Your TAS Dollars at Work


Roger Bissell

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Dear OL comrades:

Following is the text of an email I received yesterday (Dec. 31) in response to a proposed mini-series of lectures on applied logic for the 2008 Summer Seminar. Note the salutation, as well as my reply, which is appended.

Happy Frickin' New Year. Bah, humbug...

REB

Subject: Summer Seminar 2008: Proposal not accepted

Date: 12/31/2007 5:33:54 PM Pacific Standard Time

From: wthomas@atlassociety.org

To: REBissell@aol.com

Dear name:

Thanks for your proposal to give a presentation at the 2008 Summer

Seminar. Unfortunately, I was unable to accept your proposal

Tetrachotomies – Who Needs Them? .

This proposal sits on the bubble because 1) you are not a professional

philosopher 2) you have not published on this subject to my knowledge

and 3) I'm not sure if this thesis is insightful or rationalistic.I fear

it is a bit of both. I was with you in the outline through part 1, but

in parts 2 and 3 I couldn't immediately figure out what you were getting

at. Perhaps further written exposition would help. 4) It is hard to fit

courses into the program.

I hope you will attend the Summer Seminar nevertheless. It will be held

June 28–July 5, 2008 at the University Place Hotel and Conference Center

in Portland, Oregon, with ancillary services on the campus of Portland

State University there. Full program information will posted in January

at www.AtlasEvents.org, TAS’s events website. The program includes time

for participants to give sessions that are not part of the official

program, and you would be welcome to give your presentations there if

you liked.

I wish a prosperous New Year and well in all things.

Regards,

-- Will

[my reply]

To whom it may concern:

Dear name:

Thanks for your proposal to give a presentation at the 2008 Summer

Seminar. Unfortunately, I was unable to accept your proposal

Tetrachotomies – Who Needs Them? .

I think I'm safe in assuming you were addressing your comments to me,

though it is fairly rare that I go by my nickname "name."

Thanks for getting back to me. I'm sorry my proposal doesn't meet your

criteria.

I hope you have a very enjoyable and productive Summer Seminar.

Best wishes for the New Year,

Roger B.

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Roger;

I don't have a high opinion of Will Thomas but this is bad even for him.

Earlier I discovered that Fred Seddon did not even know that Portland had been accepted as the site for Summer Seminar. This means that Seddon had not been contacted for a talk. Seddon is popular and well received speaker at other TAS events.

I hope the problems TAS is having can be addressed and dealt. TAS did a great job with the Atlas 50th but making stupid clerical errors needs to corrected.

Edited by Chris Grieb
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Name:

I am sorry to see you treated in this manner. Given your support of TAS over the years, you deserve far better, even in a rejection note.

It sounds like Will was simply cherry-picking ideas that popped into his head at the moment to give as reasons to get rid of you. Read "whim" as the subtext, with a satisfied "Yeah, that sounds good" murmured to himself as he chooses the next one—and I can hear that loud and clear from between the lines. In addition to the criticisms above, why on earth would he fear that your thesis might be insightful? That's nothing to be afraid of.

Maybe Will had too much Christmas cheer in him when he wrote that, but I speculate...

Michael

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It appears, as to principled and productive men, that TAS forgets their names ... or smears them with Photoshop work on the cover of its magazine.

What'll be strike three, I wonder?

I am profoundly disappointed in them these days.

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Thanks, everyone. You're certainly echoing my thoughts and sentiments. It's nice to be visible and cared about.

I have a few comments about Will's....criteria....that draw on information most of this group are probably not aware of, so here goes.

Will wrote:

This proposal sits on the bubble because 1) you are not a professional philosopher

Barbara, your comment was spot-on, of course. Perhaps if I had written some novels that were panned by The National Review. Oh, and by the way, there are some wonderful amateur musicians who can play rings around most nominally professional musicians. What matters is that they really play their asses off, not whether they are paid for it or hold an academic degree or have a university teaching position. Similarly, in mathematics. Consider this blurb on the back of Ogilvy and Anderson’s Excursions in Number Theory:

It [the theory of numbers] is also a popular topic among amateur mathematicians (who have made many contributions to the field) because of its accessibility: it does not require knowledge of higher mathematics…No special training is needed – just high school mathematics, a fondness for figures and an inquisitive mind.

