Why isn't meta-rationality… just part of rationality?
If you're rational about everything, doesn't that include the meta-level?
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No, because it's generally not possible to analytically systematize the reasoning about which systems to apply in which circumstances.
Brief discussion of this here, and more in subsequent chapters: metarationality.com/rationalism-de
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Why is “rationality” to be understood as “analytically systematizing”? Why is it equated with “formal rationality”?
(See also the rest of the thread where I touch on a similar point about construing “rationality” too narrowly)
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You're free to construe the term more broadly, of course. If you do, then statements about meta-rationality are claims about distinctions b/w two "classes" of reasoning, both of which you'd put under the "rationality" umbrella: 1. systematic formal methods; 2. fluid sense-making
It's useful to make claims about the distinctness of these classes (whether or not you put both under a "rationality" umbrella) because they involve quite different modes of thought, and many people generally do only one but not the other.
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Thanks, Andy, what you said here was what I was about to say!
There’s a distinction, so we need words for the two things. “Rationality” is commonly used for one of them (although sometimes also more broadly), so for this particular discussion it’s convenient to specify that.
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This tends to be my approach, with the caveat that there's an entire under-explored area of cognitive psychology dealing with what exactly 2. is.