rationalia

English

Etymology

From Latin ratiōnālia, plural of ratiōnāle.

Noun

rationalia

1. plural of rationale
   • 1760, An Essay on the Medicinal Nature of Hemlock:

      […]; and afterwards, by exhibiting all the curious and leading proceſſes, with particular obſervations on each, explaining the rationalia of the proceedings, and pointing out the application of them to practice in medicine, metallurgy, and other arts, and to the improvement of natural knowledge in general; […]

   • 1808, The Monthly Review, or Literary Journal, page 264:

     Not a single reason is given in the work for the propriety of any one construction: nor are any observations inserted that might point out the advantages or disadvantages of the component parts of the methods delivered in it or that are calculated to lead young minds to study the rationalia of the profession.

   • 1841, The American Journal of Science and Arts, volume XLI, New Haven: Hamlen, B. L., page 210:

     This work, “written in the hope of providing the intelligent gardener, and the scientific amateur, correctly, with the rationalia of the more important operations of horticulture,” has supplied a very important desideratum, and is deemed indispensable to every gardener and amateur cultivator in Great Britain.

   • 1852, A Guide to the Orchard and Fruit Garden; Or an Account of the Most Valuable Fruits Cultivated in Great Britain, New York: Saxton, C. M., page 338:

     This is but a brief outline of what the principles are upon which the common operations of the Fruit Garden depend; yet it is hoped that it may not be without its use in calling attention to the rationalia of what may seem extremely simple and well-understood practices, but which are undoubtedly neither so perfect, nor generally so skilfully performed, as to be incapable of amendment.

   • 1852, C. E. Potter, editor, The Farmer's Monthly Visitor, volume XII, page 148:

     The rationalia of the great advantage of manuring by the green crop, is that such turning or plowing in of crops of green clover, buckwheat, oats, &c., returns to the soil in proper proportions, the food that nourishes and produces such vegetables.

   • 1871, The London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science, volume XLII, pages 69–70:

     “ […] The public mind is, as a rule, not sufficiently acquainted with the rationalia involved to be capable of self-protection, or to be able to distinguish, as scientific men generally do, what has been definitely discovered from what has in the absence of discovery been plausibly suggested.”

   • 1871, J. A. S. Rollwyn, Astronomy Simplified for General Reading, page 291:

     Such, then, are some of the more prominent features and rationalia of that creation within a creation—that small solar system system within the great star systems and magnificent nebulæ of which this petty atom of a world of ours forms, however philosophy may argue it otherwise, to us, unquestionably, the more important part—the arena of our action—the sphere of our duty and responsibility—the opportunity of our irrevocable moral decision, and its infinite and eternal consequences.

   • 1875, Congressional Record: Containing the Proceedings and Debates of the Forty-Third Congress, Second Session, volume III, page 897:

     He gave to them in his Manual the rationalia of their existence.

   • 1877, Judd, Homer, Eames, W. H., editors, The Missouri Dental Journal, a Monthly Record of the Science, volume IX, Saint Louis: Geo. O. Rumbold & Co., page 220:

     If chloroform causes a enemia of the brain, we can see the rationalia of putting the head downward and feet up, the same as in fainting.

   • 1923, The Open Court, volume 37, page 416:

      […]; but there were the revival of original moral codes, the revaluation of the humanities in a new aesthetic interpretation, the non-human departure in logistics, not to mention the occasional diverting squabbles over archeological finds, spiritism, ethical culture, revised economic distribution, and the rationalia of various vitalisms which indirectly affected the final outcome.

   • 1973, The Pacific Reporter, page 830:

     These traditional rationalia seem to me insufficient to support the no-waiver result.

   • 1974, The Yale Law Journal, volume 83, page 402:

     None of the rationalia used by these courts in their holdings is particularly compelling.

   • 1983, The Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly, volume 34, page 130:

     If, as the Law Commission has it,³⁰ the rationalia of the defence of duress are that it is unjust as retribution and useless as a deterrent to punish someone who acts under duress (because actors under duress cease to exercise the freewill which is predicated by the criminal law, and are therefore not an appropriate subject for blame in the same way that a relatively morally autonomous individual might be, and neither can their conduct be expected to be capable of alteration by deterrence as otherwise it might be), the question is whether the defence can be limited so as not to extend to the person who believes without reasonable grounds in the existence of a state of affairs which would ground a defence of duress?

   • 1993, Stanley A. Schiff, Evidence in the Litigation Process, →ISBN, page 953:

     In light of the history and rationalia of the doctrine, is the court right?

   • 2000, Peter Birks, English Private Law, volume II, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 521:

     As we have seen, the rationalia of vicarious liability are slippery. If one once accepts its practical necessity in the modern world, that same necessity cannot easily be confined within the elusive technicalities of the ‘master-servant’ relationship.

   • 2013, Niklas Lavesson, Peter Linde, Panayiota Polydoratou, editors, Mining the Digital Information Networks: Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Electronic Publishing, IOS Press, →ISBN, page 4:

     For space reasons, in this article we had to leave out a number of items, notably the rationalia for hypertextualization and renoding, the description of the method of spreading activation, and the description and results of a large number of experimental configurations pertaining to random users and alternative document strutures.^[sic]

Latin

Adjective

ratiōnālia

1. nominative/accusative/vocative neuter plural of ratiōnālis