I wish to follow and inspire in others a desire or value in or for epistemology, axiology, and rationality. I want to strive for a corresponding and coherent value assessment along with a epistemological rationally, rational epistemology, as well as an accurate or at least a methodological rationally connecting to a epistemic value of the epistemology state of things or ideas.
What is it to be Rational?
To be “rational” is generally considered to mean employing logical consistency and deriving appropriate conclusions from acceptable assumptions.
Epistemic value is a kind of value which attaches to cognitive successes such as true beliefs, justified beliefs, knowledge, and understanding. These kinds of cognitive success do of course often have practical value. True beliefs about local geography help us get to work on time; knowledge of mechanics allows us to build vehicles; understanding of general annual weather patterns helps us to plant our fields at the right time of year to ensure a good harvest.
By contrast, false beliefs about the existence of weapons of mass destruction can lead nations to fight hugely expensive wars that are ultimately both destructive and useless. It is fairly uncontroversial that we tend to care about having various cognitive or epistemic goods, at least for their practical value, and perhaps also for their own sakes as cognitive successes.Ref
There is not just one type of rationalism or use of rationally.
Epistemic rationality: believing, and updating on evidence, so as to systematically improve the correspondence between your map and the territory. The art of obtaining beliefs that correspond to reality as closely as possible. This correspondence is commonly termed “truth” or “accuracy”, and we’re happy to call it that.
Instrumental rationality: achieving your values. Not necessarily “your values” in the sense of being selfish values or unshared values: “your values” means anything you care about. The art of choosing actions that steer the future toward outcomes ranked higher in your preferences. On LW we sometimes refer to this as “winning”. Ref