Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal


BaalChatzaf

Recommended Posts

Not only is this a title to a collection of Ayn Rand's essays, it is a statement of fact. In the record history of mankind there has never, ever, ever existed a capitalistic nation, kingdom, republic or other political/cultural entity. Not ever.

Capitalism is like infinity; a concept of method, not an actual system. It does not exist.

The closest the human race ever got to capitalism was the City-State of Hong Kong.

Here in the United States the socialists won't admit that our nation is socialistic. Hell, they won't even admit that Stalin's Soviet Union was socialistic.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not only is this a title to a collection of Ayn Rand's essays, it is a statement of fact. In the record history of mankind there has never, ever, ever existed a capitalistic nation, kingdom, republic or other political/cultural entity. Not ever.

Capitalism is like infinity; a concept of method, not an actual system. It does not exist.

The closest the human race ever got to capitalism was the City-State of Hong Kong.

Here in the United States the socialists won't admit that our nation is socialistic. Hell, they won't even admit that Stalin's Soviet Union was socialistic.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Capitalism used to mean something different than it does now.

"Although nowadays there are ideological capitalists - people who support a set of ideas about the economic benefits and importance of "free markets" - the term capitalism was first used to describe an the system of private investment and industry with little governmental control which emerged, without an ideological basis, in the Netherlands and Britain in the 17th and 18th centuries. A "capitalist" was an individual who invested money (or capital) in a given business venture."

and simply "An economic system based on the exchange of capital."

It is often thought of as an opposing view to 'communism' which does not make ontological sense since both communism and democracy use capital (money, bonds, etc) in their economic systems. The difference lies in their rules of ownership and use of the resources symbolized by the capital.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

GS,

Are you aware of the Objectivist theory of capitalism flowing from metaphysics, epistemology and ethics?

Michael

Vaguely.

The problem is the necessary connection between Objectivist epistemology and Objectivist ethics. There isn't one. Between metaphysics and epistemology, sure, because they are connected axiomatically. But ethics requires more than philosophical proposition, it requires extensive investigation into the smorgasbord of human being, both within a human being and sociologically. Because of this, while the politics flows right out the the ethics, the politics must be suspect as such too.

Now we can say that thinking man is an individual man therefore he needs an individualist ethics hence the connection, BUT this breaks down in the face of the necessary society and his need for society which isn't in the metaphysical and epistemological constructs and must be identified and dealt with and only with great difficulty over the long, indefinite period of time we are forever draped in. We cannot end human conflict in whatever forms it takes, only channel and ameliorate it. All basic principles of Objectivism are only ideals, at best, worthy of moving toward but not to be attained. If they could be attained they would almost immediately be corrupted through stupidity and forgetfulness as we fall out of heaven back into the hell we will then once again be sorely motivated to climb back out of.

At least the general trend of history is that things are getter better and better. It would probably take something nasty from outer space to stop that. ("It Came from Outer Space," "War of the Worlds," "When Worlds Collide," "The Crawling Eye," "The Blob," "The Day the Earth Stood Still," "Plan Nine from Outer Space," "Mars Attacks," etc.)

--Brant

Edited by Brant Gaede
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Capitalism used to mean something different than it does now.

"Although nowadays there are ideological capitalists - people who support a set of ideas about the economic benefits and importance of "free markets" - the term capitalism was first used to describe an the system of private investment and industry with little governmental control which emerged, without an ideological basis, in the Netherlands and Britain in the 17th and 18th centuries. A "capitalist" was an individual who invested money (or capital) in a given business venture."

and simply "An economic system based on the exchange of capital."

Capitalism is an economic system wherein the means of production are privately owned either by individuals are voluntary groups of individuals and the financing is private and does not use tax revenue. The purest form of capitalism is one where production is not regulated by government beyond the normal laws governing torts and frauds.

Capitalism, although well defined, has never actually existed. It is like the Unicorn of legend or the Ideal Gas of classical thermodynamics. It is a concept of method, used for defining degrees of freedom in economic systems.

There have been systems there were fairly close to capitalism. The City-State of Hong Kong prior to the Chinese takeover is one. The U.S. between 1812 and 1861 is another. Neither is a perfect example, but they were fairly close.

