Confidence in Reason

Confidence in Reason

Please be reasonable! Let us reason together. There was no reason for that. What do we mean by these common expressions?

Ignoring the fact that these are generally just common exclamations by most of us that are meaningful only in their emotional content; what is the source of our indication of reliance on ?'reason'?

Western philosophy emerged in the sixth century BC along the Ionian coast. A small group of scientist-philosophers began writing about their attempts to develop "rational" accounts regarding human experience. These early Pre-Socratic thinkers thought that they were dealing with fundamental elements of nature.

It is natural for humans to seek knowledge. In the "Metaphysics" Aristotle wrote "All men by nature desire to know".

The attempt to seek knowledge presupposes that the world unfolds in a systematic pattern and that we can gain knowledge of that unfolding. We assume many things because our ?'gut' tells us that: 1) the world makes systematic sense, and we can gain knowledge of it: 2) every particular thing is a kind of thing; 3) every entity has an "essence" or "nature," that is, a collection of properties that makes it the kind of thing it is and that is the causal source of its natural behavior.

We may not want our friends to know this fact but we are all metaphysicians. We, in fact, assume that things have a nature thereby we are led by the metaphysical impulse to seek knowledge at various levels of reality.

Now back to ?'confidence in reason'. I guess the Greeks were the first to systematize our belief that reason can be an important factor in making life better; that reason can provide us with a means to convince others that this particular way is the better way of reaching the desired goal; a mutual confidence in reason becomes one of life's most important goals.

Why a ?'mutual confidence in reason' becomes one of life's most important goals? Because of the disaster to all of us that is derived from an intellectual distrust of reason.

I think that one of the important duties we all have is to help others formulate a confidence in reason.

I think that we can find in our self many times that a confidence in reason is displaced by a belief that is not grounded in reason. Examples might be faith in charismatic leaders, faith in ?'authority', faith in some social group, faith in our ?'gut', faith in fate, faith in technology, faith in unanalyzed experience, faith in someone because s/he is a successful maker of money, etc.

I think that we place far too much confidence in irrational opinions? Do you agree?