DM> Yes! .....but I don't think gathering up a gang, hand picked, to aid in
 DM> making your points to be any more of serious. illumination.
 FM> conclusions.  I don't even claim illumination.  Others, however, to whom
 FM> I'm more than grateful DID guide me in rejecting the notion of looking
 FM> among the "systems" for some "piece of information" that would reveal a
 FM> body of truth lying around for somebody to stumble upon it.  Even though
 FM> I still don't "possess a truth" and certainly not the truth of reality
 FM> I'm pretty certain that no one else has either.  The truth of existence
 FM> does not lie in
 JB> Your conclusion seems to be about something which is not true, man's
 JB> inability to possess a truth.  Couldn't one make truth statements about
 JB> about things not true subject to continued evidence of man's inability?
 JB> This leaves one in difficult logical ground as I understand it
 JB> impossible to disprove a negative. This would appear to be different
 JB> than making truth statements about things true which is what you are
 JB> saying Lenin, Marx, Fourier, etc expressed, what is truth.
 JB> [snip]
 FM> Once a subject has been examined from all sides, "definitions" become
 FM> superfluous and may even be misleading.  They never have been anything
 FM> else (certainly not philosophical anchors) than valid attempts to
 FM> examine terminologies so that discussants might try to utilize terms
 FM> agreed upon. Such an effort is HARDEST in the area of philosophical
 FM> discussion itself. That is why the DISCUSSION is more important BY FAR
 FM> than DEFINITIONS.
 JB> Without some common accepted definitions, discussion is impossible.
   With some qualifications to eliminate "one-sided, dictated definitions" I
might agree although I really prefer  the term "commonly accepted 
SSUMPTIONS"
which Mortimer Adler terms "common sense."  If, e.g., you get to read a
dictionary definition and simply ignore what is clearly said in some part of
it where it would weaken your case as you did in the definition you read of
"ideology" from Websters then I could not accept a discussion on that basis
and you SHOULD not either.   I gave the reference to Feuer's _Ideology and 
he
Ideologists_ which is at least proof that what YOU define as ideology is NOT
so benignly defined by some scholars - Feuer in particular.  You ought at
least to look at the first pages of a few books I've mentioned before 
ssuming
that what I say about ideology is some personal ideocyncratic musing.  I
didn't just "dream it up," John.  Ideology as destructive to philosophy is 
ot
MY original idea.  I learned it from other scholars.  I happen to agree and
see no logical reason not to.
Sincerely, 
                                     Frank
                                                                              
                                                       
--- PPoint 2.05
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