Is There a Psychology of Liberty?

[Brant Gaede]

Your special definitions and understandings with concepts such as ~principle~ and ~totalitarian~ really make it too much of a chore to engage you.

It can be hard to learn new things.

Actually I was under the impression that this was fairly standard Objectivism. In any case, I define a principle according to the method on which the corresponding proposition was formed, not based on the generality of the proposition itself. The Ten Commandments aren't principles, they're rules.

Shayne

Rand did redefine "selfishness" into something else. It made for great and powerful rhetoric in her book's title. I don't think she used the word too much aside from that because if she had she'd have had to eventually own up to the fact that it is not "concern with one's own interests" (her italics) (VOS p. vii pb).

As for George, you and he are separated by a common language and I've no intention of jumping into yours and his strange dance. It would be like that three-to-tango GEICO ad.

--Brant

[sjw]

Rand did redefine "selfishness" into something else. It made for great and powerful rhetoric in her book's title. I don't think she used the word too much aside from that because if she had she'd have had to eventually own up to the fact that it is not "concern with one's own interests" (her italics) (VOS p. vii pb).

I think you're being wrongheaded (unlike George who's being willfully misleading -- I think he knows that what I'm saying is quite sensible but is posturing to make it appear otherwise for some unseemly hidden purpose of his own). My sense of the term principle is pretty much given in this common dictionary:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/principle

"a fundamental, primary, or general law or truth from which others are derived: the principles of modern physics."

I would not put it exactly this way, but clearly my sense of the term "principle" is far from comparable to Rand's redefinition of "selfish."

On my view (and I think Rand's and Peikoff's as well), moral truth and truths about physics are arrived at on essentially the same method, so the term "principle" means the same for me in both realms. Nazi beliefs are only "principles" in the sense that alchemy could be construed as being constituted of physical "principles", i.e., they aren't principles at all, they're arbitrary premises somebody just made up by guessing instead of by thinking.

Again, I think my view is almost standard Objectivism. It's only being deemed radical by George because he wants to score points.

Shayne

[Brant Gaede]

Rand did redefine "selfishness" into something else. It made for great and powerful rhetoric in her book's title. I don't think she used the word too much aside from that because if she had she'd have had to eventually own up to the fact that it is not "concern with one's own interests" (her italics) (VOS p. vii pb).

I think you're being wrongheaded (unlike George who's being willfully misleading -- I think he knows that what I'm saying is quite sensible but is posturing to make it appear otherwise for some unseemly hidden purpose of his own). My sense of the term principle is pretty much given in this common dictionary:

http://dictionary.re...rowse/principle

"a fundamental, primary, or general law or truth from which others are derived: the principles of modern physics."

I would not put it exactly this way, but clearly my sense of the term "principle" is far from comparable to Rand's redefinition of "selfish."

On my view (and I think Rand's and Peikoff's as well), moral truth and truths about physics are arrived at on essentially the same method, so the term "principle" means the same for me in both realms. Nazi beliefs are only "principles" in the sense that alchemy could be construed as being constituted of physical "principles", i.e., they aren't principles at all, they're arbitrary premises somebody just made up by guessing instead of by thinking.

Again, I think my view is almost standard Objectivism. It's only being deemed radical by George because he wants to score points.

Shayne

"Truth" here is not objective truth but claimed truth. You are saying Nazi truth is not truth, which is so, but the Nazi disagrees. Thus we have conflicting principles--and, as it turned out, actual war back then. Regardless, using truth as you do here respecting principles strikes me as a short cut through rationality just the way Peikoff seems to be about with his DIM hypothesis. I don't find it a helpful or valuable ratiocination that starts with truth with the implicit demand of simple agreement from the addressed.

--Brant

[sjw]

"Truth" here is not objective truth but claimed truth. You are saying Nazi truth is not truth, which is so, but the Nazi disagrees. Thus we have conflicting principles--and, as it turned out, actual war back then. Regardless, using truth as you do here respecting principles strikes me as a short cut through rationality just the way Peikoff seems to be about with his DIM hypothesis. I don't find it a helpful or valuable ratiocination that starts with truth with the implicit demand of simple agreement from the addressed.

--Brant

It's not a "short cut"; it's the final step of a process. That you perceive a final step as a "short cut" is revealing of something about how you use your mind, I'd have to think a bit to figure out just what, but perhaps you could save me the effort and give your own explanation, and while you're at it, your own definition of a principle.

Shayne

2 + 2 = 4 -- I left out the bit where I counted up the individual units, is that OK?

[sjw]

One implication of your mode of thinking Brant is that in defining the term "principle", you demand that I leave room for what Nazis think. I'm supposed to corrupt my terminology because some corrupt person might want to use it for his thoughts as well. He can do what he wants, but I'm not going to call his vile beliefs "principles".

