The Appeal Of Reading

When I first became a rationalist shortly over five years ago, I regularly read online articles about certain philosophical matters (and I later read several works by historical philosophers).  I did not do this because articles or books influenced my worldview--as rationalism is antithetical to revering academia--or because they were necessary for me to even discover many philosophical concepts in the first place, as neither was the case.  I read because I enjoyed reading about concepts I had in many cases already thought of and investigating how aware of rationalism others are.

The epistemological irrelevance and ultimate futility of books (futility if they are aimed at matters outside of pure rationality, that is) needs to be acknowledged if a society is to be rationalistic [1], but this does not mean books are useless for practical or personal means.  The West's irrational elevation of books over personal contemplation/reasoning and direct empirical observations has enormous cultural consequences for worldview formation, yes; it would nonetheless be irrational to think that just any desire to read books or any motive behind that desire is problematic.

A person can read philosophical articles, books, and other writings simply because they derive pleasure from doing so, without ever being reliant on them in the sense that they would struggle to reason out almost every single logical truth about philosophy on their own.  It is entirely possible for philosophical reading to be merely an exciting or pleasant pastime even for those who neither need nor look to books for their worldview formation, as they look to pure reason and introspection instead.  As long as the true epistemological nature of reading is understood, there is nothing philosophically erroneous about reading out of a subjective desire to do so.  The appeal of reading is not a dangerous thing.  It is not even irrational for certain people to look for sound philosophical help from some books when they truly need it.

Those who read philosophical works must certainly never think of books as a necessary epistemological tool if they wish to be rational--or as a tool that is even capable of introducing a person to any demonstrable truths about metaphysics and epistemology that cannot already be reasoned out with the aid of reason alone.  Nothing about this truth means that it is irrational to enjoy reading about familiar or unfamiliar subjects, nor does it follow that a person who regularly reads about philosophy is not or has not actively, autonomously reasoned out numerous logical facts on their own, without any external pressure or prompting.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/09/philosophy-is-not-about-books.html