Back Rasionalisme Afrikaans ምክኑያዊነት Amharic عقلانية (فلسفة) Arabic العقلانيه ARZ Racionalismu AST Rasionalizm Azerbaijani Рацыяналізм (філасофія) Byelorussian Рационализъм Bulgarian बुद्धिवाद Bihari যুক্তিবাদ Bengali/Bangla
| Part of a series on |
| Epistemology |
|---|
In philosophy, rationalism is the epistemological view that "regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge"[1] or “the position that reason has precedence over other ways of acquiring knowledge”,[2] often in contrast to other possible sources of knowledge such as faith, tradition, or sensory experience. More formally, rationalism is defined as a methodology or a theory "in which the criterion of truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive".[3]
In a major philosophical debate during the Enlightenment,[4] rationalism (sometimes here equated with innatism) was opposed to empiricism. On the one hand, rationalists like René Descartes emphasized that knowledge is primarily innate and the intellect, the inner faculty of the human mind, can therefore directly grasp or derive logical truths; on the other hand, empiricists like John Locke emphasized that knowledge is not primarily innate and is best gained by careful observation of the physical world outside the mind, namely through sensory experiences. Rationalists asserted that certain principles exist in logic, mathematics, ethics, and metaphysics that are so fundamentally true that denying them causes one to fall into contradiction. The rationalists had such a high confidence in reason that empirical proof and physical evidence were regarded as unnecessary to ascertain certain truths – in other words, "there are significant ways in which our concepts and knowledge are gained independently of sense experience".[5]
Different degrees of emphasis on this method or theory lead to a range of rationalist standpoints, from the moderate position "that reason has precedence over other ways of acquiring knowledge" to the more extreme position that reason is "the unique path to knowledge".[2] Given a pre-modern understanding of reason, rationalism is identical to philosophy, the Socratic life of inquiry, or the zetetic (skeptical) clear interpretation of authority (open to the underlying or essential cause of things as they appear to our sense of certainty).
- ^ "Rationalism". Britannica.com. 28 May 2023. Archived from the original on 18 May 2015. Retrieved 22 May 2013.
- ^ a b Audi, Robert (2015). The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 902. ISBN 1107015057.
- ^ Bourke, Vernon J., "Rationalism," p. 263 in Runes (1962).
- ^ John Locke (1690), An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
- ^ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Rationalism vs. Empiricism" Archived 2018-09-29 at the Wayback Machine First published August 19, 2004; substantive revision March 31, 2013 cited on May 20, 2013.