I.  Question:

Which of the following is at a more advanced stage of intellectual development:

(1) Barack Hussein Obama (a Harvard trained lawyer and Marxist politician) or
(2) "Joe the Plumber" (a person working in the plumbing trade who is ambitious and planning to purchase the business of his employer)?

Don't be too quick to answer this question.

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II.  The Laws of Intellectual Development

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A.  The French Enlightenment philosopher and financial minister, Anne Robert Jacques Turgot (1727-81) surveyed human history in search of the stages of intellectual development, arriving at the following conclusion:

1.  "Before man understood the causal connection of physical phenomena, nothing was so natural as to suppose they were produced by intelligent beings, invisible and resembling ourselves; for what else would they have resembled?"  That is . . . [the] theological stage.

2.  "When philosophers recognised the absurdity of the fables about the gods, but had not yet gained an insight into natural history, they thought to explain the causes of phenomena by abstract expressions such as essences and faculties." That is the metaphysical [or ideological] stage.

3.  "It was only at a later period, that by observing the reciprocal mechanical action of bodies hypotheses were formed which could be developed by mathematics and verified by experience." There is the positive [or empirical] stage.

J. B. Bury:  The Idea of Progress:  An Inquiry into Its Origin and Growth, summarizing Turgot's "Plan for Two Discourses on Universal History" written in 1751

http://infomotions.com/etexts/gutenberg/dirs/etext03/ideap10.htm

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B.  Another way of summarizing these stages of intellectual development would be

(1) the projectionist stage (reasoning by analogy to attribute human-like characteristics to natural phenomena and seeking other-worldly rewards in heaven for pleasing those super-human, god-like beings; cf. the pan-Islamic jihadists who blow up themselves and others to acquire 19 virgins in the hereafter);

(2) the subjective (or ideological) stage (internalizing external reality so as to subordinate its laws to the "dialectic" and ideals of the human mind, and extracting therefrom a utopia to be imposed upon others; cf. the Marxists who think they know in advance the course of future history and its return to primitive communism);

(3) the objective (or scientific) stage (an empirical and external, open-minded examination of and experimentation with nature and its laws, and synthesizing the resultant discoveries to produce a philosophical overview, with gradual spread of enlightenment and prosperity, based on growing acceptance of the more successful experiments; cf. free-market liberals and democratic capitalists)

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C.  Based on the precept that "ontogeny [somewhat] recapitulates phylogeny" (Haeckel), these stages roughly correspond to the stages of emotional (or psychological) development respectively known as

(1) childhood (dependence on parental authority),

(2) adolescence (rebellion against parental authority while still reluctant to enter the real world, and therefore seeking a substitute authority, e.g., the peer group or a period of dependence on the academic substitute parent known as the "alma mater"), and

(3) adulthood (graduating into the world of reality or "the school of hard knocks," a stage in which one achieves independence and becomes self-reliant; in this stage the more independent and self-reliant elite undertake business risks in the hope of making a profit, and experiment with new types of products, services, and enterprises).

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III  Analysis

How then does this apply to the comparison between Obama and "Joe the Plumber" as to which is at the more advanced stage of intellectual development?.

1.  We can see the metaphysical notion of a-priori essences in the philosophies of Hegel and Marx, which embrace the ideology that the world of diverse individuals can somehow be subordinated to the central plan of a bureaucratic class which knows what is best for all and how the wealth should be redistributed.  Only Obama's Marxist elite knows the path of desirable "change."  Therefore it is clear that Barack Obama has not progressed beyond the second (metaphysical) stage of development.


2.  We can see the scientific notion of willingness to experiment with objective reality in an individual's desire to apply the practical knowledge acquired as a plumbing apprentice to the new venture of running one's own plumbing business, and in hiring, training, and supervising other plumbers as employees of the business.  Therefore it is clear that "Joe the Plumber" has progressed into the third (scientific) stage of development.

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IV. Conclusion:  It follows that "Joe the Plumber" has arrived at a more advanced intellectual stage than Barack Hussein Obama (who doesn't understand free market capitalism).