The problem with democratic socialism is that the adjective contradicts the noun.
Author: Bill Vallicella
Peter Unger on the Emptiness of the Present-Eternalist Debate
Peter Unger doubts, with respect to the past, but not with respect to the future, whether there is any “concretely substantial difference” between presentism and eternalism (Empty Ideas, Oxford UP, 2014, 176 ff.). He argues that any appearance of a substantial difference is “illusory.” Both parties agree on such contingent past-tensed truths as that dinosaurs once roamed the earth. They agree that there are such truths about the past whether we know them or not. The parties to the dispute further agree that these truths are fixed and determinate, and as such unalterable. To employ one of Unger's examples, was Abe Lincoln as a boy ever friends with a boy named 'David'? According to Unger, he either was or was not, and there is a fact of the matter one way or the other. No matter that we don't know which. Unger: “. . . our Presentist and our Eternalist will agree that 'what's past is already fixed and determined; it's a done deal which cannot possible be undone.” (2014, 177) In sum, both parties to the controversy agree that there are truths about the past; that some of them are known to be true; that these truths, whether known or not, form a complete set; and that these truths cannot be changed.
Unger's point is that presentist and eternalist differ only in the ways they talk and think about the collection of agreed-upon Moorean facts. The eternalist, but not the presentist, will say that dinosaurs tenselessly exist and tenselessly roam the earth at times millions of years earlier than the time at which the eternalist speaks, etc. The presentist, but not the eternalist, will just use ordinary English with its tenses: dinosaurs don't exist now, but they used to exist millions of years ago, and when they existed they roamed the earth, etc. There is no “concretely substantial difference” between what the presentist holds and what the eternalist holds with respect to the past. (2014, 178) Their disagreement is trivial and insubstantial because they differ merely on how to talk about a body of agreed-upon facts.
But this can't be right since, while there is much that presentists and eternalists agree on, there are substantive points of disagreements that divide them. Unger says on behalf of the presentist that “a tenseless way of talking and thinking will have us (at least tend to) 'spatialize time,' thus (tending to make or) making obscure to us the dynamic aspect of concrete reality . . . .” (2014, 177, emphasis in original). Right here Unger himself unwittingly points to a substantive disagreement that divides presentists and eternalists, or at least those (the majority) of the latter who are B-eternalists. Is there a dynamic aspect of concrete reality? Surely it is a substantive question whether concrete, mind-independent reality is static or dynamic. If real time is exhausted by the B-series, then B-eternalism advocates a static view of time and change unacceptable to presentists.
It surely seems that the following related questions are also substantive: Is temporal passage real or is it mind-dependent? Is time a fourth dimension of a four-dimensional manifold, space-time, which features time as its fourth dimension? Is the existence of temporal items independent of when they exist, or does the existence of such items depend on when they exist? Is existence reducible to temporal presentness, or not? Are the truths about the past on which presentists and eternalists agree brute truths or are they truths grounded in items external to the truths? Suppose we pursue the last question.
Presentist and eternalist agree on the contingent truth that Socrates existed but does not now exist. What is this truth about? The natural answer is that it is about Socrates. The presentist, however, for whom only the present exists, cannot avail himself of this natural answer. For if present items alone exist, then Socrates does not exist in which case he cannot be referred to: the reference relation is such that, necessarily, if a name refers to, or is about, a thing, then the thing exists. The presentist has to say, implausibly, that 'Socrates' is about something else such as Socrates' haecceity, or else that the name is not about anything, and that therefore the truth in question is a brute truth. To say that it is a brute truth is to say that it is just true! When he was alive, the present-tensed 'Socrates exists,' or rather the proposition expressed by the Greek equivalent, was about Socrates, and true in virtue of Socrates' existence, but after he ceased to exist, 'Socrates existed,' which became true on Socrates' demise, is not about him. That is surely strange.
The eternalist, recoiling in disgust, will say that the truth that Socrates existed is about Socrates who exists tenselessly at (some but not all of the) times earlier than the time of this observation, and that, therefore, the truth in question is not a brute truth, but one grounded in the (tenseless) existence of Socrates. Whatever the merits of the competing views, we certainly seem to have here a substantive disagreement, one that pivots on the question whether singular, affirmative truths about merely past items need truth-makers or truth-grounds. Maybe they do; maybe they don't. Either way, this is not a dispute about different ways of talking and thinking about some agreed-upon collection of Moorean facts.
