Intellectual debate: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

[sjw]

"Am emotion that clashes with your reason, an emotion that you cannot explain or control, is only the carcass of that stale thinking which you forbade your mind to revise."--Ayn Rand

Sometimes, or always? Hmmm?

...

This is a quote from Rand's fiction. If you want a more complete view, read her non-fiction. Duh?

[Rich Engle]

What's up with the "Duh"? Some unbridled emotion leaking into pure discussion? Perish the THOUGHT!!

I've read all her non-fiction, outside of not all the letters, and of course I only had the chance to read a few bound volumes of the Objectivist. But aside from that all of it.

We wouldn't want to assume that she incorporated her own principles into her fiction. Never seen her do that, duh.

rde

Today's snippy-poo is "duh<tm>" :baby:

Edited January 22, 2007 by Rich Engle

[sjw]

What's up with the "Duh"? Some unbridled emotion leaking into pure discussion? Perish the THOUGHT!!

Didn't seem unbridled to me.

I've read all her non-fiction, outside of not all the letters, and of course I only had the chance to read a few bound volumes of the Objectivist. But aside from that all of it.

The NB articles in The Objectivist are the best that describe psychology. So you've missed the best stuff that pertains to this thread.

We wouldn't want to assume that she incorporated her own principles into her fiction. Never seen her do that, duh.

The point is that nitpicking sentences out of her fiction is stupid. Whoops, there goes that "unbridled" emotion again...

[Rich Engle]

Oh my GAWD. Sorry I'm only 48 and there were only so many volumes of those in the library. I read a few. Early NB articles in there.

I guess it doesn't count that I've read everything he ever wrote, attended his lectures and workshops, and produced a buncn of his audio material for him.

Jesus, dude, and you're saying that in spite of all that, I'm off it because I missed a few of his old articles?

What's next, my comprehension? C'mon...

~sigh~

rde

[Paul Mawdsley]

Keep it simple, just to start: Reason is logic applied to facts. Subsequently we are being elaborative and descriptive. Logic is not one form of reason. There is not more than one form unless you want to embrace irrationality. Now one can posit sub-categories of reason, such as "intuitive" reason, but the products of such can only be validated by the primary category. Such sub-categories might even be labeled "mystical"--or what-have-you. They are NOT validating techniques, only investigative, and are not really reason at all.

--Brant

It is sometimes said that the contrast between reason and logic extends back to the time of Plato and Aristotle. Indeed, although they had no separate Greek word for logic as opposed to language and reason, Aristotle's neologism "syllogism" (syllogismos) identified logic clearly for the first time as a distinct field of study: the most peculiarly reasonable ("logikL") part of reasoning, so to speak.

No philosopher of any note has ever argued that logic is the same as reason. They are generally thought to be distinct, although logic is one important aspect of reason. But the tendency to a preference for "hard logic," or "solid logic," in modern times has incorrectly led to the two terms occasionally being seen as essentially synonymous (see Reasoning) or perhaps more often logic is seen as the defining and pure form of reason.

However machines and animals can unconsciously perform logical operations, and many animals (including humans) can unconsciously, associate different perceptions as causes and effects and then make decisions or even plans. Therefore, to have any distinct meaning at all, "reason" must be the type of thinking which links language, consciousness and logic, and at this time, only humans are known to combine these things. (Wikipedia)

[Brant Gaede]

Keep it simple, just to start: Reason is logic applied to facts. Subsequently we are being elaborative and descriptive. Logic is not one form of reason. There is not more than one form unless you want to embrace irrationality. Now one can posit sub-categories of reason, such as "intuitive" reason, but the products of such can only be validated by the primary category. Such sub-categories might even be labeled "mystical"--or what-have-you. They are NOT validating techniques, only investigative, and are not really reason at all.

--Brant

It is sometimes said that the contrast between reason and logic extends back to the time of Plato and Aristotle. Indeed, although they had no separate Greek word for logic as opposed to language and reason, Aristotle's neologism "syllogism" (syllogismos) identified logic clearly for the first time as a distinct field of study: the most peculiarly reasonable ("logikL") part of reasoning, so to speak.

