Ask Dr. John Ridpath Questions

[DavidV]

Dr. John Ridpath is a well known historian and longtime Objectivist intellectual. He will be speaking in Dallas this Saturday and has offered to take advance questions. He does not make many public appearances anymore, so this will be a unique opportunity. If anyone has questions for him, I can ask him and post the replies here.

[Tenure]

On the subject of Individual Men vs The Collective Push, who would he say were the people that define the break from the Dark Ages to the Renaissance and why?

-Or-

Considering the pace and success of the anti-slavery movement, what can we learn from it, to apply to the furthering of Objectivism in the national culture?

[tps_fan]

(Partially following Tenure's lead...)

What would you consider to be the defining historical moments of the American Revolution _ideologically_? We hear so much about military campaigns (that is all well and good), but I consider that information to be critical though nevertheless secondary.... More to the point, what do Americans tend not to know about their history that would better point them to why the Founders were so ground-breaking?

Thanks.

[Robert J. Kolker]

On the subject of Individual Men vs The Collective Push, who would he say were the people that define the break from the Dark Ages to the Renaissance and why?

May I suggest -Aristotle's Children- by Richard E. Rubenstein. Aristotle's works, warts and all, had a catalytic and energizing effect on intellectual doings for over two millennia after Aristotle died. Rubenstein goes into some detail on how the middle ages morphed into the Renaissance and then onto modern times.

Bob Kolker

[KeathCole]

Where and when exactly is he speaking?

[softwareNerd]

Where and when exactly is he speaking?

This link should have more info. Also, check out the "Dallas" sub-forum in our "Local Forums" section.

[DarkWaters]

Hi GreedyCapitalist,

If you can ask Dr. Ridpath any of the questions below and relay the responses to me, I would be very appreciative.

1.) Dr. Ridpath, your lectures offer unique and sagacious insight on various important individuals in intellectual history. (e.g., on Nietzsche, Say, Weber, Rousseau, etc.) Do you plan on compiling this information into a book?

2.) Some Professors of philosophy often claim that Nietzsche's work, The Will to Power, was tainted with proto-Nazi ideology by his sister before it was posthumously released. Is this true? If so, to what extent does this exonerate Nietzsche for being an enemy of Individualism?

(background: I have read Dr. Ridpath's essays in The Objectivist Forum on Nietzsche but I have not yet listened to his lectures on the subject.)

3.) In academic circles, professors of economics appear to becoming more sympathetic towards free market ideas and less interested in Keynesian economics. Do you agree with this assessment? If so, what do you think are the driving intellectual forces behind this trend? How influential was Milton Friedman in this regard?

Edited October 9, 2007 by DarkWaters

[DavidV]

http://aynrand.meetup.com/71/calendar/5826174/

TOPICS:

"Ayn Rand vs. Friedrich Nietzsche in Current Culture"

-- Who is Friedrich Nietzsche and what is the essence of his philosophy?

-- How are Nietzsche's ideas influencing the collapse of civilization and culture?

-- How does Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism stand in opposition to Nietzsche and in support of civilization, freedom, and culture?

"Q&A re Objectivism and Ayn Rand"

[DavidV]

last chance for questions -we start in bit

[DarkWaters]

When I accumulate more money in the future, I might look into obtaining rights to have someone transcribe many of Dr. Ridpath's lectures on Intellectual History into a book. He really has some insightful and unique material that is extraordinarily valuable to supplementing the Objectivist theory of history. Perhaps the book could be called "Essays on Philosophy and Intellectual History."

Dr. Ridpath has informative lectures on:

• Thomas Hobbes
  
• Marxism
  
• The French and American Revolutions
  
• Protestantism and Capitalism
  
• Leninism
  
• The Repudiation of the Enlightenment
  
• Friedrich Nietzsche
  
• Adam Smith
  
• John Maynard Keynes
  
• Jean-Baptiste Say
  

He definitely has already left a nice legacy in the Objectivist community.

[Old Toad]

It was a true honor and a pleasure to host Dr. Ridpath. He was extremely personable and approachable. His presentation on Nietzsche was fully 2 hours, and he also addressed about a dozen advance written questions for nearly another 2 hours. He gave us an extraordinary amount of time.

