World view issues.
My basic was formed by growing up as a Jew in a relatively decent and wholesome society. That was a thoroughly WASP society in Orange County in California.
So I have had every reason to believe that Democracy and Capitalism can create along with basic Torah values a highly wholesome and moral society. I have what could be considered as empirical evidence to testify to that fact. [The evidence is I lived in a wholesome home in a wholesome community in a whole country.--the way things used to be in the USA]
But to justify this kind of system based on philosophy can be a real sticky issue. While growing up this kind of question occupied me very much and I did plenty of reading. Plato, Buddhism, Torah, Nietzsche, Chinese Philosophy, Spinoza, Ann Rand, the Communist Manifesto, etc. And later, I continued this and learned postmodern philosophy. [That was at the recommendation of my teacher Shelomo Freifeld at Shar Yashuv. I myself would have been happy just to concentrate on Torah.]
With most of the systems that I studied, I noticed sooner or later different problems. And sometimes the problems were so thick that I decided that the whole system had to be thrown out, i.e. one mistake or another will not bother me much, but a lots of shoddy logic will eventually turn me off. [Postmodern philosophy is a good example of that]. [Also, empirical evidence counts for me. No matter how logical a system is, if I see its results in people acting in ways that are obviously evil, then I will reject the system. Nothing is as holy and as truth. And truth is the way things are.]
The best of philosophy today I have seen in Dr. Kelley Ross in California.
John Searle is obviously great but as Kelley Ross noticed he fell into scientism.
Habermas is Germany is also very great. Steve Dutch wrote a bunch of great essays on his site one of which is a detailed critique of Hume. Also Michael Huemer and Bryan Caplan and very good when they stick with their subject, not when they wander into other territories.
To be brief I think that there are universals. Universals are perceived by reason and by non-intuitive immediate knowledge. Universals applied to the human realm are moral values. [That is I do not hold from Empiricism, Rationalism, Nominalism, nor moral relativism].
The advantage of learning philosophy, is that it gives a protection from philosophers (and religious manics). For in general without learning to analyze ones world views, he or she will usually pick world view that often can't stand the test of reason and logic.
