I entered into the research with a few misconceptions, such as that rational comes from ration, which I liked to dividing or dissecting, and that reasonable is wholly different from rational. These misconceptions were quickly replaced with information that explains (for me, anyway) much of the evolution of Western thought in ways that parallel and support my empathy writing. I find it interesting that the meanings of words are so closely connected to the thoughts that use the meanings to construct statements.
I used the Wiktionary, another subset of the Wikipedia (if you except pragmatic view) to develop meta data. Very big wikis make this knowledge construction exceptionally easy, so one can absorb huge masses of information quickly to create explanations for the World's phenomena. I also put the writing into the Wictionary page for "rational" because I concluded that rational needs to be shown as "calculating thought." Its opposite, "sensible thought," needs to be termed in such a way that it shows its more empathic nature. I say opposite rather than antonym, but what I really mean is "flip side of the coin" that describes human thought in an evolutionary context.
Below is my contribution to the "rational" page. I show the etymological progression as it is found in the Wiktionary, followed by my suggested version that includes the word calculate.
FromOld Frenchrationel,rational<Latinrationalis("of or belonging to reason, rational, reasonable")<ratio("reason")
The term historically initiates with the Latin "ratio," where "rat-" means thought. Theratioarticle here also shows "calculation" as a translation for the Latin noun, and hence the line should read:
FromOld Frenchrationel,rational<Latinrationalis("of or belonging to reason, rational, reasonable")<ratio("reason or calculation")
From common use, the English word "ration" would, on the surface, to appear to be derived from math; a ration as a portion, or ratio, of an under-supplied resource such as food or gasoline. English "ration" derives from from the French word of the same spelling, which, in turn, derives from the accusative singular of Latin rati... , which brings us back to "calculation." The English "reason," which is usually associated with rationality, likewise comes to us from the French: "raison." This French word, in turn, comes to us from the Latin "rationem," again an accusative of the Latin "rati... ."
There is an interesting nuance about the Roman use of the word that implies that Roman thought was calculating, what I would think of as Machiavellian. And Roman history would support this! But we know healthy thought to be a mixture of different kinds of thought components including emotion, imagination, analysis, and conceptual construction. And we know that the facilities that support this various kinds of thought components come to us through evolution, so we know that they existed before Roman times! I wonder if there is another Latin term for thought that is more emotional or creative, or if Romans simply did not think in these "modern" ways. If so, I wonder how the use this term in modern language has influenced modern schools of thought such as we find in the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment. My gut sense is that there were Roman terms for the different components of thought, and that rati... actually refers only to calculating thought. I am looking hard for examples to support this above hypothesis.
After I did some research, I added this second entry showing the evolution of the term "sense" in comparison to "rational," and how "sense" describes a natural component of evolution. I also attempt to show how the term "rational" kind of takes over much of he mean of "sense" and deprecates it by making it myopic, removing from it the ideas of openness and seeking.
I looked further, and found my gut sense to be correct. My first guess from common language that compares rational and reasonable brought me to the same Latin rati... , which leans towards the calculating and mathematical. But saying that Romans thought purely mathematically would be biased as that would make them like no others, so I took another synonym of reasonable: sensible. This brought me to the other components of thought that I mentioned above.
The path to wiktionary references went thus:sensible> Latinsentireorsentio> Lithuaniansint-ti>Proto-Indo-European*sent- ("to head for, go")
Rome did not have a native word to describe this "flip side" of thought, so presumably Romans used Northern European-based words.Definitions from wide-spread languages group closely giving an impression of seeking, which implies travel and absorbtion, in contrast to calculating, which is stationary and introverted:
- to head for
- to go
- to think
- to desire
- path
- way
Spanishsensibleis actually referred to as afalse friendtoreasonable, further widening the gap.
It would likewise be biased to say that unrelated cultures don't have these language components. Zen gives us a clue with the idea of "thinking with no mind," in other words, without preconception almost like RADAR. The impression I got of this Zen approach (usually to violence) is that calculation happens in a Samurai's mind as information is "acquired," giving a machine-like response, but the incoming information is really sensed, and hence "felt" further supporting the above progression. The Samurai's response is hence empathic rather than calculating, as described by "no-sword technique" in theLife-giving Sword.
This example of well-developed "sense" comes of course from the easternmost island nation, Japan. Interestingly, the terms path and way, concepts associated with Buddhism, come from the westernmost island of Ireland.
Other relevant pages I went to:etymonline, writing about reason and faith (last entry raises relevant questions),Tocharian(root language for sensible)
This writing resulted, ultimately, from a conflict. I don't mention the whole situation in the introduction, but perhaps I need to tell you that I know the "rationalist," as I think of him, from the Wikiversity, which is a subset of the Wikipedia. His interactions with others are purely negative, and he erases others' good writing; he is predatory. He is not alone; he is a type of person that is not unique--especially on the Wikipedia and the Internet in general. He is not critical; he is destructive.
His rationalization of his absurd statement prompted me to look further in the nature of rationalization, a short journey that brought me to the evolution of the meanings of classical words. I picked up one of my books describing the classical ages, IF Stone's The Trial of Socrates, and found a succinct description the mess of rationalizations and contradictions that formed the basis for structuring Western society. Interstingly I recognized modern Libertarianism in Stone's description of Plato's and Socrate's circle of philosophers, and quickly understood the Athenian's anger who would promote totalitarianism as a freedom. Obviously the powerful Romans owed their successes to the Greek structure they copied, and even more interesting, the Holy Roman Inquisition was architected by one of this circle.
The Wikipeidia, and the Wikiversity with it, is dominated by Liberarians who have a vast toolkit to maintain dominance has been adapted to the Web. The structure and symbolism of the Wikipedia is strongly influenced by these philosophers, though I believe that the strongest influence is Capital, which is purely Roman.
From any perspective, however, we see in the Interent, our newest component of the Information Society plagued with the disorder that ancient empires experienced as they attempted to organized their capital structures. Ironically this is presented to us in the form of radicalization as if the strategy of using freedom and free speech to implement control specifically to take away freedom is something new.
When I realized that I could see the roots of contemporary conflict, however trivial, in the Imperial societies as actual identifiable forms of mental illness that can be shown to be neurologically based, I realized that my last few years of research can conclude. Rational thought, as a a subset of general thought, which is described in terms of sense, at a certain point replaced general thought, perhaps what can be described as common sense. And the people who replaced common sense with rational thought, clearly cannot think clearly.
Certainly math is necessary as a component of thought, but the idea that calculation can actually replace sensibility is the result of a mass of thinking disorders.
Where this brings us with respect to the mass of capital structure that has grown from the Greek "polis" is a very good question, but I think that with the development of new ideas based on empathic concepts, such as Constructivism, we can guide ourselves away from the crash-course with destruction that we were put on so long ago. But we have to be realistic; sympathy with these specific types of mentally illness should not include fulfulling obsessive needs for control and consumption, despite what the Greek philosophers, or other Imperialist debators, may have said about freedom.
It is biased to think that only these philosophers spun these control structures; all societies react in similar ways to similar situations. Very likely we see the same "debate" in the Eastern empires.
Using this knowledge to attempt to resolve issues in the Wikiversity, and also to help conclude my recent writing I will create a wiki: Reason Vs Sense
