What an exciting question! I recommended Aristotle to you not long ago, and although I saw you haven’t read Plato, I’m wondering whether you’re acquainted with him? I’m sure you would like Plato, let me try and summarize him for you.
Plato believed that truth could only be attained through logic alone, and that our senses could not provide us with any valuable knowledge of the external world. He postulated that true form (“being” or “essence”) existed in an abstract realm, along with numbers and geometric objects. “The Allegory of the Cave” comes form Plato, it essentially means that we can never truly know the nature of a thing (or subject) unless we are freed from bodily senses.
Aristotle didn’t agree with Plato entirely. He refined Plato’s philosophy to included empirical deduction and his book on Metaphysics is essentially the primmer to all scientific quarry.
In short, yes, the universe is rational. As Aristotle would have explained, man is a “rational soul,” and our end goal is the attainment of knowledge. Without getting into a long discussion on God in general, Aristotle saw that rationality was derived from God’s being. Admittedly, this is unpopular on this sort of forum, but personally I think it deserves more attention that what it’s given (the source of rationality that is).
... Fun stuff. ^_^
Plato believed that truth could only be attained through logic alone, and that our senses could not provide us with any valuable knowledge of the external world. He postulated that true form (“being” or “essence”) existed in an abstract realm, along with numbers and geometric objects. “The Allegory of the Cave” comes form Plato, it essentially means that we can never truly know the nature of a thing (or subject) unless we are freed from bodily senses.
Aristotle didn’t agree with Plato entirely. He refined Plato’s philosophy to included empirical deduction and his book on Metaphysics is essentially the primmer to all scientific quarry.
In short, yes, the universe is rational. As Aristotle would have explained, man is a “rational soul,” and our end goal is the attainment of knowledge. Without getting into a long discussion on God in general, Aristotle saw that rationality was derived from God’s being. Admittedly, this is unpopular on this sort of forum, but personally I think it deserves more attention that what it’s given (the source of rationality that is).
... Fun stuff. ^_^
Call me Josh, it's fine.
