"E. Roy Weintraub" wrote: > "Reality" or ""truth, as in > "obviously true or self-evident (or not > self-evident) [to whom?] axioms", play no role > whatsoever. Then the above proposition plays no role and is thus unsound. Applying its own content to itself, the proposition is not real, not true, and not self-evident. It is self-extinguishing. > Ex cathedra pontifications This kind of labelling should also play no role. Nobody is claiming to speak ex cathedra. A proposition should be analyzed on its own merits and the analyst should conclude that either the proposition is sound or it is not. In this kind of forum, merely invoking literature is not very helpful. It is indeed helpful to point to literature that one may delve into to learn or refresh one's knowlege, but it is not a good substitute for argumentation in this forum for the discussion here and now. Merely invoking literature is a conversation stopper. If one would like a thread to stop, just say so. If some literature is useful, then the one acquainted with it would better serve the discussion by distilling it and presenting the basic findings that are relevant to the argument. Indeed, that may spur curiosity that would lead others to investigate further. All of us have much more that we wish to read than we possibly have time for. Due to such opportunity costs, one useful aspect of a forum such as this is to serve as a "scholar's digest" of various topics. For example, the text I provided from John Locke boils down his ethical-political thought into the core concept relevant to economic equity. What has happened here is that the discussion has descended to another level, beyond equity into epistemology and methodology. Hence, I am told that it is impossible to have an objective discussion about equity, and the history of thought on equity, because there is no reality or truth. It seems to me that there is no way to discuss ethics or economics, and to evaluate past thought, other than to accept that common observations and ordinary logic are suffient for scientific purposes. If this is naive, then in my judgment, science requires that we be sophisticatedly naive about reality. Fred Foldvary