iouswuoibev

Let's try approaching this from a different angle. Instead of being assuming about personality, let's make the joke more physical. "No man has man boobs as manly as mine." Is this insufferably presumptious and disrespectful?

It lets him off the hook... again. EDIT: Typo correction.

First point: Now that I come to think of it, was he being serious with his joke? If he had left it without the "j/k" We would have no way of knowing. The humour lies not in the truth or falsehood behind what he was saying, but the fact that he can unafraidly say it. But by then following up by clarifying that it is a joke - well, then his meaning is unmistakable - he is conveying uncertainty, the fear that he might be misinterpreted. The ultimate expression of the "non-JK" version is: "I'm sure of myself, and my reality, and I'll leave it to you to make of that what you will." The alternate, actual version is: "I just said something flip and I need to cover my [rear] in case it goes wrong, because I can't stand being unsure of what the reader will think of me. This way no one could think anything unnice about me while I take this otherwise huge risk of a joke." Second point: No, it merely says that he is (considering himself to be) a high value (by his standards, as he goes by no other), and that you're missing out on that. That's not presuming, that is self appreciation.

I got the impression that his comment was only directed at single women. I thought that would go without saying. But who knows, maybe it was targeted ONLY at the married women? If you're going to assume he's that audacious, why not go all out on that line of thinking?

I think his statement needs to be viewed in a certain context, like the one Dondigitalia was posting in. I think if the joke is UNQUESTIONABLY DETRIMENTAL to one's own values, or one's self, then yes, it is inappropriate. Let me put it another way: you need to be serious about relationships, and you need to be serious about joking about relationships. I think the rest of your post follows on from the false assumption about what TomL's statement meant and implied. If I need to clarify further let me know.

Humour. HUMOUR. Sorry, bad chest cough there.

Giving your reasoning would be nice, if not helpful.

Doesn't this sound very much like using other people as the standard of your values and motives? Hey wait, it is. Talk about second-handedness. Ah, society. Presumably an entity that acts all on its own, where you don't shape it, but it shapes you. If that is your outlook, then who am I talking to? Just a component of society, presumably. Does that notion not make you indignant - if not powerless? Did your society tell you this was how to go about getting a life? It's telling you a lie. Since you like music, I'll quote a lyric: Pining for a woman to make you into something else. Some kind of "man" you'd be. p.s. You might want to start a new thread, as your post was off-topic.

Oh I get it now! You're all speaking Kantian.

When I read it, I was thinking to myself "If only he hadn't inserted the '(j/k)' he would have been on the mark".

The article makes it quite clear that he is not talking about short-term memory. He is refering to the ability to grasp percepts. For instance, one couldn't, to use Piekoff's example, grasp ///////////// (13 slashes) at the perceptual level - or 13 men, houses, needles, etcetera. You could count them individually, and then designate a number for that quantity (13); but then you would have risen to the conceptual level by the use of a number, which is a concept. On the other hand, one can grasp and retain 3 percepts (///) at the perceptual level (i.e. as a single percept, without the use of a number) as can certain animals like the crows in the example given. There are a wealth of implications behind this principle, such as the requirement of using a percept (e.g. a word, typically) as the referent of a concept (e.g. 13). The numbers involved are not important. The principle still stands regardless of the detail. It is implicit within what he does state, that you can reduce the number of percepts you have to retain by having seperate percepts merged several together into one percept. It is also said earlier on in the book that all our mental faculties, as with everything physical, is finite, and therefore would have limits. I don't know why you said the notion of "unit" is in question. Why does he not discuss the psychology? To do so would be anti-conceptual. In the formation of a definition, you retain what is essential, and exclude what isn't. By the same reasoning, all knowledge is interconnected, but that doesn't mean we venture off on every related idea for the sake of being thorough - instead you pick out what is essential to the idea you are describing, and stick with it. If you drop this principle, how are you to know when to cover something and when not to? The end result of this will be total confusion, both for the author of the writing, and the person reading it should the author ever finish. It is obviously not Piekoff's intention to cover psychology, and he is doing the reader a favour by not doing so. If anyone wants to know the psychology that he alluded to, the solution is simple: read a different book.

There's something wrong with the wiki...

Only a week left until the top 100 are revealed. Think she'll make it onto the list?

Presumably you like typing for its own sake... The reason I asked is because there is a passage in OPAR (Piekoff's book) that identifies precisely what is wrong with Kant's method of presenting ideas ("Concepts as Devices to Achieve Unit Economy"). To put his point in brief: all literary units must be within a certain range, otherwise they cannot be held by our perceptual faculty and retained as a single unit. If a sentence goes beyond a certain length then its author is either being deliberately obfuscatory, or has failed to abstract his ideas so as to present them in condensed form (as a result of a failure to think.) The way Kant writes is a manifestation of his anti-conceptual epistemology (and very likely his psycho-epistemology).

What makes you think that a government (or more precisely, the individuals that are a part of it) cannot serve their own interests without doing it at the expense of others? Why does serving your own interests necessitate trampling on others'? Do you think it is in anyone's interest to profit through fraud or force? Have you read "The Virtue of Selfishness" ?

How to know if your primping and dressing has payed off? Well, if he doesn't notice, you've probably got it right. You want it so he notices when you HAVEN'T made an effort, not the other way around.

Rand went about presenting her philosophy in the most selfish way possible. She never payed lip service to other theories any more than was necessary to explain how they fitted in with her own views. In other words, she got to the point - something many "academics" today have great difficulty with. I for one am glad she didn't pander to meandering, exhaustive textbook standards. Which of Rand's works have you read? Whatever gave you that idea?

Welcome, Todd. It is encouraging to see that more people are discovering Objectivism through Goodkind's works. I learned about Ayn Rand and Objectivism in pretty much the same way, as have several others on this forum.

Let me offer a different interpretation than those already offered. It is possible he is elaborating on what existents are: namely, they are "separate, individual things [entities], [along] with their properties [attributes?] and actions." From this point of view, he is saying that existents are entities, properties and actions--not that existents are just entities. Otherwise, why would he add "with their properties and actions" to that sentence? Why not just say "separate individual things" and be done with it? One reason for stating it the way he does is to highlight that entities are primary--but because there are entities, there are also necessarily properties and actions "along for the ride," so to speak. Okay, that makes sense.

That moral perfection is impossible.

Because that's what it looks like he's doing.

I did, where I quoted it the first time. Page 78.

If a system could do that, you would negate free will. Nothing can force ANYONE to be moral EVER. People have to choose to be moral, and thereby choose the moral system for themselves. Forcing people to be moral is a contradiction in terms. Morality only applies to volitional beings. It can certainly be achieved, just not infallibly so. All it requires is the existence of moral people. And there will always be moral people, so long as A is A.

I understood the passage. I question LP's definition of "existent". He defined "existent" as "Seperate, individual things with their properties and actions." In other words, he delimited his definition with the qualifier "with their properties and actions". In other words, by his definition, an "existent" can only refer to things which posess properties and actions, which would exclude properties and actions themselves. An "existent" can stand for any thing that exists, be it an atom, thought, taste, and: property and action. By saying that an existent possesses properties and actions (I quote again: "Seperate, individual things with their properties and actions") the definition excludes properties and actions - which are inclusive in the definition of "existent"... This is the basis of my objection.

Which is what I said. So it would seem that the OPAR quotation is wrong?