Trust as an Irrational Component of Rationality: Role in the Construction of Personal Identity

The problem of substantiating trust as a component of modern scientific rationality is caused by the need to search for regulatory mechanisms, which are relevant to the specifics of modern social development. Scientific rationality, which was constructed within the limits of Kant's “pure mind”, requires adaptation to new conditions. “Rhizome”, “risk”, “nomadism”, “fluidity” and other similar characteristics of the modern society, first of all, have a negative resonance for cultural and personal identities and cause their crisis. The article raises the question of searching for mechanisms of social development that would be able to see not only rationally verified social practices, but also irrational moments of social dynamics. The article proposes to consider trust as one of such mechanisms. The category “trust-based rational type of scientific rationality” is introduced. To explore the role of trust in maintaining personal identity is a current interest. The modern deconstructivist processes in philosophy initiate a rethinking of the style of mind that provoked the past (classical) socio-ontological constructions through scientific instrumental rationality. The constructions were aimed at a stationary social space, were created according to strict logic, and captured the universal, absolute, rationally verified and reduced schemes of life. The metaphysics of such an ontology was set by the imperious arche-limit that conditioned the identification of social artifacts and the identification of the person as well. Today, this view is concretized by sociocultural processes and is actualized in the categories “crisis”, “chaos”, “risk”, “fluidity”, “rhizome”, etc. The ontological instability of the modern world raises the question: Is it possible to trust the world if it is in constant motion and change? The problem of trust is raised, despite the fact that trust is not manifested in a rational way. Trust is a key characteristic of personal identity since it allows a person to live in an unstable and constantly changing world. Trust complements the rational mind with a sensory component, which allows rational thoughts to be empathetic to the world and to understand it. The authors of this article refer to the recognized world authorities P. Ricoeur and J. Habermas to validate this idea. These philosophers write about the complementarity of the rational and sensual levels of attitude to the world, and about attention to the rational and irrational structures of consciousness (understanding, intuition, trust, etc.). However, is it correct to conclude that a rational style of mind admits irrational constructions and motives? It is necessary to argue the complementarity of rational-logical and irrational-understanding structures of mind. The category “emotional intelligence” is emerging in modern philosophical literature. Rational and irrational structures of mind are the referent of this category. Trust is an irrational structure and it complements the universal constructions of mind through the ability of understanding. Mind, which complementarily includes the structures of trust and understanding, is a new type of rationality. It is “trust-based rational type of scientific rationality” or “understanding rationality”. The final part of the article discusses education, which is directly related to the formation of personal identity. Modern education does not pay attention to the formation of trust as the key structure of the worldview. On the contrary, education pays great attention to the formation of such personal competencies as entrepreneurship and the ability to commerce. All this requires careful consideration and humanitarian expert examination.

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