Is Peikoff's "Analytic Synthetic Dichotomy" necessary reading?


Valtiel

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I'll try to keep this relatively brief:

Hello, I'm relatively new to posting on this website, quite familiar to browsing this website, and extremely endeared to Ayn Rand. I'm going through her written works, and am currently enjoying the Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. I have arrived to the portion of the book that contains Peikoff's work "Analytic Synthetic Dichotomy". Long story short: I despise Peikoff [as I am well aware of the damage that he has done to her and her legacy], and I passionately, desperately don't want to endure approximately 30 pages of Peikoff. My question is, am I missing out on an important document by skipping this? Or is the essay as philosophically insignificant as its author?

Thanks.

-Ravana

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I'll try to keep this relatively brief:

Hello, I'm relatively new to posting on this website, quite familiar to browsing this website, and extremely endeared to Ayn Rand. I'm going through her written works, and am currently enjoying the Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. I have arrived to the portion of the book that contains Peikoff's work "Analytic Synthetic Dichotomy". Long story short: I despise Peikoff [as I am well aware of the damage that he has done to her and her legacy], and I passionately, desperately don't want to endure approximately 30 pages of Peikoff. My question is, am I missing out on an important document by skipping this? Or is the essay as philosophically insignificant as its author?

Thanks.

-Ravana

You might be better off reading "Two Dogmas of Empiricism" by Quine which addresses the same question.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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Peikoff’s essay is required reading, yes. Get to it. Welcome to OL. I do not share your hostility to Leonard Peikoff, but as you know, such things are irrelevant to the merits or flaws of his essay and its important further explication in print, approved by Rand, of her epistemology.

. . .

Rand was also aware of the controversy among contemporary philosophers concerning the soundness of the modern division of propositions into analytic or synthetic (a, b, c).This controversy had been prominent in academic print and in semi-popular works such as A. J. Ayers’ Language, Truth, and Logic (1952; quoted in Peikoff 1967, 94) and the writings on philosophy of science by Hans Reichenbach and Philipp Frank (who was quoted in Basic Principles of Objectivism lectures in the nineteen-sixties; Branden 2009, 22–23) in the four decades before Rand’s ITOE. Immediately after completing the ITOE-series in The Objectivist, she issued therein Leonard Peikoff’s “The Synthetic-Analytic Dichotomy,” which came down on the side of those who had argued variously against the distinction. In ITOE Rand rejected the distinction in the course of laying out her theory of right definition (cf. White 1952, 318–30; Peikoff 1967, 94–97, 100–106, 115; Browne 2007, starting here). “The nominalists of modern philosophy, particularly the logical positivists and linguistic analysts, claim that the alternative of true or false is not applicable to definitions, only to ‘factual’ propositions. Since words, they claim, represent arbitrary human (social) conventions, and concepts have no objective referents in reality, a definition can be neither true nor false” (ITOE 47–48).

. . .

References

Ayer, A. J. 1952 [1936, 1946]. Language, Truth and Logic. 2nd ed. Dover.

Branden, N. 2009. The Vision of Ayn Rand. Cobden.

Peikoff, L. The Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy. In Rand 1966–67.

Rand, A. 1966–67. Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. 2nd ed. H. Binswanger and L. Peikoff, editors. 1990. Meridian.

White, M. G. 1952. The Analytic and the Synthetic: An Untenable Dualism. In Semantics and the Philosophy of Language. L. Linsky, editor. Illinois.

On Quine see here. The essay by Morton White is of greater overlap with the critique of Rand and Peikoff.

. . .

In her journal The Objectivist, immediately after the issues of the journal containing her "Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology," Rand published Leonard Peikoff's "The Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy" (1967). Peikoff, speaking also for Rand, added to the dissents that had been raised against validity of the distinction in the preceding couple of decades.

