rationalist

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

“For us to conclude that a law of 160 years’ vintage, with this kind of empirical pedigree, has all along been both unnecessary and improper, would border on rationalist conceit.”

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 27, 2026

Jessica Taylor, an artificial intelligence researcher who says she knew several of the group members, told the Associated Press that Lasota and the Zizians stretched their rationalist beliefs to justify breaking laws.

From BBC • Feb. 20, 2025

Intriguingly, a few informal but large surveys from the rationalist community suggest that both complete monogamy and complete polyamory tend to be more satisfying than the “monogamish” middle ground.

From Slate • May 5, 2024

The same contradictions that marked his father’s life went even deeper in Mr. Nashenas’s own: a secular man in a profoundly religious family; a rationalist in a society trapped in tribal ways.

From New York Times • Nov. 9, 2023

There is a puzzle here, because the standard alternative to voluntarism is rationalism, and a rationalist would hold that the laws of nature, like the laws of mathematics, exist because they are necessary.

From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton