A common sense

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Is the above saying common sense?
To me, it is the truth as in natural laws.
Common sense is about human understanding, and natural laws entail truths.

My thoughts about the “Limitation of Human Understanding” continued thanks to Frum’s Ideas article in the Atlantic on July 5, 2019, Trump’s Recessional. (https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/trumps-july-fourth-speech-had-no-purpose/593401/)

Yesterday, I wrote about the three types of knowledge upon reading Frum’s article, i) knowledge and experience, ii) human understanding, and iii) languages and thoughts. (https://he98anything.wordpress.com/2021/01/) It is all-natural to follow up with some elaborations today.

If an idea is meaningful, it provokes thoughts from different perspectives. In his July 5, 2019 article, Frum’s idea did just that: it stimulated me to think about a function within the American Presidency. The quote below jumps to my mind as a consequence.

“The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.” Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, 1863.

It is an example of words that give us a shared understanding and let us remember the historical moment of our proud 16th POTUS, President Lincoln, during the great civil war.

Not to promote his way of introducing President Trump’s 4th of July speech, let me quote Frum directly: “Yet it’s a strange thing about words. Talk long enough, and sooner or later you will say something.”

Frum did bring my attention to the speech and my pondering.

Many actions are without words, and some actions are words if those words can be meaningful. Words can create images with meanings that provoke understanding in each personal experience. Images are better to bridge personal differences in understanding with regard to the goals of communication.

Let me introduce Immanuel Kant’s idea:
“Thoughts without contents are empty; intuitions without concepts are blind.” –Critique of Pure Reason, 1787.

No doubt that Kant has revealed the truth about human understanding! To me, the word, “contents” meant actionable ideas in words.

In conclusion, with my follow-up thoughts: wisdom entails human understanding. Wisdom is passed on generation by generation with words, even if words might not be actionable to all.