It was Quine's essay "Two Dogmas of Empiricism," published in 1951, that had brought Quine's debate with Carnap over the analytic-synthetic distinction to widespread attention among philosophers. In this essay, Quine argued against the validity of the distinction. Carnap wanted to maintain a sharp distinction between analytic statements depending entirely on the meanings being used and synthetic statements making assertions about the empirical world. Quine's alternative view had it that all statements face the world as part of a corporate body of statements. On this view, experience bears the same kind of evidential relation to the theoretical parts of natural science as it does to mathematics and logic. (See also Quine's 1960 essay "Carnap and Logical Truth," which is in the collection The Ways of Paradox and Other Essays. "Two Dogmas" is in the collection From a Logical Point of View.)

During the 1950s, Hilary Putnam was also writing about the analyticity of various statements, such as the statement of Rand's in 1957 that a leaf "cannot be all red and all green at the same time." Other philosophers, too, such as Arthur Pap and Morton White, were writing on the analytic-synthetic controversy during the 50s.

. . .

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Ravana,

I completely sympathize with your view of Peikoff. He has, indeed, done a great deal of damage to Objectivism. On the other hand, Peikoff does have value to offer as a teacher, if you read him critically and separate his own ideas from Ayn Rand's. This essay was written prior to the break between Rand and Branden, and reflects an accurate understanding of Objectivist epistemology. I even heard Nathaniel Branden--not exactly a member of the Leonard Peikoff fan club--recommend the essay during a lecture at NBI in the 1960's.

It is a clear presentation of some ways in which Objectivism stands in stark contrast to other contemporary approaches to epistemology. I would highly recommend that you read it.

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It's technical, academic philosophy. Not everyone finds this interesting, and you seem to be one who doesn't. You can have an excellent command of Objectivism without it.

I've been away from technical philosophy (and from the essay in question) for a long time, so I can't say much about its merits. Undergrads used to like to show it to their profs and TAs as a way of saying "See, Objectivists can do the heavy stuff, too." I one case I heard about, the prof said Peikoff was defending a respectable mainstream position (see the references to Quine and White above), only not as well as others had. In another, the TA said Peikoff was ill-informed, not knowing the difference between an analytical statement and a necessary truth.

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I recommend it. Of all the many words I have absorbed from Ayn Rand and her associates, Leonard Peikoff's Analytic Synthetic Dichotomy is one tract that I have found intellectually profitable many times in the last 40 years. Formal philosophy is a tool for living and we live in a highly complex, information-driven, technological age of scientific advancement. Attempting to navigate the global matrix without a workable epistemoloigy is problematic at least and potentially disasterous.

Objectivism is rational-empiricism. Rational-empiricism is the scientific method. Nothing else seems to work as well.

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Objectivism is rational-empiricism. Rational-empiricism is the scientific method. Nothing else seems to work as well.

Why do so many Objectivists piddle on quantum physics, when experiment has shown quantum physics is right on the mark?

Ba'al Chatzaf

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Objectivism is rational-empiricism. Rational-empiricism is the scientific method. Nothing else seems to work as well.
Why do so many Objectivists piddle on quantum physics, when experiment has shown quantum physics is right on the mark? Ba'al Chatzaf

Because electrons cannot spin up and spin down at the same time, and there is no such thing as an experiment which proves that they can.

In other words, because A is A.

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Objectivism is rational-empiricism. Rational-empiricism is the scientific method. Nothing else seems to work as well.
Why do so many Objectivists piddle on quantum physics, when experiment has shown quantum physics is right on the mark? Ba'al Chatzaf

Because electrons cannot spin up and spin down at the same time, and there is no such thing as an experiment which proves that they can.

In other words, because A is A.

Look up Stern-Gerlach experiment. Look of Pauli Exclusions Principle which can crank out the periodic table of elements.

Now I know why I am not an Objectivist and I never will be one.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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Because electrons cannot spin up and spin down at the same time, and there is no such thing as an experiment which proves that they can.

In other words, because A is A.

Look up Stern-Gerlach experiment. Look of Pauli Exclusions Principle which can crank out the periodic table of elements.

Now I know why I am not an Objectivist and I never will be one.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Huh? I assume Dennis meant any single electron cannot spin up and spin down at the same time. "Our observation device is the detector and in this case we can observe one of two possible values, either spin up or spin down" (Stern–Gerlach experiment).