No philosopher of any note has ever argued that logic is the same as reason. They are generally thought to be distinct, although logic is one important aspect of reason. But the tendency to a preference for "hard logic," or "solid logic," in modern times has incorrectly led to the two terms occasionally being seen as essentially synonymous (see Reasoning) or perhaps more often logic is seen as the defining and pure form of reason.

However machines and animals can unconsciously perform logical operations, and many animals (including humans) can unconsciously, associate different perceptions as causes and effects and then make decisions or even plans. Therefore, to have any distinct meaning at all, "reason" must be the type of thinking which links language, consciousness and logic, and at this time, only humans are known to combine these things. (Wikipedia)

Logic and reason are an integrated whole. One doesn't exist without the other. Even an elementary logic class has to reference material used to demonstrate truth and fallacy. One can blindly run across the highway because one feels like it and not get run over, but it's chutzpah to imply it happened out of reason--i.e., rationality. And if one doesn't want this discussion to bleed to death, we'll have to leave logic to humans, not deer, dogs and machines.

--Brant

[Ellen Stuttle]

The NB articles in The Objectivist are the best that describe psychology. So you've missed the best stuff that pertains to this thread.

Not if he's read The Psychology of Self-Esteem. The psychology essays from "The Objectivist Newsletter" and The Objectivist form the majority of the text (with some occasional slight modifications) of The Psychology of Self-Esteem.

The point is that nitpicking sentences out of her fiction is stupid.

Is this the sentence in question?:

"An emotion that clashes with your reason, an emotion that you cannot explain or control, is only the carcass of that stale thinking which you forbade your mind to revise."--Ayn Rand

Doesn't that come from Galt's Speech? Rand herself published Galt's Speech (in the book For the New Intellectual) with the caption: "This is the philosophy of Objectivism." And the Speech is the closest she herself ever came to presenting a systematic overview of her philosophy.

Ellen

Edit: I fixed the typo ("An" was miswritten as "Am") in the AR quote.

___

Edited January 23, 2007 by Ellen Stuttle

[sjw]

Is this the sentence in question?:

"Am emotion that clashes with your reason, an emotion that you cannot explain or control, is only the carcass of that stale thinking which you forbade your mind to revise."--Ayn Rand

Doesn't that come from Galt's Speech? Rand herself published Galt's Speech (in the book For the New Intellectual) with the caption: "This is the philosophy of Objectivism." And the Speech is the closest she herself ever came to presenting a systematic overview of her philosophy.

This misses the point. Ayn Rand created a grand, sweeping, radical new alternative in the history of philosophy, and here we have little ants staring at little passages and making little nitpicking criticisms about them that misrepresents her actual view. You can't read one sentence and make these big sweeping inferences--no sentence, not even Ayn Rand's, can capture every aspect and nuance and possible criticism--you have to see how it relates to everything else. You have to think, you have to integrate.

It's sad. We have on the one hand ARI types who refuse to find anything wrong, vs. people who didn't bother thinking while they read her and find things wrong that she didn't even hold.

[Paul Mawdsley]

Logic and reason are an integrated whole. One doesn't exist without the other. Even an elementary logic class has to reference material used to demonstrate truth and fallacy. One can blindly run across the highway because one feels like it and not get run over, but it's chutzpah to imply it happened out of reason--i.e., rationality. And if one doesn't want this discussion to bleed to death, we'll have to leave logic to humans, not deer, dogs and machines.

--Brant

My level of interest has waned to the point where I don't care how it dies. If all discussion must only exist in rigid pre-existing rational frameworks defined by Rand, or anyone else for that matter, then there is no room for what I have to contribute in this discussion. I like to challenge existing paradigms but I don't like to beat my head against the wall. I'm getting bored and starting to feel like I'm wasting my time. Edited January 22, 2007 by Paul Mawdsley

[sjw]

My level of interest has waned to the point where I don't care how it dies. If all discussion must only exist in rigid pre-existing rational frameworks defined by Rand, or anyone else for that matter, then there is no room for what I have to contribute in this discussion. I like to challenge existing paradigms but I don't like to beat my head against the wall. I'm getting bored and starting to feel like I'm wasting my time.

