Q&A: On How Religious Currents Relate to Ideas
On How Religious Currents Relate to Ideas
Question
Hello Rabbi, my name is John Doe. I'm currently a soldier, and I'd appreciate it. I'm reading "Truth and Unstable" and a few questions came up for me
1) What is the rationalist approach to emotions? Do they exist? And if so, are they appropriate to use, or alternatively should they be repressed and suppressed in order to allow reason to operate on its own?
2) The same question with respect to empiricism and positivism
Answer
I don’t think questions like what one school’s attitude is toward another really get us anywhere. In general, it’s not worthwhile to speak in terms of camps and sweeping generalizations, but rather to discuss the issues themselves on their own merits.
Emotions obviously exist. Who disputes that? There may be disagreements about whether they occur within a “soul” or something other than matter, or whether they are properties that emerge from the material whole (I discussed this in my book The Science of Freedom).
There is no point at all in repressing them, if only because they are simply there. Repression is ignoring reality. It is reason that makes decisions, and it should take them into account as a factor in the decisions it makes. Of course, one must make sure that reason is what makes the decision, but by the same token it should also take emotions into consideration.
See a bit about this in my latest column on the site.
That’s what seems right to me, and as I said, I don’t really care what this or that person thinks about it, and certainly not what this or that school or movement thinks.