I think that even a philosophical ideology , eg, the 'classic form of empiricism', has to be grounded in the societal infrastructure.
Political ideologies certainly must be grounded; I think it's an error to say, for example, the 'democracy is the best political system', for any political system must give political power to that section of the population that produces wealth and so enables continuity of that society. If the majority of the population are producing wealth, then, democracy is the most functional political system. If only a minority are producing wealth [and this was the case for most of mankind's economic history], then, democracy would be dysfunctional. What about philosophical ideologies? Are they isolated from grounding in the societal infrastructure? I've outlined my view of the enormous societal impact of the rise of empiricism, which empowered ordinary individuals to interact, as they saw fit, with the world. The slippery slope downside is that it easily moves into the randomness of postmodern relativism and chaos. What about realism? How does it societally function? It removes the individual from sole access to 'truth' and inserts a 'community of scholars'. This removes randomness from the analysis. It posits a truth system based around general rules, where individual articulations of these rules are just that: individual and transient versions but almost minor in their real-life power except as versions of those rules. This has its own slippery slope of fundamental determinism and we've seen the results in many eras in our world history, including modern times. Peirce dealt with this with his focus on the freedom of Firstness and his view that the rules [Thirdness] evolve and adapt. This would enable a society to have a rule of law, with local variations - something required in a 'growth society' - i.e., a modern society as differentiated from a no-growth or pre-industrial society. Edwina ----- Original Message ----- From: John Collier To: Jerry LR Chandler Cc: Peirce List ; Eric Charles ; Helmut Raulien Sent: Sunday, February 05, 2017 3:18 AM Subject: RE: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism - “The union of units unifies the unity” Jerry, I think we are using ‘empiricism’ differently. I was using it in the classic form, not just to refer to anyone who uses the natural world as a touchstone for clarifying meaning and discovering the truth. I am an empiricist in this latter sense, but not the former.
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