Alfonso Jones

Brant - If you can understand when Xray gets "really into the thin stuff" you are a connoisseur of gruel. Bill P

Happy birthday from Milan, Italy, Michael. Bill P

Ross - Welcome back. I'll be looking forward to reading your posts again. Bill P

Good post, Kat. Bill P

Jerry - Good references. Regards, Bill P

Recent publications which give some knowledge on this would include Anne Heller's "Ayn Rand and the World She Made," pages 181 - 182. "Readers familiar with Rand's disapproval of institutionalized altruism often assume that she frowned on private charity. This is not so. She seems to have had a fairly conventional approach to helping others and was personally generous in the years before a cult following increased her tendency to be self-protective and suspicious. She made small gifts and loans and offered professional help and hospitality to relatives and friends whom she saw as deserving - that is, as competent, energetic, and capable of getting on their feet. But she did not see it as a moral duty, and her style of expressing her views on the subject could seem self-serving as well as immoderate and harsh." Barbara Branden, in The Passion of Ayn Rand, speaks of Rand's generosity to Thadeus Ashby, inviting him to move in with her and Frank O'Connor on the ranch when he had no money and no job. (page 197)). "Ayn soon invited him to live with them on the ranch so that he could work there without having to hold a job. She wanted to spare a young writer a painful struggle. While ayn never believed that charity was a moral virtue or requirements, and did not give money to organized charities, she occasionally was financially helpful to people in whom she saw ability. In later years, she gave gifts of money, informal scholarships, to young people who could not otherwise complete their educations and in whom she saw intelligence and promise." Bill P

Gulch - I agree on TIA being worthwhile. I am a subscriber and have been for some time. Bill P

Agreed, Tony. And to condemn the USA using the same sort of language one would use for Iran or North Korea is to demonstrate shockingly poor judgment, in my view. Bill P

As will come to no one's surprise, though the teachers' colleges and the schools of education have been promoting the opposite view for some decades now, I'd say that no amount of presentation skill can make up for a serious lack of knowledge of the subject matter one is supposedly teaching. JR Well put, JR. Generic skill in pedagogy will not make up for a deficit lack of content to communicate. There CAN be a conflict between teaching and research PERFORMANCE due to relative priorities given to the two at a given university, of course. Bill P

Martin Gardner was always an interesting read, whether in Scientific American or elsewhere. Bill P

Philip - I'm not saying or suggesting that Jeff has done otherwise! I have commented on my astonishment that many colleagues DO NOT DO THIS (the thing he just stated that he does). That having been said again (and hopefully understood), I comment on your question: I teach such subjects as Decision Sciences, Lean, Six Sigma, Outsourcing, etc... All moderately to extremely analytic content. I find the Chinese students to be just as questioning as those back in the USA about required courses. "Why do we need this course? I am going to be an X when I graduate. Do people in that industry use this subject?" The only difference worth noting is that they are often more polite about it - either phrasing their questions less aggressively than their Western counterparts or asking in one-on-one meetings, to preserve face. Now, a typical class for me consists of 60% Chinese and 40% from the rest of the world, including at least 20% Westerners. But even when the classes are 100% Chinese students, the behavior of questioning is there. (I mention this to make it clear that it does not appear to be the case that the CHinese are just letting the Westerners do the questioning...) Bill P

Certainly so, Jeff. I am astounded at the number of colleagues in the Professoriate who don't want to discuss such questions, beyond saying "You must take it because it is a requirement for the degree." (Which is saying nothing - - - the question is why the requirement, not a request for confirmation of the fact of the requirement.) I always do this on day 1 (as well as in the syllabus). Bill P

Sad news. Chris will be missed here on OL, and elsewhere. Bill P

Happy birthday, Barbara! Bill P

Here and elsewhere in your post, you have misrepresented my point by selectively snipping it, and I'm not going to waste my time in an effort to separate the wheat from the chaff. If you would care to address the points I actually made, without transforming them into easy targets via selective snipping. then I will respond in a serious way. It is becoming clear why you don't like the quote function. That would make it more difficult to engage in your ethically challenged method of responding. Ghs George - You're not getting a pork chop in return. Bill P