On your mode of thought, I can't call my own principles "principles", I have to call them "true principles". I have to say "the true principles of physics" or "the true principles of liberty", in order to gain permission from you to actually use the concept of a principle I have in mind and distinguish from what the corrupt or misguided have thought.

Perhaps that can help you explain why you insist that I not define "principle" in the way I do.

Shayne

[Brant Gaede]

One implication of your mode of thinking Brant is that in defining the term "principle", you demand that I leave room for what Nazis think. I'm supposed to corrupt my terminology because some corrupt person might want to use it for his thoughts as well. He can do what he wants, but I'm not going to call his vile beliefs "principles".

On your mode of thought, I can't call my own principles "principles", I have to call them "true principles". I have to say "the true principles of physics" or "the true principles of liberty", in order to gain permission from you to actually use the concept of a principle I have in mind and distinguish from what the corrupt or misguided have thought.

Perhaps that can help you explain why you insist that I not define "principle" in the way I do.

Shayne

STOP RIGHT THERE!

If you don't "leave room for what Nazis think" you have no interest in any real intellectual investigation at all and have made yourself a dogmatist--the worst kind of dogmatist--a dogmatist for freedom.

--Brant

principles of physics have to be objectively identifed and used as in all science

[sjw]

One implication of your mode of thinking Brant is that in defining the term "principle", you demand that I leave room for what Nazis think. I'm supposed to corrupt my terminology because some corrupt person might want to use it for his thoughts as well. He can do what he wants, but I'm not going to call his vile beliefs "principles".

On your mode of thought, I can't call my own principles "principles", I have to call them "true principles". I have to say "the true principles of physics" or "the true principles of liberty", in order to gain permission from you to actually use the concept of a principle I have in mind and distinguish from what the corrupt or misguided have thought.

Perhaps that can help you explain why you insist that I not define "principle" in the way I do.

Shayne

STOP RIGHT THERE!

If you don't "leave room for what Nazis think" you have no interest in any real intellectual investigation at all and have made yourself a dogmatist--the worst kind of dogmatist--a dogmatist for freedom.

--Brant

principles of physics have to be objectively identifed and used as in all science

Do you seriously want to pretend that I advocate refusing to comprehend what Nazis think?

Shayne

GHS, part II.

[Brant Gaede]

One implication of your mode of thinking Brant is that in defining the term "principle", you demand that I leave room for what Nazis think. I'm supposed to corrupt my terminology because some corrupt person might want to use it for his thoughts as well. He can do what he wants, but I'm not going to call his vile beliefs "principles".

On your mode of thought, I can't call my own principles "principles", I have to call them "true principles". I have to say "the true principles of physics" or "the true principles of liberty", in order to gain permission from you to actually use the concept of a principle I have in mind and distinguish from what the corrupt or misguided have thought.

Perhaps that can help you explain why you insist that I not define "principle" in the way I do.

Shayne

STOP RIGHT THERE!

If you don't "leave room for what Nazis think" you have no interest in any real intellectual investigation at all and have made yourself a dogmatist--the worst kind of dogmatist--a dogmatist for freedom.

--Brant

principles of physics have to be objectively identifed and used as in all science

Do you seriously want to pretend that I advocate refusing to comprehend what Nazis think?

Shayne

GHS, part II.

I'm not talking about your comprehension. I'm talking about discussion. I refuse to get tied up in your epistemological knots.

--Brant

[sjw]

I'm not talking about your comprehension. I'm talking about discussion. I refuse to get tied up in your epistemological knots.

--Brant

Poor baby.

I accept multiple senses, each applicable in a given context. So yes, I can talk about "Nazi principles", so long as I'm free to add the qualification that they don't have principles in the most important sense of the term: a true generalization, formed by a specific method of logic (the general form of a "scientific method"). In fact, I think we can resolve the seeming contradiction in Rand's view (as I indicated previously) as simply her tacitly relying on this or that sense of the term, i.e., not a contradiction at all.

Shayne

[Brant Gaede]

I'm not talking about your comprehension. I'm talking about discussion. I refuse to get tied up in your epistemological knots.

--Brant

Poor baby.

I accept multiple senses, each applicable in a given context. So yes, I can talk about "Nazi principles", so long as I'm free to add the qualification that they don't have principles in the most important sense of the term: a true generalization, formed by a specific method of logic (the general form of a "scientific method"). In fact, I think we can resolve the seeming contradiction in Rand's view (as I indicated previously) as simply her tacitly relying on this or that sense of the term, i.e., not a contradiction at all.

Shayne

Okay.

--Brant

teeth puller

[sjw]

Okay.

--Brant

teeth puller

It was partly my fault for not recognizing the "multiple senses" issue earlier.

Shayne

[George H. Smith]

Historian Gordon Wood was discussed briefly on this thread. For a good article on Wood, which also explains how his "classical republican" interpretation has been used by the political left in America, see:

http://www.claremont.org/publications/crb/id.1274/article_detail.asp

Ghs