Fred Weiss
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Posts posted by Fred Weiss
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That might be what I was looking for Evangelical Capitalist.
Thanks everyone, I'll begin the digestion procedure.
You might also find the following article by Tara Smith helpful:
http://journals.kluweronline.com/article.asp?PIPS=5139594
Fred Weiss
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The wages would be increased with increased pressure on the company. Benefits the employees.
But it is not to the interest of employees to make their employer less profitable and uncompetitive.
"Skilled laborers" have in fact been the group that has suffered the most from repeated strikes as it lead to accelerating the pace of automation and/or outsourcing. One example that comes to mind is newspaper typesetters. Granted in time they would have been let go eventually anyway but they succeeded in addition in closing down dozens, if not, 100's of newspapers.Most of the time, at least within a decade range, that is not the case with skilled labourers, which I was talking about.Even if the worker being part of a union is not good for the industry (ie raises prices to the consumers), the worker gets payed more which is in his self-interest.How is it to his self-interest if the company terminates his line of work or closes its door? What do you think got the Japanese car companies their break into the United States? They were able at first to produce lower priced cars. Then they got a reputation for better quality. Without tariff protection it is doubtful what would have been left of the highly unionized American auto industry.
Through this post you blame workers for trying to get wages they want on larger-scale economic woes. I thought we weren't pragmatists, but recognised people would work toward their self-interests.But my point is that unions have not been in workers interest, often not even in the short-term, and certainly not the long term.
What is in workers interest is the same thing that is in all our interest - an unregulated, competitive free market. Trying to achieve higher wages, which the market itself would not otherwise pay, through collusion and blackmail is not consistent with such a system.
Fred Weiss
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...That idea they have does not have to be called god. It can be anything; anything that removes the burden of responsibility: the common good, the collective... So why do we talk about god in particular? Is it not the same kind of rationalization for irrationality as any other means of enforcing collectivist theories?
Ah, but it has the great advantage of being sublimely divorced from reason and any basis in fact. One can believe anything one wants to believe about it. It can explain anything and everything when what you are seeking is anything but the actual explanation. You pray and nothing happens. Ah, you didn't pray hard enough or you didn't do enough good deeds or leave enough in the collection box. So you pray harder, do good deeds, and leave more in the collection box. Still nothing happens. Ah, god works in mysterious ways and/or he is testing me. Occasionally you pray and you actually get something. See, god is good and praying works!
Fred Weiss
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...My single biggest problem with Anthem is the incredibly obvious way the plot unfolds.
"Dan", the literary genius, should have no trouble then writing similarily "obvious" novels that sell millions of copies, becoming modern classics, and translated into dozens of languages.
I'll just note that it apparently wasn't obvious to any other dystopian novelist that a future collectivist society would sink into a technological "dark ages" with previous knowledge lost. None of them would then be capable of grasping what would be required to bring civilization back, i.e. the great courage of a few men - of which Anthem is a profoundly moving and brilliant symbolic representation.
It is not a coincedence that in 1938, at the height of Naziism in Germany and Stalinism in the Soviet Union, along with the "Red Decade" in the USA, that the book was almost totally ignored. I guess it wasn't obvious to people at the time that Anthem had anything of significance to say.
Fred Weiss
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But if it was merely "justified true belief", i.e. they felt justified in believing it, then why shouldn't it be considered knowledge?
On re-reading, I realize this opening sentence doesn't make any sense and, if it means anything, actually suggests the opposite of what I intended to convey. So, if I could edit my post, I'd remove it.
Fred Weiss
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If unions could not use force: 20 men at a company would like raises, they form a union and say they will walk off the job unless they get it. If 1 man were to do this he would likely get fired, but if many men do this, and if they are skilled, it is hard to find replacements for skilled workers, and this pressures the employer to raise their wages. All of it is done through bargaining.
This is entirely unnecessary at a well-managed company which will always strive to pay competitive wages, promote and reward competent and ambitious workers, and otherwise make their employees happy. If workers feel that a union is necessary to get what they want, they should probably really be looking for other work, i.e. they are working for a poorly managed company - and the end result of their efforts will likely be either to drive the company out of business or motivate it to undertake other efforts which in the long term will be detrimental to the workers (such as automatizing or out-sourcing or re-locating).
The irony is that, despite the liberal view that unions have been beneficial to workers, they probably on balance have been detrimental - and they certainly have been instrumental in putting many companies out of business, even seriously damaging entire industries,e.g the railroads. It is perhaps why workers have finally wised up about unions and they represent less than 15% of the workers now in the USA, with many of those gov't workers in monopolistic industries, such as the public schools or the postal service.
