A Few Kant Quotes

[Brant Gaede]

It is unseemly to seemingly morally equivocate Rand and Hitler.

I wish you had read my post with more care before writing this.

Brant,

I was responding to the first statement. I should have quoted it. Sorry.

The way it is stated, you either misunderstood my point or did not agree with it about scapegoating. Thus I found it seemly to express the idea in another form to make it clearer.

Michael, what I objected to was putting Rand and ^%$&^&* together like that to illustrate your point. It's unseemly to do that with the 20th Century's greatest champion of individualism and freedom.

--Brant

[Newberry]

I'd prefer that you would give me a straight answer to my question: When you said that we have fundamental differences, did you mean that you have a grand, superior, romantic soul, that I don't, that you can't teach me how to evolve such a soul, and that such limitations in my ability to evolve are unfortunate because, if only I had a soul as wonderful as yours, I would generally agree with your judgments and opinions no matter how shoddy their foundations? Is that what you meant?

You ask that rhetorically. Could you perhaps ask the question in a kinder way?

The core of someone's being is not something one is taught.

It depends on what you mean by "core." Do you mean that the "core of someone's being" strictly governs whether he can be taught to avoid being shoddy and hasty in regard to intellectual matters? I think that almost any child can quickly be taught to will himself to be careful, fair and accurate despite having a natural tendency toward stubbornness, so I think that if you believe that you, as an intelligent adult, have a "core" which prevents you from willing yourself to accept criticisms of your ideas, to recognize your errors, change your opinions accordingly, correct your mistakes and apologize for your unfair judgments, then I'd have to say that it doesn't sound at all as if you have a "romantic soul" (at least not in the Randian sense in which "romantic" basically means believing in the power of volition), but that you appear to be quite deterministic -- that you think you're a plaything of a "core."

I am guessing your reply is in the negative, that you do think that the essence/core of someone can be taught.

So far, I don't yet see a common ground with you.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Michael, what I objected to was putting Rand and ^%$&^&* together like that to illustrate your point. It's unseemly to do that with the 20th Century's greatest champion of individualism and freedom.

Heh.

Maybe there was a little too much rhetorical excess...

Michael

[Newberry]

One of the points that Ellen and I shared was that ideas could be bad. Comparing Kant to dictators are two different things--I think it wise to keep the goodness or badness to the realm of ideas.

Another perspective to consider about Kant, is that his obfuscation may not be due to sloppiness, unclear thoughts, or bad phrasing (allowances made for the translations), but done by intent.

Lots of writers try to write clearly, and give clear essentials so that the readers can easily recall the important points. But, what if Kant did not want us to clearly, and easily understand his deeper meaning, and objectives? Look what has happened on this thread: MSK has been deflected to comparing Rand to the Nazis. Kyrel and Phil, both intellectuals, abandoned looking further into Kant's possible meanings, and Phil turned his attention to criticize Rand's view of Impressionism. Bill and Roger have been looking for all the positive things about Kant, in part with the agenda to prove he is not an evil philosopher.

Let's say in the 19th Century you could not stand hearing anymore praise about the greatness and genius of the Renaissance artists Michelangelo and da Vinci--but were you to criticize those artists directly would have landed you fired from your post, or others would simply dismiss you as an imbecile. How would you go about cheapening and dismissing their value, yet doing it in such a way that no one would accuse you of that motive? In other words, how to put them down undetectably? Writing distinctly and clearly would not be an option. And criticizing the aesthetics of the western tradition, with all of innovations, and developments would also not work. So, again, if you wanted to tear down the highest, greatest examples of Western civilization at its best, how would you go about it?

It would not be a bad idea to show that you have a little humor, nothing is so serious that someone can't laugh a little at himself and others. It is great camouflage masking much more serious, and dangerous motives. It would also be important, to communicate in style that would be extremely difficult to immediately understand. That way, all the logical, realistic, and practical students, which would also be threatening to your agenda, would abandon the class, and probably philosophy by the 3rd or 4th week. What you have left, are a few brilliant, dedicated students and quite a few pretentious ones that want everyone to think they are smart and clever because of their newly acquired high fluent'in language. Next, would be to show, still using difficult language, that you know your shit, i.e. namely, that you are very familiar with all of the important western aesthetic concepts. (Kant, still with difficult language, does nail all of the concepts of themes, senses, form, resolution, end in itself, and beauty; all of the great developments of da Vinci and Michelangelo for example, under the heading of Beauty in his Critique.) Once you have exhausted all of these concepts, introducing these students to some complex stuff, through a very tiresome language. You are now ready, to drop the bomb on all those great achievements.

