What do you think?
Rate this book
Rationalism: A Critique of Pure Theory
A critique of rationalism, this book aims to explain both its powerful contributions to mathematics and the physical sciences, where our arithmetical, geometrical, and mechanical intuitions have had a highly productive role in the development of pure theory, and its disastrous failures in cosmology and the moral sciences. In these supposed sciences, rationalism has all but destroyed the social conscience of the West by creating the disastrous political philosophy of neoliberalism. To reset our moral compasses, we must develop new, socially just versions of the old welfare states. And to restore democracy we must return to Keynesian economic management.
306 pages, Paperback
Published September 23, 2020
3 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
January 5, 2025
Professor Brian Ellis was one of my professors when I was studying philosophy at La Trobe University back in the 1980s. He was a warm and approachable man who was always happy to devote as much time to my questions and philosophical problems as I needed. I learned an enormous amount from Professor Ellis. His book, Rationalism had been sitting on my shelf for many years after I purchased it at his book launch in Eltham many years ago.
I was particularly interested to read this book as it combined my interest in epistemology (philosophy of knowledge), especially in the sub-area of philosophy of science, and ethics, as it touches on humanist philosophy. In that, it did not disappoint. Ellis is particularly perceptive in recognizing what was good about the Rationalist philosophers who posited that pure thought gives insight into what is real. Here, Euclid and Kant get special mention for their a priori reasoning that space is Euclidean and time is linear. As Ellis points out (pp. 24–6), that we have this 'intuition' is to be expected as that immediate knowledge allows us to navigate effectively the objects in space and time that we deal with in our day to day world of experience. Evolution selected for those individuals whose perception of space and time was instinctual, not needing to go through a long process of trial and error. Of course, this 'a priori knowledge' is now shown by Einstein's General Theory of Relativity and Quantum Field Theory not to be knowledge of the very, very big, very, very small and very, very fast. So, in the field of physics, Rationalist-style a priori reasoning only gets us so far.
I was also particularly interested in Ellis' views on necessity. He is a leading proponent of the idea that things have an essence (going back to Aristotle), an intrinsic nature peculiar to the kind of thing that it is. With Ellis' version of essentialism, things have their intrinsic nature by necessity. For Ellis, this necessity is a metaphysical or physical necessity. This is where my own thinking on natural kinds was taking me, and I was heartened to see Ellis had fleshed out this view with quite a long pedigree within a new scientific paradigm. Just how mathematical truths are necessarily true also quizzed me for a long time. I found Ellis' summation that these truths are known to be true a priori, contrasting with how we know necessary truths about essences a posteriori, interesting and enlightening.
Ellis' other major attack on Rationalism is against economic rationalism, with its reliance on false presumptions about the psychology and economic behavior of human beings. Whereas, for example, the four axioms of Newton's physics were relatively true idealizations of real objects in the world and their interactions, the axioms of neo-classical economics have been shown to be inapplicable to real human beings. These fundamental assumptions being that economic players are rational, perfectly informed, uninfluenced by biases, acting solely in their own interests and acting with equal power in the marketplace. In this endeavor of trying to mimic the axiomatic systems of physics, one problem Ellis sees is that human beings are not of a natural kind as material objects are.
Whereas Newtonian mechanics had enormous predictive success until it was superseded by Einstein's Relativity theory, neo-classical economics failed to predict the two great depressions and to prescribe effective solutions. What was particularly illuminating for me was Ellis' observation of what neo-classical economists did in the face of these failures. Unlike in the case of physicists who either modify or ditch a failed theory, economists sought to reshape political economies and human beings so that they fit their axioms. The result was Thatcher's and Reagan's neo-liberal push in the 1970s and '80s to create Homo economicus as the fundamental unit of society seeking to satisfy its own selfish interests along with the wholesale selling off of public utilities to private interests to be run at a profit. We are still seeing the ruin of this approach today, according to Ellis.
In the light of this failure, Ellis advocates a return to Keynesian economics that sees the primary responsibility of governments in delivering social goods to the populace. For Ellis, the Articles in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) enshrine this responsibility of governments in guaranteeing the negative rights (liberty rights) idolized by neo-liberal economists, but, just as importantly, in enacting the positive rights (social rights) to social security, gainful employment, fair pay, health care, housing, education, and so on. In this, he advocates for what he calls 'Social Humanism'. I was particularly interested to see him refer to this moral and political standpoint as 'social contractual utilitarianism' as it so much mirrored my own endpoint in moral philosophy that I call 'rules in practice utilitarianism'; a kind of blend of rule utilitarianism and social contract theory of the Rawlsian kind.
