Are there differences between Wittgenstein & Rand?

Questions about Objectivism
1

I was describing Objectivism to a friend of mine–who has a philosophy degree–and he said that it seems to be pretty much Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (what a clunky title, heh), which he apparently repudiated later. Unfortunately, I’m a philosophy dilettante–engineer, actually–and I’m pretty much totally in the dark insofar as this man and his philsophy. I tried looking online for a comparison between TLP and Objectivism, but I didn’t find anything really informative. The aforementioned philosopher friend has no knowledge of Rand, either, and he doesn’t have the time to read the books, so, well…

Can somebody explain to me the differences here?

2

Whenever I explained some of Rand’s ideas to a philosophy major, his instinct would be to say it’s just like this or that philosopher. This is always a very superficial comparison, and usually when I interrogate them about it they come to understand the huge differences…

However, I know nothing about Wittgenstein’s Logico-Philosophicus… sorry.

3

They are nothing alike, Treylis. Witttgenstein is your typical mish-mash of awful ideas which is apparent if you do so much as flip through the Tractatus; it is simply a collection of arbitrary, rationalistic “propositions” in no particular order. There really is no way to compare a rational, consistent and true philosophy (Objectivism) with a heap of nonsense (the Tractatus).

You will be very hard pressed to get someone with a philosophy degree to actually comprehend some portion of Objectivism. The fact that your friend compared Ayn Rand with Ludwig Wittgenstein shows that he has absolutely no grasp of Objectivism. I have known many philosophy students and I have yet to meet one that could grasp a single principle from Objectivism. Many of them were decent human beings it’s just that they have rendered their minds unable to approach ideas in any kind of rational manner. Tragic really…

4

It would be interesting to know which similarities he mentioned, but there is nothing of major significance that I would say they had in common. If he hadn’t actually read any Objectivist works and was relying solely upon your description of the philosophy, then perhaps you over-emphasized the parts that might relate it to logical positivism (such as the rejection of speculative metaphysics, and the emphasis on sense-perception and reason as the sole basis of knowledge)?

You will be very hard pressed to get someone with a philosophy degree to actually comprehend some portion of Objectivism. The fact that your friend compared Ayn Rand with Ludwig Wittgenstein shows that he has absolutely no grasp of Objectivism. I have known many philosophy students and I have yet to meet one that could grasp a single principle from Objectivism. Many of them were decent human beings it’s just that they have rendered their minds unable to approach ideas in any kind of rational manner. Tragic really…

In my experience, the biggest problem philosophy students have with Objectivism is the complete absence of anything approaching academic rigour in any of the major works. When you’re used to the reading the kind of philosophy contained in the writings of people like Kant or Quine, it takes some adjusting to get used to the style of Rand/Peikoff, who generally pay very little attention to addressing opposing arguments and sprinkle ad hominems throughout their writings.

5

Rand/Peikoff sprinkle ad hominems?

6

In my experience, the biggest problem philosophy students have with Objectivism is the complete absence of anything approaching academic rigour in any of the major works.

You bet! Except for “A is A” she never expresses anything in symbolic form, never uses Greek letters, nor does she have more footnotes than text.

When you’re used to the reading the kind of philosophy contained in the writings of people like Kant or Quine, it takes some adjusting to get used to the style of Rand/Peikoff, who generally pay very little attention to addressing opposing arguments and sprinkle ad hominems throughout their writings.

They’re not ad hominems. They’re evaluations which modern philosophers dismiss as subjective and unprovable. Objectivists constantly go around labelling ideas as “good” or “bad” and “true” or “false” which modern philosophy gave up on long ago in favor of ideas which are “interesting” or “uninteresting.” Any talk about observation, facts, values, and reality are dismissed as “uninteresting.”

7

You bet!  Except for “A is A” she never expresses anything in symbolic form, never uses Greek letters, nor does she have more footnotes than text.

