A friend posted on the pervasive use of the “I feel” phrase over “I think” or “I know,” then took it a step further.

Start listening: you will hear people say, “Well, I think…” when refering to perfectly immutable facts. I contend that this is a consequence of the rise of Pragmatism over a hundred years ago, and the widely-seeped ideas that conviction is arrogant, and that there is no such thing as truth. It is beyond the pale, now, to state a fact as a fact. That’s “arrogant,” you see…I see – routinely – people referring to facts on the order of the existence of sunshine, beginning with, “I think…”