Only, the bomb isn't a dramatic explosion, it is delivered imperceptibly, vaguely, with a mind numbing precision. Remember, you cannot get caught with your agenda. Excite the students by referencing earthquakes, volcanoes, horrible hurricanes, and convey how intense the witnessing those experiences are--how can the mere contemplation of beauty compare to the feeling of standing on the edge of oblivion? (Kant's concept of violence to your imagination, Sublime.) How can the tedious of endless calculations, effort of details compare with the passion of pouring out your inner visions automatically (Kant's concept of genius.) Ya, it is obvious that the form of a Greek sculpture is beautiful, but think how small that is, how tiny and insignificant it is to the endless, bigger than gigantic, universe. (Kant's concept of the formless nature of the Sublime.)

What is the nature of a man that pulverizes value, yet under guise of educating the young?

Michael

Edited July 19, 2008 by Newberry

[Philip Coates]

It's amazing that what ought to be a calm and scholarly topic of whether or not Kant had some useful things to say, would touch off such ill-will, personal attacks, and 'sliming' of people. And tearing of scabs off wounds or escalation of hostilities. Is this beginning to look like SoloP?

In this regard, I'm fed up with being the object of this from several people -- Roger, MSK, and Ellen in particular -- displaying a high degree of hostility and inability to admit it when a (polite) criticism is on target. Or when an answer has been given, explaining my own position.

-----

PS, I'm not yet ready to use terms like "feces hurling' (and I probably should not even use the over the top term "attack dogs" as a -permanent- label), because the ad hominems or miss-characterizations are worded in more intellectual sounding language & because I'm assuming, unilke Linz and DMBH, that this is an aberration for this particular trio of miscreants and they seem to not always operate in this Perigo-like or wolfpack like way (as did the unjust and repugnant Sciabarra attackers from a year? ago on SoloP)

But we're certainly moving in the direction of feces hurling and attack dog-ism.

[Philip Coates]

> "Let's say in the 19th Century you could not stand hearing anymore praise about the greatness and genius of the Renaissance artists Michelangelo and da Vinci--but were you to criticize those artists directly would have landed you fired from your post, or others would simply dismiss you as an imbecile. How would you go about cheapening and dismissing their value, yet doing it in such a way that no one would accuse you of that motive? In other words, how to put them down undetectably? Writing distinctly and clearly would not be an option. And criticizing the aesthetics of the western tradition, with all of innovations, and developments would also not work. So, again, if you wanted to tear down the highest, greatest examples of Western civilization at its best, how would you go about it?

It would not be a bad idea to show that you have a little humor, nothing is so serious that someone can't laugh a little at himself and others. It is great camouflage masking much more serious, and dangerous motives. It would also be important, to communicate in style that would be extremely difficult to immediately understand. That way, all the logical, realistic, and practical students, which would also be threatening to your agenda, would abandon the class, and probably philosophy by the 3rd or 4th week. What you have left, are a few brilliant, dedicated students and quite a few pretentious ones that want everyone to think they are smart and clever because of their newly acquired high fluent'in language. Next, would be to show, still using difficult language, that you know your shit, i.e. namely, that you are very familiar with all of the important western aesthetic concepts. (Kant, still with difficult language, does nail all of the concepts of themes, senses, form, resolution, end in itself, and beauty; all of the great developments of da Vinci and Michelangelo for example, under the heading of Beauty in his Critique.) Once you have exhausted all of these concepts, introducing these students to some complex stuff, through a very tiresome language. You are now ready, to drop the bomb on all those great achievements.

Only, the bomb isn't a dramatic explosion, it is delivered imperceptibly, vaguely, with a mind numbing precision. Remember, you cannot get caught with your agenda. Excite the students by referencing earthquakes, volcanoes, horrible hurricanes, and convey how intense the witnessing those experiences are--how can the mere contemplation of beauty compare to the feeling of standing on the edge of oblivion? (Kant's concept of violence to your imagination, Sublime.) How can the tedious of endless calculations, effort of details compare with the passion of pouring out your inner visions automatically (Kant's concept of genius.) Ya, it is obvious that the form of a Greek sculpture is beautiful, but think how small that is, how tiny and insignificant it is to the endless, bigger than gigantic, universe. (Kant's concept of the formless nature of the Sublime.)

What is the nature of a man that pulverizes value, yet under [the] guise of educating the young? " [Michael N]

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Michael, this is one of your best posts that I can recall: Very clear, clean, logical!!

Thank you!!!

You've laid out perhaps even more clearly (or at least showing all the steps) Rand's and Peikoff's point that "Kant was too smart not to know. He attacked values, civilization, etc. deliberately and cleverly."

If you said this analysis of motives was –absolutely certain- as R & P did, it would be psychologizing.

