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Why did Rand view Kant as evil?

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I found this online article about Kant's life and his ideas which is easy to understand and is even entertaining:

http://www.philosophynow.org/issue49/49steinbauer.htm

The author is an admirer of Kant, so it's amazing how her presentation of his ideas is similar to Rand's, with the opposite evaluation.

Wow! And I sometimes hear that Ayn Rand misrepresented Kant. Here are some quotes from the article that summarizes Kant's principal ideas, just like Ayn Rand had written:

We need experience to acquire knowledge but process the information experience gives us through human faculties. No matter how hard we try, we are therefore never going to know what the world is like per se but only how it presents itself from a human perspective. The idea that our minds shape our world rather than vice versa was a significant reversal of what had previously been assumed – a ‘Copernican revolution’.

There they are--the denial of the mind's efficacy because it has identity and the primacy of consciousness all in one sentence. I never thought it could be this blatant from a Kantian.

Kant posits the human being as caught up in an insoluble tension: Wanting to know and yet by our very nature being unable to know. This is the dilemma which we see portrayed in Goethe’s Faust. Faust seeks knowledge with such passion that his insight that true human knowledge is impossible distresses him to the degree of contemplating suicide (and ultimately entering into a contract with the devil). It was a tension that the Idealist philosophers of the 19th century could not bear, hence for instance Hegel’s hope of overcoming in history by means of the dialectic. Kant, however, tells us that we have to live with this conflict, it is the human condition.

[bold mine]

Horrifying.

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There they are--the denial of the mind's efficacy because it has identity and the primacy of consciousness all in one sentence.  I never thought it could be this blatant from a Kantian.

Kant, you should note, would admit to denying reason access to things as they are; but what matters in life, he would say, are appearances. And he would take credit for answering David Hume's skepticism, thereby allowing us to find order amongst the appearances. Now, of course, Kant is wrong--yet I really can see, given the alleged problems posed by Hume, how a struggle to justify philosophy and natural science could lead Kant into thinking that he was actually rescuing reason and morality from attack.

Edited by danielshrugged
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Good intentions do not justify the means used to achieve them. I may have good intentions with your wallet, yet those good intentions do nothing to redeem the evil in taking your wallet against your will.

Kant may have had good intentions - answering Hume - yet his means of answering Hume was the attempt to plunge humanity back into the caves.

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Good intentions do not justify the means used to achieve them. I may have good intentions with your wallet, yet those good intentions do nothing to redeem the evil in taking your wallet against your will.

Kant may have had good intentions - answering Hume - yet his means of answering Hume was the attempt to plunge humanity back into the caves.

That's not entirely right. He thought, quite rightly, that Hume had plunged humanity back to the caves, and he thought, quite wrongly, that he had saved it (although it is possible that my judgment of his motivation can change as I gather more evidence). Still, I agree with you that good intentions do not justify Kant's philosophy, and Kant should have known better.

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On the issue of whether to study Kant or any other particular philosopher, I see three main choices:

1. PHILOSOPHY FOR REARDEN: Study just enough of the best one (here, Ayn Rand) to get the answers you need to the biggest philosophical puzzles in one's life. Ayn Rand's and Leonard Peikoff's comments on Kant or other philosophers are all you would need for earlier philosophies, unless you see a contradiction you believe is important enough to resolve through further study.

2. IN-BETWEEN: Study your own best source (Ayn Rand, here) directly for your own philosophy, and a combination of secondary comments and excerpts of the other original philosophers to get some experience with them -- at least, the most important ones. W. T. Jones, A History of Philosophy, in five volumes (you don't need to buy them all) is an excellent way to study particular philosophers, for this reason. The volume on Kant and the nineteenth century philosophers is superb for this purpose.

3. PHILOSOPHY FOR RAGNAR: Study all the major philosophers in enough depth to know at least the essentials of their philosophies. Only a person specializing in Kant could have enough time to read all of Kant's voluminous writings. No one, not even a specialist, would have time to read all the secondary sources in English and other languages.

The underlying principle is cognitive necessity: In order to reach your highest personal values, how much philosophy do you need to study and think about?

We live in a world of specialization and division of labor. No one can have direct knowledge of everything he needs to reach his highest values. It is okay and desirable to sometimes -- indeed, often -- rely on secondary sources you believe are trustworthy. But, the more important the issue is to the achievement of one's values, the more direct the knowledge should be.

