The Problem of Universals, Abstract Objects, and Generalizations in Politics
French philosopher Pierre Leroux described Socialism as the exaggeration of the idea of association or of society. I think this is a fine definition to a protean word because it hints at the kind of metaphysics required to believe in this and other collectivist politics.
One can be confident that when someone speaks of common ownership or public control of this or that, the political subject in his mind is invariably some kind of association or group, maybe society writ large, but in every case an idea without any particular referent. In applying this subject to objects and entities outside anothers conceptual space, one would be hard-pressed to find and/or point to anything of the kind, and it would be difficult to discern what it is in the world he is actually talking about.
The question becomes whether he is platonic, conceptual, immanent, or some other species of realist when it comes to his politics. Is his politics concerned with something outside of space and time, something within his mind, or somethinganythingin the world?
Absent any answer, a nominalist critic might argue that, should the political subject exist outside of time and space, the political platonist is concerned with nothing. Should the political subject exist within the mind, the political conceptualist is concerned with himself and his ideas. Should the political subject exist out there, in the world, the immanent realist is mistaken.
One can be confident that when someone speaks of common ownership or public control of this or that, the political subject in his mind is invariably some kind of association or group, maybe society writ large, but in every case an idea without any particular referent. In applying this subject to objects and entities outside anothers conceptual space, one would be hard-pressed to find and/or point to anything of the kind, and it would be difficult to discern what it is in the world he is actually talking about.
The question becomes whether he is platonic, conceptual, immanent, or some other species of realist when it comes to his politics. Is his politics concerned with something outside of space and time, something within his mind, or somethinganythingin the world?
Absent any answer, a nominalist critic might argue that, should the political subject exist outside of time and space, the political platonist is concerned with nothing. Should the political subject exist within the mind, the political conceptualist is concerned with himself and his ideas. Should the political subject exist out there, in the world, the immanent realist is mistaken.
Comments (97)
The answer?
Try to avoid them! Use more precise definitions. Remember to mention if either the present or the past is in focus and understand the differences between eras. Avoid using generalizations or universals if you don't precisely tell what you are thinking of. And never use political ideologies as adverbs if you don't exactly mean (or understand) the ideology. Just how common is it to use the term fascist in nearly everything.
I think the question isn't discerned in Platonic nor conceptualist, but over socialization. A person is said to be well socialized if he believes in and obeys the moral code of his society and fits in well as a functioning part of that society. Even though he doesn't understand the conceptualisation. The collective tells you what to think and how to be a good neighbour, easy. They generalise the behaviour and the basic values of society. Generally speaking, the goals of todays socialists are not in conflict with the accepted morality. On the contrary, the left takes an accepted moral principle, adopts it as its own, and then accuses mainstream society of violating that principle. More fundamentally, the duty of the individual to serve society and the duty of society to take care of the individual.
I agree with unabomber when he explained in his manifesto: One of the most important means by which our society socializes children is by making them feel ashamed of behavior or speech that is contrary to societys expectations. If this is overdone, or if a particular child is especially susceptible to such feelings, he ends by feeling ashamed of himself.
My intention is not to go off the topic of your post, but I fully recommend a look on Unabomber's manifesto: Industrial society and its future, You may find some related points to your arguments, and maybe you will consider them useful.
I don't think so. I think the nominalist would say something like the couple is arranged marriage-wise, that it reduces to a relationship between them -- but the relationship is still real for all that, it's just not the set that's real. They both own the house would be the answer, just not in virtue of being a real set.
But you also say Quoting NOS4A2
So it would be more apt to say that if a couple is married and owns a house, and they talk to nominalist aliens about what they own then it wouldn't make sense to the aliens until they spell out that the couple is in a relationship arranged marriage-wise.
I agree that careful language is a solution, but it could be painstaking to speak in such a way. I think it's better to wrestle with the metaphysical questions first before adopting any particular politics.
I have a bad habit of breaking down an ism to its component parts (despite its prevailing definition) to get at the root of the belief. If the suffix ism implies a belief, practice, or philosophy, a consideration of its root word is paramount to understanding its basic focus. I guess we can thank the French for that.
