AHRC-Sponsored Workshop on "Choice and Rationalizability"
Wednesday July 27th, LAK.T206 (Second Floor of the Lakatos Builiding)
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(Building highlighted as LAK)
Under what conditions can an agent's choice behaviour be rationalized, and what count as a "rationalization"? This topic is of great relevance to our understanding and modelling of agents. Indeed, it concerns the very notion of a "rational agent". Given its inherently interdisciplinary character, the topic matters to economists as well as to philosophers, psychologists, and social scientists more generally. The topic is central to classical rational choice theory, where several natural accounts of rationalization have been developed, most of which are based on explaining behaviour as the pursuit (or maximization) of certain stable preferences. But the topic also meets new challenges in the light of developments in behavioural economics and the theory of bounded rationality.
This workshop aims to explore classical and new approaches to rationalization. It brings together some of the most active researchers in the field.
Programme
11:00 – 11:15: Welcome reception
11:15 – 12:30: Walter Bossert, "Coherent Choice and Weakened Notions of Rationality" (based on joint work with K. Suzumura)
Lunch break
13:45 – 15:00: Kotaro Suzumura, "Rationality as Rationalizability and the Concept of Suzumura Consistency" (based on joint work with W. Bossert)
Coffee break
15:15 – 16:30: Nick Baigent, "External Reference and the Level of Description"
Coffee break
16:45 – 18:00: Christian List, "Behaviorism versus Mentalism in Decision Theory" (based on joint work with F. Dietrich)
Short break
18:10 – 19:25: Franz Dietrich, "A Reason-Based Account of Rationalization" (based on joint work with C. List)