Fred Weiss
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...Perhaps invalidate is too strong a word, although some major past theories have since been debunked. On the other hand, if factual knowledge is understood as justified true belief, much that has previously passed as knowledge may not have qualified as knowledge anyway.
But if it was merely "justified true belief", i.e. they felt justified in believing it, then why shouldn't it be considered knowledge? That's actually what's wrong with regarding knowledge as equivalent to mere "justified true belief". What is needed for knowledge is proof, i.e. conclusive evidence. For over a 1,000 years people felt justified in believing in the Ptolemaic theory of the solar system. But the evidence for it not only was far from conclusive but there many indications of contrary evidence (of which Ptolemy himself was aware and tried to gloss over with his "epicycles").
Newton is entirely different. Not only was the evidence conclusive, repeatedly confirmed and re-confirmed in the 100+ years after him, but it continues to be right up to the present day - to such an extent that, as the "certainty singularists" will remind me, it is no longer necessary, i.e. it is absolutely certain, period, and no additional evidence is required to bolster that certainty. The difference now is that we know it doesn't apply in a number of physical domains. Our worldview is different now to the extent that we are now aware - to a considerable extent because of Newton - of physical phenomena of which Newton was entirely unaware (such as sub-atomic particles). But Newton was absolutely essential as a first step in that progression of knowledge. Before we could ever have begun to grasp some of these new phenomena it was necessary first to grasp the more basic phenomena - and that couldn't have been done without Newton.
So, once again, not only doesn't modern physics invalidate Newton, it rests on his shoulders. Just, presumably, as any future physics will rest on Einstein. I am sure that most modern physicists, as Stephen contends, will fully acknowledge this when they are in their laboratories even as they feel obliged to mouth the Popperian dogma of skeptical doubt when they philosophize about the epistemology underlying their work.
Fred Weiss
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...Has anyone noticed that nobody who has criticized Ayn Rand's literary style has actually refered to any specific passage of her works? I'd like to see one person do it.
For a good example of the opposite I'll refer you to this - and as he says this is just the first few sentences of Atlas Shrugged:
http://www.papertig.com/george_barker.htm
Fred Weiss
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Water would boil at about 202F in Denver, and 2+2=11 in base 3 math. So it depends what you mean by "all conditions". Speaking in base 3 arithmetic is a bit peculiar, but then being at the altitude of Denver is also a bit peculiar, though less strange. The only profound difference between the two that I see is what kinds of contexts we are dealing with -- mental contexts vs. physical contexts. But it's much easier to mess with the boiling point of water by e.g. adding salt, changing the atmospheric pressure than it is to "mess with" math.
I don't know what you mean by "mental contexts vs. physical contexts".
But if I had some Dave Odden brew and wanted to be cute, I might say that if you added 2 (men)+2(women), nine months later you might have 6, not 4 people. Does that also work in "base 3 math"?
However whether you are brewing, basing, or boiling (or making babies) A is A.
Anyway, so much for Kant.
Fred Weiss
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...The essential point is that there is a fundamental difference between knowing truths such as 'A is A' or '2 + 2 = 4', and truths such as ' water boils at 100 degrees', namely that there is no observation, no matter how theoretically or arbitrary, that could ever possible contradict the former.
Just adding a bit to what Stephen has already said, I wonder what observation could contradict the known boiling temperature of water (whatever that is under specified conditions)?
The only observation I could think of was that your thermometer was broken.
But if you got 2+2=5, wouldn't you also assume your calculator was broken?
The only difference I can think of between the two is that 2+2=4 under any and all conditions whereas water might boil at different temperatures depending on conditions (I'm just assuming that's the case, but the physicists in the group can correct me if I'm wrong). However, I assume that if you knew the conditions and the conditions were such that water should boil at X temperature and it doesn't, you would consider that as odd as your calculator reading "5" when you hit 2+2. Wouldn't you?
After all, A is A, isn't it? Or does the Law of Identity not apply to the physical world but only to the purportedly "a priori mental constructs" in our brains?
Fred Weiss
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...Yes, but at what point do we know that all the facts are in? We know from history that our knowledge on all sorts of subjects changes, sometimes quite abruptly, and in a way that invalidates previous knowledge.
Actually what we know from history is that while knowledge changes, expands and/or becomes more precise, it is not invalidated. Knowledge is always subject to change. We learn more. But that doesn't necessarily invalidate what we previously knew. If some fact is discovered and properly verified to be true, we may learn more about it with future investigation. We might for example discover that it is only true in certain limited domains (for example Newton's Laws). But future knowledge doesn't contradict it. Einstein's theories for example do not contradict Newton. Which is why, despite the fact that we now know that Newton's Laws are inapplicable in a number of areas (such as sub-atomic particles), they are still applicable in others. And while future theories in physics may be needed to explain certain phenomena which Einstein's theories do not, they will not invalidate Einstein's theories. GPS satellites will not fall out of the sky if it is discovered that Einstein's theories cannot explain some strange new phenomena, anymore than buildings collapsed when it was discovered that Newton didn't explain some things.
