And you never answered this:

On the contrary, doesn't critical methodology point to value? Critical thinking needs a point, a telos. Otherwise there's no reason to think critically. — Noble Dust

In what way should we even question rationality? In a rational way or?

The point of philosophy is achieving a better understanding of the world.

Why only better?

Why not worse or best? It would contradict the perpetual search for knowledge that is philosophy.

For example take ethics - logical analysis of the moral landscape has utterly failed in providing a satisfactory solution to its problems. — TheMadFool

I hardly think working in contrast to rational processes will enable us to get any closer to solving the problem of consciousness. Exactly what did you have in mind? Choreograph a dance?

Personally, I'm with Doestovesky's Underground Man: "I admit that twice two makes four is an excellent thing, but if we are to give everything its due, twice two makes five is sometimes a very charming thing too." — Noble Dust

Dostoyevski is my absolute favourite writer, his ability to describe the human condition, of the ordinary and unoriginal who are applauded for their esteemed qualities or the suffering and filth of genuine hearts is quite simply unmatched. “Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.”

Personally, I'm with Doestovesky's Underground Man: "I admit that twice two makes four is an excellent thing, but if we are to give everything its due, twice two makes five is sometimes a very charming thing too." — Noble Dust

Nonsense. Really.

If you intend to make sense, or find a consensus, or make some argument of how things are, then you must be rational. If not, then whatever you say is meaningless and contradictory. WHEN is twice two makes five useful or "charming"? You mean that it is charming to be meaningless? Maybe so, but that itself is a rational statement - that to be charming, or silly is the term I would use, you can say 2+2=5. Being silly is only useful to get a laugh. Being rational is useful for pretty much everything you want to actually know.

Personally, I'm with Doestovesky's Underground Man: "I admit that twice two makes four is an excellent thing, but if we are to give everything its due, twice two makes five is sometimes a very charming thing too." — Noble Dust
Nonsense. Really. — Harry Hindu

But it does have sense, irrationality is indeed charming.

If you intend to make sense, or find a consensus, or make some argument of how things are, then you must be rational. If not, then whatever you say is meaningless and contradictory. — Harry Hindu

Sure, argument implies rationality but irrationality is not meaningless and contradictory, you're confusing it with fallacious reasoning.

I argue that arguing about irrationality is in itself irrational.

But it does have sense, irrationality is indeed charming. — Noblosh

I'd say that it's silly.

Sure, argument implies rationality but irrationality is not meaningless and contradictory, you're confusing it with fallacious reasoning. — Noblosh

"Irrationality" and "fallacious reasoning" mean the same thing.

I argue that arguing about irrationality is in itself irrational. — Noblosh

What do you mean? Any time that you make an argument for some state of affairs with the intent for others to agree, then you are being rational. In other words, anytime you make an argument for some state of affairs on an internet forum, with the intent for others to read and make sense of, you are being rational.

But it does have sense, irrationality is indeed charming. — Noblosh

I'd say that it's silly. — Harry Hindu

Yes, but not nonsensical.

"Irrationality" and "fallacious reasoning" mean the same thing. — Harry Hindu

No, they don't, If I commit a fallacy then I'm misguided, not irrational.

I argue that arguing about irrationality is in itself irrational. — Noblosh

What do you mean? — Harry Hindu

Assessing accordingly to reason and logic something that doesn't conform to reason and logic, doesn't conform to reason and logic.

with the intent for others to read and make sense of — Harry Hindu

That's not sufficient to make it rational, again, it must conform to reason and logic.

Yes, but not nonsensical. — Noblosh

2+2=5 is nonsensical.

No, they don't, If I commit a fallacy then I'm misguided, not irrational. — Noblosh

Let me make it simple. If you commit a logical fallacy you would effectively be illogical.

What do you mean? — Harry Hindu
Assessing accordingly to reason and logic something that doesn't conform to reason and logic, doesn't conform to reason and logic. — Noblosh

In other words, when you aren't conforming to reason and logic, you are effectively useless and meaningless.

2+2=5 is nonsensical. — Harry Hindu

But there's no argument against that in this thread.

Let me make it simple. If you commit a logical fallacy you would effectively be illogical. — Harry Hindu

In other words, when you aren't conforming to reason and logic, you are effectively useless and meaningless. — Harry Hindu

Not true:

logic: a particular mode of reasoning viewed as valid or faulty

logical: capable of reasoning or of using reason in an orderly cogent fashion

illogical: devoid of logic

If you accept these particular definitions, you come to understand that one must conform to logic and reason in order to commit a logical fallacy which is called like that for this very reason. Then what's irrational is that which completely ignores logic and reason but that doesn't make it nonsensical because sense may still be derived from it.

