What Rationalistic Autonomy Does Not Mean

That avoiding assumptions and aligning with reason inherently involves some autonomy does not mean that every rationalist solely discovers or revisits each logical truth they know by just reflecting on reason, having never had any social or other sensory experiences that somehow brought a given thing to their mind.  Some truths or even hypothetical concepts would very likely never be thought of short of omniscience if it was not for experiential prompting; examples include things like the logical possibility of gravitational attraction acting on matter (the potential for visual experiences to be illusions stops someone from knowing if experiences with gravity correspond to actual external environments and objects, hence why I focus on conceptual possibility here instead).  Many other truths, more foundational than any scientific experience or psychological perception, are strictly logical, and these can be discovered, revisited, and perfectly understood by recognizing the self-verifying logical axioms that cannot not be true and then realizing what follows from them, some of which specifically relates to human life and some of which pertains to the laws of logic themselves and yet has ramifications for everything else that exists.  Nothing more is necessary to prompt recognition of these things (though some of the most abstract or specific ramifications might be overlooked even by rational people because of their precision).

It is still the case that even some rationalists, new and old, might need or enjoy having societal and other experiential prompting to think of even strictly logical truths, the ones that must already be true for anything else to be and thus can be epistemologically discovered without anyone else bringing them up or some sensory experience suddenly prompting thought about them.  Some people might just need more promoting, and there is not anything wrong with this.  Rationalistic autonomy does not in all of its forms mean that this cannot be present in any way.  It is better for someone to know the truth after some experience prompted them to look to reason directly instead of them never discovering it or focusing on it at all, after all!  Besides, no one is irrational simply for struggling to easily or naturally adapt to rationalism and grasp the legion of logical truths that lie at the foundation of all things, both governing revealing every truth and revealing each one that can be known.  What is true in spite of this is that there must still be some autonomous revisiting of certain truths even if one's discovery of them was brought to mind by some other experience, such as by a conversation, for it is irrational to believe in something unless it is logically self-evident or it logically follows from some absolutely certain truth.

In fact, the people who still try to discover or revisit logical truths despite their depth and more overtly abstract nature (they are grasped by the mind, but they are not true because of mental perception, as they are necessary truths) despite the personal difficulty involved cannot possibly be irrational.  They are looking to reason instead of to anything else, even if other things have to push them to realize certain logical truths for the first time.  While some might not be bothered by this if they naturally rely more on prompting, even though all people can grasp at least logical axioms directly and reason out at least some other necessary truths from them completely unaided by anyone else or anything else but reason, other people might be insecure about this or feel as if they are not rational.  Their feelings might remain no matter if they know these facts or are encouraged through them by fellow rationalists, but as long as they do not believe anything on the basis of assumptions, including believing in a genuine necessary truth just because a rational person said it is true, they have still exercised some degree of autonomy in recognizing philosophical truths.

Rationalistic autonomy in no way excludes revisiting things someone else mentioned, though even this can be done as if one has never heard or remembered the issue in question by just focusing on the logical truth to the exclusion of any past experiential prompting.  Because they can know reason is accessible independent of all experience other than the mental experience necessary for one to grasp the necessary truths of logic, even the most insecure rationalists or people initially coming to the light of reason who want some guidance to then consultant reason about can always partake in the autonomy of rationalistic awareness--and still find empowerment and stability in this.  It is always ideal and potentially far faster to just look to reason without looking to conversations and other sensory experiences at all when one can do so (it is possible for anyone to do this, but more difficult for some either because of social conditioning or personal desire for prompting, so here I only mean when they can more easily do so), and yet there is always another form of autonomy that everyone can exercise.  Either way, genuine rationalists have no need to think themselves irrational if they sometimes or generally struggle with prompting, for they are not irrational for this alone!