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    Rationalism
    Rationalism
    Rationalism
    Ebook101 pages1 hour

    Rationalism

    By J. M. (John Mackinnon) Robertson

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    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateNov 15, 2013
    Rationalism

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      Book preview

      Rationalism - J. M. (John Mackinnon) Robertson

      The Project Gutenberg EBook of Rationalism, by John Mackinnon Robertson

      This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

      almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or

      re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

      with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

      Title: Rationalism

      Author: John Mackinnon Robertson

      Release Date: April 11, 2010 [EBook #31941]

      Language: English

      *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RATIONALISM ***

      Produced by Brian Foley, Martin Pettit and the Online

      Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

      Philosophies Ancient and Modern

      RATIONALISM

      RELIGIONS: ANCIENT AND MODERN

      Animism. By Edward Clodd, author of The Story of Creation.

      Pantheism. By James Allanson Picton, author of The Religion of the Universe.

      The Religions of Ancient China. By Professor Giles, LL.D., Professor of Chinese in the University of Cambridge.

      The Religion of Ancient Greece. By Jane Harrison, Lecturer at Newnham College, Cambridge, author of Prolegomena to Study of Greek Religion.

      Islam. By the Rt. Hon. Ameer Ali Syed, of the Judicial Committee of His Majesty’s Privy Council, author of The Spirit of Islam and Ethics of Islam.

      Magic and Fetishism. By Dr. A. C. Haddon, F.R.S., Lecturer on Ethnology at Cambridge University.

      The Religion of Ancient Egypt. By Professor W. M. Flinders Petrie, F.R.S.

      The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria. By Theophilus G. Pinches, late of the British Museum.

      Early Buddhism. By Professor Rhys Davids, LL.D., late Secretary of The Royal Asiatic Society.

      Hinduism. By Dr. L. D. Barnett, of the Department of Oriental Printed Books and MSS., British Museum.

      Scandinavian Religion. By William A. Craigie, Joint Editor of the Oxford English Dictionary.

      Celtic Religion. By Professor Anwyl, Professor of Welsh at University College, Aberystwyth.

      The Mythology of Ancient Britain and Ireland. By Charles Squire, author of The Mythology of the British Islands.

      Judaism. By Israel Abrahams, Lecturer in Talmudic Literature in Cambridge University, author of Jewish Life in the Middle Ages.

      The Religion of Ancient Rome. By Cyril Bailey, M.A.

      Shinto, The Ancient Religion of Japan. By W. G. Aston, C.M.G.

      The Religion of Ancient Mexico and Peru. By Lewis Spence, M.A.

      Early Christianity. By S. B. Black, Professor at M’Gill University.

      The Psychological Origin and Nature of Religion. By Professor J. H. Leuba.

      The Religion of Ancient Palestine. By Stanley A. Cook.

      Manicheeism. By F. C. Conybeare. (Shortly.)

      PHILOSOPHIES

      Early Greek Philosophy. By A. W. Benn, author of The Philosophy of Greece, Rationalism in the Nineteenth Century.

      Stoicism. By Professor St. George Stock, author of Deductive Logic, editor of the Apology of Plato, etc.

      Plato. By Professor A. E. Taylor, St. Andrews University, author of The Problem of Conduct.

      Scholasticism. By Father Rickaby, S.J.

      Hobbes. By Professor A. E. Taylor.

      Locke. By Professor Alexander, of Owens College.

      Comte and Mill. By T. Whittaker, author of The Neoplatonists, Apollonius of Tyana and other Essays.

      Herbert Spencer. By W. H. Hudson, author of An Introduction to Spencer’s Philosophy.

      Schopenhauer. By T. Whittaker.

      Berkeley. By Professor Campbell Fraser, D.C.L., LL.D.

      Swedenborg. By Dr. Sewall.

      Nietzsche: His Life and Works. By Anthony M. Ludovici.

      Bergson. By Joseph Solomon.

      Rationalism. By J. M. Robertson.

      Lucretius and the Atomists. By Edward Clodd.

      RATIONALISM

      By

      J. M. ROBERTSON

      AUTHOR OF ‘A SHORT HISTORY OF FREETHOUGHT’

      ‘LETTERS ON REASONING,’ ETC.

      LONDON

      CONSTABLE AND COMPANY LTD

      1912

      CONTENTS

      RATIONALISM

      § 1. THE TERM

      The names ‘rationalist’ and ‘rationalism’ have been used in so many senses within the past three hundred years that they cannot be said to stand quite definitely for any type or school of philosophic thought. For Bacon, a ‘rationalist’ or rationalis was a physician with a priori views of disease and bodily function; and the Aristotelian humanists of the Helmstadt school were named rationalistas about the same period by their opponents. A little later some Continental scholars applied the name to the Socinians and deists; and later still it designated, in Britain, types of Christian thinkers who sought to give a relatively reasoned form to articles of the current creed which had generally been propounded as mysteries to be taken on faith. The claim to apply ‘reason’ in such matters was by many orthodox persons regarded as in itself impious, while others derided the adoption of the title of ‘rationalist’ or ‘reasonist’ by professing Christians as an unwarranted pretence of superior reasonableness. Used in ethics, the label ‘rationalism’ served in the earlier part of the eighteenth century to stigmatise, as lacking in evangelical faith, those Christians who sought to make their moral philosophy quadrate with that of ‘natural religion.’ Later in the century, though in England we find the status of ‘rational’ claimed for orthodox belief in miracles and prophecies as the only valid evidence for Christianity,[1] rationalism became the recognised name for the critical methods of the liberal German theologians who sought to reduce the supernatural episodes of the Scriptures to the status of natural events misunderstood; and several professed histories of modern ‘rationalism’ have accordingly dealt mainly or wholly with the developments of Biblical criticism in Germany.

      New connotations, however, began to accrue to the terms in virtue of the philosophical procedure of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, though his Religion within the Bounds of Simple [blossen] Reason went far to countenance the current usage; and when Hegel subsequently proceeded to identify (at times) reason with the cosmic process, there were set up implications which still give various technical significances to ‘rationalism’ in some academic circles. In the brilliant work of Professor William James on Pragmatism, for instance, the term is represented as connoting, in contrast to the thinking of ‘tough-minded’ empiricists, that of a type or school of ‘tender-minded’ people who are collectively—

      ‘Rationalistic (going by principles)

      Intellectualistic

      Idealistic

      Optimistic

      Religious

      Free-willist

      Monistic

      Dogmatical.’

      Yet it is safe to say that in Britain, for a generation back, the name has carried to the general mind only two or three of the connotations in Professor James’s list, and much more nearly coincides

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