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If persuasion of these various kinds is established in ways in which beliefs are changed and concepts undergo shifts, what room is there for rationality in such processes? Are we doomed to doubt the rationality of both research subject and their researchers? We have, it should be acknowledged, held fast to the concept of truth, but has this been done at the price of giving up on rationality? There are paradigms of rationality which are more or less dominant in different cultures. In ours, deductive reasoning holds particular sway. However, it is by no means the only way of thinking about rationality. Hollis (in Hollis and Lukes 1982), for example, argued that something like basic logical presuppositions would need to hold in all cultures in order for them to be intelligible at all. Such a position rests, in turn, upon a conceptual scheme in which particulars and persons are categorial primitives (Strawson 1961).

But we also know that logical contradictions can be tolerated, not just in ‘primitive’ societies but also in our own (Evans-Pritchard 1936). Does this undermine the claim that there is an underlying logic to all societies? Not necessarily. That contradictions may be tolerated in certain contexts does not entail that ignoring them has no consequences. They tend to exist in those circumstances in which the benefits of tolerating them outweigh those of dispensing with them, for practical reasons such as the maintenance of the stability of a way of life. One could say that although humanity has a common constitutive rationality, various forms of practical rationality (to do with the determination of ends and means to those ends) may suspend the formalised canons of constitutive rationality in some circumstances. If such contradictions are exposed, it is the researcher’s task to first investigate whether they really are contradictions and, if they are, to enquire why and to what extent they are tolerated and, perhaps, to seek analogues in their own belief system.

We may also wish to note the role of authority and authoritative argument in determining reasons. It is possible therefore to distinguish between the constitutive rationality appealed to by writers such as Hollis,²⁰ the theoretical rationality associated with formal systems, the practical rationality associated with the determination of ends and appropriate means to achieve those ends and critical rationality or the stance towards authoritative determination and the scope of the use of arguments from authority adopted in different cultures and different contexts.

More needs to be said about critical rationality in this context. Arguments from authority presuppose that the premise citing the authority be not disputed.²¹ Argument and justification from authority are indispensable for any intellectual division of labour. However, the prestige and scope of arguments from authority may well differ from epoch to epoch and from culture to culture. We may, therefore, possibly distinguish between cultures and societies in terms of their stance towards arguments and justifications from authority and thus to critical rationality.

Thus Evans-Pritchard (1936), in his discussion of the Zande poison oracle, although noting the care the Zande took to ensure that the poison substance (benge) was not tampered with, were not inclined to dispute the pronouncements of the oracle, even when they were not apparently borne out by events. Zande tended to attribute such an outcome, not to a mistake on the part of the oracle, but as maladministration on the part of those consulting the oracle. Evans-Pritchard’s interpretation of the oracle practice involved seeing it as a form of primitive and ineffective scientific enquiry and thus, by the standards of modern academic scientific method, lacking in rigour and effectiveness.

There are two possible (and complementary) responses to this. The first is to point out that Evans-Pritchard may have been drawing the wrong analogy and would have been better drawing an affinity between Zande oracular practices and religious practices such as prayer for intercession to be found in our own society. Then consulting an oracle might not seem so outlandish to an educated European. The second point is that there is a gap between our idealised view of scientific practice and what actually happens within science practices. Kuhn (1962), Lakatos (1970) and others have drawn attention to scientists’ ability to tolerate inconsistencies and even contradictions for practical purposes²² and for everyday scientific practice to depend heavily on the authority of a research paradigm and the principal personal representatives of that paradigm as being decisive in determining whether to accept or reject the result of an empirical enquiry.²³ We should not therefore deceive ourselves as to our readiness to be critically rational and sceptical of arguments from authority on all occasions, even in those practices where critical rationality is apparently at a premium, while at the same time being prepared to be robust in maintaining critical rationality in our own practices. We are susceptible to the toleration of contradictions and dubious authorities just as other people are.

A good example of where debates about such issues can lead to widespread confusion relates to the role of literacy in our understanding of rationality. There is a long tradition dating at least from the work of Lévy-Bruhl (1910) which suggests that one of the marks of a ‘primitive mind’ is exclusively oral culture in which constitutive rationality, let alone critical rationality, cannot properly exist. Such a case has been argued for in a less extreme manner by for example Goody and Watt (1963), Olson (1977) and even Stubbs (1980). It has been disputed by Labov (1969), Finnegan (1973) and Winch, C. (1983, 1990). Debates about the enabling nature of literacy show us how intimately related are conceptual and empirical enquiries within the broad field of educational research. Without some clarification of what is meant by ‘rationality’, ‘argument’, ‘symbol’, ‘context’ ‘surveyability’ and ‘genre’ just to take some important terms, it is difficult to make much progress in understanding the terms of an investigation into the enabling powers of literacy, let alone conduct empirical investigations into these enabling powers.