Experience and Rationality

I'm offering a course this summer in our Master of Liberal Arts program called Rationality, and another next spring called Experience. This observation of Simon Blackburn's nicely conjoins their complementary themes. One without the other is empty. And blind.*

"Sights, sounds, glimpses, smells and touches all provide reasons for beliefs. If John comes in and gets a good doggy whiff, he acquires a reason for believing that Rover is in the house. If Mary looks in the fridge and sees the butter, she acquires a reason for believing that there is butter in the fridge. If John tries and tries but cannot clear the bar, he learns that he cannot jump six feet. In other words, it is the whole person's interaction with the whole surround that gives birth to reasons." 

Blackburn is quoted again, a little further on in tomorrow's recommended reading:

"Humanism is the belief that humanity need not be ashamed of itself, and [Bacon and Locke, Hume and Voltaire, Newton and Darwin] are its great examples. They show us that we need not regard knowledge as impious, or ignorance as desirable, and we need not see blind faith as anything other than blind."*

Simon Blackburn, in The Little Book of Humanism: Universal lessons on finding purpose, meaning and joy by Alice Roberts and Andrew Copson