Quotes are from Conjectures & Refutations Chapter 18.
A rationalist, as I use the word, is a man who attempts to reach decisions by argument and perhaps, in certain cases, by compromise, rather than by violence. He is a man who would rather be unsuccessful in convincing another man by argument than successful in crushing him by force, by intimidation and threats, or even by persuasive propaganda.
I think this is an important attitude, and one that a lot of people learn to oppose as children when parents rely on force, threats, or lies to get “desired” behaviour from their children.
There are many difficulties impeding the rapid spread of reasonableness. One of the main difficulties is that it always takes two to make a discussion reasonable. Each of the parties must be ready to learn from the other. You cannot have a rational discussion with a man who prefers shooting you to being convinced by you. In other words, there are limits to the attitude of reasonableness. It is the same with tolerance. You must not, without qualification, accept the principle of tolerating all those who are intolerant; if you do, you will destroy not only yourself, but also the attitude of tolerance. (All this is indicated in the remark I made before–that reasonableness must be an attitude of give and take.)
I have the impression that most people do not want to reasonably discuss. If they discuss at all they seem to want to state their ideas then disengage and go about their business (or in worst cases, be insulting/demanding with people who don’t agree with them).
I don’t know if that’s accurate though. Hypothetically if a lot of people are pessimistic about debate and expect other people to be pessimistic about debate, that would result in lots and lots of people not even trying. In that situation even if someone is interested in being reasonable their expectation that other people will not be is so high that it’s not worth trying. People could on a grand scale want to reasonably discuss but be so pessimistic about it that they never do.
Then the obstacle isn’t so much convincing people to be reasonable, but convincing people that you’re reasonable. Maybe I’m hoping for too much there.
When discussion seems hopeless I guess tribalism, coercion, manipulation and other unreasonable things seem like more effective ways to complete goals.
I think I have said enough to make clear what I intend to convey by calling myself a rationalist. My rationalism is not dogmatic. I fully admit that I cannot rationally prove it. I frankly confess that I choose rationalism because I hate violence, and I do not deceive myself into believing that this hatred has any rational grounds. Or to put it another way, my rationalism is not self contained, but rests on an irrational faith in the attitude of reasonableness. I do not see that we can go beyond this. One could say, perhaps, that my irrational faith in equal and reciprocal rights to convince others and be convinced by them is a faith in human reason; or simply, that I believe in man.
This seems odd. I don’t know why Popper didn’t try to rationally explain why violence is bad here. He seems to be embracing some irrationality in his thinking.
Maybe there’s a lack of goal behind is thinking. I don’t know Popper very well yet, his writing seems to be about how to think and pursue truth but I don’t recall reading anything about what that is good for. If he doesn’t have a clear idea of a purpose behind thinking well I guess it would make sense that he doesn’t really know why reasonableness is good and violence is bad and has this answer of faith instead. Maybe the answer is that he thinks mankind is the good and has faith in mankind.
I think mankind is the best thing that exists. Humans are the only known beings that can change their minds and decide what is good and what is bad and actually change the world to that end. To do that most effectively I think reasonableness is necessary to discuss possible ideas and identify the best ones rather than entrenching mistakes. I think violence as a solution for conflicts is bad because it gets in the way of discovering the best ideas.
I’ve written enough for now. The chapter goes on to start talking about Utopianism. I’ll continue reading and write some more about that in a later post.