This book will be of particular interest to humanists and other social progressives who are seeking a reasoned critique of neo-liberalism and wanting a rational grounding for their moral and political philosophy. It's also of interest to those who think about the role and limits of a priori reasoning in the sciences and in economics. The book is somewhat technical in places. However, anyone with a basic understanding of philosophy should feel no impediment. And for those readers with no or very little exposure to academic philosophy, the more technical sections can be passed over without any real loss of understanding of Ellis' line of thought. In all, a very satisfying book to read and digest.
I was particularly interested to read this book as it combined my interest in epistemology (philosophy of knowledge), especially in the sub-area of philosophy of science, and ethics, as it touches on humanist philosophy. In that, it did not disappoint. Ellis is particularly perceptive in recognizing what was good about the Rationalist philosophers who posited that pure thought gives insight into what is real. Here, Euclid and Kant get special mention for their a priori reasoning that space is Euclidean and time is linear. As Ellis points out (pp. 24–6), that we have this 'intuition' is to be expected as that immediate knowledge allows us to navigate effectively the objects in space and time that we deal with in our day to day world of experience. Evolution selected for those individuals whose perception of space and time was instinctual, not needing to go through a long process of trial and error. Of course, this 'a priori knowledge' is now shown by Einstein's General Theory of Relativity and Quantum Field Theory not to be knowledge of the very, very big, very, very small and very, very fast. So, in the field of physics, Rationalist-style a priori reasoning only gets us so far.
I was also particularly interested in Ellis' views on necessity. He is a leading proponent of the idea that things have an essence (going back to Aristotle), an intrinsic nature peculiar to the kind of thing that it is. With Ellis' version of essentialism, things have their intrinsic nature by necessity. For Ellis, this necessity is a metaphysical or physical necessity. This is where my own thinking on natural kinds was taking me, and I was heartened to see Ellis had fleshed out this view with quite a long pedigree within a new scientific paradigm. Just how mathematical truths are necessarily true also quizzed me for a long time. I found Ellis' summation that these truths are known to be true a priori, contrasting with how we know necessary truths about essences a posteriori, interesting and enlightening.
Ellis' other major attack on Rationalism is against economic rationalism, with its reliance on false presumptions about the psychology and economic behavior of human beings. Whereas, for example, the four axioms of Newton's physics were relatively true idealizations of real objects in the world and their interactions, the axioms of neo-classical economics have been shown to be inapplicable to real human beings. These fundamental assumptions being that economic players are rational, perfectly informed, uninfluenced by biases, acting solely in their own interests and acting with equal power in the marketplace. In this endeavor of trying to mimic the axiomatic systems of physics, one problem Ellis sees is that human beings are not of a natural kind as material objects are.
Whereas Newtonian mechanics had enormous predictive success until it was superseded by Einstein's Relativity theory, neo-classical economics failed to predict the two great depressions and to prescribe effective solutions. What was particularly illuminating for me was Ellis' observation of what neo-classical economists did in the face of these failures. Unlike in the case of physicists who either modify or ditch a failed theory, economists sought to reshape political economies and human beings so that they fit their axioms. The result was Thatcher's and Reagan's neo-liberal push in the 1970s and '80s to create Homo economicus as the fundamental unit of society seeking to satisfy its own selfish interests along with the wholesale selling off of public utilities to private interests to be run at a profit. We are still seeing the ruin of this approach today, according to Ellis.
In the light of this failure, Ellis advocates a return to Keynesian economics that sees the primary responsibility of governments in delivering social goods to the populace. For Ellis, the Articles in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) enshrine this responsibility of governments in guaranteeing the negative rights (liberty rights) idolized by neo-liberal economists, but, just as importantly, in enacting the positive rights (social rights) to social security, gainful employment, fair pay, health care, housing, education, and so on. In this, he advocates for what he calls 'Social Humanism'. I was particularly interested to see him refer to this moral and political standpoint as 'social contractual utilitarianism' as it so much mirrored my own endpoint in moral philosophy that I call 'rules in practice utilitarianism'; a kind of blend of rule utilitarianism and social contract theory of the Rawlsian kind.
This book will be of particular interest to humanists and other social progressives who are seeking a reasoned critique of neo-liberalism and wanting a rational grounding for their moral and political philosophy. It's also of interest to those who think about the role and limits of a priori reasoning in the sciences and in economics. The book is somewhat technical in places. However, anyone with a basic understanding of philosophy should feel no impediment. And for those readers with no or very little exposure to academic philosophy, the more technical sections can be passed over without any real loss of understanding of Ellis' line of thought. In all, a very satisfying book to read and digest.
Displaying 1 of 1 review