Unger also says on behalf of the presentist that
. . . there aren't any such tenseless senses of, or forms of, 'exist' and 'be,' and any other naturally available constructions featuring verbs. . . . when it is said that two and three make five, the only real sense of that is the same as the single sense of what's stated when it's said that two and three now make five. . . . So, properly, we should say that two and three always did make five, and they now do make five, and they always will make five. (2014, 176-7.)
But here too there are points of substantive disagreement. It is a substantive question whether or not numbers are timeless entities. Suppose they are. Then the copula in '7 is prime' will have to be tenseless. Talk about the timeless is tenseless. Since it is a substantive question whether there are timeless items, it is a substantive question whether there are tenseless senses of 'exist' and 'be.' Suppose I say to my class, “David Hume is an empiricist who believes that every significant idea is traceable to a corresponding sensory impression.” It is an interesting substantive question whether the verb forms in this sentence are tenseless or tensed.
Word of the Day: Psephology
Merriam-Webster: "the scientific study of elections." "Psephology is from the Greek word psēphos, meaning 'pebble.'"
Necro-psephology is a growing field of inquiry in the Chicago area. For in those precincts there is a sizable turnout at elections of the dearly departed.
If you have a large vocabulary you will love my blog; if you don't, you need it.
Dissembling in the Barber’s Chair
My barber once asked me if I had done any travelling since last I saw him. I lied and said that I hadn't, when in fact I had been to Geneva, Switzerland. If I had told the truth, then that truth would have led to another and yet another. "And what did you do in Geneva?" "I was invited to a conference on Bradley's Regress." And thus would I have had to blow my cover as regular guy among regular guys in that quintessential enclave of the regular guy, the old-time barber shop. I might have come across as self-important or as a braggart. I might have come across as I come across to some on this weblog.
Lies often lead to more lies, but truth-telling can get you in deep too. Life in this world of surfaces and seemings often goes down easier with a dollop of mendacity. In a world phenomenal and phony a certain amount of phoniness is forgivable.
But how much?
……………………..
Dave G. responds:
Boy can I relate to that. It took me most of the way through college, but eventually I found out that people didn't like me and thought I was arrogant in part because of my vocabulary (full disclosure, I was also somewhat impatient with people who didn't think as quickly as I did). After that I stuck to Germanic-root words and found it noticeably easier to talk to girls. It was a few more years before I developed patience.
The life of someone who is absorbed in things that almost no one else cares about can be lonely. I suppose that is part of what inspires philosophy bloggers. And model railroad bloggers, for that matter.
The Internet has its negatives, obviously, but it is a wonderful tool for those who are not, as it were, stamped out by a cookie-cutter. It makes it possible to locate the like-minded. It has enriched my life enormously.
Saturday Night at the Oldies: Fred Neil
Remember Fred Neil? One of the luminaries of the '60s folk scene, he didn't do much musically thereafter. Neil is probably best remembered for having penned 'Everybody's Talkin' which was made famous by Harry Nilsson as the theme of Midnight Cowboy. Here is Neil's version. Nilsson's rendition.
Another of my Fred Neil favorites is "Other Side of This Life." Here is Peter, Paul, and Mary's version.
And it's been a long long time since I last enjoyed That's the Bag I'm In.
I've Got a Secret. YouTuber comment: "Why were the sixties so special and important? Fred Neil, for one." But why were they so special to us and not others? In part because we were raw, open to experience, and full of the painful & passionate intensity of youth.
The reclusive Neil died in 2001 at the age of 64. Biography here.
Meinertsen on the Merely Apparent Existence of Thick Particulars
This is the second in a series on Bo Meinertsen's 2018 book. It is part of a 'warm-up' for a review article to appear in Metaphysica. Here is the first installment.
A thick particular in the parlance of David Armstrong is an ordinary particular taken together with its non-relational properties. But an ordinary particular is distinct from each and from all of its properties: it is that which has these properties. If we consider an ordinary particular in abstraction from its properties, what we have before our minds is the particular qua particular. From here it is but a short step to the much maligned and hotly contested bare or thin particular. Meinertsen ably defends bare or thin particulars as constituents of states of affairs in Chapter 5.