(The distinction of philosophy for Rearden vs. philosophy for Ragnar comes in part from: Ayn Rand, a journal entry reproduced from June 20, 1958, in The Objectivist Forum, August 1984, p. 9. Betsy Speicher made this distinction clear to me many years ago, in another forum.)

Edited by BurgessLau
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Kant may have had good intentions - answering Hume - yet his means of answering Hume was the attempt to plunge humanity back into the caves.

What is the evidence -- from Kant's own writings -- that this was his intention, as suggested by the word "attempt"?

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I agree with Burgess that a regular non-philosophic person, even a student of Objectivism, does not need to study Kant in-depth, which is essentially what I said in one of my earlier posts in this thread.

However, what I object to is what people do sometimes, which is "discuss" Kant amongst themselves without ever having read anything by him, or about him. In such discussions, the particular bits of knowledge are not Kant's quotations, but Ayn Rand's quotations about Kant. This is what I referred to when I was talking about the blind leading the blind. My point is: if Kant is to be discussed, he has to be known about beforehand. Substituing Ayn Rand's judgment for one's own and proceeding to act on that as if that is one's own first-hand knowledge is not a proper means of discussion.

There's a distinction to be made between merely going at it Rearden-style, just learning the right philosophy, learning what philosophies to stay away from, and that's it - and - learning what philosophies to stay away from, and then "discussing them with others" as if they were actual first-hand knowledge. That latter situation happens often in newbie Objectivist circles, unfortunately.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Among all that you've been talking about Kant was a pioneer of Utilitarianism, and this is why he "created" the likes of Hitler and Stalin. A form of Altruism, Utilitarianism upholds the virtue "the greastest good to the greatest number" (which implies "by whatever means"). Sacrifice the few to the many. This is why Rand hated Kant.

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Among all that you've been talking about Kant was a pioneer of Utilitarianism, and this is why he "created" the likes of Hitler and Stalin.  A form of Altruism, Utilitarianism upholds the virtue "the greastest good to the greatest number" (which implies "by whatever means").  Sacrifice the few to the many.  This is why Rand hated Kant.

While I despise Kant's morality, he most certainly wasn't a Utilitarian. Kant believed that obedience to the moral law was a contextless moral absolute, regardless of any specific factors, such as what would make people happy. When presented with the argument that his system would imply that it was morally wrong to lie to a serial killer about the whereabouts of a person he wished to kill, Kant agreed that this followed from his beliefs and stated that telling the truth would indeed be the moral action.

For Kant's actual discussion of this topic, click here

Edited by Hal
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Among all that you've been talking about Kant was a pioneer of Utilitarianism [...]

Hal's analysis is right on target, based on the limited knowledge I have of Kant's ethics.

My interest in Kant's philosophy is very narrow: his view of reason and faith. That means I have been trying to focus on Critique of Pure Reason, in particular, so I have little knowledge of most of his other writings.

Acapier, I am puzzled by how you arrived at the idea that Kant was a pioneer of Utilitarianism. Which of Kant's writings led you to that conclusion?

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Acapier, I am puzzled by how you arrived at the idea that Kant was a pioneer of Utilitarianism. Which of Kant's writings led you to that conclusion?

Perhaps I'm mistaken then, but I thought I had studied that about him in a philosophy class. It could have been that we were discussing Kant's ideas about "Duty" and Utilitarianism in same time frame. I'll have to go back to those notes that made me think of it (if I even still have them). I remember, though, that I had never been too impressed with Kant from our first meeting.

Edit: I know what it was that had me confused, and now I feel slightly silly. Kantianism is the opposite of Utilitarianism, and that was why we were studying them at the same time; and it was David Hume who's a Utilitarian, which then of course explains Rand's views about him. My apologies.

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  • 1 month later...
Objectivism rejects both dichotomies,

Really? That seems strange, I can't see how this part of his philosophy can be controversial.

"A priori" means before observation, a posteriori means after observation. It should be common sense that we can know some things for sure without observing them (bachelors are unmarried) while some ideas need to be observed before knowing 100% (we'll get snow in the rocky mountains next week).

Is there something I am missing?

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"A priori" means before observation, a posteriori means after observation. It should be common sense that we can know some things for sure without observing them (bachelors are unmarried) while some ideas need to be observed before knowing 100% (we'll get snow in the rocky mountains next week).

