Philosophical view regarding reason and knowledge

In philosophy, rationalism is the epistemological view that "regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge"[1] or "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification".[2] 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 an old[4] controversy, rationalism was opposed to empiricism, where the rationalists believed that reality has an intrinsically logical structure. Because of this, the rationalists argued that certain truths exist and that the intellect can directly grasp these truths. That is to say, rationalists asserted that certain rational 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".[6] 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). In recent decades, Leo Strauss sought to revive "Classical Political Rationalism" as a discipline that understands the task of reasoning, not as foundational, but as maieutic.

Rationalism as an appeal to human reason as a way of obtaining knowledge has a philosophical history dating from antiquity. The analytical nature of much of philosophical enquiry, the awareness of apparently a priori domains of knowledge such as mathematics, combined with the emphasis of obtaining knowledge through the use of rational faculties (commonly rejecting, for example, direct revelation) have made rationalist themes very prevalent in the history of philosophy.

Since the Enlightenment, rationalism is usually associated with the introduction of mathematical methods into philosophy as seen in the works of Descartes, Leibniz, and Spinoza.[3] This is commonly called continental rationalism, because it was predominant in the continental schools of Europe, whereas in Britain empiricism dominated.

Even then, the distinction between rationalists and empiricists was drawn at a later period and would not have been recognized by the philosophers involved. Also, the distinction between the two philosophies is not as clear-cut as is sometimes suggested; for example, Descartes and Locke have similar views about the nature of human ideas.[5]

Proponents of some varieties of rationalism argue that, starting with foundational basic principles, like the axioms of geometry, one could deductively derive the rest of all possible knowledge. Notable philosophers who held this view most clearly were Baruch Spinoza and Gottfried Leibniz, whose attempts to grapple with the epistemological and metaphysical problems raised by Descartes led to a development of the fundamental approach of rationalism. Both Spinoza and Leibniz asserted that, in principle, all knowledge, including scientific knowledge, could be gained through the use of reason alone, though they both observed that this was not possible in practice for human beings except in specific areas such as mathematics. On the other hand, Leibniz admitted in his book Monadology that "we are all mere Empirics in three fourths of our actions."[6]

In politics, rationalism, since the Enlightenment, historically emphasized a "politics of reason" centered upon rational choice, deontology, utilitarianism, secularism, and irreligion[7] the latter aspect's antitheism was later softened by the adoption of pluralistic reasoning methods practicable regardless of religious or irreligious ideology.[8][9] In this regard, the philosopher John Cottingham[10] noted how rationalism, a methodology, became socially conflated with atheism, a worldview:

In the past, particularly in the 17th and 18th centuries, the term 'rationalist' was often used to refer to free thinkers of an anti-clerical and anti-religious outlook, and for a time the word acquired a distinctly pejorative force (thus in 1670 Sanderson spoke disparagingly of 'a mere rationalist, that is to say in plain English an atheist of the late edition...'). The use of the label 'rationalist' to characterize a world outlook which has no place for the supernatural is becoming less popular today; terms like 'humanist' or 'materialist' seem largely to have taken its place. But the old usage still survives.

Rationalism is often contrasted with empiricism. Taken very broadly, these views are not mutually exclusive, since a philosopher can be both rationalist and empiricist.[2] Taken to extremes, the empiricist view holds that all ideas come to us a posteriori, that is to say, through experience; either through the external senses or through such inner sensations as pain and gratification. The empiricist essentially believes that knowledge is based on or derived directly from experience. The rationalist believes we come to knowledge a priori through the use of logic and is thus independent of sensory experience. In other words, as Galen Strawson once wrote, "you can see that it is true just lying on your couch. You don't have to get up off your couch and go outside and examine the way things are in the physical world. You don't have to do any science."[11]

Between both philosophies, the issue at hand is the fundamental source of human knowledge and the proper techniques for verifying what we think we know. Whereas both philosophies are under the umbrella of epistemology, their argument lies in the understanding of the warrant, which is under the wider epistemic umbrella of the theory of justification. Part of epistemology, this theory attempts to understand the justification of propositions and beliefs. Epistemologists are concerned with various epistemic features of belief, which include the ideas of justification, warrant, rationality, and probability. Of these four terms, the term that has been most widely used and discussed by the early 21st century is "warrant". Loosely speaking, justification is the reason that someone (probably) holds a belief.

If A makes a claim and then B casts doubt on it, A's next move would normally be to provide justification for the claim. The precise method one uses to provide justification is where the lines are drawn between rationalism and empiricism (among other philosophical views). Much of the debate in these fields are focused on analyzing the nature of knowledge and how it relates to connected notions such as truth, belief, and justification.

At its core, rationalism consists of three basic claims. For people to consider themselves rationalists, they must adopt at least one of these three claims: the intuition/deduction thesis, the innate knowledge thesis, or the innate concept thesis. In addition, a rationalist can choose to adopt the claim of Indispensability of Reason and or the claim of Superiority of Reason, although one can be a rationalist without adopting either thesis.[citation needed]

The indispensability of reason thesis: "The knowledge we gain in subject area, S, by intuition and deduction, as well as the ideas and instances of knowledge in S that are innate to us, could not have been gained by us through sense experience."[1] In short, this thesis claims that experience cannot provide what we gain from reason.

The superiority of reason thesis: '"The knowledge we gain in subject area S by intuition and deduction or have innately is superior to any knowledge gained by sense experience".[1] In other words, this thesis claims reason is superior to experience as a source for knowledge.

Rationalists often adopt similar stances on other aspects of philosophy. Most rationalists reject skepticism for the areas of knowledge they claim are knowable a priori. When you claim some truths are innately known to us, one must reject skepticism in relation to those truths. Especially for rationalists who adopt the Intuition/Deduction thesis, the idea of epistemic foundationalism tends to crop up. This is the view that we know some truths without basing our belief in them on any others and that we then use this foundational knowledge to know more truths.[1]

"Some propositions in a particular subject area, S, are knowable by us by intuition alone; still others are knowable by being deduced from intuited propositions."[12]

Generally speaking, intuition is a priori knowledge or experiential belief characterized by its immediacy; a form of rational insight. We simply "see" something in such a way as to give us a warranted belief. Beyond that, the nature of intuition is hotly debated.In the same way, generally speaking, deduction is the process of reasoning from one or more general premises to reach a logically certain conclusion. Using valid arguments, we can deduce from intuited premises.

For example, when we combine both concepts, we can intuit that the number three is prime and that it is greater than two. We then deduce from this knowledge that there is a prime number greater than two. Thus, it can be said that intuition and deduction combined to provide us with a priori knowledge we gained this knowledge independently of sense experience.

To argue in favor of this thesis, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, a prominent German philosopher, says,

The senses, although they are necessary for all our actual knowledge, are not sufficient to give us the whole of it, since the senses never give anything but instances, that is to say particular or individual truths. Now all the instances which confirm a general truth, however numerous they may be, are not sufficient to establish the universal necessity of this same truth, for it does not follow that what happened before will happen in the same way again. From which it appears that necessary truths, such as we find in pure mathematics, and particularly in arithmetic and geometry, must have principles whose proof does not depend on instances, nor consequently on the testimony of the senses, although without the senses it would never have occurred to us to think of them[13]

Empiricists such as David Hume have been willing to accept this thesis for describing the relationships among our own concepts.[12] In this sense, empiricists argue that we are allowed to intuit and deduce truths from knowledge that has been obtained a posteriori.

By injecting different subjects into the Intuition/Deduction thesis, we are able to generate different arguments. Most rationalists agree mathematics is knowable by applying the intuition and deduction. Some go further to include ethical truths into the category of things knowable by intuition and deduction. Furthermore, some rationalists also claim metaphysics is knowable in this thesis. Naturally, the more subjects the rationalists claim to be knowable by the Intuition/Deduction thesis, the more certain they are of their warranted beliefs, and the more strictly they adhere to the infallibility of intuition, the more controversial their truths or claims and the more radical their rationalism.[12]

In addition to different subjects, rationalists sometimes vary the strength of their claims by adjusting their understanding of the warrant. Some rationalists understand warranted beliefs to be beyond even the slightest doubt; others are more conservative and understand the warrant to be belief beyond a reasonable doubt.

Rationalists also have different understanding and claims involving the connection between intuition and truth. Some rationalists claim that intuition is infallible and that anything we intuit to be true is as such. More contemporary rationalists accept that intuition is not always a source of certain knowledge thus allowing for the possibility of a deceiver who might cause the rationalist to intuit a false proposition in the same way a third party could cause the rationalist to have perceptions of nonexistent objects.

"We have knowledge of some truths in a particular subject area, S, as part of our rational nature."[14]

The Innate Knowledge thesis is similar to the Intuition/Deduction thesis in the regard that both theses claim knowledge is gained a priori. The two theses go their separate ways when describing how that knowledge is gained. As the name, and the rationale, suggests, the Innate Knowledge thesis claims knowledge is simply part of our rational nature. Experiences can trigger a process that allows this knowledge to come into our consciousness, but the experiences don't provide us with the knowledge itself. The knowledge has been with us since the beginning and the experience simply brought into focus, in the same way a photographer can bring the background of a picture into focus by changing the aperture of the lens. The background was always there, just not in focus.

This thesis targets a problem with the nature of inquiry originally postulated by Plato in Meno. Here, Plato asks about inquiry; how do we gain knowledge of a theorem in geometry? We inquire into the matter. Yet, knowledge by inquiry seems impossible.[15] In other words, "If we already have the knowledge, there is no place for inquiry. If we lack the knowledge, we don't know what we are seeking and cannot recognize it when we find it. Either way we cannot gain knowledge of the theorem by inquiry. Yet, we do know some theorems."[14] The Innate Knowledge thesis offers a solution to this paradox. By claiming that knowledge is already with us, either consciously or unconsciously, a rationalist claims we don't really "learn" things in the traditional usage of the word, but rather that we simply bring to light what we already know.

"We have some of the concepts we employ in a particular subject area, S, as part of our rational nature."[16]

Similar to the Innate Knowledge thesis, the Innate Concept thesis suggests that some concepts are simply part of our rational nature. These concepts are a priori in nature and sense experience is irrelevant to determining the nature of these concepts (though, sense experience can help bring the concepts to our conscious mind).

In his book, Meditations on First Philosophy,[17] Ren Descartes postulates three classifications for our ideas when he says, "Among my ideas, some appear to be innate, some to be adventitious, and others to have been invented by me. My understanding of what a thing is, what truth is, and what thought is, seems to derive simply from my own nature. But my hearing a noise, as I do now, or seeing the sun, or feeling the fire, comes from things which are located outside me, or so I have hitherto judged. Lastly, sirens, hippogriffs and the like are my own invention."[18]

Adventitious ideas are those concepts that we gain through sense experiences, ideas such as the sensation of heat, because they originate from outside sources; transmitting their own likeness rather than something else and something you simply cannot will away. Ideas invented by us, such as those found in mythology, legends, and fairy tales are created by us from other ideas we possess. Lastly, innate ideas, such as our ideas of perfection, are those ideas we have as a result of mental processes that are beyond what experience can directly or indirectly provide.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz defends the idea of innate concepts by suggesting the mind plays a role in determining the nature of concepts, to explain this, he likens the mind to a block of marble in the New Essays on Human Understanding,

This is why I have taken as an illustration a block of veined marble, rather than a wholly uniform block or blank tablets, that is to say what is called tabula rasa in the language of the philosophers. For if the soul were like those blank tablets, truths would be in us in the same way as the figure of Hercules is in a block of marble, when the marble is completely indifferent whether it receives this or some other figure. But if there were veins in the stone which marked out the figure of Hercules rather than other figures, this stone would be more determined thereto, and Hercules would be as it were in some manner innate in it, although labour would be needed to uncover the veins, and to clear them by polishing, and by cutting away what prevents them from appearing. It is in this way that ideas and truths are innate in us, like natural inclinations and dispositions, natural habits or potentialities, and not like activities, although these potentialities are always accompanied by some activities which correspond to them, though they are often imperceptible."[19]

Some philosophers, such as John Locke (who is considered one of the most influential thinkers of the Enlightenment and an empiricist) argue that the Innate Knowledge thesis and the Innate Concept thesis are the same.[20] Other philosophers, such as Peter Carruthers, argue that the two theses are distinct from one another. As with the other theses covered under the umbrella of rationalism, the more types and greater number of concepts a philosopher claims to be innate, the more controversial and radical their position; "the more a concept seems removed from experience and the mental operations we can perform on experience the more plausibly it may be claimed to be innate. Since we do not experience perfect triangles but do experience pains, our concept of the former is a more promising candidate for being innate than our concept of the latter.[16]

Although rationalism in its modern form post-dates antiquity, philosophers from this time laid down the foundations of rationalism.[citation needed] In particular, the understanding that we may be aware of knowledge available only through the use of rational thought.[citation needed]

Pythagoras was one of the first Western philosophers to stress rationalist insight.[21] He is often revered as a great mathematician, mystic and scientist, but he is best known for the Pythagorean theorem, which bears his name, and for discovering the mathematical relationship between the length of strings on lute and the pitches of the notes. Pythagoras "believed these harmonies reflected the ultimate nature of reality. He summed up the implied metaphysical rationalism in the words "All is number". It is probable that he had caught the rationalist's vision, later seen by Galileo (15641642), of a world governed throughout by mathematically formulable laws".[22] It has been said that he was the first man to call himself a philosopher, or lover of wisdom.[23]

Plato held rational insight to a very high standard, as is seen in his works such as Meno and The Republic. He taught on the Theory of Forms (or the Theory of Ideas)[24][25][26] which asserts that the highest and most fundamental kind of reality is not the material world of change known to us through sensation, but rather the abstract, non-material (but substantial) world of forms (or ideas).[27] For Plato, these forms were accessible only to reason and not to sense.[22] In fact, it is said that Plato admired reason, especially in geometry, so highly that he had the phrase "Let no one ignorant of geometry enter" inscribed over the door to his academy.[28]

Aristotle's main contribution to rationalist thinking was the use of syllogistic logic and its use in argument. Aristotle defines syllogism as "a discourse in which certain (specific) things having been supposed, something different from the things supposed results of necessity because these things are so."[29] Despite this very general definition, Aristotle limits himself to categorical syllogisms which consist of three categorical propositions in his work Prior Analytics.[30] These included categorical modal syllogisms.[31]

Although the three great Greek philosophers disagreed with one another on specific points, they all agreed that rational thought could bring to light knowledge that was self-evident information that humans otherwise could not know without the use of reason. After Aristotle's death, Western rationalistic thought was generally characterized by its application to theology, such as in the works of Augustine, the Islamic philosopher Avicenna (Ibn Sina), Averroes (Ibn Rushd), and Jewish philosopher and theologian Maimonides. One notable event in the Western timeline was the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas who attempted to merge Greek rationalism and Christian revelation in the thirteenth-century.[22][32] Generally, the Roman Catholic Church viewed Rationalists as a threat, labeling them as those who "while admitting revelation, reject from the word of God whatever, in their private judgment, is inconsistent with human reason."[33]

Descartes was the first of the modern rationalists and has been dubbed the 'Father of Modern Philosophy.' Much subsequent Western philosophy is a response to his writings,[34][35][36] which are studied closely to this day.

Descartes thought that only knowledge of eternal truths including the truths of mathematics, and the epistemological and metaphysical foundations of the sciences could be attained by reason alone; other knowledge, the knowledge of physics, required experience of the world, aided by the scientific method. He also argued that although dreams appear as real as sense experience, these dreams cannot provide persons with knowledge. Also, since conscious sense experience can be the cause of illusions, then sense experience itself can be doubtable. As a result, Descartes deduced that a rational pursuit of truth should doubt every belief about sensory reality. He elaborated these beliefs in such works as Discourse on the Method, Meditations on First Philosophy, and Principles of Philosophy. Descartes developed a method to attain truths according to which nothing that cannot be recognised by the intellect (or reason) can be classified as knowledge. These truths are gained "without any sensory experience," according to Descartes. Truths that are attained by reason are broken down into elements that intuition can grasp, which, through a purely deductive process, will result in clear truths about reality.

