[pasabagi]

I guess 'rationalism', as a name, calls a certain kind of person out of the ether:

1. They like rationality, and feel it's opposed by 'irrationality'.

2. They want to be part of some 'rational group'.

3. They're ignorant enough not to know the name is already taken.

4. They're ignorant enough not to know that the name means pretty much the opposite of what they believe. (A real rationalist, for instance, probably wouldn't be interested in modern science).

5. They're ignorant enough not to know that 'rational' and 'irrational' are usually demarcate lines of social hierarchy, not lines of theoretical commitment.

This is an attractive pitch, so obviously, loads of people jump on. I think the main thing that's nice about it is that no real work is called for. Every smart white kid from a nice background has been called 'logical' or 'rational' at some point, because (5), so it's a value they identify with. It's a young group, full of energy, because the internet is biased young, and young people go for (2) through (5).

[sinity]

> 3. They're ignorant enough not to know the name is already taken.

Overloads are a thing, you know?

> 4. They're ignorant enough not to know that the name means pretty much the opposite of what they believe.

String of characters doesn't mean anything by itself, it can point to meaning (or several).

> 5. They're ignorant enough not to know that 'rational' and 'irrational' are usually demarcate lines of social hierarchy, not lines of theoretical commitment.

By whom, and why is their use of the word supposed to be the default?

> I think the main thing that's nice about it is that no real work is called for.

Lol no. You might want to look back at your comment. Specifically, "I guess". You've done a lot of judging, without doing a shred of work to verify whether your insults are true.

"They're ignorant enough", repeated several times, despite utter ignorance about people you're talking about.

Anyway. "Rationalist" is aspirational, not a claim of one's own rationality.

Sure, this naming kinda sucks because it's unclear.

[pasabagi]

Lets say you want to contribute to military theory, you feel like you have some good ideas, but you think tactics means the broad goals you mean to obtain with your 'strategy', which is your low-level techniques you used to achieve these goals. How seriously do you think people in military circles would take you? How seriously do you think they should take you?

That's what the rationalist thing is, more or less. I think you can probably argue that the military guys should take you seriously because you have lots of clever ideas, but you can probably also understand it's kinda ridiculous and bonkers.

[feoren]

Yay gatekeeping!

And look at all these idiots using the word "computer" to mean an electronic computation device! They must be super ignorant to not realize the word was already taken to mean human beings who perform computations as their job!

I would like to be more rational in my thoughts and decisions. I would like it if others were as well. I find that reading articles by so-called "rationalists", and reading debate around them, seems to help me do that. Not surprising, since that is their exact stated goal as well.

As far as what "rational" means:

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/rational

1. Capable of reasoning.

2. Logically sound; not contradictory or otherwise absurd.

3. Healthy or balanced intellectually; exhibiting reasonableness.

4-7. [Math, chemistry, and physics stuff]

Hmm, nothing about social hierarchy or about how you're not allowed to use that word if you're not a 17th century French philosopher. What the hell are you on about, and why are you so concerned about gatekeeping this word?

[pasabagi]

Rationalism != Rational. Putting an ism on the end of the word makes it a new word. Also, computation is still used in the sense you described.

PS: I'm not sure if it's gatekeeping to expect people who are interested in something to know a word you would learn in the first hour(s?) of learning about it. But if so, I am fully behind it.

[Isinlor]

Polish language and Polish culture, heavily influenced by French Enlightenment, also accepts use of word rationalism from empirical perspective.

Rationalism ( https://sjp.pwn.pl/sjp/racjonalizm;2573228.html ):

3. "a position requiring the observance of restrictive standards of the scientificity of knowledge"

I personally prefer that meaning of the word.

[astrange]

I think the use of "rationalism" follows modern philosophy trends and isn't a reinvention. They are "actually" empiricists as opposed to rationalists, yes, but most of those rationalist ideas[0] moved to continental philosophy and are now part of the modern rationalists' enemies, humanities people who read French theory.

"Rationalism" descends from analytic philosophy/logical positivism/scientific method types, so they're into experiments now. This is good, because their main program of logical positivism doesn't actually work, so it's kind of a problem that they're still trying to do it.

[0] the world doesn't exist, there's only sense data causing you to imagine a shared world, thinking about things logically is better than trying them out

[guerrilla]

> Rationalism descends from analytic philosophy/logical positivism/scientific method types, so they're into experiments now.

This is false. Rationalism predates analytic philosophy by nearly 300 years. Maybe you mean "rationalism" does.

[astrange]

That is what I meant, yes. I don't believe obviously false things like that, no.

[pasabagi]

Wait, I'm getting confused between the two senses of 'rationalism' here. My guess is that contemporary 'rationalism' doesn't actually descend from any explicit philosophical tradition, just because if you read an introductory philosophy book, you'd not join a group with that name combined with their ethos.

