![]() It is also possible to know them more completely than our knowledge of the external world, since our external senses can only tell us that all additions of one plus one have equalled two so far, but our reason can tell us something we have never observed – that it is necessarily true that everywhere and for all time 1 + 1 will equal two. For example, it is possible to understand mathematical truths like 1 + 1 = 2 separately from our experience of observing people add one apple to another. Descartes-style rationalism is complicated, but involves the claim that certain concepts are known prior to experience. Rationalism (Descartes) is not simply the belief that sitting and thinking is more useful than observation. But since there are commenters there who seem to agree with it, better nip this in the bud before it spreads. Their conclusions are necessarily as limited as their source material and reflect all its cultural biases.Īs best I can tell, it is conflating a misunderstood version of rationalism (Descartes) with a misunderstood version of rationalism (Yudkowsky) and ending up with something unrelated to either, in the most bizarre possible way. This is particularly noticeable when they engage in social or political theorizing by extrapolating from information they learned in secondary school and 101-level college classes, picked up in pop culture, or provided by people pushing a political cause. As a consequence, they repeat the same naïve errors time and again. Without the work of scholars before them, scholars today and evermore would always be recreating basic work and basic errors.Īll too often, I find rationalists taking this repetitive approach. They evaluate the work of others and consolidate the best of it into larger theoretical frameworks. They study the work of other scholars to inspire them and give them the background to ask and answer new questions. They apply tools and methods developed by others to new material and questions. Scholars add to our knowledge of the world by building on the work of others. And I don’t just mean peer review and working groups, though those are important as well. It’s not how science or any other field of scholarship works. That’s not how we’ve come to learn about our world, though. It focuses primarily on individual action. It’s not surprising that the ideology and movement appeal largely to the young, to men, to white people, to libertarians. It says that the path to getting things right lies in improving the self, improving the thinking of one person at a time. Rationalism is, at heart, an individualist endeavor. They’re not, and the idea that they are is in distinct contrast with the way humanity has actually grown in knowledge and understanding of the world. The problem is a tendency to view them as the solution. The problem is a tendency to view those skills as central to getting the right answers. The problem isn’t logic or critical thinking. When I’ve spoken to comparative religion classes in the past, I’ve talked about religious skepticism with an emphasis on the basics of epistemology. I’ve led workshops and panels on evaluating science journalism and scientific results. Goodness knows that I’ve spent hours just this summer helping people share useful heuristics that will, in general, help them get to the right answers more often. Let me stop here and make it clear that I’m not rejecting logic or critical thinking. Why do so many atheists praise rationalism? We have no problem rejecting church theology as not being grounded in evidence. The tensions between basic rationalism and empiricism parallel the tensions between church theology and the philosophy of science. I particularly boggle that atheists of my acquaintance promote rationalism over empiricism. I boggle that we haven’t sorted this out yet. Such arguments can only perpetuate ignorance by giving it a shiny veneer of reason that it hasn’t earned. I find no value in “logical” arguments that are based in intuition and “common sense” rather than data. I’m not a rationalist because I’m an empiricist. I’m having trouble not quoting it in full: This is sort of how I feel reading Why I Am Not A Rationalist on Almost Diamonds. Ron Paul’s belief in free will is clearly why there are so few Swiss people among Ron Paul supporters, since Swiss people are Calvinists and so understand determinism better. But free will is impossible in a deterministic universe. ![]() After all, he’s a libertarian, and Wikipedia says a libertarian is a person who believes in free will. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |