Chris Cathcart

I think if you were to compare the quality of Rawls and Nozick as philosophers, I would say that Nozick was simply a better thinker and less susceptible to the typical failings of "analytic" academic philosophy. As far as I'm concerned, to make a long story short, Rawls had these "intuitions" about justice-as-fairness and then, in analytic-academic style, went about finding a theory to ground these "intuitions" in a rationalistic, mid-stream, concept-stealing fashion. That's right, concept-stealing. Rawls never grounded his theory of justice upon proper (eudaemonistic) grounds, but upon a Hobbes/Locke/Kant-hybrid "social contract" model. Social-contract models as typically offered are all about mid-streaming and not about grounding. The rationality of the preferences that the contracting agents bring to the "original situation" is not questioned. Rawls then hedges with all this by introducing the concept of a "reflective equilibrium" by which we as justice-theorists compare our "intuitions" with what falls out of the social-contract model. That way he can cover his ass and say that the conclusions of his argument must line up with his "intuitions." It's a tortuous, long-winded route to basically shore up his pre-theoretical "intuitions," and his intuitions - like those of many academics - were vaguely socialistic. His method is just way far removed from that of Rand or Aristotle, but the academy laps it up because they don't know any better. On a related point, Nozick wrote a biting article some years after ASU offering an explanation for the anti-capitalistic tendency amongst academics: http://www.cato.org/pubs/policy_report/cpr-20n1-1.html I think Nozick's explanation is only part of the story. Another part of the story is how rationalistic academics are and how socialism fits in with a rationalistic approach to ideas. Their theories told them that socialism was a good idea, even though the empirical reality was showing otherwise. The rationalist solution to this tension is to retrench. Reading Rawls and his disciple Nagel is like reading works from another planet, disconnected from how actual human beings and societies operate. Nagel has his own bizarre theoretical explanation for how we can be rationally altruistic (in "The Possibility of Altruism"), which - Rawls-like - requires this whole theoretical construction of ourselves as not-ourselves so that we are impartial. And this floating, ungrounded, out-of-context crap gets bandied around in academia like it's profound, when much simpler and better explanations for other-responsive motivation are found in the eudaemonist tradition. There's a reason Rand considered the "philosophy" practiced in academia to be so anathema - because of all the out-of-context, non-Aristotelian wankery going on to impress fellow academics. It's really sad when you think about it, all the intellectual potential being wasted on non-issues. This pathology is arguably at its worst in frequent Rand-basher Brian Leiter (though he brings an extra dose of elitist narcissism to the table that few other academics bring). A "brilliant" mind who is stubbornly, awesomely clueless about Rand. I mean, I am truly in awe at how someone so bright could be so out of it.

Nozick had a brilliant and fertile mind; from what I've read by him and other professional philosophers, he was perhaps the smartest of that bunch in the last half-century. One thing he was willing to do with unyielding effectiveness was challenge any and all ideas that he encountered, including raising challenges to his own theories and formulations. For its flaws, I think ASU is one of the very best works to come out of that environment in who knows how long. He really does a nice job laying the smack-down on a good number of leftist and socialist thinkers, who simply infested academia at the time. His one main connection to Rand is his article "On the Randian argument," which - and this is not surprising - misunderstands the essential case Rand made for egoism. I read it and Rasmussen and Den Uyl's response many years back and remember that the Dougs basically set him straight and there's never been a refutation of their response that I know of (because, well, they were essentially right).

One thing House is an expert at, is exposing hypocrisy or lack of reasonableness in patients. He is blunt and brutally honest. And usually the patients don't throw up much of a fight when he exposes them, because they know he's right.

Yes. I thought that episode showing the typical day in the life of Cuddy was like watching someone with an amazing will to excel - much like Ms. Objectivism herself.

House is a great character to watch; brilliant writing IMO. Dr. House is a brilliant but emotionally and socially dsynfunctional man. While he does show narcissistic traits, I would not go so far as to say that he is one. But he doesn't believe in God, doesn't really believe in morality (at least not when it gets in the way of his chief passion - solving puzzles), doesn't enjoy human relationship outside of a very select few, and behaves towards the non-select with a special, superior, elitist and impatient attitude. And it has cost him big. He has come to discover over time how big it has cost him, and he is trying to change (at least as of the end of Season 6). The show is a saga of a fascinating character from the first season as amoral and anti-social, to subsequent seasons where he suffers from alienation from others, to more recent seasons where he tries to fix what's wrong but has a hard time figuring out how. So I'd say that he is a genius and potentially prime "superman" material, who is trying to confront his demons which make him feel unfulfilled.

Getting better opportunities and seeking status and prestige as values in themselves are not the same thing.

No second-handedness is appropriate. Now, as to the value of a Harvard education, I don't know. One thing I do know is that one of my biggest heroes, Stanley Kubrick, never attended college and he managed to attain status and prestige. But he wasn't seeking it. He just wanted to make the kind of movies that he loved to make and which he thought would enrich his viewers. The question is: what would YOU think about you being a Harvard-educated professor? Prestige aside, what would you get it out it? How would it fulfill you? What is so great in and of itself about status and prestige that you would make it a criterion of your decision-making? What about doing that which raises your esteem in your own eyes? Is seeking prestige and status amongst others something you want to make part of a personal identity you will be proud of? If so, why?

