Nicholas Dykes

Really? The nature of an egg says nothing about what will happen if you throw it against a brick wall?

AOI says the egg shell is the egg shell. It does not say how brittle or strong it is (or isn't). That has to be established by observation. And even if every egg you have ever seen will break if dropped on a hard surface, that does not preclude the existence of an egg with a much tougher shell. It is not self evident that eggs break when dropped on or thrown against a a hard surface.

Ba'al Chatzaf

What Ba'al said.

And Nick, this is the elaboration you were looking for in my previous sentence.

"The LOI is however entirely silent when it comes to what that identity is (that is, its nature), and its corollary is equally silent on how it behaves (that is, its causal relations).

"Unfortunately for this line of argument, the what and how is exactly where Hume's problem begins."

Sorry, Daniel, Ba'al's egg illustration doesn't elaborate what I was asking for, namely, where does Hume's problem begin for you? Hume based his argument on the fact that all knowledge is derived from experience. Hence he denied the predictability of future events -- because they had yet to be experienced. This appears to be a purely logical argument, it says nothing about any particular events, whether eggs breaking or billiard balls bouncing. Yet you say Hume's argument ~begins~ with the eggs and the billiard balls. Please explain. Nick

In order for the the Induction Problem, as stated by Popper and Hume, to be a serious problem it is necessary to ignore the Law of Identity and its corollary, the Law of Causality.

In fact the Law of Identity is about as relevant to the problem of induction as a fish is to a bicycle.

Here's why: All the LOI states is that in order to exist, a thing has to have an identity.

The LOI is however entirely silent when it comes to what that identity is (that is, its nature), and its corollary is equally silent on how it behaves (that is, its causal relations).

Unfortunately for this line of argument, the what and how is exactly where Hume's problem begins.

Daniel, re your 3rd sentence, surely content is irrelevant to logic per se? A single negative instance invalidates a universal affirmative proposition regardless what the proposition asserts.

But please be kind enough to elaborate your last sentence, which rather leaves us dangling.

Nicholas Dykes

He also seems to like the shock value of going against common sense and the obvious. But if you look behind the rhetoric and the words he chooses for his concepts and just focus on the concepts, you often find he says the same thing Objectivism does. Many Popperians die seven deaths on contemplating that fact (and many Objectivists also), but there it is. One day I intend to research this in depth and write about it.

There is a fundamental difference between Popper's view (and Hume's view) and my own (which I don't claim is the Objectivist view). In order for the the Induction Problem, as stated by Popper and Hume, to be a serious problem it is necessary to ignore the Law of Identity and its corollary, the Law of Causality. That, in turn, allows an equivocation which leads to an enormous amount of confusion.

First, let us consider the problem of the white swans. That is a typical example of where induction fails. In the problem, one supposedly sees a number of white swans (100 say) and from that concludes that all swans are white. To conclude such a thing is clearly a logical fallacy. Color is not an essential characteristic of a swan. If a bird with the essential characteristics of a swan that was not white was discovered, it would still be called a swan. Moreover, there is no causal link between any of the essential characteristics of a swan and its color. Therefore, there is no mechanism for predicting that a bird having the essential characteristics of a swan must have a certain color. There is no logical basis for concluding that all swans are white.

The mere repetition of the color white does not strengthen the basis for concluding that swans are white. Whether one had seen a single white swan or 100 white swans, there is no logical basis for concluding that all swans are white. Whiteness is not essential to swan-ness. It should also be noted that it is well known that many other animals come in a variety of colors. Consequently, it would seem rash to conclude that all swans are white. But, this is not really central to the argument. Until one has established that some characteristic is essential to the nature of a thing, there is no reason to believe that that characteristic is the same for all instances of that thing.

Now, compare the swan example with the case of the Sun rising in the morning. The fact that the Earth will continue to rotate on its axis is essentially connected to its fundamental nature as a planet moving through space. In order to see a prediction that the Sun will rise as a mere case of induction, one must first suspend one's knowledge of the nature of the Sun and Earth. One must pretend that they have no essential nature and that the Earth could stop rotating or fly off into space or disappear just as easily as one could find a black swan. Or, one must pretend that it is impossible to know anything or understand anything about anything.

The equivocation comes in equating an example in which a conclusion is fallaciously reached by looking only at the inessential characteristics of a thing and ignoring identity and causality and an example in which the conclusion is drawn by carefully examining the properties of the objects in question. This is exactly what Popper and Hume do. But, the Law of Identity is a fact of everything that exists. To posit an exception to it is to posit that the arbitrary is reality.

Darrell

What you say, Darrell, is both very true and very important.

I noticed the Hume/Popper failure to take account of the Law of Identity when I was studying Popper back in the 1990's and drew attention to it in my essay "A Tangled Web of Guesses: A Critical Assessment of the Philosophy of Karl Popper" (1996); and in my "Debunking Popper" (~Reason Papers~ #24, Fall 1999). I also revisit the issue in my recent philosophical novel ~Old Nick's Guide to Happiness~.

