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As far as I know, the full quotation from Descartes is: dubito, cogito, ergo sum: I doubt, I think, therefore I am. Although I am not a rationalist myself I believe this should be mentioned as a counterweight for the cool and self-assured reputation (which needs not to be wholly incorrect) of rationalists. Sjoerd de Vries
Philosophers still use rationalism to talk about the tradition begun by Descartes. This is the sense that, for example, Robert Brandom intends when he describes his philosophy as rationaist. ---- Charles Stewart 08:01, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)
MWAK-- 217.123.73.210 13:09, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
It's of course true that the artificial distinction between Rationalists and Empiricists means that describing either group in a summary is going to be extremely difficult, but we have to be careful not to turn the summary into a complex and lengthy disquisition. More importantly, perhaps, Leibniz and Spinoza certainly held that, in principle, all knowledge (and certainly not only "metaphysical knowledge") could be gained through reason alone; they also held that in practice we depend upon other methods, and especially science. Descartes is more complex, and consequently less easy to pin down, and the text of the article needs to bring out that fact. -- Mel Etitis ( Μελ Ετητης) 6 July 2005 08:23 (UTC)
Well, Aristotle is just as much an influence, I'd have said, together with mediaeval and renaissance philosophy. Mention of the main influences would be fine, but more would overbalance it.
Making clearer the differences between the "big three" would be a good thing, as would material on philosophers such as Malebranche, Arnauld, Gassendi, et al. -- Mel Etitis ( Μελ Ετητης) 17:13, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
"Simple" can be good, but "simplistic" involves oversimplification. With regard to the specific points:
I was the one borrowing on Kant, not Descartes. But the principle is the same; as I recall, his line of reasoning from Meditations arrives at just such a realm (after, of course, he arrives at the famous conclusion that he himself is not a fantasy). Plato, incidentally, arrives at his forms in a way quite similar to that of Descartes. As Aristotle (in his later years) responded to Plato, so the empiricists responded to Descartes. Leaving the editors here with the task of making reasonable decisions how (if at all) to represent these matters in a way that's meaningful. You, however, are the one presently doing the work, along with Knucmo2, so I will need to be content to wish you good regards on it for now... Kenosis 22:25, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
I have expanded this article, pinpointing the thought of the three great Rationalists, Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz. Leibniz's section I believe is a little thin on the ground, and the other two may have room for improvement. I have left Kant in there for now, in that I like the section that was wrote on him. -- Knucmo2 12:02, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
It's important not to turn this into an article about three philosophers; it should be about rationalism (in so far as that really existed). Discussion of content should also take place here, not in long comments in the article itself.
First:
Secondly:
Oh, I can't be bothered with the rest. -- Mel Etitis ( Μελ Ετητης) 16:44, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
With regard to a couple of substantive issues:
"Separation and distinction should be taken as synonyms in my point above"! This, together with some almost wilful misreadings of what I've said mean that there's little point continuing with this discussion.
The main point is that whatever is written in the article should be sourced, and involve no original research. Let's make sure that that is the case. -- Mel Etitis ( Μελ Ετητης) 16:36, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
JA: Under the rubric, "Do not ramify subtext beyond necessity", I am moving one editorical comment to the talk page, so that it can be archived for all posteriority. Jon Awbrey 12:27, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
Leibniz developed his theory of monads in response to both Descartes and Spinoza <!-- this is speculation (and not convincing, to be honest), because he found that Spinoza's response to the [[mind-body problem]] did not allow for [[individuation]]-->.