Google paradox

They are simply rules for human beings to follow in order to stay in line with the cultures they are born in. — Harry Hindu

Some would disagree. Thus the ''failure'' of reason in the field of morality.

Has rationality and logical analysis actually achieved anything at all?

Perhaps you would like to elaborate? — A Seagull

It's something like physics. Isaac Newton's theory held out till Einstein came along and added a hogher degree of precision. Likewise the current version of our tool for analysis, logic as commonly understood, ''works'' in most cases. However there are failures (paradoxes etc.). Thus my question - what is our next step?

To suggest that philosophy needs to begin to use different modes of thinking almost seems unessisary; — Noble Dust

All I know is rationality has failed in some fields of philosophy. What other modes of thinking are available? I don't know. Personally, I'm leaning towards some form of intuitive mode of contemplation or even a higher form of rationality itself. Of what shape and form this alternative mode of thinking is is anyone's guess.

Depending on your stance on Christianity as a whole, you might be interested in Nikolai Berdyaev. He was a Russian existentialist/Christian/mystic philosopher during the early 20th century. The sorts of things you're saying here align with some of his views. The Meaning of the Creative Act, and The Divine and the Human are good starting points with him. He says, for instance, "Pure, undistorted truth burns up the world".

And to be clear, I do feel some solidarity with your post here, but I was just calling into question some of your assumptions, or at least the assumptions I thought I was reading into what you were saying.

I simply question the overrated value of rational thinking. As you said, philosophy is about rational analysis of issues whatever they may be. And as you said there's a lot of disagreement. This ''disagreement'' is what I take issue with. Generally speaking philosophers tend to think the problem is with explicit/implicit assumptions. They never doubt the tool itself - rational thinking. My doubt s whether rationality is the right methodology fo dealing with ALL philosophical questions.

I don't know what you mean here. I was saying "why should philosophy only achieve a 'better' understanding of the world, instead of achieving the understanding of the world?"

Dostoyevski is my absolute favourite writer, his ability to describe the human condition, of the ordinary and unoriginal who are applauded for their esteemed qualities or the suffering and filth of genuine hearts is quite simply unmatched. “Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.” — TimeLine

(Y)

Should we stubbornly continue to apply (or is it misapply) reason and logic to these problems? I think it's high time we looked at new avenues, new tools to apply to these problems.

One point that should be brought out is that 'scientific reason' and 'philosophical rationalism' are very different creatures. Or, put another way, the 'rationalist tradition' in philosophy is not at all based on the modern conception of reason, which tends to be instinctively scientific in approach.

Consider that ancient rationalist tradition, of which Aristotle's arguments for the First Mover would be an example. Much of Platonism is 'rationalist' in the sense that it believes that 'higher knowledge' is guided by an inherent reason that the soul had prior to birth and has since forgotten.

More recent rationalist philosophers include Spinoza and Liebniz.

But the point about rationalism in this sense is that it was heavily pre-occupied with ethics which it wished to derive from, or as, first principles in a metaphysical sense. Spinoza's Ethics was like that.

One of the strongest trends of modern philosophy generally is to undermine the possibility of a rationalistic ethics, in that traditional sense. This is laid out in Horkheimer's book, The Eclipse of Reason, which is worth being acquainted with. He (and other new left critics) talk of the 'instrumentalisation of reason', which reduces reason to a tool or an evolved adaption, which is altogether separated from the tradtiionalists vision of reason being connected to the underlying 'reason of the Universe'.

WHEN is twice two makes five useful or "charming"? You mean that it is charming to be meaningless? — Harry Hindu

Dostoevsky was a literary fiction writer. You're interpreting his idea here philosophically, rather than in a literary way. What I meant when I brought up the quote is that I'm in agreement with Dostoevsky when he chooses to willfully rail against rationality as being the only source of truth, or the only understanding of reality. Another well known Dostoevsky quotes goes something along the lines of, 'If it was proved that Christ never existed, I'd rather go with Christ". The idea is that the sheer profundity of something like a backlash against rationality, or the profundity of divine Grace, are things that are sufficient for some men (men and women of great intellectual poise) to willfully throw away this modern reliance on rationality; to willfully rail against it; to rage against it. Indeed, to function, mentally, philosophically, within a rational realm doesn't avail itself to anything outside of rationality. So it's a self-defeating system that scrutinizes everything within it's own set of rules, without allowing for the possibility of new, or forgotten, or overlooked rules. In other words, rationality, strictly in the way you're using it, doesn't make room for creativity.