In order to think about false dichotomies and the Law of the Excluded Middle, and to apply that thinking -- as I do in my proposed lectures on Tetrachotomies -- involves just this level of philosophical knowledge and skill. It does not require intimate acquaintance with modern mathematical logic or analytic philosophy. All it requires is knowledge of a number of issues where false alternatives have arisen, and the ability to see that there are actually two A or not-A issues going on, which generate four positions that exhaust the possibilities and exclude each other. In my proposed lectures, I do this over and over, in field after field, showing how tetrachotomies help to clarify the controversies that have previously been only partially understood and resolved. (At a Participant Sponsored Session at TAS Summer Seminar in 2006, I managed to get through about 5 or 6 really interesting examples. I'll be happy to post some of that material at a later time.)

As I say, this is not specialized knowledge. Just basic -- I mean, really basic -- logic applied to a wide range of accumulated information about philosophical disputes. And as we all know, this is also what Rand did in her analysis of the many false dichotomies throughout the history of Western civilization. But where she considered it sufficient to explode the false alternatives by means of a three-way analysis (trichotomy), I maintain that you don't get full clarity until you have ground the disputes through the mill of a double-alternative, i.e., a tetrachotomy.

A dear friend from college days has just shown up to spend NY Day with Becky and me and our dear friend and houseguest, Bill Dwyer, so I'll continue my somewhat bloviating commentary on Will's....criteria....later.

Cheers, everyone. (I feel better already. :-) )

REB

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Roger -

Enjoy the time with the friend from college days. And don't get bitter about the first response you got from Will Thomas. I think it is altogether likely that you may get a second response which is more favorable. (I say this not based on any "special knowledge" but just by contemplating the situation.)

Alfonso

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Roger -

Enjoy the time with the friend from college days. And don't get bitter about the first response you got from Will Thomas. I think it is altogether likely that you may get a second response which is more favorable. (I say this not based on any "special knowledge" but just by contemplating the situation.)

Alfonso

Thanks for trying to cheer me up, Alfonso, but that was my second response from Will. And it is in pattern with previous rejections he has given me. He is all for me playing trombone and singing -- which is my professional expertise -- but I'm not "qualified" or published or whatever in logic, philosophy, etc., so I'm not "eligible" to be a presenter in those areas at TAS.

But by all means, please continue to contemplate the situation. As much Primacy of Consciousness seems to be floating around the Objectivist Movement these days, it just might work! (Just kidding.)

REB

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Roger -

Enjoy the time with the friend from college days. And don't get bitter about the first response you got from Will Thomas. I think it is altogether likely that you may get a second response which is more favorable. (I say this not based on any "special knowledge" but just by contemplating the situation.)

Alfonso

Thanks for trying to cheer me up, Alfonso, but that was my second response from Will. And it is in pattern with previous rejections he has given me. He is all for me playing trombone and singing -- which is my professional expertise -- but I'm not "qualified" or published or whatever in logic, philosophy, etc., so I'm not "eligible" to be a presenter in those areas at TAS.

But by all means, please continue to contemplate the situation. As much Primacy of Consciousness seems to be floating around the Objectivist Movement these days, it just might work! (Just kidding.)

REB

First of all - LOL about your last paragraph...

Now, considering . . . who would be unqualified to present at TAS if the criterion were "published" in the sense of "published in a refereed journal" . . . . I haven't attempted a strict count but I'd be surprised if more than 50% of those presenting have ever published in a real refereed journal.

Alfonso

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[Objectivism was the invention of a professional philosopher. Rand wrote on philosophical topics, got published and got paid. She wasn't an academic, but that's not the same.]

Nobody enjoys rejection, and you are welcome to any satisfaction you get from pointing out the typo, but I can see the guy's point. You asked for a large block of time (a series, rather than a single session), and the organizers, having more requests than timeslots, have to ration the latter. This doesn't mean you can't seek an audience for your ideas. It doesn't even mean you can't seek an audience at this conference, if they continue their practice of participant-sponsored sessions.

No reflection on you, but in my years of hanging around Objectivist circles I've seen people put forth a lot of bizarre notions as extensions of Objectivism, applications of it or improvements on it, when all they were doing was to use the drawing power of Rand's name to pull an audience they couldn't have pulled on their own. Conference organizers presumably see a lot of this and have learned to watch out for it. (Did you think your donations entitled you to a conference slot? Next time, get it in writing.)

I wish you every success in getting your ideas out and getting due recognition for them.

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Hey, guys, thanks for the good thoughts and wishes. I will push on with getting my ideas out there in print and discussed, regardless of whether I can get the time of day from TAS for anything other than trombone playing.

