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Full Idea
What is reason itself? Something compounded from impressions of a certain kind.
Gist of Idea
Reason itself must be compounded from some of our impressions
Source
Epictetus (The Discourses [c.56], 1.20.05)
Book Ref
Epictetus: 'The Discourses, The Handbook, Fragments', ed/tr. Gill,C [Everyman 1995], p.48
A Reaction
This seems to be the only escape from the dead end attempts to rationally justify reason. Making reason a primitive absolute is crazy metaphysics.
Related Idea
Idea 23343 Because reason performs all analysis, we should analyse reason - but how? [Epictetus]
| 23344 | Reason itself must be compounded from some of our impressions [Epictetus] |
| 23247 | The need to act produces consciousness, and practical reason is the root of all reason [Fichte] |
| 22035 | The structure of reason is a social and historical achievement [Hegel, by Pinkard] |
| 3812 | Rationality is the way we coordinate our intentionality [Searle] |
| 3806 | Rationality is built into the intentionality of the mind, and its means of expression [Searle] |
| 2505 | Turing invented the idea of mechanical rationality (just based on syntax) [Fodor] |
| 2463 | A standard naturalist view is realist, externalist, and computationalist, and believes in rationality [Fodor] |
| 1584 | Modern science, by aiming for clarity about the external world, has abandoned rationality in the human world [Roochnik] |
| 3125 | Psychology studies the way rationality links desires and beliefs to causality [Segal] |