Two Rationalisms and Irrationalism

Abstract

The author opposes two kinds of rationalism to irrationalism. The first kind of rationalism, approved by the author, considers as rational these cognitive procedures that can be communicated and verified intersubjectively. The author calls this view – after K. Ajdukiewicz – anti-irrationalism. On the other hand, irrationalism is a position that negates the need of ability to communicate intersubjectively and to verify cognitive procedures. The views of mystics or of H. Bergson could be an example of irrationalism. The second kind of irrationalism is apriorism, i.e. the position that ascribes certainty to cognitive results achieved by intuition. Data coming from intuition are not intersubjectively communicable, intersubjectively verified and they are not subject to falsification, hence the second kind of rationalism, i.e. apriorism, is in fact irrationalism. Phenomenology, stressing the importance of apriori cognition, would then have many things in common with irrationalism.