(The following is my view, if you want the actual Objectivist angle then you should check out Peikoff's essay "The Analytic-Synthetic distinction" in "Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology")

The 2 statements you mentioned are different in form, but saying that one is known 'before observation' is misleading, to say the least. The problem becomes clearer when you look at mathematical truths: is '2+2=4' known before experience? Well, before the experience of what? Children are not born knowing that 2+2=4 - it is something they learn via their interactions with the world. True, you can say that when viewed as a formal system mathematics makes no appeal to the empirical world (this is apparent when considering non-Euclidean geometries for instance), but it is simply false to say that it is 'learned' or discovered in this way. When I want to teach a child arithmetic I do not explain '2+2=4' through appeals to set theory and formal logic - I will instead show him pictures of apples and the like.

A less confused (and more modern) way of stating the distinction would would be 'a priori truths are justified without appeal to experience', but it's unclear precisely what this means. Is there some clearly defined criteria which we can use to distinguish between a justification that appeals to experience and one which doesnt? Again, if someone doesnt understand '2+2=4', it is unlikely that set-theory is going to help - I will justify the statement by showing him what happens when we put apples together (and he will learn that it only has applications within a certain sphere of experiences when he observes that 2 drops of water combined with 2 drops of water does not yield 4 drops). Are we prepared to say that '2+2=4' wasnt capable of justification before the invention of modern logic and mathematical philosophy?

I would personally phrase the distinction as something like "some statements, such as 'bachelors are unmarried men' are true by trivial definition of the terms involved". But this only works for a small class of the statements which were traditionally deemed to be known 'a priori' - there are problems when applying it to most empirical concepts. Peikoff points this out in the "The Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy" essay: what aspects of water are "contained in its definition"? What is the criteria by which 'water is wet' is part of the definition of water, whereas 'water boils at 100 degrees' isnt? Arent we making a completely arbitrary decision here? If someone asked me what properties of 'being a cat' are essential to the definition of 'cat', I wouldnt know how reply - it isnt something that I've ever really thought about, nor is it something that I need to know in order to use and understand the word 'cat').

Edited by Hal
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Thanks for the response; I see what you're saying about arithmetic, and I know that that exact topic is a little controversial. But I can't see how the fact that some types of truths are hard to classify in this system leads to the belief that the whole concept of "known before observation" is misleading.

It is also true that it is a little but easier to teach children addition by demonstration than with set theory, but I don't think that means that arithmetic was not true "before observation". When you explain addition by putting apples together you'd try to emphasize that the numbers are not IN the apples; they are in a way independent from the things themselves. Since we can talk about numbers without talking about the things they belong to, they'd be true without actually seeing examples of 2's and 4's, although it would be harder to understand it that way.

What is the criteria by which 'water is wet' is part of the definition of water, whereas 'water boils at 100 degrees' isnt? Arent we making a completely arbitrary decision here?

I don't think there would be much of a difference between these two examples, since "100 degrees" is actually defined as "the temperature where water boils", such that both these terms would be true by definition, and therefore true a priori. We know that these statements will hold for water in Singapore, Cambodia, Oregon, the moon, everywhere (assuming air pressure is the same!), and that's what makes them true a priori. We don't have to travel around the world to check if it's true.

Statements like "the water in lake Michigan will be X degrees warm on September 24th" will in that case be an a posteriori truth, since the actual temperature of the water is not connected by the water itself by any definition.

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Thanks for the response; I see what you're saying about arithmetic, and I know that that exact topic is a little controversial. But I can't see how the fact that some types of truths are hard to classify in this system leads to the belief that the whole concept of "known before observation" is misleading.
It's not that "some" truths are hard to classify - it's difficult to think of ANY truth which could uncontroversially be classified as 'a priori'.

It is also true that it is a little but easier to teach children addition by demonstration than with set theory, but I don't think that means that arithmetic was not true "before observation"
Well, even if that were true, I dont think it would be relevant for the a priori distinction - the earth revolved round the sun before anyone realised, and yet this would still be called an empirical truth.

I dont deny that statements about mathematics are different from statements such as 'grass is green', but I do deny that this difference consists in being known (or justified) independent of experience.

