[MD] Democracy

[Ham Priday]

Ron --

Of primary importance (to me) is your affirmation on this, which is why I'm 
putting it first:
Can you accept my concept of Absolute Essence?

> On this notion I can stand with you, that value is derived
> from an absolutely indefinable source... .

That's what I wanted to hear, and I'm holding you to it.

As to Logic's place in the scheme of things, you ask:
> IS logic and reason a given?  a product of language and culture?
> If so, it changes the nature of Parmenides' arguments. It was not
> my intention to purposly mislead you in an effort to win an
> argument, but perhaps a way of challenging our own perceptions
> of logic and reason.

Ron, you are the expert on Logic as a reasoning method.  But here's my take 
on its role in existence.  Logic defines the truth or falsity of fundamental 
principles that can be inferred from demonstrated experience.  These involve 
identities, relations, and causes as applied to a relational system.  Logic 
is closely allied with numerology and mathematical precepts which also are 
fundamental to relational systems.  Numeric symbols and words are the tools 
used to express and analyze logical principles.  But the principles 
themselves are conceptual inferences drawn from experience.

Now, the question you ask is: "Is logic a given?" or "a product of language 
and culture"?
This is really two questions, because what is "a given" is in Kantian terms 
'a priori' truth, whereas what evolves in language and culture is a standard 
of universal acceptance (endexos?).  My answer is that relational existence 
is a subsistent system whose fundamental properties are universally relaible 
and consistent.  This MUST BE TRUE; otherwise, existence would be chaotic 
and civilization would be impossible.  But this does not mean that logical 
order is a priori to the natural world.  For the essentialist, it means that 
symmetry and order are indigenous to Essential Value from which all 
experience is derived.

As value-sensible observers, we (intellectually) project order into the 
objective reality that our experience creates.  In other words, logic, 
numerality, and cogency are valuistic precepts of the cognizant subject 
which are imparted to the objective world.  They are 'a priori' to  value 
awareness, not to objectivized reality.  Because we are all 
(pre-intellectually) aware of the same essential value, there is a universal 
ground for experience.  The difference between your worldview and mine is 
not an essential difference but a conditional one.  Our subjective 
cognizance of this space/time universe is shared in common: there is general 
agreement about its logical design, dynamics and finite attributes, even 
though the values experienced are determined by our individual 
sensibilities.

> I think you and I agree on the big things on this matter,
> it's the details, and that is to be expected.

Right, and "the details" of differentiation are next on my agenda - when you 
are ready, of course.  Again, thanks for your patience and understanding. 
(I'm having a similar dialogue with Zenith (off-line), and it's a question 
of which of you will bow out first.)

Incidentally, I was disappointed to discover that Jennifer Tanabe, whose 
fine essay on value perception you found for me, is a writer for the Rev. 
Moon's Unification Church.  This rules out any hope I had that Tannabe might 
relate value to an essential source.

Essentially yours,
Ham