their Jungianism, and while their views have evolved, they have given no reason for us to believe that they have abandoned commitments to depth psychology and the transcendental ego. Indeed, some of their latest work has been focused on

Lacan, a kind of structural psychoanalyst. McSwite have typified Fox and Miller as on the right wing of the postmodern discourse "movement" on the basis of our commitment to rationality (they say). Now is my turn to say that

any adherence to conceptions of the transcendental ego is a rationalism of the Kantian sort. Entailed therein is way more a priori rationalism, at least in the Kantian sense, than Fox and Miller have committed. After all, Fox and Miller

explicitly acknowledge the influence on them of existential phenomenology of Sartre and especially Maurice Merleau-Ponty. These philosophers have no truck with even the unconsciousness theorized by Freud, much less a transcendental ego. A right-left spectrum based on one's commitment to

rationality, with McSwite on the left, Farmer in the middle and Fox/Miller on the right seems, on this reflection, inappropriate. At least in the Kantian sense,

McSwite is on the right wing of the postmodern tendency. They have a grip on

surety that borders on foundationalism which, however comforting to them, Fox and Miller, and we believe Farmer too, have chosen to do without.

INSTRUMENTAL RATIONALITY

All well and good, the informed reader of what might be regarded as an arcane debate, might say. But doesn't a public discourse about "what to do next" imply instrumental rationality? This is another claim of King (2000, p. 273). In her words: "The implicit assumption of instrumental rationality is that good means ensure good ends." I submit that that is not what instrumental

rationality means. Classically defined by Weber, instrumental rationality is

finding the best means to achieve a predetermined end. Ends are, as it were, given or determined somewhere off stage. Closely related to the utilitarianism of Bentham and the Mills, the ends justify whatever means are employed. Any action is justified by its results understood by the utilitarians as the greatest good for the greatest number. But instrumental rationality avoids what its advocates regard as dysfunctional metaphysical speculation about appropriate ends. Instrumental rationality is already a truncated rationalism known to us these days as rational choice theory. So, good means (i.e. authentic discourse) do not ensure good results because Fox and Miller have scrupulously avoided

defining good. We are not sure what good is. Good is not a substance, an essence, or a Platonic form. Good is a sign used by humans and is always more of a question or judgment held up for scrutiny by others in a social linguistic




community. Judgments about good may themselves be subject to discursive

redemption. So, to the charge that Fox/Miller commit instrumental rationality, we plead, again, not guilty.

LOGIC

How does logic fit into this picture of rationality? Anglo-American analytic philosophy from approximately the end of WWII to the 80's dominated the field. Logic was the keystone to this approach. Logic in turn has

presuppositions. Among such are that the world is composed of incorrigible atomistic units of meaning invariance. A is absolutely distinct from not A. It follows that there is a law like presupposition forbidding contradiction. All of this further presupposes that logic is isomorphic with the universe. Logic reveals the real. Or better, it is the real. It is, in a sense, a neo-Platonism. It is also an extension of Aristotle's syllogistic logic. Those of us who have been influenced by any of the tendencies of philosophy from pragmatism, phenomenology, or postmodernism in general could never be rational in the

logical sense. Sometimes this is termed irrationalism. This label only makes sense to me if logical rationalism is a privileged pole: a standpoint from which

anything else appears irrational. It is rather like when the right wing John Birch Society called President Eisenhower a communist dupe. In other words, to utter irrational is to uncritically assume that rationality itself is a cogent position. I think that this opposition is too sharp and is essentially meaningless. Is the thoughtful Nietzshe irrational? Are Derrida's

interpretations, even when based on discovering aporias irrational? Is it irrational to ignore the law of contradiction when at a phenomenological level one perceives and experiences contradiction and paradox? I don't think so.

Either we need to significantly broaden what we mean when we say "rational" or abandon it. Either most humans are rational in some sense or none are. It

should not be used as an epithet or as praiseworthy. Degrees of rationality

especially among academics can be teased out everywhere we look. This is

where I turn next.