I think we should be cautious to make sure that Dr. Ridpath's answers are relayed reasonably accurately. I did tell him that some of the questions came from this forum. Purely from my memory (as we did not record his presentation or the Q&A session and I did not take notes), his answers to the above questions were along the following lines:

Tenure:

On the subject of Individual Men vs The Collective Push, who would he say were the people that define the break from the Dark Ages to the Renaissance and why?

Aristotle, primarily, and as distant but historically significant second, Thomas Aquinas.

Considering the pace and success of the anti-slavery movement, what can we learn from it, to apply to the furthering of Objectivism in the national culture?

Assuming the question is referring to the American Civil War period, one lesson to take from this is that the evil of slavery should not have been allowed to remain after the American Revolution, the rectification of which was deferred to the Civil War, the bloodiest and costliest conflict in American History. What can we learn? Don’t compromise on rational principles.

tps_fan:

What would you consider to be the defining historical moments of the American Revolution "ideologically"? We hear so much about military campaigns (that is all well and good), but I consider that information to be critical though nevertheless secondary.... More to the point, what do Americans tend not to know about their history that would better point them to why the Founders were so ground-breaking?

John Locke’s publications in the years leading up to the American Revolution.

Dark Waters:

1.) Dr. Ridpath, your lectures offer unique and sagacious insight on various important individuals in intellectual history. (e.g., on Nietzsche, Say, Weber, Rousseau, etc.) Do you plan on compiling this information into a book?

He has thought about it, but does not have a definite answer.

2.) Some Professors of philosophy often claim that Nietzsche's work, The Will to Power, was tainted with proto-Nazi ideology by his sister before it was posthumously released. Is this true? If so, to what extent does this exonerate Nietzsche for being an enemy of Individualism?

Nietzsche was an enemy of individualism based on his prior works.

3.) In academic circles, professors of economics appear to becoming more sympathetic towards free market ideas and less interested in Keynesian economics. Do you agree with this assessment? If so, what do you think are the driving intellectual forces behind this trend? How influential was Milton Friedman in this regard?

Yes, he agrees with this assessment. I missed the answer on the second part, though.

If anyone else who attended would like to correct or clarify my summary recollections of his responses, that would be appreciated.

Edited October 14, 2007 by Old Toad

[DavidV]

I'll try to post my notes from the talk within a few days.

[Scott_Connery]

First, let me say that my wife and I were incredibly pleased with the quality and the quantity of the lecture (4 hours wow!) It was a real treat to listen to such an itelligent and articulate speaker.

3.) In academic circles, professors of economics appear to becoming more sympathetic towards free market ideas and less interested in Keynesian economics. Do you agree with this assessment? If so, what do you think are the driving intellectual forces behind this trend? How influential was Milton Friedman in this regard?

Yes, he agrees with this assessment. I missed the answer on the second part, though.

If anyone else who attended would like to correct or clarify my summary recollections of his responses, that would be appreciated.

From my memory, he cited the Austrians as more intellectually important, and said that Friedman's contributions as a charasmatic figurehead where more important than his school of thought.

[DarkWaters]

From my memory, he cited the Austrians as more intellectually important, and said that Friedman's contributions as a [charismatic] figurehead where more important than his school of thought.

This is interesting. Did Dr. Ridpath elaborate as to why the Austrians are more intellectually important? I know that the Austrians support a gold standard unlike the Chicagoans. Moreover, their Austrian business cycle theory seems pretty accurate. However, Milton Friedman seemed to be the driving intellectual force in convincing the economics avant garde that major stock market crashes, such as that in 1929, are typically caused by poor monetary policy from the Federal Reserve and not a failure of Capitalism. Von Mises and the Austrians also attempted to make a similar claim at the time of the Great Depression. However, the leading intellectuals at the time became more sold on Keynesian economics. Nevertheless, even presupposing that the Austrians had the best explanation*, they still were not that influential in having their ideas shape 20th century United States history. This seems analogous to how Thomas Aquinas is more important than Averroes in shaping intellectual history. Averroes might have had just as good of a grasp of the works of Aristotle, possibly even better, but Thomas Aquinas was ultimately the individual who persuaded western civilization to re-embrace Aristotelian thought.

