Rational explanation is ubiquitous in psychology and social sciences, ranging from rational analysis, expectancy-value theories, ideal observer models, mental logic to probabilistic frameworks, rational choice theory, and informal "folk psychological" explanation. However, rational explanation appears to be challenged by apparently systematic irrationality observed in psychological experiments,...

In this paper I defend the view that there are rational methodological criteria for preferring one system design1 over another and that they are substantially the same as those of the scientific method. The parallels between the notion of a rational system design and the notion of a rational scientific theory are not coincidental: they reflect a fundamental similarity between the invention of d...

Some empirically minded philosophers of science argue that the evidence should choose the best theory from among theoretical rivals. However, the evidence may not speak clearly, a problem of ‘underdetermination of theory by data’. We examine this problem in a concrete setting, rival theories of smoking behaviour. We investigate whether several uncontested pieces of empirical evidence allow us t...

In a recent paper, Samir Okasha presented an argument that suggests that there is no rational way to choose among scientific theories. This would seriously undermine the view that science is a rational entreprise. In this paper I show how a suitably nuanced view of what scientific rationality requires allows us to avoid Okasha’s conclusion. I go on to argue that making further assumptions about...

The multiplicative theory of a set of numbers is the theory of the structure of that set with (solely) the multiplication operation (that set is taken to be multiplicative, i.e., closed under multiplication). In this paper we study the multiplicative theories of the complex, real and (positive) rational numbers. These theories are known to be decidable; here we present some explicit axiomatizat...