Rand's notions of Kant and Hume

[Neil Parille]

I discussed some of this on Dan Barnes' blog --

http://aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/2009/02/taking-ideas-seriously-pt-1.html

http://aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/2009/04/taking-ideas-seriously-pt-2-peikoffs.html

A larger problem is Peikoff’s assumption that the influence of ideas flows one way (from bad to worse) and that later thinkers will inevitably draw the conclusions that Objectivists assert must be drawn from bad ideas. Peikoff does not establish (or even attempt to establish) that his and Rand’s idiosyncratic understanding of Kant was accepted by German philosophers and intellectuals. In addition, Peikoff does not show (or again even attempts to show) that German intellectuals drew the political conclusions that he thinks are inevitable from Kantian philosophy. Such a demonstration would require the review of an enormous amount of literature (most of it untranslated) by German intellectuals from Kant to 1933. If Kant’s immediate followers were not collectivists of the Nazi variety, any claim that Kantianism leads inevitably to collectivism or Auschwitz (which Peikoff alleges was Kant’s “dream”) is rather dubious.

-Neil Parille

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

George,

I've always had difficulty with Rand's view that philosophical principles are some kind of memes that exert control over society like a puppet-master, trickling down to the masses from on high. She didn't use words like that, but this is the essence. The ultimate puppet-master is the metaphysical meme (existence exists, or God created all or oneness of being for the religious, or phenomenal/noumenal realms for the evil Kantians, etc.) and all other ideas build hierarchically from there, including politics.

So, in this view, the intellectual battle is to replace the puppet-master meme and the good society will follow.

She was very clever in some of her findings, but once again, when I look at reality, I find a problem of scope. The part that's right is right and insightful, but it isn't the whole shebang. I notice that fundamental ideas are present in determining history, but they are only part of the story. Other elements are present, too, like bullying qua bullying, the way human beings behave in groups, the whole epistemological field of what I am coming to call "story-concepts," the Achilles heel of the mind (involuntary trance induction) that permits persuasion techniques to be used, and even hero worship in personality cults. This list is far from exhaustive, too. (The Big Lie and other propaganda elements just came to mind, for example.)

Rand (and especially Peikoff) looked at WWII and the Communist revolution and concluded that such an evil has never happened on such a scale in humanity before, and that this was due to philosophy. But such evil has happened on this scale before. Human sacrifices and slavery have always been around ever since the beginning. They did not depend on philosophical fundamentals for such behavior to propagate. They were with us way before any philosophy was formulated.

The 20th century contributed technology and broad reaching communication systems that were easy to control by politicians. That helped bad ideas spread more easily, but only because people did not have access to other choices by force. Not because the human mind is a sponge that will soak up a bad idea like a germ until a person in control provides a better injection.

Rand, in her letters, mentioned somewhere that she was a master propagandist since she was trained by experts. She was, too. I see her premise of the philosophical fundamental ruling all of history as coming from this perspective. And it permeates her entire attitude.

But in terms of the most breath-taking influence I can think of, I cannot say a new approach to philosophy is it. (Albeit Rand's new approach is breath-taking in its own right.)

I believe that the information revolution we are presently living is doing more damage to dictator wannabes than any philosophical puppet-master idea. People in dictatorships with access to the Internet get to see a different reality than the lies they are constantly fed. This is causing local authorities all kinds of grief. In more free societies, the mainstream media has tried to become a propaganda arm of the powers that be, but they are now learning a harsh lesson. They are losing audience to other information outlets.

This is not due to any single fundamental idea--except maybe the idea that each person can think for himself. But that's not an idea. It's a reality when a lot of information is present.

Even Obama just complained (on the front page everywhere) that there is too much information out there--that it is becoming a distraction. That's not the problem. The problem is that a glut of information--correct and wrong--gives people plenty of options so they can decide all the different things they come across for themselves. In other words, with all that information, they cannot be controlled easily, neither by a charismatic leader nor by a philosophical puppet-master.

