Rationality and the

Enlightenment.
There are people who have impeccable skills in bringing others to agree with them by the sole use
of reason. There are also people who have impeccable skills in bringing others to agree with them
by the sole use of faith.

If we looked back in history we can find that those who have agreed by the terms of reason, and not
only scientific reason, have done so with no less strength than those who have agreed by the terms
of faith, and not only religious faith.

It wouldn't be hard to agree that there is something of a rational effort in any religious faith. It
wouldn't be also hard to agree that there is something of faith in any rational endeavor.

The difference being, religion, for the most part, is based on a static way of thinking. It makes faith
metaphysical and ancestral. Science, in contrast, is based on a dynamic way of thinking. It makes
reason oscillating and unfixed. Yet, we also know that science can set reason in stones and deviate
towards metaphysics and dogmatism.

The interwoven connections between science and religion is far tighter than they both have been
willing to admit.

Reason and faith have a common origin: They both started as a way to figure out the meaning and
purpose of life. They also have a fair share in how they operate. They both tell us rules to follow
and they both aim to be impartial in their own terms even at the expense of their own biases.

Science has not a monopoly on reason. Science is just a stewardess of reason. Religion has not a
monopoly on faith, religion is just one of faith's crew members.

You might rightly think that all this dialectical relationship between science and religion, reason and
faith is just another gimmick of reason patronizing faith. But if so, we could also say the reverse.
Dialectics would be a gimmick of faith patronizing reason.

Reason loves dialectics not less than it loves facts and proof validation. Faith cannot be based on
dialectical reason not even on his criticism via negative dialectic in the style of Kierkegaard, Sartre
or Adorno.
Faith is the positiveness of a negative force that aims to purify our being of both, facts and
dialectical reasoning.

Whether we have a God or not is not the primary source of religious devotion. When we have faith
to bring God into the absence of its existence as a negative instance of our devotion we actualize the
very substance of religious ecstasy.

Such is and has been the first and foremost relevant religious experience across centuries of
religious practices.

This pure negativity or pure negation has not dialectics to it, be it a Hegelian or a non-Hegelian
dialectics. This pure negativity transcends religions. It was not born in religions, and yet, it
actualizes best in religions and has been monopolized by the religious experience.

Pure negativity is a state of reason, not just from the past, not just metaphysical, but an ongoing
state of reason at which point it alienates so much from itself that it becomes utterly transcendent
and utterly religious.

But the religious is not just a state of reason in which at some point the religious would be
superseded by reason and left behind by the civilized enlightenment of reason.

The religious is part of the matrix of reason not less than reason is part of the matrix of religion and
yet, the reason of religion is not the same as the reason of science or any other endeavor like the arts
or politics.

Pure positivity is a state of faith, not just from the past, not just metaphysical, but an ongoing state
of faith at which point it alienates so much from itself that it becomes utterly transcendental, utterly
fragmented and utterly secular.

Divinity in that sense is everywhere, especially in us, the last divinity without sky, without a throne
but with a helplessly weakened but narcissistic ego.

There is a fair share of rationality and of religiousness in reason and in religion for both to have
such an impact on people's lives.

This might sound counter-intuitive since we are accepting the premise that science and reason itself
lack of some aspects of rationality and that religion and faith itself lack of some aspects of faith.

The rational cliche is to assume that science has nothing to do with religion nor with authority and
that religion is mere opium to keep the masses controlled and ignorant.
The religious cliche is to assume that faith has nothing to do with science nor with proofs and that
science is a mere vanity of a humanity disenfranchised of divine blessing.

Were we to assume that reason and science can be affected by dogma and power we would
immediately assume, if we came from a rationalistic background, that it would only happen if we
were failing to reason.

Reversely, were we to assume that religion can also be affected by science and the gathering of
rigorously tested evidence, we would immediately assume, if we came from a religious background,
that it would only happen if religions failed to their Devine duties and their dogmas.

If in both cases, people can be brought to an agreement and change the course of their actions in a
fundamental way, there must be certainly something that traverses both reason and faith to impact
human lives to such an extent.

Yet, when our judgment is closely inspected it truly seems that reason is the only effective tool to
naturally persuade others to do things without coercion or deceit.

However, even when reason alone can do all the heavy lifting in persuasion and rigorous fact-
checking, from an evolutionary perspective, old reasons and new reasons mutate, evolve, become
dogma or revolutionary.

An old or a new rational method can impact our search for truth as much as the validity of the facts
which are supposed to grant them their truth.

Thus, it is not reason per se what becomes dogma or revolutionary. It is a particular way of
reasoning what becomes so. However, if reason is always particular as part of its own evolving
process how come reason can and keeps being validated universally?

When a particular case becomes more and more applicable to other particular cases the universal
tries to peek above and predict with satisfaction that if certain conditions are met the same will
repeat again.

But there is more to this evolution of reason than we have bargained for. Reason loves to store, to
make a backup, to consolidate and gain prestige.

This is not just a habit of our memories, but of our DNA, of life itself, resonating back to the very
nanosecond before the BigBang.

When reason does this (backing up) it not always get things right and when it does, it has universal
validity within constraints or rather just for all the known cases.
Reason, however, has other plans and sometimes it has a predilection for the universalist dogma of
"one size fits all" or the atomist dogma of, "one size for each one."

