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sjw

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Posts posted by sjw

  1. 11 minutes ago, dream_weaver said:

    "[R]eason", according to Ayn Rand, "is not an axiomatic, but a complex, derivative concept". In the same paragraph she heeds against inquiring about a stand on the validity of reason. (Last paragraph of chapter 6 in Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology.)

    If the objective is to assess the rationality of Objectivism or of Ayn Rand, examine them for cracks in their foundation.

    That paragraph isn't relevant unless you're trying for a cheap insult. Was that what you were aiming at?

    Are there Objectivist forums out there that have competent students of Objectivism, or is this the best there is? You guys are pretty awful, frankly. I'd ask the official scholars these questions but they only engage with critics when doing so translates to cash in their pocket, which is somewhat ironic given the subject here. (I fully expect the irony to go completely over your heads.)

  2. 8 minutes ago, whYNOT said:

    Ha, the true skeptic. Requiring a "link" instead of considering a reasoned argument, on its own merits.

    Sigh... You claimed I got a reasoned explanation but I ignored it, I was simply asking for what particular argument here you were referring to, there have been many posts. It's not my intention to ignore reasoned arguments. More likely you thought something was a great argument while in reality it sucked. But who knows when you don't specify what you're referring to.

  3. At the start of this thread I think I got some decent answers. None of these later posts are answering the original question and they are misconstruing the intent. Just because I disagree that the argument for a given conclusion is full of holes, doesn't mean I disagree with the conclusion. Is the hole a hole or not? That's the question. Attacking me or telling me how wonderful the conclusion is doesn't speak to the holes.

    If Ayn Rand had claimed to have solved a great math problem, but where she got the right answer but made mistakes in how she computed it, should that matter? (This oversimplifies, since many of her conclusions are also wrong, but that's beside the point.)

     

  4. 55 minutes ago, Craig24 said:

    She identified rationality as the primary virtue, the one virtue that keeps men alive.  Her concern was not to describe what men actually choose but what they can and SHOULD choose.    

    OK, but that's just elementary philosophy, it doesn't need to be stated here.

  5. 11 minutes ago, Eiuol said:

    The discussion is why be rational, so I was saying that there is no "why" or "should" because the answer to that question is just that it's in man's nature, as in its necessary for his flourishing. I have no idea what nukes have to do with that.

    This is a tangent related to your claim that "Rand didn't care if most people were consistently rational or not" and "What the majority do is beside the point", it's not relevant to the main point.

    The main point is more in the area of whether Rand thought rationality was a virtue. I.e. *consistently* being rational. She most certainly did think that, but you seem to dispute it. Go read OPAR if you disagree.

  6. I believe you're completely sincere when you say you can only comprehend my questions as being trolling or pedantic. But that's no excuse for engaging in that which you condemn, is it? Is aping what you hate typical behavior for you in real life too, or do you only do it when masked by that pseudonym?

  7. 2 minutes ago, 2046 said:

    An argument form incredulity!!! Questioning the person instead of proving it!! Fallacy fallacy!! Guess you can't prove it then! 😂

    It's not an argument, and I'm not incredulous. Trolls and idiots are a dime a dozen, there's nothing surprising about you.

  8. 7 minutes ago, Eiuol said:

    Right, being (consistently) rational is the aim for those who seek to follow their nature. If 1% or 99% of people are (consistently) rational, that doesn't alter man's nature - 100% of people have the capacity to be (consistently) rational. What the majority do is beside the point. 

    Don't be ridiculous. They have nukes.

  9. 3 minutes ago, Eiuol said:

    Why did you add the word only? What point are you trying to make?

    All that follows from reason being the means of survival.

    People in this forum seem to have a hard time reading.

    I didn't "add" the word, I only added the emphasis. Go check out the section in OPAR for yourself.

  10. 7 minutes ago, Eiuol said:

    "I don't have reason to think that Rand ever cared in her position whether people are consistently rational."

    She was only concerned if man's means of surviving, of existing, is reason.

     

    Quote

    "Rationality is the recognition and acceptance of reason as one's only source of knowledge, one's only judge of values and one's only guide to action." -- Ayn Rand (as quoted in OPAR p. 221)

    Emphasis on "only" added by me.

  11. 1 hour ago, Doug Morris said:

    The sentence of mine that I just quoted was my main point, a response to your statements that I am quoting here.

    Ayn Rand has already explained this more fully.

    Then what in concise terms is her answer to "Why be [consistently] rational?" Isn't it more or less "Because that will lead you to the most/best flourishing?"

    Your main point isn't an answer.

  12. 6 hours ago, dream_weaver said:

    This translation of the Tenth Idyll of The Idylls of Theokritus provides Milon as having said: "God finds out the guilty. You've been asking for it."

    The literal translation of what Ayn Rand actually wrote is more along the lines of this. However she intended it, the question "Why be (consistently) rational?" remains, so the literal translation (which should be the default one) is more confirmatory evidence that she was a metaethical hedonist than the main evidence.

    I wonder if she was thinking "take what you want, and pay for it" when she was sleeping with Nathaniel. She sure did both!

  13. 13 minutes ago, Eiuol said:

    The only thing relevant to your post is David's response, the quote won't really mean anything until and unless you know pretty well what it is she is summarizing.

    His was the most irrelevant response of everyone's here. I've already read her works myself, quoting it back to me is useless without interpretation relating to my question.

    13 minutes ago, Eiuol said:

    Generally, there is no -reason- to be rational, to the extent that rationality is the only way to judge what is right or wrong. She makes a teleological argument that man's nature is to be rational and it contributes to his flourishing/life, so right or wrong can only be judged insofar as you act rationally. I don't think this is morally agnostic, just that an important moral principle is to recognize there are moral implications to your life or any action you take.

    The matter of importance here is the argument to be (or to strive to be) consistently rational. That's what rationality means -- consistently being rational. It doesn't merely mean being rational in the sense of man being the "rational animal", where clearly most men are not trying to be consistently rational, let alone agreeing with Rand that they should be trying to be. Most people would say that rationality is a qualified good, it's good when used (say) as a "slave to the passions" or when implementing certain articles of faith given to them by religion.

    So any appeal to man's nature is totally beside the point. Man's nature is that he can be quite inconsistent, applying rationality where it suits him.

    Why is rationality, understood as being (or striving to be) consistently rational and not merely selectively rational, a virtue?

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