If you don't have a copy, it's well worth getting H.W.B. Joseph's ~An Introduction to Logic~ out of the library, for he, of course, solved Hume's imaginary 'problem of induction' in 1916 -- precisely by pointing out that Hume's argument was in 'flat conflict' with the Law of Identity. Joseph was, unsurprisingly, an Aristotelian. Secondhand copies of his book can usually be found in the Philosophy section at Booth Books in Hay-on-Wye if you'd like me to try and track one down for you. I go there frequently, it's only about 40 minutes from where I live.

The encyclopaedically well-read George H. Smith drew attention to Joseph in his 1991 collection ~Atheism, Ayn Rand and Other Heresies~ (p. 200). The latter is a really fun read. I would warmly recommend it for anyone wanting a light-hearted, less po-faced look at Objectivism. Nicholas Dykes

Since the Holon Insurgency Suicide Bombers have taken over this thread --- I wonder if it would be possible for the 'Another View of Leonard Peikoff' thread to spin off somewhere and build it's own blast-resistant, incursion resistant wall?

Random mutation and natural selection have made Peikoff extinct. The View of Leonard Peikoff was too rigid to survive the forces of evolution, at least on this thread.

Paul, did you see my post #338 above? It was addressed to you. Nicholas

Objectivists typically define reason as "the faculty which identifies and integrates the data provided by one's senses". This definition, however, leaves no room for identification or integration of concretes observed through introspection. Neither does it leave room for the possibility of identifying or integrating the concretes of the internal states of others, as these can only be inferred (in part) from the exisence of one's own awareness of one's own internal states.

This is a first-rate challenge, deserving close attention, because one of the great gaps in Objectivism is its lack of a fully-developed philosophy of mind. Rand's ~Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology~ is a brilliant contribution, but it is only 80-odd pages and is merely an ~introduction~ to ~but one~ area of epistemology, albeit a central one, the theory of concepts.

Of the two points raised above, the first is the juicier. The senses are not used in introspection, so how do we integrate into concepts the results of introspection? I think Rand provided the answer. Didn’t she say we examine introspections ~as if~ they were external concretes? Thus the ‘mind’s eye’ integrates lower order observations of internal states into wider abstractions in the same manner that it integrates lower order external perceptions into higher order abstractions. So lack of appetite, absence of motivation, flatness of spirit and indifference to values becomes ‘I’m depressed’, just as observing thousands of varieties of amphibians and reptiles becomes 'herpetology.'

The process is similar when we consider the introspections of others. Their words, their mannerisms, their gestures, their reactions are treated as perceptions which we integrate into conceptual judgements about their inner states -- which we cannot observe directly. We proceed, however, ~as if~ we could, though much more cautiously, because our conjectures depend for confirmation on the person under study.

‘As if’ is of course merely a starting point, much more analysis and demonstration is required. But Le chaim29 is certainly correct to challenge the O’ist definition of reason. For, while reason does indeed integrate the material provided by the senses, it does other important things which are not immediately implied by the definition.

I take a look at some of these topics in the chapter on the faculty of reason in my recent book, ~Old Nick’s Guide to Happiness~. For instance, how does one advocate and defend 'volitional consciousness' when it is evident that much of our thinking is done quite unconsciously by the subconscious mind?

We shouldn't worry about these things. Objectivism is in its infancy. So is the science of psychology, and that's been around a heck of lot longer. There's just an awful lot more work to be done.

Nicholas Dykes

I stumbled across this review of Leonard Peikoff's Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand by Nicholas Dykes. I have not read the book but Nick's assessment of Peikoff's place in the Objectivist movement, and of Peikoff's contribution to Objectivism, fits my own sense of things. I haven't been able to stomach the idea of reading Peikoff since I read Ominous Parallels over 20 years ago (it was required reading in Ridpath's course).

For me, the spirit of the principles of Objectivism continue through Nathaniel Branden's work (I am not familiar with David Kelly's), not with Peikoff. Branden takes Objectivist principles into new territory. I also like what I see with Chris Sciabarra's work integrating dialectics with Objectivism (though I have only read a couple of essays I have found online). Peikoff has always struck me as a puppet, controlled by the principles of Objectivism, but lacking the passion and creativity that comes with an authentic and personal vision. I base this on very little information (I guess some of my perspective came from Barbara's and Nathaniel's books) but I find it interesting that Nick's review supports my sense of things.

Paul

Paul, you really ought to read Kelley [note second 'e', important in library catalogues!]. ~The Evidence of the Senses~ does indeed take Objectivist principles into new territory, besides making a genuine, new, and vital contribution to epistemology. ~Truth and Toleration~ [now ~The Contested Legacy of AR~] is required reading for anyone wanting to understand the cause of Peikoff's idiotic break with Kelley. T&T also ends with one of the finest paragraphs ever written by an O'ist:

“Ayn Rand left us a magnificent system of ideas. But it is not a closed system. It is a powerful engine of integration. Let us not starve it of fuel by shutting our minds to what is good in other approaches. Let us test our ideas in open debate. If we are right, we have nothing to fear; if we are wrong, we have something to learn. Above all, let us encourage independent thought among ourselves. Let us welcome dissent, and the restless ways of the explorers among us. Nine out of ten new ideas will be mistakes, but the tenth will let in the light.”

