William O

A DEFINITION OF REASON Q1. What was central theme of the book on Epistemology? Whats the significance of this book? A1. The central theme of Rand's book on epistemology was concept formation. The significance of the book was that it undergirded her entire philosophy by explaining and defending her conception of reason. Q2. Why is the central theme mentioned in (A1.) the most central issue of philosophy as a whole? A2. Rand says "since man's knowledge is gained and held in conceptual form, the validity of man's knowledge depends on the validity of concepts." I think one of the things Rand means by this is that if our concepts are not valid, we can dismiss philosophical analysis of our concepts as empty word juggling - and whether or not we can dismiss philosophy as empty word juggling is certainly a central question for philosophy! Another relevant observation here is that some postmodern theories of science seem to use a Kantian approach to concepts as a reason for regarding science as an arbitrary cultural construction, so this is not just a problem for philosophers, it is a problem for anyone who cares about objective truth. Q3. What was the answer offered to the problem of universals? A3. We abstract concepts from particulars by omitting measurements. To apply this back to the example of the three men Rand uses, the three men all have different heights and weights, different hair and skin color, and so on, but these differing characteristics are merely different quantitative values along the same axes of measurement that are within ranges comparable to one another. So, concepts are not things intrinsic in reality independent of our minds, because they are entities we form by a mental process, but they are not arbitrary either, because they correspond to real measurements and causal connections. Q4. Give content and background of the 2nd edition of Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology? A4. Rand conducted workshops with a number of philosophers where she answered questions about her epistemology, and transcripts of parts of these workshops were added to the book as an appendix. SHIFTING GEARS Q5. What was the scope of “The Ayn Rand Letter”? A5. The letter provided Rand's views on contemporary moral and social issues. Q6. Apart from “The Ayn Rand Letter”, what were her other intellectual engagements in the 70s? A6. In the 70s, Rand spoke publicly, oversaw a presentation of her philosophy by Leonard Peikoff, helped oversee the production of books on her philosophy in an editorial role, and helped produce a mini-series on Atlas Shrugged. Q7. How were ideas of Ayn Rand disseminated immediately after her death? A7. By means of the Ayn Rand Institute founded by her followers.

I have a piece of constructive criticism regarding your essay. I think you should discuss Pythagoras much, much earlier. The second I saw what you were arguing my mind started screaming that your position would reduce to Pythagoreanism, and it would have been difficult for me to continue evaluating your essay if I had not taken an extra second to do a Ctrl-F for Pythagoras. Your audience in this essay is people who are pretty deep into philosophy and Objectivism, so I suspect that a number of other people you want to persuade will have this thought as well. Edit: At the very least, you probably need to show early on that you are aware of the issue.

I read that book a few years ago, but I don't remember anything about Rand becoming sterile through a botched abortion, and I think that that would have made an impression on me. Edit: More to the point perhaps, I have the book in front of me. The pages which are cited in the index under "abortion," 128 and 181, don't mention Rand becoming sterile through a botched abortion, although page 181 does say that Rand borrowed money for an abortion from A. M. Papurt, who was the father of Frank O'Connor's niece Mimi Papurt. So, it sounds like you were right that this book could have been the origin of the claim that Rand had an abortion. I suspect that someone extremely uncharitable to Rand extrapolated from that to the conclusion that she never had a child because the abortion she had was botched.

Seconded, I've never heard this before and would like a source.

I think your post is overall pretty insightful, but I disagree with this particular point. Harris thinks that we figure out what is right and wrong by means of leaps of intuition, he is an altruist, and he doesn't think that egoists should be allowed to participate seriously in moral debate. In my view, these points, which are supported by the following link, disqualify Harris from being considered a major moral breakthrough. https://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2008-fall/mystical-ethics-new-atheists/

Sorry for coming across as condescending, I tried to word my post in such a way as to avoid that. You are also correct that I missed the older threads you're referring to. Edit: My thinking was that Jonathan13 might be a layman, like myself, who doesn't spend a lot of time with art and might benefit from being reminded of art he has previously seen. I assumed that because it's a mistake that I myself could easily have made, not because I thought I was superior. If I had known he was an artist I would not have posted as I did.

