Fred Foldvary wrote:  
>--- John Medaille <[log in to unmask]> wrote:  
>  
> > Fred Foldvary wrote:  
> >  
> > >Why is an axiomatic deductive approach invalid?  
> >  
> > Because it presumes that you know which axioms to  
> > start with,  
>  
>It is sufficient that the axioms are based on observed  
>reality.  
  
This assumes that the "observation of reality" is   
itself unproblematic and in some sense   
independent of the observer. Such a view is no   
longer acceptable even in the physical sciences.  
  
>   It is difficult to analyze if there are  
>necessary but missing premises, but others who analyze  
>the argument will eventurally point out flaws that  
>point to missing premises.  
>  
> > which is to claim you know  
> > the end of the argument before it starts.  
>  
>This does not make an argument invalid.  
>In geometry, one can know the conclusion ahead of  
>time,  
  
That's because geometry belongs to demonstration,   
and that is the character of all demonstrations.   
But you are confounding the orders of reason:   
speculative, practical, and dialectical.  
  
  
> > Demonstrations start in axioms that are  
> > considered to be self-evident, or from  
> > propositions clearly derivable from such axioms.  
>  
>Not in science.  
  
Right. Most sciences belong to the practical   
reason; they do not work by demonstration.  
  
>   Axioms for science need to be based  
>on observed reality.  For example, an axiom in  
>economic theory is that human desires tend to be  
>unlimited, an axiom explicitly stated, for example, by  
>Henry George in Progress and Poverty.  
  
That's actually culturally specific. Or if it   
isn't, there is no way to demonstrate it or its   
opposite. There is a weaker axiom available,   
which is likely more general: people tend to want   
what completes or perfects them, but what   
completes or perfects them is something infinite   
and perfect and simply not available in a finite   
world. Hence they tend to exhaust the finite in   
the search for an infinite, thus providing an   
unending source of demand. But this is not true   
across all cultures. We extrapolate from our own   
to all others, but we have no way of knowing if this is correct.  
  
  
>This axiom is not "self evident."  
  
Indeed not.  
  
  
> > The "axioms" will always dissolve  
> > into beliefs about the nature of man, beliefs  
> > which are reducible to nothing else than belief.  
>  
>How does the axiom of unlimited desires dissolve?  
  
That axiom doesn't dissolve into belief; it starts there.  
  
  
> > 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.)  
>  
>This justification is irrelevant to his philosophy,  
  
Oh? I would have thought that it is part and   
parcel of his philosophy, the occasion for it and the interpretive context.  
  
>and his contradictions can be handled by rejecting his  
>invalid conclusions and accepting the valid ones.  
  
But that gives the game away. For now you are not   
reading Locke purely in himself, but in the light   
of some principle that can discriminate the "good   
Locke" from the "bad Locke." Let's say this   
principle is supplied by Jones. So now you are   
reading Locke by Jones. But Jones is likely to   
have the same mixture and require the same   
discrimination. So maybe Brown provides this. So   
now we are reading Locke by Jones by Brown. And   
so forth. And eventually, we will discover that   
we are reading him by our own lights. And if we   
are honest (as I take Fred Fodvary to be,   
whatever doubts I may have about myself), then we   
admit that we are enmeshed in our own culture, a   
product of our own times, with our own social   
baggage and biases, and like John Locke, likely   
to be subject to the same simultaneous propensity   
to truth and error. All we can hope to do in all   
humility is to advance the dialectic a few   
millimeters. This excludes a claim to possession   
of some final terms, the possession of which is   
simply excluded by the dialectic nature of practical reason.  
  
The answer to this cultural bias is not so much   
to repudiate it (which is impossible in any   
case), but to understand it, analyze it, and   
perhaps, in some small measure, to transcend it.   
But even in transcending it (relatively), we are   
still connected to it. Trying to disconnect will   
merely leave us in a world of self-satisfied illusions.  
  
>We should not be Locke worshipers, but simply give him  
>credit for discovering or clarifying some important  
>concepts in ethical and political philosphy.  
  
Agreed, but this is a much weaker proposition   
that what you first offered. Locke is one voice   
in a long tradition, and cannot be understood   
apart from that tradition. The attempt to read an   
author apart from the context of his time and   
tradition is ahistorical and likely inaccurate.   
There is much in Locke I find useful, but I do   
not believe that political philosophy ended in the 17th century.  
  
  
John C. Medaille