adjective
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a logical/rational explanation (=one that is based on facts)
▪ Physics finally gave us a rational explanation for the atom’s strange behaviour.
intelligent/conscious/rational etc being
▪ a story about alien beings who invade Earth
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
as
▪ Conventional histories of penology tend to represent these developments in penal thought and practice as rational, progressive, scientific and humane.
▪ The play is more an act of self-immolation masquerading as rational justification.
▪ Statement E: Racism as rational self interest I think that's absolute nonsense.
▪ The decision was as rational a move as every other move in Jackie's career.
more
▪ It was often more rational for the cattle owner to accept the loss, or to take a different course of action.
▪ It pays lip service to local choices but provides no specific means to make them more rational and efficient.
▪ Now would be the time to put the debate on a more rational and realistic basis.
▪ Elsewhere, the arguments may seem more rational but are equally zealous.
▪ It is more prudent, more rational and more natural to use organic materials - manures.
▪ She had a more rational thought.
▪ But I was thinking that the white man's beliefs are no more rational than the red man's.
▪ In many ways the underworld of heterosexuality seems no more rational than the free-for-all of homosexual life.
most
▪ The words people use are too often interpreted literally to signify little more than their immediate and most rational translation.
▪ The most rational therapy in these conditions is calcium supplementation and vitamin D replacement.
▪ Hardly the moment when a man is at his most rational.
perfectly
▪ He was still perfectly rational if you analysed his thought-processes.
▪ It is perfectly rational for individual banks to want to foreclose early on companies having trouble repaying their loans.
▪ But they are perfectly rational to the people who were interviewed and to their families.
▪ At the time he was perfectly rational - he didn't feel schizoid - he was playing a part.
■ NOUN
agent
▪ Because of this Barro treats as the best prediction that could be made by rational agents of the value of.
▪ What will the rational agent do?
▪ In it we know ourselves to be rational agents detached from spontaneity, judging on objective grounds what will serve our ends.
▪ There is a second condition required for a rational agent to be indifferent between equal forward and expected future spot rates.
▪ Could I in fact have chosen in a manner more worthy of my dignity as a rational agent?
▪ The rational agent is a bargain-hunter.
▪ Human beings are not rational agents.
▪ But how do rational agents put themselves in a position of being able to anticipate changes in the money stock?
analysis
▪ It is important not to read Quinn as calling for the destruction of formal corporate planning or rational analysis.
▪ There is also the fact that in our culture romantic love eludes both rational analysis and individual control.
▪ To depart substantially from them invites question unless it can be demonstrated that such departure conforms to accepted practice by rational analysis.
▪ Indeed, some stakeholders may take action to prevent a rational analysis of their stance or at least any debate over it.
▪ Power relationships affect outcomes, but so does rational analysis.
▪ Of course, once our schemas are shaken, we may well resort, at least inpart, to rational analysis to reformulate them.
▪ Finally, our belief systems are not stored in our minds as a complete rational analysis.
▪ Butin order to arrive at a balanced judgment, a more rational analysis of the factors involved is required.
approach
▪ Survivors of sudden cardiac death: a rational approach to evaluation and therapy of patients surviving ventricular fibrillation.
▪ The third and final key element in a rational approach concerns the time-scale of the budget.
▪ However, despite early adoption there have been considerable doubts as to the effectiveness of such rational approaches.
▪ Despite these criticisms, recent approaches to decision making have sought to pursue the rational approach.
▪ Adhoc arrangements of this nature are far from a rational approach towards planning an appropriate budget.
▪ However, it is difficult to say that it is a rational approach.
▪ Political approaches Because of the criticisms of rational approaches discussed above, political budgetary approaches show a remarkable capacity to persist.
▪ The formula framework promises a rational approach but, in fact, the contrary may be the case.
argument
▪ Its conclusions repeated a long-standing cry: Social vision and a collective determination was added to the rational argument of Barlow.
▪ Logical deals are killed, rational arguments are shouted down, ambitious engineers are demoralized.
▪ Nuclear weapons are so inherently absurd that rational argument about their use is scarcely possible.
▪ I'd never set much store by rational argument where Karen was concerned.
