Thinking through the Prism of Rational Thinking

(Warning: Not an ‘inspiring’ personal development guide)

Thinking through the Prism of Rational Thinking

(Warning: Not an ‘inspiring’ personal development guide)

Thirst begets Knowledge, Knowledge begets Doubt;

Doubt begets Thinking, Thinking begets Thirst.

The thirst to seek that enflames us often leads us through a vast array of information that bewilder and lead us astray. Hence, the necessity of rational thinking arises.

But what is Rational thinking though?

Rational thinking is the ability to think with the help of facts, logic and reason to draw sensible conclusions independent of sensory experiences and other cognitive biases. Simply put, rational thinking is the process of basing our thoughts on facts rather than emotions in order to resolve our problems and achieve our goals.

Let’s get into some concepts the help us understand and visualise…

cogito, ergo sum - "I think, therefore I am"

René Descartes a 17^th century French philosopher and mathematician was the one of the first person to use the concepts of rational thinking to arrive at conclusions about our existence. Back then empiricism (a theory which states that knowledge arises primarily from sensory experiences) was a popular approach to validate one’s own existence. In other words, empiricism put forth that we can prove our existence only through our external experiences and sensory perceptions.  Descartes did not support this view. Imagine that we are questioning the existence of everything around us; Does the world really exist? Do my memories exist? Do I exist?

Descartes argues that we absolutely exist. If you denied our own existence, then who is doing the denying?  As doubting is a form of thinking, by doubting I ultimately end up thinking. Hence, it would impossible to doubt if I am thinking. Since I am thinking, therefore I must exist in one form or another. Descartes summarised this by saying "I think, therefore I am" or "I think, therefore I exist". Ultimately, Descartes concluded that we exist as we think by making use of a rational thinking process. Thus, we now know the importance of rational thinking to prove our literal existence.

Hume’s Fork

Let’s not fully discredit empiricism, David Hume an 18^th century Scottish philosopher and economist put forth his idea popularly known as ‘Hume’s Fork’. He argued that there are two types of knowledge ‘matters of fact’ (Synthetic statements) and ‘relations of ideas’ (Analytic statements). Examples of matter of facts includes statements such as: the sky is cloudy, the breeze is pleasant, the streets are noisy, that is they are derived from our sensory perceptions. On the other hand, relations of ideas are formal and abstract, hence they cannot be otherwise (e.g. 1+1 = 2, anything with mass occupies space, etc.,). Relations of ideas are not concerned with our sensory perception as they are based on the content of our concepts and ideas which we can understand by analysing them. Hume’s arguments on knowledge would spell trouble for religious beliefs. As the concept of religion, miracles and such would undeniably be linked to our perception rather than the objective reality. Thus, rational thinking gives a better perspective to think about theology.    

We have learned that the process of rational thinking can be applied to better understand some of life’s biggest questions. I believe that rational thinking process can be applied to our life on a day-to-day basis to yield better results. So, start thinking rationally and make the world a more pleasant and loving one.