Irrationalism

TABLE OF limit 1 Introduction.. 2 2 What is Ir clarify-sightedism?.. 2 3 Origins of Ir instinctualism. 2 3. 1 The Limits of Rationalism2 3. 2 The Religious Issue.. 3 4 Historical Synopsis3 4. 1 superannuated classic Era4 4. 2 knightly Mysticism.. 4 4. 3 Modern Era. 4. 4 The Historical Culmination of Irfreethinking.. 5 4. 5 The Twentieth Century6 5 Critical Evaluation7 5. 1 Ir coherent vs. non- keen-sighted. 7 6 Conclusion 8 7 References9 1. 0 INTRODUCTION The term monstrousism, which depicts a 19th and primeval 20th coulomb philosophical movement, is a trend that claims to enrich or broaden gracious apprehension of life beyond the horizon of sympathy.This movement, as sh both be demonstrated in this subject, arose as a sort of reception against the traditional over bloating of the capacities of tender ground. Thus, it sought to incorporate other aspects of human life much(prenominal) emotions, pass on, passion and even trustfulness. Accordingly, such movements excha ngeable voluntarism, mysticism or faith, amorousism et al, find their stick within this trend. But it essential be n integrityd at once that this movement does non look to negate or refute the capacities of human reason.Instead it seeks to postulate that with coherentity alone, human beings g senescenot explore certain areas of life which are in themselves unavoidable existential data of human life. It is to delineate elaborately on the tenets of this trend that this work is poised to do. To achieve this, we fuck off opted to render this ex status in accordance of rights with the above given outline. 2. 0 WHAT IS IRRATIONALISM? Irrationalism refers to any movement of feeling that emphasizes the non-rational or irrational featureor of cosmos over and above the rational .More than a school of thought, irrationalism is a multi-faceted reaction against the dominance of rationalism. As such, it played a significant role in western sandwich acculturation towards the end of the nineteenth coke and at the beginning of the twentieth century. Irrationalism need not be opposed to reason. It can consist of a simple awareness that the rational aspect of things tends to be overemphasized and that this needs to be compensated by an vehemence on science, feeling, emotions, and the subconscious, etc . 3. 0 ORIGINS OF IRRATIONALISMThere are at least both main sources of irrationalism, viz ?The Limits of Rationalism First, we see that even the most consistently positivist cuddle of the universe pull up stakes yield, in the end, some ultimate looks that can no longer be drudgeed or express through with(predicate) rational language. Such include enquirys of imequationtiality, respectableness, beauty, and so on). This clearly appears in ancient classical philosophy. In the eighteenth century promised land, a somewhat superficial federal agency in reason was ofttimes maintained, and the question more than or less ultimate realities was then avoi ded.Still, Voltaire, a typical representative of the Lumieres, was very skeptical about the inborn lights of human reason and the ability to find definitive answers. Nineteenth century Positivism, fin ally, appeared as the culmination of human confidence in reason ground on scientific advances. The positivists belief that scientific reason would make all other approaches obsolete, however, was soon largely rejected as a unenlightened illusion. Irrationalism has therefore acted as a recurrent challenge to the belief that uninflected or deductive reasoning was the alpha and omega of human moral activity . The Religious Issue A second challenge to the preponderance of reason has come from the sacred side. All the worlds religious traditions, based on immediate experience as much as revelation, watch an acute awareness that the human predicament is at odds with the very ideal of perfection and happiness. In Christian thought, there is the twofold arbitrariness of Gods judgmen t and his grace, a mooring better(p) expressed by the apostle Paul and revived most splendidly by the Re fermenters, such as Martin Luther King Jnr. nd Jean Calvin. The very notion of sin in a world created by an omnipotent and good God seems contradictory to reason. This dissonance is heightened by such erroneous scriptural formulations the like, those who want to live will die and those who want to die will live and the first shall be the last. Thus, in the religious consideration, irrationalism takes on the character of paradox and mystery. It is not possible for unaided human reason to amply grasp the meaning of the human condition.It has to be accepted that two prefatory facts (God and evil) coexists in a way that cannot be rationally explained. Only faith or spiritual intuition can somehow comprehend what is vacuous for reason alone. This position maintains a strong presence, even where attempts at religious offering rational explanations abound. In