Essence Of Rationality In Economics And Its Appearances In Different Decision-making Environment

The concept of rationality has been the basic assumption and the indispensable premise of economic theory. Theoreticians take it as the axiomatic start of their reasoning. But, in economic theory, what on earth dose this concept mean? Along with the development of economics, has the connotation of this concept changed, and what it is then? Do all these changes disagree with each other, or that they come down to a core that remains unchanged? These are the questions that this paper tried to answer.Part I is the introduction, which emphasized the importance of rationality in economic theory and explained the structure of this paper. After that, the author brought forward three other parts to discuss the essence of rationality in economics and its appearances in different decision-making environment systematically:Part II reviewed the development process of rationality and summarized the current meanings of rationality in modern economics. Long before the concept of rationality was brought forward, the core of neo-classical rationality—"self-interest"and"principle of maximization"—has already spread widely. The thought of"self-interest"has been discussed thoroughly in Adam Smith's master piece-- An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. And the"principle of maximization"was introduced to economics by the marginal revolution theoreticians with the help of marginal analysis method. There are different definitions of the concept rationality in modern economics, such as"instrumental rationality", rationality as"internal consistency", rationality in the"revealed preference theory"and"bounded...