This misrepresents my point of view. My point is: if you're going to criticize someone, especially someone deserving of tons of respect like Rand is, then you had better at least understand them first. Aristotle understood this well, as do many academics. What's worse than "Randroidism" is uninformed criticism of such a great woman as Ayn Rand. People observe "Randroid" behavior then go way to far in the other direction, that's not rational. If you don't regard Rand as a great thinker then why on earth would you want to be here in the first place?

And I never meant you have nothing of value to say. What I've been waiting for is for you to define and describe your terms, but when I pointed out issues I had with your terms (such as "intuitive vs. symbolic"), you just ignored what I pointed out. So when you talk I have little idea what you are saying except that you are piling on empty criticism of Rand. I've detected points of good thinking on your part where I think I agree, and points of difference that I find obscure, but I haven't seen you try to clarify or define.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Paul,

I would like to make a suggestion and bring to your awareness a fact. When you interact with Shayne, he often has a poor rhetorical habit of jumping into your head and explaining to you what you think and why you think it. He couldn't possible have that information based on a comment or two you write, but he constantly does that. He also likes to lump you into oversimplified collective groups you never belonged to, almost always presuming the worst. This immediately makes the other person start justifying himself, or treating it as a character attack and flaming back, rather than exploring the ideas further.

After interacting with Shayne and testing different approaches, I have found that this mannerism of his is without much importance. If you ignore it, he does not insist on it and stays on the ideas.

I know it is irritating to be constantly told by another person that he knows more about you than you do (at least in certain respects, especially when this person often states that he knows what is "really going on"), and it is even more irritating because this same person is overly-sensitive when he is treated in the same manner, but Shayne does have a good mind and his understanding of Objectivism is deep. If you can find it in yourself to ignore his misguided rhetoric, there is a lot of value there.

You guys were on a roll and it was interesting. (Also, Shayne's post immediately above this one is a pleasant exception to the usual rhetoric.)

Michael

[Paul Mawdsley]

Michael,

Thanks! That helps. I am good at exploring the underlying causes of things with my imagination but not so good at categorizing what is right in front of me. I'm trying to balance time, energy and desire. The first is in short supply. If either of the other two start to wane, I loose interest and want to move on. I'm not interested in fighting for real estate on an ideological battlefield. I'm interested in exploring new worlds at the edge of what is known. Sometimes I can find new worlds in the middle of a battlefield. Sometimes I get tired of being dragged into battle. I would rather see disagreements as a reason to explore differences with mutual respect and good will, rather than as a reason to attack and defend. When I was twenty, I enjoyed the battle more because I thought being right was most important. Not so much now. Now I want to explore what is true and right. It's a subtle but important difference.

Shayne,

Guilty, but not as charged. I didn't ignore you. I was procrastinating. There is a difference. I follow my passion and the complex network of connections generated in my imagination in response to something I read. I give myself permission to follow tangents. That's why I sometimes don't stick with a thread's topic. It is also why I have not responded to you with regard to the "new thread" I said I would create elsewhere on this forum. It has sparked into something quite unexpected.

I will answer your questions.

Paul

[sjw]

I'm not interested in fighting for real estate on an ideological battlefield. I'm interested in exploring new worlds at the edge of what is known.

Noble attitude, but in order to know whether you're actually doing that you must of course know what is known.

[Brant Gaede]

Logic and reason are an integrated whole. One doesn't exist without the other. Even an elementary logic class has to reference material used to demonstrate truth and fallacy. One can blindly run across the highway because one feels like it and not get run over, but it's chutzpah to imply it happened out of reason--i.e., rationality. And if one doesn't want this discussion to bleed to death, we'll have to leave logic to humans, not deer, dogs and machines.