Since we can talk about numbers without talking about the things they belong to, they'd be true without actually seeing examples of 2's and 4's, although it would be harder to understand it that way.
I think it's an interesting question whether it COULD be possible to understand arithmetic without ever seeing or picturing examples of 2's and 4's. It's hard to imagine what this understanding would consist of other than mindless symbol manipulation such as that carried out by a computer - we certainly wouldnt understand it in the sense we do now.

I don't think there would be much of a difference between these two examples, since "100 degrees" is actually defined as "the temperature where water boils"
Heh, fair enough, bad example on my part. Ok, take 'water boils at 100 degrees' versus 'water is h20'. Is 'water is h20' part of the definition of water? Well, part of who's definition? It certainly couldnt have been 500 years ago, yet people still spoke about water in the same way we do. Or take "man is a rational animal" versus "man has a liver" - what makes one feature an essential part of the definition here?

Could you give a definition of 'chair', 'car', or 'table' which contained the necessary and sufficient conditions required for something to fall under these concepts? Is there any reason to believe such conditions exist?

as such both these terms would be true by definition, and therefore true a priori. We know that these statements will hold for water in Singapore, Cambodia, Oregon, the moon, everywhere (assuming air pressure is the same!), and that's what makes them true a priori.
I think this is a dubious claim. Suppose that on a Putnam-style "Twin Earth" planet, there was a substance that resembled water in every single way (it looked like water, you could drink it, swim in it, etc etc), and yet it had a different chemical structure which caused it to boil at 150 degrees. Would we still call it water? We could say either "On Twin Earth, water boils at 150 degrees", or "On Twin Earth there is a substance just like water which looks just like water and yet boils at 150 degrees". There is uncertainty regarding what we would do, which makes the claim that 'water boils at 100 degrees is part of the definition of water' a bit dodgy. Edited by Hal
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Actually, I had forgotten that 100 degrees was defined in terms of water boiling when I made that post. Was I still uttering an a priori truth when I said that water boiled at 100 degrees? Consider someone who had never learned that 100 degrees was defined as the boiling point of water - would you say that his statement 'water boils at 100 degrees' was empirical, whereas you saying the exact same thing would be a priori (this is similar to how people couldnt talk about 'water being h20' 500 years ago)? Or imagine someone who didnt know that man was defined as 'rational animal' and could still use the word perfectly - is he making an a priori claim or an empirical one when he says "man is a rational animal"?

Who decides what is 'part of the definition' of words? Perhaps in animal biology, there is a precise definition of cat (I've no idea if there is) - lets pretend it is something suitably latin like "familius felinius catus". Does the fact that you dont know this definition affect your statements about cats? What makes their definition more 'correct' than yours, to the extent that it changes the epistemological status of these statements? If you read an a book on animal biology and discovered the scientific definition of cats, would you say that you had learned empirically that "cats are familius felinius catus" was an a priori truth?

Edited by Hal
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How can *anybody* even get any meaning whatsoever out of nonsensical passages like this.

The people say he is a brilliant man.

I ask, "Why do you think he is brilliant?"

They answer, "Because we cannot understand a word he says, therefore he must be brilliant as it is beyond our comprehension."

I say, "How can you call something that you don't understand anything but 'something you don't understand'? If you can't comprehend him, you cannot know that he is 'brilliant'".

There is silence.

:dough::rolleyes:

Edited by ann r kay
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1. To begin with, let's not forget that the Critique is a dated piece, written in another language. As I assume that most of us on here speak English, I think I can say this uncontroversially. German has a syntax that is different than English; 18th century German is different than modern German. Accordingly, when you read it (*IF* you read it) it will seem weird, pedantic, and difficult. All of this should be obvious, but it strikes at the heart of so many of the "difficult, obtuse, hard to read, etc." remarks. In my opinion, which is far from synoptic but is more informed than the average bear, he writes very much like ancient writers did: long, complex conditional sentences of a very thorough nature. (I say this not to brag, but if you read any ancient Greek philosophy in the original language, you will notice that a sentence can unproblematically go on for a page or more...if you've read Victor Hugo, one of Ayn Rand's literary heroes, you will notice this as well.)

