Another view of Leonard Peikoff

[Nicholas Dykes]

First, the quote is Terence: "I am a man. I hold nothing human to be alien to me." Here at wikipedia. (FYI, the easiest way to find a quick translation for such quotes is to Google them.)

Second, argument is being used in a special logical-linguistic sense. An argument of a verb or a predicate is any phrase (implicit or explicit) that modifies it. To die has a necessary one-term argument, the subject. To give has a necessary three term argument, the subject and direct and indirect objects. One does not simply "give." Somebody gives something to someone. Likewise, one does not simply lie, just as one does simply die. Someone lies to someone about something.

According to ItOE, (sorry, no citation, it's in storage) the analytic-synthetic dichotomy is denied because all concepts have an infinite number of arguments that apply to them. Man is not just the rational animal. He is the rational animal who Xsub1, Xsub2, Xsub3,. These arguments are implicit and perhaps not yet even known. Most fallacies and "Big Lies" rely on keeping silent any inconvenient arguments. The "Bush lied" statement becomes banal when one makes it fully explicit. To whom did he lie? About what? And, one must ask, did not his audience know exactly the same facts he did? Rand used the method of making arguments explicit all the time: "For what?" "By whom" "By what right?" "For whose benefit?" "At what cost?" "They oughta..." - "Who oughta?" "Why?"

Some languages allow arguments to be left implicit. Russian and Latin allow commands without objects - "give!" - while English in the same case requires the verb's objects to be stated: "give it to me." (Some languages require that verbs always be marked to show their subject, object, and direct object. These langaues make evasion difficult!) Only in colloquialisms and child talk do we hear "gimme!" Political speech with suppressed arguments is the preferred method of smuggling in premises that would be unacceptable if they were explicit. Orwell's Newspeak was designed to expose the nature of such so-called thought.

Wikipedia on Verb Arguments.

Thanks Ted. The Terence quote reminds me of Donne's "any man's death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind." One doesn't have to agree with Donne's sentiments to love his eloquence.

On the other stuff, cogito! Nicholas

[Philip Coates]

**Peikoff's two books**

Both of Ted's sweeping denunciations of Peikoff’s two books, finding almost no value in either Ominous Parallels and OPAR, are exaggerated.

I'll respond on the same level of broad statement:

The first is in many respects a brilliant book, full of lots of insights - about the history of ideas and how they spread, about how dictatorships are sustained and spread, about intellectual trends in many countries.

The second has many wonderful and profound points about Objectivism and is the only integrated, step-by-step, systematic presentation of the philosophy that yet exists. (Until Kelley and Thomas's book comes out in the year 2035.) Unless you already know Objectivism -cold- or took Peikoff's philosophy of Objectivism courses, this is a must read for those, Oist or non-Oist, who want to see a systematic, detailed, comprehensive laying out of the philosophy.

[kiaer.ts]

**Peikoff's two books**

Both of Ted's sweeping denunciations of Peikoff’s two books, finding almost no value in either Ominous Parallels and OPAR, are exaggerated.

The second has many wonderful and profound points about Objectivism and is the only integrated, step-by-step, systematic presentation of the philosophy that yet exists. (Until Kelley and Thomas's book comes out in the year 2035.) Unless you already know Objectivism -cold- or took Peikoff's philosophy of Objectivism courses, this is a must read for those, Oist or non-Oist, who want to see a systematic, detailed, comprehensive laying out of the philosophy.

Phil, "sweeping denunciation" is your straw man. You are better than this. I do not in any way denounce OPAR, which I said is a competent work. And Ominous Parallels is also a great work. Of comedy.

As for Kelley, the 2035 remark is gratuitous. Who stepped on your kitten? I suggest you apply your vaunted ideals and stick to an analysis of the facts, not eruptions of bile. The fact is that NB's BPO has priority over OPAR. Your claim that OPAR " and is the only integrated, step-by-step, systematic presentation of the philosophy that yet exists" is simply false. If you have listened to BPO, perharps you can give a review? If you haven't, then what is eating you?

