What do rationalists believe?
Rationalists believe that one’s beliefs and conduct should be based on a combination of experience and reason. It is to a large degree a development of the ideas and values of the eighteenth century ‘Enlightenment’. Our basic beliefs have been conveniently summarised by the American philosopher, John Searle (Mind, Language and Society: Philosophy in the Real World, Phoenix, 1999, pg 10) There is a real world that exists independently of us, independently of our experiences, our thoughts, our language. We have direct perceptual access to that world through our senses, especially touch and vision. Words in our language, words like rabbit or tree, typically have reasonably clear meanings. Because of their meanings, they can be used to refer to and talk about real objects in the world. Our statements are typically true or false depending on whether they correspond to how things are, that is, to the facts in the world. Causation is a real relation among objects and events in the world, a re