JA: The way I read them, Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza are not just rational thinkers but speculative thinkers, and we need to exercise caution to avoid a type of misunderstanding that often arises in presenting the work of speculative thinkers. A speculative reasoner can present one sort of speculative system on a Monday morning, a very different system on a Tuesday afternoon, and an utterly fantastic system on a Sunday evening. But they can be, and in the case of these three, certainly were, just as acquainted with ordinary reality as anybody has to be in order to get through life, and they do not of necessity contradict themsleves anymore than Walt Whitman did. In the case of Leibniz especially, his speculations about what God knows and when he knows it have to be keep in a separate hamper from his knowledge of what we "fallible and mortal finite information critters" (FAMFIC's) know and how we come to know it. Jon Awbrey 12:48, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
As already mentioned, the less prominent rationalists have no mention in the article as of yet. How are we to go about mentioning their rationalist "credentials" without turning it into a full summary of their works. Somehow, the distinctly "rationalist" parts have to be emphasised. Is Gassendi a rationalist by the way? -- Knucmo2 18:03, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
I vote no. As a user with a PhD in Philosophy, I think that (a) the current Continental Rationalism article provides a sober, satisfactory description of some of the modern rationalist philosophers, but (b) the current Rationalism article veers into what many academic philosophers think of as fringe material involving free thinking and anti-religious humanism. (a) Philosophical rationalism is generally seen as following a distinctly separate path from empiricism, but (b) humanistic "rationalism" is often seen as closely allied with contemporary scientific empiricism. Bottom Line: I don't think that the prospects are good for merging these 2 articles. I'd suggest instead that the current Rationalism article be left as is and that Continental Rationalism be expanded into something like Rationalism in Academic Philosophy, so that the thought of classical and medieval philosophical rationalists like Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas can be included, as well as 20th century philosophical rationalists like Brand Blanshard or Henry Veatch. -- WikiPedant 03:18, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
JA: People are not following the proper protocols for page moves. When they do, I will vote that the best name for the philosophical position commonly associated with Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza, et al. in Enlightenment Days and let us say Chomsky in recent times is just plain vanilla Rationalism. And please, I don't want to return here in the Fall and find an article entitled Just Plain Vanilla Rationalism. Jon Awbrey 21:18, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
I've removed the redirect from rationalism to here, and placed the current content from this article in that one. Judging by the discussion above, this article may be merged anyway, and I have no judgment or strong opinion about such a move. But a redirect from "rationalism" to "continental rationalism" makes little sense. If there's any strong disagreement about that, by all means revert. ... Kenosis 23:47, 14 July 2006 (UTC) ... I also added stub sections for Plato et al and the neo-Platonists, with no judgment about how exactly that should all be sectioned in the end. ... Kenosis 23:49, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
JA: We are in the middle of considering a move from continental rationalsim to rationalism. The way this usually goes, Nightstallion or somebody will check out the vote after few days and do the move or not accordingly. I do however continue to stress that continental rationalism is a misnomer given the geography and history of the "position" that standardly goes by the name rationalism, as anybody can check in the literature if they believe in that sort of fact-checking nonsense. Jon Awbrey 02:56, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm not ready to vote on this (in part because it seems that someone didn't quite follow etiquette here -- the rationalism page has already been turned into a redirect; that should have waited, moi), but it seems to me we need to consider whether we really need this change. Note: I'm a philosopher, and, myself, say "rationalism" to refer to the thought of Descartes, Leibniz, and (generally) Spinoza. But now that Wikipedia is becoming international, we need to keep in mind the broader perspectives of people from Asia, South America, etc. It might be seen -- somewhat goofily or not -- that three European dudes shouldn't be able to "own" as important a word as rationalism.
Basically, what do we lose by keeping this article at Continental rationalism, and opening the article like so:
"Continental rationalism (generally referred to simply as "rationalism" by scholars of European philosophy) is an approach to philosophy ..."
?
Not trying to be difficult; I've just been starting to appreciate how much many users around the world are frustrated by the Western focus of the English Wikipedia (which has become the de facto international Wikipedia). And, again: what do we lose by saying "Continental rationalism"? Note, also, the use of the term 'Continental rationalism' is not at all "rare" in the U.S. and Canada. -- Cultural Freedom talk 2006-07-13 07:07 (UTC)
JA: The term "Continental" is inaccurate and misleading as rationalism is a logical element of many philosophies that are found on many other continents both before and after the fluorescing of the Big Three Enlighteners of undergraduate philosophy courses. The basic tenet is the pertinence of rational concepts, or concepts of the reason, and it is thus a minimal form of opposition to nominalism. This is the reason for its being taken up in the late great cognitive revolution by Chomsky and others as a counterpoint to the nominal replacement for psychology proper that was represented by behaviorism. Making sense of its influence through history is nearly impossible under the onus of the label "Continental". Jon Awbrey 14:02, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
The adjective "Continental" should be dropped from the name of this article. Rationalism is one of the most established currents in philosophy, ranging from the Ancient Greeks (not usually considered "continentals" in philosophy) to contemporary North American philosophers. I believe there was a rationalist school in classical Hindu philosophy, but have no expertise in this. There were certainly rationalists among the major medieval Islamic philosophers (largely under the influence of Aristotle). The modern continental rationalists (Descartes through Kant) as well as all of the other schools and time periods can be suitably covered in subsections of a single article on rationalism. It is simply unacceptable for an encyclopedia of any consequence to fail to have a primary article on philosophical rationalism. WikiPedant 17:13, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