[kiaer.ts]

Nicholas, I had to remember Donne's poem in my senior high school Enlish class. We memorized a poem a week, including my favorites, Ozymandias and Caedmon's Hymn. I hated Donne then, but am much more sympathetic now.

Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land,

Who said--"Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desart....Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings,

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away."

Caedmon's Hymn: West Saxon Version

Nu sculon herigean heofonrices weard,

meotodes meahte and his modgeþanc,

weorc wuldorfæder, swa he wundra gehwæs,

ece drihten, or onstealde.

He ærest sceop eorðan bearnum

heofon to hrofe, halig scyppend;

þa middangeard moncynnes weard,

ece drihten, æfter teode

firum foldan, frea ælmihtig.

[Dragonfly]

The Ominous Parallels is really a joke. Peikoff's method consists of cherry picking quotes out of context that are supposed to support his thesis, ignoring everything else. It's a perfect example of making the data fit the theory. When he writes about scientific developments the result is an embarrassing display of ignorance. See for a sample here.

[kiaer.ts]

My objection to Ominous Parallels is its philosophical determinism and its hysterical predictions of an impending Christian dictatorship. That is why the "parallels" are so "ominous." The book was published at a time when Rand was judging Ronald Reagan as a threat to liberty based entirely on his stated position on abortion. She literally claimed that all one needed to know about him was his abortion stance in order to pronounce a full and final judgment on him. Peikoff still retains this paranoia, look at his support for a straight democrat ticket and his "reasons" for it.

[Nicholas Dykes]

Nicholas, I had to remember Donne's poem in my senior high school Enlish class. We memorized a poem a week, including my favorites, Ozymandias and Caedmon's Hymn. I hated Donne then, but am much more sympathetic now.

Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land,

Who said--"Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desart....Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings,

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away."

Caedmon's Hymn: West Saxon Version

Nu sculon herigean heofonrices weard,

meotodes meahte and his modgeþanc,

weorc wuldorfæder, swa he wundra gehwæs,

ece drihten, or onstealde.

He ærest sceop eorðan bearnum

heofon to hrofe, halig scyppend;

þa middangeard moncynnes weard,

ece drihten, æfter teode

firum foldan, frea ælmihtig.

I love Ozymandias too, Ted, but Caedmon? Yeah for scholarship, but what's it ~mean~?!

Nicholas

[kiaer.ts]

Caedmon's hymn is a prayer in praise of God the creator:

Now we shall hear of heaven's reach's warden...

I simply like the sound, the alliterative verse. You can try to find an audio file on line. It's pretty empty just looking at the letters. Children find it mesmerizing. YouTube only has it in translation.

[Nicholas Dykes]

My objection to Ominous Parallels is its philosophical determinism and its hysterical predictions of an impending Christian dictatorship. That is why the "parallels" are so "ominous." The book was published at a time when Rand was judging Ronald Reagan as a threat to liberty based entirely on his stated position on abortion. She literally claimed that all one needed to know about him was his abortion stance in order to pronounce a full and final judgment on him. Peikoff still retains this paranoia, look at his support for a straight democrat ticket and his "reasons" for it.

This thread started with my review of Peikoff's O:TPOAR. I never did review The Ominous Parallels, but I think I would have come to similar conclusions about it: a bit of a curate's egg; iffy, but with some excellent parts. If I recall correctly, there was a good review in a Chicago paper, calling it a curious mix of scholarship and Objectivist rant. One excellent bit I remember was the analysis of concentration camp policy, the goal being to destroy the minds of prisoners so that they became truly robotic slave labor.

