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Non-Cognitivist Rebuttal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Felix E. Oppenheim
Affiliation:
University of Delaware

Extract

1. “Facts.” Jaffa holds value non-cognitivism (NC) to imply both “complete credulity concerning ‘facts’” and “total skepticism” about facts. One and the same epistemological theory can hardly be akin to naive realism as well as to skepticism. NC implies neither. As an outgrowth of modern empiricism, NC considers concepts such as “man,” “chair,” “atom” as constructs, and statements such as “man is a political animal,” “this is a chair” as hypotheses. Empirical hypotheses are scientifically meaningful if they can be tested, however indirectly, by observational data. Most of Jaffa's comments fail to meet this criterion of meaningfulness because they contain words such as “reality,” “order of the soul,” “man's humanity,” “Justice,” which cannot be operationally defined. “The objectivity of the external world cannot be demonstrated,” Jaffa concedes. Then why talk about it? Physicists never “debate the nature of the universe” and never ask “whether it has objective existence.” Physicists establish empirical laws in order to explain past and predict future events (not “reality”). Political scientists do the same—unless they turn metaphysicians.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1957

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References

1 Nor does NC consider Justice as a “quality of evaluating subjects.” This would imply that, if I say: “you are just,” then I am just.

2 Students of the political process would deny that, “What is purely subjective … is incapable of communication.” By means of persuasive communications, the “infiuentials” cause others to adopt their own preferences.

3 Incidentally, it is not true that “Life without friends cannot be consistently regarded as a good thing.” It can—by anyone who values power highly as compared with friendship.

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