Rationalism Philosophy Quotes & Sayings

A concept is a brick. It can be used to build a courthouse of reason. Or it can be thrown through the window. — Gilles Deleuze

As modern physics started with the Newtonian revolution, so modern philosophy starts with what one might call the Cartesian Catastrophe. The catastrophe consisted in the splitting up of the world into the realms of matter and mind, and the identification of 'mind' with conscious thinking. The result of this identification was the shallow rationalism of l' esprit Cartesien, and an impoverishment of psychology which it took three centuries to remedy even in part. — Arthur Koestler

Has anyone provided proof of God's inexistence? Not even close. Has quantum cosmology explained the emergence of the universe or why it is here? Not even close. Have our sciences explained why our universe seems to be fine-tuned to allow for the existence of life? Not even close. Are physicists and biologists willing to believe in anything so long as it is not religious thought? Close enough. Has rationalism and moral thought provided us with an understanding of what is good, what is right, and what is moral? Not close enough. Has secularism in the terrible 20th century been a force for good? Not even close, to being close. Is there a narrow and oppressive orthodoxy in the sciences? Close enough. Does anything in the sciences or their philosophy justify the claim that religious belief is irrational? Not even in the ball park. Is scientific atheism a frivolous exercise in intellectual contempt? Dead on. — David Berlinski

Today, the established social structures and values are beginning to crumble on a global scale. This is an indication of the deadlock that has been reached by all systems of thought and philosophy that are based on the modern rationalism of Western civil society. The cause of this can be found in modern rationalism's lack of focus on the human being. Without a profound grasp of the true nature of human life, this approach cannot serve as a philosophy that enables people to change themselves on a fundamental level. As a result, society today is steeped in confusion. — Anonymous

If we wanted to construct a basic philosophical attitude from these scientific utterances of Pauli's, at first we would be inclined to infer from them an extreme rationalism and a fundamentally skeptical point of view. In reality however, behind this outward display of criticism and skepticism lay concealed a deep philosophical interest even in those dark areas of reality of the human mind which elude the grasp of reason. And while the power of fascination emanating from Pauli's analyses of physical problems was admittedly due in some measure to the detailed and penetrating clarity of his formulations, the rest was derived from a constant contact with the field of creative processes, for which no rational formulation as yet exists. — Werner Heisenberg

Without the withering criticism by nominalism, medieval Christian philosophy and theology would not have relinquished their claim to the role of knowledge in discovering the nature of things in light of higher principles; instead, it caused them to leave the field of battle without any defense before the onslaught of secularism, rationalism, and empiricism, which were, as a result, able to gain a remarkably easy victory. — Seyyed Hossein Nasr

See the exquisite contrast of the types of mind! The pragmatist clings to facts and concreteness, observes truth at its work in particular cases, and generalises. Truth, for him, becomes a class-name for all sorts of definite working-values in experience. For the rationalist it remains a pure abstraction, to the bare name of which we must defer. When the pragmatist undertakes to show in detail just why we must defer, the rationalist is unable to recognise the concretes from which his own abstraction is taken. He accuses us of denying truth; whereas we have only sought to trace exactly why people follow it and always ought to follow it. Your typical ultra-abstractions fairly shudders at concreteness: other things equal, he positively prefers the pale and spectral. If the two universes were offered, he would always choose the skinny outline rather than the rich thicket of reality. It is so much purer, clearer, nobler. — William James

Can reason be an idol? Certainly. The philosophy of rationalism puts human reason in the place of God as the source and standard of all truth. — Nancy Pearcey

It is true that the modern Christian is less robust, but that is not thanks to Christianity; it is thanks to the generations of freethinkers, who from the Renaissance to the present day, have made Christians ashamed of many of their traditional beliefs. It is amusing to hear the modern Christian telling you how mild and rationalistic Christianity really is and ignoring the fact that all its mildness and rationalism is due to the teaching of men who in their own day were persecuted by all orthodox Christians. — Bertrand Russell

Let's say I have a mystical soul and a rational brain, and, like Montaigne, I am incapable of choosing between them. I don't know if I believe in God, but I am often tempted to believe. — Francois Mitterrand

The real desire [of feminism] is to break away from rationalism, androcentrisim and all forms of philosophy and practices that discriminate against women. The objective is to recover the use of senses, desire, taste, pleasure, pain and the mystery of life. It is a point of view which seeks to reflet with the body, that is, with sensitivity, with sexuality and, finally, with the story of the body itself. ~ Valmar Da Silva in Reading Other-Wise p. 125 — Gerald O. West

Before the scientific rationalism took hold of our minds and before we became succumbed to a materialistic worldview, the Western philosophy was holistic and relational, and even now there are many scientists in the West seeing things totally interconnected. — Satish Kumar

But no matte what kind of an understanding is adopted, whether associated with positivism, which asserts that the truth can only be reached by trial and error, or rationalism, which asserts that everything can be explained and grasped by reason, whether the perspective of romanticism, which overemphasizes imagination and sensitivity, or an approach based on ardent naturalism, whether based on realism, which aims to describe everything as it is including its shortcomings, or a curiosity-raising approach such as surrealism, whether idealism, which asserts that there is nothing real but ideas, or cubism, which asserts that there is nothing real but instead of direct description, or some other such current or perspective, that is not true poetry. — M. Fethullah Gulen

If anything, the genesis of colleges in the Islamic world seems to have been a way to organise those scholars who were opposed to philosophy and rationalism. Knowledge and science in ancient times were supported by individual patrons and when these patrons changed their priorities, or when they died, any institutions that they might have built often died with them. This is a major reason why no observatory lasted more than 30 years in any of the Islamic empires. — Ehsan Masood

The contemplation of revealed truth is a disturbing element in Christian philosophy though a very beautiful one, for it means that the framework of philosophy is widened, and, above all, it can never rest satisfied with the flat, one-dimensional "harmonies" of rationalism. That is the moment when a Christian philosophy, striking upon the rock of divine truth, foams and boils; and that is its unique privilege. — Josef Pieper

We honor the Greeks because in their art, literature, philosophy and civic history we discern the early stirrings of our own ideals - rationalism, humanism, democracy - which first took firm root in Athenian soil. — Caroline Alexander

Indeed, this is perhaps the greatest Christian paradox of all - that the world's most paradoxical religion has cultivated rationalism and scientific rigor more diligently than any of its rivals, making the Christian world safe for philosophy as well as fervor, for the study of nature as well as the contemplation of divinity. — Ross Douthat

Rationalism is false not because it seeks to express reality in rational mode, so far as this possible, but because it seeks to embrace the whole of reality in the realm of reason, as if the reason coincides with the very principle of things. — Osman Bakar

Alas, I have studied philosophy, / the law as well as medicine, / and to my sorrow, theology; / studied them well with ardent zeal, / yet here I am, a wretched fool, / no wiser than I was before. — Ghadirian