Kelley's ~Unrugged Individualism~ is also very important because it fills a gap in Rand's ethics, the O'ist virtue of benevolence. But the piece de resistance is David's ~The Art of Reasoning~ which I'm sure is the most eloquent textbook on logic ever written. It's a brilliant exposition, worth reading just for the sheer pleasure of it, even if you're a professor of logic yourself. Woe is me, if only Rand had left everything to David.

Others who have used O'ism as a springboard into other areas, both in philosophy and elsewhere, are the Douglases, Den Uyl & Rasmussen; Harry Binswanger (teleology), George Reisman (economics); and Tibor Machan (political science). Most recently, my own book, ~Old Nick's Guide to Happiness~, uses Objectivism as a foundation for new thinking on politics, and also makes original contributions to the O'ist ethics in the areas of virtues and rights.

Chris Sciabarra is a good friend, though we've never met. His contribution has been more in the way of showing O'ists how to be scholars; his dedication to pure scholarship is amazing. He literally leaves no stone unturned and, because of that, some of his presentations of O'ist principles are the best anywhere.

However, I completely disagree with his thinking on dialectics. Thus he and I are perhaps examplars of what Peikoff so demonstratively is not: practitioners of mutual respect. I have been highly critical of Chris's ~Russian Radical~ & ~Total Freedom~ but I still come to his aid when he needs it, and he to mine: he has published me twice despite our disagreements. Now ~that~, to me, is the true spirit of Objectivism!

BTW: a friend just sent me a birthday present of a T-shirt from The Old Nick (i.e. the old jail) on Danforth in TO. Do you know it by any chance?

Best, Nick (Nicholas Dykes).

For me, the spirit of the principles of Objectivism continue through Nathaniel Branden's work (I am not familiar with David Kelley's), not with Peikoff. Branden takes Objectivist principles into new territory. I also like what I see with Chris Sciabarra's work integrating dialectics with Objectivism (though I have only read a couple of essays I have found online). Peikoff has always struck me as a puppet, controlled by the principles of Objectivism, but lacking the passion and creativity that comes with an authentic and personal vision. I base this on very little information (I guess some of my perspective came from Barbara's and Nathaniel's books) but I find it interesting that Nick's review supports my sense of things.

Paul

Your view of L.P. certainly resonates with mine. I get the distinct impression that L.P. "paints" his philosophical portraits "by the numbers". He comes to his conclusions in a rather mechanical fashion. There is more in heaven and earth than Rand dreamed of in her philosophy. By boxing himself into the (perceived) boundary of Rand's thinking, L.P. distorts and misunderstands several things, among which are science and mathematics. L.P. is basically a rather smart fellow, but he has locked his imagination in a cage of some sort. He has also turned Objectivism, as you have indicated, into some kind of a lock-box.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Very well put, Ba'al. Except it's worse than that. ARI is more like a medieval castle, wherein bearded men with brass cannons peer through the battlements and fire at anything unfamiliar. Inside, they treat the Randian corpus as Holy Writ; search each other daily for any trace of heresy, then banish puzzled apostates into the dangerous and mysterious free world outside for expressing any thought not found in the Ayn Rand Lexicon. Nicholas Dykes

Nicholas,

Congratulations on your book!

Also your site looks excellent: clean, elegant.

I did miss an example of the prose from the book. I always check out the book's style, either online or in the store before I buy.

Michael

Many thanks, Michael. If you email me at lbp2008@ereal.net I'll send you a few short extracts. Best, Nicholas

JOHN HOSPERS PRAISES ~OLD NICK’S GUIDE TO HAPPINESS~

I am delighted to announce that Dr John Hospers, the first Presidential Candidate of the United States Libertarian Party, and author of Libertarianism, the first scholarly study of the modern American Libertarian movement, has warmly praised my new philosophical novel, Old Nick’s Guide to Happiness. Furthermore, he has allowed me to quote freely from his letters and to use them for publicity. I have never felt so honoured and grateful.

Naturally, Dr Hospers, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southern California, one-time friend of Ayn Rand, and author of many well-known books on philosophy – such as Human Conduct and Introduction to Philosophical Analysis – had some criticisms and disagreements. But I think it’s better to let readers figure out for themselves what those might be. Besides, I’d hardly be human if I didn’t choose to focus rather on what Dr Hospers has said in praise:

“Dear Mr Dykes, I LOVE your book …. When I first opened it, little did I know that it would be a long paean to the strength and power of Ayn Rand's ideas. Like her masterpiece Atlas Shrugged, it is a mystery novel in which the solution to the mystery depends on the reader's grasp of philosophical concepts. I know of no other book which evokes the same qualities of excitement and conviction….

“I enjoyed every bit of the reading. When Ayn Rand asked me early in our acquaintance that I liked most about Atlas, I replied, ‘the suspense. It is a wonderful mystery novel, and you don't know the conclusion to the mystery until you read it’….

“Your qualities of narration closely parallel those in Atlas, and kept me absorbed throughout…. Like Rearden in Atlas, Jac was the most vividly depicted character, and Nikolai the most philosophically satisfying (rather like Galt, except that Galt was more a symbol than a living human being ….)

“Our disagreements are fewer than you might imagine, and meanwhile your novel was such an enjoyable experience, I took several days away from other activities just to complete it. But it was well worth it – and as I page through it again, the incidents spring back into my mind with renewed vividness….

