Rationality: speakable & correctly spoken thought
One key aspect of rational thought is that it is speakable: To be or become rational, a thought is reduced to its speakable part or version, and any part or aspect that isn’t expressible in language is rejected or denied.
A potential criticism of rationalistic thinking, philosophy and theory-building presents itself when one considers aspects of our world that are at the same time of deepest importance whilst not being speakable, for example beauty: Beauty can never be fully caught by definitions, transcending and eluding any attempt to [linguistically] capture or grasp or fix.* …And therefore, in a rationalistic worldview/reality, beauty is ultimately rejected or relegated to the level of mere relativistic & irrelevant ästhetics…
A further core component of rational traditions is that one must use language correctly [when expressing the speakable]… This makes the false assumption that we know how to use language correctly and thus have the ability to use language correctly and avoid using it incorrectly… I think it should be clear that this is an absurd assumption.**
I’ve been trying to find out what rationality and rationalism is and how related thought, theory, tradition, culture and history may be affected by this, i.e. how rationalism shapes our world and how it relates to other contemporary paradigms of mainstream [thought and] reality.
I think readers can agree that the concept of rationality is, explicitly or implicitly, a major factor/part in contemporary worldviews, both within and outside of intellectual/scientific institutions. I want to find out how important it is and what exactly it is – and what its function is. And by ‘rationalism‘ I mean whole methodologies or traditions that are built out of or on the more basic concept of rationality.
This project is a process of exploration and speculation. I neither want to simply choose some existing definitions and base my analysis on those nor simply stipulate my own definition/usage of the terms: What I’m doing is I’m trying to find out how ‘rational’ is actually used and functions in the world and in existing traditions – even if people aren’t aware of these functions and usages – and what the concept that best fits this usage/function ultimately looks like. This is a gradual process with many observations and speculations along the way.
This is necessary because – as can be easily observed – there is no consensus on the meaning or importance or relevance of rationality. And it has become more obvious to me over time that rationality is an astoundingly murky and ill-defined or un-defined concept – and this is especially striking considering its prominence in traditions that value clarity and definition of language so highly.***
And concerning the critical aspects of this project: In my reading I came across criticisms of past and contemporary rationalistic traditions in philosophy. I was intrigued by this unusual case of criticizing something that is usually simply assumed to be something positive and important – & from there I’ve been exploring how far and deep these criticisms and the corresponding flaws of contemporary thought & theory may go: Firstly in schools of metaphilosophy and philosophy/methodology of science – but also exploring possible connections and influences this may have on any other parts of the human world – be it a scientific tradition or economic or political doctrine or ethics/morality or any other theory, tradition or culture. I’ve continued and deepened this endeavour because it has turned out to be fascinatingly fruitful.
*Beauty really IS ineffable – and by trying too hard to eff it, you will actually just f it up.
**I won’t directly argue this point here, but will just mention some points that should be considered in this context: Consider how language actually works as a pragmatic, psychological and historical process (or result thereof). It has intuitive components. It isn’t a fixed, perfect, objective system but rather a historically grown complex of temporary inter-subjective, co-operative conventions. It’s full of quirks and multiplicities of uses of elements. Attempts at correcting natural language or translating into formal languages – i.e. at making language completely rational – are vain attempts at overcoming this and removing all undefinable parts from our thoughts. An analytical philosopher can try to use new definitions to stipulate a new, limited language game, but even then you need to somehow provide a connection to other, broader language games for your artificial language game to have any relevance or meaning – this is the point/boundary at which the philosopher tricks themself into not noticing the intuitive/irrational components of what they are doing. And, of course, one shouldn’t forget that these imprecisions, intuitive/unconscious components, pragmatic mutabilities and fluidities etc are features that make language a wonderfully powerful, adaptive tool in an ever-changing environment and society.
***in fact so murky/dark that it can actually function as a kind of everyday dogmatic basis for modern thinking that – unlike explicit dogmas – isn’t even accessible to critical inspection.