Fred Weiss
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Just finished writing a paper about the Intellectual Salons of the Enlightenment.
I'd be interested in seeing it. Could you post it here - or some version of it?
Fred Weiss
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Let's be more specific. Here is one version of the events leading to "The Trail of Tears".
Then let's also be specific about what was wrong with the notion of a "Cherokee nation". Note: "The Cherokee were also the only Indian nation to have their own constitution."
You seem to forget that we fought a bloody civil war just a few decades later to have "one nation".
But if it was inappropriate for one ethnic group within the United States to have its own constitution (can you imagine Italian-Americans having their own constitution?), it is telling that none of the other Indian tribes had even graduated to that level of civilization (actually I'm not even sure the info on that URL is correct because I seem to recall that the Iroquios had some kind of constitution).
That said, though acknowledging at the same time that I am no scholar of that history, the Cherokee appear to have been dealt with very unjustly. The proper solution doesn't seem to have ever been presented to them which was to assimilate. Also note that a less civilized country (cf. the Sudan now or the former Yugoslavia) would simply have exterminated them. In general, given the historical context (including the prejudices which existed toward non-whites), the Indians in North America were handled generally with a good deal of benevolence. (The Spanish were not nearly as kind.)
I'll just add as a footnote that what is omitted on that site is the fact that previously the Cherokee had been among the most aggressive and warlike of the native tribes. It also not mentioned that they practiced slavery and those slaves went with them on the "Trail of Tears". I doubt the Indian apologists particularly care if those slaves also cried along the way - though perhaps for different reasons. The Cherokee also fought on the side of the British during the American Revolution and were responsible for the massacre of many colonists.
Fred Weiss
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...So let's find out if this assumption is correct. I dare you all to stick to the same basic topic without straying off: Does it have rights?
You make it sound as if this issue hasn't already been covered. It has.
Once again, if you want to make an argument for fetus rights all you have to do is ignore the fact that it resides in a woman's body which is her property and dependent on her for its survival. What rights could it then have that did not conflict with hers? "Aynfan" attempted to argue that it was "invited", so therefore the woman has implicitly waived her rights. You apparently agree that's a specious argument. So what's left?
Fred Weiss
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...The problem that Objectivism must confront is the impossibilty of proving a universal negative. It is impossible to prove that immaterial reality does not exist. That does not mean it does. But what it does mean is that materialism/atheism is purely presuppositional. Moreover, dogma is not a product of reason. If you claim to champion reason, then you have to be intellectually honest and simply say you do nto believe in immaterial reality, but it is in the realm of possibility.
Objectivism entirely rejects this mode of reasoning.
The sheer fact that it may be impossible to "prove a negative" does not grant that negative any existential status whatever. If there is no valid evidence in support of a proposition, it renders it totally arbitrary and without any standing at all, i.e. it is simply dismissed out of hand.
In short, the sheer fact that one cannot disprove some notion or other of "god(s" does not make such a notion possible. It simply makes such a notion - and all similar ones, the whole array of nonsense now and throughout history, all the superstitions, ghosts, miracles, past lives, ESP, UFO's, alien visitations, and whatever other nonsense people choose to irrationally believe - totally and utterly arbitrary.
That said, it is extremely revealing that you would resort to such an argument because it is an implicit acknowledgement that you have nothing else of any substance to actually go on. So all you are left with is the extremely lame, "Well, you can't disprove it."
You know, by that reasoning, we should either convict or release (take your pick) everyone brought into court, since who knows, regardless of the evidence presented he still "might" or "might not" have committed the crime and no one ever can strictly disprove it otherwise.
In short, what you are confessing is the utter irrationalism at the root of religion.
Fred Weiss
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Mr. Weiss,
I am not sure exactly what you mean. Maybe you could clarify a bit. You seem to be saying that presuppositions are inherently circular. At any rate, presuppositions are presupposition reguardless as to how one arrives at them.
I was actually distinguishing between axioms and (arbitrary) presuppositions. Axioms are at the base of knowledge because one cannot deny them without affirming them (Aristotle). So, there is actually quite a difference as to how one arrives at them. And axioms, properly established, are not circular - in fact even the concept of "circularity" presupposes them.
Btw, Objectivism is not "materialist", if by that is meant a denial of consciousness or a reductionist view of consciousness which considers it necessarily physical and governed totally by the laws of physics. In fact, (the existence of) consciousness is one of the axioms of Objectivism - as is free will.
I believe that the Ayn Rand Institute website has some good primer material on the basics of Objectivism. Even if you are not inclined to read the basic texts in the corpus I would highly recommend that you familiarize yourself with those basics before venturing too much further into the Forum.
