It could just be that its one of my pet peeves, and thus I notice it more, but I see it very frequently. In fact I wrote this post because I wanted an easy reference instead of having to repeatedly retype my explanation every time I correct people. Sadly, Google is refusing only return results that include the exact string "rationalism", so I can't give exact numbers.

It may be rare, but it is certainly not only a typo; Eliezer in particular consistently uses the word with a meaning that is not a usual one.

I don't mean only that he doesn't use it with the traditional philosophical meaning that's opposed to "empiricism"; my impression is that usually (outside the writing of professional philosophers) it means something like "belief that reason in a broad sense is the only good way to seek truth". (The broad sense in question would include examination of empirical evidence, which is why this is not the traditional philosophical meaning.)

I'm all for rationalism in that sense, but I don't think that's how Eliezer usually uses the term; he seems to use it to mean something more like "the practice of rationality", and to use "rationalist" to mean "practitioner of rationality". Hence, e.g., the Sequence-post called "Your strength as a rationalist", and HPMOR!Harry's question to Draco along the lines of "Do you really think you're so good a rationalist that I should just trust what you say?", etc.

This is one of those things that frustrates me. There should be a nice concise word for the sorts of materials that are being collected on this site that doesn't require a ton of clarification, doesn't invoke whatever demons have caused 'rationalism' to be associated with anti-feminism in some circles, or suggest an innate contradiction with the useful pieces of empirical practice.

How many times in the past few months have I tried to express to someone, "I've been learning all sorts of interesting things about cognitive defects and undesirable human behavioral phenomena, applications of Bayes theorem, and other collected topics concerning epistemology in an effort to be less crazy, help others be less crazy, and be a more effective human" - or something along those lines? If for no other reason than brevity, I would love to have a word that helps succinctly express that, or something reasonably close to it, such that if you look into the word, you understand that it covers this type of interest.

Incidentally, if anyone can tell me what that "rationalism is anti-woman" thing is about, I'd really love to know. I don't see any particularly compelling reason that 'traditional rationalism' should be associated with anti-feminism (except as expressed by anti-feminists who also happened to subscribe to that philosophy, and even then, I don't know who those people are.)