"I Feel Like . . ."

The phrase "I feel" could refer to physical sensations or to mental feelings, as in emotions.  Someone might say "I feel like I can't walk" if one of their legs is in extreme pain, while they might alternatively say "I feel like I'm not getting anywhere in my career."  The latter statement is about a psychological status or perception.  Yes, it is not uncommon in my experience for people to say "I feel . . ." and then describe some stance they hold as well.  For instance, a person might say, "I feel like Christianity is true because it is different from other religions."  In this case, the articulated idea is not logically correct anyway (that if Christianity is true, it is because of uniqueness alone).  The speaker might still mean "I think that" by the words "I feel like."

Perhaps in another situation, somebody who uses these words was going to say that they feel a certain way about a given issue, however strongly, but that they nonetheless think something else about the matter rather than giving into emotionalism.  Whether the actual position and reasons for their adherence are rational or not is irrelevant.  It can be assumed that the words "I feel" automatically necessitate an emotionalistic intention, but this does not follow logically, and words mean whatever the speaker means by them anyway.  Often, the people I have heard interject upon hearing the phrase do not even ask for clarification.  They just try to correct someone, perhaps to merely look "intelligent" simply by cutting someone else off.

It is what someone means that dictates whether they are in the right or wrong in what they say, not strictly the literal words, and not necessarily their words at all.  Yet again, I emphasize the fact that there is no such thing as an inherent meaning to a spoken or written word, as sounds and symbols are arbitrarily constructed and assigned to concepts for the purpose of communication between beings that cannot gaze into each other's mind.  There is no word that could not have been widely used in a different manner.  Although logical necessity requires that this is the nature of language independent of history and concrete examples, the very evolution of words and broader languages over time is only possible because of this--many words in English can become used more narrowly or flexibly or be discarded for a new word altogether, albeit one still tied to the same concept.

A truly rational person does not care as much about whether someone says "I feel" in place of "I think" in light of such objective truths.  Indeed, he or she does not care at all about mere wording like this on its own once they realize that the intention is what really would matter.  Emotionalism can only be irrational, since emotion has nothing to do with anything being true or probable other than the presence of immediate emotions.  Saying that one "feels" before describing a philosophical idea does not mean that one is not setting up a distinction between one's feeling and belief, the latter of which could still be held to on purely rationalistic grounds, or that one does not ultimately mean that one thinks a particular thing.