LoBagola

Feminist economics, welfare economics, classical, neoclassical, Keynesian.... Any suggestions on how to identify the essential differences? I'd like a way to integrate all this knowledge of the different schools as opposed to learning so many random facts about different economists.

I wrote about a not well enough processed or explained example that might make me look conceited; I thought it suited at the time, but it doesn't. Anyway, I agree if they're bored of me, or really want to just watch that's fine. But I'm not talking about that. I will see if I can think up another good, clear example after thinking about it some more. My intention was to get help/feedback in integrating these ideas and to see if I may be evaluating people too harshly (an injustice) but obviously I cannot write about every concrete situation I'm thinking of (nor would I be comfortable doing so).

[Mod's note: merged with an earlier thread. - sN] This refers to the essay “The psychology of psychologizing”; a highly recommended read. It caused me to think in-depth about my interactions with people. There’s much I’d like to clarify and discuss as I’m unclear about its application to my life. I’d also like to see if others disagree with my thought process in some specific concrete situations that came to mind while reading the essay. Rand defines psychologizing as She explains that There is a moral aspect of man’s character; what are the other aspects of his character? When we are evaluating a man I’m assuming we evaluate him as either moral or immoral; this means he is either acting on the premise of life, or on the premise of death. Even if a man acts on the premise of life you may not wish to deal with him. I do not like going out to social events with socially awkward or shy people (I used to be one myself). What should be my position on shy people? Thinking about myself, as I was previously; I would evaluate myself as immoral. I would avoid speaking out in class, dumb myself down to not stand out and shut myself off from interactions. Consciously I would profess that I should avoid talking to people “because they might think I’m a creep”, “they’re boring”, “I don’t care about them”… which were all rationalizations. How would one evaluate my character, morally, on these statements? If these are rationalizations then one should recognize that I refuse to process the contents of my subconscious, and therefore I’m an immoral character. Introspecting led me to conclude that I’d like to avoid an interaction in order to save myself from being rejected. If I rejected others first, they would be unable to reject me. I’m not certain of this; it could be a spurious inference? But this is what I concluded. Now I will consciously admit to being slightly anxious in a social situation but I will make the effort anyway. Now when I meet someone in a similar to position as to the one I was in I feel a hint of hatred. Note that it’s not the subconscious manifestation of their ideas that will make me feel hatred, but frustrating conscious admissions and actions (or lack of); for example, someone who keeps looking around at others as they take his attention and when encouraged to go start a conversation with a person of interest he will say “nah, I’m here to be with my friends” or rationalize in a way similar to the way I did. In this specific case I will evaluate the person as immoral and feel a slight revulsion. On the other hand if someone will admit to being nervous or shy and yet make an effort in the above cases I will admire them so much more and I will not feel any hostile emotions. In summary where I think I’m judging someone is on the basis of what they say and their actions and NOT on spurious inferences about their subconscious. If it’s unclear and doesn’t make any sense for the situation, e.g. they keep looking at others instead of paying me attention and yet they claim not to be interested in talking to them, then I conclude that he is not being consistent or intelligible in his behaviour so I will feel some light hatred and it is justified. I’m confused. Rand herself seems to be psychologizing in this whole essay; she does so in others as well. I’ve posted about it here http://forum.objectivismonline.com/index.php?showtopic=25918 I can’t say I’ve understood yet why her assumptions make any sense (I have not yet properly integrated many of the requisite concepts). I’ll continue studying basic roots of philosophy while putting that aside. Here’s another quote from Galt’s speech. These kind of statements are littered throughout her work. They make me feel good but in critically evaluating them I do not understand why they are true so I reject them, for now. It would be nice if she provided some references in her essays. I don’t see why this is a sensible fact to add. Even if many recorded “atrocities” (whatever that is) were committed by the children of the “well-to-do” (whatever that is) I don’t see how one could make any sort of solid inference from that. Proponents of the poverty being a root of evil could claim that poverty is one of the psychological roots, but that there are others. What is the nature of this distortion? Where can I find out? How much control do I have over it? Sometimes I say things I don’t mean and I’ve recently been thinking it’s the result of conceptual mis-integrations and their expression instead of immortality on my part (where I protect a consciously professed value at the cost of a higher one, i.e. self-sacrifice). I have been thinking mis-integrations (which I am responsible for) have often caused this and in a situation where I don’t have time to think deeply I will act on them (and they are wrong). What is neurosis in this context? I can think of a few examples from the past week Speaking to my mother on the phone “If you can’t fix the old bike we have – what good are you?” Friend says “I’ll see you next week, I guess” Friend says “You just do what you need to do” I think I may disagree about untangling neurosis. There does seem to be some recurring pattern to people’s unintelligible behaviour. One can then make adjustment to make them more comfortable. In the examples above the “I guess” on the end is a polite way of saying I’d really like to meet you now, while in the second the friend is expressing frustration and she needs to be sat down with and talked to openly. The more of these “inconsistent and unintelligible” cues one may pick up on makes him handle his relationships better and could potentially help one in guiding them to more intelligible, direct and open conversations.

