The Meaning and Conditions of Possibility of Autonomous Rationality

Abstract

The article discusses the following thesis. 1. A notion of rationality is incompatible with those law-shaped (or algorithmic) processes/ systems which internal resources do not allow to treat their goal-setting procedures as their own internal properties. 2. The concept of a purpose is meaningless within alternative-free ontologies, therefore, particularly, rationality is logically incompatible with determinism. 3. Conditions of possibility of autonomously rational actions should necessarily include at least three things: a) virtuality of underlying ontology, which combines probabilistic and deterministic properties, b) a certain interpretation of intentionality within it, and c) non-trivial topology of values. The above stated aspects help to understand how goal-setting procedures are constituted as internal properties of a process/ system under consideration. There is no such a thing as ‘autonomous rationality’ beyond these conditions. The absence of any of the above listed moments leads to impossibility of theoretical and computer modeling of rationality processes. 4. In fact it could be stated that autonomous rationality exhausts a concept of a so called ‘human freedom’.