When explorers discovered the Americas, some highly speculative theories (which as such could not be considered knowledge) were debunked but much of the knowledge remained valid and was simply expanded and got more precise with increasing exploration. Some of what Lewis and Clark may have said, based on flimsy evidence, was perhaps later invalidated but it was probably mostly a matter of much of it just being made more precise. Future explorers simply built on their work.
It cannot possibly be explained how civilization grew and how we got from oxcarts to spaceships without grasping that knowledge builds on knowledge, new knowledge in fact not invalidating previous knowledge but expanding it.
For more on this I suggest the section in OPAR where Peikoff discusses this issue and I would draw your attention in particular to his discussion of "blood types".
Once again, how many more facts do we need to get in to know for certain that the earth orbits the sun or that a cow can't jump over the moon? And actually, if you pause to think about it, we can fill shelves and shelves in libraries with comparable knowledge. Without that knowledge, how could we have gotten to the moon and back? Consider the magnitude of the knowledge, in many areas, that was required for such an undertaking. Certain knowledge, not mere guesswork. And if you need verification that it was certain, well, we did it, right? In fact, doing it added even more to our cornocopia of knowledge and certainty. Thus, off we went to Mars. And in future decades building on that knowledge, we may head even further out. Is this a picture of knowledge invalidating knowledge?
Once again I recommend the reading of this work by D.C. Stove which debunks the Hume/Popper view you are espousing:
http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/...per/popper.html
Fred Weiss
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The eradication of certain diseases, as well as the containment of contagious diseases, is one of the few things which I would say socialized health care has in its favour.
As compared to what?
Are you suggesting that under capitalism diseases wouldn't be eradicated or contagious diseases contained?
It is only because of capitalism and the Industrial Revolution it spawned that eradicating disease would ever have been possible!
There is no justification for socialized health care - or socialized anything. It accomplishes absolutely nothing that capitalism doesn't make possible in the first place and which would not be possible at all if capitalism did not exist. (If there were worldwide socialism, consistently applied, the world's economies would sink into total impoverishment and there would be massive worldwide famine).
Fred Weiss
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...she essentialized and compacted the enormous chain of thought that led her to what she wrote about.
Yes, that is exactly right.
One could always wish she had written more. But how much was she supposed to have done? Didn't she do enough? It wasn't enough that she solved "the problem of universals". She also had to write a treatise on the subject? It wasn't enough that she answered Kant. She also had to write a multi-volume, detailed critique? This on top of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged? On top of a half dozen volumes of philosophy covering ethics, politics, and aesthetics? Plus dozens of essays analyzing contemporary issues?
It is not that a great deal of additional work shouldn't be done in philosophy by Objectivists. It should. But Ayn Rand will have laid the foundation and shown the way. And the process has already begun - see OPAR as a major example. See the new work Peikoff is doing, as well as others.
Fred Weiss
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...Since a claim that is contextually certain can in fact turn out to be mistaken, “contextually certain” in effect boils down to probability, so the distinction is just a matter of semantics.
What is the probability - or the basis for any doubt whatever - that the earth orbits the sun, that a cow can't jump over the moon, or that the WTC was not destroyed and is still standing?
Just semantics?
Look, with the exception of knowledge which pertains to existence and our knowledge of it as such (axioms), all knowledge is contextual. All of it. No exceptions. What you are saying in effect is that since we are not omniscient and can't know everything, we can't know anything.
The irony is that the position you are upholding claims to be empirical and yet you deny the most evident fact of human knowledge, that we are absolutely certain of a great deal and that our knowledge is continually growing by leaps and bounds. How do you think civilization was built and that we got to the moon and back? Was it luck, chance, a miracle perhaps?
Fred Weiss
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But they all derive from the fact that reality is objective, and that our observations of it are valid. To say that the ideas have no obvious derivation from the self-evident starting points implies that any other creater of Objectivism would have reached different conclusions.
That's possible. Aristotle for example shared many of Objectivism's axiomatic principles but held a very different ethics and politics. I wouldn't be surprised assuming it were possible to sit down with Thomas Aquinas that he would agree with Objectivism's axioms - and he was a Christian!
How would you derive egoism or capitalism purely from the axioms?
Consider: it is axiomatic that reason is valid but it is not axiomatic nor does it follow that one should therefore always be rational. But such a view is inherent to the entire rest of Objectivism.
Fred Weiss
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I'm not sure I agree that the universe is "a-sizal." Consider, for example, a universe that consists of nothing but a yardstick. One could say that that universe was three feet long.