A tomato will serve as an example. Call it 'Tom.' There are any number of contingent truths about Tom. Tom is red; Tom is ripe; Tom is round; etc. Meinertsen and I agree that these truths need truthmakers. As I would put it, they can't just be true. What in the world makes them true? For Meinertsen, states of affairs (STOAs) play the truthmaker role. A (first-order) state of affairs is a unified complex consisting of the instantiation of a property by a thin particular, or the instantiation of a relation by two or more thin particulars. Instantiation is an asymmetrical external relation that, in the monadic case, connects a thin particular to a property thereby forming a state of affairs. The truth that Tom is red is thus made true by the state of affairs, Tom's being red, where the subject constituent is a thin particular, thin-Tom if you will, and not thick-Tom, Tom together with his intrinsic properties. And the same goes for the truth that Tom is ripe, and the truth that Tom is round. For each truth there is a truthmaking state of affairs, a thin state of affairs we can call it since it includes only one of thick-Tom's properties.
Now take the conjunction of all of Tom's intrinsic properties. The result is a conjunctive property. Call it the nature N of Tom. The instantiation of this nature by a thin particular is a state of affairs. This is because N is a bona fide property, and the instantiation of any property by a thin particular is a state of affairs. This state of affairs is a thick state of affairs, and is identical to the thick particular, Tom. So the following comment (in the earlier thread) by Meinertsen comes as a bit of a surprise:
As to (4), well, in my view, thick particulars aren’t real STOAs, merely apparent ones. It’s true that I assay a thick particular as the instantiation of N, the conjunctive property that is the conjunction of its intrinsic properties. But I also argue that conjunctive properties are truthmaking reducible (TM-reducible) – i.e. only existing at the level of truths, not at the level of truthmakers – and that the instantiation (‘instantiation’) of a TM-reducible property isn’t a real STOA.
This is puzzling because the dialectic started with a really existent thick particular, Tom together with his properties, but seems to end with the elimination of the starting point and the demotion of the thick particular to a mere appearance.
The reasoning seems to proceed as follows. The contingent truth that a is F needs a truthmaker, and so does the contingent truth that a is G. But the conjunction of the two truths — which is 'automatically' true given the truth of the conjuncts — does not need its own truthmaker. So these three truths need only two truthmakers. There is no need for a third truthmaker because the truth of the conjunctive proposition supervenes on the truth of its conjuncts. It's an aletheiological 'free lunch.'
Now consider the conjunction C of all the truths about a, or about Tom in our example. What makes this conjunction true are the 'thin' states of affairs corresponding to and grounding each of the truths in the conjunction. The 'thin' states of affairs do all the truthmaking work: there is no need for a separate 'thick' state of affairs to serve as truthmaker for the conjunction itself. But if there is no need for 'thick' states of affairs, then there is no need to posit thick particulars in reality. (A thick particular just is a 'thick' state of affairs.) So thick particulars are best regarded as merely apparent.
That is the argument as far as I can tell. Did I get it right, Bo?
Critique
But if there is no thick particular in reality, then what makes it the case that each of the thin particulars in each of the thin states of affairs is the same thin particular? Meinertsen speaks above of "the conjunctive property that is the conjunction of its intrinsic properties." (emphasis added) What is the antecedent of the pronoun 'its'? That would have to be Tom in our example, thick-Tom, Tom together with all its properties. So the very identity of C — its being the conjunction it is and not some other conjunction — presupposes the reality of thick-Tom, Tom together with his intrinsic properties. For C to exist and to be true, thick-Tom must exist.
I conclude that one cannot take thick particulars to be merely apparent. Their reality is presupposed if the STOA style of ontology is to get off the ground in the first place.
Now the tomato example is what Meinertsen rightly calls a "toy example." (5). We philosophers employ such examples for convenience ignoring the fact, if it is fact, that tomatoes and other meso-particulars are not ontologically fundamental. So it may make sense to say that thick-Tom and his colleagues do not really exist. But surely the micro-entities of physics do exist and are thick particulars and thus 'thick' states of affairs. There have to be some thick particulars somewhere.