JA: Similar problems affect the philosophical use of the term Pragmatism, which has come to have many meanings among both literate and illiterate philosophers in addition to the ordinary variety of popular and non-technical uses. Rather than lend diplomatic recognition to every new "movement" that comes down the pike, it was thought preferable there to create a catch-all article Pragmatism (non-technical). You might find this a better idea in this situation, too. Jon Awbrey 17:40, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
JA: Probably best to discuss all that at Talk:Pragmatism (non-technical usage). But I can fill you in on the features of its peculiar history — not all of which I know about — that are pertinent to the situation here. The page was once a lot larger but had a lot of content deleted by one editor back in April that nobody else has gotten around to giving a second look, and it just got rewritten by the addition of some new material that is still in flux, and so it does look a little "dabby". But it was not intended as a dab page so much as place to treat the everyday meanings of the word pragmatism. Most likely the name would eventually be shortened to something less awkward sounding. Jon Awbrey 21:30, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
Let's stay on-topic here, folks. Banno 21:50, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
JA: Rationalism is not a school, it's an aspect of almost any, er, rational philosophy. Some philosophers emphasize this aspect more than others, and depending on arbitrary thresholds in the eye of the observer they get classified as "rationalists". As I have already pointed out, the fact that things like grammatical categories — say, NP, VP, etc. — are rational concepts, that is to say, concepts that extend beyond the finite empirical data given, is an important feature of "modern" cognitive science since the mid 1950's. For another example, even though Peirce is known for roundly criticizing significant features of Cartesian philosophy, he concurs with Descartes on the importance of rational concepts in this sense, and this is in fact one of the things that separates Peirce's original version of pragmatism from the radically naive empiricisms that James and the early but not the late Dewey sometimes drifted off into. Jon Awbrey 03:22, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
JA: As for the term "modern rationalism", this is a non-notable neologism that is not recognized in philosophy. The fact that anybody with a radio talk show these days can declare a new "movement" in pop philosophy, and most of them already have, witness truthiness, does not make that movement notable in reputable philosophical circles. Jon Awbrey 03:30, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
JA: Let's see if we can find some common definitions. How about the informal definition of rational concept that I gave above? Do we share an understanding of the difference between rational concepts and empirical concepts? For example, the rational concept of a Sentence is something that covers an infinite number of instances, whereas my empirical concept of a Sentence covers exactly the finite number of sentences that I have seen in my finite experience up to this point in time. Jon Awbrey 03:58, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
JA: Okay. Then let's see if we agree about the uses and abuses of ideal types, analytic ideals, what are more humbly known as textbook caricatures. For example, I am mostly concerned with scientific inquiry, and I find that all scientific inquirers, in actu, are mixed cases of empiricists and rationalists, no matter how the textbooks classify them, and no matter even how they might have depicted themselves, in armchairum. Do you observe this too? Jon Awbrey 04:16, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
JA: I'll take that as a yes, if only because it's late here, and I want to rush on by the nuances of a priori that might still force us to backtrack later.
JA: Now, scientific inquiry is really just a disciplined form of common sense, in a reflective and self-critical sense of common sense. And so common sense, which nobody gets through their day without, is a mixture of empirical and rational ingredients. That is, to come toward the middle from the rationalist side, even people who easily fess up to using rational concepts will also admit to using classes of rational concepts that they find themselves, willy nilly, testing against experience for the sake of judging their utility. Maybe some concepts are excluded from that testing, but hardly all of them are. Are we still on the same page about all this? Jon Awbrey 05:00, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
JA: In the realm of lingusitics we have the rational concepts of a Language, a Sentence, a Noun Phrase, a Verb Phrase, and so on.
JA: One of the things that we expect of rational concepts is that they will have definitions that can be reasoned from in a purely a priori deductive manner, without any necessary reference to any realm of experience outside the experience of reasoning with the elements that are admitted into a suitably well-defined domain. And there is no doubt that we have something approaching a pure rational system in the example of formal language theory. Historically speaking, of couse, we never would've thought of such things if it had not been for our natural interest in natural languages, but once the realm of formal abstractions is formed it tends to rule itself by its own rules, as if it were autonomous and independent of experience.
JA: But I think that even Cartesian linguists like Chomsky consider themselves to be engaged in an empirical science of linguistics, and so they must bring the purely rational concepts and rubbery definitions of Language, Sentence, Part of Speech and so on to meet the road of actual parts of speech, real live sentences, and natural languages. And they will judge rational concepts of all of these things as being more or less useful for explaining the properties of their putative empirical instances.
JA: Something like that is what I think I had in mind when I wrote that hazy stuff late last night. Jon Awbrey 19:25, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
JA: I don't know what a person whom you call a rationalist would say say about language, since I don't know whether we are using that word the same way. So maybe it's time to go back and see if we've made any headway with the initial question.
