The post-rationalist category can be talked about constructively, although it’s a bit hard to do this in a way that satisfies everyone, especially rationalists, because it require giving up commitment to a single ontology as the only right ontology.
To clarify syntax here, and then to ask the appropriate follow up question… do you mean more like
In order to give a satisfying constructive definition of post rationalists, one must give up commitment to a single ontology
(Which would be surprising to me—could you elaborate?)
or more like
The constructive definition of post rationalist would include something like “a person who has given up commitment to a single ontology”
(In which case I don’t see why it would be hard to give that definition in a way that satisfies rationalists?)
To some extent I mean both things, though more the former than the latter.
I’ll give a direction answer, but first consider this not perfect comparison that I think gives some flavor of how it seemed to me the OP is approaching the post-rationalist category such that it might evoke the feeling in a self-identified rationalist the sort of feeling a post-rationalist would have seeing themselves explained the way they are here.
Let’s give a definition for a pre-rationalist that someone who was a pre-rationalist would endorse. They wouldn’t call themselves a pre-rationalist, of course, more likely they’d call themselves something like a normal, functioning adult. They might describe themselves like this, in relation to epistemology:
A normal, functioning adult is someone who cares about the truth.
They then might describe a rationalist like this:
A rationalist is someone who believes certain kinds of or ways of knowing truth are invalid, only special methods can be used to find truth, and other kinds of truths are not real.
There’s a lot going on here. The pre-rationalist is framing things in ways that make sense to them, which is fair, but it also means they are somewhat unfair to the rationalist because in their heart what they see is some annoying person who rejects things that they know to be true because it doesn’t fit within some system that the rationalist, from the pre-rationalist’s point of view, made up. They see the rationalist as a person disconnected from reality and tied up in their special notion of truth. Compare the way that to a non-rationalist outsider rationalists can appear arrogant, idealistic, foolish, unemotional, etc.
I ultimately think something similar is going on here. I don’t think this is malicious, only that orthonormal doesn’t have an inside view of what it would mean to be a post-rationalist and so offers a definition that is defined in relation to being a rationalist, just as a pre-rationalist would offer a definition of rationalist set up in contrast to their notion of what it is to be “normal”.
So yes I do mean that “in order to give a satisfying constructive definition of post rationalists, one must give up commitment to a single ontology” because this is the only way to give such a definition from the inside and have it make sense.
I think the problem is actually worse than this, which is why I haven’t proffered my own definition here. I don’t think there’s a clean way to draw lines around the post-rationalist category and have it capture all of what a post-rationalist would consider important because it would require making distinctions that are in a certain sense not real, but in a certain sense are. You might say that the post-rationalist position is ultimately a non-dual one as way of pointing vaguely in the direction of what I mean, but it’s not that helpful a pointer because it also is only a useful one if you have some experience to ground what that means.
So if I really had to try to offer a constructive definition, it would look something like a pointer to what it is like to think in this way so that you could see it for yourself, but you’d have to do that seeing all on your own, not through my words, it would be highly contextualized to fit the person I was offering the definition to, and in the end it would effectively have to make you, at least for a moment, into a post-rationalist, even if beyond that moment you didn’t consider yourself one.
Now that I’ve written all this, I realize this post in itself might serve as such a pointer to someone, though not necessarily you, philh.
To clarify syntax here, and then to ask the appropriate follow up question… do you mean more like
In order to give a satisfying constructive definition of post rationalists, one must give up commitment to a single ontology
(Which would be surprising to me—could you elaborate?)
or more like
The constructive definition of post rationalist would include something like “a person who has given up commitment to a single ontology”
(In which case I don’t see why it would be hard to give that definition in a way that satisfies rationalists?)
To some extent I mean both things, though more the former than the latter.
I’ll give a direction answer, but first consider this not perfect comparison that I think gives some flavor of how it seemed to me the OP is approaching the post-rationalist category such that it might evoke the feeling in a self-identified rationalist the sort of feeling a post-rationalist would have seeing themselves explained the way they are here.
Let’s give a definition for a pre-rationalist that someone who was a pre-rationalist would endorse. They wouldn’t call themselves a pre-rationalist, of course, more likely they’d call themselves something like a normal, functioning adult. They might describe themselves like this, in relation to epistemology:
A normal, functioning adult is someone who cares about the truth.
They then might describe a rationalist like this:
A rationalist is someone who believes certain kinds of or ways of knowing truth are invalid, only special methods can be used to find truth, and other kinds of truths are not real.
There’s a lot going on here. The pre-rationalist is framing things in ways that make sense to them, which is fair, but it also means they are somewhat unfair to the rationalist because in their heart what they see is some annoying person who rejects things that they know to be true because it doesn’t fit within some system that the rationalist, from the pre-rationalist’s point of view, made up. They see the rationalist as a person disconnected from reality and tied up in their special notion of truth. Compare the way that to a non-rationalist outsider rationalists can appear arrogant, idealistic, foolish, unemotional, etc.
I ultimately think something similar is going on here. I don’t think this is malicious, only that orthonormal doesn’t have an inside view of what it would mean to be a post-rationalist and so offers a definition that is defined in relation to being a rationalist, just as a pre-rationalist would offer a definition of rationalist set up in contrast to their notion of what it is to be “normal”.
So yes I do mean that “in order to give a satisfying constructive definition of post rationalists, one must give up commitment to a single ontology” because this is the only way to give such a definition from the inside and have it make sense.
I think the problem is actually worse than this, which is why I haven’t proffered my own definition here. I don’t think there’s a clean way to draw lines around the post-rationalist category and have it capture all of what a post-rationalist would consider important because it would require making distinctions that are in a certain sense not real, but in a certain sense are. You might say that the post-rationalist position is ultimately a non-dual one as way of pointing vaguely in the direction of what I mean, but it’s not that helpful a pointer because it also is only a useful one if you have some experience to ground what that means.
So if I really had to try to offer a constructive definition, it would look something like a pointer to what it is like to think in this way so that you could see it for yourself, but you’d have to do that seeing all on your own, not through my words, it would be highly contextualized to fit the person I was offering the definition to, and in the end it would effectively have to make you, at least for a moment, into a post-rationalist, even if beyond that moment you didn’t consider yourself one.
Now that I’ve written all this, I realize this post in itself might serve as such a pointer to someone, though not necessarily you, philh.