On p. 70, Meinertsen tells that at the level of truthmakers, there are no such things as molecules. Presumably he will say the same about their constituent atoms. But what about sub-atomic particles? Could he be telling us that, no matter how far down we go, we will never encounter anything fundamentally real?
Nicolai Hartmann on Søren Kierkegaard and Competing Attitudes Toward Individuality
Although existentialist themes can be traced all the way back to Socrates and then forward through St. Augustine and Blaise Pascal, to mention only three pre-Kierkegaardian luminaries, Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) is rightly regarded as the father of existentialism. His worked proved to be seminal for that of Martin Heidegger, Karl Jaspers, and Jean-Paul Sartre, to mention just three post-Kierkegaardian luminaries. You won't be able to understand properly Angst, Existenz, or Sein-Zum-Tode in Heidegger without having read Kierkegaard. And the same goes for the key concepts of the others who are loosely collectible under the umbrella of existentialism.
Kierkegaard's subjective-existential philosophical approach is one that is the polar opposite of one that could be described as objectivist or cosmological, for want of better labels. Nicolai Hartmann is an excellent representative of the latter tendency. Here is what Wolfgang Stegmueller has to say about Hartmann's attitude toward Kierkegaard (the translation is mine):
In Kierkegaard, the spiritual creator of existential philosophy, Hartmann sees the unhappiest and most cunningly refined (raffiniertesten) self-tormentor of human history. Hartmann denies to anxiety and death any metaphysical significance while admitting their role as emotional phenomena. Only an egotist (Ichmensch) consumed with self-importance sees in anxiety and death something unsettling and terrifying. Cosmically considered, the death of the individual shows itself to be a totally insignificant event in the totality of the world process. It is only an unnatural attitude of protracted self-reflection that artificially induces anxiety of death which then assumes metaphysical weight. (Hauptstroemungen der Gegenwartsphilosophie, Alfred Kroener Verlag, 1960, 242.)
For Hartmann, then, Kierkegaard's concern with the existing individual , and in the first instance himself as existing individual, merely reflects unhealthy self-absorption and egocentricity. The individual, whether an individual rock, plant, animal or man is fleeting, ephemeral, of no final significance.
Maybe I will finish this entry some day. Maybe I will die first. It has been languishing in the queue for many a year. So here it is, a stub. If it gets you reading the luminaries mentioned, then it was worth posting.
Kevin Kim on John Pepple on Sweden as Europe’s Sacrificial Lamb
A tip of the hat to Bill Keezer, and greetings to fellow bloggers Kim and Pepple. The titles of their blogs do not, however, earn the coveted MavPhil transparency of content award.
Feed: BigHominid's Hairy Chasms
Posted on: Thursday, September 5, 2019 1:22 AM
Author: Kevin Kim
Subject: Pepple on Sweden
|
Is Sweden Europe's sacrificial lamb, to be laid out as a bloody example of what happens when you heedlessly allow an influx of Muslims who refuse to assimilate into your culture? In John Pepple's grim blog post, Dr. Pepple quotes a Frenchwoman who immigrated to Sweden, but who is now leaving the country for Budapest because the crime has gotten so bad, and because PC politicians, who fear being branded as racists, refuse to recognize that there's any problem with current immigration policy and law enforcement. Here's an excerpt of something the woman wrote—one long, cri de coeur sentence:
Go read the rest. A similar picture is being painted of countries like France, which is dealing with its own immigration/assimilation problem. France has a built-in cultural immune system called laïcité or, roughly, secularism. This is why French law has made no bones about disallowing the wearing of religious items like Muslim veils (hijab, etc.). But in the area surrounding Paris, which is filled with tenements and housing projects, there are the same no-go zones, with plenty of robbery, rape, car fires, and so on. In Paris itself, tent cities—with their attendant filth and violence—can be found as well. But once you leave Paris, you'd be forgiven for thinking France is still France. In the area where my buddy Dominique lives, in the small town of Le Vanneau-Irleau, life goes on much as it has for decades, utterly untouched by what's happening in France's big cities. In the United States, there's a similar state of affairs, albeit with somewhat different demographics. Still, the heart of the US problem has much in common with Europe's problem: a lack of political will when it comes to things like immigration and the true causes of poverty, and a lack of will when it comes to law enforcement. Any teacher knows that losing control of the classroom means the students will rule and nothing of significance will be learned. This is basic human psychology: people need structure if they are to live in harmony and to flourish. Without structure, life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. This is the paradox of freedom: true freedom is, far from being unstructured, veined throughout with structure. The creative freedom and amazing technique you can see in a great painter or martial artist is the result of focus and discipline. It's strange, but it's strictures that allow humans to flourish. And a society is no different from an individual in this regard: a society without strictures—an organic system of rules and laws and unspoken social contracts—becomes flabby and moribund. Look at New York City before and after Rudy Giuliani's two terms: Giuliani enforced the law, and his policies resulted in a few years of glorious prosperity between long periods of poverty and crime. Sweden is experiencing this problem now; so is France, at least in its big cities. The US has its own similar urban problems. As the folk song goes, When will they ever learn? |
Non-Substantial Change, Trope Bundle Theory, and States of Affairs
I am presently writing a review article for Metaphysica about Bo R. Meinertsen's Metaphysics of States of Affairs: Truthmaking, Universals, and a Farewell to Bradley's Regress (Springer 2018). Since I will probably incorporate the following critical remarks into my review, I want to give Bo a chance to respond.
