We need some kind of word that means "seeker after less wrongness", and refers pragmatically to a group of people who go around discussing epistemic hygiene and actually worrying about how to think and whether their beliefs are correct. I know of no shorter and clearer alternative than "rationalist". There are some words I'm willing to try to rescue, and this is one of them.
Perhaps it's not worth complaining, but historically "rationalist" was contrasted with "empiricist." Descartes, Leibniz, and Spinoza were rationalists, while Locke and Hume were empiricists. Obviously that's not a contrast you mean to be invoking, though maybe that use of "rationalist" is rare enough that there's no risk of confusion.
Subscribe to RSS Feed
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
Georges Ray has defended a position he calls "Meta-Atheism." He believes that just about nobody who says they believe in God actually does, for reasons somewhat like the ones Eliezer mentions. I highly recommend checking it out. Here's a link: http://stairs.umd.edu/236/meta-atheism.html