--Brant

My level of interest has waned to the point where I don't care how it dies. If all discussion must only exist in rigid pre-existing rational frameworks defined by Rand, or anyone else for that matter, then there is no room for what I have to contribute in this discussion. I like to challenge existing paradigms but I don't like to beat my head against the wall. I'm getting bored and starting to feel like I'm wasting my time.

I'm perfectly willing to explore not yet existing rational frameworks, whatever and wherever they are. Or new ones. I think the missing word is "discover." But I am not willing to fly in an speculative airplane without wings. Speculation is not investigation unless you're looking for a jumping off point. I don't want to discourage you, however, so this concludes my posting on this thread.

--Brant

Edited January 23, 2007 by Brant Gaede

[Victor Pross]

It's sad. We have on the one hand ARI types who refuse to find anything wrong, vs. people who didn't bother thinking while they read her and find things wrong that she didn't even hold.

Shanye,

It is much worse than that. There are those who actually think that taking swipes at Rand demonstrates how intellectually independent they are—as if to agree with too much is a sign of becoming an Ortho-Objectivist. Let's trash talk her so as to "humanize" her. Jesus!! Truly, this is the mental processes displayed. This is, of course, nonsense.

-Victor

Edited January 23, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Paul Mawdsley]

It's sad. We have on the one hand ARI types who refuse to find anything wrong, vs. people who didn't bother thinking while they read her and find things wrong that she didn't even hold.

Shanye,

It is much worse than that. There are those who actually think that talking swipes at Rand demonstrates how intellectually independent they are—as if to agree with too much is a sign of becoming an Ortho-Objectivist. Jesus!! Truly, this is the mental processes displayed. This is, of course, nonsense.

I was going to respond but changed my mind. I think Michael's advice is good and should be applied to some things Victor says as well.

[Victor Pross]

It's sad. We have on the one hand ARI types who refuse to find anything wrong, vs. people who didn't bother thinking while they read her and find things wrong that she didn't even hold.

Shanye,

It is much worse than that. There are those who actually think that talking swipes at Rand demonstrates how intellectually independent they are—as if to agree with too much is a sign of becoming an Ortho-Objectivist. Jesus!! Truly, this is the mental processes displayed. This is, of course, nonsense.

I was going to respond but changed my mind. I think Michael's advice is good and should be applied to some things Victor says as well.

Paul, I would be happy to hear advice. Really, why not? What is it that MSK said?

-Victor-

[Paul Mawdsley]

Paul, I would be happy to hear advice. Really, why not? What is it that MSK said?

Victor,

The advice was for me to change my automatic responses to Shayne by categorizing his behaviour instead of reacting to it. See here.

Paul

[sjw]

It is much worse than that. There are those who actually think that taking swipes at Rand demonstrates how intellectually independent they are—as if to agree with too much is a sign of becoming an Ortho-Objectivist. Let's trash talk her so as to "humanize" her. Jesus!! Truly, this is the mental processes displayed. This is, of course, nonsense.

It's even worse than that. There are those that take swipes at Rand because they are intellectually lazy and know it, and the trash talking is just them attempting to rewrite reality and make her unworthy of taking seriously.

[Ellen Stuttle]

Is this the sentence in question?:

"An emotion that clashes with your reason, an emotion that you cannot explain or control, is only the carcass of that stale thinking which you forbade your mind to revise."--Ayn Rand

Doesn't that come from Galt's Speech? Rand herself published Galt's Speech (in the book For the New Intellectual) with the caption: "This is the philosophy of Objectivism." And the Speech is the closest she herself ever came to presenting a systematic overview of her philosophy.

This misses the point. Ayn Rand created a grand, sweeping, radical new alternative in the history of philosophy, and here we have little ants staring at little passages and making little nitpicking criticisms about them that misrepresents her actual view. You can't read one sentence and make these big sweeping inferences--no sentence, not even Ayn Rand's, can capture every aspect and nuance and possible criticism--you have to see how it relates to everything else. You have to think, you have to integrate.

