Instrumental vs. epistemic rationality

Instrumental rationality (or practical rationality) is concerned with what to do, while epistemic rationality (or theoretical rationality) is concerned with what to believe.

BibliographyFurther reading

The distinction is commonly used in academic philosophy, from which LW probably took it. On reflection, it may be worth having separate articles on instrumental and epistemic rationality, though I guess the two notions can also be discussed in the same article.

Further readingBibliography

LessWrong (2021) Instrumental vs Epistemic Rationalityepistemic rationality, in 'Rationality', LessWrong Wiki.

My LessWrong link is to the highlighted text, because (as far as I'm aware) it's currently not possible to link to a specific section of a LessWrong tag/entry/concept. This seems a bit weird and messy to me, but still better than the alternatives (don't include that link at all or just link to the page as a whole). 

These terms may basically only be used on the LessWrong community, and may not be prominent or useful enough to warrant an entry here. Not sure.

But Pablo said "I think this [entry] would be useful to have", and I lean towards the same view.

2
Pablo
3y
The distinction is commonly used in academic philosophy, from which LW probably took it. On reflection, it may be worth having separate articles on instrumental and epistemic rationality, though I guess the two notions can also be discussed in the same article.

I think someone should be able to quickly add useful text here by drawing on the LessWrong link I put in Further reading and the relevant section of the Morality vs. related concepts post.

Created by MichaelA at 3y