Rationalism European rationalism is a philosophical method, whose theoretical basis is that human reasoning can be used as the source of knowledge. It is generally believed that Descartes' theory came into being during the17-18th century and spread mainly in the European continent, which essentially embodied bourgeois science and democracy and was the banner of the Enlightenment. Another philosophical method is contemporary and relative, which is called British empiricism. It is believed that human thoughts come from experience, so knowledge may mainly come from experience except mathematics. The main concern here is the source of human knowledge and the means to prove what we know.

The difference between rationalists and empiricists is not distinguished by philosophers at that time, but by later generations. In fact, sometimes the difference between the two is not as obvious as people say. The three main rationalists agree with the importance of empirical science, and they are closer to Descartes than Spinoza and Leibniz in research methods and metaphysical theories. Although this distinction is necessary when writing a book, it is not very useful in philosophy itself. Typical rationalists believe that human beings first instinctively master some basic principles, such as geometric laws, and then can infer the rest of the knowledge from these. The most typical people who hold this view are baruch Spinoza and gottfried leibniz. When trying to solve the cognitive and metaphysical problems raised by Descartes, they developed the basic methods of rationalism. Spinoza and Leibniz both believe that all knowledge (including scientific knowledge) can be obtained by simple reasoning in principle. On the other hand, they also admit that in reality, apart from mathematics, human beings cannot acquire other knowledge through simple reasoning. Descartes' theory is relatively closer to Plato's. He believes that only some eternal truths (including the cognitive basis and metaphysical basis of mathematics and science) can be obtained by reasoning alone, and the rest of the knowledge needs the help of life experience and necessary scientific means. More precisely, Descartes is a rationalist who attaches importance to metaphysics and an empiricist who attaches importance to science. Immanuel Kant was a rationalist at first, but he became a combination of rationalist and empiricist under the influence of david hume's book Awakening him from a Deep Sleep. Now "rationalists" express a view that human behavior should be dominated by acceptability (this view has been recognized by European rationalists and similar empiricists).

Aristotle's philosophy developed Greek rationality to its peak. In his philosophy, human reason and the essence of the world have reached the metaphysical unity and integration. Plato and Aristotle's rationalism combined truth, goodness and beauty. Reason not only shoulders the significance of explaining the universe, but also bears the significance of explaining human social life and spiritual life. Although rationalism in ancient Greece tried to explain the world with science, the level of scientific development in ancient times was not enough to explain the structure of soul and the relationship between soul (that is, spirit) and matter. In a word, this is the true essence and mystery of type impurity. With the decline of ancient society, the decay of slavery and social unrest, people have different basic and fundamentally opposing views on the same world and the same social reality. Many people have doubts about traditional philosophy and shaken the role and function of reason, so in the late period of ancient Greece and Rome, various philosophies of ism and mysticism came into being. These skepticism and mysticism merged with the religious consciousness that rose in the late Roman Empire, which caused the Hellenistic change in the history of western philosophy. Religious philosophers use and distort Aristotle's philosophy to prove the existence of God and the existence of God. Man's rationality has been deprived by God and turned into God's rationality. God has become the embodiment of truth, goodness and beauty and the ontology of the universe, as saint augustinus said: "Supreme, beautiful and capable; Omnipotent; Benevolence, righteousness, concealment, omnipresent; Be beautiful, be firm, be resolute, don't grasp anything, don't change anything, don't update anything, there is no new reason. " (confessions 1 section 4) with the rationalization of god, "all other forms of ideology-philosophy, politics and law-were incorporated into theology in the middle ages, making them the main body of theology." (Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume IV, page 2565438 +0) Rational theology has turned philosophy into its handmaid and philosophy into a tool of scholasticism and religious theology. And man, deprived of rationality, became an animal with only perceptual original desire and was fried on the altar of rational theology. "purgotorio" (translated as "pure world" in Dante's Divine Comedy) refers to the place where people are purified of their sins after death. In the Middle Ages, all people had to wash here after death, and then they could go to heaven. God whipped those who groaned in pain with the whip of reason. Long Fang, a famous scholar, called the Middle Ages "all-encompassing spiritual and intellectual prisons", while Marx called it "the kingdom of spiritual animals". On the one hand, the variation of rationality makes God possess all rationality, while man is only given the right to be dominated by irrationality-"belief". No matter what is absurd, as long as it is God's will, people have to believe it. "It is because of absurdity that I believe" is the motto of medieval religious philosophy. Although there is a dispute between nominalism and realism in scholasticism, which reflects the light of human rationality from a certain angle, as an ideology as a whole, it still converts to religious theology, which is a diversion of rational theology.

