It seems to me, that both you gentlemen still don't acknowledge, that untill you can define all the key principals,then any subsequent philosophic architecture is constructed on an unknown. Further to that, one could say currently unknowable, and therefore doomed to failure. Specifically, the principal nature of mankind.

There is no true me, or anyone else, other than in a never repeatable instantaneous temporal sense. Not unlike physics uncertainty principal, but unlike the sub atomic , time and circumstances change change the individual. Logically, having once observed/defined the individual, it can't be defined as the same again due to both changing *condition and circumstances*.

I would suggest that it is this *uncertainty* that renders any philosophy irrelevant given it must, by definition be without its key constant (the individual) and thereby its key principal. I argue, furthermore, ultimately without its primary purpose.

As previously stated, all schools of thought/philosophy to exist are obliged to *assume* that nature of the collective (humanity) is both knowable and known. But as I indicated, if the individual is unknown, then like the afore mentioned uncertainty principal also applies to the collective and as such can only be statistically known. Which implies *absolute* inaccuracy, therefore, confirming my previous posted 'open window scenario', and further, necessitates pragmatics inserted, to compensate for the inaccuracies/conflicts with reality.

The conclusion, is then inevitable, the resulting theoretical architecture is, practically speaking, rendered sterile hulk that no longer mirrors the contrived *wisdom* (of which you speak) and ultimately moot.

It is for this reason that the contingency tree is the only apparent workable architecture.

Thanks for the input, Examinator.
"It seems to me, that both you gentlemen still don't acknowledge, that untill you can define all the key principals,then any subsequent philosophic architecture is constructed on an unknown".
I thought that was just the point I was making? Indeed, it's not just the self that's problematic, but all our "logical" inferences. Scrutiny itself is not subject to scrutiny! Such anti-foundational thinking has a long history from Hume to Richard Rorty. It's all very fascinating, and it would do some OLOers good to ponder some of their dunderheaded assertions in this light. The problem is that deconstruction has neutered political theory and praxis. The philosophical Lost Patrol has not only rendered Marxism vulgar, but Culturalism (it's effeminate progeny) is persuaded of its own servile emasculation. The hegemonic order is held theoretically invulnerable, so cultural theorists spend their time tinkering with its innards, trying to make us equitable societies (a "long revolution"). But they can't reform capitalism's exploitative means of production, nor its rapacious raison d'etra. We cannot be an ethical society, with enlightenment values (if we would have them), until we reform our "whole" culture, from the outside in and the inside out.
What's encouraging, is that we feel this ethical drive so strongly. Can we then theorise an ethical foundation? That's the challenge.

If you join a local bowling or tennis club committee – any old committee will do, really – you'll see why party politics is all we can expect in the present world climate of thought. The herd never deviates from that norm because it requires revolt with all the fears and trepidation that implies. Control is trusted to a faction with a ruthless charismatic leader or benign warlord with devoted lieutenants.

There's a closet fascist in the breast of the average human being. It prevents him embracing anything noble by way of political systems designed to give everyone a genuine fair go. The Quakers are a rare exception because they have a common cosmic rallying point that eliminates the worldly traps the rest of us fall into. Ordinary mortals want worldly advantage, and political ideology is the reductionist means to get it.

The rest of us don't mind musing about how tolerant and fair we are at a barby with a few sherbets on board, but the fact is we have a natural disdain for fairness. It's socialism. It's not in our genes, so it's foreign to us jungle animals. We've never been conditioned to be fair in a capitalist society where winning and profiting are all.

To conclude my answer to the thread's question, I have esteem only for what leads us to wisdom and civility, and most political parties aren't even in that ball park. We can easily redo the Constitution to ensure we only get Peter Andrens and Tony Windsors in Canberra. But it requires guts, imagination and a desire to live as opposed to vegetate. We have none of these vital ingredients.

Psychologist Erich Fromm's insight is illuminating. This life is a birthing process, he said, and most of us opt for death before the process gets under way. We avoid life because it might hurt. Thus we maximise the hurt and end it all in total confusion with no positive result. All to do again! No political party has ever shown any interest in this problem that I'm aware of – other than the Democrats

Sock Ratteez,
I know Fromm's stuff well, I was reading him long before I went to university, along with Hesse and Jung--though I'm bound to say I think they were naive. I certainly don't think anything you've said is dunderheaded. I hope I didn't give that impression. Nothing is settled for me.
I was also sad to see the Democrat's demise, btw.

Mitch,

Fromm's 'The Art of Loving' was far from naïve in my book. I found the man to be a genius. Love as it pertains to your political party question isn't adopted as a conscious strategy. One doesn't love at will, on demand, as though it can be arranged like a street demo. It's a state of mind; of humility and awe. One taps into a universal vein. You ask how can it be anything but of this world? Nothing is really 'of this world' beyond our shifty-eyed mental engagement, which is bamboozled.

The sci-fi writer Phillip K Dick put it the best way I've seen: "We're aliens here. This isn't our home. We're here (in this foreign borstal) to fashion the sort of world we want and to be what we seek to be. And we'll get just what we fashion and what we seek." Language isn't needed to cope with the implications of that insight. Rorty is way off the mark, I think, but his Mum loves him. The ego is what's conditioned from birth by those who imagine they love us, with our connivance.

We're conditioned to want to know the right answer but since we range from apes to angels (Disraeli) there can be no right (or wrong) answer, only varying degrees of initiation. Telling will never do the trick (pearls before swine). We're impervious to it because of the misalignment of states of psychic evolution between parties. I found my truths with men we call existentialists. Sartre chose communism as a field of action to create his existential meaning. I liked what the Dems stood for and did.

Australia has a lot of things to be utterly ashamed of, and the passing of the Chipp's party will be seen to be one of them, especially considering what has endured on the parliamentary benches. He made the pack of hyenas look dignified for a short while.