For fascism, for example, the notion of the fasces is its guiding metaphor, a bundle of sticks around an ax, which Mussolini described as a symbol of unity, of force and of justice. I know you know this. But what thing or things in the world these are these words and metaphors supposed to represent? Im not sure, but I suspect that the fascist imagines a political environment that may one day arise, where a multitude of objects and functions combine to form a recognizable pattern to which he can one day point and say Behold, fascism. His motivation and his actions must one day lead to this preferred pattern of political organization, the objects themselves be damned. The actual objects themselves, having been erased of their own significance and dignity, serve only as the pawns and play-pieces to this imaginative end. I do believe that, should one express a combination of these ideals, motivations, and methodology, he might rightly be called fascist, at least in some general sense.
Metaphysically speaking I am unable to reduce a marriage to anything between two people, especially when it appears there is nothing between them, connecting them, and bonding one to the other. It also appears they are not in anything of the sort. I would say each of them relate to one another, or at least I would recognize that one is speaking figuratively when using such language. That isnt to say one should never use the word marriage or relationshipabstractions, generalizations, universals are necessary to speak and think about the worldits just that one ought not to include them in his ontology, metaphysically speaking. As such he should not apply his politics to them.
But you raise some good questions in regards to political subjects (the people, the nation, the workers, the race, society). What sort of bond or relationship can we infer between the aggregate parts of these sets? Are these bonds actual? Or are they assumed and imposed? If they are not there, is it the goal of the politician to create them?
I have read his essay, and Im weary of the unibombers holistic methodology. I dont think leftism, for example, is any sort of ideology that anyone actually holds, and the use of it as a subject of opprobrium risks painting with the same brush a myriad of competing beliefs and individuals, most of whom are without any common political goal. It also leaves out the very similar beliefs and behaviors of the so-called right. On top of that, I do not think the left/right spectrum is worth a damn.
But beware how collectivist the unibomber is. Does society really socialize children? What are societys expectations? Upon who or what should we place our blame? I can only speak for myself but I have never felt the pressure of one, or have been the coerced to meet the expectations of other.
It's weird to believe in social entities as defined by imagination but refuse social entities as defined by contract and common goal.
Of course.
Some like to speak of the common good and society. These are the political subjects towards which political institutions should be mobilized. But the political subject is without a particular referent. So what thing or things in the world should these institutions work for?
So you claim, yet "Common ownership" and "public control" are clear enough in the associations listed on the ASX.
:smirk: :up:
It's like being a gardener who also denies that nature exists.
Quoting NOS4A2
To start, nonviolent coexistence (i.e. sustainable eusociality) ...
So you claim. But it would be clear only if you knew which investors owned how many shares. By then your notion of public wouldnt fit the reality of it.
Nonviolent coexistence is not a thing, Im afraid. And I do not think any political institution should serve only your ideas.
Meh. Of course anyone can purchase shares, and even if the numbers are not public, the process is.
What you call "collectivist politics" is a commonplace. Socialism could be as simple as having those who work for the corporate body, own the body corporate.
All that stands out here is your ongoing inability to see more than individuals in the social interactions around you, and the contradiction in rejecting socialism while accepting incorporation.
Yeah, evidently veraphobia. :mask:
I do admit my inability. I can neither see nor know the subject to which you aim your politics. Thats why I think it is mistaken or purely self-concerned.
Incorporation in the general sense is voluntary, and involves the input and voluntary efforts of its particular members. Socialism isnt. If I am forced to consider what it means to be social or a society, it applies only to the former and not the latter.
Do you believe that two parents and adopted children living in a household and subject to the parent's authority are considered a "family", or are they just autonomous beings that happen to share space?
I would consider them a family.
Quoting NOS4A2
So if you inherit your shares, having them forced on you involuntarily, then... what?
Again, you appear to argue that there is no such thing as society, while making use of the very thing you deny.
There's nowt queer as folk.
Ok, and do you believe that laws are meant for a particular individual or set of individuals? If a set, can we label this set, society? If not why?
It isnt a voluntary association like people getting together to form a club or company. It is imposed. Socialism and fascism are anti-social and anti-society in this regard.
Laws ought to apply to each and every particular individual, not a set of individuals.
