Certainly - if you get to define for yourself the philosophy you wish to dismiss, said dismissal will invariably prove shockingly easy ;)
In any case, even reason and experience aren't always enough. Sometimes you just have to go with what you know is right, even if you can't put it into precise terms at a given moment. Ignoring that voice can win you a lifetime membership in the Jacobin Club.
In some areas, but not, I think, in the political sphere. In politics, when you stop listening to the head, the thing that generally speaks up in its place is appetite - consider the modern liberal. Besides, there hasn't been a politician, theorist, or theory yet that deserves leaps of faith. "Trust us - we know what's good for you and yours" is a rather risky place to suspend the use of reason and experience....
Let's get the convo back on track a little. The author wasn't trying to dismiss anything; he was simply describing what neocons and paleocons agree on. It seems pretty clear from the context that he was referring to rationalism of the pure sort. You had imputed to him more than what he was saying, by any natural reading of what he was saying, and I was trying to point that fact out to you.
In politics, when you stop listening to the head, the thing that generally speaks up in its place is appetite - consider the modern liberal. Besides, there hasn't been a politician, theorist, or theory yet that deserves leaps of faith. "Trust us - we know what's good for you and yours" is a rather risky place to suspend the use of reason and experience....
Speaking of "defining for yourself the philosophy you wish to dismiss." Nothing in your paragraph referred to the point I was making. There's no reason to think that the only two choices of anatomical sources of political ideas are the head and the stomach. Nor was I saying that people should listen to a politician who says "Just trust me." (I'm about the last person on this board who'd argue that) My point, very simply, is that when deciding the political issues of the day, people need to consult their own innate sense of morality and ethics - in addition, of course, to consulting reason and experience.