The possibility of rationality in the gap as a critique of instrumental rationality

Abstract

This study explores the possibility of rationality in the gap as a critical approach that reveals the limits of instrumental rationality. Instrumental rationality, as the dominant model explaining human action through the consistent coordination of beliefs and desires, defines rational behavior by the correspondence between means and ends. However, this approach overlooks the ever-present possibility of "acting otherwise," thereby narrowing the freedom-related dimension of rationality. The tension between determinism and freedom is not merely philosophical but indicates a fundamental problem concerning rational agency. Rationality in the gap is conceptualized as a discontinuous field where action cannot be entirely determined by ends and where both irrationality and deontological obligations intervene. Drawing on Gaston Bachelard's "interval of inaction" (intervalle d'inaction) and John R. Searle's "gap of rational decision," this approach the first systematic attempt to bring together two philosophers from the Continental and analytic traditions around a shared problem. In both thinkers, the "gap" appears as causal discontinuity inaction, uncertainty in decision, and a space of freedom. Within this discontinuity, free choice emerges in the tension between irrationality-arising independently of instrumental reasoning-and deontological obligation-appearing as normative necessity. The main aim of the article is not to present rationality in the gap as an alternative model to instrumental rationality, but rather to initiate a discussion that undermines the conceptual limits of instrumental rationality and allows human action to be rethought beyond these boundaries.