425 Posted January 29, 2013 Report Share Posted January 29, 2013 I registered here a few months ago, but I never got around to posting because I felt like a lot of the discussions on this forum are somewhat above my intellectual ability at that point. I still am not sure exactly how competent I am in philosophy, and I have a lot of reading to do, but I saw a post I felt I could respond to today, and now that I've made a post, I thought I should come back here and make a more formal introduction. I am currently 16 years old and am a high school junior, unfortunately in the International Baccalaureate program (an organization hopelessly devoted to moral and cultural relativism, I learned the other day in "Theory of Knowledge and Mathematics" that if people using a "different math" said that 2 + 2 = 5, they aren't necessarily wrong). I can't really remember a time when I wasn't thinking about philosophy, at least in a very rudimentary sense. Though I never really believed in a god, in middle school I became essentially Buddhist, but in a very altruist-collectivist way (i.e., metaphysics involving a "universal force", ethics of altruism as consistently as possible, far left-wing politics). Fortunately, as a person who somehow held into a fairly rational epistemology (maybe due to having been educated in a Montessori school through 8th grade), I eventually saw the insanity of this (interestingly, one factor might have been becoming interested in girls and seeing romantic relationships as being incompatible with altruism. I was an oddly consistent altruist, which is why, of course, I stopped being one). Recalling a book I had enjoyed reading in 8th grade called Anthem, I picked up Atlas Shrugged halfway through 9th grade and have been studying Objectivism ever since. I have read Virtue of Selfishness, The Anti-Industrial Revolution and parts of The Romantic Manifesto. I am currently working on Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal and Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. Though this may not seem like a lot for 2 years' time, school is very time consuming and I have been learning a lot through reading objectivist forums, mostly this one. I feel like I have a fairly good grasp on the philosophy, though perhaps not some of the more technical aspects of epistemology. I've also recently been improving my social skills, which could formerly be described only as atrocious. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SapereAude Posted January 30, 2013 Report Share Posted January 30, 2013 Hello, nice to meet you. Glad you decided to post. Please let me know if I can be of assistance in navigating the forums. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
softwareNerd Posted January 30, 2013 Report Share Posted January 30, 2013 Welcome to the forum. Feel free to post on any topic that interests you and that you wish to explore, even if it is not directly about philosophy. Members here are opinionated, if anything. So, you're likely to get fodder for thought in answer to anything you post. Have you read about any other philosophies? Any others that you find interesting? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
425 Posted February 1, 2013 Author Report Share Posted February 1, 2013 I've not really read any other philosophies, though I am interested in reading the works of some of the Austrian economists like Ludwig Von Mises and FA Hayek, which I plan to do in the near future. So if those libertarian works would be considered another philosophy, then I would be interested in that one, but I think that they mostly stay in the realm of political philosophy and have near-identical principles in that realm to Objectivism. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
softwareNerd Posted February 1, 2013 Report Share Posted February 1, 2013 I've not really read any other philosophies, though I am interested in reading the works of some of the Austrian economists like Ludwig Von Mises and FA Hayek, which I plan to do in the near future.If philosophy interests you, I'd recommend reading and introductory text that explains what some major philosophers thought about life, meaning, happiness, morality, etc. There are even some free works available on Gutenberg. This is an example of a text that talks about Plato, Aristotle, Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Christianity. There are others, for example that give brief introductions for world religions, or some that touch on the major eastern philosophies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thenelli01 Posted February 1, 2013 Report Share Posted February 1, 2013 Interesting that you went to a Montessori school as your level of knowledge seems to be way beyond most people your age. (Ask the average 16 year old what epistemology means, or better yet the average 40 year old). Enjoy the forums and welcome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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