This will be a running idea. Please post comments to add to the commentary. If it fits the subject material it will be included with citation and time stamp.
The very basis for social exploration, i.e. Philosophy, in its most raw form is developed through the generational expansion or shrinkage of culture. For every great philosopher, and even the not entirely "great" ones, the work they have done is given birth to through trial, degradation or implementation of cultural ethics they hold dear, or even through a momentous victory/defeat of their autonomy, both individually and state-wide.
The point, in the most clear terms possible, is that our lives are only shaped through our own lens.
It has recently occurred to me that what we deem as possible, and what we deem as ideal are so closely related yet fight for the same position within our conscious actions. What I mean to say is that although we can look to great philosophers throughout the world, study them, emulate them, and even agree with them, we are truly only weighing the possible with the ideal. If the ideal becomes possible the rational man and the irrational man will both strive to achieve implementation. If the ideal is beyond possibility it is here where the divergence of the rational man, based in self and communal interest, divides from the irrational man whom is also based in self and communal interest.
The rational man will not toy with the impossible no matter the ideal. The irrational man will not mind to strive for the impossible because the ideal holds more value than the reality of its implementation.
Now it is here that I must justify a few things (which is something that philosophers rarely do as justification may cause a great discrepancy in claims or worse, contradict them). The irrational man may indeed devote a portion (this is key) of his life's work to strive for an impossible ideal where the rational man has decided it is not worth effort. Within the course of the irrational man's life the impossibility may, due to circumstance, become a possibility and thus he may achieve the implementation of the ideal he so strongly holds. However, this does not make the irrational man suddenly rational. His pursuit began before the possibility came to be. It is this line, as fine as can be, that separates the rational from the irrational.
Irrationality is not bad. We often in our Western Culture view those who carry the characteristics of an irrational as somehow unable to grasp reality. This is not the case. The irrational man knows through reason and judgment that he is indeed striving for the impossible.
Additionally, if a man strives for an implementation of a seemingly impossible idea, but believes in his heart it is not an impossibility he is considered a rational man, for his perception is that despite all odds it must be possible. Although this makes him an unreasonable man.
As you can see this is now becoming a tangled web. If a man strives for the implementation of an ideal that is impossible and believes it is, he is simply a rational man with no basis in reality. If he believes it is possible and the general consensus is it must be impossible, but it does become possible that makes a rational visionary.
Ultimately these labels can only be applied after the implementation of an idea is achieved or proven beyond all doubt impossible.
The reason I start this blog with such complex way of defining a person as rational or irrational, visionary or based in fantasy, is that we constantly throughout our lives practice both rationality and irrationality. It is the dynamic of human interaction seen in law, policy, invention, innovation, and even social interaction and art that defines the philosophers of our time, and helps us understand the philosophers of history.
Developing such a basis for philosophical writings will allow the most efficient use of the material, even if that use is purely for the mind to digest and no rational implementation of their ideas can, or may exist.
