metonymy4u

Rationalism is the doctrine that the patterns of human reason correspond to real, objective events out there in the world. It is the model that starts from the assumption that the human mind can identify universal truths about the world, as opposed to being limited to an identification of truths about subjective experience (phenomenology) or simply a perpetuation of a series of events (radical behaviorism). One might ask, “well, why is it important to understand rationalism and why do you object to it so frequently?” Here’s an example of rationalism in action and why I think it is detrimental to our species. Person A and person B experience an interpersonal conflict in which A objects to one of B’s behaviors. B identifies A as a member of a particular class and themselves as a member of another class. These classes could be gender based, race based or national origin based. B identifies general conflict between these two classes. B then characterizes A’s actions as discriminatory towards B, based on their membership in these various classes. A in fact holds no grudge against B’s class, but rather was objecting to B’s behavior in one specific instance. B experiences the interpersonal conflict as representative of discrimination; A does not. In my opinion, B is applying a rationalistic model here and conflating effect with intent. B is assuming that A’s original objection to B’s behaviors is based on discrimination just because B experiences the effect as discriminatory. B is taking their own thoughts as representative of some objective reality (the rationalist assumption). The problem here is that it fails to validate A’s perspective, which is quite contrary to B’s experience. The possibility of a resolution, of a synthesis of the dialectic is thus weakened in part by the influence of rationalist habits. Of course, this is simply my experience of the events in question, and I would love to hear your perspective as well! 🙂