Off to Vegas for Free Minds 09 & Freedom Fest


Chris Grieb

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Sorry just read the rest.

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Why presume that teaching is some kind of Going Galt profession that people take waiting for the end times?

Jim,

Why indeed.

I certainly didn't.

Michael

So your riff on Phil is what? That he does a little neener, neener routine with his thoughts and notes? I'm sure that when he's ready to do something with it he will. What I do think you will do is discourage him from posting as much as he might otherwise and on a thread that I've enjoyed for its content.

Jim

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> good old fashioned Southern tough love...smacked a butt with it, the blisters would welt up...it took a month [MSK]

And I'll keep giving you a no-nonsense Northern stomping whenever you make a post like your original snarky one to me.

I'll stick an even tougher New York City boy's boot so far up your hillbilly ass that you'll taste shoe leather.

The only other cheek that will be turned will be yours. I'll keep up your butt-kicking until you beg for mercy and say "I'm SORRY Phil, I realize I was psychologizing about your motives. And I was projecting: I'm the one who has the Public Image of an immature, whining, passive aggressive! I'm SO sorry!"

Should take about six years.

Or your lifetime.

(Jonathan, you're next. Bend over.)

,,,,

[ Staying with the butt or ass theme - which seems to be your intellectual level.]

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PART 1.

Thanks, Jim and Robert for the civil response (and encouragement - I really appreciate this last).

Let me give you a little of my personal history before I explain why I've not published in largely Objectivist venues. ( In a public forum, I can't stop the "gotcha" posters from corrupting the conversation or turning thoughtful discussion into "personalities", but perhaps I can try not to rise to their bait so much. ) I''ll break it into several posts, as its tiring to read more than one screenful. Unless one prints it out.

I lived in upstate New York south of Albany right after grad school. I commuted a hundred miles to take Leonard Peikoff's courses at the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn. He was the best teacher I had ever had. One year, I was taking his Graduate Seminar in the Philosophy of Science. Amazing. Lots of topics in epistemology that have never been in print. He presented the entire history of the problem of induction and all the failed attempts. No one had solved it in 2500 years.

No shrinking violet, I decided that solving it would be my "term paper". I spent the entire summer, six to eight hours a day, ensconced in a completely empty middle school way up in the Catskill mountains. In the small nurse's office. Probably because it had a huge desk. Even with Peikoff's thumbnail history or road map -- the leads provided by Mill's methods, the hint that a proper analysis of causality was heavily involved -- I had never thought anything was beyond me, no problem I couldn't figure out. But this was the HARDEST thing I had ever wrestled with. Much, much harder than theoretical mathematics on a graduate school level, which I had coasted through a little bit.

By the end of the summer, I saw that the key breakthrough was not so much in philosophy but in psychology. And it had to do with one's -lifetime- context of knowledge. Both reasons why previous philosophers hadn't gotten it.

Hint: In early life one *cannot* broadly induce with certainty. I had the solution. It was complicated. I wrote page after page, addressing all the quandaries associated with induction and how my theory solved them.

I went back to Peikoff's class with my head in the clouds, ready to show him the paper...

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Part 2.

I was exhilarated. I knew I had solved the problem and developed a complete theory. I had shown the seamless connection between induction and deduction working in tandem across a human's lifetime. I had addressed "subtopics" such as hypothesis formation. I had offered leads to how to APPLY my theory. And build logic books on it...

I would get acclaim (at least within Objectivist circles). Maybe I would go on to work in the allied fields of philosophy and psychology. (More the latter.) Peikoff would introduce me to Miss Rand. People would build on what I had done. But none of that happened. Peikoff gave me an "A" on the quite lengthy paper. ertainly an attempt to address and integrate every issue and problem related to induction. But he said he didn't completely understand it. I had invented my own terminology and new concepts: primary exhaustive generalization, metaphysical primary exhaustive generalization. I came in for a half hour conference during his office hours and explained those concepts and answered every tough question he threw at me. He nodded his head.

. . . Dead end for me. No further exploration by the man I most respected and the best teacher I had ever had. Crushing depression.

It wouldn't have been so bad if he had found a flaw or an omission. If he had asked me to rewrite it to make it clearer, I would have gladly spent another summer.

He did start to invite me to his private seminars, but certainly not to meet Rand or become one of the 'englightened' non-rifraff. He praised my contributions on occasion. But the promising students, the 'young studs' --year after year, and forever-- were always the philosophy majors, those with degrees in that area or pursuing or having Ph.d's.

In those New York years, I had even originated another important idea - in the philosophy of law, this time - which had been praised by Peikoff (and cc'ed to Binswanger.) But years later I found it circulating in the "Objectivist ether" with my name forgotten, credit to me not given, but with the exact title I had given it still attached. So, angry at the carelessness but not concluding any unethical intent, I simply decided not to offer any more major original insights. Unless they were in print. Maybe a paper in "The Objectivist Forum" or the equivalent.