So this means by chance? It's not that pressing of an issue but I'm really curious. I may take a look at Peikoff's DIM book.

I understand that she didn't invent concept formation but if concepts are formed consciously, with thought, then how does one form higher level abstractions (those a few steps further from the perceptual level) without a validated concept-forming process (which she identified)?

So I'm sitting in on an economics class where my professor is telling us that "science is prejudice" because it's restrained by paradigm. Rationality is defined as "doing best with what you have". Abstract concepts are explained to students by pointing to concrete events. "Essentialism is when you have a boyfriend who leaves his shoes inside the house, even when you tell him not to. People don't change." Throw in a whole bunch of random concepts taken from the middle of nowhere too. This is not unique to this lecturer (one of the best in the economics department) but pretty much all university subjects seem to operate in some kind of vacuum where ideas and concepts are just plucked from the middle with no grounding definition. It's also something that occurs in all communication that starts getting far from the perceptual level. People stop talking and start making noises (including me!). I've started noticing this after studying epistemology. Now I'm confused how the hell society is advancing if whenever we start discussing abstract concepts we are all referring to differing random concretes or feelings. Computers, cars, roads and technology is generally advancing. How is this happening? I could go around my campus and ask people to define existence, man, society, freedom, knowledge, economy and I will get wildly different and sometimes very strange answers. How can we be reaching ever higher levels of abstractions when we have not even properly defined root concepts? Rand's theory of measurement omission didn't exist in the early 1900's either but America still rapidly advanced technologically and conceptually. How?

I am *really* interested in studying Kant because my impression reading O'ists sourced philosophy is that he has consciously devised some plan (conspiracy) to rein destruction on the world - I'd like to read and try understand how that is inferred. This would mean Kant is an evil genius - yes, a genius. Example: And so on...

Ah! The problem here is definitions and context as I agree with what everyone has said. "reason must be unlimited in the way the senses are not, at least in terms of what they can know." But reason is limited by its identity, time, content... What kind of energy is reason limited by?

Ok! I follow. So is that what the Subjectivists recognised? That consciousness *must* have identity, otherwise it is nothing? Or did they disregard the argument from the perspective of: If I close my eyes things go black and I no longer reproduce objects in my mind. How can this be? It can only be if I am perceiving by some means. Therefore consciousness must have identity.... It just seems like such a simple observation that I'm thinking maybe I do not get the naive realists explanation.

Yes, I meant "consciousness as identification". Is "taking on the identity of that which it is reproducing" not an identity? i.e. that is it's nature, otherwise it is nothing, doesn't exist and I don't get why Aristotle even conceived of it. He is the one who conceived of the law of identity in the first place. OK. So yes, reason is limited. This is what I was thinking. But, in it's usual (non-objective) context, this statement is implies reason is limited in it's ability to conceive of things, right? This is what I really dislike about everything else I read: so much is implied and so little is defined.

Some argue that "reason is limited". I know Rand's position is that reason is the only way of acquiring knowledge. If reason is not limited, does that mean it is unlimited? if reason is unlimited does that mean it has no identity? My guess would be that this is false but also that "reason is limited" is true, i.e. it has a specific nature - and it can still be the only way of acquiring knowledge but then I don't get why the statement "reason is limited" is an issue unless further expanded on to mean there are other ways of acquiring knowledge. To me though, saying "reason is limited" does not automatically lead on to being an anti-reason statement. I'm listening to 'consciousness as reproduction' lectures right now and at one point it is said (in the context of discussing naive realism) But if consciousness is reproduction, isn't that the identity of consciousness? “Since its function is to think all things all forms and all universals it can have no form of its own” (Randall) Again, consciousness has the identity of being a function which thinks all things and all forms, no?

In order to point out contradiction you need to define the words being used. Peoples words are so often detached from anything except random concretes they have put together in their mind. But when you do this they think its pointless and are not interested. It's like the problem is concepts but no one wants to explore it because they do not get that is the problem or how it could have any practical benefit to their life. I realized in *most* of my interactions with people the concepts used in conversation are so close to the perceptual level of awareness (food, drink, sex, exercise, talk) so no problems arise but as soon as people start whipping out terms they read in some new age book or start talking about anything somewhat abstract is when everything breaks down and they are not even communicating with me anymore. They think I'm being annoying by asking them to define what something means - because "people just know - your the only one who says you don't understand". Another issue is that I myself am full of contradiction and words that I just copied like a parrot - I'm working on that now but it leaves me in a really crappy place knowing (at least now i'm *aware* of this) that I'm confused, full of badly formed concepts but that means I can hear everyone else too and can't do much about it.