Worker cooperatives need not be imposed. Your' engaging in the fallacy of composition. You've also moved from the claimt hat there isno society to a claim something like that social norms ought not be imposed.
Quoting NOS4A2
Presumably you would count incorporated companies as individuals?
Or are you against incorporation?
But what I mean is, the law was not tailored for you specifically. Was it not made for more than one person? In fact, what happened if it pertained to all the people in its jurisdiction? Can I label the set rather than every individual and call that set society?
Once you answer that.
"Who" is making these laws? When a law is passed by a government, is the individual congressman or parliamentarians or is it an entity collectively called "government"? If that is not the case, then how would the two children living with parents not just be individuals sharing the same space rather than being termed "a family"?
I didnt say they need not be imposed. In fact I just wrote that those who get together to form clubs or companys do so voluntarily. But youll note that the OP is concerned with politics, not with getting together with like-minded people to form companies. I was never trying to write about voluntary associations.
I claimed that society is without a particular referent, so in order to discern what association (a political subject) he is referring to, one must understand anothers metaphysics. Are you a platonist, conceptual realist, immanent realist, or nominalist when it comes to abstractions and universals?
.
I do not count companies or any other association as individuals.
I am not against people working together voluntarily, whether they incorporate or not.
I said it ought to apply to each and every individual, which implies more than one individual. You can label the set whatever you liketo abandon such abstractions and generalizations would render language too laborious. But Im fully aware that in order to refer to this set you are unable to refer to anything particular in the world (unlike a family, you cannot point to, name, nor understand a vast majority of the particulars involved), and are referring to your idea of a society more than any actual flesh-and-blood human beings and the innumerable interactions between them.
Laws are passed by particular legislators, often opposed by other particular legislators.
Unlike loose aggregates of individuals sharing a roof, families are raised by one another, play with one another, work together, love one another, and so on. The dynamics of their relationship are different. They are not only nominally or proximally bonded, but have a history together.
yet
Quoting NOS4A2
No corporate law then. That's a rather extreme form of laissez-faire!
Honestly, what you are setting out here is too incomprehensible, too incoherent, to be addressable.
Might leave you to it.
Youd be surprised to hear I dont believe in law either.
Your responses are a series of out of context quotes, evasions, and goal-post widenings. Thanks for your contributions.
But if a family is a real collective, then is not also an extended family a real collective? And a clan? And a tribe? A village? A town? A city?
Once we grant that a marriage or a family is a real collective or a real relation, then it only becomes a question of where to draw the line.
I think thats a great point. The larger the aggregate, the more difficult it is to discern the extent to which its members relate. A prerequisite of a real relation might be that people know each other or interact with each other.
By this measure, do you object to the decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court whereby corporations came to have the same rights as individual persons?
Yes, my objection is that corporations are not individual people.
If trees could talk there would be one in the forest claiming that there is no forest: "When I look around all I see are trees. No where does this fictitious entity a "forest" exist."
Brilliant. Little did he realize he was in a thicket.
What he didn't realize is that he was in a forest. There is a difference, but for the same reasons he would deny he was in a thicket.
Whats the difference? More individual trees?
The difference is that a forest is not just a bunch of individual trees, it is a self-sustaining ecosystem.
I thought that was a jungle.
What jungle? There is only a bunch of different individuals in the same place.
A family interacts with the world around them. Presumably their house is on a land in a jurisdiction with water, gas, electricity, and amenities often provided by the government. They have to interact with roads by driving on them which are often contracted out by government transportation agencies. People go to businesses which are legally defined entities, using money, which is government produced. All this is to say that the interactions are "real" in the sense that people use them.
Do you believe that an entity such as government exists? You are under the jurisdiction of a government that creates laws and enforces those laws. Being in that jurisdiction, generally, the "legitimacy" of the ruling power is that it follows various principles taken to invest it with its power. These would be things like "rights", "consent of the governed" through "fair and transparent" elections, etc.
If a government has legitimacy and is ruling over a jurisdiction, then everyone in that jurisdiction has a "real relation" with the rules, procedures, and enactments of the decisions made by that duly elected body. That is to say, if you drive your car, there is probably a law about which side of the street you can drive on, how to follow traffic norms, and the violations of not following those norms. And it goes on and on. You can't just start a restaurant in a residential zone, for example, unless the law stipulates you can. These are all examples where you are daily interacting with the rules and laws of the governing body politic. So you do have concrete relations with these. You need not know your representative, or even your local city councilman. However, they affect you nonetheless.
