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Rationality Quotes

Browse 562 quotes about Rationality.

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Rationality Quotes

“Institutionalized desublimation thus appears to be an aspect of the "conquest of transcendence" achieved by the one-dimensional society. Just as this society tends to reduce, and even absorb opposition (the qualitative difference!) in the realm of politics and higher culture, so it does in the instinctual sphere. The result is the atrophy of the mental organs for grasping the contradictions and the alternatives and, in the one remaining dimension of technological rationality, the Happy Consciousness comes to prevail.”

DoeCultureDifferencesResultsConsciousnessHigherAspectAlternativesRealmsDimensionsOppositionContradictionSpheresOrgansTechnologicalRationalityConquestTranscendenceGraspingThis SocietyAtrophyQualitative
Book:One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society
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“In the 'in-itself' there is nothing of 'causal connections', of 'necessity', or of 'psychological non-freedom'; there the effect does not follow the cause, there is no rule or 'law'. It is we alone who have devised cause, sequence, for-each-other, relativity, constraint, number, law, freedom, motive, and purpose; and when we project and mix this symbol world into things as if it existed 'in itself', we act once more as we have always acted- mythologically.”

IfsWorldDoeLawPurposeCausesNumbersEffectsProjectsConnectionsPsychologicalSymbolsMotiveRationalitySequenceConstraintsRelativity
Author:Friedrich Nietzsche
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“Since ancient times, the left side has stood for the side of the unconscious or the unknown; the right side, by contrast, has represented the side of consciousness or wakefulness. Through the late twentieth century, the movement of the Left limited themselves to a materialist understanding of reality- exemplified by Marxism- demanding social justice and economic equality but not the restoration of intuition and the recognition of the hidden, qualitative dimensions of being suppressed by the mental-rational consciousness, narrowly focused on the quantifiable.”

RealityLeftSocialUnderstandingSidesJusticeConsciousnessEconomicCenturyMovementLateSocial JusticeAncientIntuitionFocusedRationalRecognitionUnconsciousDimensionsContrastRationalityMarxismTwentieth CenturyRestorationAncient TimesQualitativeEconomic Equality
Author:Jean Gebser
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“Indeed, what forces us at all to suppose that there is an essential opposition of 'true' and 'false'? Is it not sufficient to assume degrees of apparentness and, as it were, lighter and darker shadows and shades of appearance- different 'values', to use the language of painters?”

DifferentUseValuesLanguageForceEssentialsDegreesShadowAssumingAppearancePainterSufficientOppositionShadeRationalityLightersTrue And FalseDifferent Values
Book:Basic Writings of Nietzsche
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“I think this fear of insanity is comparable to the fear people once had of falling off the edge of the world. Or the fear of heretics...What's happening is that each year our old flat earth of conventional reason becomes less and less adequate to handle the experiences we have and this is creating wide-spread feelings of topsy-turviness. As a result we're getting more and more people in irrational areas of thought...occultism, mysticism, drug changes and the like...because they feel an inadequacy in classical reason to handle what they know are real experiences.”

PeopleThinkingKnowsWorldFeelsYearsRealReasonFeelingsEarthFallResultsDrugCreatingHappeningsAreasEdgesSpreadWideHandleInsanityMysticismFlatsConventionalIrrationalRationalityAdequateHereticInadequacyFalling OffZen Motorcycle MaintenanceEdge Of The World
Author:Robert M. Pirsig
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“What is essential to understand at this point is that until now there was no such thing as mind and matter, subject and object, form and substance. Those divisions are just dialectical inventions that came later...They are just ghosts, immortal gods of the modern mythos which appear to us to be real because we are within that mythos. But in reality they are just as much an artistic creation as the anthropomorphic gods they replaced.”