I was more referring to the 'highly questionable and controversial interpretations of other philosophers with no textual references given to support the claims made" parts. There’s also the general reluctance to actually address counter-arguments - IOE is a perfect example of this. I found the main text to be a bit shallow, and she seemed to skirt around anything that could have proved problematic for her theory. There was no real attempt made to discuss the issues that I think most people with an epistemological background would expect to find discussed - she didn’t really try to explain how her theory would handle many of the major questions that have traditionally been posed in epistemology. I cannot understand why this is - in the appendix she addresses objections in an excellent manner, and her answers are very enlightening in many cases (I personally consider this appendix to be one of the best things I’ve ever read by Rand - it’s hard to overstate how brilliant I found it to be). I’ve no idea why half of the material from the appendix wasnt included in the main text - she HAD the answers in many cases, why werent they considered worthy of inclusion?

They’re not ad hominems. They’re evaluations which modern philosophers dismiss as subjective and unprovable. Objectivists constantly go around labelling ideas as “good” or “bad” and “true” or “false” which modern philosophy gave up on long ago in favor of ideas which are “interesting” or "uninteresting.

I’ve no objection to the labelling of X as evil after discussing the arguments, it’s more the sort of snide remarks made with no real attempt to back them up that I’m talking about (“Look at what Bertrand Russell got away with because people thought they kinda knew what a number was” [iOE], “this book is primarilly aimed at human beings including any professional philosophers that qualify” [OPAR], “Wittgenstein is a clear example of fuzzy thinking” [iOE], etc etc)

Any talk about observation, facts, values, and reality are dismissed as “uninteresting.”

Yeah, this is the kind of thing I’m talking about. Exactly which mainstream philosophers dismiss talk of “observations, facts and reality” as being ‘uninteresting’? Obviously you wrote that as an offhand comment on an internet message board so its not like I’m going to expect you to provide footnotes justifying it or anything, but its the kind of sentence that Rand actually includes in her works of philosophy.

8

There’s also the general reluctance to actually address counter-arguments  - IOE is a perfect example of this.

How do you know this was due to “reluctance?” A more charitable – and reasonable – explanation is that she simply wanted to introduce her theories, and not to compare and/or debate them. Observe that the title of the book is Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology.

I found the main text to be a bit shallow, and she seemed to skirt around anything that could have proved problematic for her theory. There was no real attempt made to discuss the issues that I think most people with an epistemological background would expect to find discussed - she didn’t really try to explain how her theory would handle many of the major questions that have traditionally been posed in epistemology.

It was an introduction.

I cannot understand why this is - in the appendix she addresses objections in an excellent manner, and her answers are very enlightening in many cases (I personally consider this appendix to be one of the best things I’ve ever read by Rand - it’s hard to overstate how brilliant I found it to be). I’ve no idea why half of the material from the appendix wasnt included in the main text - she HAD the answers in many cases, why werent they considered worthy of inclusion?

ItOE was written and published first in The Objectivist in a multipart series. Later it was published as a separate volume and was the First Edition of ItOE. Several years later she held seminars for some professional philosophers and at least one physicist and it was from the recordings of these seminars that Dr. Binswanger prepared the Appendix which appears, for the first time, in the “Expanded Second Edition.”

They’re not ad hominems. They’re evaluations which modern philosophers dismiss as subjective and unprovable. Objectivists constantly go around labelling ideas as “good” or “bad” and “true” or “false” which modern philosophy gave up on long ago in favor of ideas which are “interesting” or "uninteresting.

Yeah, this is the kind of thing I’m talking about. Exactly which mainstream philosophers dismiss talk of “observations, facts and reality” as being ‘uninteresting’? Obviously you wrote that as an offhand comment on an internet message board so its not like I’m going to expect you to provide footnotes justifying it or anything, but its the kind of sentence that Rand actually includes in her works of philosophy.

I was referring to many of my Philosophy professors (I was a Philosophy major) at the University of Pennsylvania as well as some of the characters who claim to be professional philosophers that I have met and debated with on the UseNet newsgroup humanities.philosophy.objectivism.

9

How do you know this was due to “reluctance?”  A more charitable – and reasonable – explanation is that she simply wanted to introduce her theories, and not to compare and/or debate them.  Observe that the title of the book is Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology.