It's sad. We have on the one hand ARI types who refuse to find anything wrong, vs. people who didn't bother thinking while they read her and find things wrong that she didn't even hold.

And that misses my point. The sentence is not some out-of-context quote from "her fiction." Although it comes from a novel, the context was a speech she spent four years writing and herself later captioned as "the philosophy of Objectivism." Is it your claim that the sentence misrepresents her considered view on the relationship between reason and emotion?

Ellen

___

[Paul Mawdsley]

An inappropriate emotion is one that is elicited in a certain context but should not have been. The emotion as such is not inappropriate, and that is not what is referred to by "inappropriate emotion"; what is meant is "inappropriate to the situation." If I formulate it this way do you still disagree?

Yes and no. When we define "context," what do we mean, where do we draw the boundaries? Is the context that determines appropriateness or inappropriateness of an emotion in the eye of the perceiver or some absolute objective fact of reality distinct from the perceiver? In the context of the perceiver, at the moment of perceiving and responding, the emotion is always appropriate to the context. How we get to some absolute objective fact distinct from the perceiver, I don't know. However, when the context of the perceiver changes with hindsight, or from the context of another perceiver, the emotion might be judged inappropriate. But this inappropriateness is in another context from the one that initiated the emotion. Even if the emotion is deemed "inappropriate to the situation," we must see that the emotional event included more than just an emotion. It included a projected context.

Newton made a great breakthrough in physics because he recognized that what is observed as a single event can be abstractly separated into parts. That the moon revolves around the earth is a single event. But this motion can be separated into a velocity vector and an acceleration vector. This led him to see gravitation as a universal law. Abstracting more detail from a single event increases our understanding of that event, allowing us to discover universal truths and integrate more information into our conceptual system.

What I am suggesting is that we abstract more detail from the emotional event (and from a number of psychological events in fact) than is explicitly done by Rand. So we know I know what Rand said about emotions, I will quote her from The Virtue of Selfishness:

*Emotions are the automatic results of man's value judgements integrated by his subconscious; emotions are estimates of that which furthers man's values or threatens them, that which is for him or against him— lightening calculators giving him the sum of his profit or loss.

[...]

Man is born with an emotional mechanism, just as he is born with a cognitive mechanism; but, at birth, both are "tabula rasa." It is man's cognitive faculty, his mind, that determines the content of both. Man's emotional mechanism is like an electronic computer, which his mind has to program—and the programming consists of the values his mind chooses.

[...]

Emotions are produced by man's premises, held consciously or subconsciously, explicitly or implicitly.*

Let me make one point very clear. I agree with Rand's general framing of the psyche. This is much like saying the moon travels in a circle around the earth. As more evidence is gathered, it is discovered that the moon travels in a slight ellipse. As we abstractly distinguish underlying causes of the event, we are able to increase "our understanding of that event, allowing us to discover universal truths and integrate more information into our conceptual system." This is what I am suggesting we do with Rand's understanding of the psyche—eg: her conception of emotional mechanism, cognitive mechanism, conscious mind, and subconscious mind. I think we have more information, more evidence, to integrate. I think there are deeper components of the psyche that underlie the general concepts Rand isolated. These components have a complex causal dynamic that gives rise to the properties Rand isolated. I think Nathaniel Branden developed his conception of the components of the psyche further than Rand in his post 1968 work (especially his conception of the ego as the unifying centre of consciousness). And I think more work still needs to be done.

It is not so much that I disagree with Rand, as it is that I want to explore beyond what she (and Branden) have explored. I have been playing with my own models of the psych ever since I first discovered Branden's concept of the unifying centre of consciousness about eighteen years ago. I am using a concept of causation I developed, that has its roots in Rand and Branden's work, as an epistemological guiding principle in constructing these models and others in physics. I have developed quite a complex dynamic model of the psyche in my head that I am starting to write about offline. This model is the root of my perspective on the causation of psychological phenomena and behaviour. It is my rational framework in these discussions.