JA: I started out with the following statement:
JA: Rationalism is not a school, it's an aspect of almost any rational philosophy. Some philosophers emphasize this aspect more than others, and depending on arbitrary thresholds in the eye of the observer they get classified as "rationalists".
JA: And you expressed puzzlement with this in the following words:
What are you trying to say? I, too, would not call rationalism a school, but is not an aspect of almost any philosophy. Empiricists may be rational, but not rationalistic. Some schools of rationalism and empiricism may share concepts, but they differ foundationally. Srnec 03:46, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
JA: So we agree that rationalism is not a school, but just what sort of thing it is we have yet to decide. Just off the top of my head I called it an aspect of any philosophy that employs reason. This is probably because I consider the bare use of rational concepts to be the birth of rationalism. But we are many things at birth that we are not yet conscious of being, so maybe I should wait until a thinker is conscious of using rational concepts before I call him or her a rationalist. What do you think?
JA: Or maybe we should reserve the term rationalist for the thinker who is not merely a user of rational concepts but who asserts and truly believes that he or she has no need of anything else but rational concepts — well, they usually say in principle here. How about that? Jon Awbrey 21:04, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
JA: That nothing is known solely via experience I take to be a no-brainer, but that's just me. But are you saying that your definition of an empiricist is someone who thinks that some things are known solely empirically? Is there really any such critter? I mean someone who actually thinks that, not just someone who says they think that. Jon Awbrey 21:38, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
JA: It's common to observe that there's quite a bit of wiggle room in that concept of "based on experience", and there are at least three different ways of reading a priori, somewhat analogous to the three nuances of the Greek archein, which can mean (1) to begin (2) to lead (3) to rule. But a couple of Golden Buddha Margaritas at our Chinese restaurant have left me in an East-West krater too deep to see the rim, so I'll have to leave this until the dawn. Jon Awbrey 03:18, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
GF: In the description of René Descartes' rationalism, isn't the sentence "Descartes thought that only knowledge of eternal truths [...] could be attained by reason alone; other knowledge required experience of the world, aided by the scientific method." contradicted by the first sentence in the second paragraph: "Descartes therefore argued, as a result of his method, that reason alone determined knowledge, and that this could be done independently of the senses."
There are two distinct forms of rationalism; the first is a philosophical school deriving from Descartes, opposed to empiricism, and dealt with in the present article. The other relates to humanist ideas of the 19th century, and is closely allied with secularism and scepticism, and is dealt with at Rationalist movement. (Incidentally, that page needs work).
My preference is to have the present article moved to rationalism, and disambiguation links to the other pages; this reflects the more common usage.
Septentrionalis, would this be an acceptable compromise? Kenosis, I'm afraid I disagree with your reason given above. i think that the two forms of rationalism are sufficiently distinct that it would be misleading to include mention of Descartes and co. in the Rationalist movement article. I hope you will agree to not including it.
Failing that, perhaps Jon, Wikipedant, and Srnec would accept moving the disambiguation page to rationalism and leaving this material here. Although not my preferred option, I would be willing to accept this.
Let's work towards a compromise, before the talk page becomes a quagmire. Banno 23:28, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
It should be pointed out that, should this page be moved, there would be a considerable workload involved in disambiguation and re-directing links to this article. Banno 23:38, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
JA: In the sources that I have found so far continental rationalism is a subtopic under rationalism. It usually noted that (1) that the label continental rationalism was concocted much later and (2) few of the writers so labelled would have considered thenselves members of a single "school", especially one that amounted to an "ism" of such extreme beliefs. Jon Awbrey 15:42, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
JA: There is compromise and then there is compromising the integrity of articles. I have documented what rationalism normally means in philosophy. All of the standard reference works that I have looked at so far say roughly the same things. Continental rationalism is a label that some use for a period in the history of rationalism, and others object to as a misleading concoction of textbook writers from a later age, so there's not much use having a separate article for it, as main articles on the main lights already exist. I just don't find reputable sources referring to anything called the Rationalist Movement, so that is at present a non-notable concoction. We can always do what we had to do with Pragmatism, and document the non-technical uses in a separate article, or maybe just a paragraph about "general use" somewhere. Jon Awbrey 20:10, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
JA: What are you saying? Four people, including yourself, have already voted to rename this article to Rationalism. Jon Awbrey 20:44, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
JA: I am writing the article on Rationalism. The title Rationalism redirects to here. Jon Awbrey 20:48, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 |
As far as I know, the full quotation from Descartes is: dubito, cogito, ergo sum: I doubt, I think, therefore I am. Although I am not a rationalist myself I believe this should be mentioned as a counterweight for the cool and self-assured reputation (which needs not to be wholly incorrect) of rationalists. Sjoerd de Vries
Philosophers still use rationalism to talk about the tradition begun by Descartes. This is the sense that, for example, Robert Brandom intends when he describes his philosophy as rationaist. ---- Charles Stewart 08:01, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)
MWAK-- 217.123.73.210 13:09, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
It's of course true that the artificial distinction between Rationalists and Empiricists means that describing either group in a summary is going to be extremely difficult, but we have to be careful not to turn the summary into a complex and lengthy disquisition. More importantly, perhaps, Leibniz and Spinoza certainly held that, in principle, all knowledge (and certainly not only "metaphysical knowledge") could be gained through reason alone; they also held that in practice we depend upon other methods, and especially science. Descartes is more complex, and consequently less easy to pin down, and the text of the article needs to bring out that fact. -- Mel Etitis ( Μελ Ετητης) 6 July 2005 08:23 (UTC)
Well, Aristotle is just as much an influence, I'd have said, together with mediaeval and renaissance philosophy. Mention of the main influences would be fine, but more would overbalance it.