A stripper with a heart of gold? Yes.

Quick and dirty response: what is it about Ayn Rand's definition of goodness that would lead you to ask this question? What sort of context must not have been taken into account? Where does Rand ever suggest or propose that someone's good can be realized by killing off the poor? What does any of this have to do with Rand?

Parmenides is a good philosopher-figure to start with in the history of philosophy, because he set the tone for nearly the whole of the Western philosophical tradition since. And that is that he is a Rationalist. And nearly every major philosophical figure since then is a Rationalist in basic approach to ideas. And the consequence of that is an approach to ideas consisting of all kinds of deduction going on up there in the noggin without any grasp of a relation to the actual world. Parmenides started with a poorly-grasped and poorly-integrated premise "What is, is," and from there deduced that the evidence of the senses are illusory. Aristotle, whose approach to ideas is much healthier, answered the "problem of change" by reference to things moving from potentiality to actuality. I don't know if that answer deals with the "problem" at the right level of fundamentality, and I don't know if his view of potentiality and actuality is even universally valid and applicable to everything we deal with in reality. And making specific claims about the nature and qualities of matter is doing science, not philosophy per se. So in approaching someone like Parmenides at an appropriate level of fundamentality, what do you say? I think what you can do is something like an affirmation-through-denial, and point to where Parmenides drops context, or steals concepts, or simply begs questions. For example, just raise the question: Why is change supposed to imply a contradiction? When we speak of change, we aren't, after all, speaking of something both being and not being at the same time and the same respect. The burden of proof is on Parmenides: why are we supposed to sacrifice what our senses tell us in order to conform to his particular interpretation of "what is, is"? The evidence of the senses should have been the first check on whatever theory that Parmenides (or anyone else) might want to draw from it. Philosophers that, from the get-go, tell us that the evidence of the senses are to be dismissed in favor of some rationally-deduced theory have FAILED at their job of doing philosophy. Parmenides makes the claim that the change we observe implies a contradiction (and, contra Heraclitus, equally a Rationalist in method, ends up denying observation for the sake of Being and non-contradiction). You only need to ask "how so?". At one moment in time you see a tree, and at another moment in time you see a stump and a log. Where's the contradiction? Aristotle formulated the law of identity at the proper level of fundamentality not with potentiality and actuality, but with "at the same time and in the same respect." In a Parmenidean metaphysics, nothing really happens or transpires. So here you can go with Aristotle and "at the same time and the same respect," or you can go the route of the absurd, for no reason, and deny that things transpire. You would have thought that Parmenides, so concerned with contradiction, would have been troubled by the contradiction between his theory and his observation that things happen. You would think that with his concern about "what is," that what is, and not his theories, comes first. It's a lesson that few philosophers have really managed to learn and apply to their thoughts. Parmenides paved the way for Plato (who denied the reality of change as the senses tell us, and affirmed that real Being is unchanging and eternal); Heraclitus paved the way for Hume -- ostensibly an Empiricist but as Rationalist in his approach to ideas as any of them -- and Hegel. The same mistakes keep popping up and getting recycled just in newer, more "fascinating," and more complex ways.

I just found a YouTube clip of Rautavaara's Cantus Arcticus, Movement 3 - "Swans Migrating." (This may not exactly be "contemporary" -- it was composed ca. 1972. But hey, it's still almost the only semi-well-known thing since ca. 1950 in non-film classical that has a strongly Romantic flavor.)

Oh also, as far as contemporary non-film composers go, there's not much Romanticism these days, but one notable exception I can think of is the Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara. There are obvious Romantic elements in his "Cantus Arcticus" (concerto for recorded birdsong and orchestra), "Anadyomene: The Adoration of Aphrodite," the adagio movements of his flute and clarinet concertos, and his Symphony No. 7 ("Angel of Light"). Much of his other stuff is quite modernistic (which sometimes holds some interest for me, but it's not Romantic). Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood has classical training and does some pretty modern semi-Romantic composition, as in his soundtrack for There Will be Blood. Outside of Rautavaara and film composition, I don't know much in the way of contemporary Romantic work in the classical vein. Some pop and rock, yes, but it seems "standard classical" composers gave up for whatever reason after Mahler, Sibelius, Nielsen, Delius, Vaughan Williams, Howard Hanson, Maurice Durufle, et al. After Shostakovich, who was part Romantic, mostly modern, it's pretty much gone from that scene.

Hey all, my first post on this site, on a very favorite subject. (I seem to remember my first post at SOLO was also on classical music. ) I see that Adrian H. definitely knows his stuff. As far as film composers go, and for decidedly Romantic content, Ennio Morricone is the standard composer of our era. He has a few famous scores to Sergio Leone films, but my favorite is his score to a lesser-known film, The Legend of 1900 starring Tim Roth. The official soundtrack version is the best, but you can get a flavor for it from some live YouTube’d performances such as this one: http://youtube.com/watch?v=Q0eRsdB7Mz8 After Morricone I would mention John Barry, who scored Out of Africa and Somewhere in Time. I’ve got a whole page almost overflowing with classical/Romantic favorites and clips at my website: http://www.geocities.com/cathcacr/topalbums.html