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[Note: quote is necro, not Eiuol] This is a Human version of possibility. A proposition is possible if its assertion is not logically contradictory. This sort of argument is also taken to explain why propositions about facts cannot be necessary truths. They are contingent since the contrary of any matter of fact is always logically conceivable and therefore always possible. This is not Peikoff's view of the arbitrary, nor the view of the Aristotelian metaphysical and epistemological tradition, wherein something's mere logical conceivability does not confer possibility. Moreover, "X happened in the past, therefore X is the case now" is not only not evidence, it's a logical fallacy of appeal to tradition.

There are many schools of anarchism. Most of them are shamefully dumb as hell. However, none of them are devoted to keeping an incumbent president in power.

I've hypothesized that there is a certain type of person who sees a text box as a cue to execute their improv routine of choice. Not sure why, yet, I think it allows them to role play as what they think it's like to be a professor lecturing a class of captive students during a seminar.

You're doing just great

"Metaphysically speaking obviously [my position]" isn't an argument

Oof

The best idea to come from postmodernism is the concept of different epistemic communities. Once it makes itself known, it is quite useful because we can move past the pretense that this was a discussion.

I'm not sure where exactly to place Rand on this, but I will argue to lean towards analogy. First, I would preface this by saying that I don't think she was aware of these debates which were pre-modern inter-Scholastic debates. Maybe in some discussions she had, but she only wrote things which can incidentally wander into these issues at some times, like the whole act-potency issue. She does not really have a developed doctrine. We moreso comment on what she doesn't appear to think on some issue because she never mentioned it specifically, like say, the issue of perfections of nature. But, I think we are just as justified in asking whether other positions she does take commit her to that position, like whether her adoption of life-based teleology, causality as identity in action, and the non-existence of evil commit her to, or at least gel with, perfections of nature. In the quoted part above, I think there's something about the act-potency distinction that commit us to rejecting univocality of being or existence. Consider the following argument: 1. Act is real ie., it exists. 2. Potency is real ie., it exists. 3. If potency existed in the same univocal sense in which act does, then it wouldn't really be distinct from act. 4. Potency is distinct from act. 5. So potency cannot exist in the same univocal sense as act. Potency-in-being is not being-in-act, they are really different things, after all. But potency isn't nothing either, it really exists, ie., is a kind of being. And since it is really distinct from act, we can't say it exists univocally or equivocally, so it must exist analogously (a Thomist would argue. Of course we'd have to develop that further to establish to positive treatment of the analogy of being.) The relationships between the existence of an actuality and the existence of a potentiality are not identical, otherwise the potentiality wouldn't exist as a potentiality, it would be actual, and everything that exists would be actual. There would be no act-potency distinction. Nevertheless there is a similarity between the relationships, they both exist, just in different non-identical ways, hence analogous and not equivocal. Of course much more could be said about primary potency and secondary potency to round out the case. And much more smarter people than I have been debating this issue in much more detail, with many more distinctions and examples, than I will ever probably understand. However I just want to make the point that I think Rand is committed to the analogy of being. The reason for this (beyond just that she appears to hold an act-potency distinction) is as follows: Univocal terms, of course, are perfectly valid among many things, and can be applied to very different things sometimes. But there is a crucial difference in the case of existence or being (I'm using them interchangeably for now.) A term like "animal" is applied to dogs, giraffes, fish, mammals, etc., because they are all species (logical usage of "species," not the biology term) of animal. In that way, "animal" is univocal. It names a genus under which various species fall. What's different about each is captured by the differentia and the differentia is external to the genus under which the thing it specifies falls. But, being or existence does not name a genus, such that substance, accident, essences, powers (or in the Randian) entity, attribute, actions, relationships, etc. are not understood as the various "species of existence." You yourself say: Correct. And Rand says (ITOE 59) "Since axiomatic concepts are not formed by differentiating one group of existents from others, but represent an integration of all existents, they have no Conceptual Common Denominator with anything else. They have no contraries, no alternatives. The contrary of the concept “table”—a non-table-is every other kind of existent. The contrary of the concept “man”—a non-man—is every other kind of existent. “Existence,” “identity” and “consciousness” have no contraries—only a void. It may be said that existence can be differentiated from non-existence; but non-existence is not a fact, it is the absence of a fact, it is a derivative concept pertaining to a relationship, i.e., a concept which can be formed or grasped only in relation to some existent that has ceased to exist." So we can't grasp entity or attribute (substance or accident) and so forth without grasping them as having being. But we can grasp, say, being cold blooded apart from "animal." There is nothing that can serve as a differentia to existence or being in that case to mark out existence because the only thing external to existence is non-existence, which is nothing, and it can't serve as a differentia precisely because it's nothing. So while all the concrete entities, attributes, actions, relationships and so forth that do exist are units of the concept of existence, they are not in fact species of existence, that is not how they are related. Thus, existence cannot be predicated of things in a univocal (or equivocal for that matter) way. It is predicated on a proportion or relationship of similarity, but not identity. Existence in relation to entities is identity, but entities do not exist identically and aren't predicated that way either. Thus, it seems if Rand wants to maintain this notion of the concept of existence, she should be committed to the analogy of being.

