Abstract
The current notions of bounded rationality in economics share distinctive features with Simon’s original notion of bounded rationality, which still influences the theoretical and experimental research in the fields of choice, judgment, decision making, problem solving, and social cognition. All these notions of bounded rationality are in fact equally rooted in the information-processing approach to human cognition, expressing the view that reasoning is disembodied and that it can be reduced to the processing of abstract symbolic representations of the environment. This is in contrast with the last three-decade advancements in cognitive psychology, where a new view on human cognition has emerged under the general label of ‘embodied cognition’, demonstrating that cognition and reasoning are grounded in the morphological traits of the human body and the sensory-motor system. In this paper we argue that embodied cognition might reform the current notions of bounded rationality and we propose a number of arguments devoted to outline a novel program of research under the label of ‘embodied rationality’: (1) reasoning is situated as it arises from the ongoing interaction between the subject and the environment; (2) reasoning, not being exclusively a mental phenomenon, constitutively relies on the physical resources provided by the environment; (3) the sensory-motor system provides the building blocks for abstract reasoning, (4) automatic thinking is rooted in the evolutionary coupling between the morphological traits of the human body and the environment.
The world and reason are not problematical
M. Merleau-Ponty
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Notes
- 1.
With the term ‘economic psychology’ we mean that domain of inquiry oriented to study phenomena such as choice, judgment, decision making, problem solving and social cognition. In this broad definition we include also the so-called behavioral economics. However, we remark that there is a significant disciplinary divide between ‘psychological’ and ‘economic’ approaches to the topics above, characterized for instance by different experimental practices (Hertwig and Ortmann 2001).
- 2.
Research in AI also supported this point of view on cognition (see, e.g., Brooks 1990).
- 3.
- 4.
Satisficing is a neologism coined by Simon (1956), standing for the synthesis of the words satisfying and sufficing.
- 5.
This is mainly because the heuristic and biases approach is the theoretical foundation to behavioral economics (see Heukelom 2014).
- 6.
A further and recent thread of research in rationality is that of grounded rationality (Elqayam and Evans 2011). Grounded rationality conceives rationality as a set of rules embedded in specific epistemic communities. In this perspective, rationality is at first a relative and descriptive notion that, once institutionalized in a community, acquires a normative status.
- 7.
This assumption has later been relaxed, for instance by models of parallel processing.
- 8.
Fiori (2011) states that the ‘dual-system’ foundation of heuristics and biases (see Sect. 12.2.1) represents a break with respect to Simon’s cognitivism. This interpretation is—according to us—not conclusive because Simon himself saw cognitivism as perfectly compatible with dual-system theories (see, e.g., Vera and Simon 1993).
- 9.
We have to remark an important incongruence between the theoretical assumptions of ecological rationality and the actual framework through which these assumptions are implemented. A fundamental assumption of ecological rationality is that heuristics and environments are ‘content-specific’ and, as such, semantically characterized. But, this semantic dimension is practically lost when heuristics and environments are respectively characterized as rules and stylized structures.
- 10.
This point was at the center of a debate in 1993 between Simon (with his colleague Alonso Vera) and situated cognition scholars. Vera and Simon argued that situated cognition’s arguments were not sufficient to legitimately claim for a re-foundation of cognitive psychology (see Petracca 2015).
- 11.
A perspective in which the ontology of relations outranks the one of subjects/environments can be found, for instance, in the ‘dynamic systems’ approach to cognition.
- 12.
Ecological rationality has tried to integrate naturalistic decision making within its own theoretical framework. In fact, Todd and Gigerenzer (2001, p. 382) state that their objective is that of providing a ‘content-dependent’ framework to naturalistic decision making. In spite of their attempt, it seems that they have not fully acknowledged the first- and third- person distinction, implicit in naturalistic decision making.
- 13.
It is interesting to recall, on this point, the anecdote reported by Daniel Dennett concerning a child who, not allowed to use fingers for calculations, used tongue and teeth as substitutes (Dennett 1995).
- 14.
Simon (1976) distinguished between ‘substantive’ rationality, where rationality concerns the outcome of choice, and ‘procedural’ rationality, where rationality concerns the process of choice. Procedural rationality, in the case for instance of consumers’ choice, focuses on how consumers choose and not on what they choose.
- 15.
Russell and Norvig (1994) import this definition of rationality in the AI framework.
- 16.
While opponents to embodied cognition typically reduce it to a theory of on-line cognition, Wilson claims that offline cognition is embodied cognition’s true testbed (Wilson 2008, p. 330).
- 17.
Whether the supporters of situated cognition underestimate the role of mental representations (in fact representations are almost unessential in their framework), the supporters of the ‘simulation’ view try to explain the very nature of those representations. This distinction is revealing of the theoretical plurality underlying embodied cognition.
- 18.
Modal is a representation encoded through the sensory-motor system. Conversely, a-modality pertains to representations’ independence from the sensory-motor system.
- 19.
Notice that the metaphor of ‘scissors’ itself, used to define bounded rationality, is based on this logic.
- 20.
See also Mastrogiorgio (2015) for further remarks.
- 21.
Wulf Albers (2001), within the ecological rationality framework, models heuristic calculation by means of the so-called ‘prominent numbers’ (i.e., numerals 1, 2, 5, 10 …) in the decimal system. Albers does not however explain why some numerals are processed faster and easier than others.
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Mastrogiorgio, A., Petracca, E. (2016). Embodying Rationality. In: Magnani, L., Casadio, C. (eds) Model-Based Reasoning in Science and Technology. Studies in Applied Philosophy, Epistemology and Rational Ethics, vol 27. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-38983-7_12
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