RATIONALISM

the philosophical 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 Rationalist's confidence in reason and proof tends, therefore, to detract from his 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. Additional reading The classic ancient Greek work on Rationalism is Plato, Meno; essential modern works are Descartes, Meditationes de Prima Philosophia . . . (Meditations on First Philosophy); Spinoza, Ethics; Leibniz, Monadologie (Monadology and Other Philosophical Writings ); and Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft (Critique of Pure Reason). Rationalism is epitomized in Hegel, Phnomenologie des Geistes (Phenomenology of Mind); Francis Herbert Bradley, Appearance and Reality.For Rationalism in the theory of knowledge, see Brand Blanshard, Reason and Analysis (1962); George Boas, Rationalism in Greek Philosophy (1961); Ernst Cassirer, Die Philosophie der Aufklrung (1932; Eng. trans., Philosophy of the Enlightenment, 1951); M.R. Cohen, Reason and Nature: An Essay on the Meaning of Scientific Method, 2nd ed. (1953): A.C. Ewing, Idealism: A Critical Survey (1934); H.H. Joachim, The Nature of Truth (1906); A.E. Murphy, The Uses of Reason (1943); H.J. Paton, In Defence of Reason (1951); Bertrand Russell, Problems of Philosophy (1912); W.H. Walsh, Reason and Experience (1947).For Rationalism in metaphysics, see the classics listed above. For two outstanding modern examples, see J.M.E. McTaggart, The Nature of Existence, 2 vol. (192127), together with the commentary of C.D. Broad, Examination of McTaggart's Philosophy, 2 vol. (193338); and Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality (1929). For Rationalism in ethics, see William Wollaston, The Religion of Nature Delineated (1722); and Kant, Die Metaphysik der Sitten (1785; Eng. trans., The Metaphysics of Morals, 1799). For early forms of the appeal to self-evident rules, see Richard Price, A Review of the Principal Questions in Morals (1758). For later types of Rationalism, see G.E. Moore, Principia Ethica (1903); W.D. Ross, The Right and the Good (1930), and Foundations of Ethics (1939); Brian Ellis, Rational Belief System (1979).For Rationalism in religion, excellent standard works are: W.E.H. Lecky, History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe, 2 vol. (1865); A.D. White, History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, 2 vol. (1910); J.M. Robertson, A Short History of Freethought, Ancient and Modern, 2nd ed., 2 vol. (1906); A.W. Benn, History of English Rationalism in the Nineteenth Century, 2 vol. (1906); J.B. Bury, A History of Freedom of Thought (1913). Sigmund Freud, Die Zukunft einer Illusion (1927; Eng. trans., The Future of an Illusion, 1928), offers a psychoanalytic study of religious belief.