Objectivity Online Archive

Today, in a wonderful act of generosity Stephen Boydstun announced that he has provided his 1990-1998 magazine, Objectivity, online. Here is his announcement.


I looked it over and it is just magnificent.

I am pinning this topic in the Library so that it will be readily available to all who wish to read the important articles he published. For a while, I am putting it on our front page to make sure more people know about it.

If anyone is interested in some preliminary comments from Stephen, see here, and for a touching personal angle, see here.

Thank you, Stephen. Your act of generosity is more appreciated than you could ever know.

Michael

I echo Michael's thanks for the re-release of this material.

Personally, I have long been keen to read Ray Shelton's comparison of Rand and Epicurus in Vol 2 No 3, and am very pleased now to have been able to do so. It's a profound article, and I'm still getting to grips with it.

Best regards

Adrian

Good resource. Thanks - Stephen Boydstun.

Alfonso

I agree. Stephen has done yoe person service. Applause is due.

I find his publication dazzling. In the slang parlance, this man really knows his shit.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Thanks to Stephen Boydstun for making these archives available. I bookmarked the site, printed out a memo with the URL and put that into a (physical) file folder of Objectvist resources. I then read "Objectivist Ethics: A Biological Critique" by Ron Merrill. I am so sorry that Ron cannot be engaged. I have a few questions.

I was deeply impressed with the presentation and had to step back mentally and ask mysefl why I found the logic so compelling and the conclusions so wanting. Over on RoR, I took an arrow for being a "consequentialist" but by my own understanding of academic ethics, Objectivism is one of the consequentialist philosophies. Merrill said so, as well.

I found more insightful and compelling his note that in point of fact by definition what we call "Social Darwinism" is really "Social Lamarckism" i.e., the heritability of acquired characteristics. He did not say more than that but clearly wealth, money, class and "life chances" are among those characteristics. From my understanding at this point, Merrill's first conclusion, that Rand failed to establish a biological basis for Objectivist ethics within the context of a nominally "crowded" and obviously urban world, fails on several grounds. I do grant, however, his subtle and insightul comparison between Rand and Kropotkin, both of whom came from sociieties (at 50 degrees North Latitude) in which conflict with nature far overshadowed any conflicts with other humans, whereas Darwin (and others) saw only the lush tropics in which animals compete against each other because the environment encourages prolific reproduction. (That, too, is arguable. In fact, the jungle is a desert.) Merrill criticized this "frontier" assumption, that essentially, we have few humans amid abundant resources with few or no externalities to our actions. I would argue just the opposite.

One of Rand's greatest discoveries -- one that always meets resistance from my peers in sociology -- is that alone on an island, the isolated individual has the greatest need for morality. Similarly, I would say that crowded into an urban milieu, ethical egoism comes to its fullest force and "social darwinism" (or lamarckism, if you will) has its freest play.

I could go on. My point is not to argue with the article or Merrill but to demonstrate my overwhelming satisfaction at the quality of the presentation. The higest compliment that I can pay is: "I could not have written this." (Egoists are seldom humble. The other day I was in Barnes and Noble, reading a new book on entrepreneurship from Harvard Press and it was the kind thing I would do if I had to fill 500 pages off the top of my head without regard for proving anything.)

Anyway, I read all the Abstracts and I look forward to reading more articles.

I am pleased to announce the completion and installation of the comprehensive SUBJECT INDEX for Objectivity.

Here is a stretch of the “P” section:

