Recognizing One's Betters
TC
"If he chooses to correct his errors in time, he will have the
unobstructed example of his betters, for guidance in learning to think"
(p 992 see
http://www.angelfire.com/oh4/befree/AtlasShrugged5.html )
Other statements that I recall exhorted one to, in effect, follow
ones "betters".
So how does one recognize one's betters?
It is easy enough in athletics or chess or mathematics.
If you compete with a better, they will beat you.
But in matters of moral philosophy what distinguises
a true better from a false better?
Galt, Jesus and Buddha walk up to you and say "my morality is
best". Who are you to believe. They are your betters so
you can't reason in matters of morality as well as you can so
how are you to choose? Buddha may sound most reasonable to
you, but you might be (probably are?) wrong since these three
paragons are your betters and one of them may be correct.
Or maybe Confucious is your true better?
How does Objectivism deal with this?
Tom
Ultra Benevolent Guy
TC wrote:
>
> Galt, Jesus and Buddha walk up to you and say "my morality is
> best". Who are you to believe. They are your betters so
> you can't reason in matters of morality as well as you can so
> how are you to choose? Buddha may sound most reasonable to
> you, but you might be (probably are?) wrong since these three
> paragons are your betters and one of them may be correct.
Objectivists would say, "Check the historic body count." The only
question then is the accuracy and the correct historic association with
a given system of morality.
TC
> TC wrote:
> > Galt, Jesus and Buddha walk up to you and say "my morality is
> > best". Who are you to believe. They are your betters so
> > you can't reason in matters of morality as well as [they] can so
> > how are you to choose? Buddha may sound most reasonable to
> > you, but you might be (probably are?) wrong since these three
> > paragons are your betters and one of them may be correct.
> Objectivists would say, "Check the historic body count." The only
> question then is the accuracy and the correct historic association
with
> a given system of morality.
Problem there is that there is no historical body count for
a system whose "true better" is a fiction.
Since there has not ever been a full Objectivist society,
assertions about what the body count of such a society would
be - you might say - arbitrary.
Tom
Aristotle Jones
> Problem there is that there is no historical body count for
> a system whose "true better" is a fiction.
>
> Since there has not ever been a full Objectivist society,
> assertions about what the body count of such a society would
> be - you might say - arbitrary.
>
> Tom
In your proposition about Gault, Buddah and Jesus you stated that they
are all your betters. This is incorrect, but of course you couldn't
know that unless you do as Rand suggests and use your rational
faculties to determine a proper course of action. It doesn't take long
to see where a philosophy of self sacrifice leads you. I think if you
want to figure out who your betters are when it comes to morality, you
can simply look for contradictions, or on a more practical level, look
for points of hypocrisy. Its not hard to find people that constantly
contradict themselves or make hypocrits of themselves. Such people are
not your betters. Those people who demonstrate true adherence to
values that don't violate others rights are more than likely ones you
could call your betters.
Hope this helps :)
Ultra Benevolent Guy
TC wrote:
> Ultra Benevolent Guy wrote:
> > TC wrote:
>
> > > Galt, Jesus and Buddha walk up to you and say "my morality is
> > > best". Who are you to believe. They are your betters so
> > > you can't reason in matters of morality as well as [they] can so
> > > how are you to choose? Buddha may sound most reasonable to
> > > you, but you might be (probably are?) wrong since these three
> > > paragons are your betters and one of them may be correct.
>
> > Objectivists would say, "Check the historic body count." The only
> > question then is the accuracy and the correct historic association
> with
> > a given system of morality.
>
> Problem there is that there is no historical body count for
> a system whose "true better" is a fiction.
Well, an objectivist would disagree, saying that
communism/fascism/dictatorship are all variants of the
altruist/collectivist morality, and count the atrocities committed
under those systems, and democracy/capitalism/constitutional republic
to be variants of a self-interested ethic, and likewise count the
atrocities under those systems.
>
> Since there has not ever been a full Objectivist society,
> assertions about what the body count of such a society would
> be - you might say - arbitrary.
That's true. So, objectivist advocate their system based on what
effects certain aspects of their ethic have already been tried to a
greater or lesser extent, and extrapolate (many non-objectivists would
say exaggerate).
Atlas Shrugged is a splendid example of this technique.
Matt Barrow
"Aristotle Jones" <chris...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1109103704.5...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
>
> Problem there is that there is no historical body count for
> a system whose "true better" is a fiction.
>
> Since there has not ever been a full Objectivist society,
> assertions about what the body count of such a society would
> be - you might say - arbitrary.
No more than any other forecast is arbitrary.
It all starts with a good understanding of human nature and it positive
elements and it's psychological shortcomings.
No, it's not arbitary at all.
--
Matt
---------------------
Matthew W. Barrow
Site-Fill Homes, LLC.
Montrose, CO
Atlas Bugged
news:1109093550.6...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
> So how does one recognize one's betters?
>
> It is easy enough in athletics or chess or mathematics.
> If you compete with a better, they will beat you.
>
> But in matters of moral philosophy what distinguises
> a true better from a false better?
Start with politics. If you see, oh, 20 or 100 million massacred, dead
corpses piled up, this is a tip-off. Subtle, yes, but evident once you know
what to look for.
>
> Galt, Jesus and Buddha walk up to you and say "my morality is
> best". Who are you to believe. They are your betters so
> you can't reason in matters of morality as well as you can so
> how are you to choose?
Jesus says he's a supernatural, all powerful being. You may want to look
further into this.
Buddha has a severe weight problem, so his philosophy is obviously not
working for him. Just ask Jerry.
>Buddha may sound most reasonable to
> you, but you might be (probably are?) wrong since these three
> paragons are your betters and one of them may be correct.
Aren't you knid of going circular by assuming up front that they are all
your betters?
>
> Or maybe Confucious is your true better?
>
> How does Objectivism deal with this?
You are a physicist. I am a lawyer. Together, we can get pretty far. What
is your view of someone who claims omnipotence and/or omniscience, in terms
of physics? Not bloody likely, eh?
From my corner, lawyers have the following credibility test: In determining
whether someone is telling the truth about A, we take great interst in proof
that they lied about B, C, and D.
Reggie Perrin
Atlas Bugged wrote:
> [...]
> Buddha has a severe weight problem, so his philosophy is obviously
not
> working for him. Just ask Jerry.
Hey no fair. He (the Buddha, not Jerry) tried the emaciation thing and
found it wasn't working for him, so he switched to the Middle Way.
Unless you're referring to those fat depictions of him, which I've
never quite understood.
Mark N
> Jesus says he's a supernatural, all powerful being. You may want to look
> further into this.
No, he just said his dad was. :-)
> Buddha has a severe weight problem, so his philosophy is obviously not
> working for him. Just ask Jerry.
No, the fat guy you're thinking of is not the Buddha. The Buddha was a
guy named Gautama. He was thin. A lot of people think that that fat guy
is the Buddha, but he's not. The fat guy is Hotei, sometimes called "the
laughing Buddha." But he's not *the* Buddha.
Mark
Reggie Perrin
Mark N wrote:
> [...]
> The fat guy is Hotei, sometimes called "the
> laughing Buddha." But he's not *the* Buddha.
Ahh, so he's an incarnation of one of the bodhisattva then? That would
explain it.
TC
> "TC" <tcl...@ist.ucf.edu> wrote in message
> > So how does one recognize one's betters?
> > How does Objectivism deal with this?
> You are a physicist. I am a lawyer. Together, we can get pretty
far. What
> is your view of someone who claims omnipotence and/or omniscience, in
terms
> of physics? Not bloody likely, eh?
No. Empirical evidence of history is against it.
> From my corner, lawyers have the following credibility test: In
determining
> whether someone is telling the truth about A, we take great interst
in proof
> that they lied about B, C, and D.
I'm disappointed. I thought you were going to go on:
What is your view of someone who claims omiscience in terms of
morality?
I would say "Not bloody likely."
Tom
TC
> Tom Clarke wrote
> > Since there has not ever been a full Objectivist society,
> > assertions about what the body count of such a society would
> > be - you might say - arbitrary.
> No more than any other forecast is arbitrary.
> It all starts with a good understanding of human nature and it
positive
> elements and it's psychological shortcomings.
If it did it wouldn't be so arbitrary.
> No, it's not arbitary at all.
I wasn't impressed by the characterizations of human nature in
Atlas at all.
Tom
Starblade Riven Darksquall
One of the things I remembered her saying was that often one person
will be better at SOMETHING, and that there is no general term for
better person. When one uses that term, one generally means morally.
Is that what you mean? Morally?
Reggie Perrin
Starblade Riven Darksquall wrote:
>
*Hijack* Haven't seen you around these parts for years. Couple of
things I always wondered but never got round to asking you before:
a) What's with the name?
b) Are you from the Dark Side, i.e. that thing with the N and the T
that we're not allowed to talk about? A simple yes or no will suffice.
Acar
----- Original Message -----
From: "TC" <tcl...@ist.ucf.edu>
Newsgroups: humanities.philosophy.objectivism
Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2005 12:32 PM
Subject: Recognizing One's Betters
> When I read Atlas Shrugged I came across phrases like:
>
> "If he chooses to correct his errors in time, he will have the
> unobstructed example of his betters, for guidance in learning to think"
>
> (p 992 see
> http://www.angelfire.com/oh4/befree/AtlasShrugged5.html )
>
> Other statements that I recall exhorted one to, in effect, follow
> ones "betters".
>
> So how does one recognize one's betters?
Your betters are the men of the mind -- the ex-teenagers of the mind that
are now adults.
Atlas Bugged
news:1109123299....@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> Hey no fair. He (the Buddha, not Jerry) tried the emaciation thing and
> found it wasn't working for him, so he switched to the Middle Way.
> Unless you're referring to those fat depictions of him, which I've
> never quite understood.
Fat depictions? No way. There's plenty of photos available on the 'net.
Mal can scare them up.
Middle Way indeed! Lot's of excess in the middle alright!
Mark N
> Mark N wrote:
Right. He's a semi-legendary figure who is sometimes identified with the
bodhisattva. He's also known as Pu-Tai. That's the Chinese version of
his name. Hotei is the Japanese version. I think both names mean
something like "cloth sack." Supposedly, there was a Zen monk named
Pu-Tai, and the legend is based loosely on him. According to one version
of the legend, he collected odd pieces of junk in a sack that he carried
around with him, and he gave them away to children.
Here is a link to a brief article on Hotei/Pu-Tai that I just found, in
case you're interested. It even includes a few poems that are attributed
to Pu-Tai!
Mark
Atlas Bugged
news:i6SSd.60939$8a6.33835@trndny09...
> No, the fat guy you're thinking of is not the Buddha. The Buddha was a guy
> named Gautama. He was thin. A lot of people think that that fat guy is the
> Buddha, but he's not. The fat guy is Hotei, sometimes called "the laughing
> Buddha." But he's not *the* Buddha.
Don't try to double-talk me. I've seen photos, I tell you. Denial isn't
just a river in Egypt, dude....
Atlas Bugged
> I'm disappointed. I thought you were going to go on:
>
> What is your view of someone who claims omiscience in terms of
> morality?
>
> I would say "Not bloody likely."
Yeah, right, morality has to be all relative. And Rand "claimed omiscience"
about it, so she's toast. [yawn]
Mark N
> TC wrote:
>>Ultra Benevolent Guy wrote:
>>>Objectivists would say, "Check the historic body count." The only
>>>question then is the accuracy and the correct historic association with
>>>a given system of morality.
>>Problem there is that there is no historical body count for
>>a system whose "true better" is a fiction.
> Well, an objectivist would disagree, saying that
> communism/fascism/dictatorship are all variants of the
> altruist/collectivist morality, and count the atrocities committed
> under those systems, and democracy/capitalism/constitutional republic
> to be variants of a self-interested ethic, and likewise count the
> atrocities under those systems.
Good answer! One might *almost* think that you were actually sympathetic
to Objectivism! :-)
>>Since there has not ever been a full Objectivist society,
>>assertions about what the body count of such a society would
>>be - you might say - arbitrary.
> That's true. So, objectivist advocate their system based on what
> effects certain aspects of their ethic have already been tried to a
> greater or lesser extent, and extrapolate (many non-objectivists would
> say exaggerate).
I must say, you seem to be taking an admirably even-handed and objective
approach to your discussion of Objectivist thinking here, Mr. Farlie. I
think your new name is bringing out the best in you! :-)
Mark
TC
> > I'm disappointed. I thought you were going to go on:
> > What is your view of someone who claims omiscience in terms of
> > morality?
> > I would say "Not bloody likely."
> Yeah, right, morality has to be all relative. And Rand "claimed
omiscience"
> about it, so she's toast. [yawn]
Non-omniscience about morality no more implies relative morality than
non-omniscience about physics implies science is arbitrary.
Tom
Atlas Bugged
> Non-omniscience about morality no more implies relative morality than
> non-omniscience about physics implies science is arbitrary.
Come, now. You dodged all the issues, not me. Show me where Rand claims
"omniscience" of any sort whatsoever. Show me how Rand's ethical and moral
formulations are in any sense comparable to supernatural claims and edicts
of religionists.
Comparing Rand to Rawls, for example, is one thing, even though Rawls was a
fool.* Comparing Rand to primitive mystics, like the supposed "Jesus"
character or the supposed Buddha character, is simply ridiculous.
You may reasonably pose the inquiry which names this thread, but you may not
reasonably begin with Grimm's.
*Below, find Coopers full and correct analysis of Rawls:
No milkshakes
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TC
> "TC" <tcl...@ist.ucf.edu> wrote in message
> news:1109163953.8...@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> > Non-omniscience about morality no more implies relative morality
than
> > non-omniscience about physics implies science is arbitrary.
> Come, now. You dodged all the issues, not me. Show me where Rand
claims
> "omniscience" of any sort whatsoever. Show me how Rand's ethical and
moral
> formulations are in any sense comparable to supernatural claims and
edicts
> of religionists.