Of all the influences, access to information has exerted the most powerful impact on human affairs. When I look over history, I see this everywhere. (It is not an exclusive influence, though. It is one among many, but I believe it is the most powerful one.) Not just the quality of the ideas, either.

When there are few options, it is easier for people to jockey for power and destroy others. When there are many options, people tend to figure things out for themselves and they naturally gravitate towards what they can verify. Many get it wrong, but many more get it right. No philosopher or dictator on earth can compete with that. Control-freaks beware.

That reality makes the idea of Kant being the most evil man in history an odd one at best. That could only work where dictators or control-freaks actually control how the ideas are spread. Such control was a reality up to a certain extent in former times. It no longer is.

I see philosophy as important in terms of setting a framework for organizing our knowledge and morals. I do not see it as the exclusive driving force of history and human affairs.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I want to add to this last post.

Because of Rand's philosophical detection routine, I became aware of the pattern people use to establish religions or personality cults around ideas. I call it the intellectual hustle.

1. You start with a really long book or group of books that are subject to multiple interpretations. There are even parts that contradict each other. It's OK to be boring and, to a certain extent, it helps, but it is not essential.

2. People start writing learned studies of that work, highlighting quotes and jargon phrases.

3. Art works get produced that focus on these more popular parts.

4. Further spread to the more popular entertainment forms.

Voila.

You have a personality cult or religion.

Formal meetings and organizational entities grow with a solid intellectual foundation.

All that's left is to keep recruiting, collecting the money and getting members into positions of social power.

Michael

[Robert Campbell]

Where did Ayn Rand get her notions about Immanuel Kant and his philosophy?

(1) Possibly she heard about Kant from Nicholas Onufrievich Lossky, who was an expert on Kant. But the one course she took with him was about Ancient thought.

(2) From the sharp criticisms of Kant in some of Nietzsche's writings.

(3) Possibly from Isabel Paterson. Most of what she learned from Paterson, she learned through conversations, and there won't be any indication of them in the surviving correspondence. As best I can determine, Rand learned about Auguste Comte from Paterson, but the evidence is circumstantial.

(4) From Leonard Peikoff. According to Jennifer Burns' book, Peikoff encouraged her to identify Kant as the Number One Bad Guy; maybe we'll get to see unbowdlerized transcripts some day from her oral history interviews where she credited Peikoff on this score.

In any event, Peikoff was her go-to guy as far as Kant was concerned. I see no evidence that she ever relied on Nathaniel Branden to tell her what Kant was about.

My working hypothesis is that whatever Rand thought she knew about Kant, beyond her early gleanings from Nietzsche and possibly from Lossky or Paterson, she got from Leonard Peikoff. I think the burden is on those who believe that she ever read any of Kant's books to provide positive evidence that she did.

Now if my working hypothesis is reasonably on track, we ought to be able to learn more from seeing which entries Harry Binswanger, under Leonard Peikoff's direction, placed in The Ayn Rand Lexicon. The entry on Kant is extensive, running from page 235 through 243.

And what do we see there?

In chronological order:

One passage from Galt's Speech. This, however, is about sacrifice; it does not mention Kant or allude to any characteristically Kantian doctrine.

One passage from "Faith and Force."

Two passages from "For the New Intellectual."

One passage from Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology.

Three from "Casuality vs. Duty."

Two from "Brief Summary" (September 1971).

One from "An Untitled Letter."

One from "Philosophical Detection."

Such articles as "Kant vs. Sullivan" and "From the Horse's Mouth" are not excerpted.

And no fewer than 8 passages from The Ominous Parallels are included. (A more in-depth presentation of Peikoff's views would include excerpts from his dissertation, from "The Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy," and from his history of philosophy courses. But only the analytic-synthetic article was used in Binswanger's compilation.)