Ontogenesis and phylogenesis are two processes in nature that shed some light in the evolution not
only of reason but of languages. The first one refers to the development of an individual organism
or behavioral feature from the earliest stage to maturity. The second one, to the evolutionary
development and diversification of a species or group of organisms.

In linguistics, we have an analogy to this biological processes called Diachronic linguistics as the
study of a language
through different periods in history and Synchronic linguistics as the study of a language at one
particular period, usually the present.

The evolution of reason or any word meaning for that matter follows such matrix of analysis
between its ontogenetic, phylogenetic, diachronic and synchronic developments.

Thus, we can have an internalist approach to reason by focusing on those fields of human endeavors
which have developed it in a more strict and rigorous manner.

We can also apply an externalist method to reason by focusing on those fields of human endeavors
which have developed it in a metaphorical or loosened up manner. That would include religions.

If we added a diachronic and a synchronic analysis to reason, which would imply a historical and a
structural approach to its evolving process, we can see that whatever might be the field of
competence holding today the strings of reason tighter such field has not and should have not a
monopoly on reason, not less than religion has not and should have not a monopoly on faith.

A willful reason is a reason that needs no reason to settle and impose the domain of reason in
reasonable terms. This is the kind of reason that most reasonable thinkers have neglected in their
commitment to reason.

Think of reason and accumulated prestige of reason. Now think of music and songwriting. If the
music were 90% breathtaking compared to the lyrics, the music can not only take over 100% of the
impact of the entire listening experience but also make the lyrics 100% breathtaking even when its
impact is only 10%. If the accumulated prestige of reason were 90% breathtaking compared to the
currently given reasonable arguments, the accumulated prestige of reason can not only take over
100% of the impact of the entire thinking experience but also make the currently given reasonable
arguments 100% breathtaking even when its impact is only of 10%.

There is a polite, educated and even happily agreeable way to force our reason into people: We just
tap into their unconscious while we induce in them the feeling of being in control and free from our
own coercive reasonable influences.
Some people can develop, and in other cases can naturally force other people to grant them
insurance of a natural aura of rational authority after hard earning their trust.

Some other people can even naturally force themselves to grant those they admire for their rational
thinking insurance of a natural aura of rational authority after they have fully earned their trust.

This trust, this act of faith exercised on reason requires to be exercised with raw reasoning over and
over again but often ends up exercised with the prestige reason has already gained.

This in no way means that there is something intrinsically coercive about reason and being rational,
as it was the case with Michel Foucault theory of power and knowledge.

Reason can be coercive in its own right just as much as a religious dogma can be. This should give
us enough reason not to mistrust reason in general but a particular kind of reason that is always
ready to manifest its coercive and dogmatic nature as part of the general structure of reason.

There is a developmental part of reason that accepts unquestioned and as dogma certain elements of
its own rational inquisitive nature, else it would not be able to even validate itself as rational.

This dogmatic and unquestioned part of reason can benefit reason or go against it. Such dogmatic
side of reason is not evidence of its weakness but evidence of its naturally malleable makeup.

That's why those who use reason with a great deal of dexterity can be at times more irrationally
dangerous, dogmatic authoritarian and ignorant than those who don't.

To assume that being rational and on the side of reason makes you de facto an enlightened thinker is
one of the most irrational and ignorant ideas expressed by those on the side of rational thinking.

Every word meaning in any language has gone and keeps going through a long and slow
evolutionary process of adaptation, changes, and rehashing.

Through such an evolutionary process, the meaning of each word has been bifurcated to create from
within and from without their own opposite.

The opposite inhabiting within each word does not make de facto the meaning of the word in
question self-destructive and self-contradictory. It doesn’t make either the opposite meaning within
equal or in synch with the opposite meaning without.

The opposite meaning within a word can and do in fact protect a word’s meaning from the possible
collapse caused by the opposite meaning without it.
The opposite meaning from without a word is neither meant to exist de facto in contradiction nor
aiming to destroy the opposite meaning of another word from without.

In that sense, the opposite meaning of the word rational from within the rational would be the
irrational while the opposite meaning of the word rational from without the rational would be the
religious. Both, internal and external elements can be abstract and concrete.

In this case, the irrational would be the abstract internal opposite element of the rational, but such
rationality and irrationality can manifest in different concrete degrees in science, art, politics,
religions, etc.

The abstract internal cluster of meanings of a field, for instance, science (the existence of God
cannot be proven or disproven) can be at war with the abstract external cluster of meanings of
another field, for instance, religion (God does not require proof).

The concrete internal cluster of meanings of a field, for instance, science (earth has existed for over
4 billion years) can be at war with the concrete external cluster of meanings of another field, for
instance, religion (earth has existed for under 10.000 years).

The opposition between the concrete clusters of meanings of each does not validate or invalidate the
abstract clusters of meanings of any. This is probably one of the most visceral misunderstandings
not only between science and religion but between the ontological clusters of meanings of all
different fields of competence.

We often forget, and also ignore that in the arsenal of meanings at our disposal in all languages we
have clusters of “stem-cells” of meanings and clusters of “specialized-cells” of meanings in
constant interactions.