Anyway, the example above might illustrate what Dr. Ridpath meant. That is, the Austrians might have better economic ideas, but Milton Friedman was more persuasive when it came to converting others to free market economics. I suppose it is also possible that Dr. Ridpath was predicting that the Austrians might have a greater long-term influence, despite the short-term successes of Milton Friedman. I am not sure.

In Mark Skousen's Vienna and Chicago: Friends or Foes? the author described the Austrian school as if they were Rationalists. That is, not concerned with corroborating their arguments from historical observation and instead focused on deriving theories about the morality and efficacy of free market economics from several axioms. To clarify, it sounded like this was the Austrian school starting with Ludwig Von Mises. Older Austrian economists such as Carl Menger and Eugene Bohm-Bawerk did not seem to have this problem.

On the other hand, Milton Friedman and the rest of the Chicago school would focus on corroborating their arguments with a wealth of examples from economic history. This was certainly true when I read three of his works: Capitalism and Freedom, Free to Choose and Money Mischief. In addition to providing numerous examples of U.S. government policy and economic effects since the 19th Century, Friedman would also provide examples from numerous other countries including England, Chile and Israel.

So even though the Austrian ideas of a gold standard and the Austrian Business Cycle seem to be more powerful theories, the general economic methodology used by the Chicago school seems to produce better arguments for the advantages, in terms of wealth creation, of free market capitalism. I suppose it is still unclear to my why the Austrians are more intellectually important then.

I know that several members of this forum know a lot more about economics than I do. That being said, I would be interested in hearing other assessments on the respective importance of each of the two aforementioned schools of free market economics.

*As a side note, I think that although the Austrians and the Chicagoans agree that they Federal Reserve triggered the crash of 1929, they strongly disagree on how the Fed managed to do so. If I am not mistaken, both the Austrian School and the Chicago School agreed that the Federal Reserve helped cause the 1929 crash, but the Chicagoans blame the initial deflationary policies of the Federal Reserve while the Austrians blamed the subsequent inflationary policies.

[softwareNerd]

Thanks for the notes David.

[Tenure]

David, this is fantastic! Thank you so much!

[DarkWaters]

Thanks David! These are very helpful.

I have one immediate question though. In Dr. Ridpath's response to the question on the acceptance of free-market economics, you notes indicate "The Austrians have more important things to say - see Stigler, etc."

However, George Stigler was a prominent Chicago economist. What did you mean by this? Did he just have nothing important to say compared to the Austrians?

Edited October 20, 2007 by DarkWaters

[Thomas M. Miovas Jr.]

I've attached my notes from the talk. The answers to your questions are on pages 4-7.

Thanks!

One can see from the notes outline that Nietzsche had an influence that has lead to modern politicians believing that they are immune from moral law -- or that because they have power, morality no longer applies to them, as if political power gives one power over existence per se.

I didn't realize Nietzsche used the word "quanta", did Dr. Ridpath imply that Nietzsche coined that term?

[Tenure]

David - I tried emailing Dr Ridpath on the attached email address, but it seems it's not working. Are you aware of another email address for him?

[DavidV]

David - I tried emailing Dr Ridpath on the attached email address, but it seems it's not working. Are you aware of another email address for him?

Sorry, it's jridpath ( at ) yorku.ca

However, George Stigler was a prominent Chicago economist. What did you mean by this? Did he just have nothing important to say compared to the Austrians?

I guess I did not catch what he said. Of course Austrian economists are not hard to find - see Mises, Böhm-Bawerk, Hayek, etc.

I didn't realize Nietzsche used the word "quanta", did Dr. Ridpath imply that Nietzsche coined that term?

I didn't find that out from the talk, but if you Google "Nietzsche quanta", you will get a ton of references to the “quanta of force” in the Will To Power.

[tps_fan]

Thank you for posting your notes, David. I haven't read FN's primary works. I've just seen a PBS documentary on his life, so it's great to compare that show with these notes.

I'm really surprised that Dr. Ridpath gave such a long lecture, so now I'm doubly jealous!