In general, it is important to distinguish the Peikovian view of Kant from the Randian view of Kant. Peikoff read a lot of Kant and quoted from him at length. Rand probably read no Kant at all, relying on others to feed her quotations from him. I suspect that the paragraph out of the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals that Rand quoted in "Causality vs. Duty" was supplied by Peikoff.

And notice the timing of Rand's articles. "Causality vs. Duty" appeared after Peikoff had begun work on The Ominous Parallels and had already published articles about Kant's philosophy in The Objectivist. In "Causality vs. Duty," Rand roughly understands what a hypothetical imperative is; in her 1962 remarks, she obviously didn't.

Also, while Peikoff's interpretation of Kant can certainly be challenged, and he may have drawn various preconceptions from Rand, his interpretation is based on first-hand study. If Rand's ever was, those who so maintain need to provide the evidence.

Robert Campbell

PS. One area where I doubt either Peikoff or Rand ever did any reading was Kant's aesthetics. If you can't tell the difference between Kant's theory of "the sublime" and his theory of "the beautiful," you haven't done your homework.

[Philip Coates]

> Aristotle's defense of slavery exerted a considerable influence on that institution for many centuries. [GHS]

You too often make these majestic, oracular claims as though you had traced all the historic influences down through the ages but you too seldom offer compelling evidence. I can't state with such certainty whether Aristotle influenced slavery or whether it simply had always existed and didn't need him to sustain it. Certainly, Aristotle was 'the philosopher' for much of the Middle Ages and his word on all sorts of things was taken as gospel.

> many defenders of slavery who cited him as an authority

Did he -influence- them or did they merely use him as a handy person to quote to support something they already believed in?

> Rand's repeated assertions that Aristotle's epistemology and metaphysics, generally speaking, led to pro-freedom developments, whereas Plato's ideas led to collectivism and statism.

One bit of evidence for this is the contrasting historical developments of Asian civilizations (China, for example) which had a whole string of Platos and no Aristotle and who developed millenia of despotism after despotism, alternating with and intermixed with dominant mysticisms of the Hindu, Buddhist and other varieties.

> There are tons of problems with this historical claim

No there aren't. Another major claim without sufficient backing.

At least when I make claims about Rand's theory of history, one can point to a lot of arguments she and others made in favor of it. You seem to just be claiming something like I've read everything (I've forgotten more of the history of philosophy than you know, etc.) so I am the expert.

> First, Plato's influence on the Renaissance was profound, as was his influence in some aspects of the development of modern science, e.g., with Kepler and Galileo.

Can you give at least one -major- example?

> the development of pro-freedom ideas owed more the the revival of Stoicism and Epicureanism (and even Greek skepticism) in post-Renaissance Europe than it did to either Plato or Aristotle. For example, Jefferson did not declare himself an Aristotelian; rather, he said, "I am an Epicurean."

Has it occurred to you that perhaps the spread of a basically Aristotelian worldview -- his thisworldly metaphysics, his pro-reason epistemology, his invention of logic -- undergird and make more plausible the individualist and pro-freedom elements of Stoicism and Epicureanism?

> You cannot spin such information out of your head.

You have no way of knowing how many books Rand read on history when she was in college or later. And she does point to examples from history as backing, evidence, and illustration. You may disagree, but it's hardly a-historical or "a priori". (Aside: She was a history major. Were you?)

To turn your own quip against you, is it possible that she has forgotten more about history than George H. Smith knows?

Edited May 12, 2010 by Philip Coates

[Rich Engle]

Aristotle's defense of slavery exerted a considerable influence on that institution for many centuries. [GHS]

I will directly support George's statement, using as few words as possible (he says he likes it when I use pictures, and stuff.) OK, Phil, what about something like this?

I sent this one to MSK; I think he can do a better treatment than I. And, it requires a certain kind of thread placement, were he to make use of it.

I am not sure how long this thing will stay up there. A long time, I hope.