Fred Weiss
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...We have, for example, the capacity to be nourished by food. Is it rational to thwart that function by vomiting in order that the body conform to fashion standards. It seems to me, if one wants to be thin, he should limit his caloric intake.
Well, yeah, but then are you suggesting that vomiting violates the rights of the food in your stomach (which you invited in there)? Will you stop already with "taking the consequences of your acts" argument? It is completely irrelevant to this issue. Furthermore it is often not invited. What about rape? Are you going to say, "Oh, well, in that case....". But why? If the fetus has rights what difference should it make how it got there?
As for your repeatedly questioning "the mere fact" of birth as compared to the minute before, that "mere fact" is of enormous biological and psychological significance. It is not a "mere fact". Ask any mother. If you want a "mere fact", in a rational world with modern technology, removing a fetus is a "mere fact", i.e. a very safe and relatively painless procedure. Birth in contrast is not.
And Ash is correct. In the vast majority of instances, having an abortion of an unwanted child is the most moral thing to do. Actually, since many parents aren't really prepared for the burdens of raising children, psychologically or financially, it would be a very good thing if there were even more abortions than there are.
Fred Weiss
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...She might be surprised how many Catholic schools have Ayn Rand on their required reading list.
I did the grading one year for ARI for The Fountainhead Essay Contest and I was surprised at how many entries there were from Catholic schools.
Fred Weiss
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...I believe Mr. Weiss asked what casued the first cause, but that is paradoxial. A first cause by definition would be uncaused and not require a cause because it is not an effect.
Actually, I didn't ask "what caused the first cause" except as a polemic. I merely raised it to point out the invalidity of the question. Again, the notion of a "first cause" presupposes a point at which there is something preceded by...nothing, which is an impossibility ("something from nothing").
In reguards to an infinite regress of causes, Dr. Norm Geisler addresses this fairly well with his "Existenial Argument" (a variation of the cosmological argument).1.Things exist.
2. It is possible for those things to not exist.
Keep something in mind. You are addressing a forum of predominantly Aristotelian/Objectivists here, not Humeans. So we would not accept that it is possible that what exists did not have to exist,i.e. we would regard such an idea as a violation of the Law of Identity. If something exists, it must necessarily exist. Or, in other words, existence doesn't have free will. (This is apart from one unique exception, creations of man - since man does have free will. However, since we are talking about the purported creation of the universe, a bit before man comes on the scene I think we can safely leave ourselves out of the equation for the moment. Even by your reckoning, it took six days before we were made.
) Fred Weiss
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... In science a process of conjecture and refutation doesn’t seek to justify the logical status of induction. Rather, it seeks to test the predictive success of a generalisation.
That's true, but that's only saying that science is not philosophy. Science doesn't have to - and shouldn't have to - justify logic. That's the job of philosophy.
But the question you raised, the same question raised by others down through the ages - by both scientists and philosophers - is whether science gives us knowledge, real knowledge, i.e. certainty, not just conjectures or guesses.
What constitutes scientific knowledge, i.e. when can we claim that we've achieved it, is a legitimate question. However asking whether we can achieve it at all is not. Evaluating the results of a test may be complicated, but without knowledge, you would have no way of knowing what tests to perform, why those tests rather than some others (and presumably there are an endless number of possible tests you could perform), and what were your results. Regardless of what you might not yet know and are seeking to know, unless you know something, you couldn't even begin, nor could you get anywhere.
Fred Weiss
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One who lives life by accident is not a very admirable person.
What does that have to do with anything? We're not discussing whether abortion is or isn't admirable. However, even apart from the issue of rights - which is the primary issue - what you are refusing to acknowledge is that abortion often is the most rational choice for a woman. In some cases it may even be admirable if she has to stand up for herself in the face of parental or other pressures. In any event, whether it is or isn't, it is her choice and her right.
I'll just add in response to someone else's comment that it is entirely her choice and her right regardless of what miracles of technology might become possible in increasing the survivability of aborted fetuses. The fetus is her property and it is therefore totally her choice whether it lives or dies.
If we are talking about admirable choices, one such admirable choice might be for her to donate the fetus to medical research, especially stem cell research, which would be of great benefit to actual, not merely potential, human beings.
There is an underlying assumption in much of this debate that women's bodies are somehow community property and that they should be regarded as brood mares in the service of the human race. Women's rights are a relatively new and very rare phenomenon in human history and Objectivists, of all people, should be in the forefront of defending, not diminishing, them.
Fred Weiss
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...Like Plato and Aristotle, we all reason from certian presuppositions we hold.... However, a mature Christian will reason from presuppositions that are biblical...