But now I see it would be good to comment on the 4th of Will's....criteria....since Peter has mentioned it here:

Nobody enjoys rejection, and you are welcome to any satisfaction you get from pointing out the typo, but I can see the guy's point. You asked for a large block of time (a series, rather than a single session), and the organizers, having more requests than timeslots, have to ration the latter. This doesn't mean you can't seek an audience for your ideas. It doesn't even mean you can't seek an audience at this conference, if they continue their practice of participant-sponsored sessions.

Oh, sure. If attending the Summer Seminar were conveniently close to where I live here in SoCal, I'd seriously consider attending in order to be able to do one or more PSS presentations of my tetrachotomy ideas -- basically, do the proposed lecture series "under the radar," as it were. (My previous tetrachotomy lecture in 2006 was a PSS lecture, and it was very well received, and I mentioned this in my proposal to Will.) But it is in Portland, and the cost for us is prohibitive this year. (As an official presenter, I would have been comped, thus defraying a great deal of the cost.)

Now, in regard to Peter's comment: yes, it makes sense that there would be some difficulty in scheduling multiple lecture offerings, but in the original "request for proposals," here is what Will Thomas wrote:

For material that requires more time, we can schedule double-length sessions or mini-courses of 2-4 separate sessions. We welcome proposals from one session in length on up, and are particularly interested in mini-courses that require two or more sessions.

Is there a disconnect here? Seems to me there is. Which is Will's real policy or concern? That it is "hard to fit courses into the program" -- or, that they are "particularly interested in mini-courses that require two or more sessions"? Why broadcast in almost a salivating manner than you would like to get your hands on proposals for mini-courses -- then reject a proposal (even partly) on the pretext that mini-courses are hard to schedule? Sorry, I'm not buyin' it.

More later on Will's....criteria....2 and 3.

Cheers!

REB

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Lack of professionalism like this kills momentum. They should have had you do something last year, Roger. I would have gone to it in lieu of about half the offerings last year. It's okay, at the rate they're producing professional philosophers they need all the amateurs they can get.

Jim

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Jim; Good comment. There is disturbing lack of professionalism at TAS evidenced by the reply to "name" (Roger Bissel). Doesn't Will look at his letters before he sends them out.

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Roger, I am very surprised that TAS rejected your proposal. I'm not sure what exactly Will meant by "sits on the bubble" but I am assuming that it was narrowly rejected. Considering that you have given presentations at the summer seminars before and have been published in the Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, we all know that you are intellectually up to the task so the lack of credentials should not be an issue at all here. I don't buy that intellectual snobbery bit. There may be another reason, most likely financial. After all you have done the participant sessions before.

It does seem, however, that he may be looking for a bit more clarification on your proposed talk. Maybe he thinks the topic is not fully flushed out or may be more suitable for a one-part overview rather than a two-part session. You may want to continue the dialogue and maybe get some feedback from Ed or David as well.

Happy New Year, say hi to Bill.

Kat

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Roger,

I'm sorry to hear about your proposal being turned down.

Mine was turned down as well, though not in such a dismissive fashion. And I was referred to as "Robert," not "name."

One of the reasons Will Thomas cited for turning mine down is that I was proposing a single lecture on a single topic, instead of multiple lectures, therefore TAS would be getting less in return for covering my travel expenses.

Whatever.

I won't be able to make any further judgment till I see TAS's program for the Summer Seminar and find out which speakers and topics did make the cut.

Robert Campbell

PS. Judging from the email that he sent me, "insightful" is one of the positive terms in Will Thomas's vocabulary.

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Kat,

You're correct that "on the bubble" signals a narrow rejection of a proposal.

When David Kelley reviewed the proposals for the Summer Seminar, he used the same phrase.

Robert Campbell

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Kat,

You're correct that "on the bubble" signals a narrow rejection of a proposal.

When David Kelley reviewed the proposals for the Summer Seminar, he used the same phrase.

Robert Campbell

Maybe there should be an alternate seminar called Bubbilicious for the proposals didn't make it :-).

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Peter,

I'm going to assume that you made these comments about Roger out of ignorance.

No reflection on you, but in my years of hanging around Objectivist circles I've seen people put forth a lot of bizarre notions as extensions of Objectivism, applications of it or improvements on it, when all they were doing was to use the drawing power of Rand's name to pull an audience they couldn't have pulled on their own. Conference organizers presumably see a lot of this and have learned to watch out for it. (Did you think your donations entitled you to a conference slot? Next time, get it in writing.)

I wish you every success in getting your ideas out and getting due recognition for them.

