From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Sun Jun 09 2002 - 13:09:34 MDT
Samantha writes
> [Lee wrote]
> > Well, just specifically what does the term (as customarily used)
> > leave out? I really want to know...>
>
> What I worry about is the ways I have seen "rational" used to
> bludgeon certain types of opinions, certain topics, ways of
> speaking and sharing.
I completely agree. Unless supporting argument, *rationale*,
evidence, "saying what you mean in other words", denouncing
something as "not rational" or "illogical" is nearly meaningless.
I actually think that the burden of proof rests with those that
would accuse you of being "irrational" or whatever. We all,
(I think) want to make sense.
> I have seen "rational" used to disown emotion, to
> "spockify" discussion and exploration, to disown all
> that cannot be scientifically validated and to cast
> discussions with deep real-life implications and aspects
> into an over-intellectualized parody that misses the
> life within what is talked about all too easily.
Ah, here it gets interesting. In a nutshell, I believe
that no kind of productive thought can take place without
input from the emotions (at least in human beings). Damiaso
in his books "Descartes' Error" and "The Feeling of What
Happens" has managed to exhibit research that also supports
what I am saying.
Yet the integrated human mind, or so it seems to me, should
be able to utilize its emotional input to render discussion
on forums like this with very little emotion explicitly
showing. Do you agree?
Let me continue: we properly look down on SHOUTING, ad
hominem attacks, and personal aspersions. We also think
poorly of arguments from authority (e.g., *I* am a mathe-
matician, or "I am more knowledgeable than you", or "you
aren't as old as I, or you have less experience than I,
or you are only an amateur, etc., so therefore listen
up!"). We also are unimpressed (or should be unimpressed)
by mere anecdotal evidence: anecdotes are wonderful stories
to supplement conjectures or criticisms, but they never can
stand *for* conjectures and rational criticism.
Now, by "rational discourse" I think that a lot of people mean
what I was just talking about; or, rather, the opposite of
the examples I gave. Rational discourse tends to display few
emotions explicitly, proceeds calmly but skeptically, remains
open to challenges, never argues from authority. Do you think
that it's a good ideal (never to be met with completely in
practice, of course) to strive for rational discourse of this
kind? What useful ways of communicating do you think that
I've left out?
Thanks,
Lee
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