The basic problem with our Lennie seems to be lack of consistent judgement. He is capable of very good work, but then a 'red mist' descends and he goes off all over the place like a firework rocket without its stick. I have a certain sympathy. Being Ayn Rand's 'best student and chosen heir' must be an incredible burden. One can't blame him for being who he is. It's just a tragedy that Rand didn't cast her net a little wider, or perhaps spread the load. I can think of others with broader intellectual shoulders who would have born the burden better. Nicholas Dykes

[Robert Campbell]

Ted,

The section of OPAR on arbitrary assertions is more developed than any other discussion of "the arbitrary" in print. More developed isn't the same as better developed.

If you compare Leonard Peikoff's treatment with Nathaniel Branden's 1963 article on agnosticism, which was the first published treatment of arbitrary assertions, you'll discover a lot more detail in OPAR, and claims far more extreme than Branden was making. You'll also find Dr. Peikoff contradicting himself. At one point, he contradicts himself within a single paragraph.

The doctrine of the arbitrary assertion is peculiar because Ayn Rand never mentioned it in any article published while she was alive, and has been quoted on the subject only once in any posthumous publication (the appendix to ITOE). Yet she approved Nathaniel Branden's 1963 article, and later gave endorsement to Leonard Peikoff's 1976 lectures (which were close to OPAR in their account of "the arbitrary," just missing a couple of baroque details).

Paul,

One should read OPAR in order to understand Leonard Peikoff. For instance, his Parmenidean tendencies are starkly on display in parts of it. But Ayn Rand doesn't seem to have been nearly so Parmenidean herself.

The book is the only published source for some of the good ideas in Dr. Peikoff's lectures. But many others failed to make it in. I really wonder whether he didn't slash his treatment of perception so no one would be reminded of David Kelley's work. Or whether his old reminder that human beings aren't "Aquinas's angels" was deemed likely to impede the swift rationalistic currents in OPAR.

But if you want to understand the world, and how we human beings function in it, there are lots better sources than OPAR. You can't get an adequate epistemology out of Peikovian Parmenideanism.

Nick,

I thought your review was on target in many respects (including Dr. Peikoff's unwillingness to come to grips with anarchism), but too easy on the book overall.

Robert Campbell

[Philip Coates]

**Ominous Parallels**

> "The Ominous Parallels" is in many respects a brilliant book, full of lots of insights - about the history of ideas and how they spread, about how dictatorships are sustained and spread, about intellectual trends in many countries.

I'm currently going through the first few chapters. Here are some excerpts -- some are inspiring (about America - as the nation of the Englightenment), some are insightful about how thinkers influence a culture and which ones have been important.

[page references are from the mentor paperback, isbn 0-451-62210-3]

<> [free will vs. historical determinism #1] "In the face of military ruin, economic strangulation, or governmental collapse, men may choose to investigate the disaster's causes and to discover a more rational course of action for the future, i.e, they may choose to think. Or they may choose to hate, or to pray, or to beg, or to kill. On such matters, the crisis itself is silent." [p.20]

<> [free will vs. historical determinism #2 - in regard to America's choices] "Our future, as far as one can judge, is still indeterminate."

<> "If we view the West's philosophic development in terms of essentials, three fateful turning points stand out, three major philosophers who, above all others, are responsible for generating the disease of collectivism and transwmitting it to the dictators of our century. The three are: Plato - Kant - Hegel .... Plato is the father of collectivism in the West...." [p. 26]

Peikoff's claim above is very essentialized. He does not deny the existence of other factors and other thinkers, but he goes on to explain throughout the book in point after point, issue after issue...why these three are the "big guns".

How they were widely read in German schools, were quoted by the Nazis and/or by those whom the Nazis admired. And so on.

He builds a pretty detailed case. And adduces very relevant evidence - lots of quotes, etc.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

One excellent bit I remember was the analysis of concentration camp policy, the goal being to destroy the minds of prisoners so that they became truly robotic slave labor.

Nick,

I also remember this part. I am going from memory since I read this thing decades ago, but that analysis of concentration camps highly impressed me at the time. It still does. ("Here there is no why.") I also remember one extremely harsh bash Peikoff made against Hannah Arendt in that chapter that just didn't make any sense to me at the time. (It does now. And yes, it was one of his gross misfires.)