In what does the yardstick reside? What is beyond its boundaries?
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Btw, I believe Peikoff covers this in OPAR. Does he not?
Fred Weiss
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...If anyone is aware of some other common attacks against sense perception that take the form of a supposed illusion (not necessarily confined to visual), I am curious to what they are and why they are wrong.
Anything that constitutes an attack against sense perception, i.e. the validity of sense perception, must involve the "stolen concept" fallacy (because the validity of the senses is axiomatic). How would one know that a given sense perception is purportedly an illusion or false...except through sense perception which identifies that illusion?
So, in your example, how does the amputee know that he is experiencing an "illusory" sensation of his arm except for the fact that he can see that in fact he doesn't have an arm!
Incidentally, all sense perception, even of illusions, is correct and valid - that's the way that our senses process certain kinds of data, including the perception of illusions. For example, we perceive a stick as bent in water because of the refraction of light through water. There would be something decidely wrong if we didn't perceive it as bent! So the perception of it as bent is not incorrect or invalid. However should we then conclude, "Oh, I see, when you put a stick in water, it bends", that would be incorrect or invalid (which we could learn very quickly...and which we would learn of course through our senses).
Fred Weiss
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Mr. Weiss,
Your last post is tempting a great discussion, so what material should I read to best understand what you mean by "free will", "consciousness", etc.. We do seem to have some linguistic conflicts that causes the miscommunictaion, so I understand the need to research these topics before discussing them further in this forum.
Thanks for your time and patience,
conan
Again, I would suggest that you check out The Ayn Rand Institute website. I'm sure they offer a number of introductory materials on the philosophy, including I believe a lecture or even mini-course on the basics.
I agree with Ash that this Forum is not the proper vehicle for teaching those basics.
Fred Weiss
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Adrian and Mr. Weiss,
Thanks for your reply. You and Mr. Weiss are correct, I do not have a clear picture of what Ojectivism is claiming. Therefore, I will do my best to read up on what the core metaphysical beliefs of Objectivism are.
I just have one question for Mr.Weiss: Merriam-Webster defines arbitrary as "existing or coming about seemingly at random or by chance or ...(3b)" By definition you could have included abiogenesis in your list of "arbitrary" examples. Does it fit? Why or why not?
sincerely,
conan
I assume you brought up abiogensis because of this issue:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/
I don't agree however that evolution has been "random" - except to the extent that it has not been guided by any kind of "intelligent design" (and certainly not "god(s)"). The seemingly random occurences in nature - and in this instance, evolution - are in fact the result of perfectly natural forces and which, with increasing knowledge, we continue to gain an ever better understanding.
So to answer your question, no I don't consider evolution to be arbitrary. While there is a great deal about it which we are still learning, that evolution occured in some form is absolutely certain, i.e. the evidence for it is massive and overwhelming.
Fred Weiss
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My main argument was that we are rational and metaphysically independent by nature, even if we haven't developed to these points yet. I further argued that this means we should get rights anyway. The biggest problem is that if someone asked me why I thought this, I wouldn't have been able to answer them. I couldn't answer myself.
Yeah, I don't think that gets to the heart of the issue. The fetus is only potentially rational and independent. And in the focus on its purported rights what is overlooked is the rights and well-being of an actual rational and independent being: the mother - and the burden she is confronting assuming the fetus is unwanted. For religionists, who are the primary proponents of the alleged rights of fetuses, the rights of women are the last thing on their minds (and in more ways than one).
Fred Weiss
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From your very own position, free will is an axiom. If I cannot sense it as a self-evident truth, then no further analysis is warranted. I do not sense it as a self-evident truth, ...
You really mean to say that you cannot "sense" that you were not forced to say what you just said?
And if you were, it is meaningless and carries no weight - and therefore is utterly self-defeating.
That's what makes free will axiomatic - you cannot deny it without presupposing it.
It's really that simple.
Fred Weiss
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Sorry guys, you need to learn Hebrew first!
I tried once...but it was all Greek to me.
Fred Weiss
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On the question of free-will vs. determinism
in Metaphysics and Epistemology
Posted
As Betsy said, morality, and its presupposition "responsibility", presupposes free will.
I'm glad you at least implicitly agree that you have the choice.Honesty, and its presupposition that you have choice in your beliefs, presupposes free will. But once again I am glad to see that though you feel that something would easier for you, and you could lie, that you realize that you can choose something else and be honest instead.
Your choice. Err...it is your choice, isn't it? I mean, you are not just compelled by forces outside of your control to believe in determinism?If your character is not up to you, why should you or anyone bring it into question? It would just be, whatever it is and presumably there is nothing you can do about it. So why bring up the issue? You do think, don't you, that your character is up to you?
Fred Weiss