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This could be a separate topic, "Why Objectivists Reject Quantum Mechanics." Easily, only some do. Most are intelligent and educated enough to accept modern physics. That said, it remains that perhaps the best questions about the validity of QM come from the lack of integration between theory and experiment. By "theory" I do not mean QM theory, but philosophy. "We can never know anything... There are multiple universes... The cat is both alive and dead until you look in the box... " In other words, Newton's mechanics not only explained the stars above and the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, it suggested a knowable, predictable universe that resulted in the Enlightenment. QM seems to beg for authorities to tell us what to know and do.

Myself, I just checked out and returned Feynman's Six Not-So-Easy Pieces and Fundamentals of Quantum Mechanics by Wolfgang Pauli. Feynman just nicely said what is already taught commonly enough. My first book on this long long long ago was by Bertrand Russell, The ABC of Relativity. Pauli, I simply failed to understand. Even the narrative was abstruse. Maybe it was the translation from German, but mostly, it was the gulf between our understandings.

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Many years ago (in the early 1970s), Nathaniel Branden told me that Peikoff wrote "The Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy" with Ayn Rand "looking over his shoulder." This observation was consistent with something I noticed when I first read the piece while I was in college, namely, that the style is Rand's throughout. I'm not saying that Rand actually wrote it -- this was not NB's point, either -- but her contribution was more than incidental.

Ghs

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Many years ago (in the early 1970s), Nathaniel Branden told me that Peikoff wrote "The Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy" with Ayn Rand "looking over his shoulder." This observation was consistent with something I noticed when I first read the piece while I was in college, namely, that the style is Rand's throughout. I'm not saying that Rand actually wrote it -- this was not NB's point, either -- but her contribution was more than incidental.

Ghs

George:

Heller pretty much confirms you on that also.

Adam

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Many years ago (in the early 1970s), Nathaniel Branden told me that Peikoff wrote "The Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy" with Ayn Rand "looking over his shoulder." This observation was consistent with something I noticed when I first read the piece while I was in college, namely, that the style is Rand's throughout. I'm not saying that Rand actually wrote it -- this was not NB's point, either -- but her contribution was more than incidental.

Ghs

It's really quite incredible that you post this, as I noticed the exact same by the second page. The metaphorical writing style is nearly exactly hers. I wasn't surprised in the least to observe this, as Peikoff has made an entire career from aping Rand, so why should he not derive the most important essay of his career from her as well? Of course, Peikoff's own nauseating touch is not absent from this work [so far], as there are plenty of oversimplifications and strawmans of probabilistic Empiricism [not that Rand or any other philosopher never committed that error, but Peikoff has shown a special affinity for it].

That said, it is an enjoyable read so far; however, I attribute this tolerability to Rand's influence, not Peikoff's pen.

- Ravana

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Of course, Peikoff's own nauseating touch is not absent from this work [so far], as there are plenty of oversimplifications and strawmans of probabilistic Empiricism [not that Rand or any other philosopher never committed that error, but Peikoff has shown a special affinity for it].

Could you please post some "strawmans of probabilistic Empiricism" in Peikoff's work here? TIA.

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Of course, Peikoff's own nauseating touch is not absent from this work [so far], as there are plenty of oversimplifications and strawmans of probabilistic Empiricism [not that Rand or any other philosopher never committed that error, but Peikoff has shown a special affinity for it].

Could you please post some "strawmans of probabilistic Empiricism" in Peikoff's work here? TIA.

I would just like to post at the outset that I am not going to engage any Objectivists in debate, as I have found such an activity to be a fruitless endeavor [this is due to my past experience with Peikoffians]. I will not be shocked if any of you take offense to that previous statement, but I will ignore any aversive responses.

To briefly answer your inquiry, here's a prime example:

Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, page 112. Leonard Peikoff's essay "Synthetic Analytic Dichotomy". First paragraph:

"Throughout its history, philosophy has been torn by the conflict between the rationalists and the empiricists. The former stress the role of logic in man's acquisition of knowledge, while minimizing the role of experience; the latter claim that experience is the source of man's knowledge, while minimizing the role of logic."