This thread helped me with a topic I've been struggling with for a few weeks. Burgess Laughlin said that only experts in a philosophy should engage in debate, and that non-experts should only discuss their ideas and not debate. I was wondering why he thought that, exactly, when I came across this thread. It's better for non-experts not to debate because their debates will usually be of low quality. A non-expert will have holes in his understanding, so he will have to evade or make poor arguments to defend his position if he is under pressure. It is better for non-experts to discuss their positions in an environment where there is no such pressure, so that they are free to admit that they don't understand something or don't have an answer to an argument the other person has put forward.

There is a lot of art that you have to sit down and think about for a while to understand its meaning, as you will probably recall from things you have read about art history or a tour you may have taken through an art museum. I would be surprised if Rand regarded this as a serious shortcoming, since that would imply a negative judgment of a lot of art. (On the other hand, she was independent enough that she would not necessarily have shied away from a conclusion like that.)

I've had a conversation with a Guest twice. One time it was a person who had questions about Objectivism but did not have an account on the forum itself.

I was in the chat room the other night and I noticed that there are constantly Guest users coming and going, usually without saying anything. Are these all just random people who step into the chat room without having an account on the site?

Thanks for pointing these out! I just bought A House Built on Sand, and it looks like Amazon has a bunch of similar books for me to look through.

I know what you mean. I can barely read Rorty even though he is a fairly clear writer, because I disagree with everything he says on such a fundamental level. I've mentioned this on this forum before, but there is a really nice short book on constructivism called Fear of Knowledge by Paul Boghossian. It argues for the claim that there is an objective reality and objective standards for knowledge. Boghossian is arguing against the constructivists, but he also explains their positions pretty clearly and sympathetically, since he studied under Rorty. If anyone knows of any other books like this, I would be interested in reading them.

Notice how the professor says he conceives of reason: "the Cartesian ego cogito and Kant’s transcendental consciousness." So, maybe this is a case of a philosopher having his context set by intrinsicists, denying the intrinsicist premise, and swinging over to subjectivism.

I have read the entire book, and I have a comment pertaining to the book in general. In several places in the book, Laughlin says that it is necessary to spend years or decades studying a philosophy before one can become an expert in that philosophy. He also says that if someone is not an expert in their philosophy, then they should not debate about it. Rather, Laughlin thinks they will find it more productive to discuss ideas with other people in order to learn about other points of view. Given these statements, it seems likely that Laughlin would disapprove of the debates that take place on the internet between people who are not experts in their respective philosophies. I don't think he would deny that it is sometimes valuable for practical reasons to debate with other people when you are not an expert (e.g., if a Marxist is advocating Marxism to a potentially receptive audience). The idea seems to be that discussion is, relatively speaking, more beneficial to the parties involved than debate if no one present is an expert. I think a good way of concretizing why Laughlin might think this is to read the transcripts of Ayn Rand's discussions with various philosophy professors in the appendix to ITOE. The professors ask questions that I think most Objectivists would have trouble answering with much plausibility, let alone in real time, but Rand responds to all of the questions convincingly and sometimes brilliantly. This is what the difference between an expert in a philosophy and a student of it looks like in the real world. Do you guys agree with my interpretation of Laughlin? I think it's pretty well supported by the book, but I want to make sure I am understanding what he is trying to say.

There are a lot of different kinds of atheists, so it would be a mistake to look for a single reason here, as I'm sure you realize. I agree with Eiuol's argument that many atheists replace God with science in order to have something to revere and a source of moral values. I would add that there are also some atheists who approach intellectual issues philosophically, with the aim of forming a coherent and reasoned worldview. The atheists in this group come to atheism because they find out that believing in God is inconsistent with this goal, but some of them also end up as liberals because so many thinkers in the history of philosophy have defended liberal ideals. The atheists in this group are a lot more interesting to talk to than the science worshippers, but they are not nearly as common.

What do you have in mind here? This sounds like it might be an interesting way of thinking about the history of philosophy.