Making clearer the differences between the "big three" would be a good thing, as would material on philosophers such as Malebranche, Arnauld, Gassendi, et al. -- Mel Etitis ( Μελ Ετητης) 17:13, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
"Simple" can be good, but "simplistic" involves oversimplification. With regard to the specific points:
I was the one borrowing on Kant, not Descartes. But the principle is the same; as I recall, his line of reasoning from Meditations arrives at just such a realm (after, of course, he arrives at the famous conclusion that he himself is not a fantasy). Plato, incidentally, arrives at his forms in a way quite similar to that of Descartes. As Aristotle (in his later years) responded to Plato, so the empiricists responded to Descartes. Leaving the editors here with the task of making reasonable decisions how (if at all) to represent these matters in a way that's meaningful. You, however, are the one presently doing the work, along with Knucmo2, so I will need to be content to wish you good regards on it for now... Kenosis 22:25, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
I have expanded this article, pinpointing the thought of the three great Rationalists, Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz. Leibniz's section I believe is a little thin on the ground, and the other two may have room for improvement. I have left Kant in there for now, in that I like the section that was wrote on him. -- Knucmo2 12:02, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
It's important not to turn this into an article about three philosophers; it should be about rationalism (in so far as that really existed). Discussion of content should also take place here, not in long comments in the article itself.
First:
Secondly:
Oh, I can't be bothered with the rest. -- Mel Etitis ( Μελ Ετητης) 16:44, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
With regard to a couple of substantive issues:
"Separation and distinction should be taken as synonyms in my point above"! This, together with some almost wilful misreadings of what I've said mean that there's little point continuing with this discussion.
The main point is that whatever is written in the article should be sourced, and involve no original research. Let's make sure that that is the case. -- Mel Etitis ( Μελ Ετητης) 16:36, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
JA: Under the rubric, "Do not ramify subtext beyond necessity", I am moving one editorical comment to the talk page, so that it can be archived for all posteriority. Jon Awbrey 12:27, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
Leibniz developed his theory of monads in response to both Descartes and Spinoza <!-- this is speculation (and not convincing, to be honest), because he found that Spinoza's response to the [[mind-body problem]] did not allow for [[individuation]]-->.