This is just one example of Peikoff's [and Rand's, unfortunately] strawman of Empiricists, which I've always found strange because Randian philosophy is quite Empirically-based. I think this strawman of Empiricism is based in Rand's fundamental misunderstanding of B. F. Skinner, as observed in her essay "The Stimulus and the Response". Like the vast majority of Skinner's critics [and Rand's critics], they either: 1. didn't understand his ideas, 2. equivocated his Behaviorism with the Behaviorists of psychology's past [e.g. Hull, Pavlov, Watson], 3. maliciously maligned him deliberately to destroy him [i am not accusing any Objectivists of this, I would however wager that some of his fellow Psychologists did this, I don't have any links for this however, long conversation, and can't be explained here]. Noam Chomsky infamously fashioned a career from maligning Skinner, and unfortunately Rand herself quotes Chomsky in her essay regarding Skinner [which is explicit, basic, simple evidence that she didn't understand Skinner, anybody who does understand Skinner knows that Chomsky's "critique" of Skinner was extremely inaccurate, and only applicable to the psychology of Hull or Watson, Skinner changed the game entirely]. I'd recommend reading "About Behaviorism" by B. F. Skinner, if you'd like an extremely basic introduction to Skinnerian Probabilistic Empiricism. Oddly enough, as I'm reading ItOE, Rand's epistemology and Skinner's epistemology are remarkably generalizable, while differing in several specifics [free will, among them], and I think everyone who is interested in Ayn Rand's epistemology would most certainly benefit from studying Skinner.

Well I've proselytized enough, back to reading ItOE. I finished "Analyitic Synthetic Dichotomy" yesterday, and found it immediately interesting, but eventually redundant and even incorrectly assertive in the conclusion [he poorly generalizes some of his points earlier made with Rand's ethics, which aren't even mentioned until in the conclusion he asserts that "Altruism is the penalizing of good for being good", which anyone unfamiliar with Rand's work will find shocking and absurd. This isn't too egregious of a fault, I suppose, as this was printed originally in an Objectivist publication, and so the audience was familiar with Rand's work, but I digress]. I am simply adoring the appendix: the discussions between Rand and the various professors.

- Ravana

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:

I think this strawman of Empiricism is based in Rand's fundamental misunderstanding of B. F. Skinner, as observed in her essay "The Stimulus and the Response". Like the vast majority of Skinner's critics [and Rand's critics], they either: 1. didn't understand his ideas, 2. equivocated his Behaviorism with the Behaviorists of psychology's past [e.g. Hull, Pavlov, Watson], 3. maliciously maligned him deliberately to destroy him. . .

- Ravana

I assure you that Rand's view of empiricism had absolutely nothing to do with B.F. Skinner.

Oddly enough, as I'm reading ItOE, Rand's epistemology and Skinner's epistemology are remarkably generalizable, while differing in several specifics [free will, among them], and I think everyone who is interested in Ayn Rand's epistemology would most certainly benefit from studying Skinner.

From Wikipedia:

Skinner called his particular brand of behaviorism "Radical" behaviorism. Radical behaviorism is the philosophy of the science of behavior. It seeks to understand behavior as a function of environmental histories of reinforcing consequences.. . Unlike less austere behaviorisms, it does not accept private events such as thinking, perceptions, and unobservable emotions in a causal account of an organism's behavior.

You may have noticed that Rand considers thinking to play a major role in the "causal account of a (human) organism's behavior."

"Skinner's epistemology"? Oddly ehough, without thinking, there is no such thing as epistemology.

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Ravana,

I'm not offended that you don't want to "engage any Objectivists in debate," but I am curious as to why you would to go a site with the word "Objectivist" in the title and say what you said, then procede to disuss Objectivism and Rand.

This isn't a fundamentalist site, it's mostly open to independent thinking, but put yourself in my shoes. If you saw someone behave like you just did, wouldn't you find that odd?

