As for the terms “rationalism” and “rationalist,” they have a strong established historical meaning quite different from the way they’re commonly used by many people here. The first thing that occurs to me when I hear them is the old philosophical notion of “rationalism” as opposed to “empiricism.”
Also, it’s important to note that historically these have never been terms of uncontroversial and unambiguous praise. In many contexts, they have been traditionally understood to convey criticism, not compliment. For example, when Michael Oakeshott titled his essay Rationalism in Politics, he definitely didn’t aim to make the reader positively disposed towards the subject from the title. Whether and to what extent people on LW tend to commit the same errors and hold the same unsubstantiated beliefs that have traditionally been connoted by this term is certainly a complex and amusing question.
As the bottom line, the “rationalism” terminology is probably too deeply embedded in the LW folklore to ever be abandoned, but I would certainly advise against using it when talking to outsiders. Even if people understand the term precisely the way it’s used here, describing oneself like that explicitly is a status-lowering way of qualifying oneself.
As the bottom line, the “rationalism” terminology is probably too deeply embedded in the LW folklore to ever be abandoned
The term “rationalism” is not actually used on LW much, “rationality” is much more frequent. (I understand that you meant both in that phrase, but it’s not clearly expressed.)
(3720 Google results for “rationality” against 251 for “rationalism”; added to the post.)
That’s true, but “rationalist” is used extremely frequently as a noun or adjective. (Google claims about four thousand hits on LW for the plural “rationalists.”) The word “rationality” indeed has a meaning separate from the traditional polemical sense of “rationalism,” and it’s not too far from what’s commonly meant by it on LW. However, “rationalist” is not separable from “rationalism.”
So, my suggestion is to use “rationality” consistently and to avoid using “rationalism”. Via similarity to “scientist” and “physicist”, “rationalist” doesn’t seem to have the same problem.
I think this analogy is inaccurate. The suffix -ist has several distinct meanings, and my impression is that the general public will be apt to understand “rationalist” to mean “someone who subscribes to rationalism” (whatever exactly that connotes in the given context), not “a practitioner of/expert in rationality.”
I suppose you have the latter meaning in mind when you make the analogy with “physicist,” but I don’t think that’s how the term is likely to be perceived outside of LW. (Just like e.g. “historicist” doesn’t mean “historian.”)
As for the terms “rationalism” and “rationalist,” they have a strong established historical meaning quite different from the way they’re commonly used by many people here. The first thing that occurs to me when I hear them is the old philosophical notion of “rationalism” as opposed to “empiricism.”
Also, it’s important to note that historically these have never been terms of uncontroversial and unambiguous praise. In many contexts, they have been traditionally understood to convey criticism, not compliment. For example, when Michael Oakeshott titled his essay Rationalism in Politics, he definitely didn’t aim to make the reader positively disposed towards the subject from the title. Whether and to what extent people on LW tend to commit the same errors and hold the same unsubstantiated beliefs that have traditionally been connoted by this term is certainly a complex and amusing question.
As the bottom line, the “rationalism” terminology is probably too deeply embedded in the LW folklore to ever be abandoned, but I would certainly advise against using it when talking to outsiders. Even if people understand the term precisely the way it’s used here, describing oneself like that explicitly is a status-lowering way of qualifying oneself.
This has confused at least one newcomer to the site: I also remember correcting another person, but couldn’t find the comment in question.
The term “rationalism” is not actually used on LW much, “rationality” is much more frequent. (I understand that you meant both in that phrase, but it’s not clearly expressed.)
(3720 Google results for “rationality” against 251 for “rationalism”; added to the post.)
That’s true, but “rationalist” is used extremely frequently as a noun or adjective. (Google claims about four thousand hits on LW for the plural “rationalists.”) The word “rationality” indeed has a meaning separate from the traditional polemical sense of “rationalism,” and it’s not too far from what’s commonly meant by it on LW. However, “rationalist” is not separable from “rationalism.”
Word forms are very important when we are talking about connotations. “Rationalist” is a different story, see current version of the post.
(Added google results data on “rationalist” to the post.)
You say:
I think this analogy is inaccurate. The suffix -ist has several distinct meanings, and my impression is that the general public will be apt to understand “rationalist” to mean “someone who subscribes to rationalism” (whatever exactly that connotes in the given context), not “a practitioner of/expert in rationality.”
I suppose you have the latter meaning in mind when you make the analogy with “physicist,” but I don’t think that’s how the term is likely to be perceived outside of LW. (Just like e.g. “historicist” doesn’t mean “historian.”)
I intended to post a response to this article, but this response here summarises everything I had intended to say.