various differe nt contexts, other world religions have approached the same basic issue and offered a response that invariably amounted to a rejection of rationalism .In the religious world of the Far East (notably India and China), the response has oftentimes been sought in higher(prenominal) wisdom involving spiritual percept and allowing the truster to see how seemingly contradictory notions can harmonize on a higher plane. There is also a general insistence on the need to find the right attitude in approaching frequent life and its ultimate questions. Finally, in Zen Buddhism, enlightenment through call for experience, by which one is jolted out of ones prevalent condition, is seen as the answer.Thus, religions response to the limits of reason tends to have a strong emotional, experiential, and voluntary gene. 4. 0 HISTORICAL SYNOPSIS The history of western philosophy has been overwhelmingly dominated by the notion that reason and intellect determine the value of thought, culminating in e ighteenth century rationalism, nineteenth century positivism, and twentieth century logical positivism . Irrationalism has thus mostly been a secondary reaction defended by a a few(prenominal) minor figures, an piece embedded in the thought of otherwise rational thinkers, or an vestigial and largely hidden instalment.A closer look, however, reveals the importance of non-rational issues and the emotional factor, notably in fields like ethics, aesthetics, education, axiology, and even such a bulwark of rationalism as epistemology. Irrationalism became a major force in western culture for the first time in the nineteenth century. Its impact reached far beyond philosophy and the academia and was felt in the complete of society, including the political sphere, from the amative period to World War II, and beyond. ?Ancient Greek EraAncient Greek philosophy is generally recognized as the paragon of rational thinking. Its giants, Plato and Aristotle, viewed the rational theme as the essence of human identity. For Plato in particular, the kingdom of emotions linked to physical existence represented the lower counterpart to the lasting beauty and goodness of immaterial, rational souls. But his philosophy in fact culminates in a potently mystical form of idealism. The immortality of the soul, eternal truth and beauty in particular, are introduced as the result of a higher insight, not of deductive or analytical thought.Such a trend move in Neo-Platonism. Plato and his mentor Socrates are also related to the Mystery religions of ancient Greece which are often referred to in mythical form in the Platonic dialogues . The Eleusian Mysteries and the Delphic Sibyl are two examples of what Nietzsche would later call the Dionysian element of exuberance and spiritual drunkenness in Greek culturean element that would combine with the plastic and formal element of light, the Apollonian element, to produce the masterpieces of Greek culture.In introductory Greek philosoph y, that element could already be found in the whole kit and caboodle of Empedocles and Pythagoras. It was very influential in Greek tragedy and poetry. The cryptic aphorisms of Heraclitus, another(prenominal) pre-Socratic philosopher, also contribute in stark contrast to the smooth fly the coop of rational talk about, though his dialectic does not directly advocate irrationalism . Finally, the notion of destiny of fate arbitrarily willed by the gods of the Olymp constitutes an endorsement of irrationalism. Within such notions, things dont make sense.They just have to be accepted. ?Medieval Mysticism In medieval thought, irrationalism appears in the form of mysticism and voluntarism. til now Thomas Aquinas, probably the most rationally oriented of the middle age theologians, had a mystical experience towards the end of his life in which it appeared to him that all he had written was like straw . Mystically oriented writers like Meister Eckhart and Jakob Bohme saw knowledge of Go d as limited to negative theology. For the via negativa, the plainly positive statements that could be made about God were those negating ossible limitations of his Being (God is not finite, etc. ). The whole history of medieval thought which reflected Christianity, Judaism and Muslimwas about defining the boundaries of the rational philosophical approach in its confrontation with faith, i. e. an approach that transcends human reason. ?Modern Era Among the great metaphysicians of the seventeenth century such as Descartes, Leibniz, inter alia, French Catholic thinker Blaise Pascal represents an renowned exception.The highly intellectually gifted mathematician came as an early precursor of Christian existentialism and famously stated that the heart has its reasons that are un cognise to reason . Pascal also made the equally famous distinction in the midst of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and