Descartes therefore argued, as a result of his method, that reason alone determined knowledge, and that this could be done independently of the senses. For instance, his famous dictum, cogito ergo sum or "I think, therefore I am", is a conclusion reached a priori i.e., prior to any kind of experience on the matter. The simple meaning is that doubting one's existence, in and of itself, proves that an "I" exists to do the thinking. In other words, doubting one's own doubting is absurd.[21] This was, for Descartes, an irrefutable principle upon which to ground all forms of other knowledge. Descartes posited a metaphysical dualism, distinguishing between the substances of the human body ("res extensa") and the mind or soul ("res cogitans"). This crucial distinction would be left unresolved and lead to what is known as the mind-body problem, since the two substances in the Cartesian system are independent of each other and irreducible.

The philosophy of Baruch Spinoza is a systematic, logical, rational philosophy developed in seventeenth-century Europe.[37][38][39] Spinoza's philosophy is a system of ideas constructed upon basic building blocks with an internal consistency with which he tried to answer life's major questions and in which he proposed that "God exists only philosophically."[39][40] He was heavily influenced by Descartes,[41] Euclid[40] and Thomas Hobbes,[41] as well as theologians in the Jewish philosophical tradition such as Maimonides.[41] But his work was in many respects a departure from the Judeo-Christian tradition. Many of Spinoza's ideas continue to vex thinkers today and many of his principles, particularly regarding the emotions, have implications for modern approaches to psychology. To this day, many important thinkers have found Spinoza's "geometrical method"[39] difficult to comprehend: Goethe admitted that he found this concept confusing.[citation needed] His magnum opus, Ethics, contains unresolved obscurities and has a forbidding mathematical structure modeled on Euclid's geometry.[40] Spinoza's philosophy attracted believers such as Albert Einstein[42] and much intellectual attention.[43][44][45][46][47]

Leibniz was the last major figure of seventeenth-century rationalism who contributed heavily to other fields such as metaphysics, epistemology, logic, mathematics, physics, jurisprudence, and the philosophy of religion; he is also considered to be one of the last "universal geniuses".[48] He did not develop his system, however, independently of these advances. Leibniz rejected Cartesian dualism and denied the existence of a material world. In Leibniz's view there are infinitely many simple substances, which he called "monads" (which he derived directly from Proclus).

Leibniz developed his theory of monads in response to both Descartes and Spinoza, because the rejection of their visions forced him to arrive at his own solution. Monads are the fundamental unit of reality, according to Leibniz, constituting both inanimate and animate objects. These units of reality represent the universe, though they are not subject to the laws of causality or space (which he called "well-founded phenomena"). Leibniz, therefore, introduced his principle of pre-established harmony to account for apparent causality in the world.

Kant is one of the central figures of modern philosophy, and set the terms by which all subsequent thinkers have had to grapple. He argued that human perception structures natural laws, and that reason is the source of morality. His thought continues to hold a major influence in contemporary thought, especially in fields such as metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, political philosophy, and aesthetics.[49]

Kant named his brand of epistemology "Transcendental Idealism", and he first laid out these views in his famous work The Critique of Pure Reason. In it he argued that there were fundamental problems with both rationalist and empiricist dogma. To the rationalists he argued, broadly, that pure reason is flawed when it goes beyond its limits and claims to know those things that are necessarily beyond the realm of every possible experience: the existence of God, free will, and the immortality of the human soul. Kant referred to these objects as "The Thing in Itself" and goes on to argue that their status as objects beyond all possible experience by definition means we cannot know them. To the empiricist, he argued that while it is correct that experience is fundamentally necessary for human knowledge, reason is necessary for processing that experience into coherent thought. He therefore concludes that both reason and experience are necessary for human knowledge. In the same way, Kant also argued that it was wrong to regard thought as mere analysis. "In Kant's views, a priori concepts do exist, but if they are to lead to the amplification of knowledge, they must be brought into relation with empirical data".[50]

Rationalism has become a rarer label of philosophers today; rather many different kinds of specialised rationalisms are identified. For example, Robert Brandom has appropriated the terms "rationalist expressivism" and "rationalist pragmatism" as labels for aspects of his programme in Articulating Reasons, and identified "linguistic rationalism", the claim that the contents of propositions "are essentially what can serve as both premises and conclusions of inferences", as a key thesis of Wilfred Sellars.[51]

Rationalism was criticized by American psychologist William James for being out of touch with reality. James also criticized rationalism for representing the universe as a closed system, which contrasts with his view that the universe is an open system.[52]

Originally posted here:

Rationalism - Wikipedia

rationalism, in Western philosophy, the view that regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge. Holding that reality itself has an inherently logical structure, the rationalist asserts that a class of truths exists that the intellect can grasp directly. There are, according to the rationalists, certain rational principlesespecially in logic and mathematics, and even in ethics and metaphysicsthat are so fundamental that to deny them is to fall into contradiction. The rationalists confidence in reason and proof tends, therefore, to detract from their respect for other ways of knowing.

Rationalism has long been the rival of empiricism, the doctrine that all knowledge comes from, and must be tested by, sense experience. As against this doctrine, rationalism holds reason to be a faculty that can lay hold of truths beyond the reach of sense perception, both in certainty and generality. In stressing the existence of a natural light, rationalism has also been the rival of systems claiming esoteric knowledge, whether from mystical experience, revelation, or intuition, and has been opposed to various irrationalisms that tend to stress the biological, the emotional or volitional, the unconscious, or the existential at the expense of the rational.

Rationalism has somewhat different meanings in different fields, depending upon the kind of theory to which it is opposed.

In the psychology of perception, for example, rationalism is in a sense opposed to the genetic psychology of the Swiss scholar Jean Piaget (18961980), who, exploring the development of thought and behaviour in the infant, argued that the categories of the mind develop only through the infants experience in concourse with the world. Similarly, rationalism is opposed to transactionalism, a point of view in psychology according to which human perceptual skills are achievements, accomplished through actions performed in response to an active environment. On this view, the experimental claim is made that perception is conditioned by probability judgments formed on the basis of earlier actions performed in similar situations. As a corrective to these sweeping claims, the rationalist defends a nativism, which holds that certain perceptual and conceptual capacities are innateas suggested in the case of depth perception by experiments with the visual cliff, which, though platformed over with firm glass, the infant perceives as hazardousthough these native capacities may at times lie dormant until the appropriate conditions for their emergence arise.

In the comparative study of languages, a similar nativism was developed beginning in the 1950s by the linguistic theorist Noam Chomsky, who, acknowledging a debt to Ren Descartes (15961650), explicitly accepted the rationalistic doctrine of innate ideas. Though the thousands of languages spoken in the world differ greatly in sounds and symbols, they sufficiently resemble each other in syntax to suggest that there is a schema of universal grammar determined by innate presettings in the human mind itself. These presettings, which have their basis in the brain, set the pattern for all experience, fix the rules for the formation of meaningful sentences, and explain why languages are readily translatable into one another. It should be added that what rationalists have held about innate ideas is not that some ideas are full-fledged at birth but only that the grasp of certain connections and self-evident principles, when it comes, is due to inborn powers of insight rather than to learning by experience.

Common to all forms of speculative rationalism is the belief that the world is a rationally ordered whole, the parts of which are linked by logical necessity and the structure of which is therefore intelligible. Thus, in metaphysics it is opposed to the view that reality is a disjointed aggregate of incoherent bits and is thus opaque to reason. In particular, it is opposed to the logical atomisms of such thinkers as David Hume (171176) and the early Ludwig Wittgenstein (18891951), who held that facts are so disconnected that any fact might well have been different from what it is without entailing a change in any other fact. Rationalists have differed, however, with regard to the closeness and completeness with which the facts are bound together. At the lowest level, they have all believed that the law of contradiction A and not-A cannot coexist holds for the real world, which means that every truth is consistent with every other; at the highest level, they have held that all facts go beyond consistency to a positive coherence; i.e., they are so bound up with each other that none could be different without all being different.

In the field where its claims are clearestin epistemology, or theory of knowledgerationalism holds that at least some human knowledge is gained through a priori (prior to experience), or rational, insight as distinct from sense experience, which too often provides a confused and merely tentative approach. In the debate between empiricism and rationalism, empiricists hold the simpler and more sweeping position, the Humean claim that all knowledge of fact stems from perception. Rationalists, on the contrary, urge that some, though not all, knowledge arises through direct apprehension by the intellect. What the intellectual faculty apprehends is objects that transcend sense experienceuniversals and their relations. A universal is an abstraction, a characteristic that may reappear in various instances: the number three, for example, or the triangularity that all triangles have in common. Though these cannot be seen, heard, or felt, rationalists point out that humans can plainly think about them and about their relations. This kind of knowledge, which includes the whole of logic and mathematics as well as fragmentary insights in many other fields, is, in the rationalist view, the most important and certain knowledge that the mind can achieve. Such a priori knowledge is both necessary (i.e., it cannot be conceived as otherwise) and universal, in the sense that it admits of no exceptions. In the critical philosophy of Immanuel Kant (17241804), epistemological rationalism finds expression in the claim that the mind imposes its own inherent categories or forms upon incipient experience (see below Epistemological rationalism in modern philosophies).

In ethics, rationalism holds the position that reason, rather than feeling, custom, or authority, is the ultimate court of appeal in judging good and bad, right and wrong. Among major thinkers, the most notable representative of rational ethics is Kant, who held that the way to judge an act is to check its self-consistency as apprehended by the intellect: to note, first, what it is essentially, or in principlea lie, for example, or a theftand then to ask if one can consistently will that the principle be made universal. Is theft, then, right? The answer must be No, because, if theft were generally approved, peoples property would not be their own as opposed to anyone elses, and theft would then become meaningless; the notion, if universalized, would thus destroy itself, as reason by itself is sufficient to show.

In religion, rationalism commonly means that all human knowledge comes through the use of natural faculties, without the aid of supernatural revelation. Reason is here used in a broader sense, referring to human cognitive powers generally, as opposed to supernatural grace or faiththough it is also in sharp contrast to so-called existential approaches to truth. Reason, for the rationalist, thus stands opposed to many of the religions of the world, including Christianity, which have held that the divine has revealed itself through inspired persons or writings and which have required, at times, that its claims be accepted as infallible, even when they do not accord with natural knowledge. Religious rationalists hold, on the other hand, that if the clear insights of human reason must be set aside in favour of alleged revelation, then human thought is everywhere rendered suspecteven in the reasonings of the theologians themselves. There cannot be two ultimately different ways of warranting truth, they assert; hence rationalism urges that reason, with its standard of consistency, must be the final court of appeal. Religious rationalism can reflect either a traditional piety, when endeavouring to display the alleged sweet reasonableness of religion, or an antiauthoritarian temper, when aiming to supplant religion with the goddess of reason.

Link:

Rationalism | Definition, Types, History, Examples, & Descartes

Rationalism Definition

Most of us have heard the expression, ''Be rational'', especially when we're reacting emotionally. This is like when our motivations are inspired by things that don't necessarily make a lot of sense to other people, or it's clear that our perspective is skewed because of our feelings. Like our feelings, our senses can also project a skewed perception of reality. Take optical illusions for example. Our sense of truth isn't actually real, so we're not being rational.

Essentially, rationalism regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge or what's true. Truth, in the case of rationalism, is not sensory but intellectual, which is why rationalists believe that knowledge can be acquired through reason alone. This makes rationalism a priori, meaning that we gain knowledge without experience through the use of reason. Rationalism applies primarily to logic and mathematics, meaning that there is a calculated and reasoned approach to conclusions or the truth.

In rationalism, knowledge is acquired in three ways:

While deduction relies on principles or formulas to find answers, reason offers different ways to find the truth or draw conclusions. For example, let's take the biblical story of the Judgment of Solomon. Solomon had to resolve a dispute between two women who claimed to be the mother of a baby. Since this was long before DNA testing, Solomon ordered that the baby be cut in half.

Upon hearing this, one of the women cried out not to harm the child and to let the other woman take the baby. Solomon concluded through logic that the woman who cried out to spare the child was actually the child's mother because the mother would rather the child live than win an argument.

Rationalism finds that truths are held by intellect. As rationalism became a more popular philosophy in the 17th and 18th centuries, it was also connected to metaphysical truths and ethical truths. For example, the statement: ''Slavery is wrong'' is an example of an ethical truth, which makes it a rational belief.

Rationalist thinkers believe that knowledge, or our understanding of truth, is acquired without sense perception. In other words, knowledge is acquired through a secular outlook, which is an outlook that is absent of religious influence. This doesn't mean that rational thinkers were atheists, though some were. Most early rationalists believed that our innate ideas were given to us from God.

The Age of Reason was a period during the Enlightenment and a time when rationalism gained in popularity. Philosophers such as Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz were responsible for articulating the fundamental beliefs of rationalism. These philosophers believed that a mathematical approach to reason was the most conducive with how the mind works.

The most well-known proponent of rationalism was French philosopher Ren Descartes, whose rationalist philosophy is often referred to as Cartesianism. His belief was that eternal truths can be discovered by reason and did not require sensory experience.

He was famous for the phrase ''I think, therefore I am.'' His perspective on rationalism was that some ideas come from God and are innate, some come from experience, which would include scientific matters such as physics, and others come from the imagination. However, he believed that fundamental truths could be determined through reason and didn't require experience to ascertain.

Descartes' ideas on rationalism of the early 1600s inspired other thinkers, such as Kant, as well as the aforementioned Spinoza and Liebniz, who expanded on the ideas that he had put forth. As rationalism expanded into other regions of the world, it was both criticized and embraced.

Some philosophers even attempted to find commonalities between rationalism and empiricism, which is essentially, for a lack of better terms, the opposite of rationalism in that empiricists believe that all knowledge arrives through the senses and experience.

Let's take a few moments to review what we've learned about rationalism. Rationalism is the idea that knowledge can be acquired through reason alone. In rationalism, truth can be found with the following things:

Fundamentally the opposite of empiricism, rationalism holds that experience isn't necessary to gain knowledge. The senses can be fooled, so rationalists believed that the only sure way to find truth was through logic and mathematical principles. Rationalism gained in popularity during the Age of Reason, which was a period during the Enlightenment, and was heavily promoted by French philosopher Ren Descartes.

See more here:

What is Rationalism? | Rationalism Philosophy & Examples - Video ...

Rationalism, or a belief that we come to knowledge through the use of logic, and thus independently of sensory experience, was critical to the debates of the Enlightenment period, when most philosophers lauded the power of reason but insisted that knowledge comes from experience.

Define rationalism and its role in the ideas of the Enlightenment

Rationalismas an appeal to human reason as a way of obtaining knowledgehas a philosophical history dating from antiquity. While rationalism, as the view that reason is the main source of knowledge, did not dominate the Enlightenment, it laid critical basis for the debates that developed over the course of the 18th century. As the Enlightenment centered on reason as the primary source of authority and legitimacy, many philosophers of the period drew from earlier philosophical contributions, most notably those of RenDescartes(1596-1650), a French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist. Descartes was the first of the modern rationalists. He thought that only knowledge of eternal truths (including the truths of mathematics and the foundations of the sciences) could be attained by reason alone, while the knowledge of physics required experience of the world, aided by the scientific method. Heargued that reason alone determined knowledge, and that this could be done independently of the senses. For instance, his famous dictum, cogito ergo sum, or I think, therefore I am, is a conclusion reached a priori(i.e., prior to any kind of experience on the matter). The simple meaning is that doubting ones existence, in and of itself, proves that an I exists to do the thinking.

Ren Descartes, after Frans Hals, 2nd half of the 17th century.

Descartes laid the foundation for 17th-century continental rationalism, later advocated by Baruch Spinozaand Gottfried Leibniz, and opposed by the empiricistschool of thought consisting of Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. Leibniz, Spinoza, and Descartes were all well-versed in mathematics, as well as philosophy, and Descartes and Leibniz contributed greatly to science as well.

Since the Enlightenment, rationalism is usually associated with the introduction of mathematical methods into philosophy, as seen in the works of Descartes, Leibniz, and Spinoza. This is commonly called continental rationalism, because it was predominant in the continental schools of Europe, whereas in Britain, empiricism, or a theory that knowledge comes only or primarily from a sensory experience,dominated. Although rationalism and empiricism are traditionally seen as opposing each other, the distinction between rationalists and empiricists was drawn at a later period, and would not have been recognized by philosophers involved in Enlightenment debates. Furthermore, the distinction between the two philosophies is not as clear-cut as is sometimes suggested. For example, Descartes and John Locke, one of the most important Enlightenment thinkers, have similar views about the nature of human ideas.