“Your book was a very pleasant surprise. It probably does more justice to Ayn Rand's actual views than any other book I am acquainted with…. For that, and for being an enthralling philosophical mystery story much along the lines of Atlas Shrugged, I would give it my highest recommendation.”

Talk about being over the moon! Heel hartelijk bedankt, John!

For further information about the book, reactions from other readers, and how to purchase it, visit my new website: http://www.oldnicksguidetohappiness.co.uk

The site is not yet accessible through Google, they like to check people out. So you have to click on the link above. If that doesn’t work, email me at lbp2008@ereal.net and I’ll send you an email link you can click on.

For the record, Paypal is now fully activated. And I know it works – I just had a Paypal order from New Jersey. So don’t nobody say a bad word about Joizey!

Nicholas Dykes

Nick,

Even sorrier to be slower responding...

A belated happy birthday!

Robert Campbell

Thanks Robert. And thanks to you and the team for JARS. One of the best things to happen since 1957.

I never did make it to SC. Got as far as Gettysburg coming south. History backwards. Maybe, hopefully, some day, I'll get further. Nick

Koestler is talking about functional organizations, not about the open-ended series of types of particulars (including all their characteristics currently known or yet-to-be-discovered) which AR thought of as being the referents of concepts.

As a sidebar, I've always liked the way Rand managed to inveigle the yet-to-be-discovered into human knowledge....;-)

She didn't. She merely said concepts were open-ended. In other words, concepts can expand in content, they admit new knowledge as it is discovered. I assume you were being sarcastic, Daniel. If so, you failed. If not, I apologise. Nicholas Dykes.

I was reading dawkins through most of my high school and college career and admired him a great deal. However, he seems to have become a scientific nihilist or material determinist, and his rebuttals to the Iraq War published in the Skeptical Inquirer were childishly naive. In the God Delusion though, Dawkins clearly wrestled with the moral relativism he was advocating, as he suggested that raising children to religious indoctrination amounted to pyschological torture and that 'something' should be done about it. Edge.org asked many famous scientists what they thought the worlds most dangerous idea was, Dawkins, disgustingly, answered that it is the concept of free will, and that we punish criminals for their crime.

from - http://www.edge.org/q2006/q06_9.html#dawkins

RICHARD DAWKINS

Evolutionary Biologist, Charles Simonyi Professor For The Understanding Of Science, Oxford University; Author, The Ancestor's Tale

Let's all stop beating Basil's car

Ask people why they support the death penalty or prolonged incarceration for serious crimes, and the reasons they give will usually involve retribution. There may be passing mention of deterrence or rehabilitation, but the surrounding rhetoric gives the game away. People want to kill a criminal as payback for the horrible things he did. Or they want to give "satisfaction' to the victims of the crime or their relatives. An especially warped and disgusting application of the flawed concept of retribution is Christian crucifixion as "atonement' for "sin'.

Retribution as a moral principle is incompatible with a scientific view of human behaviour. As scientists, we believe that human brains, though they may not work in the same way as man-made computers, are as surely governed by the laws of physics. When a computer malfunctions, we do not punish it. We track down the problem and fix it, usually by replacing a damaged component, either in hardware or software.

Basil Fawlty, British television's hotelier from hell created by the immortal John Cleese, was at the end of his tether when his car broke down and wouldn't start. He gave it fair warning, counted to three, gave it one more chance, and then acted. "Right! I warned you. You've had this coming to you!" He got out of the car, seized a tree branch and set about thrashing the car within an inch of its life. Of course we laugh at his irrationality. Instead of beating the car, we would investigate the problem. Is the carburettor flooded? Are the sparking plugs or distributor points damp? Has it simply run out of gas? Why do we not react in the same way to a defective man: a murderer, say, or a rapist? Why don't we laugh at a judge who punishes a criminal, just as heartily as we laugh at Basil Fawlty? Or at King Xerxes who, in 480 BC, sentenced the rough sea to 300 lashes for wrecking his bridge of ships? Isn't the murderer or the rapist just a machine with a defective component? Or a defective upbringing? Defective education? Defective genes?

Concepts like blame and responsibility are bandied about freely where human wrongdoers are concerned. When a child robs an old lady, should we blame the child himself or his parents? Or his school? Negligent social workers? In a court of law, feeble-mindedness is an accepted defence, as is insanity. Diminished responsibility is argued by the defence lawyer, who may also try to absolve his client of blame by pointing to his unhappy childhood, abuse by his father, or even unpropitious genes (not, so far as I am aware, unpropitious planetary conjunctions, though it wouldn't surprise me).

But doesn't a truly scientific, mechanistic view of the nervous system make nonsense of the very idea of responsibility, whether diminished or not? Any crime, however heinous, is in principle to be blamed on antecedent conditions acting through the accused's physiology, heredity and environment. Don't judicial hearings to decide questions of blame or diminished responsibility make as little sense for a faulty man as for a Fawlty car?