I'm not that well versed in analytic philosophy - I think it's come a long way since the early days, so now straddles both sides of the rationalist/empiricist divide. At this point, I think it's basically a writing style. You get a lot of analytic philosophers with some pretty wild assertions about reality.

On the other side, somebody like Deleuze is basically a hardcore empiricist, but he's as 'continental' as they come.

[guerrilla]

> My guess is that contemporary 'rationalism' doesn't actually descend from any explicit philosophical tradition, just because if you read an introductory philosophy book, you'd not join a group with that name combined with their ethos.

It definitely doesn't. The community started in almost complete ignorance of philosophy in general and that philosophy had already covered everything they were trying to.

> I'm not that well versed in analytic philosophy - I think it's come a long way since the early days, so now straddles both sides of the rationalist/empiricist divide.

I'm pretty sure they meant "rationalism" comes from analytic philosophy, which I don't think it does although now at least they've realized it exists. Actual rationalism predates both by approximately three centuries.

[reducesuffering]

> 3. They're ignorant enough not to know the name is already taken.

Imagine the hubris to claim ignorance of another when oneself is ignorant that rationalists already know this and it was a mistaken momentum thing.

[toolz]

Words and meanings change over time and depending on the context. Strangely you claim it's ignorance but then give supporting reasons why someone might label this "rationalism".

[pasabagi]

Rationalism is an important term in exactly the field they are supposed to be interested in. And they're using it in more or less the opposite of its conventional sense.

I guess it could be just really perverse usage, but I figure it's more like 'objectivism', or 'scientology', words that sound big and impressive to people who are either dumb, or just not very well informed.

You can't really change a term like rationalism, since it's really one of the biggest terms in philosophy, and philosophers are the kind of people who get upset when people use stuff like 'begging the question' wrong, which everybody does. So even if the 'rationalists' ended up having loads of great insights despite their inauspicious start, it would almost certainly never change the meaning of the word.

[Isinlor]

The meaning of the word can change and it will change sooner or later, in Anglo-sphere or somewhere else.

Historically, the meaning of "rationalism" changed both trough time and cultures.

The way "rationalism" is being used by the lesswrong crowd is currently accepted for example by Polish dictionaries:

Rationalism ( https://sjp.pwn.pl/sjp/racjonalizm;2573228.html ):

3. "a position requiring the observance of restrictive standards of the scientificity of knowledge"

Also from: Williams B., Rationalism, [w:] D.M. Borchert (red.), Encyclopedia of Philosophy, t. VIII, Thomson Gale, 2006, s. 239-247, ISBN 0-02-866072-2.

Rationalism in the enlightenment

The term rationalism is often loosely used to describe an outlook allegedly characteristic of some eighteenth- century thinkers of the Enlightenment, particularly in France, who held an optimistic view of the power of sci- entific inquiry and of education to increase the happiness of humankind and to provide the foundations of a free but harmonious social order. In this connection “ratio- nalistic” is often used as a term of criticism, to suggest a naive or superficial view of human nature that overesti- mates the influence of benevolence and of utilitarian cal- culation and underestimates both the force of destructive impulses in motivation and the importance of such non- rational factors as tradition and faith in the human econ- omy. Jean d’Alembert, Voltaire, and the Marquis de Condorcet, among others, are often cited in this connec- tion. Although there is some truth in these criticisms, the naïveté of these and other Enlightenment writers has often been grossly exaggerated. Also, insofar as “reason” is contrasted with “feeling” or “sentiment,” it is somewhat misleading to describe the Enlightenment writers as rationalistic, for many of them (Denis Diderot, for exam- ple) characteristically emphasized the role of sentiment. Reason was praised in contrast with faith, traditional authority, fanaticism, and superstition. It chiefly repre- sented, therefore, an opposition to traditional Christian- ity.

Here there are two contrasts with the seventeenth- century rationalism of Descartes and others. First, this rationalism is not characteristically antireligious or non- religious; on the contrary, God in some sense, often in a traditional sense, plays a large role in rationalist systems (although Spinoza’s notion of God was extremely unorthodox, and it is notable that the opposition of rea- son and faith is important in his Tractatus Theologico- Politicus). Second, the view of science held by such Enlightenment thinkers as Voltaire was different from that of rationalism, being much more empiricist. The central contrast embodied in the term rationalism as applied to the earlier systems is that of reason versus experience, a contrast that is certainly not present in the Enlightenment praise of the “rational.”

[pasabagi]

I guess contemporary history of philosophy is kind of a modern product, so it makes sense that it might have been used in a different way back in the day. A lot of historical rationalists considered themselves empiricists, and vice versa. It's also not a term contemporary to like, Descartes (iirc).

I think the current meaning of rationalism (as opposed to empiricism) is vastly more useful than it as yet another 'good-ism', but you're probably right, words can change. It's still stupid that they didn't bother googling the term before calling themselves it.