Quotes About Rationality

The predominantly rationalistic European finds much that is human alien to him, and he prides himself on this without realizing that his rationality is won at the expense of his vitality, and that the primitive part of his personality is consequently condemned to a more or less underground existence.

However far-fetched it may sound, experience shows that many neuroses are caused by the fact that people blind themselves to their own religious promptings because of a childish passion for rational enlightenment.

Whoever confuses these last two functions with feeling in this narrower sense, can obviously not acknowledge the rationality of feeling. But if they are separated from feeling, it becomes quite clear that feeling values and feeling judgements—that is to say, our feelings—are not only reasonable, but are also as discriminating, logical and consistent as thinking.

nuestra actitud moderna habla con orgullo de las tinieblas de la superstición y de la credulidad medieval o primitiva, olvidando por completo que con nosotros llevamos todo el pasado, escondido en los sótanos del rascacielos que es nuestra conciencia racional.

All it takes is an ideology seductive enough to convince you to discard common sense.

My argument has always been that nature has a master plan pushing every species toward procreation and that it is our right and even obligation as rational human beings to defy nature's fascism. Nature herself is a mass murderer, making casual, cruel experiments and condemning 10,000 to die so that one more fit will live and thrive.

Intuition does not denote something contrary to reason, but something outside of the province of reason.

Our mania for rational explanations obviously has its roots in our fear of metaphysics, for the two were always hostile brothers. Hence, anything unexpected that approaches us from the dark realm is regarded either as coming from outside and, therefore, as real, or else as a hallucination and, therefore, not true. The idea that anything could be real or true which does not come from outside has hardly begun to dawn on contemporary man.

Only in very recent times has a perspective inspired by science and "rationality" been brought to bear on these profound questions in the hope of providing a complementary framework for understanding their origins and providing possibly new insights and answers.

If this is philosophy it is at any rate a philosophy that is not in its right mind.

Whatever is reasonable is true, and whatever is true is reasonable.

To him who looks upon the world rationally, the world in its turn presents a rational aspect. The relation is mutual.

The same principles which at first view lead to scepticism, pursued to a certain point bring men back to common sense.

The computer focuses ruthlessly on things that can be represented in numbers. In so doing, it seduces people into thinking that other aspects of knowledge are either unreal or unimportant. The computer treats reason as an instrument for achieving things, not for contemplating things. It narrows dramatically what we know and intended by reason.

It's funny how you use logic in an argument and think it will persuade me.

Have the courage to use your own reason- That is the motto of enlightenment.

The people naturally adhere most to doctrines which demand the least self-exertion and the least use of their own reason, and which can best accommodate their duties to their inclinations.

Immanuel Kant

Settle, for sure and universally, what conduct will promote the happiness of a rational being.

Philosophical knowledge is knowledge which reason gains from concepts; mathematical knowledge is knowledge which reason gains from the construction of concepts.

Human reason goes forth inexorably to such questions as cannot be answered by any experiential use of reason or principles based on it.

Dogmatism is thus the dogmatic procedure of pure reason without previous criticism of its own powers, and in opposing this procedure, we must not be supposed to lend any countenance to that loquacious shallowness which arrogates to itself the name of popularity, nor

Now I say: man and generally any rational being exists as an end in himself, not merely as a means to be arbitrarily used by this or that will, but in all his actions, whether they concern himself or other rational beings, must always be regarded at the same time as an end.

in its practical purpose the footpath of freedom is the only one on which it is possible to make use of reason in our conduct. Hence it is as impossible for the subtlest philosophy as for the commonest reasoning to argue freedom away.