Word family noun rationality ≠ irrationality rationale rationalism rationalist rationalization adjective rational ≠ irrational rationalist verb rationalize adverb rationally ≠ irrationally
From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishrationalismra‧tion‧al‧is‧m /ˈræʃənəlɪzəm/ AWL noun [uncountable] technical the belief that your actions should be based on scientific thinking rather than emotions or religious beliefs philosophers who accept scientific rationalismExamples from the Corpus
rationalism• A believer might move from one form of piety to another, embracing mysticism and rationalism at the same time.• The errors of constructivist rationalism stem from the belief that reason alone enables human beings to construct society anew.• Without understanding this philosophical background it is difficult to appreciate the distinctiveness of Oakeshott's critique of rationalism.• In rejecting the reductionism of rationalism, the counterculture was so deeply anti-intellectual that it forfeited access to its own history.• Eventually that sense of the truth was rejected even by some philosophers who had initally accepted scientific rationalism with great enthusiasm.• But cognitive theories' rationalism is male-identified, drawing on dominant conceptions of the masculine nature of logical, coherent thought.• It spread through the body and achieved chemically and pharmacologically what rationalism and the Protestant ethic sought to fulfill spiritually and ideologically. 