I.
I think a common failure mode in people when going over arguments in their head and assessing their validity such as examining fallacies, data conclusions, etc, or when they are trying to implement new priors into current thinking systems, they start to feel defeated. They feel defeated because they might think “what’s the point?” Why does it matter if I’m rational if everyone else really isn’t and gets to make up talking points and use fallacies and not really care or scrutinize their opinions and they get to lie without any consequences? I could go on. The world is full of bad faith actors, much more so than good faith actors (in a system that incentivizes for them at least).
So, what is the point? To me, it comes down to a spiritual and philosophic endeavor that holds love and earnest care at its core.
You have to care about what is real more than any of your ideas about what is real, and more than any place where your identity is associated with an idea.
“I’m a pro-science person.”
“I’m an anti-vaxxer.”
“I’m a Zionist.”
“I’m an anti-Zionist.”
“I’m a conservative.”Your identity will probably have to die when you recognize that those ideas are very limited — and that there are ideas on the other side that are also good.
Similarly, if there are ideas you hold on to because they support your vested interests — like how you make money, how you gained fame, or how you maintain comfort — that’s not a good enough reason to keep them.
There has to be a depth of earnestness, a real sincerity, where you say:
“No, I actually want to understand the reality I exist in.
I was born — I don’t know why.
I’m here for a very short period of time, and then I’ll be dead.
There’s this amazing reality I didn’t make.
I want to understand it.
I want to understand how it works.
I want to understand what’s meaningful about it,
so that I can live in the most authentic and meaningful way possible.”If that’s your orientation, then what you are most curious about is your own blind spots and your own biases — and you want to investigate them profoundly.
You never want to double down on them.
— Daniel Schmachtenberger
I think this statement is deeply moving. It comes from a place of love and care, rather than wanting to be right because of ego, or anything else that’s similar. I’m not going to argue for the beauty of life or my love for reality (I have other posts pertaining to that!), but I will point out this metaphor that might move you in the right direction.
We can think of life/reality/the universe (or whatever in-comprehensive word you want to use) as a partner that we love. When you love someone, you do not ignore anything. Your scope of love entangles all aspects of that being: the good, the bad, the ugly, the scarred, everything. You don’t dismiss them, you don’t ignore what you want to ignore, you don’t attempt to manipulate them, you don’t try to change them to fit your mold of a perfect person. There is an earnest depth of care and love for how that person is, not how you want to see them or how they “should be.” I think this ties into rationalism quite well.
If we cultivate and develop a sense of love for reality and life, the natural pathway becomes rationalism. It becomes wanting to see reality for what it is, not how you want to see it to fit the mold of what you want it to be. This can have many positive externalities that fall into that depth of love, such as deploying accurate and correct solutions to problems. If we are not attempting to fix problems that have a negative impact on reality in the most accurate manner possible, how can we say we truly love life? It’s purely antithetical to say you love being alive or you love life and the next day you go and justify your obviously incorrect beliefs just so your ego isn’t hurt or some other terrible justification.
Unfortunately, this justification for rationalism requires an earnest love for life, which is probably pretty rare, especially in the current times we are living in. But, I think it is the strongest justification, as once your love for life becomes who you are at it’s core, it feels impossible to sway away from reality as it is, because anything else would be harmful. Of course, things like ego and identity do get in the way of true beliefs sometimes, but that’s okay. It’s okay because if you love life at your core of being, correcting and understanding yourself as much as possible contributes to the beauty of life as well.
II.
In 1853, the three-fold formula of “the Good, the True, and the Beautiful” emerged and was originated by French philosopher Victor Cousin1. These transcendentals reflect reality as objectively as possible, not lying in the subjective realm. This is important because it hints at an “algorithmic” approach to how we can derive one from others. That is, one of these transcendentals can not fall into line without the other two accompanying it. For instance, it would be partial to say that Beauty in a subject could exist without the True and the Good.
As a primer, here are the definitions for the True, the Good, and the Beautiful from Claude:
The True is the conformity of the intellect to reality: knowing things as they really are. It isn’t a matter of opinion but of correspondence between mind and being.
The Good is the perfection or excellence that makes something worthy of desire and value. It denotes whatever fulfills a thing’s nature (including moral virtue in human life) and renders it attractive in a deeper sense.
The Beautiful is the harmony, radiance, and “fit” among a thing’s parts that both pleases the senses and lifts the soul toward higher realities. Beauty draws us toward truth and goodness by making them sensibly appealing.
It’s quite clear from these definitions that the Beautiful is needed first to draw us towards the True and Good. The Beautiful seems to be the one transcendental that lies most in the transjective realm. So, it can be assumed that Beauty can be cultivated in ones life, which will draw us closer to the True (rationalism) and the Good.
This brings us to point two as to why rationalism is important: without it, the Good and the Beautiful would not exist. All three of these need each other in order to exist. All three of these contribute to what life is and how we perceive its Beauty. All three of these contribute to the love of reality because without them, there wouldn’t really be a point in caring about life.
III.
Ultimately, then, the pursuit of rationalism is not an unfruitful exercise in intellectual rigor and bias correcting, it is the natural emergence of a profound love for reality itself. When we choose to see what is, rather than cling to comforting delusions born of ego or convenience, we side with Beauty by allowing it to draw us toward the True. And in turn, that Truth empowers us to enact the Good such as accurate solutions problems. To embrace rationalism, then, is simply to love life with everything you have with an earnest depth of care. This will naturally emerge a sense of care for what is, rather than what you delusionally think ought to be.
1) https://home.uchicago.edu/~jlmartin/Papers/The%20Birth%20of%20the%20True,%20the%20Good,%20and%20the%20Beautiful.pdf