Maybe you weren't aware that Roger is a known quantity to David Kelley and Will Thomas? Or that he has published in the Journal of Ayn Rand Studies?

This doesn't mean you can't seek an audience for your ideas. It doesn't even mean you can't seek an audience at this conference, if they continue their practice of participant-sponsored sessions.

Roger's gone the participant-sponsored session route, for what it's worth.

Your comments come across as condescending. Prefacing them with "no reflection on you" does nothing to alleviate that.

Robert Campbell

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Robert, perhaps I should have taken offense at Peter's comments, but I didn't, and still don't. I agree that discernment should be rigorously applied to keep cranks out of the TAS Summer Seminars, especially the official sessions. Few things could damage the future development and credibility of an underdog organization like TAS as having one or more whack-jobs presenting half-baked take-offs on Rand's philosophy.

But I don't think this concern is in play here.

David and Will know very well that I am not a crank or weirdo who crawled out from under a rock. I have been intellectually active and being published in the Objectivist Movement for nearly 40 years. I have been (as you pointed out) published (seven times) in The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies--as well as once in Stephen Boydstun's journal Objectivity, several times in Reason Papers (Tibor Machan's journal) and twice in Reason magazine, one essay which the editors of Reason saw fit to reprint in their 25th anniversary anthology, Free Minds and Free Markets. They know all this.

In addition, I took part with Will and David in a year-long TOC (aka TAS) cyberseminar on epistemology. I presented papers to two TOC Advanced Seminars and to a TOC Graduate Seminar. The latter even included my first written version of the tetrachotomy thesis, so they cannot pretend not to know what it is about -- only...perhaps...that they don't fully see how extensively or significantly it can be applied and why Objectivists could or should be interested in it. But spelling that out is exactly what my proposed series was to accomplish (in part). For that matter, perhaps their uncertainty or concern about how far I was going to run with the tetrachotomy idea is what really motivated the rejection. There are some rather simple and/or non-controversial applications in my lectures, but there are also some that are very controversial.

Perhaps David and Will (rightly) suspect that at least one of my tetrachotomy applications poses a serious threat to a prominent Objectivist tenet (the notion of free will as the capacity to have done other than one did in a given situation, whether thinking vs. not thinking or any other choice of action). But as Rand once and famously said (and I quote from memory): a boat that cannot stand rocking needs to be rocked hard and fast. Objectivism is not a hot-house orchid that cannot stand controversy and challenge to its cherished doctrines. Anyone in a position of leadership in the movement who thinks that Objectivism is that fragile should step aside and let those with more confidence and competence take the helm, which includes the positions of choosing program proposals for the ARI and TAS seminars.

REB

P.S. -- BTW, and this relates to Will Thomas's....criterion....#2: "you have not published on this subject to my knowledge." Will is probably not aware of it, though he knows in a general way that I was aiming my 2006 Graduate Seminar piece toward JARS, but my tetrachotomy thesis is scheduled to see publication later this month, when vol. 9, no. 1 of The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies is released. A rather brief, but pregnant discussion and application of the tetrachotomy principle is embedded in my essay, "Ayn Rand and “The Objective”: A Closer Look at the Intrinsic-Objective-Subjective Trichotomy." The timing could have been better. Had it come out in December, as it usually does, I could have rebutted this....criterion....by simply pointing to my essay.

The better news (and even better leverage for future proposals) is that a second and much more extensive application (actually perhaps at least five applications) of my thesis will be included in an essay on the mind-body and free will problems, which I'm now finishing up for the Spring 2008 JARS. And sometime in 2009 or 2010, I will have yet another application (or set of applications) of the tetrachotomy included in a JARS essay on epistemology and logic. By that point, I will have enough material for a book, which I will make sure gets published one way or another (not ruling out print-on-demand i-publication). Perhaps by then, I will have enough published material on the tetrachotomy that Will's....criterion....#2 will no longer be even superficially plausible.

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I also just had my proposal turned down for this year's conference and have also had previous proposals *accepted*. One of the reasons was that if someone has developed "star" status by previously wowing the summer conference audiences, he would always be given preference. Also that I don't have strong-enough credentials on the particular topic I was proposing.

I had a mixed reaction to these reasons: On the one hand, sometimes an 'amateur' will give a better lecture than a well-know Objectivist star who speaks at every conference. (At every conference I've attended there has been one lecture (or more) that was a world-class stinker that the speaker was just "mailing in", resting on his laurels, given by some of the more famous or respected names in Objectivism, even with Ph.D's or that everyone has heard of and a long list of publications on that topic to their name.)