RATIONALITY RECONSIDERED

Having discarded at least the most prominent takes on rationality narrowly considered, covering along the way the collective Fox/Miller derriere, I want

to sketch a pragmatic concept rationality as we sometimes preconsciously

(avoiding Freudian cosmology) recognize it. The fact of the matter is that

humans and especially academics, whether in writing, lecture narratives or

departmental committees, strive to a broader rationality, which is simply

adhering to cultural norms of sense making. Construct a syllabus and you are



Fox 353

arranging the material according to a progressive plan of instruction. Frontal lobes organizing "rationality" is involved. It is also based on future

projections of who the students are and what they might already know: a

"rational" projection. Let us go even deeper, or perhaps shallower. Look at it. We adhere to a

common grammar (being incompetent of taking a position on the ideas of deep structure or Kantian wiring as profoundly explicated by the linguistic philosopher Noam Chomsky). At base we speak/write in sentences. Sentences have a "rationality" to them in that they have in common subject, predicate, verb. Is this not a common logic to which all of us are required to adhere to make sense among us? Think then of the copula: "is." The verb to be in all of its tenses is a "rational" claim that one signification is like, associated, or caused by another. To be or not to be, though, is always a claim that can be

subject to discursive redemption (is that so?). Notice though (is that so?) traffics in the same "rationality," and will be settled within its bounds. The

copula is assumed as ground from which figure can be induced to arise. Again, little or long sentences are gathered up by principles of paragraphing, units of

meanings combined by what? Some understanding of coherence. We ignore the ramblings of schizophrenics because they do not cohere in ways that normal people can grasp. We can't grasp them because they do not conform to the rules of coherence that allows our minds to categorize, sort and assimilate information. That we use words, put together in sentences with subject object and copula, gathered together in paragraphs, arranged into sections, all

pursuing an argument to be held up to discursive redemption: claims subject to counter claims: That is human rationality as we know it. If I am right about this

(whatever that might mean) the dispute between our friends who have been influenced by the postmodern movement must always be a contest on which of us have the most convincing arguments. The standard of "convincing" will

always be, in the broadest sense described above, one of "rationality." This is not to claim that the best argument will out because we cannot know what best is. Can it be denied that we compete with one another in clever ripostes? As I have made clear, I have no God's-eye perspective to determine, either in advance or in conclusion, the TRUTH of any matter. Do I nonetheless think that I'm "right" in relation to opponents? Yes. Why? I guess it is because I think that I have constructed better arguments than those who would oppose

me. I do not know the cause of this arrogance: Am I better schooled in

philosophy? Perhaps; Did I, with Miller, construct an original argument, which is now the ground of dispute (giving us the high ground of establishing the agenda)? Yes. Is it possible that to the extent that we prevail in the discourse about discourse is because we are now, after long struggle, respected, powerful and male? Yes (cf. Patterson, 2000). Could we be wrong in various aspects? Yes. AND, is the discourse based on our work "rational" in



354 Administrative Theory & Praxis Vol 24, No. 2

the expanded sense that I have just sketched? Yes. "Rationality" would demand that this essay end here. A neat little module of thought has been

explicated. Babbling on to fill space is "irrational." You wander around and then look up and down, left and right, and discover that that is where you are.

REFERENCES

Fox, C. J., & Miller, H. T. (1995). Postmodern public administration: Toward

discourse. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

King, C. S. (2000, September). Talking beyond the rational. The American Review of Public Administration, 30, 271-291.

Lyotard, J. F. (1984). The postmodern condition: A report on knowledge. Minneapolis:

University of Minnesota Press.

McSwite, O. C. (1997). Legitimacy in public administration: A discourse analysis.

Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Patterson, P M. (2000, September). Nonvirtue is not apathy: Warrants for discourse

and citizen dissent. The American Review of Public Administration, 30, 225-251.



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What Do We Mean When We Say "Rationality" in Public Affairs?