Philosophical Aspects of Incommensurability and Incomparability

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Rauschmayer, Felix^;

Affiliations: Institute of Philosophy, University of Leipzig, Burgstr. 21, 04109 Leipzig, Germany. E-mail: rauschma@rz.uni-leipzig.de

Note: [] This article is based on a paper presented at the 52nd meeting of the European working group “Multicriteria Aid for Decisions”, 5th to 7th October 2000 in Vilnius, Lithuania.

Abstract: Ex ante decision analysis has other problems than ex post analysis. One of the problems is the nature of the value system of the deciding person. Mostly, it will contain different values (criteria, points of view) which are not reducible to one measure. These cases of incommensurability are one reason for the incomparability of the decision options. There are other reasons why it seems highly unrealistic that we may assume the comparability of options as a general case for a rational decision maker.

Keywords: multi criteria decision analysis, philosophy, incomparability, incommensurability, rationality

DOI: 10.3233/INF-2001-12108

Journal: Informatica, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 119-132, 2001