Phronetics and Rational Conduct

According to one contemporary popular image, a 'rational' person is someone who is cold, calculating, and controlling. A main part of this image has its roots in Hume's conception of 'Rationality'. For him, 'Reason' is distinct from the 'Passions', and serves them in a calculative capacity, i. e. to help determine the best means to the ends that they desire. But, in this model, only a Passion has motive power, to which Reason is subservient, so the notion of Reason as controlling cannot come from it. Rather, the latter is probably derived from the Kantian-Hegelian-Marxian conception of 'Reason' as the power of Totalization, which is often difficult to distinguish from Totalitarianist tendencies . One significant defense of Reason comes from someone hardly known as a Rationalist, namely Nietzsche, who characterizes it as a harmony of the Passions, not as an adversarial force. Here is perhaps a descendent of Aristotle's Theory of Moderation, except that in the latter, Reason is an independent external power, whereas for Nietzsche the harmonization is immanent. In Formaterialism, Reason is another name for the Formal Principle, so, in the Individual, it is another name for Propriation. It is thus essential to Individual Evolvement, as much so as is the Material Principle, Exposition, so it is neither the exclusive nor the predominant component in the Conduct that Evolvemental Phronetics promotes.