Paradox
Liar V1N6 87–88, 94–95
Moore’s V2N4 77, 87–90
Set-Theoretic V1N6 66

Pauline Principle V2N5 134, 139

Perception
and Action Affordance V1N1 18, V1N2 39, V1N3 9–10, 72, V1N4 11, V2N6 70–71
Adaptation in V2N4 145, V1N6 33
of Ambiguous Figures V1N5 56–57
Anomalous V1N1 15, V1N4 39, V1N5 33, V2N4 24–25, 40–41, 142, 155, 194–96, V2N6 13–17, 22, 25
and Belief V1N1 15–17, 20–23, V1N2 1, 39–40, 54, 74–75, V1N3 1–2, 6–8, 13–14, 17, 21–23, 26–29, 61, 63, 89, V1N4 10, 15–16, V1N5 31, V2N1 132, V2N4 12–13, 37–39, 111, 142, 144, V2N6 27
of Body-Self V1N2 48, 57, V1N5 33–34, 47–48
Categorical V1N1 14–22, V2N2 87, V2N4 134, V2N6 104
of Causality V1N1 16, V1N2 38–39, 75, V1N3 9, 11, 20, 26–27, 29, 32, V2N4 200
Content and Form of V1N3 12, V1N5 31
Directness in V1N3 6–7, V1N5 19, V1N6 78, 116, 132–33, V2N2 5, 88, V2N4 12, 28–29, 38, 123, 127, 138, 140–45, 152–57, 176, 229, V2N6 6, 34
of Existence V1N4 10, V1N5 19, 29–35, V2N1 118–19, 132–33, V2N2 9, V2N4 41–42, 194–96, 232, V2N6 32, 38, 50, 55
Existent and Content of V1N3 6, V1N5 30, V2N1 119, V2N4 195, 229, 232, V2N5 37
v. Image V1N3 81, V1N4 10, V2N5 34–35, 52–53, V2N6 27
Inadequacy in V1N4 18–19, 21, V1N5 112, V1N6 61, V2N1 131, V2N4 29
Integration in V1N1 14–18, 20–21, V1N2 38–40, 99, V1N3 6–8, 19–20, 22, 61–63, V1N4 11, 15–16, 23–24, 38, V1N5 45–47, 56–57, V1N6 10, V2N2 74, 77, 82–83, 85–88, 100, 110–11, 116–17, 132–35, V2N3 93, V2N4 110–11, 123–27, 134–41, 143–46, 149–57, 229, V2N6 2, 6, 13–18, 22–24, 31–32, 34, 101, 104–5
of Intentions V1N2 74–76, 81–83, V1N3 60, V1N5 48–49
and Intuition V2N1 48, 132, V2N4 107, 109–11, 121, 194, V2N6 59
of Letters V1N5 56
Matter and Form of V1N2 10, V1N3 70, V1N4 23–24, V2N1 133, V2N4 28–29, V2N5 13–14
Measurement in V1N1 16–18, V1N3 73, V2N4 123–27, 138–39, 144, 146–47, 149, 150–56, V2N6 8–9, 65–66
v. Memory V1N4 10, V2N1 116–17, V2N2 62, 89, V2N4 152–55
of Motion V1N1 15–16, 21, V1N3 7–8, V2N4 134
Neuronal Mediation of V1N1 20–21, V1N3 7, V1N5 20, V2N1 113, 115–17, V2N2 86–87, V2N3 126–27, V2N4 110–11, 123–26, 134–35, 142, 145–46, 149–57, 166, V2N6 13–18, 22, 25, 31–32
of Numerosity V1N1 3, 12, V2N4 112, 121–22, 136, 168–69
of Objects V1N1 15–18, 21, V1N2 39, V1N3 6–8, V1N4 61, V1N5 32–33, V2N1 132–33, V2N4 134–39, 149–54, V2N6 6–7, 34, 102–5
Preattentive V1N1 21–22, V1N5 56–57, V2N4 135
Priming Effects in V1N5 57, V2N4 133–35, 156–57
Recognition in V1N1 14–18, 23, V1N2 57, V1N5 33, 56–57, V2N1 115–17, V2N4 28–29, 134, 139–40, 142, 144–45, 149–57, 166, V2N5 40–41, V2N6 105
Representation in V1N1 17–18, V1N4 10, V2N1 98, V2N1 115–17, V2N4 28, 123–27, 136–38, 145–47, 152–56, 194–98, 232, V2N6 15, 102
of Sets V2N4 110–12, 150, 168–69, V2N6 104, 106
of Shape V1N1 16–18, 21, V2N4 134–35, 148–49
of Similarity V1N1 28–29, V2N2 102, V2N4 112, 122, 152–54, V2N6 50, 55, 56–57, 58–59, 65–68, 70–71, 102
Subsidiary Modes of V1N1 21
and Survival V1N2 73, V1N5 19, 37–38, 41, 46, 48, 57, V2N2 87–89, V2N4 196–98, V2N6 16–17, 36–37
See also Apperception; Concepts, Formation of; Concepts and Schemata.