In fact, I do find it odd.

(btw - Welcome to OL... I think... :) )

Michael

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:

I think this strawman of Empiricism is based in Rand's fundamental misunderstanding of B. F. Skinner, as observed in her essay "The Stimulus and the Response". Like the vast majority of Skinner's critics [and Rand's critics], they either: 1. didn't understand his ideas, 2. equivocated his Behaviorism with the Behaviorists of psychology's past [e.g. Hull, Pavlov, Watson], 3. maliciously maligned him deliberately to destroy him. . .

- Ravana

I assure you that Rand's view of empiricism had absolutely nothing to do with B.F. Skinner.

Perhaps it is inaccurate for me to say that her view of Empiricists as solely influenced by Skinner, but I think it is accurate to say that Skinner was, in her view, a "token"/"archetype" Empiricist/Determinist. The critiques of him [as articulated in "The Stimulus and the Response"] were exemplary of those that she doled out to "Empiricism/Determinism" generally, e.g. "Denial of consciousness/logic", "Denial of man's mind", "Faux-science".

Oddly enough, as I'm reading ItOE, Rand's epistemology and Skinner's epistemology are remarkably generalizable, while differing in several specifics [free will, among them], and I think everyone who is interested in Ayn Rand's epistemology would most certainly benefit from studying Skinner.

From Wikipedia:

Skinner called his particular brand of behaviorism "Radical" behaviorism. Radical behaviorism is the philosophy of the science of behavior. It seeks to understand behavior as a function of environmental histories of reinforcing consequences.. . Unlike less austere behaviorisms, it does not accept private events such as thinking, perceptions, and unobservable emotions in a causal account of an organism's behavior.

You may have noticed that Rand considers thinking to play a major role in the "causal account of a (human) organism's behavior."

"Skinner's epistemology"? Oddly ehough, without thinking, there is no such thing as epistemology.

1. Surprise surprise, wikipedia is wrong. You would have known this if you had read anything by B. F. Skinner, or post-Skinnerian philosophers/psychologists. My recommendation is to start out with "About Behaviorism" by B. F. Skinner for a satisfactory, basic introduction to Skinner's philosophy.

http://www.amazon.co...30887362&sr=8-1

2. "Thinking", to Skinner, was not "denied", it was simply re-evaluated as a "Private behavior", observable only by the individual. This is one of the oldest confusions of Skinnerian Behaviorism: the confusion with Hull. Hull, another prominent Behaviorist, argued that "Thinking" and other private behaviors, were scientifically irrelevant [Contrary to colloquial view, there has never been a Behaviorist that has claimed that "Thinking" and other private behaviors are non-existent].

2.5. "Thinking", as a "causal factor", was to Skinner simply re-evaluated as "Self-management". Self-influence is just one influence among others that the organism experiences. Skinner simply argued that the primary influence were various Environmental influences, that which he tacted: "Environmental history of the species [and biological life in general]" [iE biology], and "Environmental history of the organism", IE every influencing stimulus, from the chemical development in the womb, to the sight of these words on your computer screen. Rand herself admitted that knowledge is only gained by experiencing the outside world, Skinner just went a step further, removing the special-pleading of asserting that, apart from all other organisms, homo sapien is causally autonomous, and establishing a Probabilistically-Determinist, Empirical view of homo sapien, where the organism's self-influence [tacted by Skinner as "Self-management/control", tacted by Rand as "volition"] is one influence among many, and is ultimately, only possible because of environmental influences, whether due to the species' past, or the organism's past. Did he claim it was "non-causal"? No, he just argued that it was not the primary cause.