Right. So then how do we evaluate what is rational to have as a highest value? Without reading ethics I would have thought productive work is the highest value you should have as it is what allows you to live. If my romantic partner is my highest value then I should give her anything she asks for. I should leave my job for her. I should also commit suicide if she leaves me. All of that seems impossible to me.

There are also some free courses available online (courseera) but I'd need to find some kind of freelance tutor to read and give me feedback on my writing. Eventually, I'd like to be competent enough to work through the OAC courses.

I generally don't like the audio courses. I prefer having text to slowly read through or reference (although I did just purchase "consciousness as identification). I don't understand - this is how I read Rand, i.e. critically. I might like an idea but if I can't prove it / verify it I will not confidently say I agree with it. I am not yet able to refute much philosophy. Having read some limited philosophy I found I wasn't able to follow many arguments especially because definitions seem to be lax. Whereas with Rand I can often reduce down everything she says to essentials and then the arguments follow. I'm partially taking my cue for doing this from her essay on why you need philosophy where she says: I may have the chance of taking up a diploma or first year arts degree (subsidized) so would it be worth it then to take philosophy classes? Are there not any online schools? freelance teachers? Does anyone not think I would be better off spending all this time studying Objectivists texts instead? (the more esoteric parts of epistemology, metaphysics etc)

I'm interested in working through Kant, Nietzsche, Plato, Hegel, Hume etc but I do not want to read huge books all over as just working through OPAR and ITOE is taking long enough. Is there a way to study a condensed and to the point version of all their ideas? Any books that summarize ideas? I'd like to be able to refute them myself. If I can refute their metaphysical and epistemological assertions does that mean I can then ignore and avoid studying their ethics? (as I am already protecting myself from the underlying premises so I've effectively cut everything at the root).

I was talking to a friend about my interest in philosophy. He is someone who has a good sense of life and is open to logic but he told me that he think it's pointless studying philosophy in depth because he just looks around and notices that everyone who does so seems to be unhappy - which I think is an accurate observation for him and the people he knows. So what he does is prefers to look at the people who are happy and then tries to see what they are doing and extract from that what he thinks makes it work. What does this say about his psycho-epistemology? Who or what ideas is he influenced by? I know it's pragmatic - but that's about it.

This confused me a little. What is a quality in the broader sense? So then all attributes are qualities if the categories of the entity's attributes are all qualities (in the broader sense). I'm not sure if I'm being overly picky - I'm trying to make sure I'm not overlooking an important distinction.

I've picked up on these two words being used together in multiple texts. Right now in ITOE the relevant passage (where "concept" is defined) is: ...A concept is a mental integration of .... "The units involved may be any aspect of reality: entities, attributes, actions, qualities and relationships" Before this I didn't know the difference between attribute and quality. In the dictionary, one of of the definitions of quality, is a distinguishing characteristic So then I assume in the context of this, and other Objectivist texts which mention both attribute and quality, that the word "attribute" subsumes "qualities". Is there any particular reason why these two words need to be used at the same time? Isn't it enough to just mention attributes? .

Right so then how is it rational for you to put a romantic partner as your highest value? And if it is your highest value then why does it's loss mean the loss of your complete happiness. After you grieve you still have many other values to pursue: Productive work, a new romantic relationship, hobbies, art etc If it is rational to lose your life for a partner then it could also be rational to just commit suicide when you lose a job you highly value? (makes no sense)

I don't understand why life is meaningless without a loved one. I didn't have a girlfriend before and I was happy and had many values to pursue. I have one now and I'm madly in love with her (having also consciously validated why I'm in love) but I would never give my life for her because I disagree that my life would be meaningless and I think anyone who comes to that conclusion has gone wrong somewhere OR is living in the rare circumstances where this is applicable (unlikely). For example maybe the person is at an age where they are retired, unable to learn anything new (due to cognitive decline). has very few hobbies, no job and then their highest value is the adorable partner they live with. It makes sense then. Or if your in a concentration camp. But these are really the only two situations where it makes sense to me - nothing else does. I see no other possible rational reason for your life to be meaningless when losing a loved one. When should they ever be your highest value apart from those rare circumstances? And if they are I would venture to guess they are with you because they also lack other values - in which case you've both been living irrationally.

