No Comment 003

"What I shall call 'true rationalism' is the rationalism of Socrates. It is the awareness of one's limitations, the intellectual modesty of those who know how often they err, and how much they depend on others even for this knowledge.

It is the realisation that we must not expect too much from reason: that argument rarely settles a question, although it is the only means for learning - not to see clearly, but to see more clearly than before.

Rationalism is therefore bound up with the idea that the other fellow has a right to be heard, and to defend his arguments. It thus implies the recognition of the claim to tolerance, at least of those who are not intolerance themselves. 

One does not kill a man when one adopts the attitude of first listening to his arguments."

-Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies