Responding to Andrew Campbell in LO28461 --
>What we moderns think thought means seems to be weighted heavily in the
>direction of "reason". If something isn't "reasonable" or "rational", it is
>incorrect.
>Yet, sages, Masters, and mages, not to mention ravens, have a pretty awesome
>hit record in the "thought" area without being either "reasonable" or
>"rational" - or maybe not, for perhaps these creatures do not think at all in
>any way we'd recognise.
I think this is related to if not part of Polanyi's notion of tacit
knowledge. That which we know but cannot articulate would seem to me to
inform our actions no less reasonably or rationally than that which we
know and can articulate. The main difference seems to be that if we
cannot articulate that aspect of our actions, we cannot make a reasoned or
rational case to others. And so, some of us at least, fall back to a
defense based on intuition or hunch or gut feel or some other label for
those aspects of our thinking that inform our actions yet we are unable to
articulate, explain and defend.
The rest of Andrew's post on this subject will take considerable reading,
re-reading and digesting before I'll respond to it.
Fred Nickols
740.397.2363
nickols@safe-t.net
"Assistance at A Distance"
http://home.att.net/~nickols/articles.htm
--Fred Nickols <nickols@safe-t.net>
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