▪ The banning of the ordeal symbolized a triumph for rational argument over the old magical formulas.
▪ He told himself that it was late, the end of a busy day, the worst possible time for rational argument.
▪ Often the interaction between interest groups has consisted largely of assertion not fully supported by objective data or rational argument.
▪ The faithful went on believing despite all rational argument.
basis
▪ Within those areas covered by the rational basis part of the test there would be greater certainty.
▪ Authority is rarely delegated on a rational basis.
▪ A criterion of reasonableness or rational basis is obviously a narrower standard of review.
▪ That commitment can waver or disappear if the arguments of the philosopher or the historian appear to destroy its rational basis.
▪ Business planning also provides a rational basis for measuring performance and helps managers to work as a team.
▪ Not withstanding this, any regulatory policy should have a rational basis.
▪ But it is hardly a rational basis for a business decision.
▪ It would however be misleading to say that the United States courts have always utilised the rational basis test.
being
▪ In turn, this presupposes treating the other as a person, as, at least partly, a rational being.
▪ It is the specification of those basic intrinsic values that all rational beings would desire.
▪ So indeterminism is a necessary condition of the later development of morally important freedom in rational beings.
▪ I am not convinced that the principle of natural selection alone makes the emergence of rational beings probable.
choice
▪ Economics assumes that consumers are perfectly knowledgeable and make rational choices.
▪ Meader found that by any standard, even if one disagrees with their decisions, voters exercised informed judgment and rational choices.
▪ Economically this is still a rational choice.
▪ Politics is a matter of gambles, not a domain of rational choice.
▪ Nor are subjective meanings or rational choices independent of public social rules for doing the right or rational thing.
▪ The project explores the foundations of rational choice theory, probing the limitations of this theory and developing new approaches.
▪ Or, conversely, do alleged causes finally need to make sense in a system of rules and rational choices?
▪ In their portrayal, delinquency is seen as a natural and rational choice for residents of these areas.
decision
▪ What this discussion reveals is the difficulty that the consumer faces in making a rational decision when it comes to sport.
▪ It was a very sensible, rational decision at the time.
▪ The purpose of evaluation is to collect and analyse information that can be used for rational decision making.
▪ Of course, making a rational decision about when to have children is asking a great deal of lovers.
▪ What would a rational decision to live in Bali be like, if this is not one?
▪ If it has been a long hot summer, I become too weak to make rational decisions, to change channels.
▪ They are all angry, they are desolate, but they have made a rational decision not to be bitter.
discussion
▪ But a rational discussion with the young Pardy was not something easily achieved.
▪ These are ideas that replicate because of psychological needs, not because of rational discussions.
▪ A more rational discussion could do much to change public opinion.
expectations
▪ It was this criticism of the adaptive expectations hypothesis that led to the development of the rational expectations hypothesis.
▪ The aggregate supply curve slope can be explained along rational expectations lines due to misperceptions of prices.
▪ The restrictions generated by rational expectations models are very often non-linear and are also imposed across equations rather than in a single equation.
▪ Possession of such direct observations on expectations would allow us to test the validity of the rational expectations hypothesis in two ways.
▪ This is where the theory of rational expectations emerges once again.
▪ The market efficiency hypothesis states that the market behaves as if traders possessed rational expectations.
▪ Therefore the rational expectations hypothesis suggests a valid method of incorporating additional information when estimating macroeconomic models which contain expectation terms.
explanation
▪ Only now have scientists begun to offer rational explanations for this phenomenon.
▪ Through their various plights, the drama questions a world where feminine ideals regularly defy rational explanation.
▪ This is the mystery of sin which has no rational explanation, for it is ultimately and radically inexplicable.
▪ Either way, there has to be some rational explanation of Clinton's conduct.
▪ There was a rational explanation for all this and, when Carol arrived, he'd discover what it was.
▪ I told myself that there must be some simple, rational explanation, something Illingworth had overlooked.
▪ In any case, Amiss's mind was racing, grappling with a situation devoid of any rational explanation.
▪ Some constructs may reflect pre-verbal bases of organization which can not be accounted for by rational explanation.
man
▪ All such considerations pointed rational men to peace.
▪ Culture was where rational men were free to think and to act and to play public roles.
