Mind over mythology
Rationalism
(n.)
1. Reasoning as basis of action: the belief that thought and action should be governed by reason
2. Reason as source of truth: the belief that reason and logic are the primary sources of knowledge and truth and should be relied on in searching for and testing the truth of things
Rationalism is a logical view that "regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge". This new and innovative form of thinking allowed scholars to look into human behaviors, form logical systems of ethics in daily life, and distinguish knowledge from opinion. It differed from most philosophies of that time due to its theory that opinions and actions were to be based on reason and intellect rather than religious beliefs or emotional response.
The first Western philosopher to stress rationalist insight was Pythagoras, a now renowned figure of the 6th century BCE. His rationalist mindset in mathematics created a now commonly used formula for triangles known as the ‘Pythagorean Theorem’.
Plato, another famous Greek rationalist, famously suggested that the world around us that we experience with our senses is far less real than the world we can access with our minds. He was a student of the Classical Greece philosopher Socrates, the credited founder of Western philosophy.
Aristotle was another of Greece’s known thinkers. Aristotle’s contribution to rationalism comes from a use of *syllogistic logic. He described syllogism as "a discourse in which certain things having been supposed, something different from the things supposed results of necessity because these things are so."
*Syllogism (n.) (Greek: συλλογισμός – syllogismos – "conclusion”) is a kind of logical argument in which deductive reasoning is used to arrive at a conclusion based on two or more propositions that are asserted or assumed to be true.
1. Reasoning as basis of action: the belief that thought and action should be governed by reason
2. Reason as source of truth: the belief that reason and logic are the primary sources of knowledge and truth and should be relied on in searching for and testing the truth of things
Rationalism is a logical view that "regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge". This new and innovative form of thinking allowed scholars to look into human behaviors, form logical systems of ethics in daily life, and distinguish knowledge from opinion. It differed from most philosophies of that time due to its theory that opinions and actions were to be based on reason and intellect rather than religious beliefs or emotional response.
The first Western philosopher to stress rationalist insight was Pythagoras, a now renowned figure of the 6th century BCE. His rationalist mindset in mathematics created a now commonly used formula for triangles known as the ‘Pythagorean Theorem’.
Plato, another famous Greek rationalist, famously suggested that the world around us that we experience with our senses is far less real than the world we can access with our minds. He was a student of the Classical Greece philosopher Socrates, the credited founder of Western philosophy.
Aristotle was another of Greece’s known thinkers. Aristotle’s contribution to rationalism comes from a use of *syllogistic logic. He described syllogism as "a discourse in which certain things having been supposed, something different from the things supposed results of necessity because these things are so."
*Syllogism (n.) (Greek: συλλογισμός – syllogismos – "conclusion”) is a kind of logical argument in which deductive reasoning is used to arrive at a conclusion based on two or more propositions that are asserted or assumed to be true.