Plato Would Have Laughed at Our Era’s Faith In Rationalism – Big Think

1. History will puzzle over our eras ruling faith in rationalism. Behavioral economics is shaking that faith but as Nick Romeonotes, Plato described cognitive biases ~24 centuries ago.

2. And Plato is far from alone. Hasnt every realistic writer described humanitys everywhere-evident cognitive foibles? Except some math-obsessedeconomists?

3. Doesnt history, and the arts, and daily experience, testify against those hyper-rational individualists of econo-models?

4. For instance, here's Shakespeare on confirmation bias: Trifles light as air / Are to the jealous confirmations strong / As proofs...

5. The gist of many cognitive biases shouldnt surprise non-economists (a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush = loss aversion).

6. Daniel Kahnemans cognitive-bias-cataloging Nobel involved studying grandmotherly wisdom (every psychologist knows were neither fully rational, nor completely selfish).

7. Beyond the fun of footnoting philosophy-founding dialogues with cognitive biases, Plato would have laughed at econo-rationalism.

8. And Plato saw money-lust as enslavement to irrational impulses (now driving mindless market priorities).

9. He knew were irrationally persuadable. He hated sophists for teaching how to sell seductive surfaces over substance (marketing over product). Marketing, obviously, has always used cognitive biases (under-theorized).

10. Even as many economists declare that were rational optimizers, businesses operate on the profitable principle that theres an easily manipulable fool born every minute.

11. But Plato abetted modern rationalisms rise by popularizing math-lust. 2,000 years later falling in love with geometry was an Enlightenment occupational hazard. And today similar math-worship (for algebra + stats) drives economists to irrational math-oholic fantasies.

12. Largely unnoticed is how Platos dialogues dramatize the shortcomings of cognitive individualism.

13. Social cognition research shows that individual knowledge is always remarkably shallow>we never think alone.

14. Isnt it self-evident that we evolved to reason socially? Thinking, like every other significant aspect of human nature, evolved collectively and tribally (not econo-individualistically).

15. Intriguingly, while confirmation bias worsens solo thinking, it can improve group reasoning (other cognitive perspectives countering your biases>dont think alone, or with cognitive clones).

16. Countering cognitive individualism is how science succeeds (bias-balancing processes).

17. That famed-science-institution motto "take no man's word for it," also applies to your own word. Feeling sure that youre right often isnt a reliable intuition. We fall in love with ideas and methods and become blind to our beloveds faults.

18. Math-method-loving economists strengthen faith in rationalism by routinely excluding "obvious empirical facts if theyre not equation friendly. This equation filtering begets theory-induced blindness (field-wide method-level bias).

19. This math-fashioned folly must misrepresent us for its beloved math model-making to work. Arguing that models, like maps, must exclude details, fails because here were ignoring known roadblocks. Theres no efficient-allocation market nirvana without rationally optimizing masses.

20. Beyond the matho-pathology of unbehavioral economics, misplaced faith in rationalism enabled Donald Trumps presidency. He grasps empirical psychology better than many rationalists. Every salesperson knows persuasion isnt factual or logical, but unavoidably emotional, and trust-dependent (see Aristotle on ethos, pathos, logos).

21. Ways of life that deny our deeply limited, deeply flawed, deeply social nature are doomed to historys dustbin.

IllustrationbyJulia Suits,The New Yorkercartoonist & author ofThe Extraordinary Catalog of Peculiar Inventions

More here:

Plato Would Have Laughed at Our Era's Faith In Rationalism - Big Think