dan2100

Ba'al Your happy words clarified it well. Thanks. Mike My understanding of a priori and a posteriori is a bit different than deductive versus inductive -- at least as used by the philosophers I've read. In my view, the former have a relationship to experience whereas the latter do not -- or not in the same way. (Think of this. It's possible to inductively arrive at a general idea -- let's leave alone if it's valid or true -- and then deductively apply this same idea to a specific case. In which case, the general idea would be considered a posteriori -- even if one is later using it deductively.) I think there's a general tendency to collapse a priori, deductive, analytic, and necessary together on one hand and a posteriori, inductive, synthetic, and contingent on the other. As you might guess, I believe this collapsing of all these ideas into two is mistaken. Regarding Rand, one might consult Chris Sciabarra's Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical. If I recall correctly, he argues Rand came to ethical vision first and then searched around for a grouding for it. (There's nothing wrong about working this way -- provided one is willing to revise what one is attempting to ground in light of one's findings. If one isn't, then one is merely rationalizing one's ethics. I believe Answer to Ayn Rand by John W. Robbins accuses Rand of merely rationalizing her ethics -- as if this were ultimately primary and the rest of her philosophy is merely there to persuade her and us to accept her laundry list of moral claims.) As for whether there are any a priori ethical claims, I believe Rand would rail against such a position. Many recent philosophers dealing with this area would disagree with her. They seem to believe there are a priori ethical claims and these inform how people deal with real life situations. I think Philippa Foot takes this position, but I'm getting this secondhand. I have yet to read any of her books and believe I only read one of her essays, but I forgot which one or what it was about.

http://mises.org/daily/4526

Too much Heinlein here. Never drink liquor and shoot a gun at the same time. You might aim at a tax collector -- and miss! TANSTAAFL! Ba'al Chatzaf A friend of mine quipped that someone should do a similar one for Ayn Rand critics.

Listened to a few minutes of this and it seems to me to be more of the same. Is there something remarkable you found in it?

http://www.leftycart...of-libertarian/ Jesse Walker passed this along.

Full disclosure, I read less than half of Naked Lunch, and that was it for WSB. I thought it was garbage, and I've never given him another chance. I haven't read that one. Why did you think it was garbage?

Do you think that this is because Rand was fairly radical in terms of her ethics while Mises, Hayek, and most others basically accepted conventional morality -- often seeing a clash between morality and free markets. (This seems especially so in Hayek's The Fatal Conceit where it seems to me he's arguing conventional morality works at the family level while it doesn't work above that level or in markets. It's been a while since I've read this particular work, so maybe I'm misremembering it here.)

It's not so much about ideology, it's about psychology (although the latter will influence perceptions leading to the former). Someone can be very individualistic in their thinking and still be a communist (Marx, Lenin...). Individualistic here refers to apprehending individuals as discrete units, whether those units are volitional or parts of a machine. The opposite would be collectivistic, where individuals are experienced in relationship with each other, which again could be ideologically focused on individuals (Mother Teresa) or society at large (Gandhi perhaps?). I could be choosing my exemplars poorly here, I have no idea about the psychology of any of these people. But with Rand, her psychological approach to worldview is fairly clear from her writings. I think you're probably right here, though I wonder if this isn't just a general trait of intellectuals or of intellectuals who are also ideologues. In this case, the focus would be more on ideology and particularly on ideological differences -- as these are seen as all important. Also, the focus would be on other intellectuals. This might lead to a two-tiered treatment of humanity: the non-intellectuals who are interchangeable in the scheme of things and the intellectuals, who are all individuals and highly particular (and the biggest threat to the ideologue since other intellectuals are her or his competition). But is there any evidence for this or is it merely a choice (or range) between "apprehending individuals as discrete units" versus them as parts of collectives?

Regarding #1, I've noticed that people who are closer ideologically or philosophically tend to be quickest to draw distinctions. By this view, one would expect people who are in the libertarian camp to be much more aware of their differences than would people outside that camp. Not sure if this applies to Rand and perhaps this doesn't trump your point.