It may have been intended to simply be an introduction (as she states explicitly in the preface), but since she never actually published a proper treatise on epistemology, it now stands as being pretty much her final word on the subject. I suspect that this plays a fairly large role in why a lot of philosophy students have problems taking her ideas on epistemology seriously; when someone asks to be presented with the Objectivist epistemology, I would assume they are expecting a fairly comprehensive summary, rather than a short outline that doesnt actually address the questions they were hoping to find answered (I’m partially referring to myself here actually - I disliked IOE upon first reading it for the reasons I have mentioned, and thought that the Objectivist theory of knowledge was fairly rudimentary and shallow. It’s only recently that I’ve started to reevaluate it, as a direct result of posts I’ve read both here and on h.p.o by people such as yourself and DPW).

On a semi-related note, you wouldnt happen to know if it’s possible to obtain a complete transcript of the Q&A session from the appendix do you?

ItOE  was written and published first in The Objectivist in a multipart series.  Later it was published as a separate volume and was the First Edition of ItOE.  Several years later she held seminars for some professional philosophers and at least one physicist and it was from the recordings of these seminars that Dr. Binswanger prepared the Appendix which appears, for the first time, in the “Expanded Second Edition.” 

I wasnt meaning why wasnt the appendix itself attached to the published work, but rather why the ideas discussed in it werent mentioned in the main text. Some of the ideas she discusses in the appendix seem at least as fundamental to her epistemology as her idea of concepts - certainly I wasnt able to fully grasp IOE without the context provided by the appendix work (for example the idea of contextualism, which seems to be central to her epistemology, if not its most fundamental principle, is rarely touched upon in IOE other than in the context of definitions, if I recall correctly). I suppose it makes sense if you bear in mind she only intended it as an introduction, but I would have expected her to actually publish something else at some point. Oh well, at least OPAR goes someway towards fixing the problem.

10

On a semi-related note, you wouldnt happen to know if it’s possible to obtain a complete transcript of the Q&A session from the appendix do you?

I’m sure whatever exists is in the Ayn Rand Archives. Contact the Ayn Rand Institute.

11

Yeah, this is the kind of thing I’m talking about. Exactly which mainstream philosophers dismiss talk of “observations, facts and reality” as being ‘uninteresting’? Obviously you wrote that as an offhand comment on an internet message board so its not like I’m going to expect you to provide footnotes justifying it or anything, but its the kind of sentence that Rand actually includes in her works of philosophy.

You know, for someone who thinks that Ayn Rand’s writing in the main part of ITOE is “a bit shallow,” you are remarkably ignorant. You have consistently made shallow and ignorant assertions in thread after thread, and when confronted with facts you just slither away and start again anew in another thread. Two recent examples come to mind in my own interchanges with you; in the “Concepts Of Method Vs Actual Existents” thread where you demonstrated your ignorance of mathematics and science while simultaneously criticizing Ayn Rand, and in the “Absolute Belief” thread where you demonstrated your ignorance of the history of philosophy and of Kant.

Anyway, with just a little effort I could provide dozens of examples that support the view of “observations, facts, and reality” that you criticize Ayn Rand for not documenting the way you would like. For someone so critical of the genius of Ayn Rand one might think that you might have some awareness and knowledge of the subject, and perhaps be able to fill in the blanks yourself. I will not take the time to do so for you, but quite coincidentally I happened to be doing some research on J. R. Lucas and was in the process of reading a paper of his in The Philosophical Quarterly, a paper that provides too beautiful an example to withold from you. Here is a partial quote:

“We think too much of facts as hard, brute facts, existing independently of us and ineluctable, as things that are what they are, and whose consequences will be what they will be, and about which we must not seek to be deceived. Having hypothesized them, we bow down to them, and prostrate ourselves before them. It is unnecessary. It is impossible. Facts are not sacred: they are not worth worshipping: they do not exist: they are not even things.”

The Philosophical Quarterly, J.R. Lucas, V. 8. No. 31, pp. 144-156, 1958.

If you are going to be critical of a genius like Ayn Rand, it is best to do so from the standpoint of knowledge, not from the standpoint of abject ignorance.