Why is it that we humans find it almost impossible to accept such conclusions? Why do we vent such visceral hatred on child murderers, or on thuggish vandals, when we should simply regard them as faulty units that need fixing or replacing? Presumably because mental constructs like blame and responsibility, indeed evil and good, are built into our brains by millennia of Darwinian evolution. Assigning blame and responsibility is an aspect of the useful fiction of intentional agents that we construct in our brains as a means of short-cutting a truer analysis of what is going on in the world in which we have to live. My dangerous idea is that we shall eventually grow out of all this and even learn to laugh at it, just as we laugh at Basil Fawlty when he beats his car. But I fear it is unlikely that I shall ever reach that level of enlightenment.

Contrast Dawkins with Matt Ridley, evolutionary biologist

MATT RIDLEY

Science Writer; Founding chairman of the International Centre for Life; Author, The Agile Gene: How Nature Turns on Nature

Government is the problem not the solution

In all times and in all places there has been too much government. We now know what prosperity is: it is the gradual extension of the division of labour through the free exchange of goods and ideas, and the consequent introduction of efficiencies by the invention of new technologies. This is the process that has given us health, wealth and wisdom on a scale unimagined by our ancestors. It not only raises material standards of living, it also fuels social integration, fairness and charity. It has never failed yet. No society has grown poorer or more unequal through trade, exchange and invention. Think of pre-Ming as opposed to Ming China, seventeenth century Holland as opposed to imperial Spain, eighteenth century England as opposed to Louis XIV's France, twentieth century America as opposed to Stalin's Russia, or post-war Japan, Hong Kong and Korea as opposed to Ghana, Cuba and Argentina. Think of the Phoenicians as opposed to the Egyptians, Athens as opposed to Sparta, the Hanseatic League as opposed to the Roman Empire. In every case, weak or decentralised government, but strong free trade led to surges in prosperity for all, whereas strong, central government led to parasitic, tax-fed officialdom, a stifling of innovation, relative economic decline and usually war.

Take Rome. It prospered because it was a free trade zone. But it repeatedly invested the proceeds of that prosperity in too much government and so wasted it in luxury, war, gladiators and public monuments. The Roman empire's list of innovations is derisory, even compared with that of the 'dark ages' that followed.

In every age and at every time there have been people who say we need more regulation, more government. Sometimes, they say we need it to protect exchange from corruption, to set the standards and police the rules, in which case they have a point, though often they exaggerate it. Self-policing standards and rules were developed by free-trading merchants in medieval Europe long before they were taken over and codified as laws (and often corrupted) by monarchs and governments.

Sometimes, they say we need it to protect the weak, the victims of technological change or trade flows. But throughout history such intervention, though well meant, has usually proved misguided — because its progenitors refuse to believe in (or find out about) David Ricardo's Law of Comparative Advantage: even if China is better at making everything than France, there will still be a million things it pays China to buy from France rather than make itself. Why? Because rather than invent, say, luxury goods or insurance services itself, China will find it pays to make more T shirts and use the proceeds to import luxury goods and insurance.

Government is a very dangerous toy. It is used to fight wars, impose ideologies and enrich rulers. True, nowadays, our leaders do not enrich themselves (at least not on the scale of the Sun King), but they enrich their clients: they preside over vast and insatiable parasitic bureaucracies that grow by Parkinson's Law and live off true wealth creators such as traders and inventors.

Sure, it is possible to have too little government. Only, that has not been the world's problem for millennia. After the century of Mao, Hitler and Stalin, can anybody really say that the risk of too little government is greater than the risk of too much? The dangerous idea we all need to learn is that the more we limit the growth of government, the better off we will all be.

Matus, thanks for the Ridley quote. Excellent stuff. Nicholas Dykes

Nick; I have already said I want you to have a long life but if you look at my blog I think there are some problems with a life as long as Roger and Michael suggest.

Many thanks to all of you for your wishes. As you can perhaps imagine though, yesterday was rather a busy day, so I didn't get around to saying thank you earlier, for which, shamefaced apologies!

I have a wonderful wife who is a splendid cook so we had a lovely meal preceded by Canard Duchesne champagne, accompanied by a delicious Bordeaux, and rounded off with a sweet pudding wine called Montbazillac. I confess to a slight greyness about the eyelids today!

1000 years? Spare me! 100 would be good. Though I must say, I kind of fancy 666, the number of the beast -- Old Nick!

Again, many thanks, and sorry to be so slow responding. Nick

Attacking Aristotle for not developing scientific methods is like attacking Newton for not developing the theory of relativity. You're reading history backwards. Aristotle did a tremendous amount. Criticising him for what he didn't do, or for mistakes made 2000 years before modern science began, is plainly unjust, and that's saying the bare minimum.

Aristotle had a very clear idea of the gradual growth of science: "While no one person can grasp truth adequately, we cannot all fail in the attempt. Each thinker makes some statement about nature, and as an individual contributes little or nothing to the inquiry. But the combination of all the conjectures results in something big. ... It is only fair to be grateful not only to those whose views we can share, but also to those who have gone pretty far wrong in their guesses. They too have contributed something: by their preliminary work they have helped to form our scientific way of thinking."

Earlier you attacked Aristotle's cosmology and linked him to the Inquisition. That is equally unjust. Galileo was up against the vast and cruel tyranny of the Roman Catholic Church, not against Aristotle. If Aristotle had had a telescope he'd have done Galileo's job for him. His curiosity was insatiable. [...]

For a third of a century I've been looking for a pithy reply, of about this length, to the simplistic Aristotle-bashers among us.