Here I have a disagreement with Skinner, due to this reason: if the organism's self-influencing repertoire [iE volition] is not the "primary" influence of its current activity, because of that self-control repertoire was influenced by its eventual environmental history, then any stimulus from any other human organism is equally non-primarily casual, because their repertoire [which influences us] was eventually influenced by their environmental history, thus, one of the most frequently experienced primary influences of the environment, the public-social influence, is not actually the primary influence that Skinner claims it is. Here, I think, Skinner is inaccurate [iE logically inconsistent]. Skinner and post-Skinnerians would probably respond with either: 1. "The causes of behavior are those that are immediately observable." [in this case, how then could they argue that an organism is influenced by a stimulus they experienced 20 years ago?] or 2. "The causes of behavior are those are demonstrable to be currently influential to the behavior at hand, past or present" [in this case, the organism's response of self-influence, self-control, can be the most observably, currently influential to the behavior at hand!].

My view of this phenomena is this: Rand and Skinner are, ironically, very similar characters. From generalizable [iE similar] Epistemologies, they come to two slightly different conclusions: Rand arguing that the organism's self-influence is the primary influence of behavior while not denying the Environment's influence, and Skinner arguing that the Environment is the primary influence of behavior while not denying the organism's influence. As evidenced by their writings, both were somewhat reactionary philosophers, in my view, responding too aversively to various disagreeing views, each portraying their opposition as "mystical". While neither one are perfect [obviously], both are influences that would have quite a functional influence upon everyone [iE everyone should experience].

Ravana,

I'm not offended that you don't want to "engage any Objectivists in debate," but I am curious as to why you would to go a site with the word "Objectivist" in the title and say what you said, then procede to disuss Objectivism and Rand.

I suppose the request to avoid debate is rather absurd, as, well, here I am debating. The reason I often attempt to avoid debate is I know that, instead of posting online, I could be reading, or writing, but as I have just said, debating can have a functional consequence as well as reading and writing, as it [potentially] exercises my philosophic repertoire. It is not always functionally consequential, unfortunately, as debating Christians, Peikoffians, or Solipsists is, frequently, a frustrating waste of time.

For what reason do I continue to post? For the above mentioned reason: the exercising of my philosophic repertoire, and, to be quite honest, functional proselytization. About 3 years ago, I had experienced a radical philosophical change [iE lost my faith in god], and was philosophically void. Predictably, I was initially influenced by Marxism, as, ironically for poor Marx, the ethics and politics of Jesus and Karl Marx are generalizable [iE similar].

One day, an individual posted a comment on my youtube page: "I see you've posted videos on The Communist Manifesto. A person I've learned a lot from is Ayn Rand, I would highly recommend reading some of her works." A few days later, I watched Ayn Rand's interview with Mike Wallace on youtube. That interview changed my life.

Why do I continue to post on this website? Because I would like to live in a world in which its individuals are influenced by Skinner, as I have been. Whether he was observant of this or not, I suspect that this was the reason of the young man who recommended Ayn Rand to me on my youtube channel.

- Ravana

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Oddly enough, as I'm reading ItOE, Rand's epistemology and Skinner's epistemology are remarkably generalizable, while differing in several specifics [free will, among them], and I think everyone who is interested in Ayn Rand's epistemology would most certainly benefit from studying Skinner.

From Wikipedia:

Skinner called his particular brand of behaviorism "Radical" behaviorism. Radical behaviorism is the philosophy of the science of behavior. It seeks to understand behavior as a function of environmental histories of reinforcing consequences.. . Unlike less austere behaviorisms, it does not accept private events such as thinking, perceptions, and unobservable emotions in a causal account of an organism's behavior.

You may have noticed that Rand considers thinking to play a major role in the "causal account of a (human) organism's behavior."

"Skinner's epistemology"? Oddly ehough, without thinking, there is no such thing as epistemology.

1. Surprise surprise, wikipedia is wrong. You would have known this if you had read anything by B. F. Skinner, or post-Skinnerian philosophers/psychologists. My recommendation is to start out with About Behaviorism by B. F. Skinner for a satisfactory, basic introduction to Skinner's philosophy.

http://www.amazon.co...30887362&sr=8-1

I don’t think your insulting, incoherent, rambling diatribe deserves a response, but I will provide one anyway, just to put my position on the record.

Here is what B.F. Skinner (and presumably Ravana) calls “thinking.”