12

I just want to make two points about how Objectivists write and why this is the right way to write.

  1. Knowledge is objective; it is a matter between your mind and reality. One does not gain an understanding of an idea by answering objections and considering opposing viewpoints. This is pure second-handedness.

Ayn Rand knew that she was right and this gave her the conviction to write directly to your understanding of reality. She gives the facts and nothing but the facts. I, for one, find this manner of writing to be extremely engaging for the simple fact that it sets my mind in focus and gets me asking questions. In the style of modern scholarship, you are taken by the hand and led step-by-step through each and every possible objection. Not only is this exhausting, it is pointless and it makes me feel like someone is trying to take over my mind.

  1. A good writer must heed the crow (see IToE Chapter 7). Being fundamentally aware of this need, Objectivists condense a plethora of observations into a few simple sentences or–if they are exceptional–a single principle. There is so much information contained in a book like IToE that readers would be mentally drowned were they led to confront every minutiae of every little detail. Of course Ayn Rand considered all of these details in formulating her epistemology but she understood that it would be disastrous to present all of this background to you. Instead, she essentialized and compacted the enormous chain of thought that led her to what she wrote about. She is the supreme example of a cognitively observant writer.

As an exercise/example, read the Tractatus and observe how it fundamentally violates each of my points and how this hinders your mind (not to mention the fact that it’s total nonsense).

13

You know, for someone who thinks that Ayn Rand’s writing in the main part of ITOE is “a bit shallow,” you are remarkably ignorant. You have consistently made shallow and ignorant assertions in thread after thread, and when confronted with facts you just slither away and start again anew in another thread. Two recent examples come to mind in my own interchanges with you; in the “Concepts Of Method Vs Actual Existents” thread where you demonstrated your ignorance of mathematics and science while simultaneously criticizing Ayn Rand, and in the “Absolute Belief” thread where you demonstrated your ignorance of the history of philosophy and of Kant.

‘Slither away’? In the Concept of Method thread I asked a question and you answered it; exactly what else are you expecting me to add to the thread? I suppose I could (maybe should?) have replied with a ‘thank you’, but I didnt feel it to be necessary on a forum of this kind. The “Absolute Belief” thread is one I haven’t got around to replying to yet (same with the “Circular Time” thread) - I feel no compulsion to reply to every thread involving me whenever I come to the forum, and I would rather leave replying until I’m in a frame of mind where I feel I can write something semi-decent, rather than just giving a blithe, half-hearted reply because I feel I should. If it somehow offends you that I leave a few days gap in between my replies then this is your problem, not mine.

On a side note, it would be interesting if you would point out where you think I ‘simultaneously criticized Ayn Rand’ in the threads you mentioned, considering that I neither mentioned nor alluded to her in either one. If you’re meaning that I ‘simultaneously criticized her in this thread’ then I would ask you to note the rather significant difference of context between me posting things on the internet while attempting to learn, and what Rand actually writes in her published works of phiosophy. I don’t think I’ve ever ‘criticized Ayn Rand’ in any of my posts on this forum (unless disagreement with some point can be considered a criticism) other than in this thread, where I was making specific assertions regarding her writing style and manner of presentation.

Anyway, with just a little effort I could provide dozens of examples that support the view of “observations, facts, and reality” that you criticize Ayn Rand for not documenting the way you would like.

I’ve no doubt that you could, however this misses the point. The issue wasnt whether the assertion is true, but whether it should be included in a published work of phiosophy with no attempt made to back it up. Generally if you are asserting something which your readers are likely to find controversial, its expected for you to actually give evidence for this. If you arent prepared to do so, the assertion should not be made.

“Modern philosophers” are a fairly diverse group, and it with a few exceptions it would be possible to find one who believed almost anything (“there is nothing so nonsensical that some philosopher has not defended it”). The continual attempts to depict them as one homogenous entity all sharing the same unthinking committment to irrationality is something that is likely to put off philosophy students who know this is untrue.

14

…she essentialized and compacted the enormous chain of thought that led her to what she wrote about.

Yes, that is exactly right.

One could always wish she had written more. But how much was she supposed to have done? Didn’t she do enough? It wasn’t enough that she solved “the problem of universals”. She also had to write a treatise on the subject? It wasn’t enough that she answered Kant. She also had to write a multi-volume, detailed critique? This on top of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged? On top of a half dozen volumes of philosophy covering ethics, politics, and aesthetics? Plus dozens of essays analyzing contemporary issues?

It is not that a great deal of additional work shouldn’t be done in philosophy by Objectivists. It should. But Ayn Rand will have laid the foundation and shown the way. And the process has already begun - see OPAR as a major example. See the new work Peikoff is doing, as well as others.

Fred Weiss

15

One could always wish she had written more. But how much was she supposed to have done? Didn’t she do enough? It wasn’t enough that she solved “the problem of universals”. She also had to write a treatise on the subject? It wasn’t enough that she answered Kant. She also had to write a multi-volume, detailed critique?

She didn’t ‘have’ to do anything. I dont like the way this thread has went since I feel that I’ve been put into a position where it seems I’m explicitly criticizing Rand’s work, which wasn’t my original intention. I was responding to the allegation that philosophy students/professors “couldnt grasp Objectivism”, and attempting to explain why - namely that Rand had never given a systematic presentation of her philosophy, nor had she gave a full explanation of her beliefs on core subjects (such as epistemology), or attempted to relate these towards the tradtional problems of philosophy. This is undeniably true. It is _not_ intended as a criticism of her work - as you said, Rand has laid a foundation which can be built upon by others. It _was_ intended as a possible explanation as to why her work has often been ignored.

The same kind of thing has occurred with other philosophers who have chosen to avoid giving systematic presentations, but have instead distributed their philosophy over many interrelated works (Nietzsche and Hegel would be examples here). It’s not until third parties have written comprehensive summaries that their philosophes have become widely understood and accepted - most people do not want to dig through 5 or more different works just so that they can get the context required to grasp the fundamental principles of a system of philosophy. OPAR certainly goes a long way towards addressing this, as I mentioned above.

She also had to write a treatise on the subject?

A pamphlet would have done in this case. As I said, the appendix of IOE contains a lot of statements by Rand which I found to be of vital importance for actually understanding her approach to epistemology. Had it not been for the posthumous decision by Peikoff/Binswanger (?) to publish these as an appendix, they would not have been read.

16

I was responding to the allegation that philosophy students/professors “couldnt grasp Objectivism”, and attempting to explain why - namely that Rand had never given a systematic presentation of her philosophy, nor had she gave a full explanation of her beliefs on core subjects (such as epistemology), or attempted to relate these towards the tradtional problems of philosophy. This is undeniably true.

You bet it’s true. What isn’t true is that this is why philosophy students can’t grasp Objectivism.

First of all, Miss Rand didn’t have a systematic presentation of her philosophy but you had better believe that she had it systematized in her own mind. It’s my opinion that it would not have been possible for her to discover all that she did in addition to developing a comprehensive presentation of her entire system. There was simply too much discovering going on for her to convey all of this to her readers. Furthermore, Ayn Rand gave the essentials of her philosophy and she did make it clear how they were interconnected. It may be spread across several works but you cannot say that Objectivism the system cannot be found in her writings. It is there for those who care to discover it.

Second, it’s preposterous to say that Miss Rand didn’t give “a full explanation of her beliefs.” Who else in history has reduced an entire system of philosophy to the three axioms? If this doesn’t count as a full explanation just because it isn’t footnoted, then who wants explanations…

Lastly, I think you have a very mistaken view of what philosophy is. Philosophy is not a pedagogical interaction between academics. It is a profoundly personal (and individual) activity; as far as each of us should be concerned, philosophy is only the set of ideas that each of us holds. Relating your ideas to someone else’s is optional. The fact that Ayn Rand’s books are not loaded with references to philosophers reflects this. Yes, philosophy students like to relate everything that they learn to some (usually) dead philosopher, but this is not a means to understanding and I have given the reasons why above.

With respect to philosophy students, there isn’t just a single factor behind their inability to understand Objectivism. What are not factors are the things that you cite.