(By "us," I mean the philosophic communities I've been a part of more generally, in and out of college, and not just Objectivists. Though I've seen a surprising number of same among O's and hangers-on.)

You've provided this for me. Thank you! And from where are you quoting Aristotle, in what appears to be a livelier translation than I've ever seen?

Hail to thee, blythe Greybird! (Or, after that 1/3rd of a century, is it grey~beard~?!) I'm 66 today --2/3 of a century -- and my beard would be grey indeed if I didn't ruthlessly ride it down every morning with the triple scimitars of my Phillishave. I'm being silly, I know, but I've just had a wonderful birthday present -- a letter from John Hospers allowing me to quote his praise for my book ~Old Nick's Guide to Happiness~, so I'm a very happy birthday boy indeed.

The quote from the ~Metaphysics~ is in J.H. Randall ~Aristotle~ p.53. I'm afraid I don't know who translated it, perhaps Randall himself.

The worst of the 'simplistic Aristotle bashers' was of course Popper, who devoted the first 26 pages of ~Open Society~, Vol 2, to a disgraceful and ridiculous attack on The Philosopher. I take Popper roundly to task over this in my critique ~A Tangled Web of Guesses~. Popper's gratuitously wrong-headed attack so offended an American scholar to whom ~Open Society~ was sent for peer review that he dismissed the book as 'not fit for publication'. And it wasn't. At least not until it came into the hands of a less discerning British publisher after the Second World War.

All the best, Nicholas

Physical science is not the job of philosophy. Philosophy's role is to keep science honest by making sure scientists employ sound principles of epistemology and obey the rules of logic. Nicholas Dykes

Nick,

That's one hell of a good quote.

Michael

Too bad that it is dead wrong. It is experiment that falsifies wrong theories, not philosophical disputes and discourses. Serious scientists gave up on philosophy (metaphysics) over a hundred years ago. The only branch of philosophy that has any relevance for science is critical epistemology. The philosopher that has had the most influence on science in the last fifty years is Karl Popper.

In teaching of science, particularly physics, Aristotle's works on matter and motion are used as an example of how NOT to do science. Aristotle got almost everything wrong. Why? He hardly ever checked. Aristotle never properly developed the experimental method.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Ba'al

Attacking Aristotle for not developing scientific methods is like attacking Newton for not developing the theory of relativity. You're reading history backwards. Aristotle did a tremendous amount. Criticising him for what he didn't do, or for mistakes made 2000 years before modern science began, is plainly unjust, and that's saying the bare minimum.

Aristotle had a very clear idea of the gradual growth of science: "While no one person can grasp truth adequately, we cannot all fail in the attempt. Each thinker makes some statement about nature, and as an individual contributes little or nothing to the inquiry. But the combination of all the conjectures results in something big.... It is only fair to be grateful not only to those whose views we can share, but also to those who have gone pretty far wrong in their guesses. They too have contributed something: by their preliminary work they have helped to form our scientific way of thinking."

Earlier you attacked Aristotle's cosmology and linked him to the Inquisition. That is equally unjust. Galileo was up against the vast and cruel tyranny of the Roman Catholic Church, not against Aristotle. If Aristotle had had a telescope he'd have done Galileo's job for him. His curiosity was insatiable.

As for Popper, he had no influence on science per se. All he did was to distract a few scientists with his pretended epistemology and inflame the mysticism of men like Eccles with his idealism. That said, one has to admire Popper's persistence. He flogged a dead horse for about seventy years.

Nicholas Dykes

Reply to #136

In a scientific context "why" means from what cause or for what reason. It does not mean for what purpose or end.

Physics constructs hypothetical cause to account for what is only partially seen. Most of what happens in the cosmos is loiterally out of our sight. Our visible spectrum of light frequencies is only the tiniest portion of the total electromagnetic spectrum. When cause cannot be abduced from visible effects, then mathematical laws are substituted to account for what is observed or measured. For example, Boyle's Law connecting the temperature volume and pressure of a gas. Molecular thermodynamics ultimately provided a cause; the random motion of gas molecules which do not interact strongly.

As to the origin of the cosmos, the Big Bang theory is the one that best fits the observations. The red shift in the light froms distant galaxies sugges that they are moving away from us and each other. This implies expansion of the cosmos. If you play that backward you get a compact origin of the cosmos. The cosmology is very much based on astronomical observation and physics. It was an astronomer, Edwin Hubble who first showed that the cosmos is expanding and it was a pair of engineers, Wilson and Pensias at Bell Telephone Lab who observed nearly uniform cosmic background radiation which strongly supports the Big Bang hypothesis.

So far, the best clues as to what the world is like and how it came to be has been provided by the physical sciences. Philosopy has not been much help in this regard.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Physical science is not the job of philosophy. Philosophy's role is to keep science honest by making sure scientists employ sound principles of epistemology and obey the rules of logic. Nicholas Dykes

OK, Daniel,

fair enough. But let it be a new thread and one topic at a time. I'm currently stressed and pressed and wouldn't be able to devote a lot of time to it. Also, it's a dozen years since I finished researching Popper, I've no desire read him all all over again. So please can we stick to my critique. The ~Reason Papers~ version began with Popper's Humean premise, so why not start there?

