Fred Foldvary wrote:  
  
>Why is an axiomatic deductive approach invalid?  
  
Because it presumes that you know which axioms to   
start with, which presumes (in the case of humane   
sciences) that you know the final terms for what   
man and society are, which is to claim you know   
the end of the argument before it starts. Claims   
to possession of those terms can always be mooted   
in reason. What is really the problem is the   
distinction between the speculative and the   
practical reason, or as we might term them, the   
demonstrable and the deliberative. As far as I   
know, this distinction is not controversial.   
Demonstrations start in axioms that are   
considered to be self-evident, or from   
propositions clearly derivable from such axioms.   
But axioms of action do not possess this   
self-evident character. The nature of man is not   
something self-evident, even to the man himself;   
it is something discovered in time; this does not   
preclude reasonable judgements; it does preclude   
possession of a final term that can be reached by   
demonstration.  The "axioms" will always dissolve   
into beliefs about the nature of man, beliefs   
which are reducible to nothing else than belief.   
As a practical matter, nearly all systems start   
with terms that at the very least partake of the   
universal, but it would be very hard to show that   
any such terms exhaust the universal. I am not   
advocating cultural relativism, which I in fact   
reject, but a certain humility and reality in   
recognizing the source of claims about humans and their societies.  
  
As far as reaching the universal, John Locke is   
an exceptionally bad example. His purpose was to   
justify the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688, which   
was a revolution of property owners (and a   
relatively new kind of property at that) against   
royal authority (which embodied another kind of   
property claim.)  His "universality" was limited   
to a certain class of Englishman, and did not   
extend to Catholics, Africans, or other "lesser   
breeds without the law," to use Kipling's quaint   
phrase. Indeed, he defended slavery and was an   
investor and shareholder in the Royal African   
Company, whose major trade was in slaves. For   
Locke, "the chief end [of society] is the   
preservation of property" and slaves, being   
incapable of property, could not have any social   
or political place or dignity. Do these sound   
like final terms? Like reason? And yet there is   
an air of reason about them, but not a reason that ends all reasonable debate.  
  
What is true in the case of Locke is true   
generally: those who make claims to possession of   
the final terms are usually shown to be mere   
defenders of some class or interest. Locke   
defended the new gentry, Smith the worker,   
Ricardo the investor, and Mises the pure   
capitalist. This is not always done with an ill   
will, but arises from the fact that any   
particular view of man is likely to be partial at   
best, and only a part of an on-going deliberative   
process. It is not their claims that are   
necessarily invalid, but only their particular   
claims to universality. There is much in Locke I   
find useful, and nearly nothing I find final; the   
understanding of some terms he advanced, while   
others he retarded. He is part and parcel of the   
on-going deliberative process. Those who claim to   
have reached the final terms can usually be shown   
to be servants of some set of class interests,   
interested only in partial terms, namely the   
terms that justify their partial interests.  
  
  
John C. Medaille