We can have different sets of chosen values: those chosen via symbolic (i.e.: logical) reasoning processes; and those chosen via intuitive (i.e.: causal) reasoning processes. It is the causal reasoning processes that are associated most closely with emotions. When these sets of values conflict, the symbolic reasoning that shapes our "conscious values" should not automatically be chosen over the intuitive reasoning that shapes the context in which or to which (depending on which orientation of consciousness one has at the time) our emotions respond. What is needed is an exploration of just what our intuitive perspective is so we can determine whether or not these two modes of reason are in alignment and, if they are not, which one holds the more representative view of reality.

There are elements of this I agree with, but I disagree with your terminology. Given your conceptualizations, I think a lot of this is on the right track, but I'd argue with those conceptualizations. E.g., to equate "intuitive" with "causal"--since when does intuition automatically correspond to a causal relation? Often intuition can be way off. Also, "symbolic" seems to strip away a lot of meaning from what I'd call "conceptual thinking". I think the better conceptualization is to talk about implicit vs. explicit knowledge. Emotions are very helpful at getting at the former. We touched on this agreement in a different thread.

I don't equate intuitive with causal. I am saying that the intuitive mechanism operates by applying the principles of identity and causality we have isolated and abstracted from our experience to the dynamic interactions of the images in our mind's eye. The way Rand's lightening emotional calculators work is by automatically processing images in the imagination using the principles of identity and causality to project outcomes of events and action alternatives. This is stepping inside what Rand means by subconscious processes, not disagreeing with it. Emotions are the expression of the ego (in Branden's usage) in response to projected outcomes and an impulse to action relative to some stimulus. This impulse to action is an organismic response based on what Branden calls "the cardinal principle of life," integration. These emotions are expressed in the limbic system where their meaning can be reflected back to the ego. This allows the mind to integrate information about emotions—what things mean to us—into our conceptual frameworks.

Connected to our emotional expressions in the limbic system are learned automated action sequences. These are our automated responses. When these operate out of control we can have phobias. (Thanks Mike.) In normal circumstances, our learned automated action sequences are the habitual behavioural responses we observe in the presence of an emotion. Controlling this response can take two forms: suppressing the experience of an emotion by deflecting awareness and tensing related muscle groups; or redirecting the expression of the automated action sequence into the imagination so it can be weighed against other, possibly creative, action alternatives before a choice is made.

I used the word "symbolic" in reference to reasoning because intentional conscious reasoning occurs by manipulating a symbolic (linguistic or mathematical) interface to shape the contents of the imagination and with it, the images we experience. When we read a novel, we don't experience words, we experience perceptions in the imagination. This is the power words have over our imagination. When we apply the rules of logic or mathematics to our words, we are using principles (arguably derivatives from the principles of identity and causality) to manipulate our mental images via the manipulation of symbols in a non-contradictory manner.

The rules of logic and mathematics work because they are derivatives of the principles of identity and causality. What I am saying is that intuition works via the principles of identity and causality directly, guiding the nature and dynamics of things in the imagination according to metaphysical laws. Problems occur when the principles of identity and causality that have been isolated and abstracted from our experience are incomplete or mistaken. This is when our intuition produces gods and ghosts and magic. It produces mystical realms. Or it produces conceptual systems that cannot integrate all the evidence.

This is where Rand produced her single greatest contribution. Her concept of causality, used as an intuitive epistemological principle, enabled her to produce her concept of human nature and her vision of existence. She intentionally created entities and contexts according to her implicit principle of identity and set things in motion according to her implicit principle of causality. I think this is how her fictions were created which then informed her non-fiction work. She watched the dynamic images as she moulded her play in her imagination and then skilfully applied the words to describe the scenes in her mind.

Paul

PS-- Now do you see why I was procrastinating? That took a fair amount of focus and time, and I was feeling time-crunched. A few words can spark a lot of images which take a lot of words to describe. This is the condensed version.

