Abstract: Currently, the majority of political leaders and practical executives claim rationality as a universal, generally accepted language of communication between the subjects involved into the political process. Political rationality underlies the formation of the diverse cognitive constructs that reveal the nature of development of the political realm. The basic categories and concepts of the originally emerged classical ideology of liberalism have been grounded on the principles of rationalism. The article examines the precise rational principles that formed the ideology of early liberalism. Analysis of the problem of rational in the indicated ideology is conducted on the basis of the historical-genetic approach, in combination with the principle of contextualization. This allows viewing the establishment of ideological trend under the influence of sociopolitical, cultural and intellectual context of the covered timeframe. The scientific novelty lies in determination and analysis of the problem of rational in classical political ideology of liberalism. The achieved results will be helpful; in further research of the transformation of rational principles, as well as analysis of the modern political realm regarding the possibility of application of classical liberal ideological concepts and categories.

Abstract: Could conservative ideology be considered rational since for many researchers the question of the rational in the philosophy of the first conservative Edmund Burke does not arise in principle due to the fact that the thinker is perceived as a traditionalist? How do Burke's ideas correlate with the rationality of the classical Enlightenment type? Could the first conservative really be a non-rationalist, if he lived and worked in a time when the mind was actually the only constant in social and political thought? In this article the author considers all the above questions and provides his own interpretation. He applied the historical and value-normative research methods when working on the article. The author used a comparative analysis of emerging conservatism and liberal ideology to clarify and define the conservative ideas. The main conclusion of the article lies in evidence of rationality of classical conservatism. The author claims that rationality of Edmund Burke is based on a different type of perception of political reality. The article explores the concepts of reason and tradition, experiment and experience. Burke was the first to prove the possibility of coexistence of tradition and reason in the same political field defending the principles of heredity, continuity, and traditionalism.