Private ownership of the means of production does not necessarily mean a libertarian political order. One can have a capitalistic system with government doing moral censorship of books and newspapers. The U.S. was a lot more capitalistic back in the late nineteenth century than it is now, but there were the Comstock Laws that censored references to the sexual act in literature.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Link to comment
Share on other sites

One can have a capitalistic system with government doing moral censorship of books and newspapers. The U.S. was a lot more capitalistic back in the late nineteenth century than it is now, but there were the Comstock Laws that censored references to the sexual act in literature.

How do you suppose we got to where we are now? (Surely I don't need to spell it out.)

Barbara

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Barbara,

I wonder if some people are even interested in Objectivism around here. I understand confusion about the more technical aspects of epistemology. But confuse capitalism? After Atlas Shrugged?

(sigh...)

Michael

The Objectivists are pro-capitalist and anti-collectivist. That makes them The Good Guys.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The problem is the necessary connection between Objectivist epistemology and Objectivist ethics. There isn't one. Between metaphysics and epistemology, sure, because they are connected axiomatically. But ethics requires more than philosophical proposition, it requires extensive investigation into the smorgasbord of human being, both within a human being and sociologically. Because of this, while the politics flows right out the the ethics, the politics must be suspect as such too.

Now we can say that thinking man is an individual man therefore he needs an individualist ethics hence the connection, BUT this breaks down in the face of the necessary society and his need for society which isn't in the metaphysical and epistemological constructs and must be identified and dealt with and only with great difficulty over the long, indefinite period of time we are forever draped in. We cannot end human conflict in whatever forms it takes, only channel and ameliorate it. All basic principles of Objectivism are only ideals, at best, worthy of moving toward but not to be attained. If they could be attained they would almost immediately be corrupted through stupidity and forgetfulness as we fall out of heaven back into the hell we will then once again be sorely motivated to climb back out of.

At least the general trend of history is that things are getter better and better. It would probably take something nasty from outer space to stop that. ("It Came from Outer Space," "War of the Worlds," "When Worlds Collide," "The Crawling Eye," "The Blob," "The Day the Earth Stood Still," "Plan Nine from Outer Space," "Mars Attacks," etc.)

--Brant

Always a great pleasure to read your thoughts, Brant.

W.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Barbara,

I wonder if some people are even interested in Objectivism around here. I understand confusion about the more technical aspects of epistemology. But confuse capitalism? After Atlas Shrugged?

(sigh...)

Michael

Michael, do I sense a note of exasperation or frustration on your part?

You wonder. I don't. When one person wants to discuss a topic, and he has a "vague" idea of the philosophical underpinnings of capitalism -- and another person opines that there is no necesary connection between epistemology and ethics -- I think we are at serious risk of OL devolving into a deconstructionist bull session. (If it hasn't already.)

REB

P.S. -- If my life were as depressing as OL has become lately, I'd slit my wrists. Thankfully, my life has become my refuge from OL, and it feels a hell of a lot more like Atlantis than what I've had to wade through here. Is there light at the end of the tunnel -- any desire to discuss constructive, illuminating topics -- or are we doomed to listening to clueless distortions and ignorant ramblings about Objectivism and how faulty it is and how lame its chief architects were?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Michael, do I sense a note of exasperation or frustration on your part?

You wonder. I don't. When one person wants to discuss a topic, and he has a "vague" idea of the philosophical underpinnings of capitalism -- and another person opines that there is no necesary connection between epistemology and ethics -- I think we are at serious risk of OL devolving into a deconstructionist bull session. (If it hasn't already.)

REB

P.S. -- If my life were as depressing as OL has become lately, I'd slit my wrists. Thankfully, my life has become my refuge from OL, and it feels a hell of a lot more like Atlantis than what I've had to wade through here. Is there light at the end of the tunnel -- any desire to discuss constructive, illuminating topics -- or are we doomed to listening to clueless distortions and ignorant ramblings about Objectivism and how faulty it is and how lame its chief architects were?

The necessary connection between epistemology and ethics is reason. That doesn't mean you'll end up with the classical Objectivist Ethics, because reason can't dictate content. It investigates. You do end up with rational self-interest, but reason is only a process and it's not reason at all if the result is dictated ("necessary"). Capitalism is fine and I'm as capitalist as anyone, but you can't have any significant government without taxes and we need that significant government to protect us now and for the indefinite future. Objectivism had one chief architect, Ayn Rand, and she wasn't lame. Objectivism should constantly be deconstructed and put back together again, otherwise you'll end up with a catechism.