I'm my experience it's not observations that make the difference at this point. You're dealing with something so abstract, it usually comes down to what interpretation of mathematics one wants to endorse, combined with what independent metaphysical claims one tends to be wedded to.

But potentials and actuals, or act and potency, are not existents. They are modalities of existents, or ways of dividing being vis a vis change, permanence, multiplicity, and unity. Or we may say they are principles, employed to speak of the ways existents exist, but the primary existence is the substances or entities themselves. It is also possible to speak on the one hand of potentiality and actuality, and of the presentist view of time on the other hand. Presentism is the view that only present things exist. Eternalism is the view that every moment in time is real. Different varieties of eternalism state that they are real in different ways, or equally real, or are real things, (ie., we can speak of "past existent.") The two are related, and related to views of space as well. My only point here is that one can speak of potential-actual without adopting eternalism. One can speak of the past potentials as having existed without speaking of them as past existents. And note that the persistence of the substantial form accounts for its continued existence through time, on the Aristotelian view, which is related to its actuality, not its potentialities. Matter becomes, speaking metaphorically, located in space-time when it receives form.

Just as an aside point, wtf is she talking about here? "Any number" of articles? The only times she ever specifically references the potential-actual distinction is when talking about abortion (people are confusing the potential person with the actual) and patents (people are confusing the potential first discovery with the actual.) The only other times she uses potential is in the non-philosophical use "potential earnings," "potentially unlimited output," "potential path" of a flood, and so forth, uses that don't necessarily commit one to the Aristotelian usage. Maybe someone with a pdf copy of the periodicals wants to do a search, or or index search if they have more motivation than me. The point is, it isn't clear that she endorses the concepts of potential and actual or potency and act, at least not in the Aristotelian tradition, aside from those two articles. And in those articles they serve as a polemical device ("my opponents are failing to make this distinction"), but it's far from clear or obvious how this is supposed to feature in or integrate with the rest of her metaphysics. And if it were an important distinction why didn't she specifically give it a positive treatment and in her writings on metaphysics? In Aristotelian/Scholastic metaphysics, I don't have to tell Stephan this, but the concepts of potential-actual are just wider concepts of matter-form, which are vital to the concept of substance. Potentiality being related to matter and the particular, and actuality being related to form or the universal. So if she's looking askance at the matter-form distinction (She says "dichotomy." What? It's not a dichotomy, it's a unity, one can't exist without the other. At least in Aristotle's version.), then how she is entitled to use and employ act-potency (or "entity") is at least a valid question. What's more, the claim that "she" employed a "form-object" distinction in her non-existent writings on the epistemology of perception. I would say the stances she stakes out (in regards to "entity" as primary existence) commit her to having to have some kind of concept of act-potency and form-matter as vital to her metaphysical project, but, fun fact, (in private conversation with a certain "Objectivist philosopher") I've been told she denied form-matter was valid and thought act-potency only applied narrowly to philosophy of biology (he didn't know the patent usage.)

You seem to be trying to reduce things to two different viewpoints: 1. A universal refers to something actually existing in reality that is what you are calling a "metaphysical universal" (whatever that is, you don't say) 2. A universal has no basis in reality That's quite the false alternative. And your post is terribly written. You throw around Randian jargon without explaining it and make pronouncements left and right, conflating a number of different issues. For example, very briefly: What's the difference between something's being universal (adjective) and something's being a universal (noun)? What's the difference between a universal being "metaphysical" verses non? Why does it mean to say something "exists metaphysically" versus "existing non-metaphysically?" What does Rand mean by that? What do you? How do we know what your understanding of her position is? How is anyone to judge if it is adequate? How do we know what your understanding of this is? What's the difference between something's being concrete without a metaphysical universal and with? What does it mean to say something is "epistemological?" What does Rand mean by that? Why couldn't something have a basis in reality for being regarded as universal but existing as a universal only in or related to thought? Why couldn't it be particulars and their attributes and powers lying in some continuum when mentally considered relative to each other instead of some universal component called a metaphysical universal? If understanding such continua gave us an understanding of the relationships of causally significant similarities, then couldn't understanding such a basis give us understanding of causal connections among particulars? Why couldn't such causal connections give us demonstrative knowledge, and thus certainty and all those other nice things, then? What about different kinds of universals? What about universals and forms, ideas, kinds? Are all universals the same type? Do the have the same function? Are universals in terms used the same as universal propositions? Is universality always a universality of time and place? Of identity, numericality, quality? Or is universality relative? Paradigmatic? Are you conflating and running these things together? Are you even aware of all these options? Is it obvious you clearly understand these things? No, you aren't clear about any of these things. There is much terminological confusion in the actual academic literature. Different thinkers use the term "universal," "metaphysical," and the like differently. This makes possible verbal agreements and disagreements that do not reflect the actual positions held. Many people take what their position claims as obvious and many controversial points are unargued-for. That's why it's very important to be precise. So if you're investigating Rand's position, you have to demonstrate you understand what she means. You have to relate it to what other people may mean. You have to show you understand the literature. You have to show what problem your analysis is attempting to solve. You have to abide by the principle of clarity, showing what your understanding comes from by citing the passages and explaining your arguments for them. You do none of this. That's why this is an example of bad philosophy writing. Don't do this.

