Gaywallet (they/it) ( @Gaywallet@beehaw.org ) 4•3 years agoI see a general issue with rationalism in that many rationalists do not think in humanistic terms. That is to say, they assume that their way of thinking must be correct or more valid than how other people view the world. When it comes to creating a logically consistent mode of thinking, or when attempting to do something like science in which a method can help to ensure something is sound this is perfectly fine. However, I think many rationalists miss where they believe they are doing this, but are instead invalidating the experiences and thought patterns of others. The axiom of “all intentional action is motivated by a belief and a desire” is a very good example of this. While this may be true for many individuals, it doesn’t take long for someone else to think up a case in which it doesn’t hold true. The premise of this article is about how this gets unwieldy or results in an extremely detailed and complicated answer such as what ‘knowledge’ is. I think the author somewhat gets at that point at the end by saying rationalists ‘overperceive’ self-evidence but seems to miss the connection to humanism and the recognition that much of this has to do with the fact that we all think differently.
I have two small issues with the article - first, I think the author misses the point in the section on skepticism. If one was to take the general premise being laid out here by the author, one could easily conclude that they actually know very little about the world if you think of knowledge as the collective ability to know or do x and the statement of knowing nothing is a reflection about how little one can see into the processes that others use or relate with their method of thinking. Of course, I’m a bit biased because I rather like the statement “I know nothing” because I feel it adequately captures how little I am able to truly put myself in the shoes of others. Humans often act and think in ways which are particularly mysterious to me and reminding myself of this helps me to avoid making sweeping statements about how things must or should be.
Secondly, I had a small issue with the article’s use of the example involving witness testimony and someone recognizing another individual on a voicemail. I take issue with this example because witness testimony has been repeatedly proven to be unreliable. Would I trust a friend who had said x or y? Probably, because I have been able to determine whether I feel this friend is trustworthy or not and can deduce how confident I am in a particular set of words coming out of their mouth or an action they take. But we shouldn’t trust a witness when we know nothing about them and there are many reasons for them to not tell the truth on the stand or testify about something they don’t know. We all make mistakes constantly during the day, we just don’t often have other lives hanging in the balance.
Yeah the author is a philosophy prof apparently, so it seems like some of his arguments are considering philosophical positions about epistemology more than real world positions. I do think that it provides some insight into possible problems with hyper-rationalist thinking in other areas of life, though.
Also, I think his analogy about witness testimony is probably flawed like you say, but I think the point stands. We often know things without really being able to articulate why or how we know them. Our brains are fantastically complex machines and it can be difficult or impossible to interrogate every step of our thinking, particularly when intuitive or tacit knowledge are involved.
I also really appreciate that he drills down on the problems associated with axiomatic thinking - that one can use deductive reasoning from a few simple “self-evident” principles to derive an entire philosophical or moral system. It’s an appealing idea, but I think it leads to a lot of problems.
This post is a little more narrowly focused on a type of thinking that this writer calls “Rationalism” rather than the internet rationalist subculture, but I thought it was an interesting look by a philosopher at some problems with this type of rationalist thinking.