This questions has been asked of me a few times recently. It's specifically, dying, and not just risking my life. The example given to me was of diving to take a bullet for my girlfriend (someone else, not she, posed the question). My initial reaction was 'no', putting aside the fact that I don't know how I'd react in the moment as it would be an emotional reaction. I don't see any way for this to ever be moral. Again, I differentiate risking ones life, and dying for another. Where dying becomes a very high risk (like diving to take a bullet) or certain death. The only way this could be moral is if you both have no other values open to your achievement in life. I say both, because she wouldn't even be with you if she was your only value. I can't think of any real world situation where this is true apart from being in a concentration camp. Even if I were to lose her (the person I care most about) surely I can still gain happiness from other values (productive work, art, hobbies, other relationships etc) ? Is my thought process logical?

There have been huge improvements and changes in my life after having taken an interest in philosophy (primarily from Objectivist sources). Many of which i'm unaware but also many I am aware of. In some cases I know philosophy has affected me in a particular aspect of my life but I can't work out the exact connections. Take this, for example: Note: I don't know or necessarily agree with any of Nietzsche's ideas. I just like particular quotes and parts of his prose... like this one. I'm convinced that the reason I love this quote so much is the same reason why I'm described by my closest friends (all of whom are new) as being extremely courageous. I don't mean this in the physical danger sense - I am just able to do things which petrify them - and actually, it's the simplest and least dangerous things! For example, start a conversation at a cafe with someone who I find attractive, and other things that I would just consider cultivating integrity. To me it's become a no-brainer, to them it seems admirably crazy - BUT it has everything to do with the reason for liking this quote and it has a lot to do with enormous improvements I've made in my life all-over. However, there are some downsides. They result in me being upset and cynical over a lot of conversations and things I hear every day. Of course I don't seek arguments or expression of this frustration where it's not warranted (where I am not 100% certain I understand can articulate well why it's wrong). For example -- Watching the news and hearing people demand education pisses me off, watching the news and hearing that an assault occurred and that it was cowardly because the women was old. My frustration is not at the anger directed at the attacker, but the emphasis on it being cowardly because she was old. In m mind that is as if to say it's okay if you hit someone else just not an old lady. The act is disgusting full stop. Why are we qualifying it? hearing people say "everyone creates your own reality", we "borrow from the earth".. (here I cannot say I understand property rights but I know something isn't right because borrow is a concept depending on property rights, man and a whole bunch of other concepts so to say your "borrowing from the earth" just can't be right BUT I cannot fully explain and understand why yet...) I went to a leadership course and the guy running the course kept repeating things like "don't try and understand - just GET", "I'm going to tell you things which will come out hard like a rock" (he takes a rock and smashes the floor) and "you shall receive them as foam" he takes out foam and plays with it between his hand. Even in the context of the activity this made no sense. I'm trying to introspect but it's often quite difficult for me to work out why I feel a certain way. if I had to guess what is the reason these things frustrate me so much is that I feel impotent to act against it, to protect myself from it, to protect others from it. When I first read philosophy: why you need it? it was the most incredible thing for me. I started reading everything by Rand like a nut. It just made sense, it was filling some kind of void I wanted to fill. In some cases things in her writing really frustrated me (EDIT: I was agnostic but I really wanted a god to exist - I found it comforting) and I tried to refuse to believe it or just make it work with the rest of the ideas I liked - but I kept at it and eventually the things that pissed me off no longer pissed me off. Anyway, the point is, when I show someone else her writing I expect the same reaction but people don't seem to care at all - so I feel like nothing can be done. I'm trying really hard to understand develop a complete and solid understanding (I keep re-reading the introductory section of OPAR and now begun reading ITOE before moving onto ethics) but it seems like a very difficult task and I don't know something about hearing this stuff above all the time drives me crazy in a bad way. Do you know what I mean? Is my anger justified? Did anyone go through something like this?

I've found some questions for the ITOE epistemology book on http://www.meetup.com/aynrand-200/messages/boards/thread/10277265/ and have begun using it to work through the book. There are some questions I cannot answer but I'd also like to get feedback on some of my answers. Has anyone worked on this and would be interested in sharing answers with me so that I can improve my understanding?

This is from ITOE "sensations, as such, are not retained in man's memory, nor is man able to experience a pure isolated sensation". I remember also something from OPAR about how you can't do anything with a group of isolated percepts which have not been integrated into a concept. So while I see I have to feel something also. I can't just receive light only. But I don't get why sensations are not retained in memory - I know what it feels (in my body) like when I'm sad, or when I get burnt.