I also remember being impressed by his comparison of early 20th century German youth to American hippies, their back to nature focus, folksongs, etc. I think that book has value for some of the patterns he identified like that, but I rarely see this kind of thing mentioned with Ominous Parallels. Usually the detractors bash the whole book and defenders elevate it to the status of gospel.

Rand, in The Ayn Rand Letter, gushed over his treatment of the Founding Fathers and after I got the book, I read that part several times to feel the inspiration myself. But I didn't feel a thing back then. Now, for the life of me, I can't even recall what he wrote about the Founding Fathers. I will have to reread it someday. If for nothing else, to recapture the memory of what I thought back then.

btw - I was so excited to see a book by Peikoff back then (I was in Brazil), I wrote him a letter after I read it gushing all over the place. (If I read that letter now, I would probably be embarrassed. Fortunately for me, my archives from that time have been scattered, so I don't even know if it exists any more. Hopefully Peikoff kept poor files, too. This was before the personal computer age, so everything was paper.)

I remember discussing Wagner (I was studying The Ring at that time for my conducting studies) and analyzing his work according to Rand's ideas and Peikoff's own analysis of German thinking.

I received a curt note back from his secretary thanking me, but saying he did not have time for philosophical correspondence and suggested I read some of Rand's essays (she listed a few). I remember being irritated because, from the tone of the note, not even his secretary had read my letter, just skimmed it. If she had read it, she would have understood that I had already read the essays she suggested. (They were really basic, too, like "The Objectivist Ethics" and so forth.) I even remember mentioning one of those essays in my text, or at least strongly alluding to it.

I never wrote Peikoff again until we had a plagiarism issue here on OL and I wrote him to apologize for a poster's bad behavior. (This time he wrote back and was cordial.)

Michael

[Nicholas Dykes]

Ted,

The section of OPAR on arbitrary assertions is more developed than any other discussion of "the arbitrary" in print. More developed isn't the same as better developed.

If you compare Leonard Peikoff's treatment with Nathaniel Branden's 1963 article on agnosticism, which was the first published treatment of arbitrary assertions, you'll discover a lot more detail in OPAR, and claims far more extreme than Branden was making. You'll also find Dr. Peikoff contradicting himself. At one point, he contradicts himself within a single paragraph.

The doctrine of the arbitrary assertion is peculiar because Ayn Rand never mentioned it in any article published while she was alive, and has been quoted on the subject only once in any posthumous publication (the appendix to ITOE). Yet she approved Nathaniel Branden's 1963 article, and later gave endorsement to Leonard Peikoff's 1976 lectures (which were close to OPAR in their account of "the arbitrary," just missing a couple of baroque details).

Paul,

One should read OPAR in order to understand Leonard Peikoff. For instance, his Parmenidean tendencies are starkly on display in parts of it. But Ayn Rand doesn't seem to have been nearly so Parmenidean herself.

The book is the only published source for some of the good ideas in Dr. Peikoff's lectures. But many others failed to make it in. I really wonder whether he didn't slash his treatment of perception so no one would be reminded of David Kelley's work. Or whether his old reminder that human beings aren't "Aquinas's angels" was deemed likely to impede the swift rationalistic currents in OPAR.

But if you want to understand the world, and how we human beings function in it, there are lots better sources than OPAR. You can't get an adequate epistemology out of Peikovian Parmenideanism.

Nick,

I thought your review was on target in many respects (including Dr. Peikoff's unwillingness to come to grips with anarchism), but too easy on the book overall.