You seem like an intelligent guy, so I assume you realize the circularity in that description. Taking the Bible as a given is an article of faith and precisely what is at issue (if one is attempting to defend Christianity). That is not the way Plato and Aristotle argued. Their presuppositions they regarded as basic to and inherent in thought itself, as preconditions, if you will, of all knowledge - and reflective of the way reality actually was, not merely because we happened to or wanted to believe it.
Fred Weiss
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Does a fetus come unbidden into the womb? From this you can infer that some thought should be given as to when a choice by the mother is a responsible one.
What difference does it make if the fetus doesn't have any rights?
And what's the "responsible" thing for a woman to do who has an unwanted pregnancy, regardless of the reason - suppose she even (horrors) succumbed to passion? Say she's sixteen and has neither the financial means or the maturity to raise a child? Or simply that she has other things to do with her life at this juncture? Suppose either she or her mate did use contraception but it failed?
Fred Weiss
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... Time and causality are definately of the natural universe, but that in no way justifies an infinite regress of causes.
If you assume a beginning or "first cause", what was before?
You are forced to assume that something came from nothing which is a logical impossibility.
Throwing in a "creator" at this point, to "solve the problem", only adds a totally arbitrary assumption into the argument and still leaves the question, then from whence did this creator come? If you say, well, it always existed, then why don't you have a metaphysical problem with that notion while you do have it for the universe?
Fred Weiss
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...There was an article at Mises.org that had a quote from a young Buckley saying that he way to beat the Soviet union was to copy it, implementing a draft and nationalizing industry. Unfortunately it's gone now.
Even for Buckley to advocate nationalizing industry would surprise me. Of course if "young" means 13, maybe...
On the other hand Buckley came from a generation of "conservatives" for whom anti-communism was the primary, not pro-liberty, so I wouldn't consider it entirely out of the question.However I'm pretty sure I correctly recall the very adult Buckley being a supporter of mandatory "national service" for young people.
Fred Weiss
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...Bucley disliked anyone who was not a blueblood patrician or who dared to enjoin him as an equal. His dislike of Rand rests on these points.
I rather doubt that.
The primary basis for his antagonism to AR was that she was an avowed atheist - and in that regard to him not much better than a communist.
In the review of Atlas which appeared in National Review, written by Whittaker Chambers (and which presumably Buckley endorsed), it was asserted that AR's views would lead to concentration camps.
Fred Weiss
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Fred you are simply wrong. I made no unjustifed accusatiuns, insulted no one and did not bring up the topic.
You didn't say?:
It still looks like you are trying to exempt Rand from a standard you want to apply to others. Is it wise to make Ayn Rand perfection incarnate. This tendency toward deification only servers to make Objectivism vulnerable to its critics. Despite her magnificent achievements, she was human and humans make mistakes.Fred Weiss
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I said that induction is a logically invalid procedure. That doesn’t invalidate knowledge of the external world, nor does it render the conclusions of deductive arguments invalid, merely more or less provisional.
Oh, but you have invalidated knowledge. If all you have is "provisional", what is that based on? If not knowledge, what? If it, too, is based on the provisional, you are in an infinite regress of guesses, never achieving knowledge.
You are in fact stealing the concept of "knowledge", using it while at the same time denying it. The concepts "guess", "provisional", "conjecture" presuppose the concept of "knowledge" and they are meaningless and baseless without it.
Incidentally, you have no way of judging when a view is "more or less" provisional, again without assuming the very knowledge you are denying is possible.
I highly recommend a book by D.C. Stove, which is available online and which demolishes the Karl Popper view you are espousing:
http://tinylink.com/?XGz2PMvN0X
Fred Weiss
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King County, Oregon officials are considering passing a law that will prohibit private land owners from using 65% percent of their land in order to preserve "natural vegetation."
It's hard to say for sure since the courts are so inconsistent on this issue, but I'd guess that such a law wouldn't survive a court challenge since it represents a blatant "taking" without compensation. One of the pro- property rights "public interest" law firms, such as the Institute for Justice, would very likely take the case and since apparently the law is so vague and almost impossible to define and thus enforce without arbitrariness, it would very likely be a "slam-dunk".
Fred Weiss
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... I find it difficult to digest the whole concept of music that is just there to provide you with a "joy of life", so to say. This is why I will oppose anyone who says "Happiness is just an end in itself...".
But note, if you are living the moral life Ayn Rand advocates and which you seem to uphold yourself, what are you likely going to experience in your life and/or what kind of view of life do you want affirmed if you are going through a period of struggle toward some worthy longer term goal. Isn't it joy? That's what the music expresses and that's what you will want to hear (just as you will want that affirmed in every aspect of your life).