But on the other hand, I have to acknowledge that the summer seminars are small in size and have to struggle to draw a large crowd and expensive [whether this problem was self-inflicted is a whole other issue]. And one way to do that is to stack them with the lecturers who have a name and a following. To use myself as an example: If you have to choose between a head of a libertarian think tank and Phil Coates (who no one has ever heard of and - because his talks are in the afternoon time slot competing with a showing of Anthem made into a play - will only have a tiny number of people trying to tell the rest of the conference that he gave a thought-provoking or inspiring talk) giving a lecture making original new points, it may well be that the latter is more important or will be over time than - for example - just one more "ain't it awful" talk on how big government is bad, but the pro-free market talk is the one that will convince many more people to plunk down a thousand dollars and attend.

Personally, all the libertarian politico-economic Cato Reason CEI anti-interventionism stuff has gotten repetitious for me over the years. They're often making the same econ 101 and civil liberties 101 arguments that I already learned from Rand or Reisman. But you can't fill a conference with hard-core, very advanced Objectivist thinkers, whereas there are probably a dozen people who are more newbies or more politically focused for every one like me who will put down their money to attend a conference where there are more of those kinds of talks.

So, objectively, while your organization is struggling until and unless your operation gets big enough that you can take financial risks, you have to go with the people you think will be a bigger "draw". Now, maybe if [using myself as an example, again] I were given a less-competitive morning slot in which a hundred and twenty people instead of twenty are exposed to my ideas and lectures, I would -become- a draw, someone who gets people to sign up. But Will probably doesn't know that, doesn't feel he can take the risk, won't risk offending someone 'bigger' or more of a draw at one of the major libertarian think tanks or the equivalent.

This is also the reason for moving from a more hard core, heavy-duty pure philosophy organization to "the Atlas Society" and appeal to a wider audience of admirers of the novels, etc.

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I'm interested to see the program. TAS usually comes up with some breakthrough presentations so hopefully that will be the case this year.

Jim

Edited by James Heaps-Nelson
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Kat, you wrote:

Roger, I am very surprised that TAS rejected your proposal. I'm not sure what exactly Will meant by "sits on the bubble" but I am assuming that it was narrowly rejected...It does seem, however, that he may be looking for a bit more clarification on your proposed talk. Maybe he thinks the topic is not fully flushed out or may be more suitable for a one-part overview rather than a two-part session. You may want to continue the dialogue and maybe get some feedback from Ed or David as well.

Kat, my interpretation of Will's email to me is based on its heading. Although he said he was "unable to accept it" -- thus perhaps suggesting that its status is "still pending" in some way -- his email heading called it a "rejection." I take that as clear-cut and final. After all, he didn't ask me to offer clarification, in order to help him reconsider, but instead invited me to present an off-Broadway session, safely isolated from the sanitized, pasteurized, official presentations. Feh. Been there, done that. :bye:

This might be the best time to dispose of the remaining one of Will's four....criteria....for rejecting my proposal. He wrote:

3) I'm not sure if this thesis is insightful or rationalistic. I fear it is a bit of both. I was with you in the outline through part 1, but in parts 2 and 3 I couldn't immediately figure out what you were getting at. Perhaps further written exposition would help.

Will actually states two concerns here. One is that my thesis is rationalistic. The other is that parts 2 and 3 were not clear. I'll address them in turn.

1. Is the tetrachotomy "rationalistic"? Well, a rationalistic approach is one that does not examine the facts but instead takes a preconceived notion or theory and forces it over the facts, dispensing with the facts where they don't agree with the theory. Will knows this does not describe the tetrachotomy thesis. It is very simply a way of sorting views in a somewhat more complex way than setting up a dichotomy between a and not-a. For instance, you can say the choices are vanilla or not-vanilla. That is a true dichotomy, or true alternative. Suppose we expand the known flavor choices to vanilla and chocolate. Then the choices are vanilla and chocolate (swirl -- yum!), vanilla, chocolate, and neither. This is a tetrachotomy (a true one, to boot). We get it by combining two true dichotomies: vanilla or not-vanilla and chocolate or not-chocolate. When you combine or "conjoin" them, you get four mutually exclusive, jointly exhaustive alternatives: vanilla and chocolate, vanilla and not-chocolate, chocolate and not-vanilla, and not-vanilla and not-chocolate. This is basic freshman logic, or was when I took the course at Iowa State University in 1967. And there is no force-fitting of a theory on inconvenient facts -- simply rational sorting according to the Law of the Excluded Middle. This, in pattern, is what I do to a number of philosophical issues. I listed a number of those issues.