I'm not sure if Rand claims it, but her followers sem to claim that
her contribution to the philosophy of Objectivism is immutable.
So unless these folks are advocating what they think is a flawed
philosophy, they must think that Rand's foundation for Objectivism
is correct, immutable, infallible, that sort of thing.
Oh, and I'm pretty sure Rand claims certainty. There is lots of
debate about whether certainty requires omniscience or not, but I
tend to think it does.
Tom
David Buchner
> Don't try to double-talk me. I've seen photos, I tell you. Denial isn't
> just a river in Egypt, dude....
Holy shit.
You've been around the same hippies I've been around.
Creepy.
Atlas Bugged
> I'm not sure if Rand claims it, but her followers sem to claim that
> her contribution to the philosophy of Objectivism is immutable.
And I should care about your impression of what an unnamed subset of her
followers assert why?
> So unless these folks are advocating what they think is a flawed
> philosophy, they must think that Rand's foundation for Objectivism
> is correct, immutable, infallible, that sort of thing.
I make it a point to distinguish the philosophy from the lady, even though
they are of course tightly intertwined. But I've little interest in the
third-party (at best) kind of stuff you're bringing in here.
>
> Oh, and I'm pretty sure Rand claims certainty. There is lots of
> debate about whether certainty requires omniscience or not, but I
> tend to think it does.
All I'm hearing is a non sequitor, or a tautology at best. There's
certainty. Train tracks, report back. None of the foregoing requires godly
omniscience, that's the straw-est of men.
TC
> "TC" <tcl...@ist.ucf.edu> wrote in message
> > I'm not sure if Rand claims it, but her followers sem to claim that
> > her contribution to the philosophy of Objectivism is immutable.
> And I should care about your impression of what an unnamed subset of
her
> followers assert why?
Names? You haven't been around HPO long have you?
As to why, well maybe I'm wrong, but that is why I think Objectivists
think Rand and her philosophy are infallible - many of them say so.
...............
> I make it a point to distinguish the philosophy from the lady, even
though
> they are of course tightly intertwined.
The ARI will cast you into outer darkness!
> > Oh, and I'm pretty sure Rand claims certainty. There is lots of
> > debate about whether certainty requires omniscience or not, but I
> > tend to think it does.
> All I'm hearing is a non sequitor, or a tautology at best. There's
> certainty. Train tracks, report back. None of the foregoing
requires godly
> omniscience, that's the straw-est of men.
Pretty good, garden variety, human certainty is not hard to come by.
Is that all that Objectivism claims?
Tom
Atlas Bugged
>> I make it a point to distinguish the philosophy from the lady, even
>> though they are of course tightly intertwined.
"TC" <tcl...@ist.ucf.edu> wrote in message
news:1109216742.5...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> The ARI will cast you into outer darkness!
Then they can return my check. But they haven't yet. Nor will they. So
maybe you want to re-examine some of your "impressions."
>> All I'm hearing is a non sequitor, or a tautology at best. There's
>> certainty. Train tracks, report back. None of the foregoing
> requires godly
>> omniscience, that's the straw-est of men.
>
> Pretty good, garden variety, human certainty is not hard to come by.
> Is that all that Objectivism claims?
Yes.
I don't mind if you want to dispute me, but try to do better than
"unspecified individuals seem to assert this."
I'm aware of many members of this newsgroup, yes, but I simply cannot
respond adequately to vagaries.
It's trivially easy to quote Rand or someone close like Binswanger, for
example. Where does anyone claim omniscience, supernatural knowledge, or
any knowledge whatsoever apart from that which can be gleaned from sense
data and logical analysis thereof? I'm listening.
TC
> > The ARI will cast you into outer darkness!
> Then they can return my check. But they haven't yet. Nor will they.
Money is fungible.
> So
> maybe you want to re-examine some of your "impressions."
So what was Rand wrong about?
> > Pretty good, garden variety, human certainty is not hard to come
by.
> > Is that all that Objectivism claims?
> Yes.
I've been misunderstanding youall all this time?
So I can be certain and skeptical at the same time?
> I don't mind if you want to dispute me, but try to do better than
> "unspecified individuals seem to assert this."
> I'm aware of many members of this newsgroup, yes, but I simply cannot
> respond adequately to vagaries.
OK delving back into google I found this by Betsey Speicher:
"ARI says "Objectivism is the philosophy of Ayn Rand" and
TOC says "Objectivism is the philosophy of rational individualism
founded by Ayn Rand" which they hold includes additional philosophic
elements which Ayn Rand did not contribute and also philosophical
ideas which may, in fact, be in conflict with Ayn Rand's."
http://tinyurl.com/6a7dv
and this by Fred Weiss:
"First of all, Objectivism is: the philosophy of Ayn Rand.
There are not two different philosophies, one Ayn Rand's and
the other whatever the viciously dishonest want to claim it is
based on their fevered imaginings."
http://tinyurl.com/4vzxe
> It's trivially easy to quote Rand or someone close like Binswanger,
for
> example. Where does anyone claim omniscience, supernatural
knowledge, or
> any knowledge whatsoever apart from that which can be gleaned from
sense
> data and logical analysis thereof? I'm listening.
I conclude that someone like Betsy or Fred must think Rand infallible,
or else they are irrational.
Tom
TC
> TC wrote:
> > and this by Fred Weiss:
> > "First of all, Objectivism is: the philosophy of Ayn Rand.
> > There are not two different philosophies, one Ayn Rand's and
> > the other whatever the viciously dishonest want to claim it is
> > based on their fevered imaginings."
> > http://tinyurl.com/4vzxe
> > I conclude that someone like Betsy or Fred must think Rand
infallible,
> > or else they are irrational.
> But not from that quote, right? Because that quotes doesn't suggest
any
> such thing.
> This has always seemed to me such a non-issue. Can someone explain it
to me?
Can we stipulate that Fred is an Objectivist, an adherent of
Objectivism?
That means he holds a philosophy identical with Ayn Rands.
If he is rational he wouln not hold a philosophy that is wrong.
Therefore either he is irrational or he thinks Rand's philosophy is
correct.
Since Rand is dead, her philosophy can never change, so it must
be correct for all time, not subject to modification. Ergo Rand
was infallible with regard to philosophy.
So either the advocates of this type of Objectivism are irrational
or they think Rand was (philosophically) infallible.
Tom
Robert Kolker
>
> So either the advocates of this type of Objectivism are irrational
> or they think Rand was (philosophically) infallible.
And in the latter case they are irrational.
Bob Kolker
TC
No, they just have an erroneous premise.
Although they must lead sheltered lives if they have not
encountered facts that should make them question that
premise.
Tom
fred...@papertig.com
> OK delving back into google I found this by ...by Fred Weiss:
> "First of all, Objectivism is: the philosophy of Ayn Rand.
> There are not two different philosophies, one Ayn Rand's and
> the other whatever the viciously dishonest want to claim it is
> based on their fevered imaginings."
> http://tinyurl.com/4vzxe
>
>
> ...I conclude that someone like Betsy or Fred must think Rand
infallible,
> or else they are irrational.
It's ironic that you criticized me recently for quoting someone else's
quote and you do it yourself here. If you referenced my original post
you will note that the very first sentence is:
"She's not infallible."
The question being discussed in that interchange was what is
Objectivism - which the person I was arguing with was claiming was
equivalent to AR "being infallible".
I went on to say:
"You can dream up whatever you want, but have the decency not to call
it Objectivism which was an extraordinary achievement of a great mind
and is the name of her philosophy (which is just as true with respect
to their creators of even evil philosophies such as Kantianism or
Marxism)."
And thus, I added,
"None of this has anything whatever to do with Ayn Rand's - or
anyone's-
fallibility. That you don't grasp that indicates a rather sorry
understanding of Objectivism."
Your understanding of it is even sorrier, but that's another subject.
Fred Weiss
TC
> TC wrote:
> > OK delving back into google I found this by ...by Fred Weiss:
> > "First of all, Objectivism is: the philosophy of Ayn Rand.
> > There are not two different philosophies, one Ayn Rand's and
> > the other whatever the viciously dishonest want to claim it is
> > based on their fevered imaginings."
> > http://tinyurl.com/4vzxe
> > ...I conclude that someone like Betsy or Fred must think Rand
> infallible,
> > or else they are irrational.
> It's ironic that you criticized me recently for quoting someone
else's
> quote and you do it yourself here.
I don't recall specifics, can you remind me? I do take umbrage
at out of context quotations. Was that it?
>If you referenced my original post
> you will note that the very first sentence is:
> "She's not infallible."
I found the quote here: http://tinyurl.com/4vzxe
The very first line is
"First of all, Objectivism is: the philosophy of Ayn Rand."
But I see that was a quote of you in a response by ActualGeek.
The original is here: http://tinyurl.com/52wfd which begins
as you say.
> The question being discussed in that interchange was what is
> Objectivism - which the person I was arguing with was claiming was
> equivalent to AR "being infallible".
> I went on to say:
> "You can dream up whatever you want, but have the decency not to call
> it Objectivism which was an extraordinary achievement of a great mind
> and is the name of her philosophy (which is just as true with respect
> to their creators of even evil philosophies such as Kantianism or
> Marxism)."
So since Ayn Rand is fallible, she could have made a mistake.
If you were to discover such a mistake would you just leave
Objectivsim as it is, a flawed philosophy?
> And thus, I added,
> "None of this has anything whatever to do with Ayn Rand's - or
> anyone's-
> fallibility. That you don't grasp that indicates a rather sorry
> understanding of Objectivism."
So Objectivism will just become a patchwork of truths and
falsities as more is disovered about human psychology and what
is required to nourish man's life?
Tom
fred...@papertig.com
> So since Ayn Rand is fallible, she could have made a mistake.
She made many mistakes, quite a few of which she admitted, a few of
which were serious, and at least one of which was catastrophic. Many of
these have been discussed here.
> If you were to discover such a mistake would you just leave
> Objectivsim as it is, a flawed philosophy?
Obviously not. See the above. The philosophy doesn't offer
infallibility.
> So Objectivism will just become a patchwork of truths and
> falsities as more is disovered about human psychology and what
> is required to nourish man's life?
I don't know what you are referring to here - the basics or
fundamentals of the philosophy or some of the specific implications?
The basic or fundamentals of Aristotelianism are still as (largely)
true today as when he wrote them over 2000 years ago - and that despite
what may have been discovered since about human psychology and what is
required to nourish human life. Some of the specifics are arguable (a
lot depends on how you interpret what he said) and others are
definitely wrong. Nonetheless AR considered herself an Aristotelian.
However her break with Aristotle was significant enough on a number of
very important points, esp. concept formation, ethics, and politics -
and most especially on her unique integration of them - that it was
appropriate to characterize it as a new philosophy.
In specific answer to your question, I'm not a fortune teller so I
don't know what the future holds. That said, my own prediction is that
Objectivism will prove to have as much, if not more, longevity as
Aristotelianism, i.e. that AR discovered important truths, as did
Aristotle, which will stand the test of time.
Fred Weiss
TC
> TC wrote:
> > So since Ayn Rand is fallible, she could have made a mistake.
> She made many mistakes, quite a few of which she admitted, a few of
> which were serious, and at least one of which was catastrophic. Many
of
> these have been discussed here.
> > If you were to discover such a mistake would you just leave
> > Objectivsim as it is, a flawed philosophy?
> Obviously not. See the above. The philosophy doesn't offer
> infallibility.
But changed Objectivism is not Objectivism since Objectivism
is the philosophy of Ayn Rand and Ayn Rand is dead so she
can no longer change it.
At least that is where the logic seems to go.
>
> > So Objectivism will just become a patchwork of truths and
> > falsities as more is disovered about human psychology and what
> > is required to nourish man's life?
> I don't know what you are referring to here - the basics or
> fundamentals of the philosophy or some of the specific implications?
Where is the boundary line between fundamentals and implications?
Are the functions of government a fundamental or an implication?
> The basic or fundamentals of Aristotelianism are still as (largely)
> true today as when he wrote them over 2000 years ago - and that
despite
> what may have been discovered since about human psychology and what
is
> required to nourish human life.
Same question for Aristotle. Is the perfection of circular
motion fundamental?
> In specific answer to your question, I'm not a fortune teller so I
> don't know what the future holds. That said, my own prediction is
that
> Objectivism will prove to have as much, if not more, longevity as
> Aristotelianism, i.e. that AR discovered important truths, as did
> Aristotle, which will stand the test of time.
There are still some Zoroastrians out there, I understand.
Not to mention Wiccans
<grin>
Beliefs do last a long time.
Tom
Reggie Perrin
TC wrote:
> fredwe...@papertig.com wrote:
> > [...]
> > Obviously not. See the above. The philosophy doesn't offer
> > infallibility.
>
> But changed Objectivism is not Objectivism since Objectivism
> is the philosophy of Ayn Rand and Ayn Rand is dead so she
> can no longer change it.
> At least that is where the logic seems to go.
Awww, hey TC, not again! Objectivism is the philosophy of Ayn Rand just
as Kantianism is the philosophy of Kant. This does not mean that to
follow either is to blindly subscribe to everything the founder said.
What it does mean is that if someone wants to make large-scale changes
to the philosophy then they should have the decency to acknowledge that
they are no longer a member of that particular school. As has been
pointed out, this is exactly what Rand herself did vis a vis
Aristotelianism. So where's the problem?
fred...@papertig.com
> But changed Objectivism is not Objectivism since Objectivism
> is the philosophy of Ayn Rand and Ayn Rand is dead so she
> can no longer change it.
That's what Peikoff argues - including what he himself has written
since her death. In one sense that's true. In another - and this is
likely the sense that will be prevalent - any view based on and fully
consistent with Objectivism will be considered "Objectivist"
> Where is the boundary line between fundamentals and implications?
