Rationalism is either of two related, but distinct, philosophies.
Rationalism, a movement which asserts that reason and evidence should be held superior to religious teachings. This can also be extended to assert a general superiority of reason, for example over emotion.
In colloquial English the term rationalism usually refers to the first definition, whereas continental rationalism is relatively unknown by non-philosophers.
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Since the Enlightenment, rationalism is usually associated with the introduction of mathematical methods into philosophy, as in Descartes, Leibniz, and Spinoza (Bourke, 263).
This is commonly called continental rationalism, because it was predominant in the continental schools of Europe, whereas in Britain empiricism dominated.
Rationalism is often contrasted with this view known as empiricism.
In the philosophy of arguments, reason is the ability of the human mind to form and operate on concepts in abstraction, in varied accordance with rationality and logic —terms with which reason shares heritage.
The concept of reason is connected to the concept of language, as reflected in the meanings of the Greek word "logos", later to be translated by Latin "ratio" and then French "raison", from which the English word derived.
As reason, rationality, and logic are all associated with the ability of the human mind to predict effects as based upon presumed causes, the word "reason" also denotes a ground or basis for a particular argument, and hence is used synonymously with the word "cause."
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