Comprehensive Site on Philosophy/Objectivism

[Mimpy]

I was searching on Google about Francis Bacon's famous statement, "Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed," and the first site that came up was this one: http://www.importanceofphilosophy.com/

I started reading it and it sounded so much like Objectivism! I clicked on the main page and like I predicted, there was a quote from Ayn Rand. I have perused the site and it seems to be incredibly valuable. It features a lot of basic information on Objectivism and philosophy in general. It is pretty impressive. It covers all five branches and goes in depthy briefly for each of them. It is a great resource if you want to look something up quickly.

I've never seen this site before, so just thought I would share!

[DragonMaci]

Thanks a lot Mimpy. I will definately have to have a look at that site.

[LaszloWalrus]

It looks alright, though I would be wary of its David Kelley/TOC connection. (They link to his book.)

[intellectualammo]

It looks alright, though I would be wary of its David Kelley/TOC connection. (They link to his book.)

Also as soon as I linked to it, I immediately thought RoR, because of the look of it. Both writers in the copyright at the bottom of the page have articles posted on the RoR too. Actually Rowlands is the founder of RoR, which links to TOC/TAS, Kelley, Brandens, Sciabarra, etc. (even this forum)...

[Atlas51184]

There are a lot of websites out there claiming to be about Objectivism; few are any good. This site ranges from bad to superficial to merely OK. Here is an example:

A concept is formed by taking a number of similar entities and deciding what makes them similar in an important way. The differences and the unessential similarities are not important and are abstracted away from the newly created mental entity. Each concept serves a particular purpose and is created to allow higher-level thinking. People do not waste their time forming arbitrary concepts.

Concepts are organized based on "similarity." Duh. Is there a theory which denies this? This paragraph tells you nothing important about Objectivism. And of course the last sentence is just plain false; people "waste their time forming arbitrary concepts" all the time. Ever hear of "god!?"

Here is another:

Without an understanding of one's hierarchy of knowledge, it is possible to lose sight of some features of a concept. This seems to happen frequently in philosophy. This is how people can claim that they don't exist, or that reality doesn't. Since it is possible to ignore the foundation of an idea, it is possible to use it in a way that specifically contradicts the foundation. An example of this nonsense is people 'proving' that logic doesn't exist, when the concept 'proof' is derived from the concept logic.

"Without an understanding of one's hierarchy of knowledge, it is possible to lose sight of some features of a concept." What is that supposed to mean? Nothing else on the website explains it. And who has tried to prove that logic doesn't exist? What would that even mean, that logic doesn't exist? Someone might try to claim logic is wrong or outdated, but that it doesn't exist?

The whole site makes Objectivism look superficial. It's embarrassing. If you want to learn about philosophy, you should read something like W. T. Jones' A History of Philosophy. If you want to learn about Objectivist philosophy, you should study Rand's writing or OPAR, not random websites.

If you need to link people to info about Objectivism, best to send them to The Ayn Rand Lexicon. If you need to point someone to a brief summary, link them to one written by real philosophers.