rational sensible

Hi everyone!

I'd like to know what's the difference between rational & sensible

Can I say "to act with my mind" and "to act with reasons"?

Thank you very much!

Rational, reasonable, sensible, and logical (to throw a few more words in there) can be thought of as synonymous in many situations.

Could you rewrite your question? I'm not certain that I understand it.

Rational means to follow some sort of logic in coming to a sound conclusion.
Sensible simply means to not act in a way regarded as 'silly'.

In most cases they can be used in the same way, but there are cases where they are different.



For example, let's say that "Buy our food!" is the name of a supermarket, whose brandname is particularly famous in a certain country. They happen to buy food from a person called Bob, add their logo on the front, and sell the food for more money.

A rational man may say "Well, Bob's food is cheaper than buying the food from "Buy our food!", and it is just as good, hence it would be rational to buy the food from Bob."


A sensible man may still buy the food from "Buy our food!", even if he knows it is exactly the same as Bob's food. He acts irrationally, but that does not mean he is not sensible. It just means he acts in a refined manner, and does not go round throwing jelly at people, for example. (By the way, I think there was a psychological experiment similar to this, and it was found that most of us would indeed prefer food from "Buy our food!", even if we knew it was the same as Bob's food.) 👁 Smile :)


Or, a rational man may act with his head, but a sensible man may act with his heart - this is another example which can emphasise the difference. There is nothing that is not sensible about acting with one's heart, but it may not be rational.


With regards to your question, I think one would say "To act with my head", or "To act with reason" (no 's'), both of which would mean "To act rationally".

Thank you Wobby! Thank you very much!

Note that "rational" may vary from individual to individual.

In identical situations, I might behave in a way that was "rational" to me but it might be "irrational" to another person.

For instance, if I earned $20,000,000.00 per year I might go out and buy a $500.00 jacket I like in 6 colors just so I might have a suitable color for any color slacks I might have. This might seem perfectly rational. I have the money and closet space to accommodate the jackets.

Another person earning $50,000.00 might carefully consider which color jacket to buy by considering what color slacks he has to wear it with. Buying one of each color might seem irrational to him. It would consume too much of his money and too much of his limited closet space.