peterdjones

Speaking to the original question, Her worst contradiction was her promotion of authoritarianism in Objectivism (particularly her TOF endorsement of it), but you won't run into that problem at OL, most people here are completely immunized.

More insidious than overt contradiction is her view that the philosophy is complete or that it properly emphasizes the right things in every place.

Good points, I'll add them to the list.

As for pre-emptive strikes, she explained in "Collectivized 'Rights'" that this could be condoned only after a state has forfeited its legitimacy by failing minimal conditions, which she outlined in the article. The state that is struck (such as Libya might be soon) is the initiator of force.

Where "force" doesn't mean "force"

A volitional act is indeed caused; one's act of choosing among alternatives is one of the causes of one's action (but not the only cause).

The act may be caused, but the decision cannot be (fully) caused, or it would not be free.

One can have motives to act one way and another set of motives to act another way, and then by an act of will choose to allow certain motives to be determinative. Only a notion of causality that would ban an entity from having certain attributes (like a self-regulatory consciousness) could support the conclusion that an entity "can't" be volitional.

An entity can't make an uncaused choice between motive-action pairs if there is no indeterminism. Volition is blocked off

be determinism, the nature of consciousness doesn't come into it.

That volition is a fact is what we start with. We know by introspection that we choose. We can observe ourselves choosing. That's not all there is to be said about it, but a theory is not auspicious which begins by denying the existence of a capacity in ourselves that we directly perceive, and that is evidently limited by our nature and nonmagical.

But causality is also held to be directly perceived.

The faculty of volition itself has (biological) causes, and the exercise of volition is a cause.

is a different kind of trait from texture, color or shape. But being different doesn't mean it doesn't exist, or that it "contradicts causality."

To make a free choice is to make an unforced choice, and that *does* contradict universal determinism.

Chomsky is a dogmatic materialist. (Kolker should love him.) His claim to fame in linguistics is having discovered that despite the fact that the mind is a myth, man must have some organ which allows him to learn complex grammatical rules without formal coaching. (Never heard of the ability to induce?)

Ever heard of the Poverty of the Stimulus?

Peter:

I know that this should be obvious, but Peikoff and Ayn Rand are different people.

Freud allegedly said to his friend on his death bed...

"Please protect me from the neo-Freudians."

Rand speaks for herself. Peikoff speaks in tongues.

Adam

The Peikoff quotes come form works approved by Rand. Much more on the

three-way contradiction between free-will, determinism and incompatibilism

here

Wrong, the law of causality is that the actions possible to an object depend on its nature. She does not accept determinism.

Yes she does. Here she is saying so:

"All the countless forms, motions, combinations and dissolutions of elements within the universe, from a floating speck of dust to the formation of a galaxy to the emergence of life, are caused and determined [ emph. added ] by the identities of the elements involved".

Wrong. Axioms are not a priori. They are propositions which must be accepted in any logical attempt to deny them. The denial of an axiom is self-refuting.

"It's negation is a self contradiction" is a classical way of defining an apriori statement, found in much philosophical literature.

So your objection is like saying "it's an equine quadruped, not a horse".

Concepts are formed by the mind yet somehow encompass the totality their referents.

Wrong. If your statement means anything, you conflate epistemology and metaphysics. A concept is not a physical box. "If the shoe fits" is not a literal call to find Cinderalla.

I am referring to this claim by Peikoff:

"Metaphysically, an entity is what it is, (it has all of the characteristics that it has) therefore there is no basis for saying that some characteristics are contained within the meaning of a concept and some are not, therefore there is no basis for the analytic/synthetic dichotomy'. "

I agree that his idea of "containment within a concept" is both unclear and unlikely. If you want to say he is

just plumb wrong. go ahead....although you will then need a substitute argument against the A/S dichotomy.

Ethics: Initiation of Force is always wrong, but pre-emptive military strikes are OK.

Wrong. These are not Rand's words and she obviously recognized the need for a cassus belli.

Well, Peikoff doesn't.

Forget ethics. And consider this. We (human beings and other living things) are physical entities and we are described by the same laws as any other physical systems. Humans do not have a privileged mode of being. We are gooey, sticky, wet machines who doings are correctly described by physical laws.

We are big ugly bags of mostly water (I got that description from a Star Trek: TNG episode).

Ba'al Catzaf

If true, that refutes one position on free will (interactive dualism/supernatural FW) and leaves all other options open.

The "Problem" of Induction? What problem? Any valid inference scheme has the following characteristic: the truth value of the conclusion must be greater than or equal to the truth value of the premises. Assumption: true greater than false.

Induction is clearly not valid. Why? Because it is possible to start with true premises and end up with a false conclusion. The classical example as that of the white swans. A gazillion white swans seen and at some point non non-white swans seen. Inductive conclusion: all swans are white. But one fine day a dark swan is observed showing that the conclusion is false. Induction does not always produce true conclusion from true premises or more precisely, induction does not always produce true general statements from a true conjunction of particular statements.

As I asked: What problem?

Ba'al Chatzaf

You seem to be saying the solution is to just abandon induction. But Rand can't, since many of her dearly held principles are

based on generalisations of observation. To put it another way, if you reject the apriori, as she does, and you reject

induction as well, you are not going to have much of an epistemology left.

Metaphysics. She accepts both free will and determinism (the law of casuality) but rejects compatibilism.

Epistemology: There is no apriori, but there are "axioms".

Concepts are formed by the mind yet somehow encompass the totality their referents.

Ethics: Initiation of Force is always wrong, but pre-emptive military strikes are OK.

Selflessness is not so much of a virtue that you should practice it for its own sake, but enough to practice it as part of a campaign of self-improvement.