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  1. Nov 2021
    1. it was assumed that rational thought was value free it was just you know about what was true in the world and so 00:26:06 on and it's not because you're concerned with empathy and morality when you're thinking and and with emotion rational thought is really value-based 00:26:19 now whoa let's go back one there's a further view Descartes assumed that all rationality was the same for everybody that it was universal that what made us 00:26:34 human beings was being rational and logical and that therefore everybody had the same mode of reasoning now if that's true then all you have to do let's say 00:26:47 in politics is tell something somebody to facts and everybody will reason to the same conclusion right sure not true that is if enlightenment reason were 00:27:01 right that would happen it doesn't happen it turns out that it is not the case that all concepts are you are universal and that all of them are 00:27:13 accessible to everybody and then there's another view of you coming out of the postmodern thought that says no concepts are universal they're all arbitrary that's also false many concepts are 00:27:26 universal and many are not a very and it's an empirical question which is which and they vary from language to language and that's important you need to know that it is not the case that 00:27:41 everything with all thought is universal and it's not the case that that's all language particular or particular that is you need to know empirically what part is shared with other people who 00:27:53 speak other languages and come from other cultures and what part is not and that is an important empirical study so the big myth is this but there is some objective rational structure to the 00:28:07 world out there and that human reason can fit it directly and characterize it literally without frames or metaphors and reason about it adequately with formal logic alone that's just false the 00:28:21 world is real that is whatever it is our bodies and brains provide understandings of the world which depend on frames metaphors image schemas prototypes narratives all of those things and it is 00:28:35 that that permits us to create

      Rational thought and emotions are entwined at the deepest level. Also, what Lakoff says about universals is very important as we consider how we unite and depolarize politics. We need to find the common denominators, but this is not such a simple task.