I think that it's great that you have provided a ready reference that so clearly illustrates how FN and AR are substantially different. There are a fair no. of people posting on the 'net these days who are trying to rationalize a strong connection between the two. (...and that's really not unlike the disservice that Chris Sciabarra provided with his attempt to tie AR to more common Russian intellectuals.)

There simply is no getting away from the fact that AR was one of a kind.

[DavidV]

It seems that my notes are too good. Todd has requested that I take them down until Dr. Ridpath approves making them available.

[Thomas M. Miovas Jr.]

I didn't find that out from the talk, but if you Google "Nietzsche quanta", you will get a ton of references to the “quanta of force” in the Will To Power.

I did do some research on the web, though I'm unsure if modern day quantum physics got it's name from Nietzsche or not. A similar issue comes up with regard to the modern term "energy" which seems to derive from Aristotle's term "energaea" which means "at workness." Though nobody seems to know if those modern day physics terms came from former philosophic terms.

At any rate, we have discussed the issue of epistemologically starting at observation versus epistemologically starting at the idea that material things are composed of atoms or quanta or metapuffs and then trying to deduce how we get free will and consciousness. Basically, if you start at the wrong place, one's conclusions will be disastrous -- i.e Nietzsche believing that everything we do comes about due to the quanta asserting their will to power and forming conglomerations that can assert the will to power more effectively. My readings on that theory of his and his assertion that there really aren't any entities confirmed for me that Miss Rand would have had nothing to do with his philosophy and that his philosophy is anti-individualism. So thanks for bringing it up in the notes.

Speaking of which, your notes were really just an outline, and unless you took it directly from an outline hand-out at the lecture, it is your property to do with as you please. Todd is simply blowing yet another opportunity to toot NTOS' horn. The quality and the informativeness of the major lectures should be primary selling points of NTOS. But I'm not a member, so you can take that advise or leave it.

[Old Toad]

Speaking of which, your notes were really just an outline, and unless you took it directly from an outline hand-out at the lecture, it is your property to do with as you please. Todd is simply blowing yet another opportunity to toot NTOS' horn. The quality and the informativeness of the major lectures should be primary selling points of NTOS. But I'm not a member, so you can take that advise or leave it.

The issue here is respect for Dr. Ridpath and his property.

Dr. Ridpath informed us at the lecture that he is writing a scholarly article on Nietzsche vs. Ayn Rand, which was the main subject of his lecture to the North Texas Objectivist Society ("NTOS"). I doubt he would want detailed notes of this lecture published months prior to his own article on the same subject.

I also think that Dr. Ridpath does have a property interest, i.e., copyright, in his lecture, including in the notes taken from the lecture. Notes of the lecture are not an independent creation of authorship by the note taker, but rather are copied from the speaker or at least substantively derived from the speaker. Observe that David properly attributed his notes to Dr. Ridpath. Also observe that publishing such notes could diminish the value Dr. Ridpath could obtain from giving the lecture to another audience or possibly the value of his forthcoming article.

Out of respect for Dr. Ridpath and his property, I think we should at least ask him before publishing detailed notes of his lecture. This is all I suggested to David. If Dr. Ridpath gives his permission to publish such notes from his lecture, that would be great.

I appreciate that Mr. Miovas thinks I should be promoting NTOS, but I think we should respect a speaker and his property in doing so.

Edited October 23, 2007 by Old Toad

[Thomas M. Miovas Jr.]

I also think that Dr. Ridpath does have a property interest, i.e., copyright, in his lecture, including in the notes taken from the lecture.

Of course Dr. Ridpath owns the lecture and the copyright to his lecture, which means that no one could record it and post it (or any substantial portion of it) to the Internet without his permission. However, I don't think copyrights extend to someone reporting on what the lecture was about. There are certainly cases where one would not want someone to report on what one presented in a lecture, but I think that would have to be mentioned beforehand -- i.e. no reporters are allowed. I can also understand the issue of not wanting to be misrepresented by a reporter, though it is the reporter who must take the responsibility of being accurate.

I had actually written a few paragraphs more on how to promote the NTOS lectures, but I decided it wasn't very selfish of me to do that so I decided not to include them.