[MD] for Ham, Arlo interjects

[ARLO J BENSINGER JR]

[Ham]
You seem to be implying that the individual cannot think for himself, reason
for himself, or value what is beneficial for himself.

[Arlo]
An individual can only reason intellectually that has been socialized. A feral
child could only value biologically, as could any animal.

Thus "reasoning" is a product of the confluence of individual agents and a
social context. It can not (would not) exist without either.

[Ham]
Indeed, you trash sensibility when you say that "only after the self arises out
of this confluence of collective and individual experience, are such
intellections possible."

[Arlo]
Oh, the unsocialized organism could "sense", for sure. Just as any dog or cat
or mouse could. Its "value sensibility" would be limited to the immediate value
reactions to biological stimuli.

But socialized, with a self emerging from the confluence of its indivudal
experience expressed through a social symbolic code, the individual achieves
the power of reasoning and intellection. Only then can the "self" value
Dostoevsky over Yoshikawa (or vice versa).