Omar Mahmutović

Marx’s theory of practice is founded on a radical reconceptualization of the relationship between thought and material reality, where practice is not merely a means of changing the world, but the fundamentum in re of cognition itself. In Marx’s epistemological matrix, practice articulates the unity of the subjective and the objective: it is a process in which forms of thought and material relations mutually transform one another. Cognition, within this framework, does not emerge as passive reflection, but as active intervention, wherein the truth of ideas is tested through their effects in real historical conditions.

This paper presents an analysis of Rescher’s conception of the mode of structuring and operation of human rationality, which Rescher approaches from a historical-philosophical, logical, and semantic matrix. The aim of this research is to explore the specific features of Rescher’s analysis of rationality through the lens of the instability of optimality and the calculus of risk, which emerge as essential presuppositions of his research. Rationality, understood in this context, has a threefold manifestation: as a procedural matrix, as a modus operandi, and as potential and materialization. This paper, drawing on Rescher’s original works and other relevant sources from the tradition of pragmatism, will explore his approach to this topic with a focus on what Rescher terms the instability of optimality and the calculus of risk.