Rationalism

Rationalism is not a dogma but a method. It does not tell us what to believe but how to find out.

Hector Hawton, ‘What it is to be a rationalist’ in The Humanist, September 1970

Rationalism is an attitude of readiness to listen to critical arguments and to learn from experience. It is fundamentally an attitude of admitting that ‘I may be wrong and you may be right, and by an effort, we may get nearer the truth‘. It is an attitude which does not lightly give up hope that by such means as argument and careful observation, people may reach some kind of agreement on most problems of importance.

Karl Popper, ‘Oracular Philosophy and the Revolt Against Reason’ in The Open Society and Its Enemies, Volume II (1945)

A rationalist, as I use the word, is a man who attempts to reach decisions by argument and perhaps, in certain cases, by compromise, rather than by violence. He is a man who would rather be unsuccessful in convincing another man by argument than successful in crushing him by force, by intimidation and threats, or even by persuasive propaganda.

Karl Popper, ‘Utopia and Violence’ in Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (1963)

A rationalist is simply someone for whom it is more important to learn than to be proved right; someone who is willing to learn from others – not by simply taking over another’s opinions, but by gladly allowing others to criticize his ideas and by gladly criticizing the ideas of others. The emphasis here is on the idea of criticism or, to be more precise, critical discussion. The genuine rationalist does not think that he or anyone else is in possession of the truth; nor does he think that mere criticism as such helps us to achieve new ideas.

Karl Popper, ‘Thoughts on History and Politics’ in All Life is Problem Solving (1999)

Wisdom lies in thinking. The spear-head of thinking is rationalism.

E. V. Ramasamy, Collected Works Of Periyar E. V. R compiled by K. Veeramani (2007)

Rationalism is an adventure in the clarification of thought, progressive and never final. But it is an adventure in which even partial success has importance.

Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality: an Essay in Cosmology (1929)

The adventure of rationalism is a many-sided one, and happily its pursuit must be co-operative.

Dorothy M. Emmet, Whitehead’s Philosophy of Organism (1932)

Have I told you that I prefer “rationalism” to “atheism”? The word “atheist,” meaning “no God,” is negative and defeatist. It says what you don’t believe and puts you in an eternal position of defense. “Rationalism” on the other hand states what you DO believe; that is, that which can be understood in the light of reason.

Isaac Asimov quoted in It’s Been a Good Life, edited by Janet Jeppson Asimov (2002)

The question is how to arrive at your opinions and not what your opinions are. The thing in which we believe is the supremacy of reason… To my mind the essential thing is that one should base one’s arguments upon the kind of grounds that are accepted in science, and that one should not regard anything that one accepts as quite certain, but only as probable in a greater or a less degree. Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality.

Bertrand Russell, ‘Am I an Atheist or an Agnostic?’ (1949)