ABSTRACT

The perspective of bounded rationality provides a corrective to idealized conceptions of rationality, which pose notorious explanatory problems for cognitive science. This chapter looks at an influential group of cognitive theories, dual-process theories, and asks if they are compatible with the tenets of bounded rationality. These theories distinguish two different types of mental processing, often seen as forming distinct systems, 1 and 2. A worry for such theories is that they do not abandon the notion of ideal rationality but merely restrict it to System 2, thus failing to resolve the explanatory issues the idealized notion brings with it. This was a serious problem for an influential precursor theory proposed by Jerry Fodor, but this chapter argues that more recent versions of the dual-process approach can escape it. Drawing on a range of work in cognitive science, the chapter shows that System 2 processing is limited in various ways, and that System 1 can engage in flexible contextual processing, rendering System 2 operations much more tractable. It is concluded that dual-process theory need not include a commitment to ideal rationality and that it can, and should, incorporate the insights of the bounded rationality tradition.