Substantial and Non-Substantial Change
One way a thing can change is by coming into being or passing away. This is called substantial change. We could also call it existential change. The other way could be called alterational change. This occurs when a thing, persisting for a time, alters in respect of its intrinsic properties during that time. Consider the ripening of a tomato. This typically involves the tomato's going from green to red. This change in respect of color is an alterational, or accidental, or non-substantial change. One and the same entity (substance) persists through a non-zero interval of time and instantiates different properties (accidents) at different times. As I would put it, there is no alterational change without existential unchange: numerically the same tomato is green, hard, inedible, etc. at time t and red, soft, and edible at later time t*. Bo and I are both assuming that things in time persist by enduring, not by perduring.
The Problem of Non-Substantial Change of Continuants
This is
. . . the problem of how to ground the fact that continuants 'persist through change'. For instance, a tomato's changing from red to green [sic] is a case of non-substantial change, and how do we ground the fact that the tomato that has changed exists both before and after the change? The bundles of basic trope theory essentially have the members they actually have and are therefore incompatible with such change. (Meinertsen 2018, 49)
The problem is that we want to say that one and the same tomato goes from being green to being red. We want to be able to uphold the diachronic identity of the tomato as it alters property-wise. But this is impossible on basic bundle-theoretic trope theory because trope bundles have their members essentially. This means that if bundle B has trope t as a member, then it is impossible that B exist without having t as a member. The counterintuitive upshot is that a green tomato assayed as a bundle of tropes ceases to exist when it ceases to be green. This implies that our tomato when so assayed cannot undergo alterational, or accidental, or non-substantial change when it goes from green to red, hard to soft, etc. It implies that every change is a substantial change. I agree with Meinertsen that this is a powerful objection to the basic bundle-of-tropes assay of ordinary particulars.
Does a State of Affairs Ontology Face the Same Problem?
Meinertsen says that it does not:
State of affairs ontology has no problem in dealing with the problem of non-substantial change. None of the properties of a particular in a state of affairs — which as we shall see in Chap. 5 is a bare particular — is included in it, as opposed to instantiated by it. Hence, it changes non-substantially if and only it ceases to instantiate at least one of these properties or whenever it instantiates a new property. (49)
It seems to me, though, that states of affairs (STOA) ontology faces, if not the very same problem, then a closely related one.
Critique
It is true that a bare particular does not include its properties: the bare or thin particular stands to its properties in the asymmetrical external relation of instantiation. So what Meinertsen is telling us is that it is the bare particular that remains numerically the same over time while some of its properties are replaced by others. This is what grounds the diachronic numerical identity of the continuant. The substratum of change is the bare particular 'in' the tomato, not the tomato as a whole.
But this answer is less than satisfactory. What changes over time is not a thin particular, but a thick particular. It is the green tomato with all its properties that loses one or more of them and becomes a red tomato. This is supported by the fact that we do not see or otherwise perceive the thin particular; we do, however, see and otherwise perceive thick particulars. What we have before us is a tomato that we see to be green and feel to be hard, etc., and that we then later see to be red and feel to be soft, etc.