So, that's a bad explanation. First because that's not "the naturalistic fallacy," as discussed by philosophers in Moore (1903) which is named. That one has to do with the indefinability of the good. So this must be a new one. But in this case, it would be a strawman for these reasons: A.) In order to qualify as an argument, you have to have 3 terms. That's why the clock argument and the breastfeeding arguments are bad. They're not actually arguments. B.) You can say they're enthemymes. Okay, fine. Most of what we call "argument" in casual conversation is enthymeme. But in philosophy, enthymeme is short hand for I fucked up and made a bad argument and now let me fix it. Especially when you are trying to abide by the principle of clarity and already labeling your premises and conclusions. So, okay, let's add in our missing premises and what do we get? We get C. C.) Take the following argument: P1. We ought to do what's natural. P2. Breastfeeding is natural. C. We ought to breastfeed. This is a bad argument even with all three terms in place. It's bad because it suffers from ambiguity, not because of some alleged "inferring values from facts." it is entirely ambiguous as to what "natural" means here, and that's the problem. The "naturalistic fallacy" is supposed to be refuting ethical naturalism. We act against nature all the time! Vaccines! But no ethical naturalist argues like this. The concept of nature being employed is not merely "whatever happens to occur without human intervention," but rather something more like "in accordance with nature." It refers to human nature, including the faculties humans employ to change their environment and make things like vaccines. The supposed fallacy is accordingly, just a strawman.

So this guy named Hume (1739) said you can't deduce an ought statement from a statement with no ought in the premises because valid deductive arguments can only contain in their conclusions components that are fully supported in their premises. That is 100% correct. People confuse this with all sorts of things. They will say you can't derive an is from an ought, you can't get an is from an ought, and so forth. And then they will confuse the "naturalistic fallacy" which was put forth by Moore (1903) with Hume. They're not the same thing. There's more sophisticated contemporary notions, however, in which the gap is reconstituted to be ontological or semantic, say, rather than logical. Moore proceeds by looking at the way terms are commonly used in arguments as opposed to the actual definition of the terms. He claims that calling some thing X a good X is a fallacy because goodness does not refer to the properties of anything. He concludes that goodness is an undefinable and sui generis. He does this by way of the open question argument (OQA.) As best as I can charitably interpret, the second one (naturalistic fallacy fallacy) is trying to get at is that is-ought gap and naturalistic fallacy aren't fallacies, so invoking them is itself a fallacy. I guess. But I would personally wouldn't employ the "fallacy fallacy" strategy. I would rather point out it's just hand wavey from people who have generally never actually read Hume and Moore and don't really know what the arguments are.

Correct. Dismissal of low-quality information, and people, is good epistemology.

Imagine thinking having books will increase your status and allow you to assert more things

Imagine being this person

I don't think he's doing that. He never said that was "the only example." I think he's using it as a paradigmatic case. If you don't agree with that as a case in the first place, as nationalists don't, then appeal to non-laudable cases is dishonest. And treating the non-laudable cases "X joining a gang/doing some crime/bad thing" as if it either were the paradigmatic case, or as if opposition to the bad thing constituted a reason for opposition to the paradigmatic case is an intentional conflation of a dishonest mind that has already reached its conclusion.

I mean consuming anything by Gilson should profit you substantially. His Methodical Realism is a very good, short read. His Thomist Realism and the Critique of Knowledge is good for setting the ground rules on engagement with Cartesian and Kantian epistemology. More neo-Thomist stuff: Anthony Lisska's two books Aquinas' Theory of Perception and Natural Law is a reconstruction of Thomistic epistemology and meta-ethics that engages with contemporary analytic philosophy. John O'Callaghan's Thomistic Realism and the Linguistic Turn employs Aquinas' semantic theory to describe how concepts as formal signs of knowledge are replaced by words in contemporary pragmatism targeting what he calls the "third thing" thesis of Quine, Putnam, and Rorty. Edward Pols' Radical Realism engages with the presuppositions of what he calls the "linguistic enclosure" of knowledge from reality by employing a Thomistic point of view. Henry Veatch's Rational Man is a Thomist counter to existentialism and all around classic. You should pretty much think of Veatch as the American version of Gilson and consume all of his stuff actually. Anything by Anthony Kenny, Eleanore Stump when reading Aquinas.