> Are the functions of government a fundamental or an implication?
I can't discuss that with you since it would presuppose that you grasp
essentials which you have repeatedly demonstrated you are unable to do.
So it would just be a waste of time.
> Same question for Aristotle. Is the perfection of circular
> motion fundamental?
See what I mean.
>
> > In specific answer to your question, I'm not a fortune teller so I
> > don't know what the future holds. That said, my own prediction is
> that
> > Objectivism will prove to have as much, if not more, longevity as
> > Aristotelianism, i.e. that AR discovered important truths, as did
> > Aristotle, which will stand the test of time.
>
> There are still some Zoroastrians out there, I understand.
> Not to mention Wiccans
> <grin>
> Beliefs do last a long time.
You mean despite new knowledge about psychology and what is required
for human life to flourish? Is it that new knowledge which makes those
- or any other - *philosophical* view true or false?
Bob seems to feel that despite enormous progress in science that Hume
is still correct in his philosophical views - and presumably will
continue to be for some time to come. What do you think we might learn
that could falsify Popper? Especially since you appear to believe that
his views are unfalsifiable and therefore that Popper was apparently
infallible. <grin>
Fred Weiss
David Buchner
> (the Buddha, not Jerry) tried the emaciation thing and
> found it wasn't working for him, so he switched to the Middle Way.
What? Milky Ways?
That would explain how He got all Chubby.
David Buchner
> he collected odd pieces of junk in a sack that he carried
> around with him, and he gave them away to children.
"Hello, children!"
"Here are some odd pieces of junk I have collected."
"Gee, thanks, Mister."
Jesus Fucking Christ, religion is dumb.
Robert Kolker
> In specific answer to your question, I'm not a fortune teller so I
> don't know what the future holds. That said, my own prediction is that
> Objectivism will prove to have as much, if not more, longevity as
> Aristotelianism, i.e. that AR discovered important truths, as did
> Aristotle, which will stand the test of time.
I am sure Ayn Rand discovered that females have the same number of teeth
and ribs as males.
Bob Kolker
TC
> TC wrote:
> > There are still some Zoroastrians out there, I understand.
> > Not to mention Wiccans
> > <grin>
> > Beliefs do last a long time.
> You mean despite new knowledge about psychology and what is required
> for human life to flourish?
No, I just was commenting that human beliefs last a long time.
> Is it that new knowledge which makes those
> - or any other - *philosophical* view true or false?
If the fundamental is, loosely, that which makes man flourish
is moral, then conclusion about what is moral would depend
on knowledge of what makes humans flourish even though the
fundamental stays the same.
> Bob seems to feel that despite enormous progress in science that Hume
> is still correct in his philosophical views - and presumably will
> continue to be for some time to come. What do you think we might
learn
> that could falsify Popper?
Well if God were to reveal himself ...
> Especially since you appear to believe that
> his views are unfalsifiable and therefore that Popper was apparently
> infallible. <grin>
Poppers views are slam dunk obvious, so far as I can tell.
Just Modus tollens.
Apparently a lot of people don't get them,though.
Tom
Arnold
> Since Rand is dead, her philosophy can never change, so it must
> be correct for all time, not subject to modification. Ergo Rand
> was infallible with regard to philosophy.
>
> So either the advocates of this type of Objectivism are irrational
> or they think Rand was (philosophically) infallible.
Not so. They agree with what she put forward. They think she is right. They
make no claim of being infallible, only that they have no reason to suspect
they are wrong.
(You keep referencing mathematical constructs as if they are reality. Maths
is a tool to help understand relationships in reality. Because infinity
exists in maths, is no reason to assume that it does in reality. Reality
first, maths second.)
--
Arnold
Reggie Perrin
TC wrote:
> fred...@papertig.com wrote:
> [...]
> Poppers views are slam dunk obvious, so far as I can tell.
> Just Modus tollens.
> Apparently a lot of people don't get them,though.
Including just about every philosopher of science in the world. Funny
that.
TC
> (You keep referencing mathematical constructs as if they are reality.
Maths
> is a tool to help understand relationships in reality. Because
infinity
> exists in maths, is no reason to assume that it does in reality.
Reality
> first, maths second.)
Everyone keeps referencing philosophical concepts as it they
were reality. Philosophy is a tool to help understand
reality. Just because some philosophies canot understand
how an infinite could exist does not mean that it cannot
in reality. Reality first, philosophy second.
Tom
Mark N
> Mark N <ma...@myinboxisbroken.com> wrote:
The elaboration on that, as I recall, is that children are able to
appreciate the value of useless things, while adults have lost this
ability. Of course, this begs the question :-) of whether or not the
ability to appreciate useless things is a good trait (perhaps only for
children?). I'm guessing that your answer is that it's not a good trait
for anyone. :-)
Mark
Reggie Perrin
In fairness, the versions of the story I have come across suggest that
the sack contains precious goods, such as pieces of gold. The figure
symbolises generosity and good fortune.
Mark N
> David Buchner wrote:
>>Mark N <ma...@myinboxisbroken.com> wrote:
Well, you're very fair, aren't you? Are you thinking that maybe that
version will cast Buddhism in a better light, and make David and other
Objectivists look more kindly upon it? If so, good luck to you! :-)
By the way, I thought you didn't know about Hotei/Pu-Tai. Playing dumb,
huh? :-)
Mark
Reggie Perrin
Mark N wrote:
> > [...]
> > In fairness, the versions of the story I have come across suggest
that
> > the sack contains precious goods, such as pieces of gold. The
figure
> > symbolises generosity and good fortune.
>
> Well, you're very fair, aren't you? Are you thinking that maybe that
> version will cast Buddhism in a better light, and make David and
other
> Objectivists look more kindly upon it? If so, good luck to you! :-)
>
> By the way, I thought you didn't know about Hotei/Pu-Tai. Playing
dumb,
> huh? :-)
Research, my friend. I was actually pretty interested in Buddhism when
I was younger, but the Theravada school rather than Mahayana, so I'd
never heard of this character before you prompted me.
I'm not too optimistic about converting any Objectivists, but I think
of all the major religions Buddhism is the most benign (apologies to
Coop - I know nothing about Ba'hai). In fact, the more austere
Theravada brand is much closer to a philosophy than a religion IMHO,
and all the more intriguing for that.
Ken Gardner
>She made many mistakes, quite a few of which she admitted, a few of
>which were serious, and at least one of which was catastrophic. Many of
>these have been discussed here.
Are you talking about philosophical mistakes or (as I suspect)
mistakes in her personal life?
Personally, I agree that Rand made mistakes, but none that goes to the
fundamentals of her philosophy.
[...]
>In specific answer to your question, I'm not a fortune teller so I
>don't know what the future holds. That said, my own prediction is that
>Objectivism will prove to have as much, if not more, longevity as
>Aristotelianism, i.e. that AR discovered important truths, as did
>Aristotle, which will stand the test of time.
I will not be around to see it, but (to repeat something I've said
many times before) I suspect that the one thing that will eventually
emerge and dominate over the rest is her theory of concepts.
Ken
Ken Gardner
>That's what Peikoff argues - including what he himself has written
>since her death. In one sense that's true. In another - and this is
>likely the sense that will be prevalent - any view based on and fully
>consistent with Objectivism will be considered "Objectivist"
[...]
This seems to be a bit too broad. One can argue, for example, that
Objectivism, in essence, is about recognizing the facts of reality,
then acting accordingly. The devil is in the details about how one
goes about doing so. Otherwise, any truth grasped by a rational
process can be considered consistent with Objectivism.
I regard Rand's theory of concepts, and her resulting view of
objectivity as a cognitive norm -- the subject matter of ITOE and of
Chapters 3 and 4 of OPAR -- is what makes Objectivism unique among
philosophies. It isn't so much a question of what a person knows,
but how that person goes about knowing it.
Ken
fred...@papertig.com
> fred...@papertig.com wrote:
>
> >She made many mistakes, quite a few of which she admitted, a few of
> >which were serious, and at least one of which was catastrophic. Many
of
> >these have been discussed here.
>
> Are you talking about philosophical mistakes or (as I suspect)
> mistakes in her personal life?
I was thinking about primarily mistakes in her personal life, although
she also made philosophical mistakes mostly along the way to developing
her final, and more fully worked out views. (See her Journals).
> Personally, I agree that Rand made mistakes, but none that goes to
the
> fundamentals of her philosophy.
Some might touch that area to the extent of her early Nietzschianism,
but that's arguable.
> [...]
>
> >In specific answer to your question, I'm not a fortune teller so I
> >don't know what the future holds. That said, my own prediction is
that
> >Objectivism will prove to have as much, if not more, longevity as
> >Aristotelianism, i.e. that AR discovered important truths, as did
> >Aristotle, which will stand the test of time.
>
> I will not be around to see it, but (to repeat something I've said
> many times before) I suspect that the one thing that will eventually
> emerge and dominate over the rest is her theory of concepts.
I'm not sure about "dominate over", but her ethics and politics are
likely to have profound and long-lasting influence. I also have no
doubt that her fiction will be read centuries into the future.
I also think that the way in which she came at philosophical issues
will have great influence - and to some extent that rests on her theory
of concepts.
Fred Weiss
Randroid Terminator
<kesga...@charter.net> wrote:
>>She made many mistakes, quite a few of which she admitted, a few of
>>which were serious, and at least one of which was catastrophic. Many of
>>these have been discussed here.
>
>Are you talking about philosophical mistakes or (as I suspect)
>mistakes in her personal life?
>
>Personally, I agree that Rand made mistakes, but none that goes to the
>fundamentals of her philosophy.
Many possible hypotheses can be drawn from that statement:
1. Philosophy does not apply to reality, and all fundamentals are
merely free-floating abstractions divorced from reality (which
explains why Rand was capable of making fundamental mistakes in
reality that don't involve the fundamentals of her own philosophy;
2. Rand for some reason simply failed to apply Objectivism to her own
life, thus resulting in various fundamental mistakes (shrug);
3. the poster does not truly believe there is any absolute connection
between philosophy and reality, a connection which he normally
believes exists but then conveniently severs with regard to Rand's and
only Rand's mistakes;
4. Rand's mistakes were mere errors of knowledge, her intention was
always virtuous and never, ever vicious, (but when other "evil"
philosophers made similar 'mistakes' they were not errors of knowledge
but intentional acts of irrationality aimed at destroying Randian
values and fundamentals -- although most of these 'evil' philosophers
lived tens, hundreds, or even thousands of years ago and could know
nothing about Randian fundamentals).
--
"Happiness, while it is pleasant to the possessor
of it, is not of itself absolutely and in all
respects good, but always presupposes morally right
behaviour as its condition." (Critique of Practical
Reason.)
--
"It's very typical of Objectivists, when they object
to something someone does, to have a strong opinion
as to motive -- in this case, to sell books and
make money. In other words, to them an honest
difference of opinion is not conceivable."
http://snipurl.com/cmb0
Arnold
Some philosophies are not realistic. One at least has reality as it's
object, that is, it's reference. This philosophy is known as Objectivism.
This philosophy agrees that reality comes first. and _that_ is it's crux.
The same reference needs be applied to maths.
--
Arnold
.
.
fred...@papertig.com
> fred...@papertig.com wrote:
>
> >That's what Peikoff argues - including what he himself has written
> >since her death. In one sense that's true. In another - and this is
> >likely the sense that will be prevalent - any view based on and
fully
> >consistent with Objectivism will be considered "Objectivist"
>
> [...]
>
rational
> process can be considered consistent with Objectivism.
I was thinking of philosophical views - and not just any view of course
- even rational ones - but specifically those clearly "based on and/or
influenced by" AR. For example "Aristotelian" refers I believe not just
to Aristotle's own writings but to those of philosophers strongly
influenced by him, e.g. AR. Hence she described herself as an
Aristotelian, despite differences with him. "Objectivist" in that sense
would be like "Objectivist-ian". In that sense, OPAR is clearly
Objectivist(ian).
Fred Weiss
TC
> "TC" <tcl...@ist.ucf.edu> wrote in message
> >> (You keep referencing mathematical constructs as if they are
reality.
> > Maths
> >> is a tool to help understand relationships in reality. Because
> > infinity
> >> exists in maths, is no reason to assume that it does in reality.
> > Reality
> >> first, maths second.)
> > Everyone keeps referencing philosophical concepts as it they
> > were reality. Philosophy is a tool to help understand
> > reality. Just because some philosophies canot understand
> > how an infinite could exist does not mean that it cannot
> > in reality. Reality first, philosophy second.
> Some philosophies are not realistic. One at least has reality as it's
> object, that is, it's reference. This philosophy is known as
Objectivism.
> This philosophy agrees that reality comes first. and _that_ is it's
crux.
Then why make pronoucements about the infinite existents?
It is up to reality ast to whether they exist or not.
At best, it seems that Objectivists confuse epistemology with
ontology when they say that infinitely large (or long or ...)
existents cannot exist.
> The same reference needs be applied to maths.
Sauce for the goose.
Tom
David Buchner
> the sack contains precious goods, such as pieces of gold. The figure
> symbolises generosity and good fortune.
Santa Buddha?
It's still a dumbass story.
David Buchner
> ability. Of course, this begs the question :-) of whether or not the
> ability to appreciate useless things is a good trait (perhaps only for
> children?). I'm guessing that your answer is that it's not a good trait
> for anyone. :-)
Speaking as someone who hauls home and collects all sorts of "useless
junk" and stores it in a big pile in the woods, and has a hard time
throwing anything away, who comes back with the dump with more stuff
than he hauls there...
..certainly not.
My point was only that religion is full of asinine stories.
