Giving gnoseologic value to experiences alone

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Reply Thu 21 Oct, 2010 12:33 pm
I've always been against pure rationalistic philosophy and now I justified to myself why it is so.

I've experienced a lot of moments in my life where I could've not explain it rationally or simply could've notput it in words. Since I enrolled in philosophy studies I started examining how can I rationally explain all of these experiences.

Then I realized... what if the reason decides to move it's ego away and give gnoseological value to other elements, beside itself (the reason), such as intuition, faith, emotions and feelings and so on. How about if we have experienced something that we have felt on an emotional level or we might have had a sheer gut for something that it is so, but we couldn't explain it by reason alone?

If we analyze the traits of reason it seems it is normal for reason to analyze, to categorize, to make logical connections and, the most important thing, to penetrate with it's traits in places where it does not belong, which is, again, to analyze and make logical connections to experiences based on other elements beside itself.

While on the other hand we have intuition, feelings and faith, which the unique elements to them is that they not intervene in reason, or simply put they don't want to. Faith does not need reason or logical proofs as it is self-sufficient to itself. Intuition does not need to analyze, as sheer gut is it's main principle. Emotions also, they are felt in itself, the are not based on thinking.

Having explained reason on the one hand, and intuition, faith and emotions on the other, we can conclude that only reason has the unique ability to intervene in other gnoseological elements, while all the rest are self-sufficient.

So, isn't it logical should the reason decides not to intervene, the remaining elements would emerge to be more powerful because they are not repressed by the reason? Now, of course, if we exclude reason we will not be able to transfer our experience by words (since words are logical constructions), but at least we must have in mind that there is a great deal of "loss in translation" when explaining mystical experiences in words, as words can't describe the essence of the experience. It goes so far that those experiences are made so absurd to the reason, as the reason and the rationalists, simply describe those as fantasies of the mind or so because they seems as fallacies to reason alone.

If one needs proof that intuition, emotions and faith need independent gnoseological value, one should try to give them sovereignty by it's own reason and try to live a life like that for a while to see if there is a change in perceiving the world. If there is - there is the proof. Now the reason is satisfied, while the remaining elements don't care Smile
 
 

 
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