Rand (and any Aristotelian philosopher worth his salt) had no compunctions against applying the LEM to philosophical controversies, thus replacing the destructive false dichotomies that infest the history of philosophy with true alternatives. No one would accuse Rand or the others of "rationalism," unless they simply ignored relevant facts in applying the LEM (or "dichotomy principle"). The tetrachotomy technique is basically an extension of the LEM, nothing new in principle, but strikingly fresh in what it reveals when applied carefully. There is so much prejudice against deductive reasoning in Objectivism, the belief being that no new knowledge or insight can be discovered from it. But this is wrong, dead wrong, and I can prove it -- and I will prove it, even if I have to drag the Objectivist movement kicking and screaming through the entire process. :poke:

And for those who are still troubled by the focus on deductive technique, I'll simply say here that I couldn't have gotten to the point of discovering and applying the technique if I hadn't already done an enormous amount of study of logic, philosophy in its various branches, and history of philosophy, including especially the previous attempts to explicate the various false-dichotomy controversies that have plagued philosophy. I actually had to ponder and tinker with several examples of the tetrachotomy before I realized I had an actual general principle -- and then realized exactly what the general principle was based on (the LEM). My tetrachotomy technique did not emerge like Athena fully formed from Zeus's forehead. It had a very long, messy history of development and emerged inductively out of a lot of study spanning more than 40 years. So, I'm not going to give a moment's credence or attention (any more!) to claims that I am a friggin' rationalist! (At least, not on this subject! ;) )

2. Is it really not clear what I am "getting at" in parts 2 and 3? Here is the actual section of my proposal pertaining to the three lectures:

LECTURE ONE

1. Introduction

2. Ice-cream example and definitions

3. Political example: false dichotomy of liberal vs. conservative

4. Another political example (if time): false dichotomy of communism vs. fascism

5. Ethical example: false dichotomy (and package deal!) of altruism vs. (Stirnirite) egoism

6. More ethical examples if time

LECTURE TWO

7. Epistemological example: false dichotomy of rationalism vs. empiricism

8. Another epistemological example (if time): e.g., deriving Aristotle's Square of Opposition

9. Another epistemological example (if time): false alternative of truth vs. falsity

10. Another epistemological example (if time): false alternative of "The King of France is bald" vs. "The King of France is not bald."

11. More epistemological examples if time

12. Metaphysical example: false dichotomy of free will vs. determinism

LECTURE THREE

13. Metaphysical and epistemological example: false alternative of "objective" vs. subjective; deriving Rand's trichotomy

14. Another metaphysical example (if time): false alternative of matter vs. consciousness as causally efficacious

15. Another metaphysical example (if time): false alternative of matter vs. consciousness as primary reality

16. Another metaphysical example (if time): false alternative of parts vs. wholes as causally efficacious

17. Another metaphysical example (if time): false alternative of parts vs. wholes as primary reality

18. More metaphysical examples if time

19. More examples from other areas if time

As you can see, the final item in Lecture 2 and items 14 and 16 from Lecture 3 all suggest that I am going to enter into some rather controversial philosophical waters. David and Will are aware that I am a Compatibilist in regard to free will -- that we are not free to have done other than we did, but that we would have been free to do other than we did, had we valued that more than what we did. Using the tetrachotomy technique to argue forcefully for Compatibilism and for the causal inefficacy of mind is perhaps too harsh of an attack on Objectivism to be given official "sanction" (schedule time) at a TAS seminar.

Whether Will's concern was with any of these, or instead with some of the other items, again, he could simply have asked me to give more detail on those particular applications. Or, he could have asked me to present a single lecture with the applications that were most comprehensible to him. I would have been happy to have relegated the more challenging or controversial examples to a Participant Sponsored Session, in return for the chance to present the basic thesis and some straight-forward, non-threatening examples in an official session.

REB

P.S. -- In case anyone wonders, I'm not accusing Will and David of dishonesty. I'm just saying they aren't making a whole lot of sense in their objections to my proposal. It is innovative and challenging, and it will, if accepted, lead to new perspectives and interpretations of Objectivist philosophy. It may simply be too much to swallow at this time.

But time is my great ally on all this. I have long been convinced that there is more than one way to skin a cat, and I have a track record of being a cat-skinner from way back. If this is yet another instance where I have to engage in feline-exfoliation, so be it. :cat: :zorro:

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