William O

You are simply incorrect here. The definitions of determinism and compatibilism are nowhere near as controversial as you suggest. I have given authoritative definitions for these terms previously. Nobody, or almost nobody, takes determinism or compatibilism to include agent causality. A philosopher might distinguish between different types of determinism, but if so he would use appropriate labels, like "logical determinism" or "physical determinism." Determinism simpliciter is not used in a whole bunch of mutually exclusive ways like you're claiming. First of all, Rand was very clear about the fact that she was redefining those terms. From what I've seen, you are content to describe the Objectivist position as "determinist" and "compatibilist" with no further explanation, which is not an objective way of communicating. Someone who reads your posts will come away with the wrong idea about what Objectivism says about free will - that's not really debatable. Second, Rand's goal in redefining those concepts was to clarify their meanings and separate out the respective package deals that they were involved in. The concept of determinism is clear, and there is no package deal involved. I cannot see that your redefinition clarifies Rand's position on free will - as StrictlyLogical points out, I still don't know what your position on free will is, really.

The problem is that the terms you and 2046 are using - primarily "determinism" and "compatibilism" - already have perfectly clear meanings in academic philosophy (and even in the Objectivist literature, which to my knowledge always uses them the same way academics do). As they are traditionally defined, neither of those terms are consistent with Objectivism. If you continue to describe Objectivism as a deterministic / compatibilist philosophy, you will mislead and confuse people about what Objectivism says. You claim that there isn't anything else to say and that Objectivism is neither determinist nor non-determinist, but this is simply incorrect. There is something more to say - that Objectivism accepts agent causal free will - and Objectivism is a non-determinist philosophy. If you deny this, I refer you to my previous posts in this thread. "Weak determinism" isn't a term that is used in academia or in the Objectivist literature, to my knowledge.

Thanks, this might be useful. But does he discuss the connection to free will, or is his discussion confined to the science alone? I'm glad someone else has that reaction too. This is basically why I started this thread - to try to find answers to some of those questions.

Here's the paragraph that got me thinking about this: Source: The Illusion of Determinism by Edwin A. Locke, p. 107

I should probably make it clear at this point that I accept the Objectivist account of free will, and that I do not take the laws of physics to refute it. My phrasing might not have been ideal. I might elaborate more on my question tomorrow, when I am not tired.

I'm just asking whether there is literature (books or articles) on a particular topic. I do not claim that physics contradicts the Objectivist view of free will. If there is no such literature then that is fine.

Objectivism affirms the existence of libertarian free will - that is, it affirms that we have free will and that free will is incompatible with determinism. I am curious whether any attempt has been made in the literature to reconcile free will with the laws of physics, particularly the second law of thermodynamics. The only attempt I am aware of is Edwin Locke's very recent book The Illusion of Determinism, which spends one paragraph on the issue. You can assume that I am already familiar with Rand's work, as well as the discussions of free will in OPAR and Binswanger's book How We Know.

The main piece of advice I would give you is that you need to take notes on anything you want to understand and remember. This opinion is widely shared among people who have studied philosophy formally. If you're just reading for fun then it's fine to not take notes and just enjoy the prose and the ideas, but if you want to remember what you're reading then taking notes is necessary. It's a good idea to start out by reading a book that covers the entire history of Western philosophy. Peikoff's course is enjoyable, but he has a polemical goal in presenting these ideas, so you might not get a sense for why people would accept the ideas that he covers. A couple of more orthodox presentations of the history of philosophy are A History of Western Philosophy by W. T. Jones (Objectivists tend to like this one) and A New History of Western Philosophy by Anthony Kenny. By contrast, Bertrand Russell's history of philosophy is probably not a great starting point, since he has a reputation for being inaccurate and biased.

Okay, thank you.

From the Guidelines: What kind of post falls under these rules? I've seen fairly rude posts here that weren't moderated.

2046 didn't throw out the term determinism, he explicitly said that Rand was a physical determinist and a compatibilist, without explanation. That is not an objective way of communicating, because any reader who is even slightly familiar with the academic debate will take that to mean that Rand does not think we could have chosen to do otherwise than we did in any situation. Heck, I've been reading Objectivist literature on and off for years, and even I took it that way. The position I mentioned wasn't hard determinism, it was just determinism. Hard determinism is determinism plus the assertion that there is no free will, as opposed to compatibilism, which asserts that determinism is true but we have free will anyway.

Determinism is precisely the idea that all events are determined in advance (by the past and the laws of nature), as the academic definition I quoted shows.

No, Rand is not a compatibilist, because she is not a determinist. If determinism is true, it was in principle completely predictable that you and I would have this exact conversation 1,000,000 years ago, before either of us were born. That is what the proposition "the past and the laws of nature entail what states of affairs will obtain in the future" means in standard academic parlance. The quotes I provided above show that Objectivism denies determinism, and therefore compatibilism.

