Rationality Revisited: From Human Growth to Productive Power

Whether more theoretical or practical in their orienration, planning theorists do not seem to be able to avoid the basic philosophical and socio-political debates around rationality. Contemporary theories on communicative planning (e.g. Healey 1996, Sager 1994, Nylund 1995) are based obviously on a critique of instrumental and strategic rationality of synoptic and strategic planning, and they usually rely on some form of the Habermasian concept ofcommunicative rationality, yet they ate clearly interested in developing new forms o f planning practice. Sticking to an outmoded conception of rationality seems to these writets t o prevent the development of new tools for the reflective practitioner.