People on LW have started calling themselves “rationalists”. This was really quite alarming the first time I saw it. People used to use the words “aspiring rationalist” to describe themselves, with the implication that e didn’t consider ourselves close to rational yet.
My initial reaction to this was warm fuzzy feelings, but I don’t think it’s correct, any more than calling yourself a theist indicates believing you are God. “Rationalist” means believing in rationality (in the sense of being pro-rationality), not believing yourself to be perfectly rational. That’s the sense of rationalist that goes back at least as far as Bertrand Russell. In the first paragraph of his “Why I Am A Rationalist”, for example, Russell identifies as a rationalist but also says, “We are not yet, and I suppose men and women never will be, completely rational.”
This also seems like it would be a futile linguistic fight. A better solution might be to consciously avoid using “rationalist” when talking about Aumann’s agreement theorem—use “ideal rationalists” or “perfect rationalist”. I also tend to use phrases like “members of the online rationalist community,” but that’s more to indicate I’m not talking about Russell or Dawkins (much less Descartes).
The -ist suffix can mean several things in English. There’s the sense of “practitioner of [an art or science, or the use of a tool]” (dentist, cellist). There’s “[habitual?] perpetrator of” or “participant in [an act]” (duelist, arsonist). And then there’s “adherent of [an ideology, doctrine, or teacher]” (theist, Marxist). Seems to me that the problem has to do with equivocation between these senses as much as with the lack of an “aspiring”. And personally, I’m a lot more comfortable with the first sense than the others; you can after all be a bad dentist.
Perhaps we should distinguish between rationaledores and rationalistas? Spanglish, but you get the picture.
“Reasoner” captures this sense of “someone who does an act,” but not quite the “practitioner” sense, and it does a poor job of pointing at the cluster we want to point at.
My initial reaction to this was warm fuzzy feelings, but I don’t think it’s correct, any more than calling yourself a theist indicates believing you are God. “Rationalist” means believing in rationality (in the sense of being pro-rationality), not believing yourself to be perfectly rational. That’s the sense of rationalist that goes back at least as far as Bertrand Russell. In the first paragraph of his “Why I Am A Rationalist”, for example, Russell identifies as a rationalist but also says, “We are not yet, and I suppose men and women never will be, completely rational.”
This also seems like it would be a futile linguistic fight. A better solution might be to consciously avoid using “rationalist” when talking about Aumann’s agreement theorem—use “ideal rationalists” or “perfect rationalist”. I also tend to use phrases like “members of the online rationalist community,” but that’s more to indicate I’m not talking about Russell or Dawkins (much less Descartes).
The -ist suffix can mean several things in English. There’s the sense of “practitioner of [an art or science, or the use of a tool]” (dentist, cellist). There’s “[habitual?] perpetrator of” or “participant in [an act]” (duelist, arsonist). And then there’s “adherent of [an ideology, doctrine, or teacher]” (theist, Marxist). Seems to me that the problem has to do with equivocation between these senses as much as with the lack of an “aspiring”. And personally, I’m a lot more comfortable with the first sense than the others; you can after all be a bad dentist.
Perhaps we should distinguish between rationaledores and rationalistas? Spanglish, but you get the picture.
The -dor suffix is only added to verbs. The Spanish word would be razonadores (“ratiocinators”).
“Reasoner” captures this sense of “someone who does an act,” but not quite the “practitioner” sense, and it does a poor job of pointing at the cluster we want to point at.