JA: The way I read them, Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza are not just rational thinkers but speculative thinkers, and we need to exercise caution to avoid a type of misunderstanding that often arises in presenting the work of speculative thinkers. A speculative reasoner can present one sort of speculative system on a Monday morning, a very different system on a Tuesday afternoon, and an utterly fantastic system on a Sunday evening. But they can be, and in the case of these three, certainly were, just as acquainted with ordinary reality as anybody has to be in order to get through life, and they do not of necessity contradict themsleves anymore than Walt Whitman did. In the case of Leibniz especially, his speculations about what God knows and when he knows it have to be keep in a separate hamper from his knowledge of what we "fallible and mortal finite information critters" (FAMFIC's) know and how we come to know it. Jon Awbrey 12:48, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
As already mentioned, the less prominent rationalists have no mention in the article as of yet. How are we to go about mentioning their rationalist "credentials" without turning it into a full summary of their works. Somehow, the distinctly "rationalist" parts have to be emphasised. Is Gassendi a rationalist by the way? -- Knucmo2 18:03, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
I vote no. As a user with a PhD in Philosophy, I think that (a) the current Continental Rationalism article provides a sober, satisfactory description of some of the modern rationalist philosophers, but (b) the current Rationalism article veers into what many academic philosophers think of as fringe material involving free thinking and anti-religious humanism. (a) Philosophical rationalism is generally seen as following a distinctly separate path from empiricism, but (b) humanistic "rationalism" is often seen as closely allied with contemporary scientific empiricism. Bottom Line: I don't think that the prospects are good for merging these 2 articles. I'd suggest instead that the current Rationalism article be left as is and that Continental Rationalism be expanded into something like Rationalism in Academic Philosophy, so that the thought of classical and medieval philosophical rationalists like Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas can be included, as well as 20th century philosophical rationalists like Brand Blanshard or Henry Veatch. -- WikiPedant 03:18, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
JA: People are not following the proper protocols for page moves. When they do, I will vote that the best name for the philosophical position commonly associated with Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza, et al. in Enlightenment Days and let us say Chomsky in recent times is just plain vanilla Rationalism. And please, I don't want to return here in the Fall and find an article entitled Just Plain Vanilla Rationalism. Jon Awbrey 21:18, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
I've removed the redirect from rationalism to here, and placed the current content from this article in that one. Judging by the discussion above, this article may be merged anyway, and I have no judgment or strong opinion about such a move. But a redirect from "rationalism" to "continental rationalism" makes little sense. If there's any strong disagreement about that, by all means revert. ... Kenosis 23:47, 14 July 2006 (UTC) ... I also added stub sections for Plato et al and the neo-Platonists, with no judgment about how exactly that should all be sectioned in the end. ... Kenosis 23:49, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
JA: We are in the middle of considering a move from continental rationalsim to rationalism. The way this usually goes, Nightstallion or somebody will check out the vote after few days and do the move or not accordingly. I do however continue to stress that continental rationalism is a misnomer given the geography and history of the "position" that standardly goes by the name rationalism, as anybody can check in the literature if they believe in that sort of fact-checking nonsense. Jon Awbrey 02:56, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm not ready to vote on this (in part because it seems that someone didn't quite follow etiquette here -- the rationalism page has already been turned into a redirect; that should have waited, moi), but it seems to me we need to consider whether we really need this change. Note: I'm a philosopher, and, myself, say "rationalism" to refer to the thought of Descartes, Leibniz, and (generally) Spinoza. But now that Wikipedia is becoming international, we need to keep in mind the broader perspectives of people from Asia, South America, etc. It might be seen -- somewhat goofily or not -- that three European dudes shouldn't be able to "own" as important a word as rationalism.
Basically, what do we lose by keeping this article at Continental rationalism, and opening the article like so:
"Continental rationalism (generally referred to simply as "rationalism" by scholars of European philosophy) is an approach to philosophy ..."
?
Not trying to be difficult; I've just been starting to appreciate how much many users around the world are frustrated by the Western focus of the English Wikipedia (which has become the de facto international Wikipedia). And, again: what do we lose by saying "Continental rationalism"? Note, also, the use of the term 'Continental rationalism' is not at all "rare" in the U.S. and Canada. -- Cultural Freedom talk 2006-07-13 07:07 (UTC)
JA: The term "Continental" is inaccurate and misleading as rationalism is a logical element of many philosophies that are found on many other continents both before and after the fluorescing of the Big Three Enlighteners of undergraduate philosophy courses. The basic tenet is the pertinence of rational concepts, or concepts of the reason, and it is thus a minimal form of opposition to nominalism. This is the reason for its being taken up in the late great cognitive revolution by Chomsky and others as a counterpoint to the nominal replacement for psychology proper that was represented by behaviorism. Making sense of its influence through history is nearly impossible under the onus of the label "Continental". Jon Awbrey 14:02, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
The adjective "Continental" should be dropped from the name of this article. Rationalism is one of the most established currents in philosophy, ranging from the Ancient Greeks (not usually considered "continentals" in philosophy) to contemporary North American philosophers. I believe there was a rationalist school in classical Hindu philosophy, but have no expertise in this. There were certainly rationalists among the major medieval Islamic philosophers (largely under the influence of Aristotle). The modern continental rationalists (Descartes through Kant) as well as all of the other schools and time periods can be suitably covered in subsections of a single article on rationalism. It is simply unacceptable for an encyclopedia of any consequence to fail to have a primary article on philosophical rationalism. WikiPedant 17:13, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