But for now, worth looking at. Call it pre-class prep.

Either way, the cards fall.

rde

Edited May 12, 2010 by Rich Engle

[George H. Smith]

> Aristotle's defense of slavery exerted a considerable influence on that institution for many centuries. [GHS]

You too often make these majestic, oracular claims as though you had traced all the historic influences down through the ages but you too seldom offer compelling evidence. I can't state with such certainty whether Aristotle influenced slavery or whether it simply had always existed and didn't need him to sustain it. Certainly, Aristotle was 'the philosopher' for much of the Middle Ages and his word on all sorts of things was taken as gospel.

> many defenders of slavery who cited him as an authority

Did he -influence- them or did they merely use him as a handy person to quote to support something they already believed in?

Defenders of slavery didn't merely cite Aristotle as an authority; they used and expanded upon Aristotle's argument for "natural slavery" that appears in the Politics. The critics of slavery in the ancient world were Cynics, Stoics, and some Sophists.

As David Brian Davis -- a leading authority on the history of slavery -- notes, Aristotle's argument for natural slavery "would have immeasurable influence in Western culture." (Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World, Oxford University Press, 2006, p. 33).

Davis gives many examples of Aristotle's influence, e.g.:

"Paradoxically, in the 1200s, at the very time when chattel slavery was disappearing from northwestern Europe, Christian theologians revived and made extensive use of many of Aristotle's propositions....It is significant that Aristotle's theory of slavery formed the framework for the

momentous debate in Spain, in 1550-51, between Juan Gines Sepulveda [who had translated several of Aristotle's works into Latin] and Bartolome de Las Casas, on whether American Indians had been created to be natural slaves.... (ibid, p. 55)."

After presenting additional examples, Davis concludes: "And while it would be absurd to blame Aristotle for all the uses to which his writings have been put, he did eventually provide the conceptual basis for much nineteenth-century Southern proslavery ideology and scientific theories of racial inferiority" (pp. 55-6)."

Davis's admonition that we should not blame a philosopher "for all the uses to which his writing have been put" is commonsense advice that Rand and Peikoff were never willing to apply to Kant.

Ghs

[Robert Campbell]

George,

Does David Brion Davis go into slavery in the Islamic world, or address whether Muslim scholars cited Aristotle's Politics in support of slavery?

Robert Campbell

[Robert Campbell]

the development of pro-freedom ideas owed more the the revival of Stoicism and Epicureanism (and even Greek skepticism) in post-Renaissance Europe than it did to either Plato or Aristotle. For example, Jefferson did not declare himself an Aristotelian; rather, he said, "I am an Epicurean."

Has it occurred to you that perhaps the spread of a basically Aristotelian worldview -- his thisworldly metaphysics, his pro-reason epistemology, his invention of logic -- undergird and make more plausible the individualist and pro-freedom elements of Stoicism and Epicureanism?

Uhh, Phil,

Epicurus was born in 341BC and died in 270 BC.

Zeno of Citium, founder of the Stoic school, was born in 334BC and died in 262 BC.

Both taught in Athens.

You don't think Aristotle (taught in Athens 335 through 323 BC) exerted any influence on their metaphysics and epistemology?

Or, for that matter, on their ethics?

Robert Campbell

PS. Is there a reason why you don't use the quote function?

[George H. Smith]

Ghs: Rand's repeated assertions that Aristotle's epistemology and metaphysics, generally speaking, led to pro-freedom developments, whereas Plato's ideas led to collectivism and statism.

PC: One bit of evidence for this is the contrasting historical developments of Asian civilizations (China, for example) which had a whole string of Plato's and no Aristotle and who developed millenia of despotism after despotism, alternating with and intermixed with dominant mysticisms of the Hindu, Buddhist and other varieties.

Aristotle had a huge impact on medieval Islamic culture, which preserved many of Aristotle's writings that had been lost to the West. Islamic culture spawned some of the greatest commentators on Aristotle, most notably Averroes and Avicenna (these are their Latinized names), who became highly regarded in the West as well.