Plato's influence on the Renaissance is "totally non-controversial" for anyone who has read even a modicum of history of the period. You can find it in virtually any elementary history textbook. Yet here you are defending sweeping historical generalizations about Plato and Aristotle without exhibiting even a rudimentary knowledge of history. How would you know? I expressly offered this as an illustration. If you want to know more about Plato's influence on Kepler, then read something -- anything. Again, how would you know? Moreover, do you think that most of the totalitarian thinkers cited by Peikoff actually got their ideas directly from Kant? Galileo was fiercely anti-Aristotelian in his approach to science, but that doesn't matter to you, does it? After all, what do facts matter when you, through some mystical insight, know that Aristotle was really the main man behind Galileo's work? This is not only absurd, it is also presumptuous in the extreme. Sure, Phil, whatever you say. Your citadel of faith is impregnable against any possible assault by reason or historical facts. And, again, how could you possibly know any of this? If you didn't even know about the strong Platonic current in Renaissance thought, you obviously know next to nothing about that period. Oh, but I almost forgot! You read this in Rand and/or Peikoff, so it must be true! Right, Phil. We need to go deeper and deeper until we find something favorable to Aristotle that you can dub "fundamental." I could scarcely ask for a better and more pitiful example of the a priori approach to history that I discussed earlier. Aristotle's influence, for you, functions very much like Hegel's Absolute Spirit -- a force that manifests and develops itself through history, regardless of what people thought they were doing. Ghs George - We're getting a marvelously clear illustration of the use of the Randian concept of "thinking in fundamentals" as, instead, "disregarding everything which does not fit with what I assume to be facts about reality, while keeping precisely those things which fit with my preconceptions." Amazing. Bill P

Is that a typo above, where perchance you meant "before my intellectual heir fell out?" Bill P

Philip - It (Objectivism) is not that hard to understand. I think you are thinking of being catechized. That is a totally different proposition, and one which runs counter to the most basic principles of Objectivism. Bill P

Good story at the link. Thanks for posting. Bill P

Bob - I'm not certain what you find most shocking, but what strikes me is that the report appears in the National Enquirer and the reported tryst is not with an extraterrestrial! Bill P

Isn't it also important whether they lean backwards or forwards? Or even sidewards? Good catch of my silly typo (lean instead of learn). Now corrected. Bill P

I can relate to your comment about distraction. My suggestion - - get out a pad and take some notes. It works well for me. I am a Professor, and I find that my students who don't take notes learn less than those who do. This is actually a drawback of this modern age of "distributing the PowerPoints or other lecture notes as handouts" - the audience is, paradoxically, LESS ENGAGED than if they were taking notes. Eerily reminiscent of the letter-writer in the first lecture of Barbara Branden's lectures! Bill P (Edited to correct ridiculous typo where I typed "lean" instead of "learn" in the second paragraph.)

Dennis - Great paragraph! Imagine the amazement of Rand, wondering how it turned out this way, and so quickly? Reason transubstantiated into dogma, the first-hander into slavish followerhood. Bill P

That was a great scene. Remember that line, something like "You two ought to be married" - spoken to the Sally Field and Paul Newman characters, re their arguing? Bill P

Thanks. Here is another piece in which I criticize Rothbard: "Nathaniel Branden's Judgment Day: Reviewing the Reviewers" (1990). http://www.anthonyfl...mithbranden.htm Ghs George - I've read that one before. I like the piece, and I like your attitude in that piece. The notion of NB as lightweight is at odds with the observable facts. His post-1968 writing amounts to a quite formidable career of accomplishments. (I will avoid mentioning others who did not do so well post-1968!) Bill P Bill P