Rationalist

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A person who believes that reason and logic are the primary sources of knowledge rather than sensory experience or emotional intuition
2. A thinker who emphasizes reason and logic as the foundations of understanding rather than reliance on sensory data or emotional insight
3. An individual who advocates for the use of logic and rational thought over personal feelings and empirical evidence as the basis for knowledge

Etymology: "Rationalist" is built from "rational" and the suffix "-ist," which marks a person who holds to a doctrine or practice. "Rational" came into English from Latin "rationalis," itself from "ratio," meaning reckoning, calculation or reason, and the word "rationalist" followed the same path through Middle French "rationaliste." The meaning shifted over time. A rationalist in the strict philosophical sense is someone who holds that reason, rather than the senses or tradition, is the main source of knowledge, a position associated with thinkers such as Descartes and Spinoza. The broader sense in the definition above, which contrasts logic with personal feeling and empirical evidence, is a looser everyday use, and it can sit awkwardly with the philosophical one, since many philosophical rationalists did not reject observation altogether.

Synonyms: logical thinker, analytical person, reasoner, philosopher, empiricist

Antonyms: irrationalist, emotionalist, fanatic, idealistic thinker, romanticist