But you are apparently? offering it as an interesting hypothesis. I don't know enough to know if it is a valid hypothesis, but I find your explanation of it more plausible than I recall doing when Rand and/or Peikoff gave it as a certainty (the 'most evil man', etc.)

(I still think it would be possible that he was inconsistent and contradictory, as so many people are. Part of him an advocate of the enlightenment and even classical liberalism. And part of him an advocate of dark ages mysticism, etc.)

[Ellen Stuttle]

It's amazing that what ought to be a calm and scholarly topic of whether or not Kant had some useful things to say, would touch off such ill-will, personal attacks, and 'sliming' of people. And tearing of scabs off wounds or escalation of hostilities. Is this beginning to look like SoloP?

In this regard, I'm fed up with being the object of this from several people -- Roger, MSK, and Ellen in particular -- displaying a high degree of hostility and inability to admit it when a (polite) criticism is on target. Or when an answer has been given, explaining my own position.

Phil, I have displayed no hostility toward you whatsoever on this thread. I don't think that Roger has either -- or that MSK did until maybe his last few posts, and even then I don't see any clear hostility. What is the basis of your accusation? Would you at least try to back it up by quoting exactly what you think is hostile and explaining why you think it's hostile?

Nor do I know what criticism you made which you think was on target and should be admitted to. The criticism you made of me was in the form of your putting a motive into my mind which wasn't there in my asking some questions on another thread.

The question I asked you on this thread -- in post #112 -- I don't recall seeing you answer anywhere. If you think you have answered it, would you link me to where?

Ellen

___

[Philip Coates]

Michael, I just realized you were talking about Kant as undercutting art, the beautiful. Whereas R and P. were talking his much wider, epistemological and metaphysical attempt to sever reason from reality.

But you reasoning about having to do it indirectly and with obfuscation would apply to that sphere as well, I think.

[Ellen Stuttle]

[...] R and P. were talking [about Kant's] much wider, epistemological and metaphysical attempt to sever reason from reality.

Kant wasn't attempting to sever reason from reality. He was attempting to save certainty -- and science itself -- from Hume.

Edit: Emendation: The bald statement might sound as if I think that the enterprise of science requires the possibility of certainty. I don't. But Kant did.

Ellen

___

Edited July 19, 2008 by Ellen Stuttle

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Phil,

Will you please learn something if you wish to keep on this line of complaint?

Ad hominem is a logical fallacy in a debate where an attack against a person substitutes the point. Ad hominem is not a personal criticism in general. For instance (and I paraphrase):

Personal criticism:

Phil: You people have defective thinking methods because you criticize Kant and do not quote him. This is what is keeping Objectivism from spreading (etc., etc., etc.). The issue is Kant, so please provide quotes so I can understand what you are talking about. (etc., etc., etc.)

Several people: Here are your quotes. Whaddya think?

Phil: I can't be bothered to read them.

Several people: Hey! If you didn't want the quotes, what did you ask for them for? You should reexamine this kind of behavior if you want to be taken seriously.

Ad hominem:

Phil: You people have defective thinking methods because you criticize Kant and do not quote him. This is what is keeping Objectivist from spreading (etc., etc., etc.). The issue is Kant, so please provide quotes so I can understand what you are talking about. (etc., etc., etc.)

Several people: How can anyone take you seriously? You are a [fill in the black]. Not a word you say is worth anything.

You were answered in the first instance. Your behavior was criticized after the answer and had nothing to do with the answer per se. Offense was not substituted for argument.

In the second, no attempt was made to answer you, but an insult was given instead. That is ad hominem.

See the difference?

Ad hominem sounds nice and inflated and all, but it has a specific meaning.

Thanks.

Michael

[Philip Coates]

Ellen, your simply being unable to find ANY of the points that I made and need for assistance with that seems, to put it gently, odd:

It's not as if I write as obscurely as Kant. Or as if my posts of only the last few days were hard to follow. Or as if I hadn't already written summaries, numbered explanations, recapped my -previous- responses.

You are asking me to do additional work for you, to go back and restate, provide links to, and continue the discussion with regard to points that I believe I made crystal clear to begin with.

Since I don't think that you or Roger or MSK have treated those statements and points fairly to begin with and since I sense an attitude of "gotcha" [ a bit more subtle in your case than with the angrier more frontal MSK and Roger ], I can't imagine why I would waste any further time with you.

Were done here.

With other people - possessing a greater sense of fairness or who don't seem hard of hearing - it might be a different matter.

[Ellen Stuttle]

Were done here.

As you wish, Phil. I'll repeat that I do not think you've explained what you find so unique -- and so different from the Kant excerpts Roger posted -- in Rand's trichotomy.

And...I did rather hope that you might have the grace to apologize for inserting motives into my head.

Ellen

___

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Phil,

(sigh...)

