The Sentiment of Rationality

"28. The Action of Consciousness ABOUT A MONTH AFTER he sent off his “Remarks on Spencer’s Definition of Mind as Correspondence,” James sent off, in January 1878, an article called “The Sentiment of Rationality.” He later described it as “the first chapter of a psychological work on the motives which lead men to philosophize,” and he noted ruefully that it might better have been called “The Psychology of Philosophizing.” We may, at this distance, prefer the original title, if only for its fresh and unorthodox, not to say brash, announcement that rationality is at bottom a feeling. Not a matter of logic or math, not reasoning or ratios, not induction, deduction, or syllogism, not something higher than and detached from the senses, not the opposite of a feeling or emotion—rationality is itself a feeling or emotion. He might even have called the essay “The Feeling of Rationality.” He begins by asking how we recognize the rationality of a conception, and he answers, “By certain subjective marks, that is, a strong feeling of ease, peace, rest.” He amplifies, saying, “This feeling of the sufficiency of the present moment, of its absoluteness—the absence of all need to explain it, account for it or justify it—is what I call the Sentiment of Rationality.”1 James simply sidesteps the long history of reason, right reason, pure reason, and practical reason, walking right past the conventional notion that rationality means abiding by set rules of reasoning. James is not really interested in the history of philosophy or the taxonomy of logic; he is interested in how particular minds actually work. His starting point is not Greek or medieval philosophy but modern scientific or experimental knowledge of the functions of the brain and the senses. “All logical processes,” James says in another piece written at this same time, “are today hypothetically explained as brain processes.”2"

"William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism" by Robert D. Richardson: https://a.co/5zjnn6I