EXCERPT The word ‘neorationalism’ is not one I coined, but it has consistently been used to describe the work of Ray Brassier, Reza Negarestani, and myself, along with numerous fellow travellers. It’s not something we’ve ever defined as such, precisely because it’s not a moniker we ever consciously picked. However, today I’m reminded of the implicit commitment that might be taken to distinguish neorationalism from its opponents, if it can be said to be anything like a consistent philosophical programme. It’s this: To reject all rational intuition in the name of reason, to insist that not only is there no intuitive faculty of rational knowledge, there is no intuitive purchase on reason’s own structure, possibilities, and limits. Reason is not what you think it is. Reason is not rationalisation. Reason is not reasonable. What distinguishes neorationalists isn’t just this principled commitment, but our practical response to it. Our main departure from the classical rationalism of Descartes, Leibniz, and Spinoza is a fidelity to the computational turn that began in the early twentieth century, and whose consequences we are still working out; consequences which land blow after blow on our intuitive conception of what thinking is, breaking our ways of rationalising what we are, and shattering our illusions regarding what it’s reasonable to believe.…