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Introduction to Sebastien

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Hello everyone, my name is Sebastien.

I am well read in Ms. Rand's books, but I bring something new to her philosophy, which is a transition from Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit to The Objectivist Ethics.

Let me know if you want to know how the two are connected. It's very exciting!

Nice to be part of this forum! I wish everyone well.

Sincerely, Sebastien

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Thanks Boydstun and William O.

Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit presents a progression of historical attempts to secure stable truth.

What Hegel argues is that each historical attempt is unstable because it tries to secure an object of consciousness as object.

When Hegel gets to absolute knowing, we discover that the Self (The I) is the only really stable object of knowledge. We find out that what we were trying to secure, an object of knowledge, is only stable when mediated by the self.

It takes some skill to make this compatible with Objectivism, but here's my attempt.

If the self is a stable object, this is a good starting point for arguing that self-interest is also a stable object.

Hegel is not a subjectivist. He doesn't say there is no object. He says that the object lacks self-subsistence, that it is what it is largely through the I.

This is moderately compatible with Objectivism because Ms. Rand says that reality is neither subjective nor objective, but is both at the same time.

In the first essay from Capitalism the Unknown Ideal, she says that an airplane is objectively superior to a bicycle. But there is no need for a man to pay for an airplane if the range his transportation needs are entirely fulfilled by the bicycle.

Therefor the objective superiority of the airplane is only realized through those who use the airplane, not the bicycle.

So reality has an objective aspect and a subjective aspect, and the subjective aspect, the aspect of the I, is important.

There are other examples.

Let me know if I need more examples to make this point more solid.

 

 

 

 

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