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Vladimir_Nesov comments on Note on Terminology: "Rationality", not "Rationalism" - Less Wrong Discussion

28 Post author: Vladimir_Nesov 14 January 2011 09:21PM

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Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 14 January 2011 11:05:28PM *  2 points [-]

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.)

Comment author: Vladimir_M 14 January 2011 11:15:51PM 1 point [-]

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."

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 14 January 2011 11:32:16PM *  0 points [-]

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.)

Comment author: Vladimir_M 15 January 2011 06:40:59AM *  2 points [-]

You say:

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.")

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