There is a dynamic interaction between people, government, laws, norms, etc. that means something like a "society" has "real relations" and it doesn't mean it has to be people you "know". The relations are implicit and explicit.
That being said, I sympathize with your idea about individuals being the locus. However, where I differ is that I think in ethical relations, ethics obtains at the individual. For example, I don't believe people should be born because "it helps humanity", that is using the individual for an abstracted cause. That is to say, our ethical obligations are to individuals, and not abstractions. However, once born, the parent has obligations towards the child. The parent lives in a community that has various obligations towards each other in terms of at least not violating another's rights, these can only be dealt with at the level of institutions whereby parties agree to mediate these kind of interactions. Otherwise, anything can go, including vandettas and mob rule.
To me the government is a gang of rogues and scoundrels, a criminal cartel made respectable through centuries of propaganda and bribery, bound together by specious writings and custom. Historically they are little different than others who have invented rules punishable by violence, robbery, and kidnapping, like kings, slavers, and warlords.
As such my relation with the government is as a serf to his landlord, or as a slave to his master. There is no mutual, voluntary coordination going on here. In fact I avoid officials like I would the plague. The reason I follow their rules is because they are allowed to kidnap me or kill me if I do not. They are allowed to take my money, my property, and there are no shortage of goons to support that kind of activity. The reasons I drive on their roads and use their amenities is because its funded with the stolen money of mine and my fellow serfs, and because of their monopoly I am unable to find similar amenities, let alone coordinate with others to build our own.
Its like saying a prisoner has a real relation to the prison because he is forced to use their toilet. If your idea of society resembles a prison or plantation, I dont want any part of it. To me the activity and relations you defend are anti-social, anti-society, even anti-human nature.
It's true, but there are too many individuals and factors to name and account for, so, since myself and my language are limited, I just say "jungle".
Are you just playing at being obtuse or do you really not understand what is at issue?
I thought the issue was the metaphysics of it all, specifically the problem of universals and abstract objects. Perhaps you can enlighten me.
I have tried, repeatedly over many threads. More often than not I don't bother though.
It's funny how we agree but in completely different realms. I would apply this to cases like starting a life for someone. Creating the conditions for others to be burdened has no justification. The problem is beyond government, it's existence itself. You had no say in being here, you had no say in whether you wanted to be in a position to make a decision to not be here (suicide). Thus, your life is always in a way a serf. Your very procreation means that you must comply (with the game of life) or die.
I just think that once there is a game one has to comply with, it has various interrelations that happen when more than a few people work together. Some of those are vesting power in institutions which then feedback to the community of members.
Right, and they also relate in a much more diffuse and indirect way.
---
Quoting schopenhauer1
Yes, and I think the first thing to do is to specify the level of abstraction. Apparently everyone agrees that a mere abstraction has no dues (nothing that it is owed), but there is disagreement over whether, say, the object of socialism is a mere abstraction (or a mere aggregate).
A family is not simply an abstraction, although it is a collective-relation (a relation between a number of individuals in which their ends or goals become unified). So it makes sense to make a sacrifice for the sake of the family, because the family is a real thing even though it is also a collective or a relation. The sacrifice is not made for the individuals qua individuals, but it is also not made for a mere abstraction. It is hard to identify this notion of a common good for which the sacrifice is legitimate, but it is something like the good of a unitary organism, an organism which is composed by the members of the family. Then if this analysis makes sense, we can approximate the real-ness of a collectivethe degree to which it is not a mere abstractionin terms of the extent to which it is a unitary organism.
I dont think thats true at all and we fundamentally disagree. There is no similarity. There is no person to seek consent from. There is no prior realm of freedom from which we are plucked and placed in a prison-like condition, against our wishes. Existence is all there is. No compliance is necessary, only being. More often than not parents relieve their children from burden, feeding them, carrying them, housing them, protecting them from all manner of danger. If you wish you were never born it is because you regret your life, yourself, maybe your family, not because you were better off before you were conceived.
