In epistemology and in its modern sense, rationalism is "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification". In more technical terms, it is a method or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive". Different degrees of emphasis on this method or theory lead to a range of rationalist standpoints, from the moderate position "that reason has precedence over other ways of acquiring knowledge" to the more extreme position that reason is "the unique path to knowledge".

Rationalism