MindRealMatterRealityFormModernSubjectsCreationObjectsEssentialsGhostInventionArtisticSubstanceImmortalDivisionBeing RealReplacedRationalityMind And MatterArtistic CreationForm And Substance
Author:Robert M. Pirsig
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“Dialectic, which is the parent of logic, came itself from rhetoric. Rhetoric is in turn the child of the myths and poetry of ancient Greece. That is so historically, and that is so by any application of common sense. The poetry and myths are the response of a prehistoric people to the Universe around them made on the basis of Quality. It is Quality, not dialectic, which is the generator of everything we know.”

PeopleKnowsChildrenMadeTurnsUniverseParentCommonQualityLogicBasesResponseAncientMythCommon SenseApplicationRhetoricRationalityGreeceDialecticsAncient GreecePrehistoricGenerator
Author:Robert M. Pirsig
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“Knowledge is a continuous fabric, in which ideas are connected to other ideas. Reason-free zones, in which people can assert arbitrary beliefs safe from ordinary standards of evaluation, can only corrupt this fabric, just as a contradiction can corrupt a system of logic, allowing falsehoods to proliferate through it.”

PeopleIdeasReasonBeliefSafeStandardsOrdinaryLogicConnectedContradictionZoneAllowingFalsehoodFabricRationalityArbitraryEvaluation
Author:Steven Pinker
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“This insinuation of the interests of the self into even the most ideal enterprises and most universal objectives, envisaged in moments of highest rationality, makes hypocrisy an inevitable by product of all virtuous endeavor.”

SelfMomentsInterestProductsHighestIdealsUniversalObjectivesInevitableHypocrisyEnterpriseEndeavorVirtuousRationality
Book:Reinhold Niebuhr: Major Works on Religion and Politics: (Library of America #263)
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“The measure of our rationality determines the degree of vividness with which we appreciate the needs of other life, the extent to which we become conscious of the real character of our own motives and impulses, the ability to harmonize conflicting impulses in our own life and in society, and the capacity to choose adequate means for approved ends.”

NeedsMeanRealEndsCharacterAbilityDegreesConsciousCapacityAppreciateDetermineImpulseMotiveRationalityAdequateApprovedNeeds Of OthersReal CharacterVividnessAdequate Means
Book:Reinhold Niebuhr: Major Works on Religion and Politics: (Library of America #263)
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“If you are engaging rationality, you are already engaging a place that makes you unavailable. Only when I recognize that inspiration has announced itself to my availability will I then say I need to use my mind to calculate exposure, my emotions to position myself and arrange a configuration of shapes that need to come into being, my body to put it all in place because we have been given a message and it has come through inspiration through being available.'”

IfsNeedsMindHas BeensUseBodyInspirationGivenEmotionPositionShapesMessagesPhotographerAvailableRationalityEngagingExposureAvailabilityConfiguration
Author:Paul Caponigro
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“We live at a time that is notable for the polemical nature of discussions about identity, consciousness, rationality, agency, memory, and feeling. 'New atheists' and reductive materialists conduct gladiatorial debates against defenders of faith and enemies of reductionism. Lots of heat is produced, but, alas, little light is shed. How marvelous it is, then, to see this fine new book by Lenn E. Goodman and Gregory Caramenico. Here is a learned, illuminating, and decidedly non-polemical treatment of the classic questions of soul, mind, and brain-an exemplary work of scholarship.”

MindLittlesBookSoulFeelingsLightMemoriesBrainConsciousnessEnemyIdentityFineAtheistDebateDiscussionHeatClassicAgencyTreatmentShedMarvelousRationalityAlasScholarshipNotableDefendersNew BooksIlluminatingExemplaryGoodmanReductionism
Author:Robert P. George
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“By elevating the dictum of the market to the role of the sole criterion of rationality and efficiency, economics denies even all "respectability" to the distinction between essential and non-essential consumption, between productive and unproductive labor, between actual and potential surplus.”

RolesEssentialsEconomicsLaborDenyDistinctionProductiveSoleConsumptionEfficiencyRationalityCriteriaSurplusRespectabilityElevatingUnproductive
Book:Political Econ of Growth
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“The Middle Ages were an era of mysticism, ruled by blind faith and blind obedience to the dogma that faith is superior to reason. The Renaissance was specifically the rebirth of reason, the liberation of man's mind, the triumph of rationality over mysticism - a faltering, incomplete, but impassioned triumph that led to the birth of science, of individualism, of freedom.”

MenMindReasonAgeHistoryMiddleBirthBlindSuperiorsErasLiberationTriumphObedienceMysticismIndividualismDogmaRationalityRebirthMiddle AgesIncompleteRenaissanceBlind FaithImpassionedFalteringBlind Obedience
Book:The New Left: the Anti-Industrial Revolution
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“I understood, not with my intellect but with my whole being, that no theories of the rationality of existence or of progress could justify such an act; I realized that even if all the people in the world from the day of creation found this to be necessary according to whatever theory, I knew that it was not necessary and that it was wrong. Therefore, my judgments must be based-on what is right and necessary and not on what people say and do; I must judge not according to progress but according to my own heart.”

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Author:Leo Tolstoy
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“Rationality and the instinct of collaboration have already given us large regions and long periods of peace and prosperity. Ultimately, they will lead us to a planet without countries, without wars, without patriotism, without religions, without poverty, where we will be able to share the world. Actually, maybe I am not sure I truly believe that I believe this, but I do want to believe that I believe this.”

WorldWantBelieveLongWarCountryAbleGivenI BelievePovertySharePlanetsPeriodsInstinctProsperityNot SureRegionsCollaborationRationality
Author:Carlo Rovelli
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“That the world is not the embodiment of an eternal rationality can be conclusively proved by the fact that the piece of the worldthat we know--I mean our human reason--is not so very rational. And if it is not eternally and completely wise and rational, then the rest of the world will not be either; here the conclusion a minori ad majus, a parte ad totum applies, and does so with decisive force.”

IfsKnowsWorldHumansMeanDoeReasonFactsForcePiecesWiseEternalRationalConclusionAdsRationalityEmbodimentHuman Reason
Author:Friedrich Nietzsche
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“The rationale for accepting or rejecting any theory is thus fundamentally based on the idea of problem-solving progress. If one research tradition has solved more important problems than its rivals, then accepting that tradition is rational precisely to the degree that we are aiming to "progress," i.e., to maximize the scope f solved problems. In other words, the choice of one tradition over its rivals is a progressive (and thus a rational) choice precisely to the extent that the chosen tradition is a better problem solver than its rivals.”

IfsImportantIdeasProblemScienceChoicesAcceptingProgressTheoryDegreesResearchTraditionChosenRationalOver ItProgressiveProblem SolvingRationalityScopeRivalsRejectingRationaleProblem SolversSolved Problems
Book:Progress and Its Problems: Towards a Theory of Scientific Growth
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“Well, one time some attractive woman sat next to Charlie and asked him what he owed his success to, and, unfortunately, she insisted on a one word answer. He had a speech prepared that would have gone on for several hours. But when forced to boil it down to one word, he said that was "rational". You know, he comes equipped for rationality, and he applies it in business. He doesn't always apply it elsewhere, but he applies it in business and that has made him a huge business success.”

KnowsWellsMadeSaidNextHoursAnswersGoneHugeSpeechPreparedInvestingRationalAttractiveSatOne TimeElsewhereBusiness SuccessRationalityOne WordCharlieAttractive Woman
Author:Warren Buffett
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“A scientist, an artist, a citizen is not like a child who needs papa methodology and mama rationality to give him security and direction, he can take care of himself, for he is the inventor not only of laws, theories, pictures, plays, forms of music, ways of dealing with his fellow man, institutions, but also entire world view, he is the inventor of entire forms of like.”

MenWorldWayNeedsGivingChildrenPlayCareFormLawArtistViewsSecurityTheoryCitizensScientistFellowsInstitutionsTake CareRationalityFellow ManInventorMamaWorld ViewMethodologyPapa
Author:Paul Feyerabend
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