What is 'rationality' not?

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Request for Question Clarification by shananigans-ga on 08 Nov 2002 00:22 PST

Rationality is not irrationality? What context do you need the answer in?

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Request for Question Clarification by jackburton-ga on 08 Nov 2002 03:46 PST

do you want a traditional philosophical analysis or more of a personal
soul-searching answer?
....is this for an essay assignment or do want an answer on a deeper
level?

What is 'rationality' not?	

Redjay-ga

Greetings:

The subject of your request is "Philosophy" and the text of it seeks
consideration of the term 'rationality' (as you have specified it).
This answer presents an overview of that subject as formally applied
in the discipline of philosophy. In order to clearly depict what
'rationality' is not, there's a need to first depict what it is.

'Rationality' best equates with the concept of "rationalism" in the
context of modern Western philosophy, modern as in from the later 15th
Century (1400s). Borrowing from the Latin word for "reason", the
philosophical understanding of rationalism is that those things which
can be known by the application of the human mind are rational. By
contrast, those things which cannot be known by the human mind are
irrational. Pure rationalism means the full range of what human
intellect can grasp and conceive in its own right. Pure irrationality
would apply to those conceptions that human intellect could not
possibly know. However, over time and popular misuse, being rational
came to mean the way a person applied thought to a matter while being
irrational was seen as applying no thought at all. Respective positive
and negative connotations attached and remain.

Rationalism has a second, more established hold on modern Western
philosophy. It is the foundation of an early major school of modern
Western philosophical thought. The philosophical school of Rationalism
(also called Continental Rationalism) emerged and developed throughout
the 17th Century (1600s). It embraced the concept of rationalism:
knowledge by the application of human reason itself -- as the
fundamental manner in which human beings acquire knowledge. A human
mind would eventually process all knowledge an individual acquired,
but the key to this particular philosophical approach is the amount of
necessary education for the intellect by external sources.
Rationalists contended that the human mind needed little or no
education to process fundamental knowledge. For example, people
naturally seem to understand that 1+ 1 = 2 without external
demonstration. Rationalism credits this to human reason. The major
thinkers for Rationalism included: Rene Descartes, Benedict Spinoza,
Nicolas de Malebranche, Blaise Pascal, and Gottfried Wilhelm von
Leibniz.

These philosophers advanced Rationalism in response to another major
school of modern Western philosophy existing around the same time. The
competing philosophical approach was Empiricism (also known as British
Empiricism). Empiricists stressed experience and observation,
especially through the senses, as the basic means by which human
beings acquire knowledge. Reason was important, but without external
education from the senses, the human intellect was generally a blank
slate. The core philosophers of Empiricism were: Francis Bacon, Thomas
Hobbes, John Locke, George Berkley, and David Hume.

In the discipline of modern Western philosophy, rationality
conceptually applies to the potential of the human mind to acquire and
process knowledge. Rationalism makes that concept primary in the
acquisition of knowledge. Therefore rationalism is contrasted by both
the irrational, the concept that there is knowledge the human mind
cannot grasp, and Empiricism which subjects reason to be the student
of experience in the human effort to know.

I hope this helps,

Brettquest        


Sources and Links:

PhilosophyPages.com
http://www.philosophypages.com

Philosophical Dictionary: Ramsey-Reification
http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/r.htm#ratm

Philosophical Dictionary: Empedocles-Equivocation
http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/e5.htm#emp

Continental Rationalism [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]
http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/r/rat-cont.htm

British Empiricism [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]
http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/e/emp-brit.htm

The Radical Academy: Adventures In Philosophy
http://radicalacademy.com/adiphildirectory.htm

Modern Philosophy: The Philosophy of Rationalism
http://radicalacademy.com/adiphilrationalism.htm

Modern Philosophy: The Philosophy of Empiricism
http://radicalacademy.com/adiphilempiricism.htm


Search Strategy:

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Google Search: "rationalism" "philosophy"
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While the above definition of 'rationality' is a verbose and mostly
correct explication of the derivatives of 'rationality', a more
concise and fundamental understanding of the term might better answer
the original question. Simply stated rationality is the human ability
to guide his or her own behavior in a manner that that is in his or
her own best interest. 'Irrationality' is the ability to guide
behavior in a manner that is NOT in his or her best interest.
Reason, logic, contemplation are some of the best tools for
determining what is in our own best interest, and are consequently
closely aligned with rationality. Emotions, instinct and religion are
not as good and are often considered at the root of irrational
behavior.