If I understand what you think the issue is, I can address it and give you my arguments. Are you a platonist?
Peter L. P. Simpson has often drawn attention to the fact that the state has a monopoly on coercion (and violence) in the modern world, and that this is different from any time in the past.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I think the difference is that nature is not a feudal lord. Nature has no will and therefore does not coerce. Neither is it capable of injustice.
Sigmund Freud notes they also have the monopoly on crime.
"The individual citizen can prove with dismay in this war what occasionally thrust itself upon him already in times of peace, namely, that the state forbids him to do wrong not because it wishes to do away with wrongdoing but because it wishes to monopolize it, like salt and tobacco."
- Reflections on War and Death
That is because you are conveniently overlooking how we use language, and what language confers. Modalities of possibilities exist. Some things can never exist (hobbits for example). They may "subsist" or "absist" in some way, but not actually exist (I shouldn't have to say that I hope). Yet, some possibilities do exist, and some are high likelihoods based on causes. Thus, we can certainly talk about a future person who will exist, and whose dignity will be violated, or consent will be violated, or who will have been caused to be in conditions for inevitable suffering for that individual. So it's just misunderstanding of how modality works. But of course, this "misunderstanding" is conveniently only had for this particular topic which just makes it seem to be bad faith argumentation. I am sure you use conditionals for all sorts of things. A gun doesn't exist unless someone makes it first. The possibility exists. That someone has a intent and a 3D printer, now all of a sudden that possibility is more likely, and so on.
Quoting NOS4A2
Compliance is necessary for survival. Even hermits were socialized to some extent, and even their existence presupposes a culture which allowed for them to be individuals who can (try and probably fail) to subsist by themselves). But usually we must live in some sort of.. wait for it... society!
Quoting NOS4A2
It's a burden they are obligated to relieve (in early stages), but more importantly, that they created (which usually knowingly that they can relieve the burden). One shouldn't cause burdens, unnecessarily (meaning when there was no need in the first place for there to be a burden created) so that they can be overcome on someone else's behalf, but there we are.
Quoting NOS4A2
That's a straw man of the argument. No person exists to suffer is one state of affairs and a person exists to suffer in another. That second state of affairs is the problematic one. No one said "better off", just that one state of affairs is problematic, so don't cause that state of affairs.
I get @Fooloso4's frustration. Fooloso4, is there a term for when someone willfully pretends like an argument was never made and you start over and over and over again from scratch? I believe it's just called ThePhilosophyForum effect :smile:. If we have to keep arguing the same point, as if we never did previously, I believe that is tangential to the definition of insanity.
Oh @Leontiskos might be interested in this.
Well, this goes back to word games and sense and reference. I was playing with words here a bit. We are a "serf" to the burdens and overcoming of harms that life offers. There is no getting around this taskmaster (metaphor obviously). This is why I have always maintained that life provides "de facto" dictates that we must follow. Procreation puts a person in the unjust situation of complying with those dictates or killing themselves. An indignant proposal indeed.
No, I'm a vegetarian. (Not really).
This is just an attempt to repackage your same old argument. In your attempt to defend your desire to benefit from society without taking any responsibility you introduce a "metaphysics" which is nothing more than an abuse of terminology that is already problematic enough.
:up:
A few come to mind, but ...
In Kripkean fashion, I hereby dub the word TPF Effect for this phenomena:
Quoting schopenhauer1
But that's the inherent problem with these forums, there is a sort of "forgetfulness" whereby one cannot continue a previous thread. Often times a lesser version of the thread is rehashed but it would have been better to return to the previous version and point to what was already debated.
In order for good faith argumentation, there at least has to be the possibility for progression in the argument, even if not agreement or agree to disagree and more importantly, an acknowledgement of the arguments that have already been made from both sides.
Sure, but I think this will all depend on the original objection. One could object that government is unjust, or one could object that government gives rise to compulsion. The point about nature applies to the second objection but not the first, because nature does give rise to compulsion and yet it is not unjust.
(Granted, the notion of the injustice of nature does seem to arise at times via theism, but I am leaving this to the side.)
In the context that we are speaking, the claim is that it is unjust to put someone in the compulsory situation in the first place.
