Comment by whatevertrevor
5 days ago
That conclusion presupposes that rationality and empiricism are at odds or mutually incompatible somehow. Any rational position worth listening to, about any testable hypothesis, is hand in hand with empirical thinking.
In traditional philosophy, rationalism and empiricism are at odds; they are essentially diametrically opposed. Rationalism prioritizes a priori reasoning while empiricism prioritizes a posteriori reasoning. You can prioritize both equally but that is neither rationalism nor empiricism in the traditional terminology. The current rationalist movement has no relation to that original rationalist movement, so the words don't actually mean the same thing. In fact, the majority of participants in the current movement seem ignorant of the historical dispute and its implications, hence the misuse of the word.
Yeah, Stanford has a good recap :
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rationalism-empiricism/
(Note also how the context is French vs British, and the French basically lost with Napoleon, so the current "rationalists" seem to be more likely to be heirs to empiricism instead.)
Thank you for clarifying.
That does compute with what I thought the "Rationalist" movement as covered by the article was about. I didn't peg them as pure a priori thinkers as you put it. I suppose my comment still holds, assuming the rationalist in this context refers to the version of "Rationalism" being discussed in the article as opposed to the traditional one.