If I'm not smart enough to understand what's worth understanding about Objectivism after all these years, what good is it? What's communicable and to whom? It might as well be in Latin.

I'm pissed off, Roger, not about any of the above so much as your making these comments as if I weren't available to make them to.

What is your idea of some "constructive, illuminating topics" we might discuss? I'd be happy to indulge the positive emphasis.

--Brant

Edited by Brant Gaede
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The necessary connection between epistemology and ethics is reason. That doesn't mean you'll end up with the classical Objectivist Ethics, because reason can't dictate content. It investigates. You do end up with rational self-interest, but reason is only a process and it's not reason at all if the result is dictated ("necessary").

OK, if "reason can't dictate content," then how do you view the status of mathematics? And of the mental process of doing it? If you do mathematics correctly, you will get 4 when you add 2 and 2. If this a process of reason? If so, would you not say that it is "dictating" the result? How can you use reason and get anything ~other~ then 4 when you add 2 and 2? And even if you get an error in adding two numbers (larger than 2 and 2, one would hope!), doesn't the obtaining of an error imply that there is a necessarily ~correct~ result of the addition process, and that if one adds correctly, one will ~necessarily~ get that answer?

I fail to see how this is different from doing philosophy, e.g., deriving ethics from metaphysics, epistemology, and the essential nature of man (Peikoff called it "the metaphysical nature of man").

Capitalism is fine and I'm as capitalist as anyone, but you can't have any significant government without taxes and we need that significant government to protect us now and for the indefinite future.

I'm sure the Southern states had the same attitude toward slavery, and that many Americans had the same attitude toward the military draft in the 60s. Thank God for the Abolitionists, who realized that gradualism in theory means perpetuity in practice. (It was an Objectivist, by the way, Martin Anderson, who persuaded Richard M. Nixon, hardly a paragon of objective virtues, to push for elimination of the military draft, which was a campaign promise made in 1968 and kept not long after.)

Objectivism had one chief architect, Ayn Rand, and she wasn't lame. Objectivism should constantly be deconstructed and put back together again, otherwise you'll end up with a catechism.

If Rand was O's one and only chief architect, then I'd say that Branden and Peikoff were O's foremost draftsmen. And I'd say that while neither one of them was perfect, they got a hell of a lot right.

Analyzing O'ism to its roots and finding a better way to express the whole and its parts is one thing -- and blasting it to smithereens and subjecting the disintegrated fragments to out of context quibbling is another. I see far too much of the latter, and far too little of the former. At least, Branden and Peikoff have been trying to do the former.

If I'm not smart enough to understand what's worth understanding about Objectivism after all these years, what good is it? What's communicable and to whom? It might as well be in Latin.

Objectivism "standing on one foot" is a pretty good place to start. So is Rand's terse summary following the end of Atlas Shrugged. O'ism has a vision, and it has a structure. Perhaps not "a" structure, in the sense of a one-and-for-always, timeless structure, but a general flow of main points from the most abstract to the more concrete.

Perhaps when Kelley and Thomas finish their "Logical Structure of Objectivism," we can pore over it here on OL. What I have seen of the "Beta" version of their book looks like they have put a lot of good work into discerning and displaying that structure. (Or at least, their view of the structure.)

What is your idea of some "constructive, illuminating topics" we might discuss? I'd be happy to indulge the positive emphasis.

I'm probably too gun shy to volunteer such right now. Mistrustful of how it would be treated. Not by you in particular, but based on past experience here and elsewhere, I'm not optimistic about starting up a discussion on something that I have positive feelings about.

For instance, I wrote and got published a lengthy essay on the nature of art, and Michael encouraged me to post it here on OL, with a promise that he would do a review or critique of it. That was over a year ago.

For instance, I also posted quite a bit about the nature of emotion and meaning in music, and got very little beyond claims that I was over-generalizing. And since people are convinced that Rand over-generalized her personal preferences in literature into a theory of art in general, I have had no success in convincing them that her theory was valid and illuminating of the nature and value of art.

