Resist Rationalism, Unless You Want to Suck.

Are you wondering what an entry with this title is doing on this blog? Me too! But this idea has been bouncing around in my head and I feel like it’s just as valid as anything else I might post here. So I ask that you forgive this indulgence.

Time commitment: Less than 10 minutes

Ok, so I’ve been thinking about mental ruts lately and how limiting they can be (I wish @timchilcott had a summary of his potato talk to link to). It reminds me of a school of thought called Rationalism that wreaked havoc on American Jurisprudence for a time.

Rationalism, in my limited-probably-incorrect understanding, is the idea that Reason is a key path to knowledge, and, in some cases, an ultimate source of knowledge. Despite sounding all well and good, this is a silly, sometimes dangerous premise. I don’t want to sound anti-intellectual because I love Reason. I try to be reasonable whenever practicable. It’s a useful tool for understanding what you observe. But Reason as a path to knowledge is troubling for a number of, wait for it… , reasons. Here are just a couple.

Reasonable Minds Can Differ.

Have you ever met somebody whom you respected intellectually, but who disagreed with you on something you thought was common sense? Me too. That’s because as much as we extol Reason, the reality is that it’s possible, even probable for people to have conflicting, but nonetheless reasonable understandings. I’m tempted to put an example here, but it might be more illustrative for you to think of one. Think hard about a time recently when you disagreed with somebody. It may have been on an issue that you were passionate about. You may have taken personal offense at the person even considering an alternative viewpoint. Now, consider for a second that the person may not be trying to offend you or make your life more difficult. Try to imagine that their difference in understanding was thought out and genuine. If you can think of an example (and I hope you can), this should be a clue that Reason does not, without more, prove anything. It only serves to either apply rules of understanding to facts or derive rules of understanding from facts. Reason alone is not a basis for Truth. I think a lot of people confuse Reason with Truth, which is ok for some applications. But such confusion tends to close your mind. If you arrive to a reasonable conclusion, you may be in conflict with an equally reasonable conclusion. This brings me to my next point.

Reason is Imperfect.

Ok, this isn’t really a criticism of Reason per se, but Reason is limited by our available facts. The biggest limitation to Reason is our inability to completely know anything. Most of us don’t have the luxury of exhaustive research before we commit to a conclusion. As a consequence, all of our reasonable conclusions are vulnerable to being unwoven by some unknown fact. This undermines the reliability of our conclusions more than we realize.

Indulging Rationalism Limits You.

When you either tacitly or explicitly assume a reasonable conclusion is valid and applicable, you are necessarily excluding other equally valid reasonable conclusions. In doing so you have artificially narrowed your solution set to exclude potentially superior solutions. For instance, say you are considering moving to a new city and you know you have a preference towards warmer cities. Notwithstanding any other preference, it would be reasonable to narrow your scope of cities to exclude those with the fiercest winters, but in doing so you may be excluding a city that is preferable in other ways. Preferable in ways, as it may turn out, that outweigh any disadvantage the city’s climate may present. The reasonable conclusion you reach may nonetheless be harmful to your well being because you’ve excluded some useful information from your analysis. I know this is a pretty weak example, but I think you might get the point.

Rationalism is not the way to anything.

Pure Rationalism assumes that Reason will win out, which could be true if every conclusion we make existed in a vacuum. But none do. The more realistic perspective is cognizant of the limits of Reason and, in recognition of those limitations, endeavors to test every reasonable conclusion. It’s amazing what a bit of evidence can do to ignite or squelch a fighting faith.

To frame all of these assertions in a more practical way for your business, let me suggest this. Test everything you hear, and everything you believe. For example, are you hearing the agile development is the way forward for the industry, and by proxy your business? Test the agile methodology and see what works for you and what doesn’t. There are probably a dozen perfectly rational arguments for or against agile development in your business. You know what? They are all probably valid. Test them and see which pieces work. Be willing to buck the industry trends where they don’t make sense for your business. If you don’t, you will end up with someone else’s best fit, which will make you suck. And you don’t want to suck.