After David Kelley started his own movement and seemed to welcome "fresh blood", I thought maybe "credentialitis" was less important. Kelley had been sitting in the same room on Peikoff's small apartment in those private seminars along with me, Binswanger, and others year after year. He presumably had some idea what I could do. I didn't know him at all, but he'd heard me ask lots of very good questions, knew that I was bright and quite knowledgeable.

So I dusted myself off, decided to again offer some of my intellectual contributions...

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It's depressing and painful for me to write all this crap right now. I'm not sure I even want to finish the story.

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You are doing fine.

You have my complete attention.

Adam

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Phil,

There's a solution to the problem you're describing. Maybe you've adopted some variant of it. Offer a small part of a solution or suggestion to people and let them run with it. If they then take credit, they will have earned it. Besides, the people who have gone through a Philosophy Ph.D program have suffered enough as it is :-), if they want a skull and bones powwow, wear exclusion with a badge of honor.

Jim

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Phil, you have my attention as well. I think you are about to confirm some long-held beliefs I've had about Peikoff and Company. BTW, I'm sorry for what you went through, but Peikoff isn't the end all and be all. Actually, he's a ... never mind.

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It's depressing and painful for me to write all this crap right now. I'm not sure I even want to finish the story.

Come on, Blister Butt.

You wanna be babied?

You're good when you wanna be.

There. Feel good?

How about stop favoring your old hurts and push through it this time? Get it over with, for God's sake.

The team you chose to get approval from was fucked up. Accept it. You chose poorly.

A dork is a dork is a dork. He won't stop being a dork because you think he should act differently.

If you want caviar, start looking for fish eggs and stop looking at cowpiles wishing they were fish eggs. Go into the water, for God's sake.

You said Peikoff was the best teacher you ever had. It sounds to me like he was worse in the morale department than my seventh grade math teacher, who was the lowest of the low.

That dude sent me to the principal's office because I solved a problem he could not and he thought I cheated. When I showed him his mistake, he said anyone could figure out the problem once they had the answer, and I shot back right in front of everyone, "You didn't." So I was also punished for being a smart-ass in addition to a cheat. I lost all interest in math.

I want to see something like that happen to me today. Some have tried in our little subculture. It didn't work. I built my little thing and they got hurt in their petty little malice plans. Both made me feel good and I am more interested in Objectivism than ever before.

If I can do it, you sure as hell can.

Move it, Blister Butt. You are not eternal.

Or roll over and feel sorry for yourself and let more years of that precious life of yours go pissing down the drain.

Michael

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Part 2.

Peikoff gave me an "A" on the quite lengthy paper. Certainly an attempt to address and integrate every issue and problem related to induction. But he said he didn't completely understand it. I had invented my own terminology and new concepts: primary exhaustive generalization, metaphysical primary exhaustive generalization. I came in for a half hour conference during his office hours and explained those concepts and answered every tough question he threw at me. He nodded his head.

. . . Dead end for me. No further exploration by the man I most respected and the best teacher I had ever had. Crushing depression.

It wouldn't have been so bad if he had found a flaw or an omission. If he had asked me to rewrite it to make it clearer, I would have gladly spent another summer.

Phil,

You'd have to invent new terminology, to do the kind of work you were doing.

It looks as though Leonard Peikoff was afraid that you had gone beyond him.

And as though that is one of the things he wouldn't tolerate.

Robert Campbell

PS. Write it up, send it to JARS. The least you can do is publish it where the ARIans won't dare to go.

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> It looks as though Leonard Peikoff was afraid that you had gone beyond him. And as though that is one of things he wouldn't tolerate.

Robert, I don't think that's exactly it. But let me just continue the story to bring it to the present day...and through the 'Kelley years'.

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Part 3.

It's taking me too many words to tell this story and I'm getting a bit bored, so I'll leave out some events and incidents from what I'll call "the Kelley years". From part of the 90s through most of the 00's, I attended the "open Objectivism" wing's conferences. I thought open meant open to me as well, something that was never going to happen during the Peikoff years.

I decided to try to offer lectures at the summer conferences. I was accepted sporadically, not as a prime speaker (mornings - no competition), but as one of several competing speakers for afternoon talks. This means I would spend a whole six months developing a topic and instead of an audience of hundreds, there is very tiny audience of a dozen or two. And no real interest by Kelley's folks in publishing what I did. Oral tradition. Tapes or disks.

Back bencher. WAY in the back. Invisible.

I gave talks on Concretization and on Benevolence. In both of these I broke new ground. Concretization is a subject that is crucial to avoiding rationalism and floating abstractions. It deserves a book on its own. But it had just been referred to vaguely in Objectivist circles. Not developed in the detail that I did it. Benevolence - more specifically *how to be* benevolent, struggling for it and reaching and sustaining it in a difficult world was a crucial practical -application-, a logical addition to Kelley's work explaining the -theory- of Benevolence.

You would think that out of all the talks during the summer, THAT would be one you would attend, wouldn't you?