Libertarianism is the thesis that "the actual world is not deterministic and that at least some of the agents in the actual world have free will." Determinism is the thesis that "the past and the laws of nature entail what states of affairs will obtain in the future, and that only those states of affairs entailed by the past and the laws will in fact obtain." Finally, compatibilism is the thesis that "the existence of free will in a possible world is compatible with that world being deterministic." My source for these definitions is the IEP, an academic encyclopedia: http://www.iep.utm.edu/freewill/ What you said was that Rand was a physical determinist, a compatibilist like Hobbes, and rejected libertarian free will. That is incorrect on the standard academic definitions of those three terms, as the quotes I provided in my previous post show.

Here is Rand's key passage on determinism, from Galt's speech: "The key to what you so recklessly call 'human nature,' the open secret you live with, yet dread to name, is that man is a being of volitional consciousness. Reason does not work automatically; thinking is not a mechanical process; the connections of logic are not made by instinct. The function of your stomach, lungs, or heart is automatic; the function of your mind is not. In any hour and issue of your life, you are free to think or to evade that effort. But you are not free to escape from your nature, from the fact that reason is your means of survival - so that for you, who are a human being, the question 'to be or not to be' is the question 'to think or not to think.'" This is a statement of libertarian free will. Rand explicitly states that thinking is not a mechanical (i.e., deterministic) process and contrasts it with biological processes that are deterministic, like those of the stomach, lungs, or heart. Similarly, from Peikoff's article on the analytic - synthetic dichotomy, which Rand approved: "Because man has free will, no human choice—and no phenomenon which is a product of human choice—is metaphysically necessary. In regard to any man-made fact, it is valid to claim that man has chosen thus, but it was not inherent in the nature of existence for him to have done so: he could have chosen otherwise." This is an even more explicit assertion of libertarianism. Peikoff makes a metaphysical distinction between human choice and other forms of causality. There are many similar passages collected here: http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/free_will.html Where is the evidence that Rand thought "that physical determinism is true and libertarian free will is false?"

How did you get access to Peikoff's dissertation? I would willing to buy it, but I've never seen a reasonably priced edition for sale online.

From what I recall, Nietzsche accepts Kant's doctrine of "the categories," but thinks that this doctrine is more consistent with skepticism than with Kant's qualified defense of science. So, when he says that the falsest judgments are the most indispensable, he means that we can't think without employing categories like causality and substance that are derived from our own mental constitution rather than from reality. Eioul is the resident Nietzsche expert, so he will likely have a better explanation. Regardless, dismissing a major philosopher before you understand him properly is a bad idea.

Honestly, it just sounds like you were arguing with a jerk. I wouldn't lose sleep over it.

Regarding definition 2: Wouldn't it be easier on the crow epistemology to name this concept "non-reference?" After all, you are using it to collect together all of the non-referents of the concept C.

What proportion of Objectivists do you suppose were "persuaded" to join the philosophy? In other words, it doesn't seem like people usually become Objectivists because an Objectivist missionary with clever arguments "persuaded" them to join. The story I usually hear from Objectivists is that they picked up a book by Rand or one of her novels and immediately found the ideas compelling.

I don't see either Plato or Aristotle as particularly dogmatic. All of Plato's works were in dialogue form, which seems intended to get people to think for themselves. It's also worth noting that although Bacon did a great job of advocating experimental research, his view of the scientific method was a complete dead end.

I'm reading Francis Bacon's Novum Organum at the moment, which is very relevant to this. According to Bacon, all of the fundamental concepts of Aristotle's philosophy (like "substance," "quality," and "essence") are unclear, and all of his scientific claims are invalid. The reason for this lack of clarity and invalidity is allegedly that Aristotle did not build his philosophy up from the ground, based on experiments. Instead, Bacon claims that he jumped from a few observations to the widest generalizations, then deduced intermediate conclusions from those widest generalizations. The correct way is to start with very concrete generalizations based on plenty of experiments, then slowly build up from there, until finally you arrive at the widest generalizations. There is a lot of truth in what Bacon says in the book, but as you can see, there's also some anti-philosophy scientism in his reasoning. I don't think Rand built up Objectivism using experiments, so it's not clear how Bacon would view her work.

This is an interesting thread. I think the problem here is that the triple standard asserted in the OP is subjective. No justification is given for why these are the ultimate standards, they are just sort of grabbed out of the air. It would not be possible to apply such a standard objectively, since it's asserted in a void, without context. When do you pursue pleasure over health and vice versa, for example? In principle, there can be no answer if both pleasure and health are ultimate standards. I don't think any reasonable person would deny that pleasure, knowledge, and health are valuable, but you have to start doing ethics from a demonstrable standard, which is the purpose of Rand's derivation of life as the root of value.

Technically everyone relies on both the law of identity and the senses at all times, since both are axioms that stand at the foundation of all knowledge. You can't make a claim that doesn't presuppose both of those axioms.

Isn't that just a contradiction? It doesn't sound like they're stealing the concept of understanding, it sounds more like they are implying that they both can and cannot understand the ASI's motivations.