The idea is not "gotcha."

YOU are not as important as the IDEA in an intellectual discussion. But you keep dragging it back to YOU for some reason.

And just because you claim I am hostile, that does not mean I am. Read my posts. They maybe stern about getting things right, but they are full of good wishes for you.

I seriously wonder about this Objectivist world where many people live in a perennial paranoia of put-downs and one-upmanship. Is this what learning the philosophy does? I don't want to be like that. I refuse to be like that. There's a whole lot more important going on in life and I was trying to show it to you when you started getting sidetracked. I believe the others were too.

But you're right. I'm wasting my time trying to make it clear and you are wasting your time too. I cannot give you what you seek, whatever it is.

Anyway, I have better things to do. I'm done.

Please carry on or not, as it suits you.

Be well.

Michael

[william.scherk]

> Please try to have bit more charity with your discussion partners, Michael. When someone points out a mistake, it is better to acknowledge it, rather than to accuse them of doing bad things -- as with painting Brant as a pupil of James Valliant. [WSS]

Michael indulges in a lot of ad hominem. He seems to think his experience in Brazil developed in him a special insight, giving him a psychologzing license and enabling him to 'see into people's souls' and assess their motives. Often at some distance.

He did this recently with me, just in the last several days. He did it with Jim Heaps-Nelson, driving one of the most thoughtful posters away from the site. He did it with a whole bunch of people over on RoR which got a stunning array of people angry at him.

I take issue with Michael when I think he is wrong, as with leaping all over Jim, as with the snarkout on Laure, as with needlessly calling people names and/or slurring them by association (as he did just now with Brant).

I don't see anything wrong with wondering psychologically why people act the way they do, but I don't always have to utter the wonderment or reach public conclusions -- not when I want a reasonably civil future discussion with the person I wonder about.

I do notice where Michael and you share similar human frailties in discussion. We probably all here have a small measure of the same frailty: defensiveness under criticism, difficulty in admitting error. Sometimes this goes so far as intuiting grave psychological defects in the other, sometimes it merely reveals itself in unseemly squabbling.

That Kant is the most evil man in history, to assert this, and to conjure up a long chain of causality that leads from Kant to Nazi atrocity - to my mind this is ridiculous on its face, unwarranted, invalid, dumb, a signal of overreaching rhetoric rather than reason. It needs to be supported by more than hand-waving, and unnamed secondary sources, or "I heard it from a friend" kind of sloppy thinking. The assertion needs to have meat on its bones to be anything other than wild hyperbole.

Now as for your disquiet at some ad hominem, why compound and extend the apparent error with a slashback?

You have problems in discussion that stem from your rectitude, same as anyone else. When we insist upon being right, even when wrong . . . it makes for a dreary, psychologically stultifying and frustrating experience. Impasse. Nasty words. Nasty implications.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

MSK has been deflected to comparing Rand to the Nazis.

Michael,

This is going to be a very painful post because I started thinking seriously of making a total retraction, then started mulling it over, then it got complicated. Total retraction would not be accurate, so at least I want to make a partial retraction.

Let's unpack this first, though. When you say "compare Rand to the Nazis," I think you are aware of how loaded that sounds. I was talking specifically about one practice which I find loathsome in human intercourse: scapegoating. I was not saying that Rand was a murderous dictator or marched in lockstep and killed babies while smiling or any of those things.

But then, on reflection, the same load I see you making in that statement, I also detect in my own comparison by simple juxtaposition. This thing is loaded by nature. So this is the part I want to retract. Brant expressed it best here:

Michael, what I objected to was putting Rand and ^%$&^&* together like that to illustrate your point. It's unseemly to do that with the 20th Century's greatest champion of individualism and freedom.

Yes, that part deserved objection. I was out of line to do that and it was not what I wanted to communicate. Sorry to all.

But since we are here, now we come to painful part. This is what led me to make that comparison in the first place.

Scapegoating is a fundamental part of social evil, just as fundamental as any philosophical cause one could imagine, including altruism. If a dictatorship is impossible to maintain without calls for people to sacrifice themselves to others, it is equally impossible to maintain without a targeted person or group of people for everyone to sacrifice and spit on as the plague of mankind.

Here is an excellent definition of anti-Semitism from The Case for Israel by Alan Dershowitz, p. 2:

A good working definition of anti-Semitism is taking a trait or an action that is widespread, if not universal, and blaming only the Jews for it.

Yep. That's what Jew haters do.

But this transposes nicely to the intellectual realm. "A good working definition of intellectual scapegoating is taking an idea or an attitude that is widespread, if not universal, and blaming only one man for it." (I am using the word "only" here in the sense of fundamental cause, not as the only cause that exists. I am talking about "the most evil man in history.") This is the same error in thinking on a different scale.

