Pure rationality DOSENT' exist.But pure faith does.What do you think?

Question

Whatever OF/BY/FROM us is based upon one irrationality- Faith in our senses.

Answer 1

I think Kant pretty well demonstrated that we cannot know absolutely if the structure of rationality in the mind corresponds to the nature of things "out there" . . . but within the mind, that structure of pure reason does exist.

However, with regard to the assumption that the rational laws of the mind correspond to the external nature of the universe -- the underlying assumption that rationality has the inherent ability to disclose the truth -- this, it could be argued, rests upon faith, for to otherwise show that rationality can disclose truth would require a rational argument or method in order to demonstrate such. But in such a case, we would already be assuming the very thing we were trying to prove. In otherwords, the validity of rationality cannot be shown without already assuming its validity, thus essentially we rely on a prior faith in rationality in order to proceed with rational thought.

But then the question arises, why do we naturally have faith in it? You know that I typed this response on a computer, because you know that in order to post in Yahoo! Answers requires a computer. This conclusion is based on reason. Why does this seem self-evident to you? Why don't you think instead that I am really psychically projecting this answer into your mind using a jelly fish? In otherwords, there appears to be something in the nature of rationality itself that inherently gives rise to faith in its working, much like we have faith in our senses.

If you don't have faith in your senses, you are crazy. But the same goes for if you don't have faith in the workings of your mind. If you do not have faith that phrase "a blue box" means a
box that is blue, and instead think it means a polar bear that is red, you are crazy. You wouldn't even be able to communicate with another person. You must have faith that "an apple" refers to the object of an apple, and not a toilet. Likewise you must have faith that a "red apple" is joining the adjective "red" with the noun "apple", so that you imagine an apple that is red. You have faith in this conceptual process. Reason is nothing more than this exact same conceptual process, only at its more complex levels. If you have one apple in your left hand, one apple in your right hand, and no other apples at all, then you have two apples. That is reason.

So to even think conceptually at all -- that is, to think at all -- you must require faith in that process. To even ask the question you asked demonstrates faith in that process. Reason is merely conceptuality at a more complex level. The faith in our senses is that same type of faith that later convinces us that our concepts correspond to objects even later that convinces us in reason. In each case these things seem self-evidently true.

But is this faith? Yes. What else could we call it? But the real question is, why do these things so easily generate faith in them?

Pure faith, if I am understanding you correctly, is faith that has no reason behind it. It is just there, so to speak. But is faith in our senses, or faith in our concepts, really like this?

Perhaps. But consider another possibility: we have faith in our senses because something about our senses strikes us as immediately true. And it is this "truth" that gives rise, so to speak, in faith in them. Perhaps we do not have a choice with regard to truth. We can choose not to believe something is true, but whatever we believe IS true, that we will have faith in.

So which came first, the faith that gave rise to the acceptance of the truth (of our senses for example), or the perception of truth which then gave rise to that faith?

My suggestion is that faith is the inherent quality of truth, and vice versa. Faith and truth are two sides of one coin, such that we cannot not have faith in whatever we percieve is true, and we cannot believe false something we have faith in.

I would argue that pure faith is when there is pure truth, and pure truth is when there is pure faith. If one derives from the other, such that we have faith first, and then conclude truth, or we come to think something is true and then have faith in that, either way is a form of impure faith/truth. Pure faith and truth are when they arise simultaneously.

For example, one cannot have faith in God and yet think God does not exist. If one has faith in God, then one will necessarily believe that the existence of God is true. But this kind of faith begins first with the faith, and then from there concludes that what the faith points to is true. I would call this impure faith, because it only honors one half of the coin, faith, and then forcefully (and perhaps blindly) attempts to include the other half, which is truth.

On the otherhand, if we come to believe, perhaps from something we have read, that the Universe was created out of a Big Bang, and we conclude this is true, a faith will naturally be there. We might not be overtly aware of this faith, but it is the faith that what we have read and learned is not arbitrary or make-pretend. This would be a form of impure truth, because our acceptance of the truth here is not immediate and self-evident (i.e., with pure faith), but rather requires a kind of after-the-fact faith that sustains our acceptance of its truth.

