Critical Legal Studies Reification Arguments are Dead
Critical Legal Studies authors, Peter Gabel and Duncan Kennedy argue that it is wrong to treat an "abstract concept as if it is real or concrete." Of course, Bernard Lonergan tells us that concepts are real in the sense that they involve real meaning. I would say that concepts or ideas are relatively real. Kennedy and Gabel's notion of "reification" is dead wrong. You see, reifiction is itself an idea or concept, and is thus subject to the reification critique. Logic tells us that for a concept or idea to be valid, it must allow for its own existence. Now, we can easily see that "reification" is itself a reified concept and therefore invalid. Thus, reification and Gabel and Kennedy are trashed. 'Reification" is an incoherent, stupid, concept as used by Gabel and Kennedy and thus should not be taken seriously, at all. By the way, logic is not "reified" because you can prove the validity of logic, starting with concrete logic using sense experience. Thus, it is impossibe for you to have an (A)pple and no(t) (A)pple in your left hand, at the same time in the same place. By analogy, you cannot have A and not A in the same time and the same place. Thus, the fundamental logical principle that, that which is logical is that which is not illogical. That which is illogical is that which involves a logical contradiction, such as asserting that A and not A can exist at and in the same time and in the same place.
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