There are some Objectivist antidotes against this, for example in David Kelley's work. Here is an excellent passage in The Contested Legacy of Ayn Rand, "Error and Evil," p. 45-46:

Strictly speaking, an idea is not a causal agent because it is not an entity. When we speak of an idea at the cultural level, we are abstracting a common content from the minds of all the people who accept and act upon it.

. . . . .

Abstractions as such do not exist, and have no effects. When we attribute such large-scale effects as the American Revolution or the Nazi death camps to a set of ideas, we are speaking of a causal chain involving the activities of millions of people over the span of centuries—including not only the originators of the ideas, but all those who promulgate them, who develop and modify them, or who put them into practice. The individuals involved act as individuals, not as passive vehicles of an Hegelian spirit that exists apart from them.

How are we going to take the sum of all those people and all those actions and lay them at the foot of one man? We can't. It's wrong to do that.

There is a passage in The Ayn Rand Letter I read years ago when it came out and it stuck with me in a cockeyed manner ever since (Vol. IV, No. 1, October 1975, "From The Horse's Mouth"):

Just as, at the end of Atlas Shrugged, Francisco saw a radiant future contained in a few words, so I saw the long, dismal, slithering disintegration of the twentieth century held implicitly in a few sentences. I wanted to scream a warning, but it was too late: that book had been published in 1898. Written by Friedrich Paulsen, it is entitled Immanuel Kant: His Life and Doctrine.

. . . . .

If you have felt an occasional touch of wistful envy at the thought that there was a time when men went to the opening of a new play, and what they saw was not Hair or Grease, but Cyrano de Bergerac, which opened in 1897—take a wider look. I wish that, borrowing from Victor Hugo's Notre Dame de Paris, someone had pointed to the Paulsen book, then to the play, and said: "This will kill that."

The weirdest thing is that what stuck in my mind all these years was a misquote: "This will lead to that." (Not "This will kill that.")

This phrase has echoed in my mind I don't know how many times over the years at critical moments of my life. And it just now echoed again in a very painful realization.

I want to make sure that Rand's own words back up what I am about to say so I am going to quote them. Kelley claimed that abstractions are not causal agents because they are not entities. Now here is Rand's continuation of the above passage:

I do not mean to imply that the Paulsen book had so fateful an influence; I am citing the book as a symptom, not a cause. The cause and the influence were Kant's.

Rand is talking about Kant's ideas in this context, not Kant the man. The only actions he ever did as a man was write books and give courses. She is claiming that his ideas are causal agents in themselves.

She is literally attributing the blame of millions of people on Kant because she was trying to defend an indefensible pet theory: that philosophy is the controlling influence of human affairs. (This is partially true, but as with other differences I have with Rand when I have them, here is a serious problem of scope.)

Rand scapegoated one man and claimed that those who actually implemented some of the ideas were less fundamental in degree of evil.

Rand sanctioned scapegoating as a proper form of intellectual analysis, of establishing a premise.

That's painful to admit, but there it is. This must be rejected at all costs in the name of reason. Scapegoating is wrong!

Rand did not use the terminology that stuck in my mind, but her works and other pronouncements on Kant make it fair to say that she essentially looked at one philosopher (Kant), looked at Nazi death camps and said, "This will lead to that." She actually goes further and claims that Kant kills the good and noble in people ("this will kill that") and this allows death camps to come into being, but that is the same thing with just one more step added. Regardless, if she can lay that on one philosopher, it is only fair to hold her—qua philosopher—to the same standard.

The practice of scapegoating is not right for one and wrong for another. It kills the good and noble in people just as much as placing blind faith on the same epistemological level as reason does. Scapegoating is irrational. It shuts down the mind through oversimplification. It allows aggressive emotions in people to have a common target, thus keeps those emotions from being aimed at other places. You can't have a scapegoat without a ringleader, either. If the originator of an idea like altruism is to be held responsible for social ills, the ringleader pointing to a scapegoat is equally responsible. No dictator can keep his power without altruism and without scapegoating. The Nazis certainly could not.

So when I look at the practice of scapegoating, see it sanctioned (essentially by Rand, the philosopher of reason, saying, "In this case it is justified"), all I can think is to look at scapegoating, then look at death camps, then say, "This will lead to that."

And carry a very heavy heart for arriving at this realization. But I cannot do otherwise. I see what I see.

We don't have death camps anymore, but we do have some people already in the Objectivist community who find genocide, or bombing schools and homes, or leaving children to starve in the wilderness, to be an expression of the morally correct. What would happen if these people ever became influential? We would have those monstrosities in practice. I submit that without scapegoating, none of that would be defensible on Objectivist terms even in the imagination (or on Internet discussion boards).