For instance, I posted quite a bit in support of Peikoff's wonderful lectures on induction in physics and philosophy, and got very little beyond definition-switching and misrepresentations of what Peikoff was claiming.

I could add a few more examples, but I'm already too depressed to go on...

Maybe I need a vacation from OL...

REB

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Maybe I need a vacation from OL...

Roger,

No. Don't do that.

:)

(You are right about the art article. I am in terrible fault with you. I will rectify this.)

About your complaints, one of the purposes of OL is to examine premises (ALL premises—even "A is A" if there is a good reason to) and discuss ideas. One of my main goals with OL was to avoid the preaching one sees on more orthodox (and sometimes not-so-orthodox) Objectivist sites. But you are right about my frustration, as it seems that OL has attracted another kind of preacher—those who bash Rand with every other post and merely repeat negative opinions about Objectivist ideas prolifically without adding much by way of new information. The nonstop and voluminous negative repetition is starting to get tiring (often accompanied with denigrating remarks or indirect mocking). This is not critical thinking. It is preaching.

The worst part is that often it is preaching without even getting the Objectivist ideas right. And when one tries to explain, there are more mistakes with more voluminous preaching (and an awful lot of condescension—the snobbery gets so thick sometimes you could cut it with a knife). I love to be challenged to reexamine my premises, but frankly what has been unfolding is getting boring. It goes nowhere. (And I am one who contests certain Objectivist ideas on my own!)

Now in defense of OL, there is an enormous amount of wonderful material and many great discussions have been (and are) going on. You have provided a nice-sized hunk of it. But more is coming. We have some exciting new members and there is one characteristic that I am very proud of. OL members use their own minds. There are no personality cults or tribalism to speak of and people (even the anti-Rand iterators) insist on speaking from the heart. Sincerity is a common trait and if someone says something, he believes it.

I constantly receive emails from new members thanking me for sponsoring a site where people disagree with each other without a lot of acrimony. There are many other good qualities and our read numbers are higher than ever. So the present phase is merely a slump. It will get better. It always does.

Real wisdom is in balance, not in intellectual moderation, and not in party-line. Balance often works like a seesaw, but sometimes the seesaw make us sea-sick. :)

Michael

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Maybe I need a vacation from OL...

Roger,

No. Don't do that.

:)

(You are right about the art article. I am in terrible fault with you. I will rectify this.)

About your complaints, one of the purposes of OL is to examine premises (ALL premises—even "A is A" if there is a good reason to) and discuss ideas. One of my main goals with OL was to avoid the preaching one sees on more orthodox (and sometimes not-so-orthodox) Objectivist sites. But you are right about my frustration, as it seems that OL has attracted another kind of preacher—those who bash Rand with every other post and merely repeat negative opinions about Objectivist ideas prolifically without adding much by way of new information. The nonstop and voluminous negative repetition is starting to get tiring (often accompanied with denigrating remarks or indirect mocking). This is not critical thinking. It is preaching.

The worst part is that often it is preaching without even getting the Objectivist ideas right. And when one tries to explain, there are more mistakes with more voluminous preaching (and an awful lot of condescension—the snobbery gets so thick sometimes you could cut it with a knife). I love to be challenged to reexamine my premises, but frankly what has been unfolding is getting boring. It goes nowhere. (And I am one who contests certain Objectivist ideas on my own!)

Now in defense of OL, there is an enormous amount of wonderful material and many great discussions have been (and are) going on. You have provided a nice-sized hunk of it. But more is coming. We have some exciting new members and there is one characteristic that I am very proud of. OL members use their own minds. There are no personality cults or tribalism to speak of and people (even the anti-Rand iterators) insist on speaking from the heart. Sincerity is a common trait and if someone says something, he believes it.

I constantly receive emails from new members thanking me for sponsoring a site where people disagree with each other without a lot of acrimony. There are many other good qualities and our read numbers are higher than ever. So the present phase is merely a slump. It will get better. It always does.

