PROLOGUE about Truth’s Fiducial Gauges
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And from which Kant distinctly concluded noumenon and phenomenon as separate parts of human being. Answers to the Kantian dilemma are implicit of philosophic values, only achievable by way of philosophy. Dogmatically the ‘nihilism’ of ‘religious orthodoxy’ is antithetical to the philosophic foundation of democracy:‘rational empiricism.’ Right-wing conservatism is ‘agenda-based’ on the fallacious assumption of a deified ‘absolute’ authority, as ‘monarchy.’ This ‘religious orthodoxy’ has the fallacious agenda to deny the human capability to reason, as Durant observed:57
Ultimately, our troubles are due to dogma and deduction; we find no new truth because we take some venerable but questionable proposition as the indubitable starting point, and never think of putting this assumption itself to a test of observation or experiment. Religious orthodoxy contends that deified authorities divinely effect ‘absolute’ answers and judgements: therefore engagement of or challenge from unwanted deliberate reason is heresy (witness the ongoing debate pitting Creationism against Evolution). In this, Religious orthodoxy, as nihilism, departs from Jefferson's portrayal of the only abiding ‘reality’ of our sovereign nation.58
But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans. We are all Federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it. Here, in the aspect that they had decided to leave their old-worldcircumstances for their temporal life’s prospects in which they could participate in deciding an organic direction and outcome, Jefferson concluded that all Colonial Americans had acted as Liberals. Without admitting logically fallacious philosophic error, religious orthodoxy cannot abide the challenges of individually enlightened deliberate reason. In perpetuating dogmatic error, Religious orthodoxy fits the category of a class of ‘ditto head’ sycophants rather than a class of common knowledge obtained by open exchanges of deliberate reason: The philosophic base of
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TRUTH’s FIDUCIAL GAUGES
Religious orthodoxy is, therefore, patterned on Hinduism: a caste system of priests and intellectuals who, by designing dogma, control the minds and actions of the religious under castes. Conservatism, the word, obviously is derived from conserve: to keep things as they are, apposed to innovation and change. And when opposition to change is innately centered, all men, of habit, are so implicated. We are all conservative and of habit. However, we should also be reasonable. Mostly, natural conservatism reacts to philosophic change: ‘if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it.’ Persuaded more by reason than convention, ‘rational empiricists’ sponsor change. For this sponsorship they are ‘radicals.’ In conservative frames, i.e., a lack of this fundamental meaning, R. L. Heilbroner’s analysis of Adam Smith’s economic system this natural conservatism applies:59
In a sense his system presupposes that eighteenth-century England will remain unchanged forever. Only in quantity will it grow: more people, more goods, more wealth; its quality will remain unchanged. His are the dynamics of a static community; it grows but it never matures. And while conservatism enjoys natural status-quo-political inertia, it is ill equipped to recognize, let alone be a sponsor of needed change. All progress involving matters of truth are about rational awareness and maturity, therefore, are liberal in nature. Conservative, in the sense of political agendas and depending on the political standing of established mores and philosophic ‘Absolute idealism,’ takes on more subtle meanings. ‘Rational empiricist’ must always entreat status quo inertia that is successful, i.e., when successful liberal politics becomes part and parcel of such static conservatism. In the face of change, ‘Conservatives’ generally control politically to impose their will and can be expected to either return to where things were or install dogmatic controls to thwart the proposed reason-based changes by ‘liberals.’ This rationalirrational political revolution never ends. In U.S. culture, the philosophical hybrid form of government is an ‘Absolute Idealism’ and ‘Rational Empiricism’ mixture. In which Conservatives, in their dogmatic belief, contend that ‘liberal’ values relate