Fortunately, human monstrosities are made out of more complex elements than just one or two, and fortunately Rand did err on the side of scope. Thus her brilliant achievements do overshadow this shortcoming.

However, this particular shortcoming—scapegoating—is a doosey. This is one that needs to be soundly blasted out of the philosophy for anyone who wishes to carry Objectivism into the future and make it work. It has no place in a philosophy of reason.

Michael

[Newberry]

Michael, this is one of your best posts that I can recall: Very clear, clean, logical!!

Thank you!!!

You've laid out perhaps even more clearly (or at least showing all the steps) Rand's and Peikoff's point that "Kant was too smart not to know. He attacked values, civilization, etc. deliberately and cleverly."

If you said this analysis of motives was –absolutely certain- as R & P did, it would be psychologizing.

But you are apparently? offering it as an interesting hypothesis. I don't know enough to know if it is a valid hypothesis, but I find your explanation of it more plausible than I recall doing when Rand and/or Peikoff gave it as a certainty (the 'most evil man', etc.)

(I still think it would be possible that he was inconsistent and contradictory, as so many people are. Part of him an advocate of the enlightenment and even classical liberalism. And part of him an advocate of dark ages mysticism, etc.)

Hey Phil,

Thank you. It is quite a compliment coming from you.

You are right about the psychologizing part, and yes, I was trying to show it as a hypothesis.

Reading the reactions to the Kant's quotes set off a light bulb, hence the post.

Michael

Edited July 19, 2008 by Newberry

[Newberry]

MSK has been deflected to comparing Rand to the Nazis.

Michael,

This is going to be a very painful post because I started thinking seriously of making a total retraction, then started mulling it over, then it got complicated. Total retraction would not be accurate, so at least I want to make a partial retraction.

Let's unpack this first, though. When you say "compare Rand to the Nazis," I think you are aware of how loaded that sounds.

Michael

Oh Michael, it cannot sound any more loaded than this: "Rand scapegoated Kant just as surely as Hitler scapegoated the Jews." But, the absurdity of this analogy was not my point. It was how successful Kant's language is in getting people off his back, and getting them to look for the culprit elsewhere. I think you fell for his trap. ;)

Michael

[Philip Coates]

**presumption of innocence and good faith**

William, thanks for your insights in your post. I agree with one or two and disagree with one or two.

1. > defensiveness under criticism, difficulty in admitting error. [WSS]

I think you’re assuming that both MSK and myself really know we are wrong on some level of a particular issue and won’t acknowledge it. Why not presume one really believes what he is arguing for? Several examples:

--when I say someone is playing ‘gotcha’, I think it can be a bad method unproductive of good discussion to just wait to pounce on any error from someone you want to take down a peg, even if it is nitpicking or trivial or a side issue. But I don’t assume the person doeesn’t believe the nit to not really exist or has zero concern for the facts or is necessarily doing it out of revenge.

--when someone argues that Rand had feet of clay and the opponent argues that she was perfect, or someone argues that Kant was a monster and the opponent argues that he was contradictory and had some good points, why not grant the presumption of intellectual innocence and integrity, that in each case –-- no matter how stupid, or tone deaf, or blind to a piece of evidence, or sloppy in scholarship someone seems to be, or how outraged you are at their point of view ---- the person really strongly believes what they are saying?

2. > Now as for your disquiet at some ad hominem, why compound and extend the apparent error with a slashback?... unseemly squabbling.

Point taken. After I expressed my objection and position briefly (I don’t know if that’s a ‘slashback’), I shouldn’t continue harping on it.

3. > I don't see anything wrong with wondering psychologically why people act the way they do, but I don't always have to utter the wonderment or reach public conclusions -- not when I want a reasonably civil future discussion with the person I wonder about.

Very well put.

As well as the point about public denunciation or public conclusions if you want good ongoing relations, I think your use of the word ‘wondering’ is a good one. That’s the key difference between *psychologizing* (assuming there is only one possible explanation of behavior inside someone’s head – honest error vs. dishonesty vs. evasion vs. defensiveness for example) and *speculating* (let’s see, someone could be dishonest or simply have a blind spot or not able or ready to see an error, etc., etc...it seems more likely it is this one based on this other evidence...).

There’s also the issue of benefit of the doubt in the presumption of innocence and good faith -- but that would require another post. It’s all a subcategory (a very important one for one’s relations with people) under the very wide topic of benevolence.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

But, the absurdity of this analogy was not my point. It was how successful Kant's language is in getting people off his back, and getting them to look for the culprit elsewhere. I think you fell for his trap.

Michael,

Clever, but no cigar. I didn't fall into Kant's trap and, no, this is not proof that he is the most evil human being who ever lived or that he has some kind of almost supernatural efficacy at penetrating people's souls and corrupting them.

