FOUNDATIONS: Reason & Imperialism, Part 1

In Season 2 - our FOUNDATIONS series - we’ll examine European philosophers from the 17th through the 19th centuries, to see how their views have shaped and defined our own… whether we realize it or not.

Today we come to the crux of our conversation on European reason, European rational chauvinism, and their profound effect on how the world thinks.

We’ll trace the process of European rational chauvinism – the sense inherent to the European form of rationality that it has a unique claim on and capacity to seek the truth – as it combines with numerous other “chauvinisms” in the European worldview – religion, commerce, “way of life”, etc. – and is then fed into the historical institution of Imperialism, which causes that overall worldview to be spread forcibly across the globe.

Through this centuries-long and brutal process, we descibe the European worldview, including its distinct form of rationality, as having "spread like a noxious weed". As a consequence of this, most of the people of the world now use their minds and their capacity for reason in basically similar ways.