It seems strange that there are posts on here that are essentially knocking Kant's ideas, not primarily for their inconsistency or incorrectness, but for their opacity. I'm no hardass, but it sounds a lot like whining to me. Yes, it's damn difficult, particularly the stuff after the Transcendental Aesthetic when he talks about the Transcendental Unity of Apperception. I had to read that at least 30 times. It's pretty damn easy to knock someone's ideas for their being unclear, because all you have to do is throw up your hands and say "I don't get it; it must be crap!" It's much harder to put aside hubris and just get to understand the guy on his own terms and then work out from there. If you, like Rand, have not at least read a secondary source about the book or the author, then you have *no* business criticizing it. There are plenty of them out there. Even though I can't stand Roger Scruton, his books are a pretty good place to start.

All the needlessly complex diction, the useless, vain neologisms, etc. that can be ascribed to Kant can just as easily be ascribed to Rand. Everytime I see something like "Rand's Razor", her supposed "innovative addition" to philosophy, I don't know whether to laugh or puke.

2. It was also written to solve particular problems that had arisen at the time in science and philosophy. *Of course* if we compare to modern views some of it sounds stupid, crazy or just plain wrong. Darwin happened; the transition from Euclidean to non-Euclidean geometry happened; Nietzsche happened; Rand happened. The first misconception is that it was written primarily to respond to Hume's skepticism - WRONG! That is but the tip of the iceberg. He was well-acquainted with the problems of a strict, thorough-going empiricism before he read Hume; the fact that Hume was an f'ing brilliant writer is what woke him out of his "dogmatic slumber" and made him miss his daily walk. It's an attempt to reconcile the ideas of Hume, Descartes, Leibniz, Wolff, Newton and others. For Chrissakes, look at the title: "Critique of PURE REASON" - the "Pure Reason" he had in mind was that of Descartes and Leibniz. In general, it had to do with general notions about the surety of our judgments about the world, why we perceive things the way we do, and - here's the kicker - why the arguments for the existence of God FAILED. Yes, he himself is motivated by a need to save his faith - but to say this pervades, destroys, and annihilates every other part of his philosophy needs more than a little examination. More importantly, what distinguishes him from other philosophers is precisely his willingness to cede some aspects of his religious faith to rationality. In fact, this is what got him in trouble: he was basically told to stop writing about his views by the King of Germany precisely because they undermined religion. In Chile, among other places, his book was banned because it left the question of God's existence up in the air. When Nietzsche said "God is Dead", echoing Max Stirner, one of the main reasons for this is that Kant had killed him! No, he is not an atheist, but on the other hand, most of the atheism I read today is at least twice as dogmatic as Kant would be about religion. Like Rand's for instance. And I would point out here that I'M AN ATHEIST.

3. Everyone, EVERYONE, including Nietzsche, gets hung up on this little phrase and its contrary - "the thing-in-itself" and "appearances", respectively. The only reason why I think that this is such an issue is because people psychologically associate two things with Rand's realism which lead them to condemn Kant's Idealism: A) they associate Idealism with a lack of tenacity or a sort of intellectual akrasia and :D they think that Realism is a sort of de facto epistemic point of view that is perverted by this weakness, or religion or something else. Needless to say, READ THE BOOK, and you will find that this distinction is NOTHING LIKE Rand conceived it in her various attacks on Kant in notes, articles, etc.

4. Kant's views have historically lead to subjectivisms of various sorts, but Kant himself was far from being one. He believed in objectivity, that the categories were what they were for all human thinkers. He was, of course, concerned with the subject, the thinker, but tell me what philosopher isn't. The reason why things went subjective is because, lo and behold, European anthropologists discovered tribes who lived in jungles, whose visibility was limited to a few feet in front of them, had a different perception of space than people who lived on plains did. That is, we found limits to his supposed objectivity. Yikes!

If we're going to get hung up on who started what historical chain of events that lead to certain intellectual points of view becoming fashionable, ask yourself one question - who is responsible for their being two mutually opposed camps that claim to carry on the intellectual heritage of Ayn Rand? Her, both of them, or David Kelley alone? More importantly, people influenced Kant - it's not like he's some historical singularity. Are we really going to say, like Karl Popper, that anti-liberalism starts with Heraclitus? Or do we take it all the way back to the gymnosophs of Diogenes Laertius?

5. Kant was a firm believer in democracy, particularly a republican form of it: rule of law, private property rights, limited government interference with business, etc. He in fact makes explicit reference to jurisprudence in the CPR.