I thought Brant meant one can't merely put an arbitrary duration on inquiry. In other words, one can't say, from the armchair, "Unless three years hence, umabiguous evidence for a given conspiracy theory is found, the theory must be wrong." Worse, it shouldn't mean that while a particular conspiracy theory might be wrong, no conspiracy happened or that the official view of what happened is true. (I hope Brant will chime in if I'm wrong here.) Also, I still see you trying to bunch all conspiracy together -- and, in particular, all conspiracies about three unrelated events -- the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the assassination of JFK, and the 2001 attacks in America. These are three very different events and various theories regarding them need not be stitched together to make some broad claim about such theorizing. It's almost as if someone were putting together theories about how trout spawn, when Pluto formed, and the nature of the Higgs boson together to throw doubt on science in general. Add to this, while many conspiracy theories are no doubt bunk -- maybe due to the desire to find an easy, simply explanation for some complex social process or event (what comes to mind are views of how oil prices rise wherein a conspiracy of speculators is often blamed or how AIDS has spread in the US via the CIA) -- there is a problem when official sources present a version of history. The official source and its backer generally has a vested interest in a certain view of history sticking. (Which is not to say government itself is a conspiracy... Or is it?) Add to this, successful conspiracies tend to either not be uncovered or uncovered years later usually when there's some slip up. A rather benign example is Piltdown Man. A less benign one is the aforementioned Pentagon Papers. All of this said, I can sympathize with the view of needing some way to get through all the competing theories about a given event. Some of these will likely never be known with any degree of certainty. History is not like the ancient view of geometry: some list of certainties that can be once proven or disproven that an honest, well meaning person can just memorize. (Even geometry isn't like the ancient view of geometry.) New evidence can shed light on old events -- a recent archaeology, for example, has tended to demolish the various views on Ancient Israel. (See, e.g., The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts by Neil Silberman and Israel Finkelstein. In this example, it isn't like there weren't many theories of, say, how historical the Hebrew Bible is, just how Ancient Israel came into being, and what the relationship was between the Canaanites and the Ancient Israelis. There were many such theories -- and many that rejected the Biblical account even sans the miraculous stuff. The more recent evidence however has weighed against even these theories. No doubt, too, in another decade or three, more evidence will come to light which will force any reasonable follower of Silberman's and Finkelstein's account to revise her views.) Finally, and again, you haven't even read the book that kicked off this thread. So how do you know it's a silly conspiracy? You might argue not enough time -- and, again, I'll be sympathetic, but one might wonder how much time you have to spin out theories about why a particular book you haven't read should be dismissed.

Here's an online excerpt from the book: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/21/books/excerpt-the-eerie-silence.html

http://www.amazon.com/Eerie-Silence-Renewing-Search-Intelligence/dp/0547133243 I've been reading this one lately. Not bad so far, but I'm only in chapter one. I doubt it's going to be much more than recommending new ways of looking at the problem -- and not proposing a solution. Anyhow, I hope to finish reading it on my flight over to Japan in a few days. I hope to comment on it later in July.

Regarding WSB, I actually enjoyed his Cities of the Red Night trilogy when I read it back in college. I found it strange, too, that he mentions We, Brave New World, and Nineteen Eighty-Four but not Anthem.

I think in the next decade or so solid state lighting will get rid of some the last vestages of 19th century electric technology: the light bulb. In a way, that'll kind of complete this revolution. Or so I predict.

Don't you think Mises's intellectual background was a bit more complicated than that? (Not that this negates your observations here.)

I care. I cared enough to post this here and respond to him on another forum.

That's a good one too. I read it while I was in college -- along with Socialism and Liberalism. What did you think of his foundational ideas about evaluating value as a hierarchy that cannot be measured? I agree with it in so far as it comes to economics. I think most people tend to assume the opposite: that value, even it's subjective, can be easily measured -- and measured in the cardinal or ratio sense, as in this is valued twice as much as that. I agree with Mises that one can really only talk about this being value more than that -- and not give specific amounts or ratios of value. There's a bit more to it than that, of course, in terms of just how value relates to choice and how one can analyze values inherent in action. Of course, this seems to be a clash with Objectivism here.

That's a good one too. I read it while I was in college -- along with Socialism and Liberalism.

