From: Charles Hixson (charleshixsn@earthlink.net)
Date: Wed Nov 06 2002 - 15:32:53 MST
On Tuesday 05 November 2002 21:50, John K Clark wrote:
> "Charles Hixson" <charleshixsn@earthlink.net> Wrote:
> >Did India embrace socialism? I haven't heard much that indicates
> >this is so.
>
> It's written in black and white in the preamble to its constitution, it
> says "India is a sovereign, secular, socialist republic". They also have
> something called the "Representation of Peoples Act" and it requires all
> political parties swear by this preamble. Few countries on Earth regulate
> their economy more tightly, or have more red tape.
Is "regulate their economy" a part of your definition of Socialism? That
would qualify, and even, assuming you suppose that nation-based socailism is
a feasible form, make sense. (I'm not sure. At the moment I tend to think
of governments as being a part of the environment which determines the
possibility of a particular instance of socialism being successful.)
>
> >I don't think that anyone considers communism to be a from of
> >
> >socialism.
>
> Oh I think quite a number of people would consider it such.
OK. I certainly don't consider it a form of socialism. Of collectivism,
certainly. And perhaps marxism would be socialist, if there were any
marxists. (I think it's one of those doctrines that it's impossible to live
by. Only possible to recommend that others live by.)
>
> > I am looking for a definition, and that will by necessity be a bit
> >abstract, and not attached to particular instances.
>
> Why? A definition, any definition, will be made of words that have
> their own definitions also made of words with yet more definitions.
> The only thing that prevents endless circularity is if at some point
> you can say one of those words and point to a particular instance
> in the real world.
An instance of something will inevitably contain a multitude of features that
aren't what you mean when you pronounce the name of the class into which you
have placed it. But if all you do is point, then one doesn't know which of
the features you are describing. If you point at a chair, you may be
pointing at a red thing, or a piece of plastic or ... or something to sit on.
Now what you meant was approx. "And item of furniture suitable for sitting
on, with a back (except in the case of bean-bag chairs where the back doesn't
appear until you sit)." But pointing would give no indication that sitting
had anything to do with the definition.
>
> >If you define something by pointing at it, you have defined not
> >appleness, but one particular apple.
>
> Nonsense, if that were true I wouldn't be able to recognize an apple the
> next time I saw one, but somehow I have that skill and I don't recall ever
> looking up the word "apple" in a dictionary to see what other words that
> book associated with it.
You learned what an apple was by examining a large number of instances of the
class and extracting what seemed to you to be the common features. But this
requires a large number of instances, not a single instance.
>
> John K Clark jonkc@att.net
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