rationalismn.

a1732 T. Boston Memoirs (1776) xi. 380 Through the prevalence of their passions and prejudices: the gospel of Christ is by this time, with many, especially of the younger sort of divines, exchanged for rationalism.

1827 C. H. Sack in E. B. Pusey Hist. Enq. (1828) p. xii Common rationalism, which the theological faculty of Berlin has..for more than fifteen years imparted to theological study.

1845 J. H. Newman Ess. Devel. Christian Doctr. (1846) v. §3. 311 Its spirit was rationalizing, and had the qualities which go with rationalism.

1884 J. Parker Larger Ministry 28 Rationalism does not more distinctly recognise human reason than it is recognised by evangelical philosophy.

1962 C. C. Goen Revivalism & Separatism New Eng. i. 33 Opponents of the revival by contrast were known as ‘Old Lights’, which soon became synonymous with rationalism in theology and with the substitution of morality for religion.

1994 Latin Mass Jan. 27/1 Who apply rationalism to Biblical exegesis.

2000 A. Dulles in A. Hastings et al. Oxf. Compan. Christian Thought 231/2 This view of faith was canonized for Catholics in the teaching of Vatican I. A few theologians, reacting against rationalism, spoke as though faith were contrary to reason, but the council discountenanced this extreme position.

1782 B. N. Turner Candid Suggestions vi. 119 If otherwise, such a declaration surely ill-becomes an opposer of Rationalism, and a proffered champion of the christian faith!

1848 R. I. Wilberforce Doctr. Incarnation (1852) i. 10 Rationalism makes the individual the starting-point for all improvement, whereas the Church's starting-point is Christ.

1897 Agnostic Ann. 1 18 In my progress from Rome to Rationalism many other considerations have influenced me.

1923 J. S. Huxley Ess. Biologist 231 It is the task of Rationalism to see that religion, this fundamental and important activity of man, shall neither be allowed to continue in false or inadequate forms, nor be stifled or starved, but be made to help humanity in a vigorous growth that is based on truth and in constant contact with reality.

1968 A. J. Ayer Humanist Outlook 3 A broader movement of Rationalism or Free Thought, which was not merely anti-clerical but hostile to any form of religious belief.

1973 C. Campbell in Rationalism in 1970s 81 If the aim of rationalism is merely to attack and demolish the myths that we and others hold then there is more than enough work to keep us busy for a very long time.

1992 Amer. Scholar Autumn 481/1 (advt.) This fascination is largely the result of the failure of secular substitutes for religion (such as positivism, rationalism, hedonism, consumerism, technological utopianism).

1797 in tr. J. S. Beck Princ. Crit. Philos. §328 The empiricism or the rationalism [Ger. Rationalism].

1803 Edinb. Rev. 1 257 Made acquainted with the division of empiricism and rationalism.

1831 Edinb. Rev. Sept. 247 The fundamental principles of Rationalism we take to be these:—That human reason, or the reasoning faculty, is the sole arbiter as to what is to be received as truth, and what is to be regarded as error, by the human mind; that facts recognized by sense or consciousness form the materials on which the reasoning faculty is to be exercised.

1857 W. Fleming Vocab. Philos. 419 According to rationalism, reason furnishes certain elements, without which, experience is not possible.

1895 A. C. Armstrong tr. R. Falckenberg Hist. Mod. Philos. (new ed.) 81 Under [Wolff] rationalism stiffens into a scholastic dogmatism, soon to run out into a popular eclecticism.

1936 A. J. Ayer Lang., Truth & Logic iv. 93 For the fundamental tenet of rationalism is that thought is an independent source of knowledge, and is moreover a more trustworthy source of knowledge than experience, indeed some rationalists have gone so far as to say that thought is the only source of knowledge.

1967 Encycl. Philos. VII. 69/1 The philosophical outlook..which stresses the power of a priori reason to grasp substantial truths about the world and correspondingly tends to regard natural science as a basically a priori exercise... The spirit of rationalism in this sense is particularly associated with..Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibnitz.

2002 P. Baines & A. Haslam Type & Typogr. v. 104 These activities share common roots in rationalism, in the examination and dissection of data, and in the understanding of the whole through an analysis of the parts.

1800 Med. & Physical Jrnl. 3 283 Absolute rationalism does not, and cannot, exist in medicine.

1800 Med. & Physical Jrnl. 3 283 The excellent analysis of this rule is accompanied with a remark on medical empiricism and rationalism.

1849 Lancet 6 Jan. 3/1 Pure à priori Rationalism, in applying itself to therapeutics, starts from two postulates.

1917 Lancet 24 Mar. 458/1 He describes organotherapy as opening up avenues of thought to a new conception of medicine which will satisfy the longing for logical reasoning and rationalism.

1962 Isis 53 248/1 Most of those who approved medicine as an art given by God..seem to have sided with ‘dogmatic’ medicine, that doctrine of rationalism and empiricism symbolized by the names of Hippocrates and Galen.

1990 Osiris 6 25 In discussing the ancient medical sects, he [sc. Isidore] portrayed empiricism not as a learned reaction against rationalism, but as a primitive form of medicina whose exponents were ignorant of causal reasoning.