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