Mark N
> Mark N <ma...@myinboxisbroken.com> wrote:
>>ability. Of course, this begs the question :-) of whether or not the
>>ability to appreciate useless things is a good trait (perhaps only for
>>children?). I'm guessing that your answer is that it's not a good trait
>>for anyone. :-)
> Speaking as someone who hauls home and collects all sorts of "useless
> junk" and stores it in a big pile in the woods, and has a hard time
> throwing anything away, who comes back with the dump with more stuff
> than he hauls there...
>
> ...certainly not.
>
>
> My point was only that religion is full of asinine stories.
Fair enough! :-)
Mark
x
x
Mark N
> Research, my friend. I was actually pretty interested in Buddhism when
> I was younger, but the Theravada school rather than Mahayana, so I'd
> never heard of this character before you prompted me.
>
> I'm not too optimistic about converting any Objectivists, but I think
> of all the major religions Buddhism is the most benign [...]
I'm inclined to agree with that. I'd say it's probably the most benign
and the most interesting. The tradition of de-emphasizing authority and
metaphysical speculation pretty much guarantees that Buddhism is far
more benign than most other religions. I'm pretty sure that notions such
as "heresy" and "blasphemy" have never played any major role in Buddhism.
I also find the early writings of Taoism interesting, although I imagine
that they would be condemned as the worst sort of irrationalism by many
people around here. :-)
Mark
Atlas Bugged
news:adRTd.32677$ya6.18282@trndny01...
> I'm inclined to agree with that. I'd say it's probably the most benign and
> the most interesting.
In religions, I place the highest possible value on the pacifist religions.
They come closer than any other religionists to valuing their own minds,
indeed their very lives, in an objectively correct way.
Mark N
By "pacifist religions," do you mean religions whose adherents do not
use violence to force their religious views on others? Or do you mean
religions whose adherents renounce violence more generally? (I'd be
quite surprised if you meant the latter.)
Mark
Atlas Bugged
> By "pacifist religions," do you mean religions whose adherents do not use
> violence to force their religious views on others? Or do you mean
> religions whose adherents renounce violence more generally? (I'd be quite
> surprised if you meant the latter.)
"Pacifism" is a philosophy held by individuals who value their lives as
zero. They will not raise a hand to preserve their own lives.
It is their absolute right to value their lives any way they want. If I
wanted to kill them (I don't,) they will not lift a hand to stop me.
They believe their lives are worthless. That's pretty pathetic, incredibly
brainless, so I'm inclined to agree with their self-assessment.
Tonight, Bill Maher said, "Religion is a neurological disorder."
So I am indeed speaking of your second group. The first group you mention
is a curious one.
It's almost like you're saying there's a group that refuses to murder,
torture, rape, and assault, and you want to give them a bit of extra credit
for this.
I'm a bit less admiring of your first group. But why are they inferior to
group two? Well, I won't keep you in suspense a moment longer.
It's because group two at least has a realistic self-assessment. They
understand they are probably worthless.
Group one, even if they renounce violence, still labor under the mistaken
belief that they are worthy.
Finally, the term "pacifism" is never really used to describe your first
group anyhow. The term refers most specifically to those who renounce the
propriety of self-defense. People who renounce the use of force *other*
than self-defense are normally referred to by the term-of-art called "law
abiding citizen," or perhaps "civilized human."
In fact, the people you describe in group one are overwhelmingly
self-deluded atheists. Think about it. An average American Jew or Catholic
(fortunately) gives their first allegiance to first-amendment-style
tolerance. That is merely cultural religionism, more an artifact of
religion than religion itself.
Ken Gardner
>I was thinking about primarily mistakes in her personal life, although
>she also made philosophical mistakes mostly along the way to developing
>her final, and more fully worked out views. (See her Journals).
Well, okay. I would add that based on the Journals, she seemed to
have things fully worked out by the late 1940s and certainly by the
time that she started planning Galt's speech in the early 1950s.
>> Personally, I agree that Rand made mistakes, but none that goes to
>> the fundamentals of her philosophy.
>Some might touch that area to the extent of her early Nietzschianism,
>but that's arguable.
I wouldn't make that argument. She corrected these elements of her
philosophy by the late 1940s or early 1950s at the latest. My
personal theory is that Rand didn't finally become an Objectivist (as
she herself would have defined the term) until she had the
conversation in the 1940s about concept-formation with the Jesuit that
she describes at the end of the Appendix to ITOE.
>> I will not be around to see it, but (to repeat something I've said
>> many times before) I suspect that the one thing that will eventually
>> emerge and dominate over the rest is her theory of concepts.
>I'm not sure about "dominate over", but her ethics and politics are
>likely to have profound and long-lasting influence. I also have no
>doubt that her fiction will be read centuries into the future.
I think both will, but the epistemology is the more fundamental of the
two.
>I also think that the way in which she came at philosophical issues
>will have great influence - and to some extent that rests on her theory
>of concepts.
Absolutely.
Ken
Ken Gardner
>>Personally, I agree that Rand made mistakes, but none that goes to the
>>fundamentals of her philosophy.
>Many possible hypotheses can be drawn from that statement:
>1. Philosophy does not apply to reality, and all fundamentals are
>merely free-floating abstractions divorced from reality (which
>explains why Rand was capable of making fundamental mistakes in
>reality that don't involve the fundamentals of her own philosophy;
Uh, no. To the contrary, mistakes, and their consequences, re-affirm
the truth of these fundamentals. As Ayn Rand herself put the point
(paraphrasing), "All of the disasters that have wrecked your world,
and all of the pain that you have ever endured, came from your own
attempt to evade the fact that A is A." Put another way, reality can
sometimes be a real bitch.
>2. Rand for some reason simply failed to apply Objectivism to her own
>life, thus resulting in various fundamental mistakes (shrug);
She definitely applied Objectivism to her own life, especially in her
own profession (writing). Now, if she had the affair with Branden
(I'm told that she did, although I don't have personal knowledge of
any such affair), I personally would regard this fact as a failure to
apply Objectivist virtues such as integrity and justice -- and if she
did, then she, the Brandens, Frank O'Conner, and others suffered the
consequences. Reality can sometimes be a bitch.
>3. the poster does not truly believe there is any absolute connection
>between philosophy and reality, a connection which he normally
>believes exists but then conveniently severs with regard to Rand's and
>only Rand's mistakes;
The poster? Sheesh. I hate it when people start referring to me in
the third person. It's rude.
And no, you didn't get this one right, either.
>4. Rand's mistakes were mere errors of knowledge, her intention was
>always virtuous and never, ever vicious, (but when other "evil"
>philosophers made similar 'mistakes' they were not errors of knowledge
>but intentional acts of irrationality aimed at destroying Randian
>values and fundamentals -- although most of these 'evil' philosophers
>lived tens, hundreds, or even thousands of years ago and could know
>nothing about Randian fundamentals).
I'm sure that just about every mistake Rand made was an error of
knowledge. And yes, she was absolutely right about Kant as well as
several others -- but especially Kant. Sorry, but deal with it.
Reality can sometimes be a real bitch.
Ken
Mark N
> "Mark N" <ma...@myinboxisbroken.com> wrote in message
> news:GYTTd.39751$s16.12143@trndny02...
>>By "pacifist religions," do you mean religions whose adherents do not use
>>violence to force their religious views on others? Or do you mean
>>religions whose adherents renounce violence more generally? (I'd be quite
>>surprised if you meant the latter.)
> "Pacifism" is a philosophy held by individuals who value their lives as
> zero. They will not raise a hand to preserve their own lives.
I see. Well, this puts your statement about placing the "highest
possible value" on pacifist religions in a new light. I suppose I should
have guessed that it was meant sarcastically.
I don't agree that pacifists necessarily do not place any value on their
lives. Suppose that you think that robbing a bank would be an effective
way to become wealthy. And suppose, further, that you believe that
robbing a bank would be immoral, and so you don't do it. Does it then
follow that you place no value on being wealthy?
> It is their absolute right to value their lives any way they want. If I
> wanted to kill them (I don't,) they will not lift a hand to stop me.
>
> They believe their lives are worthless. That's pretty pathetic, incredibly
> brainless, so I'm inclined to agree with their self-assessment.
>
> Tonight, Bill Maher said, "Religion is a neurological disorder."
>
> So I am indeed speaking of your second group. The first group you mention
> is a curious one.
>
> It's almost like you're saying there's a group that refuses to murder,
> torture, rape, and assault, and you want to give them a bit of extra credit
> for this.
Hmmm. Not sure what this means. Does the "you" here refer to me
personally? I was just trying to find out what you meant. I didn't say
that I wanted to give anyone "extra credit," whatever that means.
> I'm a bit less admiring of your first group. But why are they inferior to
> group two? Well, I won't keep you in suspense a moment longer.
>
> It's because group two at least has a realistic self-assessment. They
> understand they are probably worthless.
>
> Group one, even if they renounce violence, still labor under the mistaken
> belief that they are worthy.
How so? Why, and in what sense, are they "worthless"? And to whom,
precisely, are you referring here? Anyone who follows any religion? If
so, could you give a definition of "religion," so that I will be able to
tell what your criterion is for considering someone to be "worthless"?
Mark
Atlas Bugged
>> "Pacifism" is a philosophy held by individuals who value their lives as
>> zero. They will not raise a hand to preserve their own lives.
"Mark N" <ma...@myinboxisbroken.com> wrote in message
news:2RVTd.35344$f%5.31179@trndny03...
> I see. Well, this puts your statement about placing the "highest possible
> value" on pacifist religions in a new light. I suppose I should have
> guessed that it was meant sarcastically.
No! You're still missing the point. Value is agent-relative. The
Bugged-Agent seriously values the true pacifist. The Pacifist-Agent does
not.
>
> I don't agree that pacifists necessarily do not place any value on their
> lives. Suppose that you think that robbing a bank would be an effective
> way to become wealthy. And suppose, further, that you believe that robbing
> a bank would be immoral, and so you don't do it. Does it then follow that
> you place no value on being wealthy?
Weak analogy. Your life is something you own. If I try to take it away
from you, your efforts to stop me ought to be a fairly good indicator of how
much you value it. This tends to be true across the board. Consider your
property, or your wife, or your kids. What would you do to gain and/or keep
such values?
Pacifists advertise that anyone may kill them or their loved ones without
fear of retribution. The ones with IQ's higher than room-temperature also
understand agency, so they also guarantee no one will act on their behalf.
> Hmmm. Not sure what this means. Does the "you" here refer to me
> personally? I was just trying to find out what you meant. I didn't say
> that I wanted to give anyone "extra credit," whatever that means.
You compared two groups (by my understanding, non-theocratic religionists
and pacifists) and you expressed "surprise" if I was referring to the second
group. I was. What surprised you? Again, non-theocratic religionists
aren't pacifists, at least not necessarily.
> How so? Why, and in what sense, are they "worthless"?
They renounce the use of their mind. They proclaim it both ineffective and
hazardous.
This is almost as close to worthless as a human can manage.
>And to whom, precisely, are you referring here? Anyone who follows any
>religion? If so, could you give a definition of "religion," so that I will
>be able to tell what your criterion is for considering someone to be
>"worthless"?
Well, you're in an Objectivist newsgroup. You're a nice guy, but even you
need to RTFM* sometimes. Even basic familiarity with Ayn Rand should reveal
what is meant by a "mystic," what such a position implies for the rational
mind, and what happens to societies where mysticism is a guiding principle.
At any rate, religion has been the greatest human scourge, worse even than
many natural disasters such as plague, locust, flood, and even virus. I
value religious pacifism because it simply cannot be bad for all
religionists to at least *offer* to be killed.
*Well-known internet acronym for "read the fucking manual."
fred...@papertig.com
> fred...@papertig.com wrote:
>
> >I was thinking about primarily mistakes in her personal life,
although
> >she also made philosophical mistakes mostly along the way to
developing
> >her final, and more fully worked out views. (See her Journals).
>
> Well, okay. I would add that based on the Journals, she seemed to
> have things fully worked out by the late 1940s and certainly by the
> time that she started planning Galt's speech in the early 1950s.
>
> >> Personally, I agree that Rand made mistakes, but none that goes to
> >> the fundamentals of her philosophy.
>
> >Some might touch that area to the extent of her early
Nietzschianism,
> >but that's arguable.
>
> I wouldn't make that argument. She corrected these elements of her
> philosophy by the late 1940s or early 1950s at the latest.
True, but the mistakes were there and I was only commenting on whether
she ever made mistakes in her philosophical views.
My
> personal theory is that Rand didn't finally become an Objectivist (as
> she herself would have defined the term) until she had the
> conversation in the 1940s about concept-formation with the Jesuit
that
> she describes at the end of the Appendix to ITOE.
That was an important step, but I'd put it later - upon the completion
of Galt's Speech. Objectivism is not just a single isolated view or
even a series of them, however important or fundamental. It's the
entire integration.
Fred Weiss
Randroid Terminator
<kesga...@charter.net> wrote:
>Randroid Terminator wrote:
>>>Personally, I agree that Rand made mistakes, but none that goes to the
>>>fundamentals of her philosophy.
>>Many possible hypotheses can be drawn from that statement:
>>1. Philosophy does not apply to reality, and all fundamentals are
>>merely free-floating abstractions divorced from reality (which
>>explains why Rand was capable of making fundamental mistakes in
>>reality that don't involve the fundamentals of her own philosophy;
>Uh, no. To the contrary, mistakes, and their consequences, re-affirm
>the truth of these fundamentals. As Ayn Rand herself put the point
>(paraphrasing), "All of the disasters that have wrecked your world,
>and all of the pain that you have ever endured, came from your own
>attempt to evade the fact that A is A." Put another way, reality can
>sometimes be a real bitch.
Then that's the answer to Rand's mistakes: by her own standard, the
disasters that wrecked her own world and all the pain she ever endured
came from her own attempt to evade the fact that A is A.
