Is rationality a fiction? Nope

Reason is overrated, some people argue. Wait, did I say argue?…

The Charioteer, Delphi Museum, photo by the Author.

It is fashionable these days to argue that the merits of reason are exaggerated, that it is has limits, and that in fact we may even be better off by checking it at the door and relying instead on a number of alternatives, from intuition to emotional thinking, from mysticism to faith.

If you think I’m exaggerating, or presenting you with a strawman, you might need to take a look at an article written by the Institute of Arts and Idea’s (IAI) Charlie Barnett entitled Is rationality a fiction?, with the disturbing subtitle “Rationality and reason are overrated.” Since I’m generously quoted in that article, I figured I would share some thoughts triggered by reading it and see what happens.

I’ve known Barnett for several years, as he is a senior producer for the How the Light Gets In (HTLGI) festival of philosophy, science and music, and he has booked me for several editions. The problem with the festival, and the IAI in general, is that they need to appeal to a wide public, which means that their events and writings inevitably mix serious intellectuals with the likes of, say, Rupert Sheldrake, a peculiar character whom my colleague Jerry Coyne described as “a notorious quack who combines his pseudoscience with an extraordinarily thin skin.”