Robert Campbell

Robert,

I agree with your latter comment, and appreciate the former. Thanks. As to the latter, I wrote that review over a dozen years ago. I've read and learned a lot more since, so would probably be more critical nowadays. I do find our Lennie a most exasperating fellow. He obviously has ability, but seems to lack sound judgement, prudence, practical wisdom and common sense! Anyhow, ainsi soit-il. Nowt I can do 'bout it. Nick

[Guyau]

OPAR

The essentials of the essentials . . . gets one to the standing-on-one-foot essentials of a theory. So for relativity, special and general, one gets the standing-on-one-foot essentials: frame-invariance of the form of physical laws, frame-invariance of a finite upper limit of velocity, and the equivalence of gravitational and inertial mass. For the standing-on-one-foot essentials of the philosophy of Epicurus, one gets: don't worry, pursue modest pleasure.

But for a statement of the essentials of these theories back at the first level, before the distillations of the distillations . . . suitable for the standing-on-one-foot characterization, one should turn to books such as Wolfgang Rindler's Essential Relativity or Eugene O'Connor's The Essential Epicurus. At this level, in my judgment, the essentials of Rand's philosophy Objectivism are what is included in Leonard Peikoff's book Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand. Rand approved the lecture series (1976) from which this book was composed as the straight statement of her philosophy. I heard that lecture series in 1977. I took 53 pages of notes during the lectures. Peikoff remained true to the lectures in his book. He couldn't include everything from the lectures, but he did very well at selecting what was essential to present in a book-length basic statement of Rand's philosophy.

Rand rightly did not say that Peikoff's lecture series (and the anticipated book to be based on them) was the only possible correct systematic presentation of her philosophy. Other books can be written on The Essential Objectivism, and their authors can argue from Rand's own philosophic writings that theirs is a correct statement of her philosophy and a correct identification of what is essential to her philosophy and what is not.

I should add that, as he indicates in this book, Peikoff's situations of Rand's philosophy in the history of philosophy are not essential to her philosophy.

Arbitrariness and Truth

Some External Background: Verificationism and Non-Existent Subjects

I can be a little more specific now on where to look for the external influences. Take a look at Chapter 5, “The Theory of Meaning,” in Blanshard’s Reason and Analysis (1962). See especially his discussion of Peirce (5.5–5.6) and Schlick (5.20) and Ayer (5.36–5.37). Compare Blanshard’s treatment of verificationist theories of meaning with Peikoff’s treatment of them in his history of philosophy lectures (in the second series, modern philosophy).*

Rand and Peikoff opposed verificationism and replaced it with validationism. An idea whose relationship to reality is established by perceptual evidence or by induction or deduction upon such evidence, they called validated. Naturally, validations of ideas can have various degrees of quality. Moreover, validationism can be posed in varieties of strength parallel its verificationist cousins. The variety validation-in-principle entails: an idea that in principle cannot have its relationship to reality established by perceptual evidence and logical inference is meaningless.

There is also a controversy of logic standing in the relevant external background for Rand and Peikoff and for all of us. There is a tradition from Boethius, Abelard, and Buridan that any universal affirmative or particular affirmative statement in which the subject does not truly exist is false; and no such blanket verdict is given for universal negative and particular negative statements. Within this theory, we can argue:

1. Affirmative statements concerning nonexistent subjects are false.

2. Assertions of the existence of a subject for which there is no evidence is presumptively false; the existence of such a subject is presumptively false. (Onus of Proof)

3. Arbitrary assertions are assertions for which there is no evidence (no validation, so no evidence).

____________________________________________________________

Affirmative statements concerning arbitrarily asserted subjects are presumptively false.

It would surely be correct to drop the word presumptively from 2. and from the conclusion when the arbitrary assertion is one that cannot be invalidated in principle. From the Buridan et al. view of truth concerning nonexistent subjects we get presumptive falsity and unqualified falsity for affirmative statements concerning arbitrarily posed subjects. Whether negative statements concerning arbitrarily posed subjects would be meaningless rather than assessible for truth is unsettled on this view, but they are not automatically false.