Arguably, then, it is the thick particular that is the substratum of non-substantial change, not the thin particular. If so, then a problem arises similar to the problem that arose for the bundle-of-tropes theory. How?
Well, the green tomato is a STOA whose nature is N1, where N1 is a conjunctive property the conjuncts of which are all the intrinsic properties of the green tomato. The red tomato is a STOA whose nature is N2, where N2 is a conjunctive property the conjuncts of which are all the intrinsic properties of the red tomato. These STOAs differ numerically for they differ in one or more constituents. The first has greenness as a constituent, the second does not. A STOA is a complex, and two complexes are the same iff they have all the same constituents.
So what's the problem? The problem is that any non-substantial change in the green tomato assayed as a STOA destroys its identity just as surely as any non-substantial change in the green tomato assayed as a bundle of tropes destroys its identity. On either account, there is no adequate explanation of non-substantial change. This is because there is no numerically self-same substratum of change that endures through the change in properties. The thin particular is not plausibly regarded as the substratum. I note en passant that Gustav Bergmann regarded bare particulars as momentary entities, not as persisting entities.
The problem set forth as an aporetic sextad:
- There is no change in intrinsic properties of an ordinary particular over time without a numerically self-same substratum of change. (endurantist assumption)
- The green tomato changes to red. (pre-theoretical datum)
- The green tomato that changes to red is a thick particular. (pre-theoretical datum)
- Thick particulars are STOAs. (theoretical claim)
- STOAs are complexes. (true by definition)
- Two complexes are the same iff they share all constituents. (theoretical claim)
These six propositions are collectively inconsistent. My question to Meinertsen: which of these propositions will you reject? Presumably, he will have to reject (3) and say that 'the green tomato' refers to an invisible thin particular, and it is this item that changes from green to red and that serves as the substratum of change.
What do I say? For now I say merely that, pace Bo, on the issue before us, STOA ontology is no better than the bundle-of-tropes theory.
Trump
Donald Trump cannot restore us morally or reverse our cultural decline. He is, after all, a product of it. But he can secure the political and economic preconditions for such a restoration. And that is something the Left cannot and will not do. In fact, Trump has already taken great strides in the direction of restoration by his judicial appointments. And in other areas as well. But leftists, consumed with hate and blinded by it, cannot credit the man with any accomplishment. Their unrelenting negativity may well prove to be their undoing. One can hope.
Righteous Anger
That one's anger is righteous is rather harder to discern than that it is anger.
Hurricane Names
What's with 'Dorian' and the like? Why not these names: Hillary, Nancy, Chuck, Alexandria, Rashida . . . ?
Disasters ought to be named after disasters.
Joe China and the Cherokee Maiden
China is the conservatives' Russia, and Joe Biden is the conservatives' Trump. This meme will explode full force should sleepy Joe get the nod, which is possible though unlikely.
On the nod, he won't get the nod.
My money is on the Cherokee maiden.
One has to feel sorry for her.
Desperately wanting to play the identity-political game, but lacking a politically correct identity, she faked one. But the fakery of Fauxcahontas has been exposed and this will be her undoing. This, in tandem with the lunacy of her policy proposals such as 'free' health care for illegal aliens.
So she will win the the nomination, but lose the election. The Orange Man will force the 'redskin' back to the reservation.
Democratic Socialism?
The label smacks of an oxymoron. Essential to socialism is collective ownership of the means of production. Democratic socialists will presumably want to distinguish socialism from statism, which may be defined as state control of the economy, where the state control is not in turn democratically controlled. Historically, however, the tendency is for supposedly collective, democratic control to transmogrify into control by an elite group of central planners who, exulting in their power, will use all the means at their disposal to hold on to it and expand it — and 'the people' be damned.
The tendency, then, is for socialism to terminate in statism and totalitarianism. Power to the people? Hardly. 'The people' end up among the socially planned and not among the social planners. Either that or they end up in a gulag.
Addendum 8/31. London Ed comments:
Good post, and the seed of an answer to the ‘No true Marxist’ argument. As you say, collective ownership of the means of production is essential to socialism, not just a mere accident.
