nonrationalist
- adjective
- /nɒnˈræʃənəlɪst/
- Specialized
- In discussions about morality, a nonrationalist approach emphasizes intuition and emotion as sources of truth rather than reason alone.
Examples
-
The debate about the existence of the supernatural often involves nonrationalist perspectives that challenge purely scientific explanations.
-
Some philosophers argue that certain types of belief systems are inherently nonrationalist, as they do not rely on logical reasoning.
-
None of the five students in the other sections whose direction of change could be determined moved toward the nonrationalist end of the spectrum.
Academic text (2005) -
Among the 12 Section A and Section B students for whom the direction of change could be distinguished, 9 students moved toward the rationalist end of the spectrum, and 3 moved toward the nonrationalist end of the spectrum.
Academic text (2005) -
The choices ranged from highly nonrationalist to highly rationalist (as used here, the term "rationalism" means the rejection of supernatural explanations for natural phenomena).
Academic text (2005) -
It may be possible for even some YE and CL creationist students to distinguish rationalist explanations from nonrationalist ones if they are provided with appropriate support.
Academic text (2005) -
Connection to prior creationist learning included an assignment to write a reflection paper on nonrationalist explanations for the local natural landscape; the assignment explicitly asked students to ignore rationalist or scientific explanations.
Academic text (2005) -
Such a decision, based on a situational explanation of the other's unwanted behavior, tends to be rare and contradict the central tenets of attribution theory (a nonrationalist perspective).
Academic text (2003)
Synonyms
1
8.6
Not based on clear thinking but on feelings or instinct
Against using reason or logic to explain things
Antonyms
How Rationalist
- Formal
4
7.5
- Specialized
Surface Forms
Morphology
nonrationalist = rationalist (transparent) = non + rational + ist
Formed by the productive negating prefix 'non-' attached to 'rationalist'; meaning is a direct negation and is easily inferable.
Etymology
Nonrationalist breaks into non- meaning 'not' and rational meaning 'based on reason', like the word reason. So it describes an approach that does not rely mainly on logical thinking.