There is another tradition (P.F. Strawson and H.L.A. Hart) that instead takes existence of the subject to be presupposed in any universal or particular affirmative or negative statement. Under this approach, we get that arbitrary assertions are presumptively (or unqualifiedly) neither true nor false. They are presumptively (or unqualifiedly) meaningless.#

There is a third tradition, the one predominate today, in which any particular affirmative or particular negative statement in which the subject does not truly exist is false; and no such blanket verdict is given for universal affirmative and universal negative statements . . . . **

Determining which of these three approaches fits best with Rand’s philosophy is work remaining to be accomplished. I would examine the first and third as they look when their not-definitely-false pairs on the square of opposition are taken as meaningless.

~~~~~~~~~

* The debate over verificationism is continued and advanced by Michael Dummett’s “The Metaphysics of Verificationism” and Ayer’s reply in The Philosophy of A. J. Ayer (Open Court 1992).

** On these three traditions and a fourth, see Laurence Horn’s A Natural History of Negation (CSLI 2001 [1989]).

~~~~~~~~~~

#PS

Strawson would object to my use of the word meaningless here, which he would reserve for a use more narrow. He would call such statements spurious or failures to refer. All the same, he would agree that his approach casts all such statements, and singular statements such as "The king of Texas has a Cadillac," as not assessible for truth.

The parallel of the Rand-Peikoff validationism to verificationism holds only so far. There is no counterpart to the verificationist view that truth should be defined in terms of the verifiable. Truth is more primitive than validation for Rand and for Peikoff.

I have not traced the development internal to Objectivism of the specially defined validation idea (OPAR 8), but it fits well with Rand's 1967 definition of knowledge as "a mental grasp of the fact(s) of reality, reached either by perceptual observation or by a process of reason based on perceptual observation" (ITOE 35).

Om // - Kant and Nazis

I have heard that, at Columbia in the early 1950s, old man Dewey was saying that Kant had been the cause of NAZISM. It would be nice to check that out.

I see now where I "heard that" or something along that line. It was in H. J. Paton's 1956 paper "Kant on Friendship" as reprinted in N. K. Badhwar's Friendship: A Philosophic Reader (Cornell 1993). Paton writes:

Some thinkers, notably Professor Dewey, have argued that Kant, in spite of being a consistent opponent of tyranny and whole-hearted advocate of freedom, was responsible for the excesses of Nazi Germany.*

*This strange contention has been dealt with faithfully by Professor Julius Ebbinghaus (Philosophical Quarterly, April 1954).

So that last citation is the lead that would be nice to check out.

Concerning Kant "being a consistent opponent of tyranny and whole-hearted advocate of freedom," see this note:

http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/ArticleDi...s/1904.shtml#14

[Neil Parille]

This is from my blog 2 years ago.

Ayn Rand is often villified for her belief that Kant was "the most evil man in history." Interestingly, Ludwig von Mises (a Kantian of sorts) said the following about Kant's ethics --

"Engels called the German Labour Movement the heir to the German classical philosophy. It would be more correct to say that German (not only Marxian) Socialism represents the decadence of the school of idealist philosophy. Socialism owes the dominion it won over the German mind to the idea of society as conceived by the great German thinkers. Out of Kant's mysticism of duty and Hegel's deification of the State it is easy to trace the development of socialist thought; Fichte is already a socialist."

"In recent decades the revival of Kantian criticism, that much praised achievement of German philosophy, has benefited Socialism also. The Neo-Kantians, especially Friedrich Albert Lange and Hermann Cohen, have declared themselves socialists. Simultaneously Marxians have tried to reconcile Marxism with the New Criticism. Ever since the philosophical foundations of Marxism have shown signs of cracking, attempts to find in critical philosophy support for socialist ideas have multiplied."

"The weakest part of Kant's system is his ethics. Although they are vitalized by his mighty intellect, the grandeur of individual concepts does not blind us to the fact that his starting-point is unfortunately chosen and his fundamental conception a mistaken one. His desperate attempt to uproot Eudaemonism has failed. In ethics, Bentham, Mill, and Feuerbach triumph over Kant. The social philosophy of his contemporaries, Ferguson and Adam Smith, left him untouched. Economics remained foreign to him. All his perception of social problems suffers from these deficiencies."