Nicholas

Hi Nick

I think you are replying to Dragonfly, not me. But at any rate, I was simply registering my disagreement on that issue en passant. If I get a moment, tho, I'd be happy to send you my comments privately, or comment on Popper's Humean premise on this forum.

Again, the key issue I want to reiterate relates to Ba'al's point. Hume identified the logical "problem of induction" (as it is known). Kant's work is primarily a response to Hume. Why then, if in her own words, Rand doesn't even understand the central problem both Hume and Kant are addressing, (let alone Nathaniel Branden's testimony that she never actually read Kant) should we pay any attention at all to her opinions on these thinkers? Surely we should just acknowledge that she doesn't know what she's talking about?

Hi Daniel,

Yes, I was replying to you. Sorry, getting old, getting confused.

I think Rand was an extraordinarly gifted thinker, but it seems evident that occasionally she rather 'flew by the seat of her pants' offering intuitive rather than carefully worked out judgements. Often, her intuitions were sound. Other times, they would have been better if she done the kind of work professional philosophers do -- teasing out all the nuances first. Yes, she said again and again that she expected 'good minds' to fill in the details, but I would have been much happier if she'd done some of that work herself. So, when you say she didn't know what she was talking about on induction, I'm half inclined to agree. Only half, though, because so often her intuitions were valid.

I've thought a thousand times how different all our lives would have been if she'd been a professional philosopher first, novelist second. That said, I think it's time we took the bull by the horns and started to do the solid, detailed professional work ourselves, without continually looking over our shoulders at what Rand said. It's up to us now. We don't need Rand to address the problem of induction, we can do it ourselves. Best, Nicholas

I'd be very interested to learn about your disagreements, but perhaps you could send them to me privately. I'd like time to consider them before commenting in a public forum.

Why not a public discussion? I think this forum is eminently suited for that, this isn't an election campaign where you have to present immediately your definite views on the matter or else. Thinking aloud can also be instructive and perhaps other members of the forum can make useful contributions to the discussion (even if you're still brooding silently about your reply).

OK, Daniel,

Eh.. perhaps I'm misinterpreting your post, but I'm not Daniel...

Sorry, I thought I was addressing Daniel Barnes. Last time I contributed to an O'ist forum was on OWL in 2001. Things move on. But I do find this site bewilderingly complicated by comparison. All this endless repetition and quotes within quotes within quotes. Isn't there an easier way of carrying on a debate? It's still fun tho', just hard for a newcomer to find his way around. Nicholas Dykes

I'd be very interested to learn about your disagreements, but perhaps you could send them to me privately. I'd like time to consider them before commenting in a public forum.

Why not a public discussion? I think this forum is eminently suited for that, this isn't an election campaign where you have to present immediately your definite views on the matter or else. Thinking aloud can also be instructive and perhaps other members of the forum can make useful contributions to the discussion (even if you're still brooding silently about your reply).

OK, Daniel,

fair enough. But let it be a new thread and one topic at a time. I'm currently stressed and pressed and wouldn't be able to devote a lot of time to it. Also, it's a dozen years since I finished researching Popper, I've no desire read him all all over again. So please can we stick to my critique. The ~Reason Papers~ version began with Popper's Humean premise, so why not start there?

Nicholas

H.W.B Joseph solved Hume's 'problem of induction' in 1916 in his ~Introduction to Logic~. I pointed this out in two essays on Popper (1996 & 1999) and reiterate it in my recent book ~Old Nick's Guide to Happiness~. Blatant plug? Absolutely!

Hi Nick,

I disagree that H.W.B. Joseph answered Hume, just as I disagree with much of your critique of Popper, which I am familiar with. However that is beside the point, which isn't whether Nick Dykes or H.W.B. Joseph or Karl Popper solved or even properly understood the problem (of induction) that Hume put forward, but whether Ayn Rand did...;-)

The clear, verbatim evidence is that she did neither.

Hi Daniel,

I'd be very interested to learn about your disagreements, but perhaps you could send them to me privately. I'd like time to consider them before commenting in a public forum.

Best wishes,

Nicholas

Had David Hume not lived, it is very likely that Kant, The Evil One, would be more than a minor footnote in the history of philosophy. So why not blame Hume?

I've long argued this very point, and now consider the answer rather simple: Rand just doesn't know what she's talking about. She hasn't studied Hume or Kant in any detail, and doesn't really know - or want to know - the main problems involved that these men were wrestling with. Recall in the ITOE (p304-5) what she called "the big question of induction" - the problem central to Hume's critique, and therefore Kant's - she admits she "couldn't even begin to discuss - because...I haven't worked on that subject enough to even begin to formulate it...". That's right: for all her overwrought invective aimed at Hume in her writings, she can't even begin to formulate a response to what is considered his central question! Further, with breathtaking naivety she adds "...it would take an accomplished scientist in a given field to illustrate the whole process [of induction] in that field." Rand doesn't seem to realise the problem of induction is a logical problem, not something "a scientist in a given field" can "illustrate the whole process in that field." With that in mind, what more do you need to know about Rand vs Hume - and by extension, Rand vs Kant?

