Toward a reconstruction of rationality in theory and practice: Two essays on rationality

The thesis comprises two essays in rationality: first, I take the cue from a historical reconstruction of rationality in development planning, and then turn to its intellectual reconstruction in planning theory. In essay one, I am concerned with two interconnected levels of interpretation of rationality; first, its formal-descriptive construct of investment patterns as a model of rational strategic action, and; second, its institutions-historical construct as a concretization of the formative context of Korean development planning. In this analysis, the idea of rationality is organized around two poles of significance, namely the changing modes of planning and of developmental strategy. What emerges from the analysis is a substantiation of the two interlocked processes--the relations between the changing scope of the contents of development policy and their particular forms of organization and planning. In essay two, I take two-level concept of rationality envisioned by Marx and Weber as a central methodological principle, and develop a framework of four-category schema; namely, action and systems on the one, and situation and structure on the other. On this basis, I explore the divergent conceptions of rationality, setting out its problematics--a trend toward dichotomizing in the current of planning thought. My working hypothesis is that it suffers from two major shortcomings--the dichotomy Type-I and/or Type-II error--that I seek to reformulate. I try to argue that such a reconstruction, i.e., the elimination of both errors, is a twofold process--(i) the action/system dialectics (ii) the situation/structure heuristics. Then, I turn to a step beyond reconstruction, enter into the intentional actions of the will (iii). My major aim is to set up a necessary link between the two aspects of the human decisionmaking