Without Plato, there never would have been an Aristotle. Aristotle studied at Plato's Academy for nearly twenty years, and he incorporated a number of Plato's key ideas into his own philosophy. For example, Aristotle, like Plato, believed that the education of youth should be "the chief and foremost concern" of the legislator. Hence, like Plato, Aristotle looked to Sparta as an educational model, while repudiating the free-market educational system of Athens. In Book VIII of The Politics, Aristotle wrote:

"The whole of a state [by which Aristotle meant the polis, or city state] has one common end. Evidently, therefore, the system of education in a state must also be one and the same for all, and the provision of this system must be a matter of public action. It cannot be left, as it is at present, to private enterprise, with each making provision privately for his own children, and having them privately instructed as he himself thinks fit. Training for an end which is common should also itself be common. We must not regard a citizen as belonging just to himself: we must rather regard every citizen as belonging to the state. Each is a part of the state; and the provision made for each part will naturally be adjusted to the provision made for the Whole. Here, as in some other respects, the Spartans are to be praised. They pay greatest attention to the training of the young; and they pay that attention collectively, and not in their private capacity." (My italics; trans. Ernest Barker, pp. 332-33.)

In the late 1970s, I spent over two years researching a book on the history of state education (it was never completed, unfortunately), and I cannot count the number of times that I found this passage cited by early proponents of state education. (Hegel, who admired Aristotle greatly, practically paraphrases this passage in his own defense of state education.) Aristotle was arguably the biggest single influence on the emergence of state education in Western Europe and in the United States.

Moreover, Kant never said anything like "we must rather regard every citizen as belonging to the state." He never came close; on the contrary, this idea was repugnant to him. Aristotle was cited time and again by defenders of the absolute state, but does either Rand or Peikoff blame Aristotle for the rise of collectivism and dictatorships? Of course not. And why not? Because they think that Aristotle's metaphysics and epistemology were better than Kant's.

In matters such as this, the Randian approach to history is truly a theater of the absurd.

Ghs

[Philip Coates]

> You don't think Aristotle (taught in Athens 335 through 323 BC) exerted any influence on their metaphysics and epistemology? Or, for that matter, on their ethics?

Robert, what exactly is your point?

............

> PS. Is there a reason why you don't use the quote function?

Yes, there is: My way is *better*.

1. It takes up less space, avoids the blank lines and 'nestedness' and colors.

2. I don't use up half a page with quoting for a few lines of reply - which fills up lots of pages with less than a day's worth of posts. It's more difficult to read on a screen than in print because less appears on a page. One problem with this website is each page repeats the long starting post, then with all the little colored boxes and space-wasting of the quote function, often you have to go back several pages to see what you are responding to.

2b. Look at my last post in reply to George earlier today. I had to reply to 7 points of his and quote each one. If I'd used the quote function it would have sprawled to TWICE ITS SIZE.

3. You'll also notice that I use *ellipsis* (three dots) to get to the heart of exactly which point I'm responding to. Another time and space-saving approach people should adopt.

4. You'll also notice that my way of doing it -- a symbol indicating a quote and the name or initials in brackets -- is crystal clear as to who I'm quoting. Barbara** is another person who doesn't use the quote function but does it in a way similar to mine. And her posts are very easy to understand and read.

5. A final reason is portability between web sites and compatibility with the writing style of professional writers. They don't use all these little boxes and colors. It's unnecessary. And it doesn't "flow" as readily as reading a book. Instead, a normal writer simply indicates clearly that this is a quote and who he is (I don't use quote marks but use this: " > ". Mainly because the quoted material often contains quotes and the lines wrap around too much.

6. Indentation is only used for long quotes. The reason professionals don't do indent if quoting only a line or two is it takes up too much space and disrupts the flow.

