The very idea of “authority” related to the philosophy of Objectivism runs contrary to the philosophy itself, which is based on individual induction and verification as opposed to accepting an authority on faith, unchecked. When an Objectivist refers to another Objectivist as an “authority,” surely they mean “more familiar, knowledgable, or integrated.” Even once recognized as such, the “authority” still needs to be verified as right or wrong by his audience.
I stand corrected on my application of the word, “authority.” Perhaps it was a poor choice of words. To be sure, most people have never heard of Objectivism, and any mention of it may raise questions requiring answers. While I am not prepared to answer every question, most of us could answer the fundamentals. For the uninitiated, anyone able to answer basic questions about Rand and her works has more authority on the subject than someone with no idea. I am not an official authority, as in the sense of authorship or institutional leader. Mea culpa if that seemed to be what I said. No such misrepresentation was intended, although I could see how that it might.
Addendum: After reading softwareNerd’s post in the preceding post, perhaps it would be conceivable that one day we may all be the “intellectual heirs” of Ayn Rand.
The very idea of “authority” related to the philosophy of Objectivism runs contrary to the philosophy itself, which is based on individual induction and verification as opposed to accepting an authority on faith, unchecked. When an Objectivist refers to another Objectivist as an “authority,” surely they mean “more familiar, knowledgable, or integrated.” Even once recognized as such, the “authority” still needs to be verified as right or wrong by his audience.
And I’ve found people that come from a religious background (which is nearly *everyone* alive today) have a very hard if not impossible grasp of the above statement. They can’t seem to comprehend that it’s possible to come to completely agree with ideas that have been written by a person or group of people through careful reasoning and study without sort of falling into the trap of thinking that it is do to some sort of groupthink or intrinsicism. And while rejecting these ideas for just this reason they often are still accepting the religious premises for just those reasons contradictorily.
That said I think this statement by Peikoff in the Preface to OPAR is accurate: “‘Objectivism’ is the name of Ayn Rand’s philosophy as presented in the material she herself wrote or endorsed.” The rest is an interpretation of that philosophy and it is up to the individual to decide if any new statements or ideas made by others are consistent with the philosophy while never being a “part” of it via careful examination.
I used “closed” in the sense that, as you said: “Since Objectivism is the philosophy of Ayn Rand,” I say that nobody else has the right to change the above quote from VOS in any way that would alter her intent.
And what was her intent?
I agree that nobody has the moral authority to intentionally alter that quote, point blank. It’s bad enough when people deliberately misrepresent the statements of the living; doing so to the dead is inexcusable.
But there is a subtle difference between words as such, and the ideas they convey.
The very idea of “authority” related to the philosophy of Objectivism runs contrary to the philosophy itself, which is based on individual induction and verification as opposed to accepting an authority on faith, unchecked.
Precisely.
Everyone who agrees with Rand’s essentials and takes an active interest in philosophy, owes it to themselves to examine ideas critically and accept nothing less than the truth- especially from Objectivism.
Whether they are still an Objectivist, if and when they disagree with something, is the only point of dispute here.
The fact I find most relevant to that is Rand’s statement [forgive me for paraphrasing]:
"I am not primarily an advocate of capitalism, but of egoism.
I am not primarily an advocate of egoism, but of reason.
All of the rest of it follows from that."
postscript: there are some people who have shown up on this forum, attempting to pass off radically self destructive ideas as “Objectivism”; logically their mistakes must stem either from ignorance or evasion.
If ignorance then I would consider them to be objectivists- because a calm discussion should sort out sincere confusion, in short order.
If evasion then they aren’t adherents to reason, after all. . .
I give my philosophy a name, I tell them: Objectivism.
Amen, Brother.
You are a great example of a man who interprets Miss Rand’s philosophy in an eloquent manner, & I’m certain you are an Objectivist; so when you clarify Objectivist tenets by “putting it into your own words,” the specific denotation of an “open system” doesn’t apply. You give it life, & breath, but if you sanction an “open system,” you allow O to equal O and non-O at the same time. I understand that you used the "open system denotation as more of a connotation, but here’s my (hypothetical) example of an intellectual who could set up straw-men, dilute, or co-opt your philosophy: Objectivism…
John Dough says, on CNN, that he’s an Objectivist. (Nobody is aware of the fact that his open system position has altered the “original” Objectivism). He says that, as an Objectivist, his philosophy declares that Capitalism is actually evil after all.
When AR left her estate to Peikoff, I don’t know if she entrusted any significant editing or additions to him. Maybe.
But when there become 2 Objectivisms: the Objectivism named by the woman who gave her intellectual property its name, & the Objectivism (non-Objectivism) changed by the open systemers), I say they should avoid a law of identity crisis by giving their version, in which the principles have been altered, a new name.
You, Dearest Repairman, are clearly an Objectivist, and so am I. And when you help me to understand Objectivist philosophy by explaining things in your own words, you don’t alter Miss Rand’s intent. Open system Objectivists deliberately do so when they get a notion that Objectivism requires correcting. And I’m not talking about errors in syntax.
Well okay. But I mean, do you have an example of a person that does this? Where is an example of this?
I entered a different Objectivist site in which the preamble stated that one of the site’s intents was to, while calling their philosophy Objectivism, present corrections to Objectivism.