▪ It is now time to call attention to an incongruity in the conception of the rational man from which this chapter started.
▪ He was a rational man and a police officer, but No. 22 seemed obstinately to be producing its own evidence.
mind
▪ Taking care to avoid certain members of his household ... So the rational mind lays its rational plans.
▪ They need to provide the factual knowledge and the reasoning skills that a rational mind requires.
▪ She has a very logical, rational mind when it comes to a problem.
model
▪ Planning and the rational model fell into disrepute in the mid to late 1970s for a number of reasons.
▪ As we indicated above, the rational model may generate untried solutions.
▪ As we saw above, there are limitations with the rational model as a method of solving problems.
▪ Second, political objectives can not be as clearly specified as the scientific or rational model seems to demand.
▪ The practical critics of scientific management Point to the impossibility of meeting the strict demands of the rational model of decision-making.
▪ Even the apparently rational model of planning on page 42 is, nevertheless, subject to political pressures.
person
▪ Exactly how a rational person will solve it we shall show later on.
▪ Nevertheless, this holiday buying season still offers more new classical titles than any rational person could wish for.
▪ With every actor reasoning in the same way, however, no narrowly rational person will participate.
▪ Nor had she wanted stepmother status any more than any rational person might.
▪ The mental stance the rational person seeks to organize in this way includes both beliefs and attitudes.
▪ Is there a way to restructure the traditional feminine economy so that an economically rational person could choose the caretaking roles?
▪ The rational person cares about truth and is disposed to seek it.
▪ What is needed to counter it is the simple reflection that there are some things that every rational person desires and values.
planning
▪ Doubts about the importance of formal rational planning in organizations grew during the 1970s and 1980s.
▪ A moderate reform of capitalism could, it was argued, be effected through a rational planning programme.
▪ Any system of rational planning must take account of, and answer, two questions.
response
▪ If so, the only rational response is plain disbelief.
▪ One fragment of her mind reeled in shock but a rational response formed even as the connection spun its thread: Of course.
thought
▪ One of the strands of that concept is that even rational thought may not be just what it seems on the surface.
▪ Many people insist that most of their political knowledge is based on their own rational thought processes.
▪ We are capable of rational thought and of bringing change.
▪ Even rational thought will not necessarily enable people to agree on political facts.
▪ Purism was an exercise in reason and even the Dadaists arrived at their apparent absurdities by a process of rational thought.
▪ She had a more rational thought.
▪ What the ventriloquist's voice and the puppeteer's hands are to the puppet, presuppositions are to rational thought.
▪ An individual can rely on her own rational thought as a means for deciding that something is correct.
way
▪ We will seek fairer and more rational ways of determining public sector pay within clearly defined budget limits.
▪ Rational thought was the product of rational ways of organizing industry.
▪ Have we ever figured out a rational way to explain and triage which drugs should be banned for which reasons?
▪ By that age there is no rational way to disentangle what has been inherited from what has been learned.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ rational behavior
▪ Education helps us to make rational decisions.
▪ How can a rational man be taken in by these arguments?
▪ Let's try and discuss this like two rational human beings.
▪ Many of the patients have long histories of drug abuse, and they're not always rational.
▪ No rational person would have agreed to those terms.
▪ People's behaviour isn't always purely rational.
▪ Taking action to defend yourself is a completely rational reaction if you're being attacked.
▪ There appears to be no rational motive for the attack.
▪ There is no rational explanation for Melanie Hawkin's disappearance.
▪ There must be some rational explanation for this apparently bizarre phenomenon.
▪ We're looking for someone with a rational approach to dealing with problems.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Consequently rational members of organizations are more likely to stay loyal and inactive than to be vocal participants.
▪ Exactly how a rational person will solve it we shall show later on.
▪ From a rational choice perspective, you would be rather foolish to vote in a presidential election.
▪ It should be seen as seven functional stages of the budgetary process which take place in a political or rational context.
▪ Should they, then, be branded as spurious designators and banished from rational discourse?
▪ Such beliefs serve to explain the system to its members: they make social inequality appear rational and reasonable.
▪ The talk was lively and, compared to Morrison's drivel, refreshingly rational.