Proponents of some varieties of rationalism argue that, starting with foundational basic principles, like the axioms of geometry, one could deductively derive the rest of all possible knowledge. The philosophers who held this view most clearly were Baruch Spinoza and Gottfried Leibniz, whose attempts to grapple with the epistemological and metaphysical problems raised by Descartes led to a development of the fundamental approach of rationalism. Both Spinoza and Leibniz asserted that, in principle, all knowledge, including scientific knowledge, could be gained through the use of reason alone, though they both observed that this was not possible in practice for human beings, except in specific areas, such as mathematics. On the other hand, Leibniz admitted in his book, Monadology, that we are all mere Empirics in three fourths of our actions.

Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz are usually credited for laying the groundwork for the 18th-century Enlightenment. During the mature Enlightenment period, Immanuel Kant attempted to explain the relationship between reason and human experience, and to move beyond the failures of traditional philosophy and metaphysics. He wanted to put an end to an era of futile and speculative theories of human experience, and regarded himself as ending and showing the way beyond the impasse between rationalistsand empiricists. He is widely held to have synthesized these two early modern traditions in his thought.

Kant named his brand of epistemology (theory of knowledge) transcendental idealism, and he first laid out these views in his famous work, The Critique of Pure Reason. In it, he argued that there were fundamental problems with both rationalist and empiricist dogma. To the rationalists he argued, broadly, that pure reason is flawed when it goes beyond its limits and claims to know those things that are necessarily beyond the realm of all possible experience (e.g., the existence of God, free will, or the immortality of the human soul). To the empiricist, he argued that while it is correct that experience is fundamentally necessary for human knowledge, reason is necessary for processing that experience into coherent thought. He therefore concluded that both reason and experience are necessary for human knowledge. In the same way, Kant also argued that it was wrong to regard thought as mere analysis. In his views, a priori concepts do exist, but if they are to lead to the amplification of knowledge, they must be brought into relation with empirical data.

Immanuel Kant, author unknown Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) rejected the dogmas of both rationalism and empiricism, and tried to reconcile rationalismand religious belief, and individual freedom and political authority, as well as map out a view of the public sphere through private and public reason. His work continued to shape German thought, and indeed all of European philosophy, well into the 20th century.

Since the Enlightenment, rationalism in politics historically emphasized a politics of reason centered upon rational choice, utilitarianism, and secularism (later, relationship between rationalism and religion was ameliorated by the adoption of pluralistic rationalist methods practicable regardless of religious or irreligious ideology). Some philosophers today, most notably John Cottingham, note that rationalism, a methodology, became socially conflated with atheism, a worldview. Cottingham writes,

In the past, particularly in the 17th and 18th centuries, the term rationalist was often used to refer to free thinkers of an anti-clerical and anti-religious outlook, and for a time the word acquired a distinctly pejorative force (). The use of the label rationalist to characterize a world outlook which has no place for the supernatural is becoming less popular today; terms like humanist or materialist seem largely to have taken its place. But the old usage still survives.

Read this article:

Rationalism | History of Western Civilization II - Lumen Learning

The first Western philosopher to stress rationalist insight was Pythagoras, a shadowy figure of the 6th century bce. Noticing that, for a right triangle, a square built on its hypotenuse equals the sum of those on its sides and that the pitches of notes sounded on a lute bear a mathematical relation to the lengths of the strings, Pythagoras held that these harmonies reflected the ultimate nature of reality. He summed up the implied metaphysical rationalism in the words All is number. It is probable that he had caught the rationalists vision, later seen by Galileo (15641642), of a world governed throughout by mathematically formulable laws.

The difficulty in this view, however, is that, working with universals and their relations, which, like the multiplication table, are timeless and changeless, it assumes a static world and ignores the particular, changing things of daily life. The difficulty was met boldly by the rationalist Parmenides (born c. 515 bce), who insisted that the world really is a static whole and that the realm of change and motion is an illusion, or even a self-contradiction. His disciple Zeno of Elea (c. 495c. 430 bce) further argued that anything thought to be moving is confronted with a row of points infinite in number, all of which it must traverse; hence it can never reach its goal, nor indeed move at all. Of course, perception tells us that we do move, but Zeno, compelled to choose between perception and reason, clung to reason.

The exalting of rational insight above perception was also prominent in Plato (c. 427c. 347 bce). In the Meno, Socrates (c. 470399 bce) dramatized the innateness of knowledge by calling upon an illiterate slave boy and, drawing a square in the sand, proceeding to elicit from him, step by step, the proof of a theorem in geometry of which the boy could never have heard (to double the size of a square, draw a square on the diagonal). Such knowledge, rationalists insist, is certain, universal, and completely unlearned.

Plato so greatly admired the rigorous reasoning of geometry that he is alleged to have inscribed over the door of his Academy the phrase Let no one unacquainted with geometry enter here. His famous forms are accessible only to reason, not to sense. But how are they related to sensible things? His answers differed. Sometimes he viewed the forms as distilling those common properties of a class in virtue of which one identifies anything as a member of it. Thus, what makes anything a triangle is its having three straight sides; this is its essence. At other times, Plato held that the form is an ideal, a non-sensible goal to which the sensible thing approximates; the geometers perfect triangle never was on sea or land, though all actual triangles more or less embody it. He conceived the forms as more real than the sensible things that are their shadows and saw that philosophers must penetrate to these invisible essences and see with their minds eye how they are linked together. For Plato they formed an orderly system that was at once eternal, intelligible, and good.

Platos successor Aristotle (384322 bce) conceived of the work of reason in much the same way, though he did not view the forms as independent. His chief contribution to rationalism lay in his syllogistic logic, regarded as the chief instrument of rational explanation. Humans explain particular facts by bringing them under general principles. Why does one think Socrates will die? Because he is human, and humans are mortal. Why should one accept the general principle itself that all humans are mortal? In experience such principles have so far held without exception. But the mind cannot finally rest in this sort of explanation. Humans never wholly understand a fact or event until they can bring it under a principle that is self-evident and necessary; they then have the clearest explanation possible. On this central thesis of rationalism, the three great Greeks were in accord.

Nothing comparable in importance to their thought appeared in rationalistic philosophy in the next 1,800 years, though the work of St. Thomas Aquinas (c. 122574) was an impressive attempt to blend Greek rationalism and Christian revelation into a single harmonious system.

Read more:

Rationalism - History of rationalism | Britannica

Stirrings of religious rationalism were already felt in the Middle Ages regarding the Christian revelation. Thus, the skeptical mind of Peter Abelard (10791142) raised doubts by showing in his Sic et non (Yes and No) many contradictions among beliefs handed down as revealed truths by the Church Fathers. Aquinas, the greatest of the medieval thinkers, was a rationalist in the sense of believing that the larger part of revealed truth was intelligible to and demonstrable by reason, though he thought that a number of dogmas opaque to reason must be accepted on authority alone.

Religious rationalism did not come into its own, however, until the 16th and 17th centuries, when it took two chief forms: the scientific and the philosophical.

Galileo was a pioneer in astronomy and the founder of modern dynamics. He conceived of nature as governed throughout by laws statable with mathematical precision; the book of nature, he said, is written in mathematical form. This notion not only ruled out the occasional appeal to miracle; it also collided with dogmas regarding the permanent structure of the worldin particular with that which viewed the Earth as the motionless centre of the universe. When Galileos demonstration that the Earth moves around the Sun was confirmed by the work of Sir Isaac Newton (16421727) and others, a battle was won that marked a turning point in the history of rationalism, since it provided a decisive victory in a crucial case of conflict between reason and apparently revealed truth.

The rationalism of Descartes, as already shown, was the outcome of philosophical doubt rather than of scientific inquiry. The self-evidence of the cogito, seen by his natural light, he made the ideal for all other knowledge. The uneasiness that the church soon felt in the face of such a test was not unfounded, for Descartes was in effect exalting the natural light into the supreme court even in the field of religion. He argued that the guarantee against the possibility that even this natural light might be deceptive lay in the goodness of the Creator. But then to prove this Creator, he had to assume the prior validity of the natural light itself. Logically, therefore, the last word lay with rational insight, not with any outside divine warrant (see Cartesian circle). Descartes was inadvertently beginning a Copernican revolution in theology. Before his time, the truths regarded as most certain were those accepted from revelation; afterward these truths were subject to the judgment of human reason, thus breaking the hold of authority on the European mind.

The rationalist attitude quickly spread, its advance forming several waves of general interest and influence. The first wave occurred in England in the form of Deism. Deists accepted the existence of God but spurned supernatural revelation. The earliest member of this school, Lord Herbert of Cherbury (15831648), held that a just God would not reveal himself to a part of his creation only and that the true religion is thus a universal one, which achieves its knowledge of God through common reason. The Deistic philosopher John Toland (16701722), in his Christianity Not Mysterious (1696), sought to show that there is nothing in the Gospels contrary to reason, nor above it; any doctrine that is really above reason would be meaningless to humans. Attacking revelation, the freethinking polemicist Anthony Collins (16761729) maintained that the prophecies of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) failed of fulfillment; and the religious controversialist Thomas Woolston (16701733) urged that the New Testament miracles, as recorded, are incredible. Matthew Tindal (16571733), most learned of the English Deists, argued that the essential part of Christianity is its ethics, which, being clearly apparent to natural reason, leaves revelation superfluous. Thus the Deists, professing for the most part to be religious themselves, did much to reconcile their public to the free play of ideas in religion.

The second wave of religious rationalism, less moderate in tone and consequences, was French. This wave, reflecting an engagement with the problem of natural evil, involved a decay in the natural theology of Deism such that it merged eventually with the stream that led to materialistic atheism. Its moving spirit was Voltaire (16941778), who had been impressed by some of the Deists during a stay in England. Like them, he thought that a rational person would believe in God but not in supernatural inspiration. Hardly a profound philosopher, he was a brilliant journalist, clever and humorous in argument, devastating in satire, and warm in human sympathies. In his Candide and in many other writings, he poured irreverent ridicule on the Christian scheme of salvation as incoherent and on the church hierarchy as cruel and oppressive. In these attitudes he had the support of Denis Diderot (171384), editor of the most widely read encyclopaedia that had appeared in Europe. The rationalism of these thinkers and their followers, directed against both the religious and the political traditions of their time, did much to prepare the ground for the explosive French Revolution.

The next wave of religious rationalism occurred in Germany under the influence of Hegel, who held that a religious creed is a halfway house on the road to a mature philosophy, the product of a reason that is still under the sway of feeling and imagination. This idea was taken up and applied with learning and acuteness to the origins of Christianity by David Friedrich Strauss (180874), who published in 1835, at the age of 27, a remarkable and influential three-volume work, Das Leben Jesu (The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined, 1846). Relying largely on internal inconsistencies in the Synoptic Gospels, Strauss undertook to prove these books to be unacceptable as revelation and unsatisfactory as history. He then sought to show how an imaginative people innocent of either history or science, convinced that a messiah would appear, and deeply moved by a unique moral genius, inevitably wove myths about his birth and death, his miracles, and his divine communings.

Strausss thought as it affected religion was continued by the philosophical historian Ernest Renan (182392) and as it affected philosophy by the humanist Ludwig Feuerbach (180472) of the Hegelian left. Renans Vie de Jsus (1863; Life of Jesus) did for France what Strausss book had done for Germany, though the two differed greatly in character. Whereas Strausss work had been an intellectual exercise in destructive criticism, Renans was an attempt to reconstruct the mind of Jesus as a wholly human persona feat of imagination, performed with a disarming admiration and even reverence for its subject and with a felicity of style that gave it a large and lasting audience. Feuerbachs Wesen des Christentums (1841; Essence of Christianity) applied the myth theory even to belief in the existence of God, holding that man makes God in his own image.

The fourth wave occurred in Victorian England, following the publication in 1859 of Origin of Species by Charles Darwin (180982). This book was taken as a challenge to the authority of Scripture because there was a clear inconsistency between the Genesis account of creation and the biological account of humans slow emergence from lower forms of life. The battle raged with bitterness for several decades but died away as the theory of evolution gained more general acceptance.

Original post:

Rationalism - Religious rationalism | Britannica

During the 1936 International Surrealist Exposition, held in London, guest speaker Salvador Dal addressed his audience costumed head-to-toe in an old-fashioned scuba suit, with two dogs on leashes in one hand and a billiard cue in the other. Mid-lecture, constrained by the scuba mask, the Spanish artist began to suffocate and flailed his arms for help. The audience, unfazed, assumed his gesticulations were all part of the performance. As art legend has it, the Surrealist poet David Gascoyne eventually rescued Dal, who upon recovery remarked, I just wanted to show that I was plunging deeply into the human mind. Dal then finished his speechand his accompanying slides, to no ones surprise, were all presented upside down.

This anecdote underscores the most absurdist, even clownish, elements of the Surrealist movement, epitomized by Dalwho was considered something of a joke figure by the early 20th-century art establishment. But the art movement was actually far more diverse than is widely known, spanning various disciplines, styles, and geographies from 1924 until its end in 1966.

Founded by the poet Andr Breton in Paris in 1924, Surrealism was an artistic and literary movement. It proposed that the Enlightenmentthe influential 17th- and 18th-century intellectual movement that championed reason and individualismhad suppressed the superior qualities of the irrational, unconscious mind. Surrealisms goal was to liberate thought, language, and human experience from the oppressive boundaries of rationalism.

Breton had studied medicine and psychiatry and was well-versed in the psychoanalytical writings of Sigmund Freud. He was particularly interested in the idea that the unconscious mindwhich produced dreamswas the source of artistic creativity. A devoted Marxist, Breton also intended Surrealism to be a revolutionary movement capable of unleashing the minds of the masses from the rational order of society. But how could they achieve this liberation of the human mind?

Automatism, a practice that is akin to free association or a stream of consciousness, gave the Surrealists the means to produce unconscious artwork.Surrealist artistAndr Massons mixed-media canvasBattle of Fishes(1926) is an early example of automatic painting. To begin, Masson took gessoa tacky substance typically used to prime supports for paintingand let it freely fall across the surface of his canvas. He then threw sand over it, letting the grains stick to the adhesive at random, and doodled and painted around the resulting forms. Artists employing automatic methods embraced the element of chance, often to surprising results. Massons end product features two prehistoric fish, jaws dripping with blood, fighting it out in the primordial ooze: an unconscious demonstration of the inherent violence of nature.

Not every Surrealist chose to create such abstract works, however. Many Surrealists recognized that the representation of a things actual appearance in the physical world might more effectively conjure associations for the viewer wherein a deeper, unconscious reality revealed itself. Artists like Dal and the Belgian painterRen Magrittecreated hyper-realistic, dreamlike visions that are windows into a strange world beyond waking life. MagrittesLa Clairvoyance(1936), for instance, in which an artist paints a bird in flight while he looks at an egg sitting atop a table, suggests a dreamscape or a hallucinatory state.

Though Surrealism is indeed most associated with such flamboyant and irreverent figures as Dal, Breton recruited a wide group of artists and intellectuals already active in Paris to write for and exhibit under his banner.

Building on the anti-rational tradition ofDada, Surrealism counted among its members such major Dada figures asTristan Tzara,Francis Picabia,Jean Arp,Max Ernst, andMarcel Duchamp. By 1924, this group was augmented by other artists and literary figures, including the writers Paul luard, Robert Desnos, Georges Bataille, and Antonin Artaud; the paintersJoan MirandYves Tanguy; the sculptorsAlberto GiacomettiandMeret Oppenheim; and the filmmakers Ren Clair,Jean Cocteau, and Luis Buuel.

But Breton was notoriously fickle about who he admitted to the movement, and he had a habit of excommunicating members who he felt no longer shared his particular view of Surrealism. Desnos and Masson, for example, were tossed out of the group via Bretons Second Manifesto of Surrealism in 1930 for their unwillingness to support his political aims. Bataille, whose Surrealist viewpoint differed considerably from Bretons, went on to form his own influential splinter group, the College of Sociology, which published journals and held exhibitions throughout the 1930s.

As an interwar movement beginning in Paris in the 1920s, Surrealism responded to a post-World War I period that saw the slow reconstruction of major French cities, the height of the French colonial empire abroad, and the rise of fascism across Europe.

By 1937, however, most of the major figures in Surrealism had been forced to leave Europe to escape Nazi persecution. Max ErnstsEurope After the RainII(194042) reflects this fraught moment with a post-apocalyptic vision created at the height of World War II. A partially abstract work formed by decalcomaniaa technique that entailed painting on glass, then pressing that painted glass to the canvas to allow chance elements to remainEurope After the Rainsuggests bombed-out buildings, the corpses of humans and animals, and eroded geological formations in the aftermath of a great cataclysm.

