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Free Capitalist

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Everything posted by Free Capitalist

  1. I suppose you think that to continue in this embarassing train of pretentious self-righteousness is.
  2. Well, this is the kind of book that, while not critical, is very interesting and useful for expanding of one's horizons and providing a lot of interesting food for thought and pondering.
  3. By becoming a good person, worthy of admiration of others, and making sure that what happened in your life does not happen to other people, if you can help it.
  4. I find it interesting that everyone's responses focused on the people Rational One's talking to. In my experience, however, the better someone understands something, the easier it is to explain to yourself and to others.
  5. No but the question is, imagine a slimy thing in your presence, for 24 hours a day, for a very long time. Are you going to be equally disgusted for all this time, or will your initial disgust be as you described, and all subsequent responses less and less, until you're indifferent to the thing?
  6. Free Thinker, please define the word "nation".
  7. You don't actually hate someone every single minute of every day. You only hate them when you remember who they are and what it is they did that caused you to hate them, at which point the emotion wells up again. Similar thing with love. And yes, emotion is a fleeting experience because no one can feel ANY emotion for extended periods of time. Try it, you'll see what I mean. Emotions like hate are very rarely long-lasting, and when they are, they only occur in bursts similar to what I described above, 'restarting' the emotion rather than 'resuming' it.
  8. But you should form expectations about what people will read. After all, your purpose here, just like mine and everyone else's, should be to foster communication, express your thoughts in a clear and clearly understood manner, and strive together to achieve some sort of resolution. So clarity of communication should be your prime concern, rather than a secondary one. Given this, y_feldblum's comment about your (and presumably jrs') posts being an undifferentiated mass are very valid. The spacing between lines is arbitrary, there is no indentation, no easily visible differentiation between various subjects and sub-headings. You even make almost no differentiation between addressing me and addressing y_feldblum -- just from a simple and quick scanning of your and jrs' posts, it is impossible to tell where they are in their thought process, or whom it is the heck that they are replying to. That is why it is so difficult and tedious to read and reply to you people's posts, and I request that it be more readable before I engage in further discussion with you on the subject.
  9. JMegan, I think what you're thinking of as emotion is not happiness but satisfaction, or joy. Happiness, as Aristotle defined it, is something altogether different from the regular run-of-the-mill emotions we feel every day, but some kind of culminatory experience that results from living a proper life in its totality, rather than from having some isolated moments of joy and satisfaction.
  10. LauricAcid, do you really expect anyone to read all that?
  11. "cracy" does not necessarily imply a coercive rule. What gave you that idea? The word "aristocracy" comes from two Greek words: "aristos" = best men, and "kratos" = rule. This is different from tyrant, someone who seizes the government unconstitutionally, and holds his power without legitimacy. In the Ancient Greek world, the world in which words like "aristocracy" and "democracy" first appeared, both aristocracy and democracy were viewed as legitimate, even if different, forms of government, and both were different from tyranny or despotism. If anything, it is the oligarchy ("oligou" = few "archos" = another word for rule, or for being first) that was closer to a concept coercive government, because the ruling elite was artifically limited to a select few, usually the rich, and all others were excluded. In something like aristocracy, anyone had the capacity to achieve a position of power, provided they fitted certain requirements. Anyway this isn't a post on history here, but basically what I'm trying to say is that "cracy" does not automatically entail coercive rule.
  12. LauricAcid, I'm seeing a lot of wishy-washiness. I provided definitions which I am willing to stand by, which are not just a start for further improvement, but are already perfect and set, as far as I'm concerned. Why don't you provide definitions tht you believe you will stand by, and that you think are correct and definite. Without these, no discussion can procede, and if you don't have any definite definitions by which you'll be willing to stand by, you have no basis for argument whatsoever, no matter how good everything else you say may be.
  13. From www.dictionary.com: state n. 1. A condition or mode of being, as with regard to circumstances: a state of confusion. 2. A condition of being in a stage or form, as of structure, growth, or development: the fetal state. Here are some examples of what constitutes a state, so that you can arrive at the definition inductively: an excited state of consciousness, a drowsy state of consciousness, an active state of consciousness, etc. It is essentially the same as Aristotle's 'activity of the soul', i.e. something new aspect of the soul that arises out of actively achieving the soul's virtues.
  14. While I look it up, please post your definitions of deduction/induction. It's rather interesting how long you've participated in the discussion without defining your terms, yet simultaneously criticizing the definitions of others.