I’d rather not be any more specific. I assure you, there are open system Objectivists who deliberately integrate things, like mystic faith, into the principles of Objectivism, & continue to call their hybrid offshoots “Objectivism.”
Why not be specific? If someone is misquoting something shouldn’t the reasonable, fact based thing to do be just a point it out?
There’s nothing wrong insofar as one is presenting corrections to something, I’m all for correcting things, but if one is misquoting or mislabeling something, it shouldn’t be difficult to fix it.
Objectivism is closed to the extent that any system that contains a rigid lexicon is said to be ‘closed’.
In other words, the basic definitions that Rand gave (as well as many of her explanations) are not open to general questioning.and discussion.
Suffice to say that most of what she has lexicon-ized is precisely what ‘academic’ philosophy questions as a matter of practice. ThisI find somewaht dissapointing in so far as one of my intellectual projects is to reconcile the two.
You fail to understand the context in which “closed” or “open” is used frank. It’s closed to the extent that co-opting the philosophy by others is discouraged. This is to avoid schisms or claims such as “What Rand REALLY meant was…”.
That’s the extent of it. It ain’t that complicated.
You fail to understand the context in which “closed” or “open” is used frank. It’s closed to the extent that co-opting the philosophy by others is discouraged. This is to avoid schisms or claims such as “What Rand REALLY meant was…”.
That’s the extent of it. It ain’t that complicated.
Co-optaation is another word for ‘borrowing’, or ‘synthesizing’. Randism protects itself from these by firewalling itself inside of a lexicon, in which the meaning of words are set, and therefore not open to discussion.
Within the firewall, so to speak, truth claims are set as ‘axioms’, or self-evidents. Indeed, this isn’t complicated.
Randism protects itself from these by firewalling itself inside of a lexicon, in which the meaning of words are set, and therefore not open to discussion.
I don’t understand what you mean by this. Do you have one example?
Co-optaation is another word for ‘borrowing’, or ‘synthesizing’. Randism protects itself from these by firewalling itself inside of a lexicon, in which the meaning of words are set, and therefore not open to discussion.
Within the firewall, so to speak, truth claims are set as ‘axioms’, or self-evidents. Indeed, this isn’t complicated.
What could possibly prevent you from “borrowing” or “synthesizing” some aspect of Objectivism to form your own philosophical view? Are there some Objectivist Cops that I’m un aware of that drive the country arresting people? And not open to discussion? Really? Most people on this web site are bored with the same-old-same-old that they would more than welcome a new and insightful take on some aspect of Objectivism or an outright disagreement with it.
I think you’re confused.
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What could possibly prevent you from “borrowing” or “synthesizing” some aspect of Objectivism to form your own philosophical view? Are there some Objectivist Cops that I’m un aware of that drive the country arresting people? And not open to discussion? Really? Most people on this web site are bored with the same-old-same-old that they would more than welcome a new and insightful take on some aspect of Objectivism or an outright disagreement with it.
I think you’re confused.
What’s confusing everything is the lexicon issue which somewhat prohibits borrowing. Randin concepts must first be translated into the common philosophical vernacular.
A good example of how this is attempted is by Machan and several others at ARI. Machan is content to notice similarities with, say, Kripke’s causal theory of language and Quine’s rejection of the analytic/synthetic distinction, etc…while others try to present Rand as a new Aristotelian–things are pretty much as they appear.to be.
But agaijn, words and meanings, particularly what is designated by ‘epistemology’.
Objectivism is closed to the extent that any system that contains a rigid lexicon is said to be ‘closed’.
In other words, the basic definitions that Rand gave (as well as many of her explanations) are not open to general questioning.and discussion.
And where did you find this rigid definition of “Objectivism”?
And where did you find this rigid definition of “Objectivism”?
I’m defining ‘rigidity’ by the use of a lexicon. In this sense, Rand’s lexicon of objectivism is available online.
I’m defining ‘rigidity’ by the use of a lexicon. In this sense, Rand’s lexicon of objectivism is available online.
Rand did not create a lexicon of any type, unless you’re thinking of Binswanger’s book. Even if Objectivism contained a lexicon, I don;t see how that makes it “closed”. Clearly “closed” is not defined as “has a lexicon”. So, you need to show what you mean by “closed”, what you mean by “lexicon” and why one precludes the other.
In common parlance, a lexicon is a dictionary-like text, specifying what one means by certain words. Specifying what one means by the words one uses hardly makes any system closed. A Marxist might say “justice” is “XYZ”. How does that have any relevance to whether Marxism is open or closed?
And, what does “closed” mean anyway?
I don’t know, it seems to me there is an elephant in the room here, and no one has backed into a leg yet.
Let me try the ‘different words’ tack.
O’ism is ‘closed’ in the sense that AR is dead and is no longer adding clarification to her thoughts on philosophy AND no one has the right to ‘modify’ what she did say, even in light of post Rand scientific discoveries (about the nature of Reality). {I add that last part since some folks seem to think that ‘spooky’ phenomenon in the scale range smaller than 10 to the -32nd meters justifies questioning the existence of ‘reality’. I would suggest to them a career in something other than science or philosophy.}
O’ism is ‘open’ in the sense that it is an incredibly robust framework, ranging from phenomenology, through epistemology, expanding across metaphysics, and more than capable of supporting speculation (hypothesis formation) in a broad range of topics including, but not limited to, philosophy itself.