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0 pointspasabagi3y ago0 comments

Wait, I'm getting confused between the two senses of 'rationalism' here. My guess is that contemporary 'rationalism' doesn't actually descend from any explicit philosophical tradition, just because if you read an introductory philosophy book, you'd not join a group with that name combined with their ethos.

I'm not that well versed in analytic philosophy - I think it's come a long way since the early days, so now straddles both sides of the rationalist/empiricist divide. At this point, I think it's basically a writing style. You get a lot of analytic philosophers with some pretty wild assertions about reality.

On the other side, somebody like Deleuze is basically a hardcore empiricist, but he's as 'continental' as they come.

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guerrilla3y ago

> My guess is that contemporary 'rationalism' doesn't actually descend from any explicit philosophical tradition, just because if you read an introductory philosophy book, you'd not join a group with that name combined with their ethos.

It definitely doesn't. The community started in almost complete ignorance of philosophy in general and that philosophy had already covered everything they were trying to.

> I'm not that well versed in analytic philosophy - I think it's come a long way since the early days, so now straddles both sides of the rationalist/empiricist divide.

I'm pretty sure they meant "rationalism" comes from analytic philosophy, which I don't think it does although now at least they've realized it exists. Actual rationalism predates both by approximately three centuries.

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