the God of the philosophers, i. e. , understanding through revelation and understan ding through reason . Pascals position somehow forms a law of continuation of the Augustinian tradition defended by Duns Scotus and its volutaristic emphasis on the will to believe, or else than rational conviction. The Historical Culmination of Irrationalism The real breakthrough of irrationalism came with the backlash against the rationalism of the Enlightenment and the subsequent wave of Positivism. At the end of the eighteenth century, Immanuel Kant had concluded that reason cannot give certain and ultimate knowledge about reality, especially not about God and the transcendent. In this, he wanted to make place for faith, which he also saw as a form of reason. The question over what counts as reason and what does not would thus later work an important one.For many, anything not related to scientific knowledge of the empirically known universe does not qualify as reason . For others, especially in the era of Romanticism, the minds innate ability to recognize the reality of the Ultimate represents the highest peak of reason . At this point, one has a point of intersection mingled with rationalism and irrationalism, with mostly a difference of terminology. Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, Jakob Friedrich Fries, and Johann Georg Hamann are famed representatives of that period .The German Idealists are another example of thought systems essential with great emphasis on rational thought, but culminating in often highly irrational speculation. This is true even of Hegel, and his panlogism, and much more so Schelling, especially in his later, mystical phase . With Arthur Schopenhauer, irrationalism is embraced fully in the form of voluntarism . A blind will is presented as the foundation of existence, while the world of rational representations only forms the deceptive surface of things (in ways similar to Indian thought).Friedrich Nietzsche was equally skeptical of the wests rational tradition and its modify ethical codes, stressing such notions as the will to p ower and the playfulness of a child . In the Christian tradition, Soren Kierkegaard was strongly critical of the rational constructions of Hegel and proposed the bouncing of faith of the existentialist attitude as an alternative. His overall orientation, usually without the Christian connotation, would be maintained in the thought of twentieth century existentialists like Jean-Paul Sartre.For Henri Bergson, whose intuitivism was based on the notion of elan vital (vital thrust), rational thought was equally ill-equipped to grasp the essence of things. Finally, even a strongly intellectual philosophy like Edmund Husserls phenomenology is based on intuition as an element that comes prior to rational analysis in the perception of reality. The above list of names, to which many others could be added, exemplifies what Paul Tillich had in mind when he referred to the strong irrational undercurrent in western thought.Philosophical irrationalism would continue into many other areas of cult ure, including history (as shown in the works of Wilhelm Dilthey and Oswald Spengler) and, most famously in psychoanalysis (as shown in the works of Sigmund Freud, Carl-Gustav Jung). The latters importation is that irrational unconscious forces are really shaping human life. William crowd would espouse another form of non-rational emphasis in explaining the workings of the mind and that is Pragmatism, which argues that positions are essentially justified when they work. The Twentieth Century The clash between rationalism and irrationalism would continue throughout the twentieth century, with rationalism being reinforce by the stunning development of science and irrationalism being bolstered by the limpid senselessness of many world events. A possible point of convergence has been contemporary sciences recognition of the inadequacy of the traditional mechanistic worldview and its advocacy of a much greater sophistication in attempts to grasp the nuances of its key notions.This h as led many to abandon scientific reductionism and its denial of the unbounded realm of the spirit. In the philosophical world, postmodernism has seen a wholesale rejection of all besides accepted certainties. Thus, there is paradox of a contemporary world where valet de chambre has a firmer grasp and control over natural phenomena than ever, but one in which, at the same time, the rational nature of that world has been progressively challenged in ontology and epistemology as well as in ethics (e. g.Nietzsche and more recently Michel Foucault and their refusal to accept given norms) . 5. 