One that advances, pays respect to, specifically applies and builds on your own work?

But, unlike Peikoff, Kelley personally had ZERO interest in hearing my ideas, reading a paper by me, having an "office hours" type personal conference or discussion like Peikoff did on induction. The proof of this is that he never showed up to any of my talks during any of those (four, five, seven?)summers - regular formal talk or informal 'participant' seminar. Not once. And therefore could acquire no firsthand knowledge about whether I was a complete idiot or the Second Cming of Aristotle. For someone who talked a lot about being 'open' and encouraging the bold new ideas of the dreamers and explorers, when push came to shove he was uninterested in finding out whether - at least in *my* case - there was the slightest bit of potential there.

In many ways, I found David Kelley to be **even worse** than Leonard Peikoff. I would be hired to 'fill out the open slots' in the summer program but not every year, not reliably, and as a definite back-bencher. Very strong proposals would be turned down. Try again next year. And, again unlike Peikoff, I was never invited to any private seminars in his apartment. Or to be part of the cadre of those with potential. There was perhaps even a stronger division between the academically inclined or credentialed in the Kelley world and in the Peikoff one. Nor was I ever allowed to present to the "Advanced" Seminar. That was reserved for SCHOLARS.

(Peikoff had me present numerous times...I even gave a talk in his Understanding Objectivism course.) I was even more invisible in the Kelley crowd. In fact, I don't think Kelley even once was willing to have a serious conversation with me that lasted more than 30 seconds. (One time, he pulled me aside to tell me that I was inappropriately taking over a cafeteria? room to discuss a topic. That minute or two is probably the longest discussion I recall having with the man.)

(Actions speak louder than words and obviously I didn't have enough potential to be worth any time whatsoever. Peikoff always knew I had some things to offer. He joked about my long-winded and intensive questioning, but he told the private group that many of my questions would make their way into future lectures of his.)

The real telling point is that whenever I proposed a philosophically "heavy" topic (as opposed to an application or a self-help or historical topic), it became gradually quite clear that those topics would be reserved for the professors or the graduate students (or perhaps they were an area of interest for Kelley or his close associates).

Should I have offerred my theory of induction? I tested this by offering a preparatory topic, not a trial balloon, but a heavily philosophical and theoretical topic where I had original and important insights. And on which my talk on induction would build. I explained why I was qualified and offered a summary. If this was accepted (and no one had given a talk on this topic during *any* summer seminar), then perhaps I was wrong about the Kelley clique and their 'credentialitis' and I would the year after offer my theory of induction....

...Can you guess what the topic is on which induction would build..and what the response was? Hint: It's a topic from metaphysics (mostly, with some epistemology)...

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Robert: "It looks as though Leonard Peikoff was afraid that you had gone beyond him.

"And as though that is one of things he wouldn't tolerate."

That makes perfect sense to me, Robert. And I suspect another reason as well for Peikoff's silence. This is a man with serious doubts about his own totally independent judgments. If he had said that Phil solved the problem of induction, he would have had enthusiastically to bring this news to Rand--without being certain he was right, and fearful of looking foolish at best if she'd found a flaw in Phil's work. In effect, he would have felt it better not to form a firm opinion that Rand might not sanction.

Barbara

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Phil,

Are you aware of the kind of reception Roger Bissell has gotten from TAS, over the years?

Somehow TAS has managed, in different ways and at different times, to disappoint both the academics and the nonacademics.

Robert Campbell

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Lost another post. This is still the most unstable site I've ever posted on. You do this and you do that and suddenly all your work is gone. This never happens anywhere else to me. Not once. I've probably lost five or six or seven in the last two years. Some I rewrote and some I didn't. This last I didn't.

--Brant

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Phil, in my limited experience with him I found Peikoff an interesting and extremely competent teacher. Really. I have no experience with Kelley except his reading of "If" at Rand's burial. I would have forgiven LP's his standing by Rand, but in 1986 when he had a big chance to redeem himself he had his silly reaction to Barbara Branden's "The Passion of Ayn Rand" and permanently turned himself into the Caudillo of Objectivism.

You're too innocent for what you've gone through and insist on defending your fortress of innocence with abstinence. Nobody does anything of importance without getting trashed by the trashers. So suck it up; there is no superior alien race who will soon land on planet Earth eager to receive and properly appreciate your message. There are only us trashy humans, so give it up!

--Brant

Edited by Brant Gaede
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Phil has every reason to feel profoundly hurt by his treatment. The only way he could avoid being hurt is to be a total cynic, and to expect nothing from other people. It's probably true, Brant, as you said, that "nobody does anything important without being trashed by the trashers." But surely one does not expect the trashers to be people one admires.

Phil, from what you've said, the work you've done is too important to be hidden away. Have you considered creating a blog, where you could publish it yourself ad get responses from people interested in the issues? If you're right, word would quickly spread and you'd have the audience you should have.

Barbara

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