This is from von Mises' book Socialism (which was written prior to the rise of the Nazis).

-NEIL

____

[tjohnson]

I have not traced the development internal to Objectivism of the specially defined validation idea (OPAR 8), but it fits well with Rand's 1967 definition of knowledge as "a mental grasp of the fact(s) of reality, reached either by perceptual observation or by a process of reason based on perceptual observation" (ITOE 35).

I see a big problem with a definition of 'knowledge' containing the phrase "a mental grasp". This needs to be defined better. Korzybski maintains that the only meaningful content of 'knowledge' is structure - to know is to know structure.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Korzybski maintains that the only meaningful content of 'knowledge' is structure - to know is to know structure.

GS,

That is a holon and relationships between holons. Different word, same concept.

Michael

[Nicholas Dykes]

**Ominous Parallels**

> "The Ominous Parallels" is in many respects a brilliant book, full of lots of insights - about the history of ideas and how they spread, about how dictatorships are sustained and spread, about intellectual trends in many countries.

I'm currently going through the first few chapters. Here are some excerpts -- some are inspiring (about America - as the nation of the Englightenment), some are insightful about how thinkers influence a culture and which ones have been important.

[page references are from the mentor paperback, isbn 0-451-62210-3]

<> [free will vs. historical determinism #1] "In the face of military ruin, economic strangulation, or governmental collapse, men may choose to investigate the disaster's causes and to discover a more rational course of action for the future, i.e, they may choose to think. Or they may choose to hate, or to pray, or to beg, or to kill. On such matters, the crisis itself is silent." [p.20]

<> [free will vs. historical determinism #2 - in regard to America's choices] "Our future, as far as one can judge, is still indeterminate."

<> "If we view the West's philosophic development in terms of essentials, three fateful turning points stand out, three major philosophers who, above all others, are responsible for generating the disease of collectivism and transwmitting it to the dictators of our century. The three are: Plato - Kant - Hegel .... Plato is the father of collectivism in the West...." [p. 26]

Peikoff's claim above is very essentialized. He does not deny the existence of other factors and other thinkers, but he goes on to explain throughout the book in point after point, issue after issue...why these three are the "big guns".

How they were widely read in German schools, were quoted by the Nazis and/or by those whom the Nazis admired. And so on.

He builds a pretty detailed case. And adduces very relevant evidence - lots of quotes, etc.

Phillip

I don't have a copy of Ominous Parallels, but it would be interesting to know if Peikoff cites Popper at all. For, in The Open Society and Its Enemies, Popper names Plato as the first enemy, Hegel and Marx as the others. He doesn't accuse Kant, naturally enough, Kantianism being one of the twin supporting pillars of Popper's own philosophy, Critical Rationalism. Peikoff would have found a real arsenal of ammo against Plato, tho, in OSE.

BTW, this is an incredibly erudite website!

Nicholas Dykes

[Neil Parille]

As far as The Ominous Parallels is concerned, I think this review by David Gordon, while a bit harsh, is basically correct:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/gordon/gordon13.html

When it comes to Peikoff's sources, the ones I've checked don't inspire confidence. And take for example his sneer against Cassirer -- he was Jewish and left Nazi Germany soon after the Nazis took power.

-NEIL

____

[Nicholas Dykes]

As far as The Ominous Parallels is concerned, I think this review by David Gordon, while a bit harsh, is basically correct:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/gordon/gordon13.html

When it comes to Peikoff's sources, the ones I've checked don't inspire confidence. And take for example his sneer against Cassirer -- he was Jewish and left Nazi Germany soon after the Nazis took power.

-NEIL

____

Thanks for the ref. to the D.Gordon review, Neil. I'd not read it. Nicholas.

[Philip Coates]

> it would be interesting to know if Peikoff cites Popper at all.

