ABSTRACT
So we have inherited from the ancient Greeks the notion of a deep-cutting distinction between rational and irrational thinking. The word commonly used for “reason” was logos, which was also the term used for “word” or “speech.” For the Greeks of the Platonic tradition, then, taking a rational view enabled one to mirror the reality in words: “We have a rational grasp of something when we can articulate it; that means, distinguish and lay out different features of the matter in perspicious order” ( Taylor, 1982, p. 90). Rationality entails trying to perceive things as they are, despite our hopes, fears, or intentions regarding them. One may achieve such a view by theoria (sight, speculation, contemplation): theoretical understanding results from taking a disengaged perspective. Only the knowledge that results from this kind of intellectual activity, Plato argued (Timeus, passim; The Republic, passim), is true knowledge. The manner in which Plato distinguished rational thinking and its product – true knowledge (episteme) – from irrational thinking and its various products – confusion, superficial plausibility, mere opinion (doxa) – involved setting up a number of enduring conceptual associations. Among these associated ideas, and of particular interest here was that of adulthood with the attainment of episteme and childhood with doxa. (See the parable of the line in The Republic (trans. Cornford, 1941, Ch. XXIV) and for discussion of the sets of associations see Simon, 1978, pp. 164ff.) This rational theoretic understanding, Plato and his pupil Aristotle argued, gives a superior view of reality. Those who violate the basic standards of the articulation of this theoretic understanding are, in this view, irrational, and they fail to articulate what is real and true.