Much nicer than what I came up with but did not say because I am pretending to be nice.
:grin:
I hope TPF Effect can be used and reused such that there is a causal connection back to its dubbing and can thus refer always to this effect.
Okay, but isn't it true that government puts people in compulsory situations whereas nature does not? The key here is that the government is a responsible agent, capable of injustice, whereas nature is not. Nature "gives rise" to compulsory situations, but it does not "put" people into them, because it does not will this or that.
Im fully aware that we use modal reasoning, but when I ask the question what in the world is schopenhauer1 referring to, I can see you are only reporting on your thoughts. You arent referring to actual persons, but to your notions, the movements of your brain, in short, yourself. It just so happens myself and my own thoughts differ.
The point is we do not comply with existence because it has no wishes or commands. There is no game of life, and when it comes to survival you only have yourself to answer to. If youre hungry and must work to feed yourself, its you, not existence, telling you to do this. Hunger is your dictate. And you dont have to comply. You can deny yourself if you choose and can make any efforts towards your own liberation.
I suspect its not a coincidence you bring up antinatalism, and then blame me for rehashing old arguments. Am I supposed to come up with new arguments while you repeat the same old ones? I dub it the schopenhauer1 effect.
I am not referring to government but the people procreating the person... I was saying to NOS that we had the same heuristic but applied to completely different realms (I am against forcing life onto someone, he is against forcing government onto someone). However, now he has decided to rope me into a full-fledged antinatalism debate (which I have had with him I am sure many times circling the same things.. hence my new term the "TPF Effect".
Im afraid your mind-reading skills are as poor as your arguments. If you cant argue a point regarding the topic, why do you bother? Is it some little power trip? An effort at propaganda?
Ah, fair enough. I was not familiar with this history. I was talking past you. :up:
Baloney. You didn't address the gun analogy, for example. Should you not give a shit if you see someone making a gun, and they have the intent to use it? For surely, the possibility and high likelihood should not matter here?? Nonsense.
Quoting NOS4A2
I love it how you arbitrarily just divide the line to make such that only "libertarian" values make sense, but yet nothing else that falls under the logic does... For example in this, it is definitely the case that now someone has to "deal" with things they don't want to deal with, exactly your complaint about compulsory government. It's just all too convenient and cherry picking.
Quoting NOS4A2
No I don't mind discussing antinatalism obviously, I just don't like when arguments were not acknowledged for that topic as if this particular line of reasoning had not taken place and I already addressed these issues (even if you disagreed with them). In my case here, I was applying a new line of argument (in this case what counts as an injustice). I did acknowledge though from the start that we are using similar logic but in different realms. I never claimed that you agreed with how I am applying it. So you were the one who made a biggy deal of it it seems.
Looking back it was about whether the locus should be at the individual or aggregate level. I was saying it applies in ethics but not as much politics. Then you went on that there is no actual person. or whatnot. I was just making a comment about how I had a similar view but used in a completely different way, that's all.
I fully endorse people making their own guns.
Let me know when some other person or group of persons demand you comply with something and Ill be there in support. Find some logic that is parallel with this and Ill give it a shot.
That's not the issue it is trying to illustrate. Rather, the gun didn't exist before, and then it will exist. Not only that, the gun will be used let's say in some nefarious way. Thus a worse state of affairs is likely to take place. But wait! You can prevent this... But you don't, you let it happen because you don't believe in future conditionals? I call bullshit.
Quoting NOS4A2
Well, that's fine. You can do whatever you want. Clearly you don't believe in future states, for example. But my point is "de facto" dictates are a thing. Just because you choose not to acknowledge them, doesn't mean they are not a thing.
No mind reading necessary. No matter how you attempt to dress it up your arguments fall under two related themes: defending Trump and radical individualist autonomy.
You described my intentions but completely missed the mark, Im afraid. Here again you feign interest but immediately resort to ad hominem. Its a pattern.
I believe everything exists, but I question what they exist as. Future conditionals, for example, dont describe or predict any actual future, no matter how likely. I let it happen because I do not trust your judgement.
It doesnt mean they are a thing either.
How are those two intentions connected in your mind?
I have asked this question a number of times and you have ignored it.
Actually, I have often wondered what your intentions are. What you attempt to do and whatever your intentions might be in doing so are two different things.
