Rationality as a philosophical problem and effective factor of knowledge economy formation

Abstract

The place and role of rationality in the modern knowledge economy (digital economy) functioning, ensuring its proper efficiency and preparing the economy of Ukraine for the creation of the fifth and sixth waves of innovation are investigated in the article. It is proved that rationality is a phenomenon of Western culture, it has a historical character and it is directly related to a specific type of culture, being one of its highest values. Special attention is paid to the analysis of a relationship between rationality and science and to the study how particular type of science influences on the content of rationality and the style of rational thinking. The comprehension of the historical-systemic approach to understand the nature of scientific rationality impact on the effectiveness of economic systems is also in focus of study. The research results showed the extremely complex character of the relations between rationality and efficiency in economic systems of macro- and global levels in the conditions of their functioning on the basis of post-non-classical science. It is illustrated that in such objects, which, as a rule, are open human-mannered systems with nonlinear feedbacks, it is quite problematic to achieve a concordance in time of the optimal level of rational and efficient functioning, and even more in the long run. Hence, it is proved that this fact in no way denies the existence of scientific rationality as a separate type of rationality, which is often described by some philosophers and scientists-representatives of post-non-classical science. Studies have shown that, on the contrary, in the post-nonclassical era, scientific rationality is not lost, but preserved, and it often becomes even more relevant than during the dominant status of classical science, although its content becomes more «vague», veiled. Moreover, an additional opportunity opens up for expanding the boundaries of rationality by taking into account the influence of moral, aesthetic, psychological, theological factors.