7. Another point is that if you don't only spend time on one website, you don't want to have to change each time to adopt each one's "house" style.

,,,,,

**Now that you've forced me to unpack my quoting style explicitly, I think Barbara's style is probably preferable to mine. She starts with the person's name followed by the portion she quotes.

(Perhaps I'll try to do it her way, but I've got my way so automatized and lately I'm trying to wind down my posting here, so I may find it hard to re-automatize, to remember.)

,,,,,,,,,

At any rate, it's such a minor issue if one's posts are clear that I very much think you guys are looking for any nit to pick, any feet of clay to poke a hole in, since you disagree with me on a number of issues. (Subtext: "I don't like Phil and/or what he has to say. It strongly irritates me, so I'm gonna indulge myself. I'll have fun taking a sharp stick and poke at a minor issue about his posting style.")

Edited May 12, 2010 by Philip Coates

[Robert Campbell]

> You don't think Aristotle (taught in Athens 335 through 323 BC) exerted any influence on their metaphysics and epistemology? Or, for that matter, on their ethics?

Robert, what exactly is your point?

Phil,

You made it appear that Aristotle's influence on European intellectual culture (e.g., in the 1500s) positively affected what European thinkers got out of the Stoics and the Epicureans.

But it started way before that. The Epicureans and the Stoics were, in many cases, building on Aristotle's contributions or responding to his formulations. There were doing these things right from the git-go.

Robert Campbell

PS. Your defense of not using the quote function is unpersuasive, to put it mildly.

[George H. Smith]

Ghs: First, Plato's influence on the Renaissance was profound, as was his influence in some aspects of the development of modern science, e.g., with Kepler and Galileo.

PC: Can you give at least one -major- example?

Are you really unaware of Plato's influence on the Renaissance? If so, a simple Google search would have enlightened you. Here, for example, is the preface to the Wiki article on Ficino, a seminal figure in the Italian Renaissance:

"Marsilio Ficino (Latin name: Marsilius Ficinus; October 19, 1433 - October 1, 1499) was one of the most influential humanist philosophers of the early Italian Renaissance, an astrologer, a reviver of Neoplatonism who was in touch with every major academic thinker and writer of his day, and the first translator of Plato's complete extant works into Latin. His Florentine Academy, an attempt to revive Plato's school, had enormous influence on the direction and tenor of the Italian Renaissance and the development of European philosophy."

As for Plato's influence on Kepler and Galileo, you could also find this information easily.

Plato's influence on Kepler is illustrated by Kepler's attempt to fit the six known planets into a scheme based on Plato's five solids. As off-base as many of Kepler's ideas were, they resulted in some remarkable astronomical discoveries. (A good source on this is Arthur Koestler's magisterial book The Sleepwalkers. Much of this history of astronomy is devoted to Kepler.)

Galileo admired Plato principally for his emphasis on mathematics and for his belief that mathematics will reveal the inner nature of things. (This attitude reflected the Pythagorean influence on Plato). This is something we don't find in Aristotle, whose approach to science (including physics) was essentially based on a biological model.

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

Ghs: the development of pro-freedom ideas owed more the the revival of Stoicism and Epicureanism (and even Greek skepticism) in post-Renaissance Europe than it did to either Plato or Aristotle. For example, Jefferson did not declare himself an Aristotelian; rather, he said, "I am an Epicurean."

PC: Has it occurred to you that perhaps the spread of a basically Aristotelian worldview -- his thisworldly metaphysics, his pro-reason epistemology, his invention of logic -- undergird and make more plausible the individualist and pro-freedom elements of Stoicism and Epicureanism?

You're making this up as you go along, aren't you?

The metaphysical and epistemological systems of both the Stoics and Epicureans differed substantially from Aristotle's. For example, the Epicurean mechanistic theory of nature as atoms moving in a void was radically at odds with Aristotle's teleological conception of nature. This is the major reason why so many later Aristotelians condemned Epicureaniasm for its atheistic implications.

