ANSWER 1:

No, both are different theories therefore the purpose and meaning of life proposed by rationalist
is not same as existentialist, The main reason to deny this is that theory of Existentialism is
against the traditional philosophies’ concepts which include ‘Rationalism’, ‘Empiricism’ and
‘Positivism’. According to Existentialist humans are not recognized by nature, they are
recognized by their acts. Humans are free to do anything and are are not made for any purpose.
They say there is no power or control over us, we are responsible for everything we do, and there
is no fate whereas Rationalism says that people are primarily rational and derive meaning from
reason, everything has a reason therefore the purpose and meaning of life of both theories is not
same.
EXISTENTIALIST
Existentialist is a person who support the theory of Existentialism. Existentialist is a
philosophical view about human nature given by French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. He gives
his idea that human is freely born, there is no God ruling over human. According to him, human
is responsible for whatever he built in his life. Human is recognized by his acts not by his nature.
So, it is not necessary to follow any rule or follow a religion, you are free you can make your
own rule or purpose, it depends on us what kind of human we choose to be.
RATIONALIST:
Rationalist argue that reality is actually rational is nature and that making the proper deductions
is essential in achieving knowledge. Rationalist use logics as the chief principle in knowledge.
According to them, reasons are justification for our moral and beliefs and mathematics is
paradigm of knowledge. They urge that some, though not all, knowledge arise through direct
apprehension by intellect.
ARGUMENTS
1. Rationalist thinkers believe that knowledge, or our understanding of truth, is acquired
without sense perception.
2. Existentialism considers that human beings cannot be assessed by the study of
Psychology or other sciences.
3. According to rationalists, reality itself has an inherently logical structure.
4. Existentialism leads to the outer world which relates the different types of feelings that is
Love, anger, hate and others.

Scientific challenge to meaning and purpose of life are coincided with that of rationalist:
Yes, scientific challenges to the meaning and purpose of life are coincided, because scientific
challenges talk about rationality, about morality, and about religious belief. Rationalism is also
known as scientific rationalist and scientist think rationally for experimenting something and to
know about the logic behind it. Science is rational to the extent that the beliefs that it
accumulates are true, and scientific reasoning is rational to the extent that it tends to produce true
beliefs.
The new science was taken to be the best, if not the only way, to discover the true nature of the
world, most significantly expressed in laws of nature in mathematical form. Perhaps some claims
of the newness of modern science and of its overwhelming superiority to scholasticism are
simply overstated rhetoric. Since the distinctive trait of modern science is taken to be its
combination of experiment and the application of reason, especially mathematics, to the study of
nature. Both science and rationalist use logic in every knowledge. The rationalist claims that
some part of scientific knowledge about the physical world is a priori – known through reason or
intellectual intuition.