Beyond Rationality: The Search for Wisdom in a Troubled Time

Kenneth R. Hammond

01/2007 · Oxford University Press

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With Beyond Rationality, Kenneth R. Hammond, one of the most respected and experienced experts in judgment and decision-making, sums up his life's work and persuasively argues that decisions should be based on balance and pragmatism rather than rigid ideologies. Hammond has long focused on the dichotomy between theories of correspondence, whereby arguments correspond with reality, and coherence, whereby arguments strive to be internally consistent. He has persistently proposed a middle approach that draws from both of these modes of thought and so avoids the blunders of either extreme. In this volume, Hammond shows how particular ways of thinking that are common in the political process have led to the mistaken judgments that created our current political crisis. He illustrates this argument by analyzing penetrating case studies emphasizing the political consequences that arise when decision makers consciously or unconsciously ignore their adversaries' particular mode of thought. These analyses range from why Kennedy and Khruschev misunderstood each other to why Colin Powell erred in his judgments over the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. For anyone concerned about the current state of politics in the U.S. and where it will lead us, Beyond Rationality is required reading.

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Kenneth R. Hammond is Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Former Director of the Center for Research on Judgment and Policy at the University of Colorado, Boulder. A past president of the Society for Judgment and Decision-Making, he is the author of Judgments Under Stress (OUP, 1999), Human Judgment and Social Policy (OUP, 1996) and editor of The Essential Brunswik (OUP, 2001).