Pure faith, and pure truth, I would suggest, are when they arises together. What is that? When something is self-evidently true, it is precisely the faith half of the coin that makes it self-evident, and it is the truth half of the coin that makes it true. If we return to the issue of rationality, we can see that something like this is what seems to be happening. It is not the case that first we had faith in rationality, and then believed it to be true, nor is it the case that first we percieved rationality to be true, and then had faith in it. We weren't inculcated with the idea that having a left hand and having a right hand meant you had two hands, as if that were some arbitary law we needed to remember, we just came to see this as self-evidently true -- that is faith + truth at once -- likewise we didn't just shrug our shoulders and decide to have faith that this was so, we just naturally did have faith because it appears immediately true.

So the mere acceptance of rationality is, perhaps, an example of pure faith and pure truth.

Anyway, I apologize if this is longwinded and confusing. I wish I had more time to spend on the issue.

Answer 2

We clearly use a mix of rationality and faith. What we mean by either of those terms varies quite a bit. The combination, though, is perhaps "sensibility." Having "good sense" certainly isn't a bad thing...
Rationality is a little easier to define. Faith: well, some say that means religious faith. Some say that any reliance on something not founded on (pure?) reason is faith, too. So thare's a lot of "faith" and "reliance" in the world. An a lot of flawed rationality, wouldn't you say? Reason misapplied. Reason misled. Reason confused. Intangled with lots of realiance on flawed things. Too many mis-matched layers, making the reason unreasonably placed... People don't look nearly far enough into where their ideas originate from, and see if there is a more pure source. We sure do waste a lot of time because of our own misconceptions... And we rarely do more than scratch the surface of what might be...

Answer 3

The brain is rational. The senses do provide data and the brain interprets. The senses can be wrong, but the brain has mechanisms and processes for filtering the information it receives. It is not faith on which most of us base our decisions but rather experience and instinct.

Answer 4

THERE ARE FIVE SENSES. MOST OF EVERYTHING WE HAVE ACCOMPLISHED HAS USED MUCH MORE. CREATIVITY AND IMAGINATION ARE THINGS THAT GO BEYOND THE SENSES. HAVING FAITH IN ANYTHING LEADS TO AN ABSOLUTE. EXAMPLE: FAITH THAT THERE IS AN END POINT!! BUT TO FULLY IMAGINE, IS TO BE BOUNDLESS. I HAVE A NEED TO CONTINUE A JOURNEY WITH NO END. TO BE ON SUCH A JOURNEY YOU NEED TO HAVE RATIONALITY. RATIONALITY IS MOSTLY BASED ON YOUR EXPERIENCES. EXAMPLE: YOU RATIONALLY DO NOT DO ANYTHING TO ENDANGER YOUR SELF. THOUGH; IRRATIONALITY DOES NOT END THE JOURNEY, IT IS SOMETHING THE WILL MAKE YOU GO IN CIRCLES UNTIL YOU FIND YOUR WAY BACK ON TRACK.

Answer 5

That is the reason why there is war. We worship our faith.

Strong belief becomes faith.

We cannot see that faith is irrational or subjective.

We keep on pursuing what we believe in. What we believe are always not the truth.

I want to emphasized that pure reasoning (or logic) is not always the truth.

Truth is always logical but definitely not subjective.

Answer 6

I think your right. The things that we consider rational are things that we perceived possible. Faith eliminates rationality because nothing is impossible once you have great faith.

Answer 7

I don't think pure faith exists. No one can believe something without questioning it for a second. If they do then they don't really believe it, they are just brought up to think it.

Answer 8

To fully rationalize, one needs complete understanding of an issue. As humans, this is not possible with all things. With faith, we are able to accept what we do not fully understand.

Answer 9

that's why rationality is more important; one strives for it.

anyone and anything can have faith. your dog has faith in you. would you rather be content and stupified, and caught unaware when reality throws you for a loop, or able to observe and anticipate probelms before they hit you head-on?

Answer 10

Actually it's not faith in our senses per se. It is the confidence that our brain correctly interprets what our senses are telling us.

Answer 11

To put it bluntly I believe that statement is pure bullshit. And quite often those who live by such a statement wreak some sort of havoc wherever they may roam. Regardless of whether they recognize it or not