this post was submitted on 15 Apr 2025
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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.
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: [email protected]
Easy it starts with the idea that since you are so smart and special you must have been destined to lead the nation just like your other techbros.
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.