The emigration of Surrealists to various sites of refuge during World War II did, however, spread the movements influence across the Atlantic, where it would take firm root in the Americas. As Surrealism gained traction in the 1930s and 40s, it brought automatic practices and an interest in psychology and mythology to a new generation of artists.Jackson Pollocks Surrealist-inspiredGuardians of the Secret(1943) exists somewhere between his earlierSocial Realistworks and the later drip paintings that would make him famous: it includes a recumbent jackal, two totemic forms, and a frieze of calligraphic pseudo-script.

In Latin America, Surrealism found its voice in the work of artists likeFrida Kahlo, whose highly personal artistic style paralleled aspects of Surrealism without owing it any specific intellectual debt. InArbol de la Esperanza(1946), which translates to tree of hope, Kahlo doesnt depict an actual tree, but rather a dual self-portrait set in an unfamiliar landscape, a tableau that suggests both the 1925 bus accident that rendered her infertile, and the possibility of renewal. While its depiction of fantastic subject matter is reminiscent of works byMagritte or Dal, Kahlos painting celebrates the everyday artistry of traditional Mexicanex votopainting.

The psychological and mythological underpinnings of Surrealism also enabled non-European artistslikeWifredo Lam, a painter of Afro-Cuban and Chinese descent who studied in Madrid and Paris in the 1920s and 30sto delve into the native traditions of their own countries. LamsLes Noces(1947) intricately weaves the Cubist-Surrealist forms of artists likePablo Picassoand Joan Mir into a representation of the Afro-Cuban ritual Santera.

Surrealism represents a crucible of avant-garde ideas and techniques that contemporary artists are still using today, including the introduction of chance elements into works of art. These methods opened up a new mode of painterly practice pursued by theAbstract Expressionists. The element of chance has also proven integral to performance art, as in the unscriptedHappeningsof the 1950s, and even to computer art based on randomization. The Surrealist focus on dreams, psychoanalysis, and fantastic imagery has provided fodder fora number of artists working today, such asGlenn Brown, who has also directly appropriated Dals art in his own painting.

Surrealisms desire to break free of reason led it to question the most basic foundation of artistic production: the idea that art is the product of a single artists creative imagination. As an antidote to this, Breton promoted the cadavre exquis, or exquisite corpse, as a technique for collectively creating art, one that is still played as a game widely today. It involves starting a sentence, sketch, or collage, and then giving it to another person to continuewithout letting that person see what has already been written, drawn, or placed. The term derived from a simple game of creating collective prose that resulted in the sentence, The exquisite corpse shall drink the new wine.

Given the methods embrace of chance and tendency to produce humorous, absurd, or unsettling images, it soon became a viable technique for creating exactly the type of unconscious, collective work that the Surrealists sought. Exquisite Corpse 27 (ca. 2011), a work completed by Ghada Amer, Will Cotton, and Carry Leibowitz, is a contemporary example of the sort of stylistically and thematically disconnected work that can arise from this Surrealist method.

The historian and music critic Greil Marcus has gone so far as to characterize Surrealism as one chapter in a series of revolutionary attempts to liberate thought that stretches from the blasphemies of medieval heretics up to the 1960s and beyond. In this light, Surrealism can be understood as the progenitor of the later, Marx-inspired art movement Situationism, 1960s countercultural protests, and even punk: a project of breaking down the rational order that society imposes on individuals.

Header image: Salvador Dal, The Persistence of Memory, 1931. Salvador Dal, Fundaci Gala-Salvador Dal, Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York 2016. Image courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art.

Photographs of Joan Mir and Max Ernst via Wikimedia Commons.

See the original post:

What Is Surrealism? | Artsy

August 5, 2011 Posted by koshal

Empiricism and rationalism are two schools of thoughts in philosophy that are characterized by different views, and hence, they should be understood regarding the differences between them. First let us define these two thoughts. Empiricism is an epistemological standpoint that states that experience and observation should be the means of gaining knowledge. On the other hand, Rationalism is a philosophical standpoint that believes that opinions and actions should be based on reason rather than on religious beliefs or emotions. The main difference between the two philosophical standpoints is as follows. While rationalism believes that pure reason is sufficient for the production of knowledge, empiricism believes that it is not so. According to empiricism, it should be created through observation and experience. Through this article let us examine the differences between the two philosophical thoughts while gaining a comprehensive understanding of each standpoint.

Empiricism is an epistemological standpoint that states that experience and observation should be the means of gaining knowledge. An empiricist would say that one cannot have the knowledge about God by reason. Empiricism believes that all kinds of knowledge related to existence can be derived only from experience. There is no place for the pure reason to get the knowledge about the world. In short, it can be said that empiricism is a mere negation of rationalism.

Empiricism teaches that we should not try to know substantive truths about God and the soul from reason. Instead, an empiricist would recommend two projects, namely, constructive and critical. Constructive project centers on commentaries of religious texts. Critical projects aim at the elimination of what is said to have been known by the metaphysicians. In fact, the elimination process is based on experience. Thus, it can be said that empiricism relies more on experience than pure reason.

David Hume was an empiricist

Rationalism is a philosophical standpoint that believes that opinions and actions should be based on reason rather than on religious beliefs or emotions. The rationalist would say that one can get the knowledge of God by mere reason. In other words, pure reason would suffice for one to have a thorough understanding of the Almighty.

Even when it comes to their acceptance of the sources of knowledge, these two standpoints are different from one another. Rationalism believes in intuition, whereas empiricism does not believe in intuition. It is important to know that we can be rationalists as far as the subject of mathematics is concerned, but can be empiricist as far as the other physical sciences are concerned. Intuition and deduction may hold good for mathematics, but they may not hold good for other physical sciences. These are the subtle differences between empiricism and rationalism.

Plato believed in rational insight

Empiricism is an epistemological standpoint that states that experience and observation should be the means of gaining knowledge.

Rationalism is a philosophical standpoint that believes that opinions and actions should be based on reason rather than on religious beliefs or emotions.

An empiricist would say that one cannot have the knowledge about God by reason. Empiricism believes that all kinds of knowledge related to existence can be derived only from experience.

The rationalist would say that one can get the knowledge of God by mere reason.

Empiricism is a mere negation of rationalism.

Empiricism teaches that we should not try to know substantive truths about God and the soul from reason.

An empiricist would recommend two projects, namely, constructive and critical.

Rationalism would ask to follow pure reason.

Empiricism does not believe in intuition.

Rationalism believes in intuition.

Images Courtesy:David Humeand Plato via Wikicommons (Public Domain)

Continued here:

Difference Between Empiricism and Rationalism

What is Rationalism?

Rationalism functions on three key principles that work to find the truth:

Empiricism, on the other hand, works with key principles to use skepticism in its school of thought that rejects the principles of rationalism.

Induction is a significant difference between rationalism and empiricism. Induction promotes the belief that the only thing we can be sure of is the experiences that we have. This is called solipsism. Everything that we experience is a projection of the mind, meaning that we can only truly know that we exist and everything else is just the projection of the mind. Interestingly, a rationalist belief that is similar to solipsism is Rene Descartes' statement 'I think; therefore, I am.'

Keep in mind, where rationalism holds that experience isn't necessary to acquire truth - that it can be discovered through reason - empiricists believe that the nature of reality, or truth, can only become knowledge if it is experienced. This knowledge is attained through the primary or secondary qualities of an object.

Primary Qualities - these are qualities that belong to an object and refer to its physical properties, such as shape or size or color. A banana has a curved shape specific to a banana and is yellow.

Secondary Qualities - these qualities refer to the degree that is perceived by the individual, such as its taste or degree of color. The secondary qualities of a banana are defined by the individual, such as its taste. Some people don't think that bananas are delicious. The degree of yellow for the banana can be perceived on different levels as well, depending on the individual.

Rationalism and empiricism share some similarities, specifically the use of skepticism, which is a doubt that the other ideas are true, to invoke a pattern of thought that will lead to knowledge or the truth of the nature of reality. This skepticism, however, is what makes rationalism and empiricism fundamentally opposite.

Rationalism has three key principles: Deduction , which is the application of concrete principles to draw a conclusion; innate ideas , which is the concept that we're born with fundamental truths or experiences left over from another life that we're born with; and reason, which uses logic to determine a conclusion.

Empiricism has its own principles, which include a rejection of innate ideas, the use of sense experience, which involves ideas that are either simple or complex and make use of the five senses, and induction, which is the belief that very little can be proven conclusively, especially without experience. From this, empiricists promote the notion of solipsism, which is the belief that everything we experience is a projection of the mind and can only be true to the individual. In other words, only the self can be known to be real. Remember Descartes' quote about this?

Empiricists believe that experience and thus knowledge can only be obtained through absorbing an object's primary qualities, which are qualities that belong to an object and refer to its physical properties, and secondary qualities, which involve the degree that is perceived by the individual, such as its taste or degree of color.

Read more here:

Rationalism vs. Empiricism: Similarities & Differences

Rationalism and empiricism are two distinct philosophical approaches to understanding the world around us. They are often contrasted with each other, as their approach to knowledge is completely different. Empiricists believe that we learn about our world through our previous experience, while for rationalists, reason is the basis of understanding anything. Both views can help someone attain knowledge, but they have certain disadvantages.

1 Empiricism Advantages

An empiricist would say that the laws of electrical conductivity are dependent on human observation. It's because we've seen electricity going through a piece of metal and not wood thousands of times that we consolidated the fact that metal is a conductor and wood is not. Our senses don't lie -- under normal circumstances -- and experience can show whether a phenomenon repeats itself and therefore it abides by certain laws or it happened randomly. Scientists for example use experiments to test through observation whether an assumption is true or not.

2 Empiricism Disadvantages

Perception is not universal: What a person perceives as true can be false for another person. For example, a book can be red for one man, but for a color-blind person it may be green. Does this mean that because one or many color-blinds perceive the book as such it is indeed green? Furthermore, perception is also affected by external factors: the same experiment under different conditions (temperature for example) can give different results, unbeknownst to the careless researcher.

3 Rationalism Advantages

Rationalists believe that there is a reason each object or phenomenon exists. An object comes back to the ground when thrown upwards not because a million people have observed so but because there is a reason for it to happen: the law of gravity. In addition, metal is a conductor because it facilitates movable electric charges, unlike wood. Rationalism tries to find the already existing general principles (man didn't create them) behind each phenomenon, which are independent of each individual's perception of knowledge. The result is undisputed theories explaining the laws of the world surrounding us.

4 Rationalism Disadvantages

Rationalism suggests that people are born with innate ideas, truths in a particular subject area (such as math concepts) that are part of out rational nature and we only have to bring them to the surface. However, as philosopher John Locke suggests, there are "idiots" who are not aware of -- and cannot understand -- simple notions, contradicting the universality of innate ideas. Furthermore, laws or logic describing the world are not infallible, as they may be based on human misconceptions, otherwise scientists would not conduct experiments and just rely on logical arguments.

Read the original here:

Advantages & Disadvantages of Rationalism & Empiricism

Main Difference Rationalism vs Empiricism

Epistemology is a branch of philosophy that deals with the theory of knowledge. It studies the nature of knowledge, the rationality of belief, and justification. Rationalism and empiricism are two schools of thought in epistemology. Both these schools of thought are concerned with the source of knowledge and justification. The main difference between rationalism and empiricism is that rationalism considers reason as the source of knowledge whereas empiricism considers experience as the source of knowledge.

This article covers,

1. What is Rationalism? Definition and Characteristics

2. What is Empiricism? Definition and Characteristics

3. Difference Between Rationalism and Empiricism

Empiricism is a theory that states that knowledge comes only or primarily from sensory experience. This theory emphasizes the role of the five senses in obtaining knowledge. Empiricism rejects innate concepts or inborn knowledge. John Locke, one of the most famous empiricist stated that mind is a blank slate (tabula rasa) when we enter the world. According to this theory, it is only later, through the acquisition of experience that we gain knowledge and information.

However, if knowledge comes only through experience, it is impossible for us to talk about something that we have not experienced. This claim questions the validity of religious and ethical concepts; since these concepts cannot be observed or experienced, they were considered to be meaningless. Nevertheless, moderate empiricists accept that there are some phenomenon that cannot be explained through senses.

John Lock was an eminent empiricist.

Rationalism is a theory that states knowledge comes through reason, i.e., reason is the source of knowledge and justification. There are three basic claims in rationalism and rationalists must adopt at least one of these three claims. These claims are known as the intuition/deduction thesis, the innate knowledge thesis, or the innate concept thesis.

Innate knowledge Rationalists argue that we are not born with minds like blind slates, but we have some innate knowledge. That is, even before we experience the world we know some things.

Intuition/deduction Rationalists can also argue that there are some truths that can be worked out independent of experience of the world, though not known innately. Examples of such truths include logic, mathematics, or ethical truths.

Innate concept Some philosophers argue that innate knowledge and innate concept are the same whereas some other philosophers are of the view that they are different. Innate concept these people claim as that some concepts are a part of our rational nature and are not based on our experience. The way two children view the same object as ugly and beautiful can be an example of innate concepts.

Although these two theories, rationalism and empiricism, are often contrasted with each other, both reason and experience can be sources of knowledge. Language acquisition can be taken as an example of this. Although experience is needed to perfect a language, a certain amount of, intuition, deduction, and innate knowledge are also required to acquire a language.

Immanuel Kant was a noted rationalist.

Rationalism: Rationalism is a theory based on the claim that reason is the source of knowledge.

Empiricism: Empiricism is a theory based on the claim that experience is the source of knowledge.

Rationalism: Rationalists believe in intuition.

Empiricism: Empiricists do not believe in intuition.

Rationalism: Rationalists believe that individuals have innate knowledge or concepts.

Empiricism: Empiricists believe that individuals have no innate knowledge.

Rationalism: Immanuel Kant, Plato, Rene Descartes, and Aristotle are some examples of prominent rationalists.

Empiricism: John Locke, John Stuart Mill, and George Berkeley are some examples of prominent empiricists.

Image Courtesy:

Immanuel Kant (painted portrait)By Anonymous (Public Domain) via Commons Wikimedia

JohnLockBy Sir Godfrey Kneller State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia.( Public Domain) via Commons Wikimedia

View post:

Difference Between Rationalism and Empiricism | Definition and ...

The difference between rationalism and empiricism can be understood primarily in terms of three claims on which the positions disagree. The first claim is the intuition/deduction thesis. This is the idea that people can gain knowledge just by using intuition, and by building off their intuition with deductive reasoning. Empiricists generally only agree with this thesis in the case of knowledge that concerns ideas, and not knowledge concerning the external world. Rationalists, on the other hand, often claim that people can gain meaningful knowledge about the external world through intuition and deduction.

The second claim is the innate knowledge thesis. Similar to innate concepts, innate knowledge is the idea that it is simply part of human nature to know certain facts about the world, without having to learn them. The difference between a fact known through intuition and one known innately is that intuitively known facts are felt or sensed to be true when someone thinks about them, whereas innate knowledge is simply known to be true. Rationalists often identify particular claims that they believe are examples of innate knowledge. Empiricists generally hold that innate knowledge does not exist, as such a claim would go against the concept of the blank slate. Empiricists may hold that people have certain innate capacities that allow them to learn, but the knowledge itself must be the product of experience.

The third claim is the innate concept thesis. Like innate knowledge, an innate concept is one that exists within the human mind without a person having learned it. Innate concepts are different from innate knowledge because having a concept in one's mind just means understanding the meaning of some idea; it does not involve knowing a fact or statement. Rationalists often claim that people understand certain ideas innately, such as the idea of free will, or of mind and body. However, as in the case of innate knowledge, empiricists generally hold that innate concepts do not exist, because people are born as blank slates.

Although rationalism and empiricism generally advocate different views about the source of knowledge, it is not accurate to think of them as opposite positions or to view them as two binary options. Many philosophers who have been considered rationalists or empiricists actually have more complexity in their positions, and a given philosopher might follow rationalist principles in one field but empiricist principles in another.

Furthermore, rationalism and empiricism do not necessarily lead to opposing conclusions or viewpoints. For example, both rationalism and empiricism employ skepticism in their arguments. Descartes, who is generally viewed as a rationalist philosopher, argued for the importance of doubting apparent sources of knowledge and examining whether it is possible to have certainty about anything. This skeptical method was shared by empiricist philosophers such as David Hume, who examined whether the information people gain from experience is actually enough to justify knowledge about the world.