Real wisdom is in balance, not in intellectual moderation, and not in party-line. Balance often works like a seesaw, but sometimes the seesaw make us sea-sick. :)

Michael

OK, Michael. Thanks for the encouragement and the perspective. I'll stick around a bit more. Perhaps my balance-point is in commenting briefly and not getting embroiled in debates. It's really hard to bite my tongue, though, when the kind of things you noted above start happening. I'm not a dogmatic Loyalist, but it royally pisses me off to hear Rand being distorted and the resultant strawman used to "invalidate" and denigrate her. Same for Peikoff, Branden, etc. Guess I need a thicker skin...reb

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[...] it seems that OL has attracted another kind of preacher—those who bash Rand with every other post and merely repeat negative opinions about Objectivist ideas prolifically without adding much by way of new information

Would you name the people you mean? If you mean Dragonfly, for instance, he's contributed brilliant posts especially on physics issues. Bob Kolker has contributed excellent material about logic, Daniel about Popper.

[...] it royally pisses me off to hear Rand being distorted and the resultant strawman used to "invalidate" and denigrate her.

Where is it you think she's being distorted and denigrated? I know of someone named Roger Bissell who has written more than a few negative things about Rand personally and about her ideas over the years. My suspicion is that you consider critiques of Rand, either personal or ideational, fine as long as they pertain to issues on which you fault or disagree with her, but if they pertain to issues on which you applaud or agree, that's different.

Ellen

___

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Would you name the people you mean?

Ellen,

Not right now. I'm not interested in bickering.

My approach is that good people sometimes do bad things (or inappropriate things). We all do. Let's leave it at that for now.

Another approach is that people who have done bad things are bad people. I don't think like that (unless the level is hopeless) because I have often been judged according to that standard. It's wrong when applied to good people.

Michael

Link to comment
Share on other sites

OK, if "reason can't dictate content," then how do you view the status of mathematics? And of the mental process of doing it? If you do mathematics correctly, you will get 4 when you add 2 and 2. If this a process of reason? If so, would you not say that it is "dictating" the result? How can you use reason and get anything ~other~ then 4 when you add 2 and 2? And even if you get an error in adding two numbers (larger than 2 and 2, one would hope!), doesn't the obtaining of an error imply that there is a necessarily ~correct~ result of the addition process, and that if one adds correctly, one will ~necessarily~ get that answer?

I fail to see how this is different from doing philosophy, e.g., deriving ethics from metaphysics, epistemology, and the essential nature of man (Peikoff called it "the metaphysical nature of man").

[

2+2=4 is not arrived at by reason it is defined as such in mathematics. Almost all of the arguments on this list have their roots in a misunderstanding of the nature of mathematics - the difference between mathematical and natural language. I am only trying to help some understand I have nothing against Rand or anyone else but it's quite possible that Rand and others that followed did not recognize this difference and perhaps you could save alot of grief by coming to terms with it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Almost all of the arguments on this list have their roots in a misunderstanding of the nature of mathematics - the difference between mathematical and natural language. I am only trying to help some understand I have nothing against Rand or anyone else but it's quite possible that Rand and others that followed did not recognize this difference and perhaps you could save alot of grief by coming to terms with it.

GS,

This is not a misunderstanding. It would help a lot if you learned the Objectivist concepts, then compared and criticized, instead of just repeating the GS ones without understanding the Objectivist ones.

Michael

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Roger,

I'm not getting into a 'rassling match with you; our actual differences are slight if expressed issue by issue. Peikoff may have given wonderful lectures on thinking, but the real problem with Objectivism is the existence of ARI and its intellectually totalitarian minions. There is good reason Alan Greenspan calls himself a "libertarian Republican" and not an Objectivist: too much negative baggage. I am not an Objectivist either, anymore. In my case I don't want anyone to get the impression I might be under the thumb of some intellectual authority figure like Peikoff or Binswanger. The idea of a philosophy leading me about by the nose makes me want to bite, kick, scream and break things. Peikoff is the natural, dead-end of Rand's own attitude, but at least she was trying to protect the integrity of what she had created. Peikoff is only trying to protect his position at the top of a small heap.

--Brant

Edited by Brant Gaede
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Roger,

I'm not getting into a 'rassling match with you; our actual differences are slight if expressed issue by issue. Peikoff may have given wonderful lectures on thinking, but the real problem with Objectivism is the existence of ARI and its intellectually totalitarian minions. There is good reason Alan Greenspan calls himself a "libertarian Republican" and not an Objectivist: too much negative baggage. I am not an Objectivist either, anymore. In my case I don't want anyone to get the impression I might be under the thumb of some intellectual authority figure like Peikoff or Binswanger. The idea of a philosophy leading me about by the nose makes me want to bite, kick, scream and break things.