But the expression of joy is its metaphysical statement. That's the power and essence of music that it can evoke those emotions.So let me ask my question again - what is the significance of tiddly-wink music in a man's life? What is the purpose of something that just gives you a feeling of joy without actually making any metaphysical statement of its own.I am also interested in understanding the psychological mechanism by which such music induces joy in a person. Also, if a person was rational, would he find joy in such music irrespective of who he was i.e. is the appreciation of such music a universal thing? Is there an objective standard by which such music can be judged (like there is an objective standard for judging art)?That's a separate question for which Objectivism doesn't have an answer. Aspects of it may also be more in the realm of psychology - even neurology - rather than philosophy.
Fred Weiss
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I suggest that before jumping into the middle of a complicated discussion, you take the time to read the entire thread, Fred.
I suggest that before you make unjustified accusations and insult many of the people on this forum, that you think more carefully about what you are saying.
If this discussion of AR's alleged "imperfections" is off topic, it is because you brought it up.
Fred Weiss
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This is rather patronizing; as I said to Fred, the issue isnt that 'fiction and philosophy shouldn't be mixed', but rather the style in which they were mixed. Consider works by people such as Sartre, Doestoyvsky, Kierkegaard, and countless others - these people managed to put their philosophies across in their fiction without using 100 page speeches.
These authors weren't presenting an entirely new philosophy and they weren't trying to explain the motivation behind an extraordinarily radical event which would amount to an enormous upheavel of a culture.
Incidentally, when I first read Atlas I skimmed the speeches just to get their gist. I knew I could always go back and read them more carefully at a future date. On subsequent readings I knew they could be read separately in For the New Intellectual - and in fact I had. But that is not an argument against their inclusion in the novel. Atlas can - and should - stand alone as its own story and its own statement - and I can just imagine what you'd say if it required a "companion volume" of speeches to accompany it.
Fred Weiss
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...You claim that induction is invalid. Since all of the premises for deductive arguments must ultimately be gotten by induction, that means that all knowledge is invalid.
I'd call that an epistemological knockout punch.
The fact that philosophers claim that valid deductive arguments can be made with totally arbitrary premises (which Objectivism rejects) doesn't effect your point. Even if one grants that assumption, so now they are left with arguments based on invalid premises leading to meaningless conclusions.
Fred Weiss
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... Even Ayn Rand herself worked as a waitress I believe (what a waste). The key thing is to hold on to your dreams - ...
It's even more dramatic than that. Although by that time she had been published and had earned some money from her writing, she really couldn't support herself from her writing until she had been in this country for over 15 years - with the publication of The Fountainhead. If anyone had reason to be discouraged, she did. Look at the cultural milieu in which she was writing - and with her ideas which went entirely against it. And then The Fountainhead proceeded to be rejected by I believe 15 publishers.
We tend to take her for granted in this respect, like she was some "force of nature" which just happened. Well, maybe she was a "force of nature" but she made it all happen with tremendous perserverance and hard work - and the exceptional courage of her convictions.
Fred Weiss
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... tiddly-wink music - you describe it like it is just there without any purpose, just to enjoy, with no necessity of linking it or integrating it into the course of a man's life. "Fun" and "light-heartedness" sound to me like generic, meaningless terms with no link to reality. I don't mean to offend you or anyone else, but I would appreciate you or anyone else helping me to understand this.
The enjoyment you get from any art, including music, and perhaps especially music is "an end in itself". It needs no further justification. It contributes to your happiness. That's entirely sufficient.
Keep in mind that you only "need" very little to survive. You don't "need" an attractive home, a garden, a comfortable, fancy car, expensive clothes you love to wear, a rare book collection, etc. But all of these things give you pleasure. If you can afford them, you don't have to justify them any further to yourself and certainly not to anyone else.
It is such things which make life worth living.
Objectivism is not some variant of Puritanism. It is a philosophy for living...for living on this earth and for getting the most enjoyment possible out of it. Which I might add should include having fun in as many of your endeavors as you can possibly can.
Fred Weiss
How Should An Objectivist Vote?
in Political Philosophy
Posted
What's Paul Soglin up to these days?
Around 1970, when he was head of the local SDS, I debated him on a panel in front of a throng of maybe 1,000 of his supporters. I left Madison in 1972 and I was quite surprised to learn that he then became mayor.
Btw, I was in Madison when they blew up the Math-Science Bldg. I actually heard the explosion. When I was studying for my Masters exams in my rooming house on Bassett St. (right across from the football stadium) the police were teargassing rioting students right outside my window!
Quite a period.
(We had formed a group, CDIR - Committee to Defend Individual Rights - to oppose the SDS. There were all of about a dozen of us but we got a lot of play way out of proportion to our numbers. I learned a lot from the experience.)
Fred Weiss