Edited January 23, 2007 by Paul Mawdsley

[sjw]

And that misses my point. ...

Ellen, it was *my* point to Rich that you were replying to. So I think my point takes precedence--at least if you're trying to respond to that context. But if you're trying to start a brand new conversation, you should make that clear. If not, then you're being ironic--responding to snipped out parts of what I said rather than taking the whole context into account.

[sjw]

Paul: I think you gave us enough to argue about for the next year... For now I'll reply to this point:

Yes and no. When we define "context," what do we mean, where do we draw the boundaries? Is the context that determines appropriateness or inappropriateness of an emotion in the eye of the perceiver or some absolute objective fact of reality distinct from the perceiver?

Well this is answered in ITOE. Knowledge--any knowledge including the type you refer to--requires both reality and consciousness working to a reality-oriented method. It's neither subjective nor intrinsic but objective. It sounds to me from this that you don't agree with Rand at this very basic level. I mean, it's hard to think of a deeper, more substantial disagreement with Rand's epistemology than the one implied by your statement here.

[Ellen Stuttle]

And that misses my point. ...

Ellen, it was *my* point to Rich that you were replying to. So I think my point takes precedence--at least if you're trying to respond to that context. But if you're trying to start a brand new conversation, you should make that clear. If not, then you're being ironic--responding to snipped out parts of what I said rather than taking the whole context into account.

Shayne, as a matter of fact, it was your post responding TO ME to which I was replying. But never mind. I suppose you aren't going to answer the question I asked, and I'm not going to pursue trying to get a direct answer to a straightforward question. I'm more than enough disappointed by your overgeneralizing re the views of "the talent people," I was ready to write off any further thought of attempted dialogue with you, but your softer-toned response to Paul (on which MSK commented, I forget the post number and don't want to look it up now) was encouraging enough I decided to try another time. Mistake.

Ellen

___

[Paul Mawdsley]

Paul: I think you gave us enough to argue about for the next year... For now I'll reply to this point:

Yes and no. When we define "context," what do we mean, where do we draw the boundaries? Is the context that determines appropriateness or inappropriateness of an emotion in the eye of the perceiver or some absolute objective fact of reality distinct from the perceiver?

Well this is answered in ITOE. Knowledge--any knowledge including the type you refer to--requires both reality and consciousness working to a reality-oriented method. It's neither subjective nor intrinsic but objective. It sounds to me from this that you don't agree with Rand at this very basic level. I mean, it's hard to think of a deeper, more substantial disagreement with Rand's epistemology than the one implied by your statement here.

Epistemology has an inescapable subjective root that renders ITOE important but incomplete. I have said that Ayn Rand’s concept of causality is her single most important concept. It was also a concept she did not spend enough time exploring. She treated her concept of causality as though it were formed by simply isolated and abstracted from her objective experience of existence in the same manner as she described the formation of other concepts in ITOE. This is partly true. But it is also a product of her creative mind. She constructed her view of causality to bridge the gap between observed cause and effect. Once her view of causality was constructed, it could be applied to support the process of concept formation in the way Rand describes in ITOE or in the way I have touched upon in this thread.

Causality is the root of Rand’s disagreement with all philosophical and religious traditions accept for the work of Aristotle. She assumes anti-life worldviews are developed from anti-life premises by anti-life individuals. Truth is, anti-life worldviews are developed from mistaken concepts of causality by individuals trying to understand their existence just like her. She did not recognize what a fundamentally important step the creation of her view of causality was. If she had recognized this point, I think her moral judgements of those perspectives that were antithetical to hers would have been set aside. Their premises and their conclusions were (and are) an understandable error in an honest attempt to understand existence.

This however does not excuse those who take these worldviews and use them to justify the use of force, coercion and destruction. But just as there are thugs who use Rand’s worldview as "a weapon with which to bash those one disagrees with" (Roger Bissell), there are those who use Plato, Kant, Hegel, Hume, etc. to advance their thuggery. The honest intentions of the thinker cannot be blamed for the how others use their thoughts.

Paul