The next step in the proof would be to show that it is essential, not just accidental, to collective ownership that supposedly collective, democratic control will inevitably transmogrify into ‘control by an elite group of central planners who, exulting in their power, will use all the means at their disposal to hold on to it and expand it’. Hence, the bad history of Marxism is not a mere accident, despite what its supporters claim.
This would be the next step in the proof if a proof in the strict sense could be had. Here socialists enjoy some 'wiggle room.' A strict proof is not available. My first point above is non-negotiable since it is merely a consequence of the definition of 'socialism.' But how do we prove that collective ownership necessarily and inevitably issues in statism and totalitarianism? Of course, repeated failure is a good inductive argument for an ideal's being unrealizable. But induction is not demonstration. Without a demonstration, we cannot deny the socialist his 'wiggle room.'
The Chesterton Move
The true-believing socialist will most likely make what I will call the 'Chesterton move.' G. K. C. famously asserted, or at least implied, that Christianity hasn't failed; it's never been tried. "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried. (G. K. Chesterton, What’s Wrong with the World (1910), ch. 1.5)
The idea here is that Christianity is a realizable ideal, but that we simply haven't realized it. Now if an ideal is realizable, then its never having been realized is no apodictic proof of its not being a genuine ideal, one that we ought to try to realize. Our democratic socialist can say something similar. Insufficient attempts have been made properly to implement the socialist ideal; the fact that it has never been achieved is no knock-down argument against the ideal. We have to organize and make a concerted effort and suppress the evil capitalist greed-heads who stand in our way.
The Chesterton Move and the 'No True Marxist' Fallacy
Now if our democratic socialist has available to him the Chesterton Move, then he is in a position to deny that 'No True Marxist' is a fallacy. He can say that true Marxism, or rather true socialism, will not lead to totalitarian tyranny. If it does, then it was not true socialism!
A Deeper Issue
Can we know from experience the natures of things and thus what is possible and impossible? Can we know a posteriori that socialism without totalitarian tyranny is impossible?
The conservative will presumably answer this question in the affirmative, but he won't be able to prove that he is right. Or so say I.
The Aporetics of the Situation
1) An ideal that has never been realized, despite repeated attempts to realize it, cannot be realized.
2) An ideal that cannot be realized is no (genuine) ideal at all
3) Democratic socialism is a genuine ideal.
The above is known in the trade as an antilogism or an inconsistent triad. The limbs of the triad are individually plausible but collectively inconsistent.
If you are not willing to accept that the triad is a genuine aporia or insolubilium, then you must reject/modify one of the constituent propositions. I don't believe that (2), an analog of the 'Ought implies Can' principle, can be reasonably rejected. So we either reject (1) or (3). I reject (3). The democratic socialist would have to reject (1).
Can I refute him? No. Can he refute me? No. And yet we must act. So I battle socialism and stand with Donald Trump:
America will never be a socialist country!
Watch the video and check out the expression on Bernie Sanders' face. And how about the tribal females all in white?
Real Enough to Debase, but not to Satisfy
Today is the Feast of St. Augustine.
At Confessions, Bk. VI, Ch. 11, Augustine speaks of "a greed for enjoying present things that both fled me and debased me."
A paradox of pleasure. Certain pleasures madly striven after prove fleeting and unreal, yet not so fleeting and unreal that they cannot degrade and debase their pursuers destroying both their souls and their bodies.
At the apogee of this mad trajectory, the pleasure pursued issues in death as in the case of David Carradine's death by auto-erotic asphyxiation in a Bangkok hotel room. Is there any more extreme case of the insane abuse of the body as a pleasure factory?
As I noted earlier, the celebrity chef, 'foodie,' and gastro-tourist, Anthony Bourdain, hanged himself in his hotel room. I speculated that the man was spiritually adrift. "If Bourdain had a spiritual anchor, would he have so frivolously offed himself, as he apparently did?"
Then I found the graphic below. Now I know the man was spiritually adrift. The view he gives vent to is utter nihilism. If the summum bonum lies in the gratification of the lusts of the flesh, why didn't Bourdain find his solace in further such indulgence?
Enjoy the ride and then commit suicide. And then there is Jeffrey Epstein whose ride to the bottom ended miserably.