“rationalist” here refers to general rationalism and not LessWrongian rationalism. Though the two are very closely related, I’d like to avoid any associations particular to this community.
I don’t think philosopher-rationalism is closely related to LW rationalism at all. Philosopher-rationalism mostly has nothing to do with LW-rationalism, and where the two do importantly intersect it’s often because LW-rationalism is siding with empiricism against rationalism. (See prototypical philosopher-rationalists like Plato, who thought sensory knowledge and observation were completely bogus, and Descartes, who thought probabilistic or uncertain knowledge was completely bogus.)
LW-rationalism is using the word “rational” in contrast to “irrational”, more in line with the original meaning of the word “rationalist”. It’s not “rational” in contrast to “empirical”. (If it were, it wouldn’t be called “Bayesian” and we wouldn’t care much about sensory updating.)
And I appreciate the correction—I admit I was confused about this, and may not have done enough of a deep-dive to untangle this properly. Originally I wanted to say “empiricists versus theorists” but I’m not sure where I got the term “theorist” from either.
I enjoyed this post. :) A minor note:
I don’t think philosopher-rationalism is closely related to LW rationalism at all. Philosopher-rationalism mostly has nothing to do with LW-rationalism, and where the two do importantly intersect it’s often because LW-rationalism is siding with empiricism against rationalism. (See prototypical philosopher-rationalists like Plato, who thought sensory knowledge and observation were completely bogus, and Descartes, who thought probabilistic or uncertain knowledge was completely bogus.)
LW-rationalism is using the word “rational” in contrast to “irrational”, more in line with the original meaning of the word “rationalist”. It’s not “rational” in contrast to “empirical”. (If it were, it wouldn’t be called “Bayesian” and we wouldn’t care much about sensory updating.)
Thanks!
And I appreciate the correction—I admit I was confused about this, and may not have done enough of a deep-dive to untangle this properly. Originally I wanted to say “empiricists versus theorists” but I’m not sure where I got the term “theorist” from either.