Another related shared idea is the emphasis on one's own individual perspective as the source of knowledge. According to Descartes's skeptical method, knowledge can only be gained by beginning with certainty about the existence of one's own mind. This is the source of his famous argument that ''I think, therefore I am,'' often called the cogito. The cogito claims that a person can be certain that they exist because they are thinking. This idea is linked to solipsism, the claim that other people do not truly exist or do not have minds. Descartes argues that external experience should be doubted, but ultimately claims that it is possible to gain knowledge of the outside world. Locke, who is generally viewed as an empiricist, takes up a similar idea and questions whether it is possible to know that other people think and feel. His conclusion is that there is no way to directly know that other people have minds, but that it is a reasonable inference based on observations of the world.

Rationalism and empiricism are terms used to describe different views about where people acquire knowledge. They are part of the field of epistemology, which examines the meaning, origin, and scope of knowledge. Rationalism views reason and intuition, or people's ability to sense the truth of statements, to be key ways of gaining knowledge. Rationalism focuses on deduction, or using the laws of logic to make arguments featuring conclusions that must be true. It also advocates the existence of innate ideas that people inherently possess in their minds. Empiricism, by contrast, holds that ideas and knowledge are the result of sense experience, or people's sensory interactions with the world. According to empiricism, the mind at birth is a tabula rasa or blank slate, without any knowledge or ideas. Knowledge is gained through induction, where people use experiences to make plausible inferences about the world.

Rationalism and empiricism can be distinguished based on three central claims. First is the intuition/deduction thesis: Rationalists generally consider intuition and deduction to be legitimate avenues to meaningful knowledge concerning the external world, whereas empiricists think intuition is only reliable when it comes to claims about ideas and their meaning. Next is the innate knowledge thesis: Rationalists often claim people have innate knowledge residing in their minds, whereas empiricists generally claim experience is where people get knowledge. Third is the innate concept thesis: Rationalists generally think people innately understand certain concepts, whereas empiricists disagree. Despite these disagreements, rationalism and empiricism are not truly opposing views. Many philosophers have views that incorporate both positions. There are also some issues where rationalists and empiricists take a similar approach. For instance, both rationalist and empiricist philosophers have advocated skepticism or doubt about apparent knowledge, and both have considered the issue of solipsism, or whether people can determine from their own experiences that other people exist and have minds of their own.

Originally posted here:

Rationalism vs. Empiricism | Concepts, Differences & Examples - Video ...

20th-century Italian architectural style

In architecture, Rationalism is an architectural current which mostly developed from Italy in the 1920s and 1930s. Vitruvius had claimed in his work De architectura that architecture is a science that can be comprehended rationally. The formulation was taken up and further developed in the architectural treatises of the Renaissance. Eighteenth-century progressive art theory opposed the Baroque use of illusionism with the classic beauty of truth and reason.

Twentieth-century Rationalism derived less from a special, unified theoretical work than from a common belief that the most varied problems posed by the real world could be resolved by reason. In that respect, it represented a reaction to Historicism and a contrast to Art Nouveau and Expressionism.

The term Rationalism is commonly used to refer to the wider International Style.[1][2][3][4]

The name Rationalism is retroactively applied to a movement in architecture that came about during the Age of Enlightenment (more specifically, Neoclassicism), arguing that architecture's intellectual base is primarily in science as opposed to reverence for and emulation of archaic traditions and beliefs. Rationalist architects, following the philosophy of Ren Descartes emphasized geometric forms and ideal proportions.[5]:8184

The French Louis XVI style emerged in the mid-18th century with its roots in the waning interest of the Baroque period. The architectural notions of the time gravitated more and more to the belief that reason and natural forms are tied closely together, and that the rationality of science should serve as the basis for where structural members should be placed. Towards the end of the 18th century, Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand, a teacher at the influential cole Polytechnique in Paris at the time, argued that architecture in its entirety was based in science.

Other architectural theorists of the period who advanced rationalist ideas include Abb Jean-Louis de Cordemoy (16311713),[6]:559[7]:265 the Venetian Carlo Lodoli (16901761),[6]:560 Abb Marc-Antoine Laugier (17131769) and Quatremre de Quincy (17551849).[5]:8792

The architecture of Claude Nicholas Ledoux (17361806) and tienne-Louis Boulle (17281799) typify Enlightenment rationalism, with their use of pure geometric forms, including spheres, squares, and cylinders.[5]:9296

The term structural rationalism most often refers to a 19th-century French movement, usually associated with the theorists Eugne Viollet-le-Duc and Auguste Choisy. Viollet-le-Duc rejected the concept of an ideal architecture and instead saw architecture as a rational construction approach defined by the materials and purpose of the structure.

The architect Eugne Train was one of the most important practitioners of this school, particularly with his educational buildings such as the Collge Chaptal and Lyce Voltaire.[8]

Architects such as Henri Labrouste and Auguste Perret incorporated the virtues of structural rationalism throughout the 19th century in their buildings. By the early 20th century, architects such as Hendrik Petrus Berlage were exploring the idea that structure itself could create space without the need for decoration. This gave rise to modernism, which further explored this concept. More specifically, the Soviet Modernist group ASNOVA were known as 'the Rationalists'.

Rational Architecture (Italian: Architettura razionale) thrived in Italy from the 1920s to the 1940s, under the support and patronage of Mussolinis Fascist regime. In 1926, a group of young architects Sebastiano Larco, Guido Frette, Carlo Enrico Rava, Adalberto Libera, Luigi Figini, Gino Pollini, and Giuseppe Terragni (190443) founded the so-called Gruppo 7, publishing their manifesto in the magazine Rassegna Italiana. Their declared intent was to strike a middle ground between the classicism of the Novecento Italiano movement and the industrially inspired architecture of Futurism.[9]:203 Their "note" declared:

The hallmark of the earlier avant garde was a contrived impetus and a vain, destructive fury, mingling good and bad elements: the hallmark of today's youth is a desire for lucidity and wisdom...This must be clear...we do not intend to break with tradition...The new architecture, the true architecture, should be the result of a close association between logic and rationality.[9]:203

One of the first rationalist buildings was the Palazzo Gualino in Turin, built for the financier Riccardo Gualino by the architects Gino Levi-Montalcini and Giuseppe Pagano.[10]Gruppo 7 mounted three exhibitions between 1926 and 1931, and the movement constituted itself as an official body, the Movimento Italiano per l'Architettura Razionale (MIAR), in 1930. Exemplary works include Giuseppe Terragni's Casa del Fascio in Como (193236), The Medaglia d'Oro room at the Italian Aeronautical Show in Milan (1934) by Pagano and Marcello Nizzoli, and the Fascist Trades Union Building in Como (193843), designed by Cesare Cattaneo, Pietro Lingeri, Augusto Magnani, L. Origoni, and Mario Terragni.[9]:2059

Pagano became editor of Casabella in 1933 together with Edoardo Persico. Pagano and Persico featured the work of the rationalists in the magazine, and its editorials urged the Italian state to adopt rationalism as its official style. The Rationalists enjoyed some official commissions from the Fascist government of Benito Mussolini, but the state tended to favor the more classically inspired work of the National Union of Architects. Architects associated with the movement collaborated on large official projects of the Mussolini regime, including the University of Rome (begun in 1932) and the Esposizione Universale Roma (EUR) in the southern part of Rome (begun in 1936). The EUR features monumental buildings, many of which evocative of ancient Roman architecture, but absent ornament, revealing strong geometric forms.[9]:2047

In the late 1960s, a new rationalist movement emerged in architecture, claiming inspiration from both the Enlightenment and early-20th-century rationalists. Like the earlier rationalists, the movement, known as the Tendenza, was centered in Italy. Practitioners include Carlo Aymonino (19262010), Aldo Rossi (193197), and Giorgio Grassi. The Italian design magazine Casabella featured the work of these architects and theorists. The work of architectural historian Manfredo Tafuri influenced the movement, and the University Iuav of Venice emerged as a center of the Tendenza after Tafuri became chair of Architecture History in 1968.[5]:157 et seq. A Tendenza exhibition was organized for the 1973 Milan Triennale.[5]:178183

Rossi's book L'architettura della citt, published in 1966, and translated into English as The Architecture of the City in 1982, explored several of the ideas that inform Neo-rationalism. In seeking to develop an understanding of the city beyond simple functionalism, Rossi revives the idea of typology, following from Quatremre de Quincy, as a method for understanding buildings, as well as the larger city. He also writes of the importance of monuments as expressions of the collective memory of the city, and the idea of place as an expression of both physical reality and history.[5]:16672[11]:17880

Architects such as Leon Krier, Maurice Culot, and Demetri Porphyrios took Rossi's ideas to their logical conclusion with a revival of Classical Architecture and Traditional Urbanism. Krier's witty critique of Modernism, often in the form of cartoons, and Porphyrios's well crafted philosophical arguments, such as "Classicism is not a Style", won over a small but talented group of architects to the classical point of view. Organizations such as the Traditional Architecture Group at the RIBA, and the Institute of Classical Architecture attest to their growing number, but mask the Rationalist origins.

In Germany, Oswald Mathias Ungers became the leading practitioner of German rationalism from the mid-1960s.[11]:17880 Ungers influenced a younger generation of German architects, including Hans Kollhoff, Max Dudler, and Christoph Mckler.[12]

Go here to see the original:

Rationalism (architecture) - Wikipedia

The Indian law enforcement authorities made a major breakthrough on July 1 this year after they apprehended the murderer of Hindu blogger Ananta Vijay Das.

Identified as Faisal Ahmed, he has been on the run from the law enforcement authorities since 2015. Following his arrest from the Bommanhalli area in Bengaluru, he was taken to Kolkata on July 3.

The arrest was made by the Kolkata police, which also obtained information about his radical activities in the country. Faisal will now be handed over to the Bangladesh police.

While speaking about the development, Bangladesh Anti-Terrorism Unit (ATU) DIG Moniruzzaman conceded that the authorities had information that Faisal was residing illegally in India.

He stated that the Indian law enforcement authorities were apprised about the matter and necessary documents were provided to confirm his identity, prior to Faisals arrest.

Reportedly, the Bangladeshi authorities provided Faisals mobile number to the Kolkata police. Using call records, it was found that he was staying in Bengaluru.

Once a medical student, Faisal was at the forefront of spreading jihadist ideology under the pretext of teaching in madrassas. He has also been involved with Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT), affiliated with Islamist terror outfit Al-Qaeda.

During interrogation, it came to light that he was at the helm of organising the Al-Qaeda module in the Barak Valley of Assam. He admitted to fleeing to Silchar from Bangladesh in 2015 and making a fake voter ID card by the name of Shahid Majumdar.

He also acquired a passport, where his house address has been traced to Mizoram. Faisal was also successful in procuring a drivers licence from Bengaluru. The terrorist however cried foul and denied any involvement in the murder of Hindu blogger Ananta Vijay Das.

According to the Special Superintendent of Anti-Terrorism Unit Aslam Khan, Faisal Ahmed will be extradited to Bangladesh on completion of necessary procedures.

Faisal Khan is one of the accused in the brutal murder of Hindu blogger Ananta Vijay Das in Subidbazar in the Sylhet district of Bangladesh. A vocal critic of religious fanaticism, Das had received several death threats from Islamic extremists.

He was a banker and the Council for Science and Rationalism of Bangladeshs general secretary. He was an editor of a magazine named Jukti (Logic). On the fateful day of May 12, 2015, the Mukto-Mona (free thinkers) blogger was chased down by Islamists and slaughtered with machetes.

He was immediately rushed to the hospital but was declared dead on arrival. In March this year, a Bangladeshi court sentenced 4 people to death for the killing of Ananta Vijay Das. They included Abul Khayer Rashid Ahmed (25), Abul Hossain (25), Mamunur Rashid (25) and Faysal Ahmed (27).

Two of the accused are still at large. While delivering the verdict, Justice Nurul Amin Biplob remarked, If these accused are not given exemplary punishment, people of other terrorists, extremist ideologies will be encouraged to commit such killings.

He further added, The main purpose (of the killing) was to spread fear and apprehension among writers who wrote or spoke about liberalism, progressivism, science and prejudice prevalent in the society through the brutality and horror of the killing.

Read the rest here:

Had been staying in India since 2015 with a fake passport, voter ID and driving license: Bangladeshi Faisal Ahmed arrested for the murder of Hindu...

Flagler County schools, county government and Palm Coast are at odds over how to bill builders for new schools made necessary by a ramp-up in new construction.

In a sense, the dispute is insider baseball. Its about a pending agreement between local governments and what it should say about how to collect school impact fees, the one time fee builders pay for every new house to defray the cost of new schools, roads, fire houses, and so on.

In another sense, the agreement will affect most families with children in public schools, because it will define the timing of the districts new schools, which in turn may impact whether or not your child will be in a crowded school, a portable classroom, or a decent environment that respects the states class-size law.

None of this would have been an issue had the County Commission in May not voted to scrap a long-standing agreement with the school district on how school impact fees are collected. But developers were disenchanted with the agreement, which could require them to make heavier payments of impact fees at the front end of development than they wanted to. And state law has changed over the years, shifting burdens away from developers or reducing regulations that, until 2011, had favored school districts. The developer-friendly Flagler County Commission seized on the developments to rewrite the local school-financing rules, to the extent that it could through a new joint agreement, commonly referred to as an interlocal agreement, or ILA for short.

Friday morning, representatives from the school board, the county, Palm Coast, Flagler Beach and Bunnell are meeting in Room 3, on the third floor of the Government Services Building in Bunnell, to try to hash out what, at the moment, is the impasse between the district on one side and the county and Palm Coast on the other.

It sounds complicated, and officials involved speak as if it is, or claim it is. It is not. The only complications are the politics mucking up the otherwise straightforward dispute over details. What follows is an explanation of the dispute, the terms and the dollar figures involved, and each sides interpretation of where it stands.

Scrapping a Long-Standing Agreement

In March, the county ratified the school boards new impact fee of $5,450 on each new single-family home built. It was the first increase since 2005, when the impact fee, created at that time, was $3,600. The district wanted more. But a quirk in state law allows the county to stand in the way, preventing any new school impact fees from taking effect without the commissions approval. The commission did, and forced the district to settle for less. It created some bad blood. That hasnt gone away.

The new fee was only the first part of the districts challenge. The second was created when the county scrapped the ILA in effect since 2008. That ILA ends on Sept. 1. The local governments are scrambling to write a new one. Most of it is not controversial, with the exception of one sticking point: when may the school district collect in impact fees: when a developer puts in an application? When a developer pulls a building permit? When the house is completed?

Developers, who have enjoyed an inordinate degree of power at the negotiating table thanks to the commission, want to back-end payments as much as possible. The school district wants to front-end payments as much as possible.

To some extent, the district has state law on its side, under whats called the school concurrency law. School concurrency simply means that school districts and local governments work together to ensure that by the time new homes are built, theres enough space in schools for the new students who come with those new homes (assuming they do: its been a false assumption in Flagler, where a majority of new homes have been bought by retired people without children.)

Concurrency is in place by state law since 2005. Before that, it was optional. The Legislature in 2011 diluted concurrency requirements again, making it easier for developers to go ahead with construction with fewer of the previous regulations enforced. A few years ago it also changed the timing of impact fee payments. Previously, the impact fees were all due up front. Now they may be paid at the time a building permit is issued, or in negotiated timing agreements with individual developers.

When a district has plenty of space in its schools, its not an issue. The district isnt desperate for the money. When space begins to run out, its a different matter. Something called proportionate fair share payments kick in: a developer must pay up front a share of impact fees to give the district time to plan for new space, and stack up enough money to secure loans or bonds. The district is currently negotiating such proportionate fair share agreements, but there is no uniformity. Developers, for good reason, want uniformity and predictability.

But they still want to pay as little as possible, up front. Palm Coast and the county are proposing a 20 percent payment up front, reviving an old provision of the existing ILA called capacity reservation. They would then pay the rest of their impact fees in installments, over several years.

Fairness in Planning

The district is rejecting that approach. It is proposing a proportionate share approach that would have developers pay 40 percent up front, then 30 percent the second year, and 30 percent the third year. Palm Coast and the county have rejected that.

Thats the impasse, down to the way each side is characterizing the other.

So far our perspective from the county is that weve got some resistance to change on the part of the school district, Adam Mengel, the countys development director, said, with the district believing that the previous agreement wasnt broken and didnt need to be junked, only tweaked.