--Brant

Brant. I agree with you about "the real problem of Objectivism."

My approach over the years has been to use Objectivism as a tool, and to try to keep it or put it into the best working order that I can for ~my~ purposes of understanding and living.

This means: trying to understand O'ism's structure and meaning, probing for gaps and inconsistencies, filling the gaps and ironing out the inconsistencies, and trying to avoid the mean-spiritedly petty and wrong-headed applications that the alpha-types sink deeper and deeper into through the years.

I don't have as much fear of Objectivism "leading me about by the nose" as I do of its self-proclaimed guardians trying to beat me over the head with it. But in regard to the latter, they certainly make me "want to bite, kick, scream and break things." And/or kick them in the nuts, a la Ron Merrill.

Peace, brother

REB

Link to comment
Share on other sites

OK, if "reason can't dictate content," then how do you view the status of mathematics? And of the mental process of doing it? If you do mathematics correctly, you will get 4 when you add 2 and 2. If this a process of reason? If so, would you not say that it is "dictating" the result? How can you use reason and get anything ~other~ then 4 when you add 2 and 2? And even if you get an error in adding two numbers (larger than 2 and 2, one would hope!), doesn't the obtaining of an error imply that there is a necessarily ~correct~ result of the addition process, and that if one adds correctly, one will ~necessarily~ get that answer?

I fail to see how this is different from doing philosophy, e.g., deriving ethics from metaphysics, epistemology, and the essential nature of man (Peikoff called it "the metaphysical nature of man").

[

2+2=4 is not arrived at by reason it is defined as such in mathematics. Almost all of the arguments on this list have their roots in a misunderstanding of the nature of mathematics - the difference between mathematical and natural language. I am only trying to help some understand I have nothing against Rand or anyone else but it's quite possible that Rand and others that followed did not recognize this difference and perhaps you could save alot of grief by coming to terms with it.

I couldn't disagree with you more about reason and mathematics (and natural language). An equation is just a proposition using quantities and proxies for quantities, and if you say "Add two of anything to two of anything else, and you have four things," that is precisely the same thing (in natural language) as saying "2 + 2 = 4" (in mathematical terms).

And this is not an issue of mere "definition." Someone else on OL the past day or two said something similar (Ellen S.?), but I agree that it states the matter correctly. Acknowledging that // added to // makes //// is not just an "analytic truth," but the recognition of a fact of reality, moreover a recognition that involves an act of reason: the integration and identification of the material provided by the senses.

Now, at some point in laying out the structure and principles of mathematics, you do get to a point at which you cannot define terms any further except ostensively. But they have a factual basis in reality, and thus so do all mathematical definitions and principles built upon them. There are some good essays on this in back issues of the Intellectual Activist.

I think that Rationalism is just as fallacious in mathematics as is Empiricism. Peikoff claims that mathematics is unlike the other sciences/disciplines in that it (supposedly) is not inductive, but deductive. Yet (and here is evidence that ARI is not a monolithic theoretical strait-jacket) another Objectivist has lectured at ARI summer seminars on mathematical topics, and she has argued persuasively that mathematics is fundamentally ~inductive~.

I happen to agree with this, and I have at least since the 80's when I read several of Georg Polya's fascinating books on mathematical discovery. I wrote a little piece on this, which I posted here.

REB

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I couldn't disagree with you more about reason and mathematics (and natural language). An equation is just a proposition using quantities and proxies for quantities, and if you say "Add two of anything to two of anything else, and you have four things," that is precisely the same thing (in natural language) as saying "2 + 2 = 4" (in mathematical terms).

And this is not an issue of mere "definition." Someone else on OL the past day or two said something similar (Ellen S.?), but I agree that it states the matter correctly. Acknowledging that // added to // makes //// is not just an "analytic truth," but the recognition of a fact of reality, moreover a recognition that involves an act of reason: the integration and identification of the material provided by the senses.

2+2=4 is ALWAYS true in mathematics but 2 things and 2 things is NOT ALWAYS true in experience. 2 gallons of water and 2 gallons of alcohol will not give you 4 gallons of the mixture.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now