Reminds of something Pericles supposedly said: "Nobody need be ashamed to admit poverty, but it is shameful not to do one's best to escape from poverty."

http://www.nolanchart.com/article7814.html I don't agree with him. Also, in previous online discussions with him, I've been unable to get him to present any satisfactory "æsthetic standpoint" aside from modernist cliches.

Of which book? Human Action? I read it in high school, though I probably should re-read it again -- from cover to cover.

http://dailyreckoning.com/santelli-go-read-some-austrian-economists-instead-of-the-funny-pages/ Even with the chickens look to finally have come home to roost in the economy yesterday and today, I wonder if anyone will listen?

Time doesn't run out on the quest for knowledge, Agreed, though not according to holders of the three year rule. In cases like this, one can really know until one looks. Do you mean "nutty people" like Thomas Fleming (The New Dealers' War: FDR and the War Within World War II) and Robert B. Stinnett (Day Of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor)? Have the "serious people" actually read them?

Regarding antitrust laws, I don't see businesses as innocent, ignorant victims here. They often lobby and even champion for their use. That's fair but it wasn't where I was going (actually I was aiming for the detrimental impact that businessmen have allowed consumers to make, namely in how consumers are allowed to run markets). I don't understand what you mean here. Do you mean consumers get in the way of business plans?

Now, that has caused me to have the biggest, most raucous horselaugh I've had all week. Those in power voluntarily giving up their hold on such secrets? Not unless some serious spelunking is done, usually incurring possible prosecution for several major felonies — and some major competing power center has its ox being gored. And then, it's practiced only as damage control and public relations. Only The New York Times had enough of the goods on those in power to get the Supreme Court induced to permit the release of the "Pentagon Papers." Some smaller outfit would be just as deserving of just as much consideration, but would never and does not get it. Anyway, your three-year criterion remains unsupported, in both qualitative and quantitative aspects (why not five years? one year? today's papers? all are just as arbitrary), so it merits no further discussion. I'm also surprised that the three year criterion -- which seems arbitrary and too short from the persceptive of what important documents get declassified (why three years and not three minutes or a hundred years?) -- being deployed at all. And I'm shocked to see him claiming, when he hasn't even read the book, that the comparison is being made to faith-based idelogies. It'd be different if he read the book and was able to show, "This writer is truly making untestable claims." Moreover, I wouldn't lump all conspiracy theories together. That's a blanket condemnation. After all, conspiracies do happen. That doesn't mean, of course, a particular conspiracy theory is true -- any more than that people lie means a particular individual is lying at a particular time. Again, I offer Jeff Riggenbach's transcribed podcast on conspiracy theories for consideration. It's online at: http://mises.org/daily/4110 Here's an extended quote from it: "You see, we don't know going in which conspiracy theories are true and which aren't. In many cases, we can't know; we simply don't have enough information. "Ordinarily, we find out that a particular conspiracy theory is true because historians — whether the historians in a hurry whom we usually call journalists or the more painstaking historians who write books and teach at colleges and universities — have come along and combed over the ground and the documents and considered the testimony of all the witnesses they could find and reached the relevant conclusions. Whether a conspiracy theory is true is usually a matter for history to decide. "Government officials are not, by and large, happy with this state of affairs, because history is the natural enemy of the state. Sustained reflection after the fact on exactly what the state did and why inevitably has the tendency to undermine any confidence one might have had in the state's good motives and desire to promote "social welfare." It tends, inevitably, to "induce widespread public skepticism about the government's assertions" and to "dampen public mobilization and participation in government-led efforts, or both." "The state benefits from the shortage of information that the speed of events imposes on people. It can't avoid history entirely, of course — people will read and write about such stuff, no matter what the state says or does — but the state can do what it can to see to it that whatever history does get written tells the story the state wants told." Here, Jeff is not arguing for anyone to accept any particular conspiracy theory, but I don't think an arbitrary test will work out here. To just give one example: I imagine most here know about the various radiation, biological, and chemical experiments carried out on unknowing civilians by the US government. These only became public knowledge years or decades afterward. One wonders if they'd have ever been known had people investigated stopped at three years.