H.W.B Joseph solved Hume's 'problem of induction' in 1916 in his ~Introduction to Logic~. I pointed this out in two essays on Popper (1996 & 1999) and reiterate it in my recent book ~Old Nick's Guide to Happiness~. Blatant plug? Absolutely!

Nicholas Dykes

Ba'al

Thirty years ago I met a man who'd been in Nazi concentration camps, Neungamm and Belsen, total about nine months. He survived largely because it was a relatively short period, and he was young and tough. I spent about four hours talking to him about the experience. Just ~hearing~ him changed ~my~ life and the worst that ever happened to me was Catholic boarding school.

Solzhenitsyn spent 8 yrs in hell. That sort of experience changes a person. I can't and won't excuse S. for his dark side, his anti-semitism etc, but that wasn't ~all~ there was to him. I think you should be a bit more sympathetic to a man who achieved a great deal in his life, despite the huge efforts of a really evil man, Stalin, to snuff that life out.

Nicholas Dykes

Read this:

http://tollelege.wordpress.com/2008/08/04/...i-solzhenitsyn/

It might change your view of the man.

I have no patience with anyone who craps on those who give him shelter and comfort regardless of what he has suffered.

Ba'al Chatzaf♠

Ba'al,

We had a long series of popular though rather simplistic movies over here all called 'Carry on...' If 'Carry on Judging' is your bag, so be it. We also had a police chief who said 'Forgiving is a way of forgetting.' I hold no brief for S. But, for me, what he suffered will always incline me to forgive. In my own work, for instance, I have been very critical of Karl Popper. But when I learned, very late, that he suffered from tinnitus -- a ringing in the ears that can drive one crazy -- I immediately wondered whether some of my harsher criticisms couldn't have been toned down. Tinnitus is a ~horrible~ condition to live with. Similarly, without saying S. was right or wrong, I think a fair-minded commentator should always bear in mind that deep psychological scars -- such as were inevitable in concentration camps -- can warp a a person's personality in ways that they would never themselves have chosen.

Nicholas

This whole business of calling Kant 'evil', or Hume or Marx or whoever is a load of rubbish. They were ~thinkers~. Poor ones, mistaken ones, blinkered ones, vindictive ones maybe; but none of them set up concentration camps, murdered millions or raped children. The word 'evil' is totally out of place in discussing thinkers. Rand surely did create an enormous red herring with the wildly inappropriate, theatrical label she coined for Kant.

Nicholas Dykes

It was Rand who called Kant the Most Evil Man.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Precisely. I just said that.

Nicholas

For those who believe Kant is the Most Evil Man Whoever Lived, consider that Kant, the Evil One, the Prince of Insufficient Light, deviated from the path of sanity because of his reaction to David Hume's skeptical demolition of metaphysics. Kant both admired and loathed Hume's philosophy and the -Critique of Pure Judgment- is an attempt to refute the skeptical position of David Hume. Had David Hume not lived, it is very likely that Kant, The Evil One, would be more than a minor footnote in the history of philosophy.

So why not blame Hume?

Ba'al Chatzaf

Ba'al this is a good point, as far as it goes. But the implication that Hume should take over the mantle 'most evil man...' is way off beam. David Hume was by all accounts one of the most charming men who ever lived. He was also so kind and generous that the street where he lived in Edinburgh is still called St David's Street -- not after some saint, after ~him~.

This whole business of calling Kant 'evil', or Hume or Marx or whoever is a load of rubbish. They were ~thinkers~. Poor ones, mistaken ones, blinkered ones, vindictive ones maybe; but none of them set up concentration camps, murdered millions or raped children. The word 'evil' is totally out of place in discussing thinkers. Rand surely did create an enormous red herring with the wildly inappropriate, theatrical label she coined for Kant.

Nicholas Dykes

In addition to being a vicious and rabid anti-semite, the late Alexander Solzhenitsyn (better late than never, I say -- that is a meme) also lacked grace and gratitude. Prior to his return to Mother Russia, following the demise of the Communist State he dwelt in Vermont, USA. While living in his monastic retreat he wrote article and gave speeches saying how degenerate the West is, steeped in materialism. Russia under the Tzsars was un materialistic and one can see just how good life with in Mother Russia. Millions of Russians could not wait to get out and Go West. The U.S. inherited some of the result of Mother Russia's grace and wonderfulness. For example David Sarnfoff who founded RCA was a Russian immigrant to the U.S.

Beware of those who crap on materialism. They are among the enemies of the Human Race.

Solzhenitsyn was a nasty old bugger whose charm did not increase with his years. No lovable curmudgeon he. He was a nasty piece of work both young and old.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Ba'al

Thirty years ago I met a man who'd been in Nazi concentration camps, Neungamm and Belsen, total about nine months. He survived largely because it was a relatively short period, and he was young and tough. I spent about four hours talking to him about the experience. Just ~hearing~ him changed ~my~ life and the worst that ever happened to me was Catholic boarding school.

Solzhenitsyn spent 8 yrs in hell. That sort of experience changes a person. I can't and won't excuse S. for his dark side, his anti-semitism etc, but that wasn't ~all~ there was to him. I think you should be a bit more sympathetic to a man who achieved a great deal in his life, despite the huge efforts of a really evil man, Stalin, to snuff that life out.

Nicholas Dykes