Great post. I would like to hear more from this guy. Edit: I found his website. His paintings are pretty amazing. http://www.robertflorczak.com/

My grandmother was religious and I read her some passages from the Bible that she requested on her deathbed. The content of the passages was religious - basically, they said that God is in control of everything, so don't worry about the suffering you're currently going through. I can't say I regret doing it. She was a wonderful person, and if I could comfort her a bit in her last hours then I'm glad I did so.

As most posters on this forum know, Leonard Peikoff recently published The DIM Hypothesis, in which he makes the prediction that the United States will be taken over by fundamentalist Christians and turned into a totalitarian theocracy. He regards this prediction as "so highly probable as to border on certainty" (p. 341). This might lead an Objectivist student of history to wonder how fundamentalist Christians acquired such influence in the United States, what beliefs and values they promote, and what motivated them to become politically active. A good introduction to these issues is Jerry Falwell and the Rise of the Religious Right: A Brief History with Documents by Matthew Avery Sutton. The book is around 150 pages long, and intended to be "a reasonable one-week assignment in a college course" (from the foreword). The book consists of two parts, a 25 page introduction by the editor outlining the rise of the Religious Right, and a second section consisting of 115 pages of historical documents, including speeches and book excerpts, that were influential in the rise of fundamentalist Christianity. Almost every entry in this book was heard or read by thousands or millions of fundamentalist Christians. The excerpts tend to corroborate Peikoff's claim that fundamentalist Christians perceive America as being in a moral crisis that requires political action on their part. One of the book's virtues is that it explains these concerns in detail in the fundamentalists' own words and provides examples of the actions that fundamentalists took to combat them during the 60s and 70s, like setting up private fundamentalist schools where Bible reading and prayer were guaranteed to be legal (p. 80) and sharing their concerns with President Carter in person (p. 129). So, if you have an interest in how the Religious Right historically became as powerful as it currently is, I think you will find this book a helpful introduction to the issue. http://www.amazon.com/Jerry-Falwell-Rise-Religious-Right/dp/1457611104

This is closely related to one of the issues that caused the split between Leonard Peikoff and David Kelley. My understanding of the split is that Peikoff thinks that people who take certain non-Objectivist positions, like Marxism, can automatically be condemned as evaders. He calls these positions "inherently dishonest ideas." Kelley, by contrast, thinks that even in these cases we need to accumulate evidence about the person for a long period of time before we condemn them as dishonest. Kelley is also more inclined than Peikoff to think that Objectivists can benefit from interacting with people who reject fundamental components of Objectivism. (To be clear, Peikoff denies that Kelley and his followers are Objectivists, although to my knowledge Kelley does not return the favor.) You can read Peikoff's article in defense of his position on the split, "Fact and Value," here. As the title suggests, he explains how his position integrates with other Objectivist philosophical principles like the unity of fact and value. https://ari.aynrand.org/issues/culture-and-society/religion-and-morality/Fact-and-Value Kelley has also written a book defending his position on the split against this article. The book is available online for free, although a quick Google search did not turn anything up, so perhaps someone else has the link. Both Peikoff and Kelley, and their respective followers, continue to turn out valuable philosophical work defending Objectivism. In my experience online, most Objectivists who have an interest in philosophy just ignore the split and study the work produced by both sides. Edit: I want to add a couple of things to this for clarity. First, there are non-Objectivist ideas like theism that Peikoff explicitly says are not inherently dishonest. Second, there were other important issues involved in the Peikoff - Kelley split, like whether or not Objectivism is a closed system.

I was researching Laughlin to decide how to approach his book when I came across this post, which is a brilliant application of Objectivist psychological insights to blogging.

For me, it was OPAR by Peikoff. I was 17 at the time, and I didn't know anything about Ayn Rand but I had seen her mentioned once in a while on the internet. My father is a libertarian who buys a ton of books, and I was browsing through the bookshelves in his bedroom when I came across OPAR. It looked interesting, so I read it. What about you?

I've been reading it recently in order to see what kind of political philosophy gets used in the debates on Reddit. So far I've seen some Marx.

I like this point.

I love that. The only part of programming that is better is when you've been stuck on a problem for a week and you think of a new approach that works when you test it. It's a huge rush.