I dont know that we agree that theres no compromise available, Chris Wilson, a lawyer representing Orange County schools, and now Flagler schools on the impact fee and ILA issues, says.

My suggestion is to be a good faith negotiator in this process. We have room to improve on that part, County Commissioner Andy Dance, a former school board member who will be at the ILA meeting, said toward the end of a special commission meeting on the subject today.

They have asked for something that gave them a better timeframe so that they would see what the future had, and thats why we had proposed the 40-30-30, because its something theyve asked for, says Patty Bott, the districts coordinator of planning and inter-governmental relations.

Bott said the district has to look ahead three years to ensure capacity. Otherwise, the district would have to install portable classrooms until it had enough money to build a school, defeating the purpose of concurrency. There are current needs ahead for new schools, including projected needs for a middle school and a high school in about four years, plus an expansion of Matanzas High School in the works.

Currently the total amount for these schools is like $175 million over three years, based upon the developments that are in the pipeline right now, Bott said. If we had proportionate share, we would collect $53 million over those three years. If we have the 20 percent capacity reservation, we would collect $13 million. $13 million is not enough for us to guarantee your bonding. (Those numbers are based on however many units are proposed over the next three years that could be built out, she said.)

She added: Our current ILA says each of the communities will collect 100 percent of the impact fees upfront from a developer, and we havent asked that to be done. But thats what the current ILA says. And we will have proportionate fair share. So the fact that theres capacity reservation, theres nothing in statute that says how the school district has to use it. Proportionate fair share is the only thing that really protects you, the developers and the community.

The Countys Proposal

The alternative proposal was developed by Assistant County Attorney Sean Moylan, a graduate of Flagler County schools and a former teacher in the district who still has genuine sympathies for the district. But he also operates with Cartesian rationalism. Moylan is spearheading the countys effort to rewrite the ILA.

Moylan is skeptical of the districts ambitious school-construction plan. Theyre showing the amount of money they need to build two schools and they have a middle school and a high school identified, I believe in year four, or maybe five of their capital plan. Is that realistic? Can we build two schools simultaneously? he asked. Is that financially feasible? Is that something that we should be trying to impose on ourselves?

If that wasnt standing district officials hair on end, this did: And so we would have a time period of portable classrooms around our schools while there until we hit a critical mass till theres enough students and enough funding to create that new school that will be needed. Thats just the reality of our local rules and the state statutes. In fact, the portables are already here, as anyone driving by the Buddy Taylor Middle School campus will have noticed this week.

He stressed that in the end, all the impact fee money will be in the school districts hands. The issue is timing and method. Consistency and uniformity, predictability was one of our main goals here, Moylan said.

Even Dance, the districts biggest ally on the commission, agrees. What Im looking through this process is something thats more predictable and easily calculated, and theres trust built into it, he said. Im not stuck on any percentage. I think that needs to continue to be negotiated but the system that Seans put in place is viable at this point.

Dances point, favoring capacity reservations: theres inequity when the district charges developers a proportionate fair share only when the districts schools are at capacity, a cost that developers who build when the district is not at capacity dont have to pay. But with a reservation system, all developers pay a share up front, regardless, eliminating that inequity.

Beyond uniformity, clarity and predictability, the reservation system is easy to implement and it removes second-guessing from the equation, as Moylan sees it. We would not no longer have to look with a skeptical eye at numbers that the school district staff are putting forth when it comes to student generation capacity, whether those numbers are valid or not, he said.

The idea of having a 20 percent reservation fee in place is that the schools would be getting a more consistent stream of revenue, instead of waiting until theyre over capacity and at a bit of a crisis to get a larger chunk. Thats the underlying premise, Moylan said. That would be in place whether the schools are over capacity or not. Either way, the amount the district takes is then credited to the developers impact fee bill. This is rational because we need to prepare for future school facilities. We dont want to be in a position like we were in the early 2000s and and therefore getting this more consistent stream of revenue is going to help the school system with their long term planning.

But Kristy Gavin, the school board attorney, sees a misunderstanding of what capacity fees accomplish. Reservation fees, she said, are setting forth that we have capacity at a school. You are reserving your spot to guarantee the prospective homeowners moving into your community that slot at that school. That is what you are reserving. You are not mitigating the overcapacity issue at a school.

Palm Coast Sides With the County

The school board at a meeting considered the countys proposal and rejected it. Moylan was at that meeting but was not invited to present the countys position. It seems like not a fair presentation to the school board at that meeting, Dance told Gavin. I have a problem with that, whether you presented it accurately or not. If they had questions, they should have had somebody who developed that system to be able to present, meaning Moylan.

But thats no longer relevant, since the battle lines are drawn. Tuesday evening, the Palm Coast City Council appeared closely aligned around the capacity reservation plan. But like county commissioners, there was not as much agreement over the length of time those payments could be stretchedwhether across three, five or 10 years.

I dont think you should pay for something until youre at the point where you do have to pay for it, Council member Ed Danko said, finding the 40-30-30 approach very steep. He favored a 20 percent approach spread over five years, or as building permits are issued.But the analogy falls short, as it is closer to letting a merchant pay the supplier for wares only when those wares are sold at retail, not when the merchant gets them wholesale, which (the economic untenability of the analogy aside) then denies the wholesaler the ability plan.

But Dance says the discussion overuses the term upfrontor at least doesnt define it, creating a false impression. When a developer submits the site plan and gets a site plan approval, that kick starts a process, he said. It takes about two years for that process to go through their site plan approval, their preliminary plat and a lot of the discussion, and these approvals dont kick in until final plat and theyre eligible to pull a building permit. So thats about two years of process. Developers, in short, are not made to pay immediately when their plans are approved.

The different sides could well fail to reach agreement Friday. Theres disagreement between the same two camps over what might happen if the impasse continues and the county just pulls out of the ILA, with no new one in place.

Hazy Outlook

Fears of development coming to an end in the absence of an agreed-upon new joint agreement, or ILA, are somewhat misplaced, Palm Coast City Attorney Neysa Borkert said. There would need to be a number of things that would have to occur for a complete halt to development to happen across the county, she said. It wouldnt be something that happens immediately with the termination of the ILA on the countys behalf.

Moylan agrees, and notes: If the county does not agree to a form of concurrency, as I read the statute, that means there is no concurrency for schools in all of Flagler County, including within the municipalities, he said. The issue of concurrency depends on the county being on board.

The school districts Bott disputes that interpretation. When you have a new development come in, you make sure you have the roads, you make sure you have water and sewer before they can start building. The school board needs the same thing. We need to be able to plan to build, we need to be able to do site prep, we need to find land, buy land and move forward with it. We cant just wait until the money comes in later.

Dance said the discussion overuses the term upfrontor at least doesnt define it, creating a false impression. When when a developer submits the site plan and gets a site plan approval, that kick starts a process, he said. It takes about two years for that process to go through their site plan approval, their preliminary plat and a lot of the discussion, and these approvals dont kick in until final plat and theyre eligible to pull a building permit. So thats about two years of process. Developers, in short, are not made to pay immediately when their plans are approved.

The rest is here:

School Board at Impasse With County and Palm Coast Over Billing Developers for New Schools - FlaglerLive.com

Understanding Humes Fork

Humes fork describes how we refer to Kants critique of Hume, who separated knowledge into two types: facts based on ideasand facts based on experience.[1][2][3]

The general concept is that Hume asserts there are two distinct classes of knowledge, 1. rational (knowledge based on thoughts and ideas) and 2. empirical (knowledge based on experience in the material world), and that only the empirical can tell us useful things about the world (that we can only learn useful things about the world through experience). Meanwhile, Kant offers a rebuttal by attempting to prove that pure reason can tell us about the world (that we can learn useful things about the world based on ideasalone).

In other words, Hume says we can only know about the world through experiences in the physical world, and Kant says we can know about the world through ideas too.

Thus, Kant thinks both prongs of this two pronged fork of ideas and experience are useful, and Hume thinks only one prong is useful mostly everything else discussed below is a summary of Kants complex thoughts on Humes argument for experience-based empirical knowledge.

Before we explain everything in further detail, itll be helpful to introduce some more terms used by Kant and Hume when discussing this topic.

Humes Fork can be understood by comparing the following two prongs (dont worry if you dont understand the terms below yet; the point of this page is to explain them):

TIP: Humes fork = a two-pronged fork in which the two prongs (rationalism and empiricism) never touch; or a fork in the road that never crosses. Kant crosses Humes fork by combining terms from each prong (specifically by proving the existence of a synthetic, necessary, a priori judgement/statement). See the story of how Hume inspired Kant(for more background on Hume and Kant), or see our page that focuses onthe a priori/a posteriori, the analytic/synthetic, and the necessary/contingentspecifically.

To understand all the terms we just used, it helps to know that they can be described by the following distinctions (where in each case one term relates to the rational and the other the empirical):

What do a priori and a posteriori mean? a priori means prior to experience (pureformal imagination and reason; rationalization not based on experience), anda posteriori means after experience (concepts we get from observation via our senses; based on empirical experience).

An example of thedifferencebetween ideas andexperience: All bachelors are unmarried (idea) vs. the bachelor is sitting in the chair (experience). We know the bachelor is in the chair because we see him sitting there (we can verify this with our senses, we dont need to rationalize it). We only know allbachelors aremarried because they arebachelors (we cant go around confirming each of the worlds bachelors is unmarried via our senses, we must rationalize it). We know all bachelors are married islogicallytrue, because it is necessary for the sentence to be true, but it tells us nothing specifically about our world (it is a fact about an idea, not a fact about the world). It is redundant, what Hume calls atautology.

To get Kants Critique of Pure Reason (which is really a justification for using both empiricismand rationalism) it helps to understand a basic theory of knowledge(the general name for an epistemological theory of purereason, empiricism, ethics, metaphysics and such; what this theory is actually pointing at and the major focus of Hume and Kant).

In lieu of that, the following descriptions of Humes and Kants arguments will suffice:

Despite Kants rationaliststance, after being awoken from his dogmatic slumber by HumesEnquiry, Kant abandons pure reason only for a slightly more nuanced epistemological theory (which mashes up pure reason and empiricism to show how they relate).

In other words, Kantsuccessfully synthesizes Humes ideas with his own in his masterworka Critique of Pure Reason, thus crossing Humes fork, by saying (paraphrasing), although all knowledge begins with the senses, we can use our experiences to inform our reason, and vice versa; We cant rely on our senses alone, but nor can we rely on pure rationalization.

Thus we can say, Kant crosses Humes fork by provingthat we can create a confirmable [via testing] synthetic a priori, a propositionthat is necessarilytrue and not dependent on itself, yetcant be proven viadirect empirical evidence (it can only be proven indirectly).

An example of a synthetic a priori that is necessarily true, and is provable indirectly (and therefore is objective), isE=mc2.

E=mc2is a rationalized idea, that is necessarily and objectively true (for observable physical bodies in spacetime) and not dependent on itself, yet cant be confirmed with direct experience (we can only confirm it indirectly via experiment).

GENERAL NOTE: Not every example we use on this page was given by Kant. When Kants example is clear and makes sense for a modern reader, we use it. When it is complex, or not directly said in his work, we opt for other examples.

TIP: Kant proves that synthetic a priori judgements are possible early on in his Critique, pointing to mathematics (ex. 7 + 5 =12), geometry (a straight line between two points is the shortest), physics (F=ma), and metaphysics (God gave men free-will) as examples of synthetic a priori. The main question he then seeks to answer is, how are a priori synthetic judgements possible? Here we can note that since metaphysics, in its dealing with freedom, God, and the will, deals with the unknowable a priori, the key to figuring out the limits of our knowledge and the usefulness of rationalism is found not in metaphysical concepts like free-will but in more practical fields in which the physical and logical intersect like mathematics (including geometry) and physics. This is why Kant focuses on space and time as examples rather concepts such as free-will and morality. Still, make no mistake, Hume and Kant are both speaking to a bigger picture which includes pure metaphysics, ontology, theology, and other such areas of inquiry.

If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: For it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion. Humes Enquiry.

TIP: As noted above, in his critique, Kant uses space and time as examples of useful a priori (offering geometry as an example of applying rational ideas about objects extended in space to the empiricalworld). With this in mind, we might also consider the concept of spacetime as a useful synthetic a priori concept, even though it is not confirmable directly with the senses. Kants justifications are complex and examples are sparse, but generally we can say he is pointing to the idea that rational laws like Newtons laws of physics are examples of useful a priori that tell us about the world. In this respect, proving synthetic propositions a priori useful isnt just about proving the usefulness of volumes of divinity or school metaphysics (from the theological to the moral metaphysics) it is about proving the usefulness of theoretical physics equations like those of Newton.[4][5][6]

TIP: Hume and Kant are hardly the only ones having this debate. Locke is a famous empiricist. Plato and Aristotle have the argument indirectly. And liberalism vs. conservatism,realism vs. idealism, and the general left-right argumentis essentially this same general argument. Each philosopher simply presents different ways to understand the underlying truisms of logic and reason.

TIP: The title of the book Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austin (1811), is a reference to the argument over passionand reason. Metaphorically speaking,passion is historicallyassociated with the female, and reason with the male.

To understand Humes fork, as presented by Kant in hisaCritique of Pure Reason, and named later by scholars, we need to define some terms that Kant used and/or coined:

The three basic distinctions we are working with (as noted above) are:

The terms used in those distinctions can be defined in terms of propositions (logical statements) like this:

This gives us four possibilities:

Furthermore, to round out this Kantian theory of knowledge, we can also define:

With all of that in mind, the main point here is that we can create: A necessarysynthetic a priori proposition that is not contingent or tautologicallike F=ma (thus crossing Humes fork). This type of judgement has both empirical and logical qualities and is a type of transcendental aesthetic.

What does transcendental mean in Kantian terms?An important but complex concept of Kant is the transcendental. Essentially each part of our discussion gets a transcendental, which generally describes where one category (like a priori, the rational, the logic) transcends into another (like a posteriori, the physical, the aesthetic). Important for our conversation is the Transcendental Aesthetic, which describes the a priori of empirical things (like space, time, geometry) from a physical perspective. Meanwhile, to flesh out the picture, Transcendental Logic describes the aspect of logic that relates to the empirical (like the categorizing of relations between objects) from a pure formal a priori perspective. A synthetic a priori like F=ma speaks to the transcendental aesthetic when we focus on the actual forces in the empirical world, and to transcendental logic in the way we speak about the proposition and categorize it. Learn moreKants Transcendental.

Phenomena and noumena: Kant also considers other terms likephenomena and noumena. Phenomena are the appearances and properties of things; that which constitutes what we can experience and sense. Meanwhile, noumena are posited objects or events that exist without sense or perception (that which, in theory, constitutes reality). In other words, the properties and effects of a thing that we can sense directly are phenomena, and the rest is noumena. All synthetic a priori judgements that tell us about the world are rationalizations about phenomena (like F=ma which describes the phenomena of force, mass, and acceleration). Understood loosely, 1. noumena is of the rational and phenomena is of the empirical, and 2.noumena is the thing-in-itself and phenomena is the effects (the manifestations of those things that can be perceived via the physical senses). TIP: See Platos theory of the forms(a theory of a noumenal world; as a metaphor at least) for more on different ways to understand noumena. NOTE: Empirically speaking, an object is a collection of properties (ex. a photon isnt a widget with properties as far as we know; the only way to describe a photon is to describe its properties, its phenomena). From this perspective there is only phenomena in the physical world and noumena is just a metaphysical idea (at best describing a collection of properties; directly observable or not). With that said, loosely speaking, it helps to understand that we can have useful knowledge of an object beyond what we can sense about an object directly. Still, the takeaway is the noumenal world may exist, but it is completely unknowable through human sensation and therefore it is a purely metaphysical concept.[7][8]

TIP: As you can see a from the above, some terms are very similar, this is because all these terms speak to different aspects of what we can know. All of logic is a bit like that, sometimes we are talking about the process of thought, sometimes about the product. Sometimes about a judgement, sometimes about a term. A justification that relies on experience (a posteriori), and a statement that is true based on observation (synthetic) can use some of the same exact examples (as they are both speaking about an empirical judgement). Likewise, we can consider synthetic a priori terms, judgements, and categories (not just judgements/propositions/statements). Despite this, each term speaks to a different aspect of thought and has a slightly different meaning. In other words, many terms are similar, but they have specific meaning, and need to be considered on their own merit and in context.

