Afaik rationalism was named so by other people; i.e. the first classical rationalist was Descartes, but his death pre-dates the first use of the term rationalism. Objectivism is a whole different story...
this post was submitted on 15 Apr 2025
328 points (98.0% liked)
Philosophy
1805 readers
6 users here now
Discussion of philosophy
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you're thinking about rationalism instead of Rationalism.
I am indeed, because the one with the capital R is more fringe to me, and there is no context pointing to that one.
The context is that the meme is making fun of it, which makes no sense for the epistemological version.
The further context is that you posted this in the Philosophy community, which draws my mind more toward historical thinkers than modern groups that use “rational” to sound smart.
plenty of modern philosophers. If you think philosophy is only about historical old men, that's on you.
You've argued this with at least two people, I think the confusion can be forgiven.
I can excuse the confusion, but I don't get why people are defensive about it. is their self-worth tied to how well they identify philosophy schools?
I didn't think they were being defensive...
Yeah, I had a few modern philosophers as professors in college when I minored in it. Based on a glimpse at the wikipedia article you shared, I’m hesitant to call these modern rationalists philosophers. Sophists sounds more appropriate.
I just thought there was some additional context that you missed which would explain the confusion some people are having. I will easily admit that it is my fault for thinking of historic philosophers whose ideas are still discussed today before a fringe group from Silicon Valley that uses the same terminology.
“Rationalism” is that weird cult-like movement that spun off the zizian cult. The Behind the Bastards podcast had a few episodes on the zizian and rationalism groups.
Difficult to see Ayn Rand seriously
I think rationalism is more about even being able to acquire true knowledge rationally and that rationality should be our main source of knowledge (in contrast to spiritual revelation for example, or empiricism for that fact, but that doesn't exactly hold up well). In other words it's an epistemological position about being right, not an outright proclamation that rationalism itself is right.
I think rationalism is more about even being able to acquire true knowledge rationally and that rationality should be our main source of knowledge
Are you talking about rationalism or Rationalism?
I never fails to make me laugh that Descartes was like "Hmm I can't just follow faith, I need to be a rational person" And he just reached the same conclusions as before with his rationale!
So many philosophers did this! My favourite is Hegel, who 'rationally' reached the conclusion that German was the best language, Prussia was the best country and Protestantism was the best religion. Nothing to do with the fact that he'd been raised in German-speaking Prussian Protestantism, oh no.
Yeah, I did not know that existed...
Sadly, not only it exists, but it's the philosophical underpinning behind the current Fascist takeover of the USA.
Huh, that's interesting, reading the wikipedia page, it didn't even seem that terrible, I don't really understand how "effective altruism" and "hyper-utilitarianism" can lead you to that
Wikipedia by default tries to stay neutral. There's plenty of articles to read about Eliezer Yudkowsky and LessWrong and his influence in Fascists and Grifters. There's even a whole comm making fun of them: !sneerclub@awful.systems
Why are you arbitrarily capitalizing one of them? The link you have for capital R doesn't capitalize the name other than in the title, or at the start of sentences.
For distinction.
It's the professorial version of choosing your own nickname.
Isn't one of the main rationalist blogs named LessWrong? I mean, it's almost like the meme itself.