An "error of knowledge" is only a rationalization to "Forgive them,
for they know not what they do." It is only Rand playing God, in
doling out good and bad judgments based on mind-reading, or really,
reading the contents of men's noumenal souls, a task only God can
accomplish. Somehow, as with her novels in which she literally played
God and constructed entire universes, and thus to know who was
good or evil in her novels, Rand was allegedly able to translate this
ability into reality and determine who were the Roarks, Tooheys, and
Keatings in her personal sphere of relationships.
I'm not saying that errors of knowledge don't exist, but you can never
know, in reality and not in novels with characters constructed out of
thin air, whether or not someone else's mistake was based on an error
of knowledge (especially with rational adults, I'm not talking about
small children and such), because you don't have direct access to the
knowledge base in their heads. It is most often the case that people
simply fail to apply what they already know. And in Rand's view, that
failure is irrational and immoral, it is the root of all evasion.
While it seems commendable for Rand to have given full knowledge of
her affair to her husband and Branden's wife, that is not the kind of
knowledge that she failed to apply here. It is not moral knowledge,
knowledge of right and wrong, it simply involves revealing a fact (the
fact of their relationship). It was a failure to apply the *moral*
knowledge that it was wrong to have the relationship *even with the
full knowledge of all parties involved.* That type of knowledge of
reality doesn't make it excusable.
If there is a root of all evil, it is not failing to apply knowledge
of the facts of reality, but failing to apply knowledge of right and
wrong courses of action in the moral realm.
Give Beatrice Longuenesse's book "Kant and the Capacity to Judge" an
objective reading, then report back to me on the subject of what Rand
knew about Kantianism.
Ken Gardner
>It happened with amazing speed. Right after the Fountainhead came out,
>she was urged to write a nonfiction book on it. The drafts that are
>close in time to the Fountainhead read like Roark's speech, and are
>essentially "Patersonian." She sets it aside. Within two years, her
>notes and letters show the whole structure of Objectivism worked
>out--the notes read like Atlas speeches instead.
It has been years since I read the Journals, but this is pretty much
exactly what I remembered.
Ken
Ken Gardner
>>Mypersonal theory is that Rand didn't finally become an Objectivist (as
>> she herself would have defined the term) until she had the
>> conversation in the 1940s about concept-formation with the Jesuit
>>that she describes at the end of the Appendix to ITOE.
>That was an important step, but I'd put it later - upon the completion
>of Galt's Speech. Objectivism is not just a single isolated view or
>even a series of them, however important or fundamental. It's the
>entire integration.
Maybe, but the key step in the development was the discovery of her
theory of concepts. Once she had that, the rest was merely a matter
of time and of putting it on paper.
Ken
Ken Gardner
>>Uh, no. To the contrary, mistakes, and their consequences, re-affirm
>>the truth of these fundamentals. As Ayn Rand herself put the point
>>(paraphrasing), "All of the disasters that have wrecked your world,
>>and all of the pain that you have ever endured, came from your own
>>attempt to evade the fact that A is A." Put another way, reality can
>>sometimes be a real bitch.
>Then that's the answer to Rand's mistakes: by her own standard, the
>disasters that wrecked her own world and all the pain she ever endured
>came from her own attempt to evade the fact that A is A.
What the heck are you talking about here? People, even Objectivists,
even Rand herself, make mistakes. Human beings are not omniscient or
infallible. These mistakes eventually show up as contradictions
between their mistaken views or actions and the facts of reality. If
they then correct the mistakes, they'll be fine. The problems arise
only when someone attempts to get away with contradictions instead of
acknowledging and correcting them.
>An "error of knowledge" is only a rationalization to "Forgive them,
>for they know not what they do."
No it is isn't. It is an identification of a particular fact of
reality. Even Objectivists, and other people who work actively to
grasp the facts of reality and act accordingly, sometimes make
mistakes. This fact isn't a moral issue if they correct their
mistakes.
[...]
>I'm not saying that errors of knowledge don't exist, but you can never
>know, in reality and not in novels with characters constructed out of
>thin air, whether or not someone else's mistake was based on an error
>of knowledge (especially with rational adults, I'm not talking about
>small children and such), because you don't have direct access to the
>knowledge base in their heads. It is most often the case that people
>simply fail to apply what they already know. And in Rand's view, that
>failure is irrational and immoral, it is the root of all evasion.
I do agree that it is sometimes difficult to tell the difference
between errors and evasions, and that some Objectivists are way too
quick to put people in the second category. Personally, I find that
a significant number of Objectivists are way too pessimistic about
just about everyone they meet, but I say that these people simply need
to get out more and get a life. The vast majority of people are not
Objectivists and they hold a great many mistaken views (especially on
topics such as religion and politics), but they are also perfectly
capable of making rational identifications, applying logic, engaging
in productive activity, etc. [Note: on the other hand, I'm certainly
no Pollyanish Kelleyite who is unwilling, e.g., to conclude that a
Marxist college professor is acting from error rather than evasion,
either.]
But having said that, there are also people who don't engage in
evasion at arriving at certain knowledge in the first place, but who
then engage in evasion of its consequences or applications -- they
belong to the second category. There are also people who are morally
gray, e.g. mixtures of good and bad. In these cases, you work with
the good and avoid and protect yourself against the bad.
>While it seems commendable for Rand to have given full knowledge of
>her affair to her husband and Branden's wife, that is not the kind of
>knowledge that she failed to apply here. It is not moral knowledge,
>knowledge of right and wrong, it simply involves revealing a fact (the
>fact of their relationship). It was a failure to apply the *moral*
>knowledge that it was wrong to have the relationship *even with the
>full knowledge of all parties involved.* That type of knowledge of
>reality doesn't make it excusable.
I agree that there is absolutely no excuse for what happened, if it
happened -- regardless of whether the affected spouses (Frank and
Barbara in this example) had full knowledge. However, if it happened,
it is a strike against Rand personally, but not against the validity
of her philosophy. That's my point. There are lots of Objectivists
who have never had extramarital affairs, much less demanded that the
spouses approve it. Personally, I regard such affairs as (at a bare
minimum) a breach of integrity and justice (as defined by
Objectivism), and even a form of treason to one's values, i.e. the way
most spouses react when they learn that the other spouse is having an
extramarital affair. In other words, they are immoral -- immoral by
Objectivist ethical standards.
If Rand and Branden had an affair, this fact proves only that even
Objectivists are capable of breaches of morality -- but Objectivists
would be the first to tell you that such breaches are possible even
among Objectivists. To deny this point would be to deny an even more
fundamental tenet of Objectivism: its acceptance of free will.
>If there is a root of all evil, it is not failing to apply knowledge
>of the facts of reality, but failing to apply knowledge of right and
>wrong courses of action in the moral realm.
According to Objectivism, evasion and the refusal to think is the root
of all evil. To the extent that such failure results from evasion
rather than error, I agree with this comment.
[...]
Ken
Ken Gardner
>I'm going to have to pick that up (the second edition--I have a lovely
>first printing, I collect these things as best I can) for the Jesuit
>reference.
When you do, go to the very end of the book (ITOE). It is the very
last entry in the Appendix.
>I've been trying really hard to track down historical
>evidence connected with "the turn to Aristotle." In retrospect it seems
>natural just because we're accustomed to it, but in context it was a
>very odd progression: Nietzsche, Paterson, Aristotle? I feel like I'd
>have a better "dialectical" (for lack of a better word) grasp of the
>unfolding of her view if I knew what she turned to Aristotle *for*,
>unless it was just a random thing.
I am also interested in this question. My only guess so far is that
it happened sometime after she finished The Fountainhead but
(obviously) before she began serious planning for Galt's speech in
Atlas Shrugged.
At the risk of retreading old ground from several months or years ago,
here are some quick notes. The first favorable reference to Aristotle
that I could find in her journal was a brief mention in the April 18,
1946 entry. I could not find any other promising evidence in her
journal, although I did see lots of evidence that she had discovered
Aristotle by this time -- which leads me to her letters.
In her letters, I found many more clues. I found a July 26, 1945
letter to Isabel Paterson in which Rand mentioned that she was reading
Aristotle. In the same letter, she also mentioned that she was
reading a long history of philosophy by B.A.G.Fuller (whoever the heck
that is -- you may know). There is an even earlier letter to a fan,
dated March 4, 1945, in which she said to "count me in with Aristotle,
the father of logic." In a June 18, 1945 letter to Hal Wallis, she
mentioned that she had gone out and bought the complete works of
Aristotle. In a November 3, 1946 letter to Rose Wilder Lane, she
acknowledged her "profound debt" to Aristotle. By 1948, she was
identifying herself as an "Aristotelian" in letters to fans, friends,
etc.
So, it looks like we can pin down the period to sometime in 1945 and
1946, probably 1945. The conversation with the Jesuit also took place
sometime during this period, or perhaps a few years later 1947 or
1948). According to Rand's account of the conversation, the Jesuit
was arguing for the traditional Aristotelian theory of concepts, which
struck her as wrong but she didn't immediately know why. After
thinking about it for about 30 minutes (according to her), she had the
answer. :)
This is pure speculation on my part, but I'm guessing that by the time
of this conversation she was already an Aristotelian, but in the more
traditional sense, e.g. like Mortimer Adler in his younger days before
he also became a Thomist late in life, and she then had her Newton
apple falling on the ground moment after this conversation with the
Jesuit. In my own mind, that day was the birth of Objectivism as we
know it today. Once she had her theory of concepts, the rest --
including her moral philosophy as presented in Galt's speech -- was
merely a matter of time, in the same way that an infant eventually
grows up to be an adult.
In any event, it is a fascinating topic.
Ken
Robert Kolker
>
> Maybe, but the key step in the development was the discovery of her
> theory of concepts. Once she had that, the rest was merely a matter
> of time and of putting it on paper.
Do you have to have a concept to conceputualize the concept of a concept?
Bob Kolker
Ken Gardner
Is this a trick question?
In her theory, one does not conceptualize concepts of a concept, but
the units being conceptualized themselves (which may include concepts
of consciousness such as concepts).
A concept, according to Objectivism, is a mental integration of two or
more units (existents regarded as members of a group of two or more
similar members) possessing the same distinguishing characteristics,
with their particular measurements omitted. The mental integration
can be done implicitly as well as explicitly (that's how children
learn to think and speak), and the process of doing so can later be
grasped through introspection and itself conceptualized in express
conceptual terms -- which is how we form the concept "conceptualize."
Ken
fred...@papertig.com
> Robert Kolker wrote:
> >Do you have to have a concept to conceputualize the concept of a
concept?
>
> In her theory, one does not conceptualize concepts of a concept,
Sure you do. They're called abstractions - or even abstractions of
abstractions. Thus you have very advanced abstractions which involve
many interrelated concepts.
"Concept" itself is a concept, to answer Bob's question - and AR
obviously defines it in ITOE (that's what the book is about). But one
wonders why he needs to be told that since he claims to have read it
and continually makes pronouncements about it.
Fred Weiss
Mark N
>>Atlas Bugged wrote:
>>>"Pacifism" is a philosophy held by individuals who value their lives as
>>>zero. They will not raise a hand to preserve their own lives.
>>I see. Well, this puts your statement about placing the "highest possible
>>value" on pacifist religions in a new light. I suppose I should have
>>guessed that it was meant sarcastically.
> No! You're still missing the point. Value is agent-relative. The
> Bugged-Agent seriously values the true pacifist. The Pacifist-Agent does
> not.
No, I don't think I missed the point. Sarcasm need not involve irony. I
didn't mean to imply that you didn't really, in some sense, "place a
high value" on "pacifist religions," only that the sense in which that's
so is a sense which actually implies contempt for those religions. I get
the joke.
>>I don't agree that pacifists necessarily do not place any value on their
>>lives. Suppose that you think that robbing a bank would be an effective
>>way to become wealthy. And suppose, further, that you believe that robbing
>>a bank would be immoral, and so you don't do it. Does it then follow that
>>you place no value on being wealthy?
> Weak analogy. Your life is something you own. If I try to take it away
> from you, your efforts to stop me ought to be a fairly good indicator of how
> much you value it. This tends to be true across the board. Consider your
> property, or your wife, or your kids. What would you do to gain and/or keep
> such values?
I maintain that the analogy, "weak" or not, makes it clear that your
original argument to show that pacifists place no value on their lives
doesn't work, at least not without additional assumptions.
> Pacifists advertise that anyone may kill them or their loved ones without
> fear of retribution. The ones with IQ's higher than room-temperature also
> understand agency, so they also guarantee no one will act on their behalf.
>>Hmmm. Not sure what this means. Does the "you" here refer to me
>>personally? I was just trying to find out what you meant. I didn't say
>>that I wanted to give anyone "extra credit," whatever that means.
> You compared two groups (by my understanding, non-theocratic religionists
> and pacifists) and you expressed "surprise" if I was referring to the second
> group. I was. What surprised you? Again, non-theocratic religionists
> aren't pacifists, at least not necessarily.
Sigh. It wasn't so much that I would have been surprised if you *didn't*
mean the *first* group. (I wouldn't really have expected you to apply
the term "pacifist" to that group.) The point was that I would have
considered it surprising if you *did* mean the *second* group (given
your previous statements regarding your view of pacifism). I just
mentioned the first group as a possible alternative interpretation. It
was the only possibility that I could think of (or at least, the first
that occurred to me) that might have made your statement somewhat
understandable.
>>How so? Why, and in what sense, are they "worthless"?
> They renounce the use of their mind. They proclaim it both ineffective and
> hazardous.
>
> This is almost as close to worthless as a human can manage.
But you still haven't clarified exactly who "they" are. (Your reference
below to Rand's statements about "mysticism" doesn't suffice.)
>>And to whom, precisely, are you referring here? Anyone who follows any
>>religion? If so, could you give a definition of "religion," so that I will
>>be able to tell what your criterion is for considering someone to be
>>"worthless"?