JA: Similar problems affect the philosophical use of the term Pragmatism, which has come to have many meanings among both literate and illiterate philosophers in addition to the ordinary variety of popular and non-technical uses. Rather than lend diplomatic recognition to every new "movement" that comes down the pike, it was thought preferable there to create a catch-all article Pragmatism (non-technical). You might find this a better idea in this situation, too. Jon Awbrey 17:40, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
JA: Probably best to discuss all that at Talk:Pragmatism (non-technical usage). But I can fill you in on the features of its peculiar history — not all of which I know about — that are pertinent to the situation here. The page was once a lot larger but had a lot of content deleted by one editor back in April that nobody else has gotten around to giving a second look, and it just got rewritten by the addition of some new material that is still in flux, and so it does look a little "dabby". But it was not intended as a dab page so much as place to treat the everyday meanings of the word pragmatism. Most likely the name would eventually be shortened to something less awkward sounding. Jon Awbrey 21:30, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
Let's stay on-topic here, folks. Banno 21:50, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
JA: Rationalism is not a school, it's an aspect of almost any, er, rational philosophy. Some philosophers emphasize this aspect more than others, and depending on arbitrary thresholds in the eye of the observer they get classified as "rationalists". As I have already pointed out, the fact that things like grammatical categories — say, NP, VP, etc. — are rational concepts, that is to say, concepts that extend beyond the finite empirical data given, is an important feature of "modern" cognitive science since the mid 1950's. For another example, even though Peirce is known for roundly criticizing significant features of Cartesian philosophy, he concurs with Descartes on the importance of rational concepts in this sense, and this is in fact one of the things that separates Peirce's original version of pragmatism from the radically naive empiricisms that James and the early but not the late Dewey sometimes drifted off into. Jon Awbrey 03:22, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
JA: As for the term "modern rationalism", this is a non-notable neologism that is not recognized in philosophy. The fact that anybody with a radio talk show these days can declare a new "movement" in pop philosophy, and most of them already have, witness truthiness, does not make that movement notable in reputable philosophical circles. Jon Awbrey 03:30, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
JA: Let's see if we can find some common definitions. How about the informal definition of rational concept that I gave above? Do we share an understanding of the difference between rational concepts and empirical concepts? For example, the rational concept of a Sentence is something that covers an infinite number of instances, whereas my empirical concept of a Sentence covers exactly the finite number of sentences that I have seen in my finite experience up to this point in time. Jon Awbrey 03:58, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
JA: Okay. Then let's see if we agree about the uses and abuses of ideal types, analytic ideals, what are more humbly known as textbook caricatures. For example, I am mostly concerned with scientific inquiry, and I find that all scientific inquirers, in actu, are mixed cases of empiricists and rationalists, no matter how the textbooks classify them, and no matter even how they might have depicted themselves, in armchairum. Do you observe this too? Jon Awbrey 04:16, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
JA: I'll take that as a yes, if only because it's late here, and I want to rush on by the nuances of a priori that might still force us to backtrack later.
JA: Now, scientific inquiry is really just a disciplined form of common sense, in a reflective and self-critical sense of common sense. And so common sense, which nobody gets through their day without, is a mixture of empirical and rational ingredients. That is, to come toward the middle from the rationalist side, even people who easily fess up to using rational concepts will also admit to using classes of rational concepts that they find themselves, willy nilly, testing against experience for the sake of judging their utility. Maybe some concepts are excluded from that testing, but hardly all of them are. Are we still on the same page about all this? Jon Awbrey 05:00, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
JA: In the realm of lingusitics we have the rational concepts of a Language, a Sentence, a Noun Phrase, a Verb Phrase, and so on.
JA: One of the things that we expect of rational concepts is that they will have definitions that can be reasoned from in a purely a priori deductive manner, without any necessary reference to any realm of experience outside the experience of reasoning with the elements that are admitted into a suitably well-defined domain. And there is no doubt that we have something approaching a pure rational system in the example of formal language theory. Historically speaking, of couse, we never would've thought of such things if it had not been for our natural interest in natural languages, but once the realm of formal abstractions is formed it tends to rule itself by its own rules, as if it were autonomous and independent of experience.
JA: But I think that even Cartesian linguists like Chomsky consider themselves to be engaged in an empirical science of linguistics, and so they must bring the purely rational concepts and rubbery definitions of Language, Sentence, Part of Speech and so on to meet the road of actual parts of speech, real live sentences, and natural languages. And they will judge rational concepts of all of these things as being more or less useful for explaining the properties of their putative empirical instances.
JA: Something like that is what I think I had in mind when I wrote that hazy stuff late last night. Jon Awbrey 19:25, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
JA: I don't know what a person whom you call a rationalist would say say about language, since I don't know whether we are using that word the same way. So maybe it's time to go back and see if we've made any headway with the initial question.