The difference of reason becomes the binary division of reason and belief. But this binary division is by no means an eternal fate, because since God's rationality is the product of human rationality, then God's rationality will not be higher than human rationality in essence. The split between reason and belief has caused great pain in people's thoughts and feelings (because true faith and firm belief must be based on scientific reason), and the painful torture will prompt people who were originally rational to think deeply: Is there a God in the world? Where does God's reason come from? Is it omnipotent? Since god is the best, he will not create evil human beings; Since God is omnipotent, it will also destroy the evil on the earth ... A series of thinking and exploration will inevitably sprout the recovery of human reason, and human reason will never unconditionally surrender to God forever, overcome the variation of reason and re-establish the authority of human reason, which is a historical and logical necessity here.

With the development of productive forces, capitalist relations of production began to grow and develop in the feudal society in the 14 and 5th centuries. Reflected in ideology, human reason is bound to declare war on religious beliefs, and human beings are bound to take back their reason from God. /kloc-At the beginning of the 6th century, the religious reform led by Martin Luther broke out in Germany, which severely hit and shook the Catholic rule as the foundation of feudal forces. The essence of this religious reform is the open rebellion of human reason against faith. Luther translated the Bible from Latin into German, arguing that Christians can interpret the Bible according to their own principles. In this way, the reason of ordinary people has the right to interpret the Bible, opposes blind faith, and makes reason the highest arbiter of all religious disputes. Engels spoke highly of Luther's religious reform, calling it the first decisive battle between the European bourgeoisie and feudal forces.

Corresponding to Luther's religious reform is the revolution caused by Copernicus's sun-centered theory in natural science. The essence of Copernican revolution is still the counterattack of reason to faith, because in the Middle Ages, Aristotle Ptolemy's geocentric theory ruled people's thoughts for a long time. Obviously, this theory has not been scientifically demonstrated, but is supported by people's experience and irrational beliefs, and religious philosophy uses it to demonstrate theology. Copernicus theory is a bold challenge to theological cosmology and a cry of human reason calling for scientific spirit. After Copernicus, Galileo further integrated observation, experiment, hypothesis, induction and deduction into a systematic experimental scientific method, which built a powerful scientific position for human rational counterattack belief.

If Martin Luther's religious reform kicked off the counterattack of reason to faith, then from the Italian humanistic movement to the eighteenth century, French philosophy pushed this rational struggle to a climax. If faith began to retreat among humanists, but it still had its place after all (because many humanists advocated that "apocalyptic truth" and "rational truth" were equally divided), then faith was defeated by enlightenment scholars in the18th century. A group of "semi-war atheists" headed by Diderot destroyed the last position of faith and made reason win a triumphant March with world historical significance. Cassirer, a famous German philosopher, said in his book Enlightenment Philosophy: "When18th century wants to use a word to describe the characteristics of this power, it is called' rationality'." Rationality "has become the intersection and center of18th century, which expresses everything that this century pursues and struggles, as well as all the achievements made in this century" (Enlightenment Philosophy, pp. 3-4). In this century, everything must defend its existence or give up its right to exist before reason. We call the rationality of this era the rationality of the Enlightenment.

The main characteristics of reason in the Renaissance and Enlightenment were, first of all, to point the finger at obscurantism of blind faith and worship of authority, to advocate scientific and bold thinking, and to encourage people to boldly doubt religious classics and theological dogma. The Italian humanist Weimes said that man "has a mind full of wisdom, shrewdness, knowledge and rationality. It is resourceful and has created many great things by itself. " Montesquieu, a French enlightenment scholar, believes that our minds are born to think, that is, to understand things. However, for a long time, human reason has been deprived of its legal rights by religious beliefs. Now, according to the enlightenment scholars, since reason is the natural nature and inevitability of human mind, then human nature has the right to restore this natural ability. Montagni, a French humanist, used skepticism as a weapon to call on people to think boldly, oppose all church authority and regain human reason from religious theology.

Secondly, the rationalists in the Renaissance and the Enlightenment also demonstrated the foundation, function and role of rationality, holding that the objective world is the object of rational knowledge, not the object of belief, and science is the tool and method to play the role of rationality. The scientific understanding of nature and the discovery of laws will enable people to gain truth in reason and freedom in action. Therefore, the enlightenment thinkers tried to carry out the scientific spirit and methods in various fields and forge people's weapons to rule nature.

Thirdly, enlightenment thinkers affirmed the existence and value of individuals from the moral and ethical aspects, and opposed religious theology to treat people as religious handmaiden with only original sin. Their slogan is: "I am a person, I have all the characteristics of human beings." Therefore, the rationality advocated by enlightenment thinkers is essentially a humanistic thought, which opposes religious morality in ethics and asceticism in real life.

However, the rationalism of enlightenment thinkers inevitably has the unique historical limitations of their time. This is the first kind. They absolutely reflect the rationality of their own time, advocate an abstract rationality that is super-era, super-nation and super-culture, and ossify the rationality that is developing and changing in history. Secondly, the enlightenment thinkers advocated human rationality to oppose God's grace and revelation; But in order to resist religious asceticism, it is necessary to expand people's sensibility and enhance people's primitive desires. In this way, there will inevitably be conflicts between the sensibility of reason, thus breeding and producing the internal division of reason itself.