Rationalism is not an end in itself but a tool which helps us “understand” something. Merriam Webster defines the word “understand” as “to grasp the meaning of” or “to grasp the reasonableness of”. The fact is that modern “understanding” is closely tied to agreeing to the reason/meaning behind something. Going beyond this initial premise we can see that the whole structure of modern perception/conception is based on attributing meaning to things. Most of social science has been devoted to understanding the structure, shape, evolution and construction of this meaning and its effects of us who live in this “meaningful” world. Mining the ontology of “meaning” is a circular task because ontology itself is defined in rational terms.
World also has its “unreasonable” people - the radical, the fanatics, the jihadists or more simply the believers. The fact that we can understand something itself is seen as a conceited concept - especially in eyes of people who “believe”. These believers are further split in two branches - one who believe that the world is too complex to be understood by human intelligence and the ones who believe there is no meaning in the world.
Scientists have proven time and again - ironically through rigorous scientific experiments - that humans are fairly irrational, that we learn primarily through mimesis, we are endlessly ritualistic and that subtle change in wording/environment can lead to vastly different results. Let me give you an example - we work better under deadlines. We may know that such and such is beneficial for us but we may endlessly procrastinate simply because we can. A “rational” person may not need an additional incentive to do a thing which is beneficial for us.
Let me get back to the whys and wherefores of this piece. Logic has its genesis in Maths and in the mathematical world things are absolute i.e. arguments don’t demur to variety of view points unlike “real” world. Logic, therefore, makes a particularly poor transition to the human world. The point that I am trying to make is that reasoning is not an end in itself but a “power tool” -literally and figuratively- that can help us communicate and “understand” and even empathise. Contrarily reason as an arbiter between people has its own limitations - primarily that it can only work where people have compatible moral/other standards.
Let me end by pointing out the egregious transition that I made from reason to rationalism to logic. All three are different. Reason doesn’t need to be “reasonable” but rationalism is based on the “reasonable” clause. Reductionism logic -the variety we use most commonly - starts from a basic assumption - axiom or postulate- and it can be a Bible or a Koran or a science text book. Another flaw in reason is that it doesn’t have to be “true”. Rationalism on the other hand is based on the assumption that we have complete knowledge -which we really don’t have. Alright I am being unfair. we don’t really need all knowledge but just the major variables for example I am hungry is a good enough reason for eating.
The larger problem though is that reason is very much goal oriented as in we often “reason” to “prove” our side of the story or our morality and the fact that the strongest reasons for supporting something are increasingly the ones that are hyped most and that tap into our hidden prejudices for example most Americans don’t like to give welfare to poor people as it exploits the common myth that welfare recipients are lazy black people.
This brings me to the discussion of “asymmetric nature of knowledge”. Focualt argues that the universe of knowledge is asymmetric and power centric. Some pieces of knowledge - let me tap into say the case of Muslim scarf - get prominence while other pieces of knowledge rot in oblivion. So we need to be careful as to what pieces of information we use to weave the “rationale” for say “invasion of Iraq”.