Utterly failed — VagabondSpectre

Maybe I exaggerated a tad. But you will agree morality has not yielded definitive answers on a rational foundation. In fact, I think moral precepts were formed on a completely different footing. When Moses brought with him the 10 commandments he did so by revelation, not by logic/reason. Similarly the Golden Rule (a pervasive motif in religion) seems to be an intuitive principle - we may analyse it rationally but its source is not based on logic.

If we ever find something that is more powerful than rationality, then every rational person will adopt it! — VagabondSpectre

Oddly, that would be a rational decision. Back to square one! Or not...

I hardly think working in contrast to rational processes will enable us to get any closer to solving the problem of consciousness. Exactly what did you have in mind? Choreograph a dance? — TimeLine

Well, if there's one word to describe my life, it's ''BIZARRE''. You don't know how reasonable ''chreograph a dance'' sounds to me. Also, the proposition doesn't sound as outlandish as you think - many mystical traditions have dance as a path to realization.

Why do you think that? It was rationality applied to the question of whether it is ethical to own another human that ended the slave trade.

Surely that alone is enough to justify any area of inquiry — andrewk

I fear you may be mistaken. Emancipation doesn't have a rational origin. It's got more to do with emotion. The anti-slavery movement wasn't based on rational arguments but on an appeal to love, pity, fairness.

The fairness is based on deducing that Africans are as human as Europeans, a fact that had been denied by pro-Slavery lobbyists.

The fairness is based on deducing that Africans are as human as Europeans, a fact that had been denied by pro-Slavery lobbyists. — andrewk

I think the notion of fairness is older than logic. IMHO it arose among ancient cultures simply as a social attribute that enhances survival of the group.

Should we stubbornly continue to apply (or is it misapply) reason and logic to these problems? I think it's high time we looked at new avenues, new tools to apply to these problems. — TheMadFool

...said every great philosopher, ever. ;)

The trouble with the grandiose statements of the final demise of philosophy is that it's always in bad faith - philosophy just keeps coming back, one way or another. The Greek skeptics failed to prevent metaphysical theorizing. Hume and the Scottish empiricists ended metaphysics - until Kant unintentionally revived it. The logical positivists wanted only scientific and logical claims to be meaningful, but were ultimately unsuccessful. Nowadays there's the rising tide of naive scientism, that fails to account for all the previous attempts of ending philosophy. We've been struggling with these problems for centuries, and we probably will continue to struggle for as long as the human race exists.

Heidegger said it best - as soon as we have one single interpretation that never changes, we cease to be genuine inquirers and become dogmatists. And Wittgenstein would have added that the failure to "finish" philosophy has nothing to do with the inadequacy of philosophical investigation but with the sheer complexity of philosophical questions. It shouldn't be a fault, it should be an opportunity - the stuff we're struggling with was the same stuff Plato struggled with.

Philosophy is, in my opinion, largely a socializing activity. In the past, to be a philosopher would have been similar to being a wine connoisseur or an art collector. They put in their own theories and critiqued those of their peers. Nowadays people want progress and results and forget that philosophy does not work like that. Solving a problem isn't always the goal - truth is the "goal", but what we're really doing is just having some fun and exchanging ideas. We're in no hurry and have no deadlines. "Finishing" philosophy takes all the fun away.

"Finishing" philosophy takes all the fun away. — darthbarracuda

I understand you suggest that we do philosophy in some sort of ''game-mode'' - fun being a part of it. I also realize that the issues philosophy deals with are complex.

I was just wondering if rationality as a tool for philosophy has ''failed'' us. Should we not try out, for example, Taoist/Zen paradoxical thinking? Why not launch an all-out attack on our sensibilities and reason? Pressurize reason and expose the all-seeing, all-comprehending mind-eye, the true seat of all understanding.

Well, if there's one word to describe my life, it's ''BIZARRE''. You don't know how reasonable ''chreograph a dance'' sounds to me. Also, the proposition doesn't sound as outlandish as you think - many mystical traditions have dance as a path to realization. — TheMadFool

As a former contemporary dancer, I can actually understand this, but I hardly think the philosophical world would. I can just imagine Chalmers with his leather jacket and colourful socks pirouetting to Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker in a lecture theatre as he swishes his hair about attempting to explain p-zombies.

The reason why morality has yet to be explained rationally is the elusive domain of conscience, love and the ever frightening external reality of which metaphysics itself has yet to demonstrate (hence consciousness). I think Kant has done a pretty good job rationalising morality.

And what is this bizarre you speak of? You're not sitting crossed legged and naked in a room full of mirrors, while on a laptop and eating porridge?