About Rationalism

Non-Christian philosophers from the Greeks in the 4^th century BC to Immanuel Kant in the 18^th century AD, had three things in common:[1]

1. They were rationalists.  i.e. they believed that the source of knowledge is reason alone, unaided by divine revelation.  A person who uses reason is rational, but a rationalist has faith in reason alone – believing that although he is finite and limited, he can begin from himself and gather enough ‘particulars’ to make his own ‘universals.’  (A universal is that under which all particulars fit – that which gives unity and meaning to the whole.  For example, a grain of sand is a ‘particular’ on a beach that gives it meaning.  But the beach in turn is a particular on a coastline that gives it meaning.  The coastline is a particular of a continent; the continent of the planet, the planet of the solar system, the solar system of the universe and the universe is a particular of whatever rationalists imagine gives it meaning!)  Rationalists exclude any non-human knowledge, such as revelations from God.
2. They took reason seriously.  They accepted the validity of reason – that the mind thinks in terms of antithesis.  That is, with their minds people can come to the conclusion that a certain thing is true (thesis) while the opposite is not true (antithesis), that certain things are right in contrast to other things that are wrong.
3. They were optimistic in the sense that they hoped to establish by reason alone, a unified and true knowledge of what reality is.  They believed this “true knowledge” would provide satisfying explanations for everything encountered in the universe and for all that people are and think.  They hoped for something that would unify all knowledge and all of life – often called a unified field of knowledge.

In the 19th century rationalism began to unravel and philosophy began spreading profound darkness over the world.  The rationalistic possibilities for a unified field of knowledge that included meaning and morals were by then exhausted.  So Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, a German philosopher, proposed a change to the rules of the game.

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