James, William an American philosopher, said that philosophy is the unusually stubborn attempt to think clearly. To be rational is to think, but all thinking is not necessarily rational thinking. Rationality has to do with the way we proceed to investigate matters, settle disputes, evaluate evidence assess peoples behaviors, practices, and beliefs. If we could get agreement about the standards of rationality, then the only thing left to argue about would be whether or not these standards were fairly and accurately applied. To avoid the futility of endless disagreements, some philosophers maintain that there must be objective and universal standards of rationality. This position on the question of rationality is called foundationalism. Foundationalists hold that we can decide what is rational by appealing to principles that are undeniable to any rational person. According to the foundationalists views one should be able to present good reasons in support of their beliefs. The reasons presented would be good ones insofar as they ultimately rest on a set of ideas that are self-evidently true for any person who can properly understand them. Aristotle, claims that the law of noncontradiction (a statement cannot be both true and false) stands at the foundation of all rational reasoning. You cannot rationally assert p (where p stands for any statement) and (then assert) not-p. If you claim p is true , you cannot claim it is false and be rational. Furthermore, he argues, anyone who denies this law and who is prepared to defend that denial will be unable to advance their argument without relying on the very law supposedly rejected. However, the foundation you reach on your descent may turn out to be a ledge that gives way under your weight. Why? Because all the philosophical energy that has been spent on the search for foundational principles has ended in disagreement. Thus, many philosophers have declared the modern search for fundamental rational principles bankrupt. Welcome to the postmodern age of anti-foundationalism. Just as there are many varieties of foundationalism, there are also many varieties of antifoundationalism. In order to remove the negative connotations of the -anti," let us call the critics of foundationalism constructivists because many of them maintain that rationality is a social construction. Some constructivists point to the failure of agreement among foundationalists as proof that the search for objective, universal, self-evident, rational principles is fruitless. Others argue that the so-called self-evident, objective, universal, ahistorical, transcultural foundations of rationality have been shown again and again to be little more than the elevation of the prejudices of an elite class, or of males, or of white culture, or of Western civilization to the honorific title of "self-evident rational principles." What is alleged to be "rational" turns out, after careful critical analysis, to be what Anglo-American European white males value! Foundationalism, this line of criticism maintains, is merely a variety of ethnocentric imperialism disguised with the mask of rationality. Many constructivists argue that we are all so embedded in our cultures, our traditions, our religions, and our historical situations that we can never find some neutral point,
some god's-eye view from which to pass judgment. Not one of our limited viewpoints is privileged. We are hopelessly culture-bound. Still other critics of foundationalism point out that foundationalism is fatally flawed because it is itself based on contradiction. Foundationalism claims that a rational belief is one supported by good reasons. This means that before I accept your beliefs as rational, I should expect you to be able to display, if questioned, good reasons for such beliefs. If, after you have given me your good reasons, I persist and ask for more, sooner or later I shall have to be content with a belief whose truth is, you claim, "self-evident." So it turns out that good reasons rest on principles that we are asked to accept as self-evidently true and in need of no further support. Such principles would be irrational given the criterion initially assumed be to the hallmark of a rational belief-that is, a belief supported by good reasons. One major issue that this debate has engendered is the issue of cognitive and ethical relativism. The foundationalists charge the constructivists with both cognitive relativism (the denial of universal truths) and ethical relativism (the denial of universally valid moral principles). They claim that if one denies the existence of transcultural, universal. objective standards of rationality, then what one is maintaining amounts to the view that there is no such thing as rationality; all there are, are rationalities. Eventually, this will lead the constructivist to assert moral relativism as well. One will be led down a slippery slope resulting in the conclusion that any culture's values, any religious tradition, any morality, indeed any set of beliefs, is as good or as rational as anyone elses. However, such relativism is self-defeating. If your view is no better or worse than my view, then all views are of equal merit. Therefore, constructivists can have no justification to support their claim that foundationalism is wrong. Foundationalists' views of rationality as universal and ahistorical are no more rational nor any less rational than constructivists' views of rationalities as local and historical. This is a powerful response to the constructivist critique of foundationalism. Few of us would argue with others if we thought that all views of morality or all views of truth were of equal worth. Yet we do argue. Few of us would be willing to maintain that programs of "ethnic cleansing," which lamentably characterize so much of human political practice, are as rational or moral as programs that aim at getting human beings to live in peace with one another. One way to escape the horns of a dilemma is to make careful distinction. There is a difference between ethnocentrism and ethnocentric imperialism. Perhaps it is impossible to totally escape an ethnocentric viewpoint, but we do not have to impose our views on others by presenting them as if they are the only true views.
Likewise some philosophers distinguish between different kinds of relativism. Not all relativism may be self-defeating, contrary to what some foundationalists believe. We must carefully distinguish between relativism in the strong sense (the claim there are no universally valid standards) and relativism in the weak sense (the claim that standards of rationality and morality are culturally diverse). It seems obvious that standards of rationality and morality are relative to historical and cultural conditions in the sense that they are related to such conditions (weak relativism). Standards of rationality do not float in some timeless, nonhuman space. However, to conclude from this that all standards of rationality are of equal value or are equally true (the sort of self-defeating relativism the foundationalists charge the constructivists with) requires a big leap. It does not follow from the fact that there exist different understandings of rationality and morality that all understandings are of equal value, any more than it follows from the fact that there are different understandings of science that all of them are equally good or useful. However, you might argue that if there are no objective standards of rationality or, at the very least, if we must admit we do not know what they might be, then all we are left with are rationalities bound to historical conditions and local cultural communities, and we have no way of determining which are better. Perhaps you are right. However, I think that we do have some options. We can remain convinced that our community has the last word on the subject and all others are wrong. Or, as we encounter other communities and other cultures, we can listen to them (and they to us) and try to discover ways of settling our disputes together. We can expand our conversations, listen to other voices, and together with them ask, what is real? What is knowledge? What is good? As we listen, as we enter into a dialogue, yes, and even as we argue, our standards of rationality will grow and, although we may still disagree in the end, at least we can say we have understood.