NOTE: Humes fork is all about concepts pertaining to the validity of a single proposition. Meanwhile, propositional logic deals with the argument form which pertains to the validity of a argument consisting of multiple propositions. Logic can be thought of as a three step process, where first we consider terms/concepts, next we consider single logical propositions (what we are doing here), and then we move on to considering reasoned arguments consisting of multiple propositions. See a page on propositional logic and reasoning for the next step.

Below is a table that illustrates the above concepts and their relations.

Remember Kants goal was to prove Humes idea that pure rationalization tells us nothing about the world wrong, by proving the existence of anecessary synthetica priori (a statement not based on experience, that cant be shown to be true by its terms alone, but is necessarily true).

Ex. All bachelors are unmarried

Ex. The man is sitting in the chair

Ex. All bachelors are unmarried

Ex. All bachelors are unmarried. We cant personally ask every bachelor in the world if they are unmarried (does not rely on experience), but we know they are because a bachelor is by definition necessarily unmarried (the statement is tautological or redundant rationalized a priori).

TIP: Pure tautological reason. Logical.

F=ma

TIP: F=ma is necessarily true and not tautological, yet only indirect evidence can prove it (we cannot observe force, mass, and acceleration acting on bodies extended in space and time directly).

TIP: Although some statements can be contingent in this class. This class also contains statements that are necessarily true, but not tautological, andcant be proven by direct empirical evidence (they instead require testing and indirect evidence to prove). A sort of mix of pure reason and empiricism that crosses Humes fork and to which induction and deduction apply.

TIP: Transcendental(a mix of logic and empiricism).

Ex. the man is sitting in the chair

TIP: Produces a contradiction and can be ignored. There are noAnalytic a posteriori statements.

TIP: Some would argue that there are analytic a posteriori and they are needed forhypothetical judgements.

Ex. The man is sitting in a chair. I can confirm the man is sitting in the chair by looking (of course the truth of this statement is contingent on the man actually being in the chair in this case; it is conditional).

TIP: Pure empiricism. Empirical.

TIP:a priori anda posteriori are two key terms in Kantian philosophy. Kant coins their modern usage, but he borrowed them fromLatin translations of Euclids Elementsfrom about 300BC. In other words, Kant famously gave names to epistemological concepts, but he did so methodically (whether he borrowed the terms or coined them). The first step to understanding Kant is internalizingthe terms he introduces, after that one just needs to follow his arguments.[9]

HINT: a priori kind of sounds like pure, it is pure formal rationalism. A posteriori, is the other one.

With everything so far covered, lets now return to the two prong fork and discuss how to cross it.

First, for reference, here is an illustration of Humes Fork again for a visual:

To cross Humes fork is to show that we can make useful judgements that involve using a mix of terms from both categories.

The most useful mix is the one covered above, where we show that asynthetica priorithat is nottautological or contingent, but necessarilyand objectively true isnt just possible to create, but is actually useful.

However, other mixes like contingent synthetic a priori (a priori that depend on more information, like God gave man free-will, synthetic a priori terms are useful, or there are 11 dimensions of spacetime) are also useful.

The bottomline is that this whole practice shows us that using a mix of reason and empiricism tells us more about the world than empiricism alone.

To summarize, Kants crossing of Humes fork can be understood like this (my quotes below are meant for educational purposes, they never specifically said these things, their arguments are more complex and in different books):

For more reading, see:A Priori and A Posteriori.

TIP: As noted above, Kants analysis of the epistemologicalconcepts discussed on this page starts in his earlier works likeThe Groundwork of the Metaphysic of MoralsandThe Metaphysics of Moralswhere he first properly lays down hisKantian ethics.In these texts he is giving names to fundamental dualities and concepts in an effort to better shed light on human understanding, just like he does in Critique. A main theory of his earlier works isthat, in the realm of metaphysics and morals, pure reason can be used to know some truths (while other truthsrequire the crossing of reason and empirical evidence). Hume counters this (albeitnot talking directly to Kant), saying no human understanding can be gleaned from pure reason alone, and then Kant counters Hume in his Critique of Pure Reasonsaying yes it can. Thisconfirms forus two things 1. an earnest exploration of these concepts requires reading multiple works of Hume and Kant 2. While bothKant and Hume care about science and politics, both are moreinterested in metaphysics and morality than justifying or debunking Newtonian physics.

TIP: Kant, like the Greeks, embraced the idea of a threefold division of philosophy into logic, physics, and ethics in his Groundwork. Kant starts the text by acceptingthat physics and ethics require a crossing of reason and empirical evidence, but rejected the idea for metaphysical morals and logic. Hume rejected the idea that any knowledge that wasnt grounded in the empirical was knowledge at all. Kant ultimately tried to showthat the fork could be crossed in all these realms allowing us to accept NewtonsF=ma and hisCategorical Imperative. Generally we can say that Kant asserts that even pure metaphysical a priori can be useful knowledge, as long as it can trace a path back to the empirical (this being the concept of the transcendental).

Synthetic a priori examples (examples of crossing Humes fork):

As noted above, in his Critique of Pure Reason, Kant generally points to mathematics (ex. 7 + 5 =12), geometry (a straight line between two points is the shortest), physics (F=ma), and metaphysics (God gave men free-will) to show synthetic propositions a priori possible (again, some of these are my examples).

Specifically, Kant tells us we should focus on mathematics (including geometry) and physics. Thus, Kant zeroes in on the a priori concepts/terms of space and time to justify his ideas about synthetic propositions a priori.

While he spends a lot of time describing every aspect of the general concept, he does not spend a lot of time offering concrete examples of synthetic a priori statements (see: why some of these examples are mine).

With that in mind, good examples of crossing Humes fork (AKA of not only synthetic a priori statements, but necessary and objective synthetic a priori) can be found inNewtons laws(Kant gives a nod to the Laws of Motion as containing synthetic a priori and gives a similarexample of every event has a cause in hisbook).

Lets take the second law, the one we use an example above, which can be represented as F=ma(Force equals mass time acceleration in an inertialframe).

F=ma is synthetic, as the predicate concept is not contained in its subject concept (nothing about forceinherently equals mass time acceleration). But also,these concept are (by most measures) a priori because force, mass, and acceleration cant be experienced directly (they are relations and effects of physical bodies in spacetime, represented by values in an equation, but they are not themselves tangible things).

Or, if we want to make the case for the empirical qualities of mass, force, and acceleration (denoting their transcendental aesthetic or mixed qualities), we can still say at least that the general rule F=ma is nota posteriori. After-all, we cant confirm a Newtons second law on a far off planet, we have to use our reason to know it is true.

Newtons third law also works in this respect. His third law states: when one body exerts a force on a second body, the second body simultaneously exerts a force equal in magnitude and opposite in direction on the first body.

One cant set about testing every object, just asone cant confirm every bachelor, yet again we can use experiments to know this theory is true.

All this to say, pure ideas can tell us a lot about the empirical world, but only if we can find that place where facts about ideas transcends to world of ideas and begins to tell us facts about the world (a place that differs by subject).

Kants examples of space and time as synthetic a priori: Kant crosses forks by using space and time in his book. Considering spacetime (the theoretical construct which speaks to real phenomena) is most certainly of the synthetic a priori class, I would say he got it fairly right in his first attempt (although some will be skeptical of this). For Kant, according to the book Understanding Kant, First, time is not empirical as neither coexistence nor succession have ever come within human perception (1929, p. 74). Second, time is a pure intuition because it is a necessary component of all intuitions (1929, p. 74). Third, time has only one dimension and this knowledge is not gained through experience, therefore time is a priori (1929, p. 75). Finally, different times are all part of one and the same time there are no separate or individual times (1929, p. 75).The thing to get here is that space and time are pure a priori (they arent tangible things), but yet they can tell us useful things about the empirical a posteriori world (in this vein, other statements that contain objective synthetic a priori knowledge include mass and energy are equivalent and time is relative to frame of reference; both of these statements are examples that concern what Kant calls the transcendental aesthetic). Consider the following Kant quotes from Section II. Of Time below as well:

Thus our conception of time explains the possibility of so much synthetical knowledge a priori, as is exhibited in the general doctrine of motion, which is not a little fruitful.

Time and space are, therefore, two sources of knowledge, from which, a priori, various synthetical cognitions can be drawn. Of this we find a striking example in the cognitions of space and its relations, which form the foundation of pure mathematics. They are the two pure forms of all intuitions, and thereby make synthetical propositions a priori possible.

We have now completely before us one part of the solution of the grand general problem of transcendental philosophy, namely, the question: How are synthetical propositions a priori possible? That is to say, we have shown that we are in possession of pure a priori intuitions, namely, space and time, in which we find, when in a judgement a priori we pass out beyond the given conception, something which is not discoverable in that conception, but is certainly found a priori in the intuition which corresponds to the conception, and can be united synthetically with it. But the judgements which these pure intuitions enable us to make, never reach farther than to objects of the senses, and are valid only for objects of possible experience.

Kant onSECTION II. Of Time.

Using a Synthetic a priori to Cross forks:Equations like Newtons F=ma or EinsteinsE=mc2arePure Reason (Pure Logic; a Priori) despite being both necessarily true (valid statements / very strong theories) and not tautological (not purely analytic). Yet we cant confirm theytell us anything about the world until we test and confirm themvia experiment and actually physically cross forks (we have to not only create a Synthetic a priori, but prove it is true empirically via testing). Even though we cant reach out and touch their forms directly, we confirmthoseequations are true, as they canhelp usto predict what we will observe with perfect accuracy (and thus we can treat them as scientific theories). Thus equations like these are good examples ofa synthetic a priori. The complex part is dealing withSynthetic a priori that cant be proven, such as is the case with Moral Philosophy

Trying to Crosstheforks of MoralPhilosophy: On this page we are mainly dealing with crossing the forks of natural philosophy (AKA natural science), in other words,we are just showing you how the empirical and logical forks can cross. However, both Kant and Hume apply theirtheories to morality and ethics(they are, so to speak, also seeing if they can cross the more etherealforks of ethics and metaphysics). Hume says morality is purely informed by the senses (that ALL knowledge that can tell us useful facts is empirical period); Kant says we can have useful knowledge of the empirical, logical, ethical, and metaphysical, despite the more obvious benefits of the empirical. It stands to reason, ifwe can cross the forks of natural philosophy, why cant we cross the forks of moralphilosophy? A main goal of Kant is to figure out if we can create a confirmable metaphysical synthetic a priori. Long story short, Kantbelieves that we can have facts about pure philosophy, but that we cant create a provable metaphysic synthetic a priori. In other words, we can have true facts about metaphysics and they can be very useful, but we cant prove it empirically (as by its nature there is a sub-category of metaphysics that is a priori). Learn about crossing forks and human understanding in terms of the physical, logical, ethical, and metaphysical.[10]

TIP: Confused? The following article contains an excellent analysis of the synthetic a priori The Importance of the Synthetic A Priori in Kants First Critique.

The above summary of Kants argument was gleaned from theover 1,000 pagesof his work.

The gist is that Kantattempted to provethat we can use facts about ideas to prove facts about the world. That Pure Reason can be used toprove theexistence of asynthetic a priori, crossing the tongs ofHumes Fork, and thus saving Newtons laws and science itself in the process.[11]

Thus we can conclude, Kantrebutted Hume in an effort to show thatknowledge canbe foundinboththe necessaryandcontingent (concerning reality), the a priorianda posteriori (concerning knowledge), and the analyticandsynthetic(concerning language); In short, useful human knowledge can be foundin both reason and empirical sensory evidence, and each form of human understanding can tell us about the other.

TIP: Think about the scientific method.We have ideas and define experiments; we do experiments and come up with more ideas; rinse and repeat. Weformulate theories and we test a hypothesis based on theoretical mathematics or ideas. Modern science IS the crossing of Humes fork.

TIP: We credit Kant with saving science, but Hume also saved science. Before Hume (in the Age of Reason) empiricism was starting to be abandoned for Pure Reason(Newton doesnt always offer proofs for instance). Long story short, Hume and Kant are both sages and both important. KantsaCritique of Pure Reasonexemplifies akey moment in history (andit is largely a testament to Humes importance as well as Kants).

Visit link:

Hume's Fork Explained - Fact / Myth

Ill never forget the first time the Bears caused me pain. It was a wet, Autumnal day in May 1994. I was eight, Norths were first. Newcastle, and Andrew Johns, then 19, beat us at home. I trudged in the rain with my Mum, Dad, and four uncles, back to the pub Percys across Miller Street. The loss was evidently too much for me, and I began to cry.

Norths were formidable in the 1990s, regularly bettering storied opponents like Canberra, Manly and Brisbane, upon whom the folklore of 90s rugby league has been built. But they never won that premiership, they strategically blundered with Super League, and they fizzled into insolvency, enduring the humiliation of what former president David Hill described as the sacrilegious merger with Manly before the expulsion of the Bears by the Forces of Darkness.

Rugby league historian Andrew Moore once suggested that the Northern Eagles joint venture may well have established a record for being the least loved football club in sporting history. He also pointed out, that only a few years earlier, outside the one-city teams then only Newcastle and Brisbane in 1991 and 1994 Norths were the competitions largest-drawing team. Poker machine money enabled the first-grade roster some glitz, and though the Curse of the Cammeraygal continued to thwart their premiership hopes, the Bears were nevertheless one of the heavyweight teams of that decade. Their subsequent, rapid demise was not organic, and hundreds of thousands of Bears people are still out there, wandering.

Some fans will tell you the Bears are a relic of the past. But it looks like Australian Rugby League Commission chairman Peter Vlandys disagrees. He recently told The Daily Telegraph: Wherever I go every third person asks me when are you bringing back the Bears?.

Speaking specifically about the proposed 18th team in the NRL, Vlandys went on to say: One thing Ive learned in rugby league is that the Bears have an extremely popular brand. However, theres already enough Sydney teams so doing it with an area like Perth makes sense. Youre getting the best of both. A great brand and a new supporter base.

For those who wish to see the Bears return to the top grade, it is hard to conceive of a comment more inviting. For two wilderness-riven decades, Bears hopefuls have been scoffed at, cast as hopeless, foolish tragics, and blind to the realities of economic rationalism in the 21st century. At a private event some years ago, a former senior administrator in the NRL laughed in the face of a Bears official explicating the case for a return on the Central Coast in a ground the club built, underwritten by John Singleton, coached by Wayne Bennett. It didnt matter: the Bears were done, their cards were marked.

And yet the Bears dont seem to go away.

This is the point where opponents will suggest that the partner should go it alone. Forge their own identity. However, no such sentiment appears to exist in Perth. Twice the Bears have adorned the back page of the West Australian, and ahead of Perths hosting of the State of Origin on Sunday, Bears chairman Daniel Dickson will be in the city to meet a West Australian government group to further explore the partnership.

Dickson will later be joined in a box by Australian comedian Jim Jeffries, an avid Bears man, who once said my big dream in life is that Ill make enough money that Ill buy the Bears back into the NRL. Ill do a Russell Crowe and bring them back Though daddy-money would be nice, Dickson says that should the Bears be green-lit for the 18th licence, the money is good. There are three individual investors lined up, he says, Vlandys knows who they are, hes met them, and theyre ready to step up to the block.

Commercial viability. NRL support. West Australian desire. Unprecedented goodwill. Is it time to dream? The only comments appearing to temper matters are those from Dickson himself. The Bears are not in agreement with anyone, Dickson told SENZ Breakfast Radio recently. We just want to make sure that geographically we feel we are the team of the people, and we can take that to the people where the game needs to go. Whether wise brinkmanship, 4D chess, or just playing hard to get, it is fair to say that Dickson thinks in the abstract about location, and is keeping his options open.

Its never easy, is it? Victory may be close, but the Bears do know how to make it hard. It reminds me of my dads response to my tears after that loss to Newcastle in 1994.

Dont worry mate, he consoled me, gently putting a fatherly arm around me as I tried to hide my flood of tears from my uncles. We used to cry when the Bears won a game! Guttural laughter from my uncles. A historic quote for the family. He was introducing me to the dry, gallows humour that accompanied any seasoned observer of the Bears. A coping mechanism, probably.

These are the ties that bind. There are hundreds of thousands of Bears people, just like me, who will invoke the same, mechanised caution at the prospect of a miracle: a return to first grade, footy at Bear Park, even just once a year, in the red and black. Weve been burnt before, but were still here, and still hoping.