The present argument is this: mental life and the world in which it is lived are inventions. They have been invented on the analogy of external behavior occurring under external contingencies. Thinking is behaving. The mistake is in allocating the behavior to the mind.

About Behaviorism, p. 115

To twist words in such a way as to define thinking in terms of external behavior is to define it out of existence. And to wallow in the bowels of insanity.

How in God’s name you think such bunk in any way relates to Objectivist epistemology is too much for my “mind” to comprehend. There is no such thing as “Skinner’s epistemology.” When you use the word “epistemology,” you obviously have no idea what the hell you are talking about.

And BTW, as a Ph.D. in psychology, I am sorry to report that I have endured the dreadful torture of reading Skinner at great length. I have no intention of subjecting myself to further such torture by making any additional contributions to this inane thread.

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For what reason do I continue to post? For the above mentioned reason: the exercising of my philosophic repertoire, and, to be quite honest, functional proselytization. About 3 years ago, I had experienced a radical philosophical change [iE lost my faith in god], and was philosophically void. Predictably, I was initially influenced by Marxism, as, ironically for poor Marx, the ethics and politics of Jesus and Karl Marx are generalizable [iE similar].

One day, an individual posted a comment on my youtube page: "I see you've posted videos on The Communist Manifesto. A person I've learned a lot from is Ayn Rand, I would highly recommend reading some of her works." A few days later, I watched Ayn Rand's interview with Mike Wallace on youtube. That interview changed my life.

Why do I continue to post on this website? Because I would like to live in a world in which its individuals are influenced by Skinner, as I have been. Whether he was observant of this or not, I suspect that this was the reason of the young man who recommended Ayn Rand to me on my youtube channel.

- Ravana

Ravana,

Those "philosophical voids" due ot the loss of belief in a specifc philosophy or religion are quite interesting psychologically because they often result in a new guru occupying the now vacant position. I think the younger a person is, the more likely this is going to happen.

"I would like to live in in a world in which its individuals are influenced by Skinner", you wrote.

The problem with having a guru is that the adherents tend to idealize the guru's work.

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Ravana,

Welcome to OL!

Three quick thoughts:

(1) "The Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy" is worth reading. Some minor features look to me to be distinctly Peikovian as well as unhelpful to the overall argument, but the views expressed do appear to be largely Rand's. (One peculiarity of Peikoff's philosophical development is that he may never have read anything by Quine. At least, there is no reference to Quine in his doctoral dissertation on "logical ontologism.")

(2) The "workshop" appendix that was added to ITOE in 1990 is fascinating, but keep in mind that it's been edited, and no one outside of a very narrow circle has ever had access to the original recordings. One bad sign: the participants are identified by code letters, supposedly to spare Leonard Peikoff and Harry Binswanger some trivial embarrassment. (And, without the code letters, the reader would know that several participants were not, in fact, professors—for what that's worth.)

(3) Have you read Beyond Freedom and Dignity (the book that Rand was reacting to, in her critique of Skinner)? And what have you read about behaviorism that is not by Burrhus Frederic Skinner?

Robert Campbell

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Oddly enough, as I'm reading ItOE, Rand's epistemology and Skinner's epistemology are remarkably generalizable, while differing in several specifics [free will, among them], and I think everyone who is interested in Ayn Rand's epistemology would most certainly benefit from studying Skinner.

From Wikipedia:

Skinner called his particular brand of behaviorism "Radical" behaviorism. Radical behaviorism is the philosophy of the science of behavior. It seeks to understand behavior as a function of environmental histories of reinforcing consequences.. . Unlike less austere behaviorisms, it does not accept private events such as thinking, perceptions, and unobservable emotions in a causal account of an organism's behavior.

You may have noticed that Rand considers thinking to play a major role in the "causal account of a (human) organism's behavior."

"Skinner's epistemology"? Oddly ehough, without thinking, there is no such thing as epistemology.

