> There are plenty of cases of reason misleading, going wrong, perhaps as many or more as reason going right.

Right, but note what you are saying: reason going wrong.

I don't think I even need to add anything there. Your phrasing already reveals that there is "a rightness ... by which it may be judged" in reason that there is not in faith.

> But, in rationalist theory, by positing itself as the means and also the end (we use reason to get closer to reason; we have faith in reason), the term forms the sort of self-sustaining loop that Zizek (or really Lacan) calls a "master signifier", and is also the essence of all theology.

I agree that reason is ultimately circular. I even agree that religion can also be circular. (I disagree strongly that all religion is circular, or that religion is inherently circular, or even that religion inherently hinges on faith.) Nonetheless, I think that where religion is circular it is so in a different way from reason. When we reject the circularity of religion, we do so not because it is inherently wrong to posit a God that justifies everything, but because it is not useful. The very self-supporting structure of the faith, the retreat to an insulated core element, prevents its adherent from doing any cognitive or predictive work with it. Rather, I would argue the circularity of religion is a consequence of reason, a retreat into self-justifying tautology prompted by the failure of religion to compete with reason on its own grounds.

In other words, reason closes on itself in a way that shapes itself to a particular inherent standard ("that seems to be associated in some way with success in interacting with the natural world", my reason throws in, giving yet another reason why it is judged valuable under itself, argumentatively achieving nothing yet undeterred.) However, religious faith does not even have any such constraint.

> bland evolutionary ethical theorizing, like "minimizing suffering"

I don't know why you are talking about suffering. I was not talking about suffering. I have no idea where you are going with that.

Evolved animals don't seek to minimize suffering. They don't even seek to maximize propagation; they're just the result of a process of relentless selection for things that propagate.

> "hard truths" are "hard" because they involve noticing objective aspects of ourselves

I'm sorry, you were previously accusing rationality of putting too much faith in reason - and now we're supposed to just notice objective aspects of ourselves? With what absolute source of truth, exactly, are we supposed to do this?

> The recognition often comes in a flash, with a sense of relief, rather than through some sort of laborious process

Now, I myself am as much of an addict to this sort of sudden endorphin-supported flash of insight as the next nerd. But - though it is an indicator of a simple theory that supports the facts observed, that does not in itself suffice to establish truth, let alone "objective truth"!

I have a new theory: lots of rationalists are programmers because programmers are used to having the sudden flash of insight be wrong.

> "how do I know that true things are true?".

I mean - rationality in particular does not engage in any attempt to establish truth, so I feel this charge somewhat misses its mark. Rather, rationality seeks to improve the quality of one's beliefs by engaging in processes that interact with the presumption of an ordered natural world in order to come to beliefs that are, given that assumption, more likely to be true.

That's rather why it's called "Less Wrong" rather than "Objectively Right".

> but how can you achieve intersubjective agreement in affairs which are only observable to a single subject, such as "my emotions"

I have a rejoinder to this called "you are not a unique and beautiful snowflake" and also emotions are totally observable to others, like, it's usually not even hard. Doesn't even take blood tests or brain autopsy. When some dude beats my face in with a bottle cause I fucked his wife, I do not have a particular hard time parsing his emotional state - or the evolutionary reasons behind it! Emotions are interesting because they have effects, on yourself (the brain is part of the natural world!) but also on others through you. Honestly, the idea that emotions are primarily individual is just so weird to me. They seem one of the most shared aspects of humanity there is.

> It seems better to ask the question of "what do I want that I'm having difficulty achieving? And what factual observations about myself can I make, which demonstrate patterns that prevent me from achieving this?"

From what you're saying, I take it you have observed rationalists failing at this. But I mean, going just by the text and the people I know, this just seems like solid rational thinking. I don't see any contradiction here.