Nominalism denies the existential validity of universal ideas in things. Such denial emasculates the proper object of the intellect, thereby laying the ground for anti-intellectualism.

Nominalism and voluntarism underpins Protestantism. Indeed, when Luther speaks of the Fall one of the effects for the individual is that the intellect has lost its capacity to know universal truth. It’s a little step to go from this understanding of the intellect to the doctrine of Sola Scriptura.

Protestantism exists at the very foundation of America as does the Protestant Ethic. Both the doctrine and the ethic are intrinsically anti-intellectual. Indeed, the Protestant Ethic is voluntaristic for that very reason.

Even more, the influence of John Locke and Thomas Hobbes on the early formation of American society cannot be denied. The focus on the notion of the autonomous individual runs throughout their writings and our history. Both Locke and Hobbes make ideas to be fictions of the imagination, as does Hume. Ideas have no extramental validity. Locke, Hobbes, and Hume (along with Adam Smith) are all situated within the Nominalist tradition and therefore anti-intellectual.

The pragmatism of William James and John Dewey reduces the intellect to instrumental reason. This lies outside the intellectual tradition of earlier philosopher like St. Thomas who appreciate the validity of the intellect and analogical truth. Likewise, the idealism of Josiah Royce speaks of reason, but once again it is within the context of the self. Ideas have no extramental validity.

Much more could be mentioned to demonstrate the anti-intellectualism of America, but this should be sufficient to indicate that it exists at the very heart of America’s founding and culture.

Thanks for your kind words. I very much appreciate the insights of your posts and read them carefully for that reason.

On your critical point, I must agree wholeheartedly with you. I have been influenced by Maritain’s distinction between the person and the individual. Often times, as in the list of imperatives, I will assume individual freedom to be a priori “informed” by the notion of the person which is listed first in the series of imperatives. There is a material dimension to freedom which I believe must be preserved as well as a spiritual dimension. So I see individual freedom as having been given the form of the person. As for solidarity, I see this term as the end of freedom, its purpose. Freedom in this case is a means (it is also a state of being). So personal dignity flows through individual freedom and results in solidarity. Thus the uniqueness of the person is brought within the spiritual context of community. Herein lies concreteness.

But you are correct in what you say. How to encapsulate all this in a phrase escapes me?

It would seem to me that what is essential here is not only a dialogue regarding the principles intrinsic to the person, but how the “person” is reflected in our culture which serves as the “background” for our “lived experience.” From there, we can focus on a practical application of these principles in regards specific challenges.

Regarding principles, whether one turns to Kant, Hume or Sola Scriptura, I suspect there will be discovered deficiencies in all three if a true dialogue were engaged. The existential reality of the person embodies an existential richness that most schemes fail to elucidate.

But to explore this existential richness in meaningful ways, I believe it is necessary to take the dialogue beyond philosophical disputation to a focus on the concrete where universals and particulars intersect.

US homeless policy can illustrate (or law, or public health social, or foreign policy, would be others other areas, e.g.). Social policy in America is predicated on the outcomes of “social science research.” In that context, “the principle feature of homelessness has been determined to be “the absence of a home.” Regarding causation, HUD says: “Homelessness is not a condition but an outcome. The causes of homelessness are as diverse as the full range of social and economic problems confronting the most impoverished among us. The unrelenting cutbacks in housing over the past 12 years have made a bad situation worse.”

The focus here is not on the person or on any aspect of interiority. Its domain is reduced to correlations objectively measured and considered. Since science seeks objectivity, human reality is objectivized in accordance with its demands. This is methodological reductionism.

But what if the reality of homelessness had something to do with interiority? What if causes and correlations were different? What if causes had to do with the urgings of the person to satisfy their “unmet need to belong?” What if correlations were not causes at all but symptoms of causation?

Insofar as US policy overlooks whatever fails to fit within the scheme of social science research, it can be argued and demonstrated that something significant has been left out of consideration, namely, the person. What are the consequences of this reductionism? Does US policy really grasp the nature of homelessness? Are we attempting to subtract symptoms without addressing the root cause of those symptoms?

It may well be that the radical failure of US policy on homelessness is reducible to a failure to address the ideas intrinsic to the reality of the person, e.g., the person’s intrinsically relational quality. Perhaps the autonomous individual lurks in the shadows of our failure. Perhaps it is our reluctance to address these ideas that explains our predicament.

A great post and very thought provoking. There is nothing in the substance I could respond to with any disagreement; there are minor details which one can respond to, such as I might suggest “personal freedom” might be better to use than “individual freedom” in your imperatives at the end (to underly the fact that our personal, limited freedom can only exist and find its proper place in the unlimited freedom of the divine — since, by saying individual, it seems to be closed in on itself), but as a whole, I am in agreement with what you say here.

Very true. But from what do we derive these principles? From ‘nature’? From a categorical imperative to respect persons? From the direct commandments of God? From a sort of common moral sense? Even Catholics appear to be divided on this point.