  15. Part of the problem here arises from -- what else -- definitions. This has only been true for about the past 100 years or so. Before that, and certainly in antiquity when logic was first discovered, the definitions you imply were not used. Aristotle defined induction as concept formation, and deduction as concept application. Considering the pitifully dismal state of modern philosophy, you should be really wary of accepting any 'modern' conceptions of things. And btw, I do know the definitions you imply: deduction -- a syllogism where certainty is possible induction -- a syllogism where all conclusions are probabilistic at best
  16. No, happiness is not an emotion. Pleasure is an emotion.
  17. jrs, practically all fallacies can be subsumed under 'non sequitur' just as all of them can be subsumed as violations of the law of non-contradiction. That doesn't mean they are all the same, or that there are no important differences between them. "Slippery slope" is a a "non sequitur" fallacy. "Ad hominem" is a "non sequitur" fallacy. Clearly then just because "stolen concept" is also a variant of "non sequitur" does not mean it has no useful role to play in its own right; the genus of something is not the only important thing, and the differentia are just as important. You seem to be saying either that the differentia of a thing are not important, or that there are no valid differentia for the "stolen concept" fallacy, a statement which if you really meant it, was seriously mistaken. So it seems to me that, rather than anything else, it is your position against "stolen concept" that is a non sequitur.
  18. Free Thinker, "intrinsic" means that a value exists without anyone to value it. For example, "chocolate will still be good even if all of humanity disappears" is an intrinsicist position. There are no intrinsic values, because to say something is valued presumes that there will be someone who will value it. And in regards to the main topic of this thread, "hedonism" is defined as pursuit of physical pleasure above all other considerations, including happiness, fulfillment, etc. As such, no we're not all hedonists, at least the good ones among us. I strongly suggest a great emphasis on proper definitions, because by just focusing on the definitions of two words, "intrinsic" and "hedonist" was enough for me to reply to your objections.
  19. Could you please answer my objections though? What does any other fallacy, such as "excluded middle" add to the logic? Aren't all fallacies violations of the PNC?
  20. What truth does the "ad hominem" fallacy add to the principle of logic identified by Aristotle? It seems to me, judging from your posts in the past week, that you are rather quick to try and find faults with Objectivism. If you approach the philosophy with different intentions, I suspect that your evaluation of it will be markedly different. For example, identification of logical fallacies does not "add" any "truths" to logic, it is merely an identification of common rhetorical devices in which something appears as a valid syllogism (all fallacies are deductive), but actually is not. Thus, by this proper standard of evaluating what qualifies a logical fallacy, "all property is theft" certainly does commit a logical fallacy, because on the first glance it appears to create a valid logical syllogism, and a terrible one at that. Upon trying to figure out what error that statement commits, one comes to realize that it relies, like all other fallacies, upon a certain misuse of logical principles, and yet that variant of fallacy has never been identified yet, until Ayn Rand. You would come to a conclusion much similar to this, had you approached Objectivism with inquisitive and benevolent intentions, and which I'm now seriously beginning to doubt that you have at this point.
  21. I too would like to see this. Stolen Concept certainly is a logical fallacy, a very astutely observed one thanks to the Ayn Rand's circle in the 60s.
  22. PtbS, the assumption in your first post was very clear, so if you did not make it then blame yourself for not being clearer, rather than me for extrapolating on the obvious. If you already know that a philosophical profit is just as possible a value as a monetary profit, then ARI's status as a 'non profit' organization creates no problems. But if you think of the word 'profit' in monetary terms only, then certainly ARI's status seems to go against their professed belief in selfishness. So if you accept that philosophical profit is a viable value to seek to achieve, then I have no idea why you are asking the question in the first place. Perhaps you could clarify it for me.
  23. OnePrimeMover, you haven't struck much of a nerve actually. I was only trying to figure out why you were so concerned with who was concidered an Objectivist and who was not. People who read the fiction works and develop an intense personal attachment to her and her ideas often find it (properly) necessary to find this new group of people they heretofore knew nothing about, and to 'hang around' them. Some of these attempt to call themselves Objectivists (improperly) in order to achieve a certain level of recognition and respect they haven't earned yet. But either way, clearly you are not part of this group who was deeply emotionally touched by AR and her ideas. So why will it not be enough for you to read about her ideas and think about what they mean? Why do you care what can be called an Objectivist or not, since I am pretty sure you don't intend to qualify for the label?
  24. You assume profit is a monetary compensation only, which is quite an enormous assumption (and a philosophical error).
  25. As for me, I wasn't disturbed by that scene one bit. If you keep in mind the environment of martial law existing in America at this point in the story, choosing to deal with the bad men with the same method by which they propose to live is only sweet justice and nothing more.
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