Irrationalism

TABLE OF CONTENTS:
1: Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………………….. 2
2: What is Irrationalism?............................................................................. 2
3: Origins of Irrationalism……………………………………………………………………………. 2
3.1: The Limits of Rationalism……………………………………………………………………… 2
3.2: The Religious Issue……………………………………………………………………………….. 3
4: Historical Synopsis…………………………………………………………………………………… 3
4.1: Ancient Greek Era………………………………………………………………………………… 4
4.2: Medieval Mysticism…………………………………………………………………………….. 4
4.3: Modern Era…………………………………………………………………………………………. 5
4.4: The Historical Culmination of Irrationalism………………………………………….. 5
4.5: The Twentieth Century………………………………………………………………………… 6
5: Critical Evaluation…………………………………………………………………………………… 7
5.1: Irrational vs. non-rational……………………………………………………………………. 7
6: Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………………... 8
7: References……………………………………………………………………………………………… 9

1.0: INTRODUCTION: The term irrationalism, which depicts a 19th and early 20th century philosophical movement, is a trend that claims to enrich or broaden human apprehension of life beyond the horizon of reason. This movement, as shall be demonstrated in this work, arose as a sort of reaction against the traditional over bloating of the capacities of human reason. Thus, it sought to incorporate other aspects of human life such emotions, will, passion and even faith. Accordingly, such movements like voluntarism, mysticism or religion, romanticism et al, find their place within this trend. But it must be noted at once that this movement does not seek to negate or refute the capacities of human reason. Instead it seeks to postulate that with rationality alone, human beings cannot explore certain areas of life which are in themselves unavoidable experiential data of human life. It is to delineate elaborately on the tenets of this trend that this work is poised to do. To achieve this, we have opted to render this exposition

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