> Well, you're in an Objectivist newsgroup. You're a nice guy, but even you
> need to RTFM* sometimes. Even basic familiarity with Ayn Rand should reveal
> what is meant by a "mystic," what such a position implies for the rational
> mind, and what happens to societies where mysticism is a guiding principle.
Well, I guess I was allowing for the possibility that you might have
your own individual thoughts on the subject. My bad. :-)
So, what is "mysticism"? Well, I've read some parts of "the manual," and
I think I have a pretty good idea of what Rand meant by that word. I
think the basic idea is that there is some special sort of knowledge
that only certain special people have direct access to, and that other
people should accept this knowledge on faith, because these special
people say so. Is that about right?
Now, if you agree that that's the definition of "mysticism," maybe you
would like to guess how much "mysticism" is involved in Buddhism?
More generally, have you considered the possibility that you may be
letting the label "religion" lead you to make unwarranted assumptions
about some traditions to which that label gets attached?
Mark
Mark N
> Randroid Terminator wrote:
>>3. the poster does not truly believe there is any absolute connection
>>between philosophy and reality, a connection which he normally
>>believes exists but then conveniently severs with regard to Rand's and
>>only Rand's mistakes;
> The poster? Sheesh. I hate it when people start referring to me in
> the third person. It's rude.
It looks as if Mal has come down with a case of TPJAS (Tym Parsons/Jim
Austin Syndrome). :-)
Mark
Randroid Terminator
<kesga...@charter.net> wrote:
>Randroid Terminator wrote:
>
>>>Uh, no. To the contrary, mistakes, and their consequences, re-affirm
>>>the truth of these fundamentals. As Ayn Rand herself put the point
>>>(paraphrasing), "All of the disasters that have wrecked your world,
>>>and all of the pain that you have ever endured, came from your own
>>>attempt to evade the fact that A is A." Put another way, reality can
>>>sometimes be a real bitch.
>
>>Then that's the answer to Rand's mistakes: by her own standard, the
>>disasters that wrecked her own world and all the pain she ever endured
>>came from her own attempt to evade the fact that A is A.
>
>What the heck are you talking about here?
I am talking about what I explained below. That's why I explained it,
so you wouldn't have to ask that question. Now if you had read the
whole thing first, and then said, "What the *hell* are you talking
about!" I would have simply explained it a different way.
>People, even Objectivists,
>even Rand herself, make mistakes. Human beings are not omniscient or
>infallible. These mistakes eventually show up as contradictions
>between their mistaken views or actions and the facts of reality. If
>they then correct the mistakes, they'll be fine. The problems arise
>only when someone attempts to get away with contradictions instead of
>acknowledging and correcting them.
>
>>An "error of knowledge" is only a rationalization to "Forgive them,
>>for they know not what they do."
>
>No it is isn't. It is an identification of a particular fact of
>reality. Even Objectivists, and other people who work actively to
>grasp the facts of reality and act accordingly, sometimes make
>mistakes. This fact isn't a moral issue if they correct their
>mistakes.
The problem is how to identify an error of knowledge as a fact
of reality. Many facts of reality are difficult if not impossible to
identify. Since the knowledge or lack of same I am referrnig to lies
in someone else's head, it would be very difficult to determine with
great certainty whether or not it existed at all after the fact (e.g.,
"You knew better, therefore you shouldn't have done that!").
But that is only a general statement of knowledge. In the rest of my
post I distinguished moral from factual knowledge (by "factual
knowledge" I mean that which is describable by the 'is' statement
versus the 'ought' statement). That is the same as distinguishing
technical knowledge (how to drive a car, knowing the constituent parts
of an atom) from moral knowledge (what should man do, how should he
live his life).
The former, such as driving a car, does not require moral knowledge;
driving your car wisely requires moral knowledge and practice. Knowing
what constitutes an atom requires technical knowledge; whether or not
to deploy nukes against an enemy requires moral knowledge.
>[...]
>>I'm not saying that errors of knowledge don't exist, but you can never
>>know, in reality and not in novels with characters constructed out of
>>thin air, whether or not someone else's mistake was based on an error
>>of knowledge (especially with rational adults, I'm not talking about
>>small children and such), because you don't have direct access to the
>>knowledge base in their heads. It is most often the case that people
>>simply fail to apply what they already know. And in Rand's view, that
>>failure is irrational and immoral, it is the root of all evasion.
>I do agree that it is sometimes difficult to tell the difference
>between errors and evasions, and that some Objectivists are way too
>quick to put people in the second category. Personally, I find that
>a significant number of Objectivists are way too pessimistic about
>just about everyone they meet, but I say that these people simply need
>to get out more and get a life. The vast majority of people are not
>Objectivists and they hold a great many mistaken views (especially on
>topics such as religion and politics), but they are also perfectly
>capable of making rational identifications, applying logic, engaging
>in productive activity, etc. [Note: on the other hand, I'm certainly
>no Pollyanish Kelleyite who is unwilling, e.g., to conclude that a
>Marxist college professor is acting from error rather than evasion,
>either.]
I don't think Kelley is making an issue over knowing error from
evasion, but only arguing pragmatically, even strategically, for the
future of Objectivism: it does no good to engage these Marxists in
vicious polemics and accusations of their alleged psychological
problems. That is not the way to get Objectivism into the mainstream
(and this is what Kelley wants also), because in order to do so you
have to get past the ones guarding the gates, whatever form of
non-Objectivist they may be, Marxist or otherwise. Putting them
on the defensive will accomplish nothing positive regarding this goal.
That doesn't state what his actual methodology is, only that it goes
against the ARIan policy of attacking, condemning, villifying, and
demonizing opponents.
>But having said that, there are also people who don't engage in
>evasion at arriving at certain knowledge in the first place, but who
>then engage in evasion of its consequences or applications -- they
>belong to the second category. There are also people who are morally
>gray, e.g. mixtures of good and bad. In these cases, you work with
>the good and avoid and protect yourself against the bad.
So there are two types of evaders:
1. those who willfully refuse to acquire knowledge, and;
2. those who willingly refuse to act on knowledge previously acquired
thus evading the consequences.
But that still doesn't address the issue of whether the knowledge is
moral or factual. And I think that if one wants to address Rand's
mistakes as either fundamental to her views or not, then they must be
seen as morally based mistakes because they involved her relationship
to existence as practiced by her, not merely in terms of acquiring new
knowledge. Furthermore, there is the question of whether or not these
mistakes were based on applying, or misapplying, her fundamental moral
principles, and then whether or not those principles should simply be
discarded, not as impracticable, but only concerning their lack of
intellectual grounding.
If Rand's theory of romantic love, which she practiced regarding her
(alleged) relationship with Branden, was not grounded in her
Objectivist principles (moral or otherwise), then what was it grounded
in?
>>While it seems commendable for Rand to have given full knowledge of
>>her affair to her husband and Branden's wife, that is not the kind of
>>knowledge that she failed to apply here. It is not moral knowledge,
>>knowledge of right and wrong, it simply involves revealing a fact (the
>>fact of their relationship). It was a failure to apply the *moral*
>>knowledge that it was wrong to have the relationship *even with the
>>full knowledge of all parties involved.* That type of knowledge of
>>reality doesn't make it excusable.
>I agree that there is absolutely no excuse for what happened, if it
>happened -- regardless of whether the affected spouses (Frank and
>Barbara in this example) had full knowledge. However, if it happened,
>it is a strike against Rand personally, but not against the validity
>of her philosophy. That's my point. There are lots of Objectivists
>who have never had extramarital affairs, much less demanded that the
>spouses approve it. Personally, I regard such affairs as (at a bare
>minimum) a breach of integrity and justice (as defined by
>Objectivism), and even a form of treason to one's values, i.e. the way
>most spouses react when they learn that the other spouse is having an
>extramarital affair. In other words, they are immoral -- immoral by
>Objectivist ethical standards.
A marriage is a form of contract. Is a breach of contract illegal even
if both parties agree to it?
>If Rand and Branden had an affair, this fact proves only that even
>Objectivists are capable of breaches of morality -- but Objectivists
>would be the first to tell you that such breaches are possible even
>among Objectivists. To deny this point would be to deny an even more
>fundamental tenet of Objectivism: its acceptance of free will.
>>If there is a root of all evil, it is not failing to apply knowledge
>>of the facts of reality, but failing to apply knowledge of right and
>>wrong courses of action in the moral realm.
>According to Objectivism, evasion and the refusal to think is the root
>of all evil. To the extent that such failure results from evasion
>rather than error, I agree with this comment.
Many mistakes are caused by allowing emotion to override reason. For
example, a driver starts drifting off the road, panics, over-corrects,
and winds up in the ditch on the opposite side. I don't know if the
panic response was "allowed" to happen, or not, but there are many
such spontaneous psychological and somatic reactions that can occur,
and some people are more prone to them than others.
In the case of Rand's (alleged) relationship, would you suppose that
some emotional element was involved that overwhelmed her reasoning?
And that therefore, while her principles were and are sound, her
reasoning was unable to apply them without contradiction?
Randroid Terminator
>Ken Gardner wrote:
>> Randroid Terminator wrote:
Really? And should we call your chronic one-liners "Mark N" syndrome?
Mark N
> On Sat, 26 Feb 2005 21:14:25 +0000 (UTC), Mark N
> <ma...@myinboxisbroken.com> wrote:
>>Ken Gardner wrote:
>>>The poster? Sheesh. I hate it when people start referring to me in
>>>the third person. It's rude.
>>It looks as if Mal has come down with a case of TPJAS (Tym Parsons/Jim
>>Austin Syndrome). :-)
> Really? And should we call your chronic one-liners "Mark N" syndrome?
You can if you want to! :-)
Mark
x
x
Mark N
> Mark N wrote:
>> I also find the early writings of Taoism interesting, although I
>> imagine that they would be condemned as the worst sort of
>> irrationalism by many people around here. :-)
> David Boaz likes the Tao, because it has all these lovely bits about
> limited government.
>
> "[Regarding] The sage, in the exercise of his government... When there
> is this abstinence from action, good order is universal."
Yep. Lao Tsu may have been the first libertar..., um,... minarchist! :-)
> I'm also partial to:
>
> "Man takes his law from the Earth; the Earth takes its law from
> Heaven; Heaven takes its law from the Tao. The law of the Tao is
> being what it is."
The Tao Te Ching is often elliptical, and so open to interpretation. But
it's almost always highly suggestive of ideas that are eminently
reasonable. It's clear to me that Lao Tsu (or whoever wrote, or
compiled, those verses) was a person of great intelligence and insight.
The Chuang Tsu book is good too.
Mark
Atlas Bugged
> Well, I guess I was allowing for the possibility that you might have your
> own individual thoughts on the subject. My bad. :-)
I've had a number of original concepts here, but they do indeed rest firmly
on Rand's integrations, including the idea that all religion is irrational,
and that all religion is a subset of irrationality, which is the fundamental
evil.
> So, what is "mysticism"? Well, I've read some parts of "the manual," and I
> think I have a pretty good idea of what Rand meant by that word. I think
> the basic idea is that there is some special sort of knowledge that only
> certain special people have direct access to, and that other people should
> accept this knowledge on faith, because these special people say so. Is
> that about right?
Very good. But I see from your comments below that perhaps you are correct
but not complete.
>
> Now, if you agree that that's the definition of "mysticism," maybe you
> would like to guess how much "mysticism" is involved in Buddhism?
Plenty. It may be more properly characterized as a form of psychology
rather than an assertion to the supernatural, but (1) it's cheesy,
arbitrary, superstitious primitive pop psychology at best and (2) there are
plenty of branches that seem to fall back on the usual supernaturalism.
Some even take the view that reality is illusion. Buddhism remains just
another subset of irrationalism at best.
>
> More generally, have you considered the possibility that you may be
> letting the label "religion" lead you to make unwarranted assumptions
> about some traditions to which that label gets attached?
OK, you're evidently alluding to something that you believe is not crap, as
I believe all religion to be. I'm listening.
Ken Gardner
[...]
>The problem is how to identify an error of knowledge as a fact
>of reality. Many facts of reality are difficult if not impossible to
>identify. Since the knowledge or lack of same I am referring to lies
>in someone else's head, it would be very difficult to determine with
>great certainty whether or not it existed at all after the fact (e.g.,
>"You knew better, therefore you shouldn't have done that!").
IMO, the difficulties involved are often exaggerated, especially by
the Kelleyites and their ilk. If I can converse with the person, I
can find out quickly whether he is engaging in error or evasion.
Sometimes, a person explains his reasoning in a way that enables me to
make this determination even without talking to him. Of course,
there are also situations in which it is impossible to tell whether
the person is engaging in evasion -- in which case I don't draw any
conclusion one way or the other.
[...]
>But that still doesn't address the issue of whether the knowledge is
>moral or factual. And I think that if one wants to address Rand's
>mistakes as either fundamental to her views or not, then they must be
>seen as morally based mistakes because they involved her relationship
>to existence as practiced by her, not merely in terms of acquiring new
>knowledge. Furthermore, there is the question of whether or not these
>mistakes were based on applying, or misapplying, her fundamental moral
>principles, and then whether or not those principles should simply be
>discarded, not as impracticable, but only concerning their lack of
>intellectual grounding.
I'll respond as I did before: there is nothing in Objectivism that
would excuse the affair she had with Branden (if it happened). My
point remains that this type of error is not fundamental to her
philosophy. One can certainly be an Objectivist and never have an
extramarital affair.
>If Rand's theory of romantic love, which she practiced regarding her
>(alleged) relationship with Branden, was not grounded in her
>Objectivist principles (moral or otherwise), then what was it grounded
>in?
I must confess that I tend to avoid this particular topic and
therefore am not in a position to comment, except that if one marries
someone, it is morally wrong to engage in extramarital affairs. It's
certainly okay to discover that one had made a mistake in marrying the
person, or even that one is falling in love with a different person,
but the solution to this particular problem is to get a divorce.
