Skip to main content Skip to Search Box

Definition: rationalism from Philip's Encyclopedia

Philosophical theory that knowledge about the nature of the world can be obtained solely by reason, without recourse to experience. Rationalist philosophers, such as Descartes, Leibniz, and Spinoza, argued that reality could be logically deduced from 'self-evident' a priori premises. It contrasts with empiricism. In theology, rationalism holds that faith be explicable by human reason rather than divine revelation.


rationalism

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
[Lat.,=belonging to reason], in philosophy, a theory that holds that reason alone, unaided by experience, can arrive at basic truth regarding the world. Associated with rationalism is the doctrine of innate ideas and the method of logically deducing truths about the world from “self-evident” premises. Rationalism is opposed to empiricism on the question of the source of knowledge and the techniques for verification of knowledge. René Descartes, G. W. von Leibniz, and Baruch Spinoza all represent the rationalist position, and John Locke the empirical. Immanuel Kant in his critical philosophy attempted a synthesis of these two positions. More loosely, rationalism may signify confidence in the intelligible, orderly character of the world and in the mind's ability to discern such order. It is opposed by irrationalism, a view that either denies meaning and coherence in reality or discredits the ability of reason to discern such coherence. Irrational philosophies accordingly stress the will…
1,184 results

Full text Article rationalism

From The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology
A philosophical tradition originating in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, rationalism asserts that reason is the only basis of valid knowledge of reality. Rationalist philosophers thus rejected revelation as a source of genuine knowledge. More technically, only deductive or inductive…
| 149 words
Key concepts:

Full text Article rationalism

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
[Lat.,=belonging to reason], in philosophy, a theory that holds that reason alone, unaided by experience, can arrive at basic truth regarding the world. Associated with rationalism is the doctrine of innate ideas and the method of logically deducing truths about the world from “self-evident” …
| 251 words
Key concepts:

Full text Article RATIONALISM

From Dictionary of Visual Discourse: A Dialectical Lexicon of Terms
‘We ought never to allow ourselves to be persuaded of the truth of anything unless on the evidence of our reason’ Descartes, Discourse on Method , 1968, Part IV Behind its many forms and appearances,Rationalism is a world-view based on the primacy of reason or faith in the axiom that nothing is…
| 322 words
Key concepts:

Full text Article rationalism

From Palgrave Macmillan Dictionary of Political Thought
1 . The philosophical theory that the world is knowable to reason, and only to reason, and that the deliverances of the senses stand to be corrected in the light of reason. Rationalism has its origins in ancient metaphysics, especially in Plato , but it is particularly associated with the modern…
| 459 words
Key concepts:

Full text Article Rationalism

From Cambridge Dictionary of Christian Theology
Broadly considered, rationalism is confidence in the capacities of human reason in discerning the true nature of reality. However, the term has come to have slightly different meanings in philosophical and theological discourse. In philosophy rationalism is a type of epistemology , or commitment…
| 853 words
Key concepts:

Full text Article rationalism

From Collins Dictionary of Sociology
a general confidence in the power of knowledge, both general principles and inductive or empirical knowledge, to describe and explain the world and to solve problems. Such a view was characteristic, for example, of the so-called ‘age of reason’ (see AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT ). ( PHILOSOPHY ) any…
| 339 words
Key concepts:

Full text Article RATIONALISM

From The Essentials of Philosophy and Ethics
Rationalism comes from the Latin for ‘reason’, and being rational is, conventionally at least, the highest goal of philosophy. Yet built into the search for rationality are value judgements and prejudices. Why, after all, is the world obliged to be ‘rational’ just because we want to be? Rationalists…
| 169 words
Key concepts:

Full text Article Rationalism

From The Social Science Jargon-Buster
Core definition A philosophical doctrine that emphasizes reason as the basis for knowledge . Longer explanation We humans have an insatiable curiosity about our world. But we don't always agree on the correct ways for discovering and creating knowledge. Only a few hundred years ago, we answered our…
| 530 words
Key concepts:

Full text Article rationalism

From Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy
the position that reason has precedence over other ways of acquiring knowledge or, more strongly, that it is the unique path to knowledge. It is most often encountered as a view in epistemology, where it is traditionally contrasted with empiricism, the view that the senses are primary with respect…
| 1,136 words
Key concepts:

Full text Article Critical rationalism

From Philosophy of Science A-Z
School of thought formed by Popper and his followers. It is rationalism since it gives precedent to reason as opposed to learning from experience, but it is critical because it stresses the role of criticism in knowledge. It takes rationality to consist in the critical discussion of one’s own…
| 159 words
Key concepts:
Mind Map

Stack overflow
More Library Resources