0 CRITICAL EVALUATION From the foregoing, it is clear that much of what passes for irrationalism, in fact, does not challenge the validity of reason, but rather opens the possibilities of other realms of investigation that had been previously ignored by the rationalist tradition. This comes together with a rebellion against the rationalization of a reality that is perceived as absurd or ethical rules that are perceived to be scurrilous in their pretension to be rationally grounded.Nevertheless, the thrust of our evaluation herein shall focus on distinguishing between two terms that may seem compounded. This shall enable us with the ability to conclude whether the philosophers of this trend were either irrational or non-rational. ?Irrational vs. Non-rational The difference between non-rational and irrational is not as easy to define as it may appear. German authors, like the philosopher of religion Rudolf Otto, often use the equivalent of the English irrational, but translators of their writings favor to use non-rational to avoid giving the impression of an anti-rational bias.Indeed, in a context such as Ottos, irrational is meant to convey the meaning of something that eludes the grasp of reason, a depth dimension of the human psyche that cannot be appropriately expressed in rational language. It does not mean that the author rejects the rational discourse altogether. In the case of Otto, the contrary is the case. This author strongly stresses the need for academic discourse to proceed according to strict rational rules and to avoid the excesses of romantic enthusiasm. Otto merely wants to show that reason is not alone and that once it has spoken, something dust that can nly be grasped intuitively and expressed in symbols. Similarly, todays sociology of religion generally understands myths as a genuine and irreplaceable component of the human discourse, one that can express certain realities better than back-to-back scientific talk and even reach where that talk cannot go. There is no negative connotation attached to myth under these circumstances. 6. 0 culmination In the end, the understanding of irrationalism in the sense of non-rational or irrational is a matter of worldview.For those who consider that the universe and if applicable, the Supreme Being, form a whole that is non-contradictory and where intellect, emotion, and will coexist harmo niously as different aspects of that reality, non-rational will have to be chosen as the proper expression. In that perspective, irrational will have to be reserved for the cases of opinions or behavior that fails to abide by the accepted rules of reasonnot to describe that which transcends the realm of reason. In the main, few will defend a strong version of the opposite position that contradiction lies at the heart of everything.Such a position would make any discourse impossible, including that of those who hold this position. But various thinkers have emphasized the paradoxical nature of reality. In such a view, reality may not be fully contradictory, but it presents essential features that will always stand in paradoxical position to each other. Such is in general, the position of dialectical philosophy. Other strong forms of irrationalism are those which argue a basically absurd nature of the world or the complete irrelevance of the rational discourse.Be these as they may, we rest our case in the contention that irrationalism stands at par with rationalism with only a slight difference in their several(prenominal) emphasis. REFERENCES ?Benne, Kenneth D, Contemporary Irrationalism and the Idea of Rationality, In Studies in Philosophy and Education. Volume 6, flesh 4 / December, 1969 ? Bergson, Henri, Creative Evolution. Dover Publications, 1998, ISBN 978-0486400365 ? Dewolf, L. H, Religious Revolt Against Reason, Greenwood Publishing, ISBN 978-0837100616 ? Kierkegaard, Soren, Concluding unscientific Postscript.Princeton University Press, 1941. ISBN 978-0691019604 ? Kierkegaard, Soren, and Howard Vincent. Philosophical Fragments, Princeton University Press, 1962. ISBN 978-0691019550 ? Nietzsche, Friedrich, Beyond Good and Evil. Digireads. com, 2005, ISBN 978-1420922509 ? Nietzsche, Friedrich, and Walter Kaufmann, On the Genealogy of Morals and Ecce Homo, Vintage, 1989. ISBN 978-0679724629 ? Pascal, Blaise, Pensees, LGF Livre de Poche, 2000, ISBN 978-225 3160694 ? Plato, The Symposium, Penguin Classics, 2003, ISBN 978-0140449273 ?Schopenhauer, Arthur, egest Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, 1818/1819, vol. 2 1844 (The World as Will and Representation, sometimes also known in English as The World as Will and Idea), Dover Publications, 1966. ISBN 978-0486217628. ?Stumpf, Samuel E, Philosophy History and Problems, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. , 1221, Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY, 10020, ISBN 0-07-240635-6, ordinal Edition, 2003. OTHER SOURCES ?Encyclopedia Britannica. com. ?Guide to Philosophy on the cyberspace. ?Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. ?The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.