| 释义 |
rationalist, n. and a.|ˈræʃənəlɪst|
[f. as prec. + -ist. Cf. F. rationaliste (1539).]
1. a. One who forms his opinions by pure or a priori reasoning; spec. a ‘rational’ physician.
a1626Bacon Apoph. ii. §21 The empirical philosophers are like to pismires... The rationalists are like the spiders. 1656S. H. Gold. Law 79 It concerns the highest Governour, who is Judge of all,..to be an absolute rationalist, for that reason is the intention of Law. 1801T. S. Surr Splendid Misery II. 163 Whatever you may say, or all the Rationalists in the world may preach,..there is such a thing as falling in love at first sight. 1876tr. Wagner's Gen. Pathol. (ed. 6) 5 Those physicians are called rationalists who do not value the facts themselves so highly as their explanation.
b. One who applies scientific methods of reasoning or calculation to social and economic life.
1958G. Myrdal Value in Social Theory iii. 57 The American has..started to measure, not only human intelligence,..and personality traits, but moral leanings and the ‘goodness’ of communities. He is a rationalist. 1969A. Etzioni in Lindzey & Aronson Handbk. Social Psychol. (ed. 2) V. 547 In effect, the rationalists advocate an approach that maximises conflict and makes nuclear war more likely. 1977T. Parsons Social Syst. & Evol. of Action Theory i. 71 Phrasing it as ‘the problem’ I hope makes clear that I have not been a naïve rationalist.
2. a. Theol. One who rationalizes in matters of religion or sacred history; an adherent of rationalism. gen. One who believes that reliance upon human reason does away with the need for religion (cf. rationalism 2 c).
1647Clarendon State Papers II. App. p. xl, The Presbyterian and Independent agree well enough together. But there is a new sect sprung up among them, and these are the Rationalists. 1670Sanderson Pref. Ussher's Power Princes, A mere Rationalist (that is to say in plain English, an Atheist of the late Edition). 1747[Masson] (title) A Letter to the Author of an Address to all Rationalists in Great Britain. 1789J. Erskine in Life C. Nisbet (1840) 197 He is half way over to the German Rationalists (as they call themselves). 1841Myers Cath. Th. iii. §12. 45 The Rationalist..makes the whole subject of Religion and Revelation..a matter of sensible evidence or intellectual demonstration. 1876Constructive Rationalism 5 The destruction of orthodox Christianity being accomplished, there remains for the Rationalist much more to do. He has to frame a code which shall rule in the place of the code of Moses and of Jesus. 1897Agnostic Ann. I. 42 Why do eminent Rationalists, Freethinkers, and Agnostics stand aloof. 1908[see ethicist]. 1942E. T. Kerr in Why I am a Rationalist 33 Few Rationalists..owed to their schools..any kind of..approach to independent thinking. 1954Rationalist Ann. 73, I cannot possibly make my probabilities into certainties, and this is what some Rationalists appear..to do. 1973C. Campbell in Rationalism in 1970s 81 It is an important part of a rationalist's duty to clear himself of myths..as well as to expose the myths of others.
b. attrib. or as adj. = rationalistic.
1828Pusey (title) An Historical Enquiry into the Probable Causes of the Rationalist Character. a1857R. A. Vaughan Ess. & Rem. I. 49 Rationalist criticism has always been content with the endeavour to destroy. 1873L. Stephen Ess. Freethinking 319 The answer given by the rationalist divines. 1921G. B. Shaw Back to Methuselah p. lxxiii, They banish the Bible from their houses, and sometimes put into the hands of their unfortunate children Ethical and Rationalist tracts of the deadliest dullness, compelling these wretched infants to sit out the discourses of Secularist lecturers. 1942J. A. Schumpeter Capitalism, Socialism & Democracy (1943) xi. 122 There is however one more point about the concept of rationalist civilizations that I will mention here. Ibid., The rationalist attitude may go to work with information and technique so inadequate that [etc.]. 1955P. Edwards Logic of Moral Discourse ii. 52 The Rationalist view of causation. 1973F. A. Hayek Law, Legislation & Liberty i. 33 The desire to remodel society after the image of individual man..since Hobbes has governed rationalist political theory. 1974New Humanist May 16/1 Clerical pressure continued to be applied to booksellers, discouraging them from displaying Rationalist books. 1977A. Giddens Stud. Social & Pol. Theory vii. 239 Durkheim replied by asserting the existence of a radical distinction between ‘egoism’ and ‘rationalist individualism’.
3. One who adopts ‘rational’ dress.
1899Cycl. Tour. Club Gaz. Apr. 222 The hotels, etc. at which Rationalists are welcome.
Add:4. Archit. a. An adherent of rationalism (*rationalism n. 6).
1975Archit. Design XLV. 365/3 To some extent the work of the Rationalists can only be understood in the Italian context. 1979Archit. Rev. July 3/3 There are architects around who actually call themselves Rationalists again... They have that same obsession with pure geometric forms and they even quote such eighteenth-century theorists as Laugier, Quatremere and so on. 1984tr. Le Monde in Guardian Weekly 10 June 13/2 The great rationalist [sc. Le Corbusier] abandoned the precision of the slide rule and plunged..into the murky mystique of..inexpressible space.
b. As adj. Adhering to or characterized by rationalism.
1975Archit. Design XLV. 368/4 All these schemes..are concerned with the city..as a continuous fabric, whereas the modern movement looked upon the city as an organisation of individual building types... But the members of the Rationalist Group interpret this common aim in two basically different ways. 1979Jrnl. R. Soc. Arts Nov. 770/2 Their scheme, for student housing, 1976, is reduced to Rationalist fundamentals: street, arcade, balcony and window. 1983N.Y. Times 4 Dec. ii. 40/4 Housing that is unusually inviting, even gracious—far more so than the rationalist housing produced in Germany by the architects of the International Style. |