JA: I started out with the following statement:
JA: Rationalism is not a school, it's an aspect of almost any rational philosophy. Some philosophers emphasize this aspect more than others, and depending on arbitrary thresholds in the eye of the observer they get classified as "rationalists".
JA: And you expressed puzzlement with this in the following words:
What are you trying to say? I, too, would not call rationalism a school, but is not an aspect of almost any philosophy. Empiricists may be rational, but not rationalistic. Some schools of rationalism and empiricism may share concepts, but they differ foundationally. Srnec 03:46, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
JA: So we agree that rationalism is not a school, but just what sort of thing it is we have yet to decide. Just off the top of my head I called it an aspect of any philosophy that employs reason. This is probably because I consider the bare use of rational concepts to be the birth of rationalism. But we are many things at birth that we are not yet conscious of being, so maybe I should wait until a thinker is conscious of using rational concepts before I call him or her a rationalist. What do you think?
JA: Or maybe we should reserve the term rationalist for the thinker who is not merely a user of rational concepts but who asserts and truly believes that he or she has no need of anything else but rational concepts — well, they usually say in principle here. How about that? Jon Awbrey 21:04, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
JA: That nothing is known solely via experience I take to be a no-brainer, but that's just me. But are you saying that your definition of an empiricist is someone who thinks that some things are known solely empirically? Is there really any such critter? I mean someone who actually thinks that, not just someone who says they think that. Jon Awbrey 21:38, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
JA: It's common to observe that there's quite a bit of wiggle room in that concept of "based on experience", and there are at least three different ways of reading a priori, somewhat analogous to the three nuances of the Greek archein, which can mean (1) to begin (2) to lead (3) to rule. But a couple of Golden Buddha Margaritas at our Chinese restaurant have left me in an East-West krater too deep to see the rim, so I'll have to leave this until the dawn. Jon Awbrey 03:18, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
GF: In the description of René Descartes' rationalism, isn't the sentence "Descartes thought that only knowledge of eternal truths [...] could be attained by reason alone; other knowledge required experience of the world, aided by the scientific method." contradicted by the first sentence in the second paragraph: "Descartes therefore argued, as a result of his method, that reason alone determined knowledge, and that this could be done independently of the senses."
There are two distinct forms of rationalism; the first is a philosophical school deriving from Descartes, opposed to empiricism, and dealt with in the present article. The other relates to humanist ideas of the 19th century, and is closely allied with secularism and scepticism, and is dealt with at Rationalist movement. (Incidentally, that page needs work).
My preference is to have the present article moved to rationalism, and disambiguation links to the other pages; this reflects the more common usage.
Septentrionalis, would this be an acceptable compromise? Kenosis, I'm afraid I disagree with your reason given above. i think that the two forms of rationalism are sufficiently distinct that it would be misleading to include mention of Descartes and co. in the Rationalist movement article. I hope you will agree to not including it.
Failing that, perhaps Jon, Wikipedant, and Srnec would accept moving the disambiguation page to rationalism and leaving this material here. Although not my preferred option, I would be willing to accept this.
Let's work towards a compromise, before the talk page becomes a quagmire. Banno 23:28, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
It should be pointed out that, should this page be moved, there would be a considerable workload involved in disambiguation and re-directing links to this article. Banno 23:38, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
JA: In the sources that I have found so far continental rationalism is a subtopic under rationalism. It usually noted that (1) that the label continental rationalism was concocted much later and (2) few of the writers so labelled would have considered thenselves members of a single "school", especially one that amounted to an "ism" of such extreme beliefs. Jon Awbrey 15:42, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
JA: There is compromise and then there is compromising the integrity of articles. I have documented what rationalism normally means in philosophy. All of the standard reference works that I have looked at so far say roughly the same things. Continental rationalism is a label that some use for a period in the history of rationalism, and others object to as a misleading concoction of textbook writers from a later age, so there's not much use having a separate article for it, as main articles on the main lights already exist. I just don't find reputable sources referring to anything called the Rationalist Movement, so that is at present a non-notable concoction. We can always do what we had to do with Pragmatism, and document the non-technical uses in a separate article, or maybe just a paragraph about "general use" somewhere. Jon Awbrey 20:10, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
JA: What are you saying? Four people, including yourself, have already voted to rename this article to Rationalism. Jon Awbrey 20:44, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
JA: I am writing the article on Rationalism. The title Rationalism redirects to here. Jon Awbrey 20:48, 16 July 2006 (UTC)