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Not having read it, I am skeptical about the possibility of demonstrating some of Rand's claims from the axioms - without the help of footnotes, citations, and the rest of it - just by structuring the argument a certain way. But my interest is piqued, and I will give it a look.

If all of her claims follow from A is A (and no other information), then we're done here and no footnotes are required.

I will grant that some of Rand's claims derive well from "ordinary observation." Others do not. I think standards are higher now than in 400 B.C. I pulled a philosophy book off my shelf. Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia has a bibliography that is six densely typed pages long. And another: William Lane Craig's Reasonable Faith has a couple of pages of bibliography at the end of every chapter. And another: George Smith has twenty pages of endnotes in Atheism: The Case Against God. Every modern work of philosophy that I could find had some sort of notes.

I'm sorry, but this does not make sense to me. To me, this just reads like "You see, we begin with the axioms, then -- Look! A squirrel! -- So, Objectivism is true." I hope that's not offensive to you, but that's what it comes across as. Perhaps if you explained in more detail how these axioms help in getting to her conclusions, it would make sense to me.

The function of a footnote is to inform the reader of the source of a piece of evidence. That would apply to Rand's writing by informing the reader of the source of a piece of her evidence.

I don't own that. I see on the Amazon viewer that there is a "Recommended Bibliography," but I don't see a section of citations and footnotes.

Yeah, the topic has definitely been answered. The answer seems to be pretty much what I said in the OP, i.e., that Rand's works don't contain everything, but we can forgive her for that because she was leaning on others' works; also, per knast's excellent post, Rand seems to have thought that some of her points were self evident. I guess I'm just disappointed with that response. I don't know what I was hoping for, exactly, though. I never even suggested such a thing. I was mainly wondering whether people think that Rand's works are sufficient by themselves. Some do and some don't, as you can see. I was also a little disappointed in Rand that she didn't provide footnotes and so on, and wondering why that was. Perhaps what we should take home from this is that Rand, in her works, is essentially giving us a bundle of conclusions that we ought to come to on our own.

Okay. The problem is that if you have to look into it further to validate the claim, it's not self evident. You've pretty much swung over to my side of the aisle here.

Well, a Marxist would likely say that Marx's theories meet that criterion, a Freudian that Freud's theories meet that criterion, and so forth. It just seems very subjective and prone to bias.

That seems kind of subjective. Well, Kant was a genius too... and so was Marx... and Mill... and so on. You can find a genius for any position you care to name.

Yeah, but still. Some of her claims need support not present in her work. Do you think it's just self evident that history is driven by philosophy (like Odden seems to)?

Okay, there is more than one kind of innate predisposition. I'm referring to the psychological kind, including the absence of innate knowledge. "Yea huhhh" does not seem much more sophisticated.

Okay, so the issue of whether or not this is a philosophical subject goes back to the issue of whether or not these claims are obvious, and I've denied that they are obvious. I don't follow. There seems to be only one kind of "innate predisposition" that could exist, and claims about that will be scientific.

There it is. Thanks.

Where? I have ITOE but cannot find the discussion of that distinction just using the index.

You have a good point here. I'm not sure whether The Ominous Parallels counts as proof that history is determined by philosophy, as I have not read it. I will say that it is rather short relative to what I would expect to be the length of a work that proved that point, and it seems to be aimed mainly at a specific time and place.

I'm not sure how one could make those sorts of claims without making them as scientific claims.

That is not part of Rand's work. More importantly, I believe it was published a good twenty years after she had written For the New Intellectual, which seems to make the claim in question.

Common knowledge is acceptable, but some things that are not common knowledge require evidence. Rand's claims are neither common knowledge nor obvious. Well, there's really no one way to answer the question. Taken by itself and given to someone ignorant of Rand, no, the post does not contain enough evidence that Rand made those claims. Here, yes, it does.

He says these things as if they are obvious, when one would like something along the lines of a study to support them.

On this forum, it should be common knowledge. Rand claimed that there are no innate predispositions, that emotions follow from thinking, and that the course of history is set by philosophy.

It should be obvious that I'm just asking whether Rand provided sufficient evidence, not indulging that sort of recursive skepticism. Perhaps, but then my question is just how these particular doctrines get reduced to the axioms.

Well, my point contests that there is sufficient evidence in Rand's work for the causal connection between thinking and emotions. The only real answer to that is to show that she did provide sufficient evidence.

Well, their purpose was just to show that Nyquist also thinks that this is a problem. I think they typically at least point to other people who've argued for their premises. You're not too specific here about which branches and fields are based on this. Nevertheless, Nyquist sort of anticipates your argument when he says that while some psychologists do think that our emotions follow from our thinking to some limited extent, "no reputable psychologist believes that emotions are solely the product of our ideas." (ARCHN, 31-32)

Nyquist says that Ayn Rand did not present enough evidence to justify her psychological and historical claims. Her psychological claims should have been backed up with scientific data, and her historical claims with intensive historical investigation, so he says. Now, the inquiring reader will wonder where exactly he makes these claims. To show that I am not making this up, here are some quotes from Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature. ARCHN, 24 ARCHN, 32 ARCHN, 64 ARCHN, 69 These accusations (that Rand's theories about psychology and history require significant backing that is not present in her work) do seem correct. Perhaps we can forgive her on the grounds that she was probably just presupposing the work of others when she wrote. So, did Ayn Rand present sufficient evidence to justify her psychological and historical claims? If not, is that a bad thing?