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4 Philosophical Reflections on Rationality Joseph Nyasani In this exposition, I shall not attempt to define rationality because rationality is logically impossible to define as a concept, being unique and absolutely without any generic presuppositions. Indeed, the uniqueness of rationality is so overwhelming that it confirms and re-confirms itself as such vis-à-vis indolent physical nature, which does not even offer any meaningful clue or explanation as to the nature and purpose of rationality itself. Remotely and in a very descriptive manner, we can affirm that rationality roughly manifests itself as a positive state of possessing the capacity to engage in active thought or to observe the principles of logical procedures or simply the capacity to exercise reason rigorously, ordinately and abundantly in a deliberately and consciously enacted situation. What this in essence means, is that rationality is fundamentally the determinant of the status, quality, nature and justification for every unfolding human act. Indeed, rationality seems invariably to act as a sufficient condition for triggering and unleashing the operation of human reason in a manner to suggest that, without rationality as the vital fundamental substratum, reason would neither indulge in reflective thought nor produce the effects rightly ascribed to it. In a broadly extended sense, reason effectuates and completes the designs or, rather, projects of rationality always in a manifest and complementary fashion. It is through the reasoning process that humans can truly claim a share in the extraordinary faculty of intelligence in the animal kingdom and therewith to behave differently both in acts of innovativeness and those of ordinary, mundane and assertive action. Rationality is perhaps the only human natural asset that is equally, proportionally and uniformly given to all human beings, irrespective of their natural environment, colour or persuasion. Thus rationality is never given in piecemeal or on preferential basis as far as the human species is concerned. It is therefore the mere exercise of rationality, its maximisation, application, manipulation and exploitation that create a semblance of inequalities. However, this is only a consequence or an effect of the 46 La rationalité, une ou plurielle? exercise of rationality on the phenomenological order rather than a measure of the quantitative or qualitative endowment of this unique gift. Thus human beings are not different because they are disproportionately endowed with rationality but because they have chosen to exploit and manipulate that same rationality differently, peculiarly and disparately. And yet it would be true to support the view that the effects of rationality exploited in some peculiar way, sometimes to the limits of intellectual capacity and natural curiosity, do indeed yield peculiar and differentiated results on the scales of human culture and civilisation. Sometimes the rigorous exercise of rationality coupled with an earnest desire to search for new and viable possibilities to obviate and circumvent nature’s defiant physical limitations, has led to the invention of such practical contraptions as those that underpin the development of some societies in some peculiar way and which marks them off from others. Where a strong emotional, psychological and nationalistic euphoria attaches to the product or products of this deliberate rigorous and consciously mental application, something of a cultural exuberance or enthusiasm develops and tends to overwhelm and, indeed, to obfuscate the very purpose and designs of exploiting rationality. It is not necessary here to invoke all those grim and perverse instances of cultural exuberance and irresponsible racist supremacy creeds and crude posturing with which history is replete. Indeed sometimes the race supremacy syndrome may very substantially be rooted in this uncontrolled cultural exuberance, over-enthusiasm or despicable romantic effervescence that has characterised modern societies to the total bewilderment of those other societies still toiling away in excogitating possibilities of exploiting their rationality potential to the maximum and optimum. Rationality can, in some instances, be misdirected and possibly abused, especially where it is optimally exploited to promote causes that are intrinsically obnoxious or morally reprehensible or openly anti-social. It is an open secret that human beings in their historical evolution have occasionally resorted to some rigorous incidents of employing their rationally potential to pre-empt and indeed to paralyse possibilities of embarking on similar endeavours from those considered to be potential rivals. I do not have to elaborate on the lethal weapons of mass destruction stockpiled and awaiting to be unleashed on what is arbitrarily perceived to be a mischievous and implacable enemy, all a product of the over-exploited rationality. Sadly enough, the world is coming to the realization that the production...

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