Nicholas, yes he does. I've seen at least one citation of him in the first three chapters. If I have time, I might be able to find it...but I don't consider this a major issue with regard to the overall worth of the book. Nor, Neil, do I consider an occasional mistake or ad hominem - Cassirer, et al., if indeed that is the case. (Unless it is so pervasive as to submerge other value in a book.)

At some point during my current reading while the book is fresh and at my fingertips, I'll perhaps take a look at the Gordon piece. I remember thinking it was somewhat unfair when I read it before.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Popper quote by Peikoff (Ominous Paralles, pp. 40-41):

What the theoreticians of racism did was to secularize the Hegelian approach, as Karl Popper explains eloquently. Marx, he observes,

replaced Hegel's 'Spirit' by matter, and by material and economic interests. In the same way, racialism substitutes for Hegel's 'Spirit' something material, the quasi-biological conception of Blood or Race. Instead of 'Spirit,' Blood is the self-developing essence; instead of 'Spirit,' Blood is the Sovereign of the world, and displays itself on the Stage of History; and instead of its 'Spirit,' the Blood of a nation determines its essential destiny.

The transubstantiation of Hegelianism into racialism or of Spirit into Blood does not greatly alter the main tendency of Hegelianism. It only gives it a tinge of biology and of modern evolutionism.(18)

Every central doctrine of the Nazi politics, racism included, is an expression or variant of the theory of collectivism. Such doctrines cannot rise to the ascendancy, neither among the intellectuals nor in the mind of the public, except in a culture already saturated with a mystical-collectivist philosophy.

In the case of Germany, this means: saturated with the ideas of Hegel.

. . .

18. The Open Society and its Enemies (4th ed., 2 vols., New York, Harper & Row, 1963), II, 61-62.

Michael

[Neil Parille]

(Quote: Peikoff) Every central doctrine of the Nazi politics, racism included, is an expression or variant of the theory of collectivism. Such doctrines cannot rise to the ascendancy, neither among the intellectuals nor in the mind of the public, except in a culture already saturated with a mystical-collectivist philosophy.

This is one of the places where I have a problem with Peikoff. Is he really saying that but for Hegel, et al. the Nazis wouldn't have advocated racism? Isn't it just as likely that they believed in racism because of various biological and anthropological ideas that were "in the air" at the time? I don't think Darwin and evolution are to blame for Nazi racism, but a certain understanding of these ideas probably influenced the Nazis more than Hegel, et al.

-NEIL

____

[kiaer.ts]

The rise of the Nazis would likely never have occured without Hegel. The rise of the Nazis was directly dependent upon the defeat of Prussia in WWI. The Prussian elite had been schooled in the thought of the German rationalists. Historical necessity was one of their central themes, which G. k. Chesterton so well criticizes. Even down to the end, the Kaiser waffled on actually going to war. In the end, the notion of necessity was self-fulfilling. Chesterton looks at the belief in "necessity" as an excuse for bad behavior. Tuchman looks at it as a common fault of bureaucracies. In truth, like German racial supremacy, it was something taught in the universties.

[william.scherk]

I don't think Darwin and evolution are to blame for Nazi racism, but a certain understanding of these ideas probably influenced the Nazis more than Hegel, et al.

Funny you should mention Darwin/evolution in the same sentence as the Nazis. That Darwin led to Nazism is one of the bold theses of the repellently stupid "Expelled" documentary (currently not showing at a theatre near you, thanks to Pharyngula et al -- especically the NCSE).

Maybe Peikoff can put together an argument, however shoddy at the seams, that blames the Nazi atrocities on the preceding philosophers, as if bad philosophy can lead inexorably to bad actions. Fair enough, or at least debatable.

But where are the ominous parallels? Not having read the book, I thought it argued that America is due to turn into a fascist dictatorship. Is this a fair description of the central thesis? Are there really distinct, unmistakable parallels that should cause a shiver of recognition to rise up the neck of all right-thinking people?

I doubt it.