6. Kant wrote many other far more interesting things, like "Critique of Judgment", which is, to some extent, a pre-Darwinian discussion about the role of design and purpose in nature. The CPR gets a lot of press because of its historical importance. In retrospect, it could have been much more easily spelled out. I have not read it, but from what I understand the "Prolegomena" was Kant's attempt to be better understood. (Maybe this is a good place for people to start...) What prevents him from doing this is the fact that Kant lived in 18th century Germany, with all it's pomp and circumstance, formality and personality, and I live in 21st century America which is crowded with concise, gifted philosophical writers that put their contemporary French (and some German) counterparts to shame.

7. I don't hold much sympathy for Kant's views. I am, for the most part, a realist and an atheist. The reason why I've been very polemical in the above paragraphs is because I think that it's a frigging intellectual travesty to criticize and trivialize views that one does not understand merely because they might conflict with an attitude. It is quite obvious that RAND DID IT ALL THE TIME AND SO DO HER FOLLOWERS. What's amazing is that she actually admits it! If you read "Philosophy: Who Needs It" she openly admits, in the beginning of one essay that she did not read "A Social Theory of Justice" (the John Rawls book) but then goes on to criticize it. What allows her to do this? From what I know, she had a superficial grasp on philosophy that, after awhile, was received solely from her circle.

I'm pretty sure that I won't be well-received. I always hope for the best, but Happy Hunting!

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Statements like "the water in lake Michigan will be X degrees warm on September 24th" will in that case be an a posteriori truth, since the actual temperature of the water is not connected by the water itself by any definition.

Yes, but the truth of that statement requires the study of the elements involved: namely, the temperature of the air and earth around the lake, the chemical properties of the water, etc. This is also true for a statement like "water boils at 100C at 1 atmosphere." It is true that this doesn't involve any particular geography, but it still requires experience to know (more experience, in fact, than the temperature of Lake Michigan). Once you have learned that water boils at 100C you can validate "water boils at 100C" without any further observation, but of course once you have learned that Lake Michigan is frozen right now, you can validate "Lake Michigan is frozen right now" without any further observation.

I think what you are trying to express is more like this: "water is H2O" vs "water boils at 100C". The first is part of the definition of water; the second is not. But a statement is about concepts, not definitions, and a concept means all of the things referred to by a concept, not just its defining characteristics.

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From what I know, she had a superficial grasp on philosophy that, after awhile, was received solely from her circle.
Rand went about presenting her philosophy in the most selfish way possible. She never payed lip service to other theories any more than was necessary to explain how they fitted in with her own views. In other words, she got to the point - something many "academics" today have great difficulty with. I for one am glad she didn't pander to meandering, exhaustive textbook standards.

Which of Rand's works have you read?

I'm pretty sure that I won't be well-received.

Whatever gave you that idea? :D

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Well, I'm sure that as a person who is not naive to the sorts of objections to Objectivism that there are out there, you are well acquainted with the "cult" label that has often been attached to it. I don't know if I necessarily agree with that diagnosis, but (I think) I see both sides of the issue - on the one hand, you have to stand up for what you, as an individual cognizer, think is true and just - I mean, what else can you do if you actually DO care about these things? More importantly, there are some people who *just don't get it* and it doesn't pay to argue with them or to see their way. Also, in order to understand the views of others, you may need to define them in terms of your own. This may indeed come off as being cultish or endemic somehow. It is definitely selfish, which is entirely in step with her philosophy.

On the other hand: it seems like intellectual virtues which I am in favor of cannot be taught. These virtues include things like thoroughness of presentation, open-mindedness (to a point), and accuracy in representing the views of a person you wish to critique OR agree with. After awhile, perhaps in the course of studying philosophy or any subject, they just simply become necessary to the activity itself to proceed further. Much like responsibility, they can only be encouraged, and that final connecting step is made not by the teacher, but by the learner him or herself, which is the point. The only thing I can do, really, to convince you that merely representing the views of others only in relation to your own is a vice is to explain how it won't pay off in the end, which is precisely something I can't (and won't) do. I don't really think you can go either way with this - you can't exhort someone to be selfish about this stuff any more than you can tell them to be open-minded. It's just something that you learn along the way and I'm sufficiently convinced from my own experience (this is the key word here) that it's intrinsically necessary to philosophy to do this, even if it isn't readily apparent from the beginning. It's obvious that misrepresenting the views of others or only representing them in relation to your own can pay off in the end, even it actually doesn't. I think the argument about "whether it pays" misses the point. The closest I can come is to say that IF you have a commitment to truth, then I think you are obligated to represent the views of others as well as you can, even if you do disagree with them. However, attempting to exhort you or anyone else on this issue is impossible.