1. Surprise surprise, wikipedia is wrong. You would have known this if you had read anything by B. F. Skinner, or post-Skinnerian philosophers/psychologists. My recommendation is to start out with About Behaviorism by B. F. Skinner for a satisfactory, basic introduction to Skinner's philosophy.

http://www.amazon.co...30887362&sr=8-1

I don’t think your insulting, incoherent, rambling diatribe deserves a response, but I will provide one anyway, just to put my position on the record.

Here is what B.F. Skinner (and presumably Ravana) calls “thinking.”

The present argument is this: mental life and the world in which it is lived are inventions. They have been invented on the analogy of external behavior occurring under external contingencies. Thinking is behaving. The mistake is in allocating the behavior to the mind.

About Behaviorism, p. 115

To twist words in such a way as to define thinking in terms of external behavior is to define it out of existence. And to wallow in the bowels of insanity.

How in God’s name you think such bunk in any way relates to Objectivist epistemology is too much for my “mind” to comprehend. There is no such thing as “Skinner’s epistemology.” When you use the word “epistemology,” you obviously have no idea what the hell you are talking about.

And BTW, as a Ph.D. in psychology, I am sorry to report that I have endured the dreadful torture of reading Skinner at great length. I have no intention of subjecting myself to further such torture by making any additional contributions to this inane thread.

Dennis, it's not helpful when you go off the tracks like this and you do it a lot. I'm saying this while basically agreeing with you. While you do a good job of demonstrating an extremely low tolerance for bs, on a forum like this we need a little more particular explication, especially for the newbies. And you are aware of at least one logical fallacy you've used here at least implicitly are you not?

--Brant

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Oddly enough, as I'm reading ItOE, Rand's epistemology and Skinner's epistemology are remarkably generalizable, while differing in several specifics [free will, among them], and I think everyone who is interested in Ayn Rand's epistemology would most certainly benefit from studying Skinner.

From Wikipedia:

Skinner called his particular brand of behaviorism "Radical" behaviorism. Radical behaviorism is the philosophy of the science of behavior. It seeks to understand behavior as a function of environmental histories of reinforcing consequences.. . Unlike less austere behaviorisms, it does not accept private events such as thinking, perceptions, and unobservable emotions in a causal account of an organism's behavior.

You may have noticed that Rand considers thinking to play a major role in the "causal account of a (human) organism's behavior."

"Skinner's epistemology"? Oddly ehough, without thinking, there is no such thing as epistemology.

1. Surprise surprise, wikipedia is wrong. You would have known this if you had read anything by B. F. Skinner, or post-Skinnerian philosophers/psychologists. My recommendation is to start out with About Behaviorism by B. F. Skinner for a satisfactory, basic introduction to Skinner's philosophy.

http://www.amazon.co...30887362&sr=8-1

I don’t think your insulting, incoherent, rambling diatribe deserves a response, but I will provide one anyway, just to put my position on the record.

Here is what B.F. Skinner (and presumably Ravana) calls “thinking.”

The present argument is this: mental life and the world in which it is lived are inventions. They have been invented on the analogy of external behavior occurring under external contingencies. Thinking is behaving. The mistake is in allocating the behavior to the mind.

About Behaviorism, p. 115

To twist words in such a way as to define thinking in terms of external behavior is to define it out of existence. And to wallow in the bowels of insanity.

How in God’s name you think such bunk in any way relates to Objectivist epistemology is too much for my “mind” to comprehend. There is no such thing as “Skinner’s epistemology.” When you use the word “epistemology,” you obviously have no idea what the hell you are talking about.

And BTW, as a Ph.D. in psychology, I am sorry to report that I have endured the dreadful torture of reading Skinner at great length. I have no intention of subjecting myself to further such torture by making any additional contributions to this inane thread.

As I thought, you don't understand a word of Skinner's philosophy.

To the rest who responded in a more courteous manner: thank you, but I'm done with this website. It's really just pointless to continue arguing this point, I've tried to explain Skinner to Objectivists in the past, but always with disappointing results. Unfortunately the difference in language used by Skinner and those influenced by him is, simply, an unassailable obstacle for Objectivists in understanding his work. Ah well, such is life.

Farewell.

- Ravana

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