I don't know if it was clear, but I loathe scapegoating, regardless of who does it. I used rhetorical excess to emphasize that and went overboard. It had nothing to do with Kant's ideas.

I don't know if he ever discussed scapegoating.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

The trick is to say "I don't agree" (and explain and go on), not to write endless lenghty posts complaining about people who don't do it or see it one's way. Be primarily unto one's self. Otherwise it's not so much about the ideas as (ineffectively) channeling and controlling. I'm 64 years old and if I, for instance, decide for whatever reason sufficient to me, to write a digression from a thread within a thread I'm simply going to do it and there's no point complaining about it, at least regarding what I personally will do the next time; I'll do it again if I want. The best and right thing then for anyone who takes exception is to simply say, "Oh, that's just Brant being Brant" (Or Phil being Phil) and staying with what one wants to stay with.

--Brant

Edited July 19, 2008 by Brant Gaede

[Newberry]

Phil:

--when someone argues that Rand had feet of clay and the opponent argues that she was perfect, or someone argues that Kant was a monster and the opponent argues that he was contradictory and had some good points, why not grant the presumption of intellectual innocence and integrity, that in each case –-- no matter how stupid, or tone deaf, or blind to a piece of evidence, or sloppy in scholarship someone seems to be, or how outraged you are at their point of view ---- the person really strongly believes what they are saying?

Well said Phil.

I really hope that the Objectivist movement can grow in this manner.

[Alfonso Jones]

Phil:

--when someone argues that Rand had feet of clay and the opponent argues that she was perfect, or someone argues that Kant was a monster and the opponent argues that he was contradictory and had some good points, why not grant the presumption of intellectual innocence and integrity, that in each case –-- no matter how stupid, or tone deaf, or blind to a piece of evidence, or sloppy in scholarship someone seems to be, or how outraged you are at their point of view ---- the person really strongly believes what they are saying?

Well said Phil.

I really hope that the Objectivist movement can grow in this manner.

Michael -

Ah, yes. Imagine another sequence of events, with the response to the Kelley Libertarian Supper Club being very different. Perhaps with a sharp exchange of opinions, but no separation, no need to condemn individuals, or to label ideas as evil.

With the "closed system" thesis having been rejected by people taking into account Rand's own expectation that others would ADD TO Objectivism.

With the archives open for study --- digitized, online.

With no airbrushing to remove the purged and thereby deny reality.

Perhaps we can go forward now. Some of the recovery will await the next generation.

Bill P (Alfonso)

[Jonathan]

You ask that rhetorically.

That's a good example of you not giving a straight answer.

But, no, I was not asking the question rhetorically. As often as I've seen you praise and promote the idea of the grandeur of your soul while pondering the inferiority of others', I don't think it's unreasonable of me to assume that when you say that you and I have fundamental differences in our "cores," you mean that I see your non-straight answers to my questions as non-straight answers because a person with a soul as deficient as mine naturally can't grasp the ideas of someone who has a soul as pure and wonderful as yours.

Could you perhaps ask the question in a kinder way?

Would my doing so get me a straight answer from you?

I am guessing your reply is in the negative, that you do think that the essence/core of someone can be taught.

I don't know what you mean by someone's "essence/core," which is why I was asking for clarification.

You brought up the idea of differences in people's "cores" as an explanation of why your non-straight answers appear to be non-straight answers to me, which would imply that you think that your non-straight answers are actually straight answers, but only to people who have "cores" similar to yours.

Before agreeing or disagreeing with your views on essences and cores, I'd need to know more about them, such as how much of your own behavior you believe that you can't control -- which types of things can't you learn or unlearn -- due to their being impeded by your core. I mentioned the specific example of your believing that you had gotten a clear perspective on me and my tastes in art by looking at a painting that someone else had posted but that I hadn't commented on. Is making such idiotic assertions something that you can be taught not to do, or do you believe that it's one of the unteachable, unreachable aspects of your "core"?

J

[Jonathan]

Here's an interesting segment from Michelle Marder Kamhi's What "Rand's Aesthetics" Is, and Why It Matters, from the Spring, 2003 issue of The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, pages 415 and 416:

Immanuel Kant's influential Critique of Judgment tended to shift the focus of aesthetics to more general questions of beauty and taste, relating them not only to the fine arts but also to other artifacts and to Nature as well. In doing so, he pursued concerns that had occupied British philosophers such as Lord Shaftesbury, Frances Hutcheson, and David Hume. Kant's most frequently quoted aesthetic dicta -- regarding beauty's "purposiveness without purpose," its "freedom from a concept," and the "disinterestedness" of aesthetic judgments -- pertain to sections of the Critique dealing with beauty and taste in general, not with art per se. As Ted Cohen and Paul Guyer ([1982] 1989, 309-10) have observed, these sections "are directed at objects of nature [not art], and this has made it singularly difficult for contemporary theorists to assimilate Kant's work, for they have read these passages as it Kant was talking about art. Only very recently has the philosophy of art begun to ... integrate Kant's actual insights about art."