Link:

Is it time for the dream of North Sydney Bears' long-awaited return to finally become a reality? | Sam Perry - The Guardian

2023 KTM 990 Duke

Images S. Baldauf/SB-Medien

990 is a bit of a magic number for KTM as it was the 990 cc LC8 V-Twin that really launced their foray into mainstream road motorcycles 15 years ago.

I owned a KTM 990 SMT, and a 990 Adventure R, had no problems with either and to this day wish I never sold them in a fit of economic rationalism.

The 990 has long been missing from the KTM line-up as the LC8 grew to 1090, 1190 and 1290.

While the void for a smaller capacity twin was filled by the new 790 and 890 LC8c parallel twins.

For 2023 it looks as though a 990 will be back in the line-up but this time around it will be in parallel twin format rather than the 75-degree vee of the original.

Some shots have already been seen of a new 990 Duke undergoing testing in Europe but today we can bring you some less disguised views of the new machine which reveal some new body work, lights, exhaust and chassis.

We hope that this will also spawn another SMT model that combines the hooligan and practical natures of the original 990 SMT.

Here is the original post:

Latest spy shots of what is expected to be the 2023 KTM 990 Duke - MCNews

Its easy, especially now, to imagine a bleak and withered future, and thats largely what our storytellers are doing. Whether its in novels, TV shows, films or video games, speculative imaginings of the world were heading toward tilt strongly to fatalistic despair. And while I cant say with much conviction that I have hope for where our current path may lead, I have wondered why more artists arent pushing back and composing visions of the future in more than just minor keys. (Lord knows we could use it.) One artist who has done that over the course of his career is the best-selling sci-fi novelist Neal Stephenson. His books, the best known of which are probably the cyberpunk thriller Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon, an opus about money and code-breaking, have long dealt in apocalyptic events and malevolent uses of new technology. But and this is particularly true of his latest novel, the climate-change-focused Termination Shock their renderings of the future also include potential solutions (morally and technically complicated though they may be) to the problems of living in a radically changed world. That is to say, their imagination extends beyond the edge of the cliff. To portray a more utopian future, says Stephenson, who is 62 and, to be clear, far from starry-eyed, is to lay oneself open to a certain level of mockery from critics and skeptical audience members. Whereas there doesnt seem to be any level of grim dystopian imagery that will make the fans and the critics say enough already.

Were facing a potentially apocalyptic event in climate change, so it makes sense that post-apocalyptic dystopia is where peoples heads are at as far as sci-fi and speculative fiction. But were also surrounded by incredible technologies that make our lives better, and were going to need new technologies to help combat climate change. So why dont we see much creative output that points toward the future in more hopeful or aspirational ways? I think a lot of it and this is going to sound like a funny argument is a pretty simple economic calculation on the part of people who produce screen entertainment. Im looking over your shoulder on this Zoom and seeing an office building. It would be easy to blow that building up in a science-fictional setting. We could knock holes in it and break the windows and dirty it up, and it would look dystopian and wouldnt require a lot of detailed imagining. If we were going to replace that building with a futuristic building from a more utopian vision of New York City, it would be necessary to design a new building from scratch and make it look convincing structurally and do it in a way that was consonant with an art directors scheme for the production design. The latter approach is simply harder and more expensive, and its easy to strike the wrong note and come up with something that doesnt work whereas everyone would recognize the Empire State Building after having been hit by a nuclear strike. Weve also got in the habit of thinking that by showing that kind of future, the artists are sending a message about how hard they are: Im not some rose-colored-glasses sap. Im a badass thinking dark, mean thoughts about our dark, mean future.

Neal Stephenson at home in Seattle in 1998. Robert Sorbo for The New York Times

What about the story were telling as a society beyond art about climate change? Is there a way we could be talking about it thats more likely to motivate the kind of mobilization we had, say, during the Second World War? The difficulty is that its hard to get lots of people to change their minds. The United States did mobilize in a massive way during World War II, but we didnt start getting serious about it until 1942. There had been a huge war raging since 1939, and the Brits were tearing their hair out waiting for the United States to get more involved, and it wasnt until Pearl Harbor that there was a tipping point in public opinion that made it possible for Americas political leadership to declare war and to enter into it in a serious way. So the question asks itself: What might be a climate equivalent of Pearl Harbor? Were already having little regional Pearl Harbors all over the place. We had our heat dome in Seattle over the summer, we had the mega tornado supercell that passed from Arkansas to Kentucky. These little pinprick Pearl Harbor events happen here and there, but its difficult to imagine one that would impact an entire country the size of the United States if it did, it would be a really bad thing. We dont want to put ourselves in the position of wishing that something terrible would happen. Its also natural to assume that the CO2 problem is similar to other air-pollution problems weve had before. In the 50s, there was a disaster in London because of too much coal smoke in the air, and they cleaned up the air by burning less coal. In the 70s, a lot of the smog problem in L.A. was cleaned up by putting catalytic converters on cars and cutting down on hydrocarbon emissions. Theres a similar story around the ozone hole. Were accustomed to thinking that all we have to do is stop emitting the pollutant, and then nature will clean up the air. But its not true in the case of CO2 in the atmosphere. People confuse CO2 emission reduction or elimination with solving the problem. But even if we could stop emitting all CO2, wed be stuck for hundreds of thousands of years with extremely elevated CO2 levels that nature has no quick way of removing from the air. Thats the key thing that has to be widely understood before we can actually begin envisioning ways to attack the problem.

In Termination Shock, you have a billionaire character who tries to attack that problem through geoengineering. Youve talked elsewhere about writing about geoengineering as a way of ensuring that people are more prepared for it when it starts to happen. Is that something you see as a primary function of fiction: introducing concepts or ideas to the public? Job 1 is to be sufficiently entertaining that a fair number of people will actually read the book all the way to the end. If you havent done that, then youve got nothing. If youve gotten over that hurdle, then it becomes possible to start thinking about other things. Im leery of taking too much of an instrumentalist view of art because I think that if youve got that mind-set of Im going to change peoples minds or push a particular point of view the audience recognizes that almost on a preverbal level and they lose their suspension of disbelief. Im sure you can think of examples where books somehow changed peoples minds about certain topics or ended up having some functional purpose, but I think if you set out from the beginning with a functional mentality, youre probably going to end up with a failed project.

Is being sufficiently entertaining Job 1 for you or for all novelists? The novel is a pop-culture medium just like comic books or movies. So when youre practicing an art form, you generally follow the formal rules of that art form. If youre going to write a sonnet, its going to be 14 lines long. You can choose to write hard-to-read books, like Finnegans Wake, lets say, if thats what you want to do, and its a perfectly defensible choice, but in general telling a readable and enjoyable story is a basic constraint of the form.

Stephenson speaking at M.I.T. in 2008. Daniel Leithinger

All right, heres another question about how we conceive of the world: One of the things that made the Baroque period so fruitful as a setting for you was the tensions that resulted from superstitious, medieval modes of thinking coexisting alongside the beginnings of the rational Enlightenment. What similar tensions between old and new ways of thinking are alive in our modes of understanding the world? What were seeing in the Baroque Cycle is the beginning of scientific rationalism and the idea that we can find ways to agree on what is true, which was a new development. You know, Barbara Shapiro has a book called A Culture of Fact that tells the origin story of the idea of facts, which is not an idea we always had. Another thing Ive been reading recently is The Fixation of Belief by an American philosopher named Charles Sanders Peirce. He was writing in the 1870s, and he goes through a list of four methods that people use to decide what theyre going to believe. The first one is called the method of tenacity, which means you decide what youre going to believe and you stick to it regardless of logic or evidence.

Sounds familiar. Yeah, this all sounds depressingly familiar. The next method is called the method of authority, where you agree with other people that youre all going to believe what some authority figure tells you to believe. Thats probably most common throughout history. The third method is called the a priori method, and the idea is, lets be reasonable and try to come up with ways to believe things that sound reasonable to us. Which sounds great, but if its not grounded in any fact-checking methodology, then you end up just agreeing to believe things by consensus which may be totally wrong. The fourth method is the scientific method. It basically consists of accepting the fact that you might be wrong, and since you might be wrong, you need some way for judging the truth of statements and changing your mind when youve got solid evidence to the contrary. What youre seeing in the Baroque Cycle is the transition from Method No. 3 to No. 4. Youve got all these people having what seem like reasoned, logical arguments, but a lot of them are just tripping. So a few come in, like Hooke and Newton, and begin using actual experiments and get us going down the road toward the rational world of the Enlightenment. But what weve got now is almost everybody using Method 1, 2 or 3. Weve got a lot of authoritarians who cant be swayed by logic or evidence, but weve also got a lot of a priori people who want to be reasonable and think of themselves as smarter and more rational than the authoritarians but are going on the basis of their feelings what they wish were true and both of them hate the scientific rationalists, who are very few in number. Thats kind of my Peircian analysis of where things stand right now.

Do you see a way out of that? When people find that they can obtain lots of money and power by believing certain things and following certain ways of thinking, then you can bet that theyll enthusiastically start doing that. The reason that Enlightenment thinking became popular was that people figured out that it was in their financial best interest to avail themselves of its powers. The spread of very financially successful enterprises like, lets say, steam engines for long-range ocean navigation was a direct outgrowth of the practical application of the scientific method. To that you could also add a lot of financial apparatus that came into existence around then with the Bank of England and various ways of managing financial affairs. In other words, people dont necessarily follow scientific rationalism because theyre noble and pure seekers of the truth, although some of them definitely do it for that reason. More people do it out of self-interest.

It may be the unfortunate case that theres more obvious financial self-interest to be gained by promoting irrational and counterfactual thinking. If you dont have any perceptible downside or negative consequences, then why not sign up with or co-sign the latest conspiracy theory? I do think negative consequences definitely exist, but maybe the cause-and-effect relationship isnt immediately obvious.

What are those negative consequences? What do people stand to lose? Well, the negative consequence is our entire civilization.

This interview has been edited and condensed from two conversations.

David Marchese is a staff writer for the magazine and the columnist for Talk. Recently he interviewed Brian Cox about the filthy rich, Dr. Becky about the ultimate goal of parenting and Tiffany Haddish about Gods sense of humor.

See the article here:

A Sci-Fi Visionary Thinks Greed Might Be the Thing That Saves Us - The New York Times

Early on April 4 morning, the following message appeared on the Twitter account of the Rev. Raphael Warnock, the newly elected U.S. senator from Georgia: The meaning of Easter is more transcendent than the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Whether you are Christian or not, through a commitment to helping others we are able to save ourselves.

He later deleted the tweet, but not before strong reaction from both conservative and progressive Christians. Some conservative Christians denounced Warnock as a heretic for, in their view, downplaying the story of Jesus bodily resurrection and for claiming that humans can save themselves rather than God, who alone saves humans from their sins. Other Christians came to Warnocks defense, citing his credentials as a theologian and pastor of Atlantas Ebenezer Baptist Church. Rather than condemn his message, they applauded him for sharing a more humanistic message that included non-Christians.

As a Baptist minister and theologian myself, I believe it is important to understand how Baptists hold differing views on the meaning of the Resurrection.

Easter is the Christian holiday which commemorates the story of Jesus Christs resurrection. According to the Christian faith, resurrection is the pivotal event on which God raised Jesus from the dead on the third day after he was crucified by the Roman governor Pontius Pilate and then buried in a tomb owned by Joseph of Arimathea.

While none of the four canonical Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John describe the actual event of the resurrection in detail, they nonetheless give varying reports about the empty tomb and Christs post-resurrection appearances among his followers both in Galilee and Jerusalem.

They also report that it was women who discovered the empty tomb and received and proclaimed the first message that Christ was risen from the dead. These narratives passed down orally among the earliest Christian communities and then codified in the Gospel writings beginning some 30 years after Jesus death.

Earliest Christians believed that by raising Jesus of Nazareth from the dead, God vindicated Jesus from the torture and death he unjustly incurred at the order of Pilate, and that Jesus now as the crucified and risen Lord shares in Gods power to transform the creation and put an end to evil and suffering.

By affirming the resurrection, Christians do not mean that Jesus body was merely resuscitated. Rather, as New Testament scholar Luke Timothy Johnson indicates, resurrection means that [Jesus] entered into an entirely new form of existence.

As the risen Christ, Jesus is believed to share Gods power to transform all life and also to share this same power with his followers. So the resurrection is believed to be something that happened not only to Jesus, but also an experience that happens to his followers.

Over the years, Christians have engaged in passionate debates over this central doctrine of Christian faith.

Two major approaches emerged: the liberal view and the conservative or traditional view. Current perspectives on the resurrection have been predominated by questions: Was Jesus body literally raised from the dead? and What relevance does the resurrection have for those struggling for justice?

These questions emerged in the wake of theological modernism, a European and North American movement dating back to the mid-19th century that sought to reinterpret Christianity to accommodate the emergence of modern science, history and ethics.

Also known as liberal theology, theological modernism led liberal Christian theologians to attempt to create an alternative path between the rigid orthodoxies of Christian churches and the rationalism of atheists and others.

This meant that liberal Christians were willing to revise or jettison cherished Christian beliefs, such as the bodily resurrection of Jesus, if such beliefs could not be explained against the bar of human reason.

Just like all other Christian denominations, Baptists are divided on the issue of the bodily resurrection of Jesus. Arguably, what may be unique about the group is that Baptists believe that no external religious authority can force an individual member to adhere to the tenets of Christian faith in any prescribed way. One must be free to accept or reject any teaching of the church.

In the early 20th century, Baptists in the United States found themselves on both sides of a schism within American Christianity over doctrinal issues, known as the fundamentalist-modernist controversy.

The Rev. Harry Emerson Fosdick, a liberal Baptist pastor who served First Presbyterian Church and later Riverside Church in Manhattan, rejected the bodily resurrection of Jesus. Rather, Fosdick viewed the resurrection as a persistence in [Christs] personality.

In 1922, Fosdick delivered his famous sermon Shall the Fundamentalists Win? rebuking fundamentalists for their failure to tolerate difference on doctrinal matters such as the infallibility of the Bible, the virgin birth, and bodily Resurrection, among others, and for downplaying the weightier matter of addressing the societal needs of the day.

In his autobiography, the late civil rights leader the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. explains that in his early adolescence he denied the bodily resurrection of Jesus.

While attending Crozer Seminary in 1949, King wrote a paper trying to make sense of what led to the development of the Christian doctrine of Jesus bodily resurrection. For King, the experience of the early followers of Jesus was at the root of their belief in his resurrection.

They had been captivated by the magnetic power of his personality, King argued. This basic experience led to the faith that he could never die. In other words, the bodily resurrection of Jesus simply is the outward expression of early Christian experience, not an actual, or at least, a verifiable event in human history.

Others within the Baptist movement disagreed. Like his fundamentalist forebears, conservative evangelical Baptist theologian Carl F.H. Henry argued in 1976 that all Christian doctrine can be rationally explained and can persuade any nonbeliever. Henry rigorously defended the bodily resurrection of Christ as a historical occurrence by appealing to the Gospels telling of the empty tomb and Christs appearances among his disciples after his resurrection.

In his six-volume magnum opus, God, Revelation, and Authority, Henry read these two elements of the Gospels as historical records that can be verified through modern historical methods.

Despite their predominance, the liberal and conservative arguments on the resurrection of Jesus are not the only approaches held among Baptists.

In his book Resurrection and Discipleship, Baptist theologian Thorwald Lorenzen also outlines what he calls the evangelical approach, which seeks to transcend the distinctions of liberal and conservative approaches. He affirms, with the conservatives, the historical reality of the Resurrection, but agrees with the liberals that such an event cannot be verified in the modern historical sense.

Other than these, there is a liberation approach, which stresses the social and political implications of the Resurrection. Baptists who hold this view primarily interpret the resurrection as Gods response and commitment to liberating those who, like Jesus, experience poverty and oppression.

Given this diversity of perspectives on the Resurrection, Baptists are not unique among Christians in engaging matters of faith practice. However, I argue that Baptists may be distinct in how they engage the question of Jesus resurrection and why it matters for their faith.

According to Warnocks tweet, the meaning of Easter goes beyond the question of what happened to Jesus body, making resurrection a matter of what human beings can do to make a more just and humane society regardless of religious affiliation.

However, as some Baptists protested, the meaning of the resurrection is a matter of precisely what happened to Jesus body some 20 centuries ago which has implications for how Christians live out their beliefs today.

[3 media outlets, 1 religion newsletter. Get stories from The Conversation, AP and RNS.]

Continue reading here:

How Baptists hold differing views on the resurrection of Christ and why this matters - The Conversation US