rationalitas

Forms

ratiōnālitās f (genitive ratiōnālitātis); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Latin ratiōnālis + -tās, from the adjective meaning “of reason, rational”.^[1][2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tertullian, in De anima, lists rationality among the qualities of the soul, beside immortality and free will.^[2][4] He wrote c. 160–220 AD.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The TLL defines it as the condition of a being endowed with reason, and notes that manuscripts often give it wrongly for ratiōnābilitās.^[2] In medieval philosophy it meant the faculty of reasoning: Anselm argues that no man can be conceived without it,^[6] and Thomas Aquinas uses it as a synonym of rationabilitas, the opposite of irrationabilitas.^[7] Roger Bacon also applies it to the rationality of a quantity in mathematics.^[6] English rationality comes partly from it.^[8]

Timeline

• c. 160–220 AD – Tertullian lists it among the qualities of the soul.^[2][5]
• second half of the 11th century–1109 – Anselm of Canterbury uses it for the faculty of reason.^[6][5]
• 1620s – English borrows it, partly through French, as rationality.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. Rationality, reasonableness; the condition of a being endowed with reason.^[4][2][3][9]
2. (Medieval Latin) The faculty of reasoning.^[6][7]
3. (Medieval Latin, mathematics) The rationality of a quantity or ratio.^[6]

Word family

• corrationalitas

Related words

• ratio
• English rationality

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
3. ^ a b Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
4. ^ a b Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b c d e Latham, R. E., D. R. Howlett, R. K. Ashdowne, et al. (1975–2013), Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, London: British Academy / Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Schütz, Ludwig (1895), Thomas-Lexikon, 2nd ed., Paderborn: F. Schöningh
8. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson