&catherine
Well-known member
In quite a few lines of discussion around these parts - many of which have bounced off k-punk, natürlich - the question has been posed: What is understood by the term, 'rational'? Among other points and comments made in the discussion, Mark k-p has invoked Spinoza to coin 'Cold Rationalism' (I think it was his coinage) and write the 'rational / emotional' binary off as a Romanticism that may as well be scrapped. Blissblog, on the other hand, has responded to this: "I suppose ultimately I don’t really get what he’s talking about when he uses the word “rationality”, now that’s supposed to include emotion and the body?"
With all this taken into account, I would like to pose the question: What is rationality, anyway? What is your understanding of the word? Do you know of writers/philosophers/theorists who explore or dispute this category and its employment? Is the world rational? Is 'rational' a word that describes the laws by which it works? Or is rationality just a human construct? Is it, perhaps, a criteria by which to judge human behaviour ("acting irrationally")? Or is it just the adjective which describes the verb 'to reason'?
Rather a wide-ranging topic, I know But it's a term that's been bandied about rather a lot, and which has tended to be understood very differently by the respective parties involved, so it's well worth opening a specific vein of discussion about it.
So, what do you think? (And, furthermore, how do you think? 'Rationally'? )
With all this taken into account, I would like to pose the question: What is rationality, anyway? What is your understanding of the word? Do you know of writers/philosophers/theorists who explore or dispute this category and its employment? Is the world rational? Is 'rational' a word that describes the laws by which it works? Or is rationality just a human construct? Is it, perhaps, a criteria by which to judge human behaviour ("acting irrationally")? Or is it just the adjective which describes the verb 'to reason'?
Rather a wide-ranging topic, I know But it's a term that's been bandied about rather a lot, and which has tended to be understood very differently by the respective parties involved, so it's well worth opening a specific vein of discussion about it.
So, what do you think? (And, furthermore, how do you think? 'Rationally'? )