Often overlooked in philosophic discussions of aesthetics has been the fact that in the sections of the Critique (43-53) in which Kant deals specifically with the (fine) arts, he observes, in part, that the value of a work depends not simply on its "beauty" but on its presenting what he terms "aesthetic Ideas" ([1790] 1957, 392-94). He seems to mean by this expression something like perceptual embodiments of important concepts -- much as Rand ([1965b] 1975, 20) holds that, through the "selective re-creation of reality," art "brings man's concepts to the perceptual level of his consciousness and allows him to grasp them directly, as if they were percepts." In Kant's words:

by an aesthetical Idea I understand that representations of the Imagination which ... cannot be completely compassed ... by language ... [and] is the counterpart (pendant) of a

rational Idea

... The Imagination (as a productive faculty of cognition) is very powerful in creating another nature, as it were, out of the material that actual nature gives it ... ,and by it we remould experience, always in accordance with analogical laws ... Such representations of the Imagination we may call

Ideas

, partly because they at least strive after something which lies beyond the bounds of experience, and so seek to approximate to presentation of concepts of Reason (intellectual Ideas), thus giving to the latter the appearance of objective reality.6 ([1790] 1957, 426)

Although Kant included both Nature and art in his aesthetic considerations in the Critique of Judgment, therefore, it is clear that he viewed the two spheres as governed by somewhat different principles. And contrary to the implications of his propositions regarding beauty in general, his view of art seems to have incorporated a cognitive function similar to that postulated by Baumgarten. Much like Rand, for example, Kant distinguishes (44) between merely "agreeable art" (she called it "decorative") -- which functioned on the level of immediate "sensations" -- and "fine art," which served to stimulate reflective thought. Such crucial distinctions have too often been ignored by both critics and aestheticians."

-----

Kant's discussion of the pleasant, the good, the beautiful and the sublime also pertains to sections of the Critique dealing with taste in general, not with art per se.

J

[Ellen Stuttle]

Michael Newberry,

I'd like to say something in particular addressed to you about the issue of Kant, and his "evil," and your hypothesis -- presented in your post #129.

I don't think that your hypothesis is correct. I don't think that Kant was out to destroy anything. I think that his over-arching goal was to save something which he felt was threatened. (See my post #134.)

But I'm terribly reluctant to try to dispute issues of Kant with you in particular, given that you've said that you've carefully studied Kant's writings on aesthethics and that views you've come to in your studies and thinking about what he wrote are important to your own approach to art.

I have a highly squeamish feeling about arguing with an artist about anything close to that artist's sources of inspiration. I'm so well aware of how delicate those sources are. I feel intensely reluctant to pose challenges when those sources are so obviously working.

I'll remind you of a comment I made earlier about Ayn Rand, on the initial Schipperheyn thread:

The "Catch 22" to the thought experiment is that she wouldn't have been Rand if she'd done that. It's like asking her to have been two different people. The dramatic contrasts of good and evil were so much part of her dramatic power. I don't think she could have written the way she wrote (and I mean her novels, too, not just her non-fiction) if she'd viewed the history of thought in the way you suggest.

(The "thought experiment" to which I was referring had been posed by Phil, here.)

You applauded my observation about AR, saying:

Ellen,

This is such a great observation.

Michael

I would not have wanted to try to change anything in AR's approach to life, philosophy, art -- as strenuously as I disagree with her on some issues, and as much as I wish that she hadn't published a few of the things she published, and that she hadn't made a few of the comments she made, including her the "most evil man in mankind's history" remark about Kant. In other words, although there are some things which she wrote which I could wish had been left out, I'd have had no desire to have tried to change her approach, her way of thinking and writing, because she couldn't have produced what she did produce had she had a different approach.

I feel the same way in being reluctant to engage with you in arguments against aesthetic theories which I think might be of significance to the wellsprings of your own artistic work.

I hope you understand what I'm saying.

Ellen

PS: I was writing this post when J's post [two] above was being written. [He meanwhile added another post.] I'm talking about something different from the issue between Jonathan and you, Michael. I share J's viewpoint that you respond often with apparent put-downs of those who don't share your views. It isn't this feature of your replies which I feel loathe to address. It's the, I suppose I could describe them as "root" theories which seem to me, from what you write, to be close to the sources of your own inspriation.

___

Edited July 20, 2008 by Ellen Stuttle