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Rationality and Explanation

Intentional action can be easily characterized. It is the causal outcome of an agent's preferences and beliefs. The agent's preferences and beliefs can be construed collectively as his reasons. This characterization is not very informative. Nothing is said about the causal relation between an agent's reasons and the resulting action. Nor has anything been said about how an action is selected on the basis of reasons. And the origin and status of preferences and beliefs is left entirely open. So to say this is not to say very much. A little more can be said. On a familiar view, an agent's reasons must be his reasons for action. They must also causally produce an action "in the right way." That is, the resulting action must fulfill the conditions of satisfaction specified in the content of the agent's beliefs in an appropriate way. Even here, however, the origin and status of an agent's reasons are left entirely unspecified. In particular, an agent may have irrational preferences and beliefs. For all that has been said, his actions may be intentional but irrational. Jon Elster is mostly concerned with the rationality of preferences, beliefs, and actions in both books under review. Mostly, but not entirely. There is discussion of intentional action and intentional explanation. There is also more. Explaining Technical Change consists of a series of studies, none of which is significantly dependent on any of the others. Its first part contains a taxonomy of scientific explanations. Its second part consists of an outline and running commentary on various theories of technical change. Elster's remark that "it is subordinated to the epistemological purpose of showing how the distinctions and propositions of Part I can be applied to a specific set of empirical problems" (TC, p. 7) should not be taken seriously. Two appendices are included. One concerns the choice between alternative technologies of energy production. The other contains an axiomatization of the development of productive forces within capitalist and communist relations of production. The studies in Sour Grapes are slightly more integrated. They include a substantive