Quoting NOS4A2
You make this accusation in response, or rather instead of responding to what you quoted.
In what way does your rejection of such things as the common good and your not believing in law miss the mark? In what way is it something other than your theme of:
Please explain how questioning your political claims is resorting to ad hominem.
Your focus is me and not the arguments. Why must you keep me in your mouth? Why cant you criticize the arguments, or absent that, come up with a better one? My politics and beliefs are no secret, so pointing them out isnt any sort of revelation or refutation.
This is exactly what @schopenhauer1 was talking about with his neologism the "TPF effect".
You guys sure are consistent, but Im not so sure one should be consistently fallacious.
I dont understand the question, Paine.
You call for an individualist autonomy that would dismantle the State, as such.
You defend Trump as a victim of the Deep State.
A Trump administration will not give you the first condition. On the contrary, it will give certain groups more power to exert control over legislation and executive prerogative.
So, how do you harmonize the two projects?
Quoting NOS4A2
Quoting NOS4A2
Quoting NOS4A2
I think you've changed your position a little, then. You're allowing some aggregates to have real relations, and claiming that there are some times when a person claims there to be a real relation when there is not a real relation. Here the case of the family is a real relation because they have a history together rather than merely being named as together, like an abstract relationship.
At one end of a possible spectrum I'd say there are pure abstractions -- the set of all people such that they are in the set named "424", which may have real applications when discussing the tenants of a building but is a bit accidental about who the members of that set are.
But along comes an organizer knocking on the doors of the old 424, and eventually the group of people decide to form a tenant union. Now they have a history together, in your terms -- they've voluntarily joined together into a group and have real relations. (and so are now at the other end of the spectrum from abstract to concrete)
From what I can see you're objecting to, say, the nation as a real relation because it's not individually voluntarily agreed upon. So the law, because it's not individually voluntarily agreed upon, is not a real relation, but an abstraction of some other real.
Whereas I'd say that the law is real, but it's an odd duck. (which is why social ontology is interesting -- it's full of odd ducks that are hard to deal with)
Quoting NOS4A2
It seems to me that you're willing to accept some social bonds as real, and some as not-real -- a realist account. It's the criteria of real-ness that you're using which is at odds with... well, everyone who has posted so far :D
At least if I'm right about the criteria of a real relationship being having a history together, which in turn seems rely upon individual voluntary agreement. A basic individualistic libertarian norm. The problem with it being -- well, what about all the relationships which may be abstractions but still influence our life? Why bother calling them not-real while we still have to account for them, seeing as we don't live in the individualistic libertarian world? Are they illegitimate reals, in which case the problem isn't metaphysics, but ethics or politics?
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[quote=Reagan] Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.
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The politics comes first; the plutocrat-selected philosophy comes later. Make no mistake.
It comes from the top and inevitably trickles down, until it eventually reaches the sad postings of little state apologists like Nos.
The notion of a bond or connection is strictly metaphorical. It isnt real. There isnt anything between us, holding us together, which we can confirm by looking. A real bond or connection would be an umbilical cord. So in that sense I am not a realist when it comes to these metaphors. I would rather say Individuals relate to one another, or interact with each other in various ways. I relate to the grocer when I go to the market, for example. This is what I meant by "history", I think, the culmination of our interactions with one another. That is the extent of our relationship.
Only these types of interactions, in combination with the accounts of those involved, can determine what kind of relationship we are looking atand from this, the nature of the collective, if any. I would argue that in order to do this, one must be nominalist. He must consider only the concrete, particular things involved, what they themselves tell of their lives and relations with each other, and let go of the pre-conceived, realist account of collectives.
At any rate, I need to still need to figure it all out, so I appreciate your questions. I would argue the activities involved in this nominalist account of relationships are inherently social in the original sense of the term (from Latin, socialis, "of companionship, of allies; united, living with others; of marriage, conjugal,"). People interact with each other in volitional, voluntary, "real" ways, and this account of society is paramount to, and more accurate than, the collectivist account of society (as the struggle between classes and races, for example). Actual social interactions and connections aren't determined by the will and imagination of some platonist/collectivist, who thinks he can surmise what a community is and ought to be through pure reason alone, utilizing concepts such as class, race, nationality etc. to do so. Each time he refers to the idea before the flesh-and-blood individuals involved, he is putting himself above all. For that reason I would say collectivist doctrines such as socialism, fascism, and their father, republicanism, are anti-social and anti-society.
