RATIONALISM

RATIONALISM

The word rationalism “is derived from the Latin word ratio, “which means reasoning. Reasoning or inquiry is very important to understand the truth and to obtain correct knowledge according to the rationalists. The rationalism have existed throughout the ancient philosophy and later developed in the modern era. As it appears in the Oxford English Dictionary rationalism is the practice of explaining the supernatural powers.

Rationalism in the western philosophy is very much related to the field of mathematics. Rationalists raise their arguments standing upon axioms:

• Rationalism brings knowledge without the help of the outer world

• It is not the knowledge that comes through sense experience

• The knowledge that one gets through sense organs is not considered as the true knowledge by rationalists

• Man might misunderstand a rope as a snake, therefore, the knowledge one gets through his sense organs can mislead the person.

According to rationalists, the true knowledge and the zeal to understand arises in the mind without the help of the outer world.

1.      A priori knowledge

A priori knowledge is one of the theories on which the rationalism is based.

According to the a priori knowledge, some ideas are true without the help of sense experience that come through sense organs.

While rationalists do not deny that the sense organs might be able to give a significant information about the world, they do not consider them as the sole source of knowledge.

Rationalists think that the knowledge that comes through sense organs might be misleading and wrong.

They argue that the knowledge independent from sense experience could be more trustworthy, because it has to nothing with the sense organs.

2. Innate ideas

Rationalists believe that some ideas are born in the mind with the birth of a person – e.g., Albert Einstein

Innate ideas are born in the mind of a person without much influence of the physical world.

According to the Descartes, the idea of the existence of God is one of the ideas that is present in the human mind.

2.      Logical necessity

Something cannot be conceived as otherwise.

When something is logically necessary, it should have proved its correctness through definitions, for example the statement: „All bachelors are not married. “ It is necessarily true because that is how the world is defined. This idea of logical necessity is very much influenced by mathematics.

There is no logical necessity if we take this statement: „Work hard to get through your exams. “

4. Metaphysical necessity

This type of necessity is helpful to rationalists, because rationalists deal with concepts, ideas that go beyond the logical certainty. For example, the idea of God is metaphysical. It is logically possible to say that God exists – the idea of God presupposes perfect being. Only a perfect being can create a perfect, systematical world. If the God is imperfect, his creation would also be imperfect.

Therefore, a perfect God should exist. Rationalism in the western world existed even during the Greek period. There were rationalists during the day of Buddha and before – Takkhe.

Concept of the creator God in the Vedic thought was based on rational argument. Sages of the Vedic thought argued for the existence of a creator being. Rationalism became popular in the modern western philosophy with the scientific revolution. There were three popular rationalists in the West:

1. Rene Descartes

2. Baruch Spinoza

3. Wilhelm Gottfried Leibniz

Descartes was a rationalist. He attempted to understand the world through rational thinking. There was not much space for rationalism before Descartes (like a medieval philosophers tried to prove their teaching of God through faith and devotion) tried to prove his teachings.

In the Ariyapariyesana Sutta of the Majjhima Nikāya the personal experience gained by the Buddha is recorded in details. Buddha speaks about his knowledge gained through his experience also in Mahā

Sīhanāda Sutta and in the Mahā Saccaka Sutta in Majjhima Nikāya.

As described in the Mahā Sīhanāda Sutta, in order to reach a state free from grief (asoka), free from death (amata), free from defilements (asaṅkilitha) person has to practice penance of self-mortification. It was on examination and on experimentation that the Buddha emphasized the reality of the world. The theory of impermanence is the result of the higher experience gained by Buddha. Buddhism is neither a kind of metaphysical speculation nor a revelation, but a teaching based on empirical facts and that is to be experienced.