Where Once There Was Reason
Now there is only reasonableness:
"Once committed to the possibilities of Reason, liberalism has long abandoned any hope that Reason could explain ultimate realities, provide an overarching account of meaning, ground first principles, legitimize the law, or gradually weave together the many competing threads in a pluralistic society. Instead, Reason has ceded its claims to reasonableness, Smith claims, or the position that pluralism is inevitable and irresolvable, largely because questions of ultimate meaning are beyond the scope of argument. The various traditions and religions subscribe to their first principles, each of these accounts are largely arbitrary, and thus reasonability requires us to get along without real grounds, without appeals to ultimate justifications, and absent any hopes of overcoming pluralism with argument." -- R.J. Snell
"Once committed to the possibilities of Reason, liberalism has long abandoned any hope that Reason could explain ultimate realities, provide an overarching account of meaning, ground first principles, legitimize the law, or gradually weave together the many competing threads in a pluralistic society. Instead, Reason has ceded its claims to reasonableness, Smith claims, or the position that pluralism is inevitable and irresolvable, largely because questions of ultimate meaning are beyond the scope of argument. The various traditions and religions subscribe to their first principles, each of these accounts are largely arbitrary, and thus reasonability requires us to get along without real grounds, without appeals to ultimate justifications, and absent any hopes of overcoming pluralism with argument." -- R.J. Snell
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