Quotes About Rationality

Some people today argue that religion is primarily a source of violence, conflict, and social discord.25 Historically, however, religion has played the opposite role: it is a source of social cohesion that permits human beings to cooperate far more widely and securely than they would if they were the simple rational and self-interested agents posited by the economists.

There are two kinds of oughts, and there are two ways to be wrong about something. We can be wrong by being irrational, or we can be wrong by being unethical. Morality deals with the second.

an essay in the Human Rights Reader, Rorty suggested that the basis for human rights is not rationality or moral law but "what Baier calls 'a progress of sentiments.'…It is the result of what I have been calling 'sentimental education.'"17 So the basis for morality, in Rorty's view, is "sentiment." We are back to preferences and tastes. But whose sentiments? Rorty's? A Nazi's? Or someone else's?

Fantasy abandoned by reason produces impossible monsters

As long as people believe in absurdities, they will continue to commit atrocities.

faith is complex and has experiential, practical, and rational dimensions. None of these can be completely neglected in any form of theological discourse.83

The beauty of pragmatism is that it enables one to make judgements based on supposed consequences, which always lie in the future and are thus immediately unverifiable.

If this was sanity, being crazy made a lot more sense.

Man is a rational animal. But that does not mean that he is a reasonable animal. It means only that he has reason, and therefore can misuse it. If he had not reason, he could not be unreasonable. But he has, and is.

Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered.

We are so logic-driven that we can't stand the absence of it.

Until the 1960s, liberals understood themselves to be devotees of a rationality that allowed individuals to question authority on the basis of empirical and historical argumentation.

Proverbs are the literature of reason.

Reality can be only partially attacked by logic.

When one denies the supernatural it is unwise to hold forth on matters that have no meaning without it or to busy oneself with the psychology of those who accept it.

Jasnah had once defined a fool as a person who ignored information because it disagreed with desired results.

But it was important to be rational at all times, not just when calm.

Humans have free will. Free will is the ability to make irrational decisions.

It might be religion, but it still has to make sense.

Lógicamente inconsistente. Obviamente incierto.

It's helpful to keep in mind Alberto Brandolini's Bullshit Asymmetry Principle or what's sometimes known as Brandolini's law: "The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.

To live in the wisdom of accepted tenderness is to humbly acknowledge the limitations of the rational, scientific, finite mind and to freely embrace mystery.

Contrary to some popular opinions and partial teachings, Zen is not, in the end, opposed to rational thought. But it does teach that we need to dig down beneath discursive reasoning by means of meditation, reconnecting intellectual knowledge to a deeper, more holistic wisdom.

En todos los países, el interés de la inmensa mayoría de la población es y debe ser siempre comprar lo que necesita a quien vende más barato.» «El supuesto es tan evidente —continuaba Smith— que esforzarnos en demostrarlo podría parecer ridículo; nunca habría sido puesto en duda si las interesadas falacias de mercaderes y fabricantes no hubieran perturbado el sentido común de la humanidad.»