There is the language you use to interact. Where does that fit into your theory?
The dimensions of that concrete community are what I found problematic with your interpretation of a 'social contract' several months ago. Your man Oppenheimer misrepresents Rousseau's view of the origin of civic society when he says:
What Rousseau actually said:
Quoting Rousseau
This view moves the beginning of "abstraction" to a period considerably antecedent to the one you propose.
I do not think people are connected or related because they use the same language.
Oppenheimer was referencing Rousseaus The Social Contract, which is obvious because he mentions the title in your quote. So its odd youd look for what he is referencing in a different, much earlier work.
I read the State because you recommended it in that discussion.
Quoting NOS4A2
How did the language come into existence?
A perennial question without any obvious answer. Do you have a theory?
Since language must be a component of the 'natural' society you distinguish from the 'abstract', sharing a language must be natural to some degree. So, the question applies at least to the point where you would place language outside of what a community shares. The burden of explanation falls upon your theory.
Oppenheimer aside, Rousseau's view of 'natural' man challenges your view of the boundary between natural and 'idealized' commonalities.
I dont understand what you wish I would explain.
Everything is natural to me, including abstraction. I only seek to understand where the referent is. If it is concrete, he is concerned with people and their movements. That there is society, concern for others. If it is abstract, he is concerned with an idea. That there is anti-society, self-concern.
How so?
Hrm -- I'm reading you as going back to your original post, then, whereas before I was reading you as allowing that marriage is real.
So a marriage is the entire list of interactions between two people, and these interactions in combination with accounts from the two people involved in the marriage determines that they are interacting in marriage-wise ways, but they have no bond or connection with one another (except for the children who had an umbilical cord when they are born) and the marriage itself is not real. "Marriage" is just shorthand for a long list of interactions between two people.
By this then even ownership can't be real, I'd say: that was the point of my example, along with the obvious bit that they're a collective. When a marriage dissolves what's at stake is who owns what. Before a marriage is dissolved you have an example of collective ownership. But if the only real things are interactions between individuals, then I'd say there's no such thing as property because it's only acted upon by individuals. The house is not flesh-and-blood, after all, and property rights are only established by law (which doesn't exist in your accounting).
Or, at least, this is where my mind goes with what you've said so far. I'm not sure if it's something you'd avoid or accept.
I appreciate the reduction to the absurd, but you could just describe married people and be done with it. You could describe the visible and recognizable things instead of referring to your abstract idea of what marriage means. At some point it must refer to the world or else youre left compounding abstract nouns.
What is marriage to you?
To me personally? The most current, but clearly inadequate, means for our society to answer the question "By Whom and how are these children going to be taken care of?" -- it's a legal entity for the economics of the family home which gets interpreted in various ways in their particular instances.
For purposes of this discussion I'd just focus in on the legal aspects, which will vary depending on where we're at, but the specifics shouldn't matter here. In focusing in on what can be seen, and on individuals, your account is very vague when it comes to one of the most important social realities we live with: property. Even individuals own property, but only by law -- which cannot be seen, is not flesh-and-blood, is seemingly abstract and yet seems causal in that the reason people act in such-and-such ways is because of how property is treated within the legal system.
A legal entity is another abstraction. I am left to abandon marriage in the world and to read about it in laws, all of which vary according to jurisdiction.
I find something sinister in the legal account of marriage and property. If the law were to abolish one or the other tomorrow I could not see the property and marriages of my own and everyone I know null and void. This is because people, not laws, recognize the validity of both.
I dont have a fully fleshed out theory of property, but it is probably Lockean in character. If I was walking in the woods and found someone had built a dwelling on state land and was working on it to survive, I would recognize it as that persons property and leave it alone. The initial just acquisition, the occupation, the labor, would lead me to recognize it as that persons property, while the law would have no justification save for its own claim to authority. In holding up the real people, the labor, the thing and land up against the laws words on paper, I would side with one long before I would the other.