dan2100
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Posts posted by dan2100
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> I haven't read or listened to very much of Rand, mainly just Atlas Shrugged, the Fountainhead, and some of her TV interviews (youtube). From what I've seen/heard, I don't see any contradictions. I'm not trying to defend Rand as perfect. Quite the opposite. I'd like to hear her contradictions, and how they affect Objectivism in general.
My suggestion is to study the philosophy and learn what it says first. Galt's speech is just an introduction. Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal is the place to start. Take your time to let it and all its implications sink in. Don't be in a hurry to 'jump' to the next topic without having had time to fully consider the implications of the preceding.
I actually prefer The Virtue of Selfishness over Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. But then that was my introduction to Rand and her ideas. Still, I think it's more tightly focused.
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The happy words are apriori and aposteriori. The first is inference from general principles the second is inference from particulars which are experienced. They correspond roughly to top-down and bottom-up, roughly.
Ethics is often treated apriori but in fact is derived aposeteriori. Our ethical sense derives from our particular life experiences.
Ba'al Chatzaf
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.
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http://www.leftycart...of-libertarian/
Jesse Walker passed this along.
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.
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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?
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http://reason.com/blog/2010/07/01/the-alinskygoldwater-axis
I wonder what the rabidly anti-Alinsky crowd will make of this. (Admittedly, it's not much. They met and Alinsky was, apparently, not the big government statist some make him out to be.)
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http://www.leftycart...of-libertarian/
Jesse Walker passed this along.
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Regarding WSB, I actually enjoyed his Cities of the Red Night trilogy when I read it back in college.
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?
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Although Rand's curt dismissal of other pro-freedom philosophers can irritate me at times, I also recognize that this was part of her belief in the need for a vigorous and consistent moral defense of capitalism. Rand was absolutely right about this, and she infused a moral passion into the defense of capitalism that is lacking in Hayek and, to a lesser degree, in Mises. I regard this as one of Rand's greatest contributions.
Ghs
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.)
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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.
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?
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Two points here, one on Hayek & Rand, one on Beck:
1. Psychology shows that individualists tend to predominantly use differentiated thinking (that is, they spot differences more often than commonalities). There's a reason Rand was fiercely discriminatory - it comes with the psychological territory; therefore I assert she was more sensitive to spotting differences with Hayek than similarities (Rand seemed to rarely ever focus on integrating her philosophy with other belief sets).
2. Michael, you have given me evidence to begin looking back at Beck. The guy is on probation with me
, but I'm going to reassess my opinion and give him some attention again.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.
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If "time doesn't run out on the quest for knowledge" is supposed to mean that we may never consider a question settled, then it's fallacious on two different counts.
1. Equivocation
There's always something new to learn, but this does not entail that there's always something new to learn about any particular claim, any more than "space is unlimited" entails that the space in a particular room is unlimited.
2. Question-begging
A statement or belief can qualify as knowledge only if it's true. This is just what hasn't been proven about the cases in question.
For all that, I freely acknowledge that time never runs out on the quest to prove silly conspiracy theories.
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.
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Here's an online excerpt from the book:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/21/books/excerpt-the-eerie-silence.html
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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.
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Some schlub with a website doesn't like Atlas Shrugged. He doesn't offer anything intelligent or unique by way of explanation. So what? Did I miss something in what he wrote? He has a list of his favourite (ahem, Essential) "Libertarian Science Fiction and Fantasy" novels, and makes a point of the fact he doesn't include Atlas Shrugged. The original article is almost two years old. He includes Burroughs in his list, and I think his stuff is unreadable garbage, and that's all I have to say about it. Will WSB fans fret? Try to debate about and glean insights from my argument? I doubt it.
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.
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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.
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There is a delicious irony here. Thomists, like Rand, typically despise Kant (though I don't think any went so far as to dub him the most evil man in the history of western civilization). But Higgins and other Thomists (and Aristotelians generally) have a better understanding of Kant's political ideas and influence than Rand did. They understand Kant's intense individualism -- this is a major reason why they dislike him -- so from their perspective, it would come as no surprise that two of the greatest individualists and free-market advocates of the 20th century, Mises and Hayek, hailed from a Kantian background. The same fact is more difficult for an orthodox O'ist to explain.
Ghs
Don't you think Mises's intellectual background was a bit more complicated than that? (Not that this negates your observations here.)
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Never heard of him. He comes across as a dick. Who cares?
I care. I cared enough to post this here and respond to him on another forum.
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Theory of Money & Credit.
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.
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Theory of Money & Credit.
That's a good one too. I read it while I was in college -- along with Socialism and Liberalism.
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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."
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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.
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I'm on chapter 3 of Mises, you?
Of which book? Human Action? I read it in high school, though I probably should re-read it again -- from cover to cover.
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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?
Induction v.s. Deduction
in 2 - Epistemology
Posted
It might or it might not. Also, I want to stress that starting from a particular point is not necessarily wrong. One might start with what would appear to be a highly derived area of knowledge and work toward foundations or from foundations out to derivations. Nothing is wrong with this. Even so, if my reading of the history of thought is correct, often people who work first from foundations tend to ignore or reject derivations that don't fit often flippantly.
If you merely mean by the time people get to considering philosophy they already have lots of intellectual baggage, I agree. This doesn't prevent them from, however, attempting a rational reconstruction of the current views.
If that was Campbell's view, I think Plato had him beat by many centuries. And Plato is hardly the only one to hold such a view. But what do you mean here? What do you think people bring to the table at birth? (I think there's some confusion here, especially since there's a great deal of confusion between things like an innate language ability and inborn concepts. This doesn't knock out the latter, but I see many today not separating the former from the latter and so believing any demonstration of the former validates the latter.)