Having said that, I don't think that the notion is unique to
Objectivism that one may be romantically attracted to persons who
share one's values. Regardless of whether they had an affair, I don't
think it impossible at all that Ayn may have been romantically
attracted to Nathaniel, and vice-versa. This is perfectly normal.
What is abnormal is what actually happened: not only did they
allegedly have an affair, but their respective spouses actually
CONSENTED to it. That just ain't human. That's the really odd part
of this story to me. Again, the right thing for all involved to do
was either to call off the affair (or not start it in the first place)
or initiate divorce proceedings.
[...]
>A marriage is a form of contract. Is a breach of contract illegal even
>if both parties agree to it?
Two people can always agree to modify or even terminate a contract.
But I would think that marriage is something a bit different from,
say, the form contract I sign when I buy a new car. The commitments
one makes when one marries are not merely legal or contractual, but
also deeply emotional and psychological.
[...]
>In the case of Rand's (alleged) relationship, would you suppose that
>some emotional element was involved that overwhelmed her reasoning?
Probably (if it happened). But I cannot say for sure. Speaking of
emotion, I cannot even begin to imagine how Frank and Barbara reacted
to it (if it happened). With many people, Ayn and Nathaniel (if it
happened) would be lucky to be alive at all. :) Maybe this is a blue
state vs. red state thing. :)
>And that therefore, while her principles were and are sound, her
>reasoning was unable to apply them without contradiction?
If the affair happened, she didn't apply them here. That's the real
problem -- but don't blame Objectivism.
Ken
Ken Gardner
>> The poster? Sheesh. I hate it when people start referring to me in
>> the third person. It's rude.
>It looks as if Mal has come down with a case of TPJAS (Tym Parsons/Jim
>Austin Syndrome). :-)
[Insert "ouch" here.]
Dude, remind me NEVER to get on YOUR bad side. :)
Ken
Randroid Terminator
<kesga...@charter.net> wrote:
>Randroid Terminator wrote:
>>The problem is how to identify an error of knowledge as a fact
>>of reality. Many facts of reality are difficult if not impossible to
>>identify. Since the knowledge or lack of same I am referring to lies
>>in someone else's head, it would be very difficult to determine with
>>great certainty whether or not it existed at all after the fact (e.g.,
>>"You knew better, therefore you shouldn't have done that!").
>IMO, the difficulties involved are often exaggerated, especially by
>the Kelleyites and their ilk. If I can converse with the person, I
>can find out quickly whether he is engaging in error or evasion.
>Sometimes, a person explains his reasoning in a way that enables me to
>make this determination even without talking to him. Of course,
>there are also situations in which it is impossible to tell whether
>the person is engaging in evasion -- in which case I don't draw any
>conclusion one way or the other.
>>But that still doesn't address the issue of whether the knowledge is
>>moral or factual. And I think that if one wants to address Rand's
>>mistakes as either fundamental to her views or not, then they must be
>>seen as morally based mistakes because they involved her relationship
>>to existence as practiced by her, not merely in terms of acquiring new
>>knowledge. Furthermore, there is the question of whether or not these
>>mistakes were based on applying, or misapplying, her fundamental moral
>>principles, and then whether or not those principles should simply be
>>discarded, not as impracticable, but only concerning their lack of
>>intellectual grounding.
>I'll respond as I did before: there is nothing in Objectivism that
>would excuse the affair she had with Branden (if it happened). My
>point remains that this type of error is not fundamental to her
>philosophy. One can certainly be an Objectivist and never have an
>extramarital affair.
Nothing? Not even psycho-epistemology and hero-worship?
>>If Rand's theory of romantic love, which she practiced regarding her
>>(alleged) relationship with Branden, was not grounded in her
>>Objectivist principles (moral or otherwise), then what was it grounded
>>in?
>I must confess that I tend to avoid this particular topic and
>therefore am not in a position to comment, except that if one marries
>someone, it is morally wrong to engage in extramarital affairs. It's
>certainly okay to discover that one had made a mistake in marrying the
>person, or even that one is falling in love with a different person,
>but the solution to this particular problem is to get a divorce.
>Having said that, I don't think that the notion is unique to
>Objectivism that one may be romantically attracted to persons who
>share one's values. Regardless of whether they had an affair, I don't
>think it impossible at all that Ayn may have been romantically
>attracted to Nathaniel, and vice-versa. This is perfectly normal.
>What is abnormal is what actually happened: not only did they
>allegedly have an affair, but their respective spouses actually
>CONSENTED to it. That just ain't human. That's the really odd part
>of this story to me. Again, the right thing for all involved to do
>was either to call off the affair (or not start it in the first place)
>or initiate divorce proceedings.
>>A marriage is a form of contract. Is a breach of contract illegal even
>>if both parties agree to it?
Searching... Searching... Searching........
>Two people can always agree to modify or even terminate a contract.
>But I would think that marriage is something a bit different from,
>say, the form contract I sign when I buy a new car. The commitments
>one makes when one marries are not merely legal or contractual, but
>also deeply emotional and psychological.
BINGO!
My next question is: Objectivism was so ignorant of these kinds of
psychological facts, isn't it an issue concerning how it reduces the
entire psychological realm to "subconscious premises" good and
bad? Isn't the failure of Rand's theory of romantic love based on her
inability to merge psychology into philosophy, and isn't this merger
or synthesis integral to Objectivist theory? (Psycho-epistemology
originated in the 1950s, it grew along with Objectivism, and really
cannot be dismissed without getting rid of Objectivism too.)
>[...]
>>In the case of Rand's (alleged) relationship, would you suppose that
>>some emotional element was involved that overwhelmed her reasoning?
>Probably (if it happened). But I cannot say for sure. Speaking of
>emotion, I cannot even begin to imagine how Frank and Barbara reacted
>to it (if it happened). With many people, Ayn and Nathaniel (if it
>happened) would be lucky to be alive at all. :) Maybe this is a blue
>state vs. red state thing. :)
>>And that therefore, while her principles were and are sound, her
>>reasoning was unable to apply them without contradiction?
>If the affair happened, she didn't apply them here. That's the real
>problem -- but don't blame Objectivism.
I will stop blaming Objectivism when you show me how a bad Objectivist
theory, that of psycho-epistemology, was not actually to blame for
giving intellectual support to the "affair." Not to mention the
hero-worship which is even pre-psycho-epistemology, and which is
really a sine qua non of Objectivism.
>Ken
Ken Gardner
[...]
>My next question is: Objectivism was so ignorant of these kinds of
>psychological facts, isn't it an issue concerning how it reduces the
>entire psychological realm to "subconscious premises" good and
>bad?
I reject the premise of the question, which is that Objectivism is
ignorant of the types of psychological and emotional facts associated
with marriage or that this "ignorance," in turn, refutes its views on
the nature of the relationship between reason and emotion. I don't
think that the emotions associated with marriage (or a romantic
relationship) are any less disconnected from or unrelated to one's
premises than any other emotions.
>Isn't the failure of Rand's theory of romantic love based on her
>inability to merge psychology into philosophy, and isn't this merger
>or synthesis integral to Objectivist theory? (Psycho-epistemology
>originated in the 1950s, it grew along with Objectivism, and really
>cannot be dismissed without getting rid of Objectivism too.)
Again, I reject the premise of the question. It seems obvious to me
that emotions, as opposed to physical sensations of pleasure or pain,
ultimately depend upon the premises one holds, either explicitly or
implicitly.
[...]
>>If the affair happened, she didn't apply them here. That's the real
>>problem -- but don't blame Objectivism.
>I will stop blaming Objectivism when you show me how a bad Objectivist
>theory, that of psycho-epistemology, was not actually to blame for
>giving intellectual support to the "affair." Not to mention the
>hero-worship which is even pre-psycho-epistemology, and which is
>really a sine qua non of Objectivism.
It's real simple. If there was a problem here, i.e. if the alleged
affair between Rand and Branden actually took place along the lines
that it supposedly did, the problem is not Objectivism, but the
failure to apply its principles to this particular situation. No
philosophy, not even Objectivism, is a guarantee against the making of
bad choices, not even by Objectivists, not even by Rand herself. If
Ayn Rand never existed, but someone else came along who discovered
Objectivism without also allegedly cheating on his spouse, Objectivism
would be every bit as valid as it actually is. The truth of an idea
or a philosophy -- its correspondence with reality -- is not a
function of the personal life of the person who discovered the idea.
Ken
Randroid Terminator
<kesga...@charter.net> wrote:
>Randroid Terminator wrote:
>>My next question is: Objectivism was so ignorant of these kinds of
>>psychological facts, isn't it an issue concerning how it reduces the
>>entire psychological realm to "subconscious premises" good and
>>bad?
>I reject the premise of the question, which is that Objectivism is
>ignorant of the types of psychological and emotional facts associated
>with marriage or that this "ignorance," in turn, refutes its views on
>the nature of the relationship between reason and emotion. I don't
>think that the emotions associated with marriage (or a romantic
>relationship) are any less disconnected from or unrelated to one's
>premises than any other emotions.
I did say "was," not "is," ignorant. But even granting your assertion,
was Rand's theory of romantic love grounded in psycho-epistemology
and hero-worship, and if so, would that theory work if properly
applied?
Or should we just ignore the fact that Objectivism says absolutely
nothing about cheating and cuckoldery, despite your statement against
them which is not necessarily mainstream Objectivist theory?
I think it's good that you covered your ass and came out earlier
against marital infidelity (with or without "permission" from the
respective spouses involved). However, that says nothing about
Objectivism's take on the issue, it was only you asserting your own
opinion.
>>Isn't the failure of Rand's theory of romantic love based on her
>>inability to merge psychology into philosophy, and isn't this merger
>>or synthesis integral to Objectivist theory? (Psycho-epistemology
>>originated in the 1950s, it grew along with Objectivism, and really
>>cannot be dismissed without getting rid of Objectivism too.)
>Again, I reject the premise of the question. It seems obvious to me
>that emotions, as opposed to physical sensations of pleasure or pain,
>ultimately depend upon the premises one holds, either explicitly or
>implicitly.
Not ultimately (and certainly not obviously, there is nothing obvious
concerning the complex human mind), because such subconscious
premises, even granting their existence, could not have simply popped
out of nowhere. You know better than that.
The subconscious mind is not rational, so why Rand would appeal to
it as the source of philosophical premises is a mystery to me. The
subconscious mind is not the rational faculty, and to implicate
philosophical premises "found" there, somehow, but not through
introspection precisely because the premises are subconscious,
discovering them merely through theorizing about this element of the
mind, does not automatically grant psycho-epistemology the solidity of
a science. (Nor does the fact that Rand bought into it hook, line, and
sinker grant it automatic validity.)
And yet it was on this shaky basis (along with hero-worship) that Rand
decided to give the green light to a romantic relationship (allegedly)
with a married whom she worshipped.
I agree that this was a failure on Rand's part, but mostly because it
was her own reasoning that invented or at least accepted the theory,
and that she applied the theory with perfect non-contradiction. And
that is why it failed, reality (the reality of the human psyche)
wreaked its vengeance upon her and her theories.
>>>If the affair happened, she didn't apply them here. That's the real
>>>problem -- but don't blame Objectivism.
>
>>I will stop blaming Objectivism when you show me how a bad Objectivist
>>theory, that of psycho-epistemology, was not actually to blame for
>>giving intellectual support to the "affair." Not to mention the
>>hero-worship which is even pre-psycho-epistemology, and which is
>>really a sine qua non of Objectivism.
>
>It's real simple. If there was a problem here, i.e. if the alleged
>affair between Rand and Branden actually took place along the lines
>that it supposedly did, the problem is not Objectivism, but the
>failure to apply its principles to this particular situation. No
>philosophy, not even Objectivism, is a guarantee against the making of
>bad choices, not even by Objectivists, not even by Rand herself. If
>Ayn Rand never existed, but someone else came along who discovered
>Objectivism without also allegedly cheating on his spouse, Objectivism
>would be every bit as valid as it actually is. The truth of an idea
>or a philosophy -- its correspondence with reality -- is not a
>function of the personal life of the person who discovered the idea.
You are only asserting that any mistakes Rand made were a failure to
correctly apply her own untested and untried philosophy. However, my
challenge to you was to show me that a combination of hero-worship and
psycho-epistemology theory were not actually to blame, and that even
when applied correctly in the realm of romantic love, the real results
will likely be disastrous for all participants. Or, if Rand made a
simple human blunder, it could be because her philosophy is
inapplicable to the realm of romantic love. And so if it can't even be
applied, then that's not her failure but the fault of the theory
itself. These are two alternatives that are not easily shunted aside
merely by asserting that the real answer is a "simple" one.
amanda...@yahoo.com
Who are you to believe.
Bhudda didn't walked up to people. People walked up to him.
Randroid Terminator
<chuck_u_...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>TC wrote:
>> Galt, Jesus and Buddha walk up to you and say "my morality is
>> best". Who are you to believe. They are your betters so
>> you can't reason in matters of morality as well as you can so
>> how are you to choose? Buddha may sound most reasonable to
>> you, but you might be (probably are?) wrong since these three
>> paragons are your betters and one of them may be correct.
>Objectivists would say, "Check the historic body count."
But what if it was Bob Kolker, not Jesus or Buddya? The body count
would be in the billions.
Robert Kolker
>
> But what if it was Bob Kolker, not Jesus or Buddya? The body count
> would be in the billions.
All for a good cause; namely us.
Read Eccliesiastes. There is a time to kill and a time heal. To
everything there is a time.
Bob Kolker
Randroid Terminator
>Randroid Terminator wrote:
Yes, but that's not a commandment to kill, nor is it a commandment to
engage in your ethnic cleansing.
As for Objectivism, what was the final body count in Atlas Shrugged?
