Tree

Looking for some help responding to this below, hope someone is interested. Thanks much.

"And the same turns out to be true of rationalism. Where once it was argued that there was one single rational principle, it is now conceded that there are-and always have been-many different “rationalities.” Enlightenment thinkers appear to have been shielded from this disconcerting fact by the limitations of their historical scholarship, which remained firmly wedded to the classical Western tradition. But this illusion has now been shattered. At the end of his brilliant analysis of rational approaches to reason, Alasdair Maclntyre concludes:
Both the thinkers of the Enlightenment and their successors proved unable to agree as to precisely what those principles were which would be found undeniable by all rational persons. One kind of answer was given by the authors of the Encyclopedie, a second by Rousseau, a third by Bentham, a fourth by Kant, a fifth by the Scottish philosophers of common sense and their French and American disciples. Nor has subsequent history diminished the extent of such disagreement. Consequently, the legacy of the Enlightenment has been the provision of an ideal of rational justification which it has proved impossible to attain.12
Reason promises much yet fails to deliver its much-vaunted benefits. It is for such reasons that Hans-Georg Gadamer wrote scathingly of the "Robinson Crusoe dream of the historical Enlightenment, as artificial as Crusoe himself."13 The notion of "universal rationality" is a delusion."

Vorkosigan

I'm sure Gadamer knows that Crusoe was based on a real person. Do you think he is being subtly ironic here?

Michael

Kent Stevens

How do you prove that "universal rationality" is an illusion? If it is assumed to be true then there are a large number of weird things that could be assumed to be true. If you use reasons in an argument to say that universal rationality is an illusion are you using a form of rationality to do so. Perhaps this argument is supposed to be true also to an American, Russian, or an alien in which case it is "universal". So are we are using universal rationality to prove that universal rationality is an illusion. But this would be a contradiction and would consequently be false.

Maybe we can argue what constitutes reason but there are some general acceptance in philosophy, law, and politics about what constitutes valid argument. Advertising tends to make emotional appeals more and use reason less but that is a separate issue.

Tree

My post above is excerpted from an entire chapter that is trying to discredit reason for the sake of somehow justifying 'faith.' I understand that he has to use reason to 'prove' reason to be false and that this is fallacious. I am interested in comments on that but am also kind of stuck on the responses to the claim that reason has promised us more and has failed to deliver.

Vorkosigan

I don't understand why that claim is so difficult. Surely human history shows that reason beats authority any day for producing societies where people can maximize growth, freedom, etc.

Michael

Bill Snedden

It seems to me that the author of that "article" was actually referring to moral principles that are rationally derived, or supported.

In other words, he seems to be talking about an as yet undelivered system of "rational morality" and claiming that the alleged inability of rationalists to deliver said system constitutes valid evidence that such a system cannot exist.

Obviously this is a dubious claim. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, or so the "faithful" seem to claim. People who live in glass houses....

Regardless of the "disagreements" upon which the author seems to base his conclusion that rationalism has failed, it is quite possible that the "universal principles" have simply not yet been discovered. Reason isn't magic (faith has an "advantage" there ). The Enlightenment was only about three hundred or so years ago. Give us a little time!

Of course, the author's argument could just as easily be used against him.

Religions have existed for thousands of years, yet there are hundreds of different faiths with significant disagreement on the "principles" of morality and even truth itself. If rationalism is invalid due to the "disagreements" in one of its products, then surely religion is an even more dismal failure.

Regards,

Bill Snedden

John Page

I don't see reason and faith as mutually exlusive. Have faith in something, try it out, if it works there must be a reason. Conversely, think something through, execute the plan and if it works you can have faith it will do next time.

bd-from-kg

Tree:

The author you quote seems to be identifying “rationalism” with “reason”. That’s his privilege, but when he starts quoting others like Maclntyre and Gadamer in this fashion with the implication that this is also what they mean he’s being deliberately misleading. The philosophical movement known as “rationalism” whose popularity peaked during the Enlightenment (and about which these writers were obviously referring) involved a lot more than a belief in a “universal rationalism” in the sense of universally valid principles of logic. The Encyclopedia Britannica article on “rationalism” begins as follows:

In short, “rationalism” involves an excessive reliance on reason as opposed to experience for discovering truth, and is opposed to empiricism.

Thus when the author concludes “Reason promises much yet fails to deliver its much-vaunted benefits,” his conclusion is not supported by anything that Maclntyre and Gadamer say. Which means that he hasn’t made a case for this assertion at all. Indeed, it’s difficult even to make any sense out of this statement. What does he mean by “reason”? What is it supposed to “promise”? How can “reason” be said to “promise” anything?

When I read stuff like this my usual practice is to discard the book. When an author is unable or unwilling even to make it clear what he’s asserting, and quotes other writers in a misleading fashion, there’s little point in wasting further time and brainpower on him.

Tree

What I had posted above was excerpted from Chapter. 6, Clash of World Views from Intellectuals Don’t Need God & Other Modern Myths by Alister McGrath. My brother’s (fundamentalist Christian) belief system seems to be heavily influenced by the idea that ‘reason’ is flawed, and at it’s root, based on faith. Therefore, why not have faith in God? He sent this chapter to try to sway me. I understand a number of problems with it and have answered with comments to nearly every sentence. I have no formal philosophical training and knew you guys and gals here at the sec-web would be a great help.

Bill Snedden:
I totally understand and agree with all of what you have said in your post. I have used this line of thinking through much of my response so far. Thanks very much it has been very helpful.

bd-from-kg:
I wish I could discard this whole damn argument with my brother sometimes but he has had much influence on my family and I wish to at least cause some consideration of an alternative view. If I understand correctly: Maclntyre and Gadamer would not agree that “the notion of ‘universal rationality’ is a delusion.” Thanks for the info here. Although I have to take your word for it (I have no time), it will be useful. “How can ‘reason’ be said to ‘promise’ anything?” is also a great point.
What I am especially interested in is thoughts on the authors point about the rational world view (what I think he means by ‘reason’ here sometimes) not being able to “base itself on self-evident first principles.” His preceding paragraph (below) puts the following one that I posted above in context:

“We may begin by exploring reason itself. Surely human reason is capable of basing itself on self-evident first principles, and, by following these through logically, deducing a complete system? Just about everyone who favors this approach makes some sort of appeal to Euclid's five principles of geometry. On the basis of his five principles Euclid was able to construct his entire geometrical system. Philosophers such as Spinoza were deeply attracted to this: maybe they could use the same method in philosophy. From a set of certain assumptions, a great secure edifice of philosophy and ethics could be erected. But the dream turned sour. The discovery of non-Euclidian geometry during the nineteenth century destroyed the appeal of this analogy. It turned out that there were other ways of doing geometry, each just as internally consistent as Euclid's. But which is right? The question cannot be answered. They are all different, each with their own special merits and problems.11”

Aren’t the laws: The Law of Identity, the Law of Excluded Middle and the Law of Contradiction, self-evident in that they are necessary to even form a thought? They are not arbitrary, but instead, necessary, at least if one is trying to define reality. That is the way I understand it but I am having a hard time sorting this out in response to what this author is asserting.
Also, there is something wrong with his saying that since we have more than one type of geometry we can’t trust or count as knowledge what they tell us; and then equating that to reason in order to argue for skepticism of reason. These points go against my understanding but am having a hard time formulating a response.

All the help is much appreciated!