Reason was an important topic at Acton U. A few observations about reason that were made there:
ratio is empirical reason. It is scientific reasoning
Intellectio is reasoning about deeper things. It is philosophical, religious, and artistic reasoning, or reasoning in the humanities.
The two were split in about the 1300's, with the decisive split made by Descartes.
Faith without reason leads to fanaticism.
Reason without faith leads one to a scientistic denial of human liberty.
Faith (the subjective, feelings) and reason (the objective) are both necessary to have a full, complete, holistic human being.
Freedom for excellent is more reasonable than freedom for indifference.
The freedom to choose means that you have both rational and irrational choices. SInce many people today try to avoid judgement, many theorists have denies that we in fact have freedom to choose. If we don't believe in choice, we don't believe in freedom. When we don't value human freedom, we look to government to solve all our problems.
If we are to be balanced, whole human beings, we need to embrace feelings, experience, and reason. All three simultaneously. Those who want to deny reason are doing so because they don't want to be judged, they don't want to be responsible for their actions. They are selfish and immoral, which leads them to discarding reason and freedom to justify their actions. Why are we allowing selfish, immoral people to tell us what the world is like?
3 comments:
This message about embracing feelings, experience and reason sounds to me a lot like Aristotle's concept of practical wisdom.
I heard a great deal more about St. Thomas Aquinas than about St. Augustine at Acton U., so I suppose one shouldn't be surprised that they are more Aristotleans than Platonists.
Troy
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