Which of Rand's works have I read?

I have read "Philosophy: Who Needs It", "The Virtue of Selfishness", "The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (Peikoff's)", "Anthem", "Fountainhead", the book of marginalia that was released not too long ago, some of the Den Uyl and Dennis Rasmussen essays, lots of other books about her, favorable or not. I have a copy of "Atlas Shrugged" that I've been meaning to read, but I have plenty of other books in the way first. I also try to keep updated on each Institute's websites. I would like to go to a conference of some sort, to see what it's really all about, but I don't really have the time right now, as I am busy completing school. What I think is so great about Objectivists is that they are active and they are strongest at having taste, culture, and not being afraid to be intellectual, which are qualities that are hard to come by in the general populace. I find SOME of her ideas pretty refreshing, but the others are just plain wrong-headed and in some cases, morally reprehensible. I remember I read an Op-Ed that not only condoned but endorsed the torture of Iraqi personnel as the rationally selfish thing to do. This is no doubt true, but I have several pretty good reasons (which I don't think Objectivists would listen to) why this is a moral evil, none of which have anything to do with instrumental rationality.

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The only thing I can do, really, to convince you that merely representing the views of others only in relation to your own is a vice is to explain how it won't pay off in the end, which is precisely something I can't (and won't) do.
However, attempting to exhort you or anyone else on this issue is impossible.

Presumably you like typing for its own sake...

I have read "Philosophy: Who Needs It", "The Virtue of Selfishness", "The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (Peikoff's)", "Anthem", "Fountainhead", the book of marginalia that was released not too long ago, some of the Den Uyl and Dennis Rasmussen essays, lots of other books about her, favorable or not.

The reason I asked is because there is a passage in OPAR (Piekoff's book) that identifies precisely what is wrong with Kant's method of presenting ideas ("Concepts as Devices to Achieve Unit Economy"). To put his point in brief: all literary units must be within a certain range, otherwise they cannot be held by our perceptual faculty and retained as a single unit. If a sentence goes beyond a certain length then its author is either being deliberately obfuscatory, or has failed to abstract his ideas so as to present them in condensed form (as a result of a failure to think.) The way Kant writes is a manifestation of his anti-conceptual epistemology (and very likely his psycho-epistemology).

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Well, I type *enough* anyways, right? :) Or is it that I type too much with no point?

Okay, so I'm re-reading this and a few neat, concise, unit-economic points arise:

1. First off, if Peikoff is describing the psychology of short-term memory, as I think he is, then he is *factually* inaccurate in the third paragraph of that section. The normal range of "items" that one can store in short-term memory is from 5 to 9, not 6 to 8, with the average being 7. Go look that up in any introductory psychology book; this has been empirically tested many times.

2. Along with the above, IF he is talking about the psychology of short term memory, then the notion of a "unit" is itself in question. By a process called "chunking", we seem to be able to store more information if we break it up into larger pieces. For instance, if the series of numbers (which could be a code or a serial number, if you need to be practical about it) "176 820 592" could be read off as individual digits or 3 3-digit chunks. This itself has limits I would imagine, but they are not discussed in Peikoff's work. And this is if you buy the idea that the science of psychology is the end-all, be-all of explanations for mental stuff. I don't.

3. More importantly: so what? Are we going to complain because the meaning of a sentence is complex or requires more than one reading? What, because it stretches the limits of our cognitive capacity to read this stuff? If that's it, I honestly don't understand the issue here. Read the first part of the first post I wrote up there.

4. Philosophy is about the *connections* between ideas, some of which occur between my memory and a present state or occur across time in general, etc. That we have new instances of concepts or new items that we could potentially add to our instances of one is simple evidence of this. All of this requires that we necessarily move outside of one instance of directly awareness. Again, I don't see what the problem with this is. If we do actually do this, then the point of whether or not a given writer's works stretches our cognitive limits is moot.

In any case, I could go on and on, which probably wouldn't amuse you nearly as much as it would amuse me. Remember also - the fact that Kant does actually have all of the commas, subordinate clauses and weird grammatical construction is because we, you and I, read a translated version of it. This is what's in part responsible for its obfuscation, not his style.

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