Nope. There is literally no mind there. Dismissiveness and contempt is the thing to do, along with keeping such low quality people out of one's life and as far away as possible.

What you want is not impossible. But it has to be built. And it requires lots of velvet ropes.

Why in the world would you feel sad (and loss?) about what random strangers on the internet do? Why would you feel any different about what the cretins are saying here any more than a homeless bum on the street shouting conspiracies that you simply pass by? Only here, moderators can actually remove them. Oi, get ahold of yourself man.

1. There are two definitions at work here: one is that a value is just and end of an action. The other is that the end is what one ought act for according to some standard. It's important not to mix these two up, and to understand that in an induction of "x as the standard of value" you can't get to the second "normative" meaning until you move through the first "descriptive" meaning. 2. No, it doesn't imply that because of point 1. 3. Its value does still become valuable through action, in a certain sense: deliberation is an action, and deliberation being brought forth through action ("rational/independent thought" or "integration into one's value-hierarchy" Rand might say) is part of what makes something actually and concretely a value out of what may only potentially and abstractly be a value. 4. Action does partially depend on motivation, and motivation does depend on perception of something as valuable, ie., that there is a necessary connection between means and end (along with a lot of other things going on.) If a motivation is supposed to be one's reason for acting, then you have to understand having an end first in order to understand bringing about actions for the sake of the end.

Not to mention all those left wing stances taken by Ayn Rand, like atheism, abortion, anti-racism, anti-drug war, anti-Vietnam war, which the binary mind cannot integrate.

I think we can maybe clarify by distinguishing between symbolic voting and instrumental voting. Symbolic voting is voting done to represent something. Say, your "moral sanction" or "who I most closely agree with" or to express your values, personality, or identity. Instrumental voting is voting done to effect some end. Say, that Trump (or Biden) be elected, or that Trump or Biden get a "popular mandate" or that people know I'm dissatisfied or something. A symbolic vote can sometimes also be an instrumental vote. I think that's what you're trying to do. You're trying to vote strategically. The problem is this: A. You're trying to symbolically express yourself with your "moral sanction." That's how most people vote. Not with the explicit concept "moral sanction" in their vocabulary, but to identify with the team or personality or idea of their choice. They do this for various reasons, mostly irrational. I don't think this apply to you. I think you're trying to vote well. But the bottom line here is nobody cares about your moral sanction but you. And there's a lot better ways to express your moral sanction than voting. You can write an essay, give a lecture, do an interview, post on OO. All those things will have more impact in expressing your moral support. B. Trying to effect some end. I don't know what that end is. I get that you're trying to strategically vote so that your vote does something. I think it has to do with the idea of a "popular mandate." If this is the minor premise in your argument, this is were the rubber is going to meet the pavement. But that idea is not argued for itself. If we look at that idea, I don't think there's much of a substance there. This is called the "mandate hypothesis." Here's two arguments against it: (1) A mandate is a kind of special sense of authority. But we don't have that in our law. The president either gets elected or not. There's no extra authority if they win the popular vote. They don't even campaign for the popular vote because we don't have a popular voting system. If we did, it might be different. Additionally, they can't do whatever they want, even if they do win. So the popular mandate doesn't exist in this sense. They don't get to do anything extra that they didn't otherwise get to do. (2) You might say, well, winning the popular vote, or winning it by a larger margin, or losing it by a smaller margin gives authority in a different sense. It creates the image in the minds of the voters that the ideology or values of the candidate, as a movement, has a given level of legitimacy. I think there's something to this. But not much. You already said the voters are mostly irrational, emotionalists. I think they're irrational in a wider sense, too. Many of them utilize fallacious reasonings, fall prey to cognitive biases, binary thinking, engage in conspiracy theories, bigotry and tribalism. So it's not like these same people are supposed to be counted on to "get the message." In the same way as objection 1, they were mostly going to support what they already were going to support. They mostly already think the opposing side is evil and want them subjugated or dead in large part. If Trump lost by a lesser margin, they'd most likely not think anything morally good in the relevant sense. (Political science research is generally negative about the mandate hypothesis. See, for example, Dahl 1990; Noel 2010. See also Grossback, Peterson, and Stimson 2006; Grossback, Peterson, and Stimson 2007.) Keep in mind the whole thing was predicated on whether you could adduce a good reason for voting the way you did, and whether the benefits of voting outweighed the costs to you. Maybe they still do. I think it can be perfectly rational to vote for Trump or Biden, depending on your context. I don't see voting for Jorgensen or writing in LP to be rational at all.