Alan G Isaac wrote:
>"Cogito, ergo sum."

The problem I have with the cogito is that it 
assumes what it sets out to prove. How do we know 
that the "I" is doing the thinking? Personally, 
if I were to try to set forth a "proof" of my 
existence (which I never actually do), I would 
far rather say, "I take a crap, therefore I am"; 
I'm pretty sure that's me on the pot. Why elevate 
the purely mental over the extra-mental? Why 
posit a disembodied mind as the arbiter of 
existence? There seems to be no obvious reason to 
do this. Besides, isn't it just as accurate to 
say, cogito cogitare, ergo cogito esse...cogito, 
"I think that I think, therefore I think that I 
am...I think." I prefer Sum, ergo cogito, 
existence over thoughts about existence. In any 
case, the cogito introduces an unnecessary 
dualism into the objects of our experience, a 
rift between the mental and empirical worlds. 
What, exactly, does that accomplish, except to 
cast doubt on both worlds? Philosophy has been in 
this rather unnecessary struggle between the real 
and the ideal ever since Descartes.


>Experience is temporal.
>
>Humans perceive causal relationships between objects of experience.

Indeed. And in that, there is not a real division 
between the mental and extra-mental, between 
thought and experience. Experience is mental as 
well as physical; physical as well as mental; 
there are not two separable realms, except for 
analytical purposes. In these cases, we practice 
"abstraction without precision" as Aquinas says. 
"Precision" here means "to cut away from." That 
is, we can talk about the mental or the 
extra-mental, but simply as a convenience; we 
can't really abstract the one from the other, we 
can't take the conversation so seriously so that 
they become radically separate categories.


>etc.
>
>We may not be able to produce a Misean argument by treading
>this path, but we cannot simply forget about Kant and Descartes.

Yes, Descartes leads directly to Kant, and the 
absolute separation of the ontological and 
deontological orders, a schema which has plagued 
philosophy in general and economics in 
particular. I don't think it can be done; I'm 
pretty sure it ought not to be done. The search 
for a value-free economics is like the search for 
value-free money: worth nothing even if you find it.

John C. M?daille