Ken Gardner
>I did say "was," not "is," ignorant. But even granting your assertion,
>was Rand's theory of romantic love grounded in psycho-epistemology
>and hero-worship, and if so, would that theory work if properly
>applied?
I think it was grounded in her broader views about the relationship
between reason and emotion, or between one's premises and one's
emotional responses. The theory further says, however, that emotions
are not tools of cognition. If one's emotions are clashing with one's
premises, the ultimate cause is a conflict or contradiction in one's
premises, which needs to be resolved through the application of
reason. [Note: more on this below.] If the Rand/Branden affair
occurred, something like this happened and the conflict was either
left unresolved or resolved against their respective spouses -- all
the more reason why the most bizarre aspect of this story, if true,
was the alleged reaction of Frank and Barbara.
>Or should we just ignore the fact that Objectivism says absolutely
>nothing about cheating and cuckoldery, despite your statement against
>them which is not necessarily mainstream Objectivist theory?
This statement is simply wrong. See Galt's speech, which does mention
adultery. If the story about the affair is true, then Rand should
have paid more attention her own words. More broadly, Objectivism
upholds the virtues of integrity and justice, which apply to this
topic and many others too numerous to enumerate.
>I think it's good that you covered your ass and came out earlier
>against marital infidelity (with or without "permission" from the
>respective spouses involved). However, that says nothing about
>Objectivism's take on the issue, it was only you asserting your own
>opinion.
I am unaware of a single shred of evidence that Objectivism approves
of marital infidelity. If it did, then (1) it is an error that should
be corrected and (2) it is an error in applying fundamental principles
(e.g. integrity, justice) to specific real life applications, not an
error in the fundamental principles themselves. But it doesn't, so
this entire point is academic.
[...]
>The subconscious mind is not rational, so why Rand would appeal to
>it as the source of philosophical premises is a mystery to me.
I disagree. The subconscious is a realm of automatized premises --
automatized to the point that these premises are more or less
immediately available to us if and when we need them, but otherwise
not in our direct conscious awareness. It is also the realm where we
have automatized certain value judgments based on our consciously or
subconsciously held premises, which we hold in the form of emotions.
>The subconscious mind is not the rational faculty, and to implicate
>philosophical premises "found" there, somehow, but not through
>introspection precisely because the premises are subconscious,
But we do find them through introspection. If there is a clash, our
subconscious is going to let us know about it through a certain
emotional reaction, and then this emotional reaction is our signal to
examine our premises explicitly to discover, and if necessary correct,
the conflicting premises that caused the emotional reaction in the
first place.
>discovering them merely through theorizing about this element of the
>mind, does not automatically grant psycho-epistemology the solidity of
>a science. (Nor does the fact that Rand bought into it hook, line, and
>sinker grant it automatic validity.)
I know that the theory is valid through my own introspection, as well
as observing the same process going on in others. Everyone has had
the experience of experiencing some emotion that troubled them,
thinking it through to discover the cause, and then correcting any
resulting errors and resolving the emotional clash. One need not be a
rocket scientist or even a psychologist to grasp that underlying all
human emotional experiences is a consciously or subconsciously held
premise in the mind, usually in the form of a value judgment that has
since become automatized and is subsequently experienced as an
emotional reaction.
>And yet it was on this shaky basis (along with hero-worship) that Rand
>decided to give the green light to a romantic relationship (allegedly)
>with a married whom she worshipped.
If that's what happened, I will suggest to you that she didn't value
that marriage, or Frank, nearly as highly as she said she did, at
least not at that point of her life. That's what her own theory
should have told her at the time, and it is certainly what it tells
me. Whether that value judgment was correct or incorrect at the time
is an entirely different question,, and it is probably here that Rand
may have really screwed the pooch. Objectivists don't have a monopoly
on (allegedly) beginning an ill-advised extramarital affair that they
later come to regret as a huge mistake on their part. And there are
other Objectivists who never make this mistake in the first place.
>I agree that this was a failure on Rand's part, but mostly because it
>was her own reasoning that invented or at least accepted the theory,
>and that she applied the theory with perfect non-contradiction. And
>that is why it failed, reality (the reality of the human psyche)
>wreaked its vengeance upon her and her theories.
I disagree. The problem here was not the theory, but her failure to
apply it correctly in her own life.
>You are only asserting that any mistakes Rand made were a failure to
>correctly apply her own untested and untried philosophy.
Exactly.
>However, my challenge to you was to show me that a combination of
>hero-worship and psycho-epistemology theory were not actually to blame,
>and that even when applied correctly in the realm of romantic love, the real
>results will likely be disastrous for all participants.
Now you are asking me to prove a negative of a proposition for which I
am unaware of a single shred of evidence in support. I can't prove
that there are no gremlins on Venus, either. So I won't try.
>Or, if Rand made a
>simple human blunder, it could be because her philosophy is
>inapplicable to the realm of romantic love.
Rand may have really screwed the pooch all right, but -- as I said
several times already -- I certainly don't blame her philosophy. I
would blame Rand herself for not adhering to it on this occasion.
She should have known better.
>And so if it can't even be
>applied, then that's not her failure but the fault of the theory
>itself. These are two alternatives that are not easily shunted aside
>merely by asserting that the real answer is a "simple" one.
But when the real answer is the simple one, it really IS the simple
one. A is A. :)
Ken
Mark N
> Mark N wrote:
Who, me? Heck, I don't even *have* a bad side! :-)
I wasn't trying to make anyone say "ouch." I'm pretty sure that those
guys wouldn't care that I named a "syndrome" after them. It just happens
that they are the two "posters" that I know of who have that annoying
habit. So it seemed like a good name! :-)
I saw that you were getting the "poster" treatment from Mal, and I
wanted to empathize a little. Let you know that I feel your pain. :-)
Mark
Mark N
> "Mark N" <ma...@myinboxisbroken.com> wrote in message
>>So, what is "mysticism"? Well, I've read some parts of "the manual," and I
>>think I have a pretty good idea of what Rand meant by that word. I think
>>the basic idea is that there is some special sort of knowledge that only
>>certain special people have direct access to, and that other people should
>>accept this knowledge on faith, because these special people say so. Is
>>that about right?
> Very good. But I see from your comments below that perhaps you are correct
> but not complete.
>>Now, if you agree that that's the definition of "mysticism," maybe you
>>would like to guess how much "mysticism" is involved in Buddhism?
> Plenty. It may be more properly characterized as a form of psychology
> rather than an assertion to the supernatural, but (1) it's cheesy,
> arbitrary, superstitious primitive pop psychology at best
But psychological claims are not "mysticism" in the bad sense, unless
they are accompanied by an insistence that people must accept them on
faith, based on some kind of authority. They may be valid, or not, and
one is free to investigate them on one's own to determine whether or not
one agrees with them. There is nothing problematic about a person, or a
tradition, that makes such claims.
In fact, assertions about "the supernatural" (however one defines "the
supernatural") are not necessarily "mysticism" in the bad sense either.
They may be arbitrary assertions. But if one has a proper epistemology,
one can be exposed to all kinds of fanciful claims and suffer no ill
effects. To get you to accept arbitrary claims, religion has to screw up
your epistemology, by telling you things like "Blessed are they who
believe, though they have not seen." *That* is evil.
The thing that is wrong with religion is not the specific content of its
claims, but rather, the sort of reasons that it offers for accepting
those claims. Religion (in the bad sense) endorses, and attempts to
inculcate in people, an invalid epistemological approach, which goes by
the name of "faith." And *that* is what is evil about religion.
And I'm saying that that aspect is largely absent from Buddhism.
The Buddha made a number of assertions, some that are undoubtedly true,
and some whose truth-value may not be so easy to determine. *But* -- he
never asked anyone to accept any of those assertions on faith! And the
renunciation of faith and authority has been a recurring theme in
Buddhism. Buddhist literature (especially Zen) is filled with stories
that are intended to emphasize the impropriety of accepting authority
and blindly following tradition. One is supposed to discover truth for
oneself. What a concept! Isn't that enough basis right there for
pronouncing Buddhism to be immeasurably more wholesome (if only in a
negative sense) than Christianity or Islam? (I know, faint praise.)
> and (2) there are
> plenty of branches that seem to fall back on the usual supernaturalism.
Sure. Even the best traditions are bound to have some lame spin-offs.
> Some even take the view that reality is illusion.
Well, that's more a Hindu idea than a Buddhist idea. Buddhism is to a
very large extent free of metaphysical speculation. It's certainly not
emphasized. It's not considered very important to speculate about how
many gods there are, if any. Or whether or not the universe is the dream
of some god.
> Buddhism remains just
> another subset of irrationalism at best.
Well, I hope I've made some headway in countering that impression in
your mind.
>>More generally, have you considered the possibility that you may be
>>letting the label "religion" lead you to make unwarranted assumptions
>>about some traditions to which that label gets attached?
> OK, you're evidently alluding to something that you believe is not crap, as
> I believe all religion to be. I'm listening.
Well, I actually meant that more in a negative sense. That is, I believe
that you are in the habit of associating certain bad things with
"religion," and I'm suggesting that some things that get labeled as
"religions" may actually be free of some or all of those bad things. In
particular, I was reacting to your suggestion that people who practice
the "religion" known as Buddhism are "worthless." I was appalled at
that comment, because it just seemed so ignorant and, I must say,
uncharacteristic of you. I'm trying to raise your consciousness! :-)
I very much doubt that you would be impressed by any positive claims
that I might make regarding Buddhism (or any other religious tradition).
And, as a matter of fact, I am not actually a great enthusiast for any
particular religion, including Buddhism. But I do find Buddhism
interesting and consider it to be largely benign. And I don't believe
that it involves irrationality, at least, not as an essential aspect. I
would be happy if I just managed to get you to reevaluate your
assumptions, and to realize that blanket condemnations of all followers
of "religions" are unwarranted and inappropriate.
Mark
Mark N
> Mark N wrote:
>> I very much doubt that you would be impressed by any positive claims
>> that I might make regarding Buddhism (or any other religious
>> tradition). And, as a matter of fact, I am not actually a great
>> enthusiast for any particular religion, including Buddhism. But I do
>> find Buddhism interesting and consider it to be largely benign. And I
>> don't believe that it involves irrationality, at least, not as an
>> essential aspect.
> I had always had the same impression until very recently. Let me tell
> you a story. I was buying a book for my son, who is a Buddhist, _The
> Gospel of Buddha_, a book I had enjoyed when I was his age. Well,
> there's this new fancy-schmancy edition (worth having, it's purdy) and
> in it there was this whole discussion of "how Buddhism came to America."
> The long and short of it is that what you identify as the
> *reasonableness* of the Buddhist tradition was very largely the result
> of interactions between American and European secular humanists who were
> actively seeking to fill a void post-Christianity, and Buddhists,
> especially Japanese Buddhists, seeking to make headway in the US and
> tailoring their product to that end. The result was a cultural hybrid
> containing aspects of the original Buddhist materials and influences
> from turn of the century (late 1800s) Western secular humanism. Now it
> may sound incredible to learn that these impressions of reasonableness
> are, as it were, your own culture's stuff being sold back to you and
> then being judged by your own standards. Don't zillions of Buddhists the
> world over think this way too? And the short version is that this
> East/West hybrid was then carried back to "Buddhist countries" and
> taught to the people as their own tradition. For example, the _Gospel of
> Buddha_ was a confection of a German-American secular humanist, and yet
> it was translated into Japanese and brought back to Japan, where it
> became enormously popular. I strong recommend a reading of this long
> (100 pp. plus) intro to the _Gospel of Buddha_ for a deeper insight into
> to the extent to which the Buddhism you are favorably disposed to has
> been "contaminated." The point is not a normative one, but an historical
> one. It is as if we proclaimed the existence of bacteria on Mars after
> sending a not very clean space probe to go looking for it. It may be
> that there are affinities with Western scientific secular humanism and
> Buddhism that made the transport possible, but to wax pomo for a moment:
> Buddhism is a Western social construction, born of the intersection of
> colonial imperialism and the Western crisis in Christianity.
>
> The reason why I say all this is because of course one can find srtains
> of Buddhism that are riddled with silliness by our lights. So why is it
> that we regard that silliness as *inessential*, a clouding of the
> priginal, pure, unsullied truth, but do not do the same with our own
> traditions? Suppose that you had never heard of Christianity, an exotic
> religion from the exotic Middle East, and knowing that you were a very
> skeptical fellow with high moral standards, a Christian missionary
> composed something that looks just like Jefferson's expurgated Gospel,
> and sold it to you to show you how reasonable Christianity was. Wouldn't
> you end up favorably disposed, especially if the Christians stayed alien
> enough that you couldn't associate their culture with any of the bad
> stuff that had happened in *your* history?
Well, as usual, your comments are interesting. I'm always interested in
getting a more accurate picture of things, and so I may look into the
history that you mention here, out of curiosity about how Buddhism was
introduced in the West.
But as far as the older history of Buddhism goes, there is no doubt that
there has been a very prominent emphasis on independent individual
understanding, and a deliberate downplaying and even debunking of
authority, going all the way back to the Buddha himself. This becomes
even more pronounced in Chinese and Japanese Buddhism, whose tone was
set by Bodhidharma. You don't think that all of those historical
documents were invented in the last couple of centuries, do you?
And even if your negative view of the early history of Buddhism is
right, even imagining the worst possible case regarding the truth of
pre-nineteenth century Buddhism, what is the upshot with regard to my
point to AB? It would still be true that this "reasonable" strain of
Buddhism exists. And, as you seem to agree, it currently represents a
substantial fraction of Buddhists, in both the East and the West,
regardless of how that came to be so. So I still maintain that there is
no good reason to assume that Buddhists, in general, are irrational. And
I still maintain that it's wrong to condemn Buddhism, and Buddhists,
generally, as "worthless." That's my story, and I'm sticking to it! :-)
Mark