Panrationalism

The panrationalism is the epistemological view that it is only reasonable to represent a claim if it can be justified by recourse to rational criteria or authorities. The panrationalism next to the irrationalism is one of the two main forms of justification strategy.

After William W. Bartley, there are two forms of panrationalism: The intellectualism (sometimes called rationalism ), for which the rational authority in the human intellect and the ability to reason is ( Descartes and his cogito ergo sum ultimate justification is the classic representative of this position); and empiricism, for which the rational authority is achieved by sensory experience ( "seeing is believing "). Bartley is of the view that the intellectualism too far and the empiricism is too narrow.

Bartley turned the panrationalism as an alternative contrary to pancritical rationalism. In pancritical rationalism there is no rationality criterion for statements. Bartley turned especially against the claim that a position is rational if it is true, probably, obviously, provably, empirically verifiable, meaningful or scientifically or otherwise satisfies some criterion. Rationality does relate to the question of how a statement is represented, not where it comes from, what it says and what criteria apply to them. Rationality is the willingness to keep open positions for criticism.