the belief that reason, not emotion, or intuition, religion, etc, should govern the actions that people take
a theory that reason is a source of knowledge superior to and independent of sense perception
Philosophical rationalists, such as Plato, Descartes, Leibniz, and Spinoza, rejected the empiricist claim that all our knowledge is grounded in experience. Treating mathematics as a model for other kinds of knowledge, they claimed that the exercise of reason could grasp the fundamental principles of nature and morality — Professor Christopher Hookway
reliance on reason for the establishment of religious truth
rationalist adj and noun
rationalistic /-ʹlistik/ adj
rationalistically /-ʹlistikli/ adv