There are many other essential differences as well, including much different approaches to ethics and political theory. For example, the Epicurean notion of a social contract, rudimentary though it was, was radically at odds with Aristotle's argument that the state develops naturally, and that man is by nature a "political animal." Both the Stoics and Epicureans challenged Aristotle's contention that man can fully develop his potential only by actively participating in the civic life of the state. In the 16th century, when Montaigne praised the joys of private over public life, he was echoing these anti-Aristotelian ideas. This highly individualistic attitude would later have a considerable influence on the development of libertarian thought.

Ghs

[Philip Coates]

> Are you really unaware of Plato's influence on the Renaissance? If so, a simple Google search... [GHS]

Usually when we post [or write in an essay] arguments or claims, we don't require people to search the internet for the support that wasn't provided. Unless something is totally non-controversial, it's a good idea (not in every case, I'll grant you) to offer a bit of argument or an example or two. Offering 'support' is English comp 101. Something I always teach my students.

> Plato's influence on Kepler is illustrated by Kepler's attempt to fit the six known planets into a scheme based on Plato's five solids.

That is neither a fundamental part of Platonic philosophy, nor a fundamental of Kepler's major accomplishments.

> Galileo admired Plato principally for his emphasis on mathematics and for his belief that mathematics will reveal the inner nature of things. (This attitude reflected the Pythagorean influence on Plato).

The fact that Galileo admired Plato for this doesn't mean that he got it from Plato. Plus, the rationalistic, otherworldly, deductive Plato was hardly an example for the experimental, fact-based, test it out approach to science of Galileo. Aristotle - although, yes, sometimes rationalistic and Platonic - his revolutionary emphasis on concretes, on investigation (the biological treatises and his gathering of specimens and dissecting them and inducing principles; other efforts at cataloging first and inducing later - compiling the constitutions of the Greek states and colonies....) ..that inductive and fact-based and fact-loving approach is what is akin to that of Galileo.

The irony is that so many of the Renassance scientists -thought- they were rejecting Aristotelianism, when what they were rejecting is some of his mistakes and those of later thinkers (especially the church) who froze some of his ideas into dogma.

> [Mathematics] is something we don't find in Aristotle, whose approach to science (including physics) was essentially based on a biological model.

And the biological model, as I just described, is far more pro-science, pro-induction than the Platonic idea that we don't discover anything we just remember it from a previous life.

Once again, you have to go DEEPER to see the fundamental philosophical roots.

[Philip Coates]

> Your defense of not using the quote function is unpersuasive, to put it mildly. [Robert]

Well, what can I say? No answer to any of my points, merely dismissal...

[Philip Coates]

> You're making this up as you go along, aren't you? [GHS]

Another great, contemptuously insulting, response....

[George H. Smith]

> Are you really unaware of Plato's influence on the Renaissance? If so, a simple Google search... [GHS]

PC: Usually when we post [or write in an essay] arguments or claims, we don't require people to search the internet for the support that wasn't provided. Unless something is totally non-controversial, it's a good idea (not in every case, I'll grant you) to offer a bit of argument or an example or two. Offering 'support' is English comp 101. Something I always teach my students.

Plato's influence on the Renaissance is "totally non-controversial" for anyone who has read even a modicum of history of the period. You can find it in virtually any elementary history textbook. Yet here you are defending sweeping historical generalizations about Plato and Aristotle without exhibiting even a rudimentary knowledge of history.

Ghs: Plato's influence on Kepler is illustrated by Kepler's attempt to fit the six known planets into a scheme based on Plato's five solids.

PC: That is neither a fundamental part of Platonic philosophy, nor a fundamental of Kepler's major accomplishments.

How would you know?

I expressly offered this as an illustration. If you want to know more about Plato's influence on Kepler, then read something -- anything.

Ghs: Galileo admired Plato principally for his emphasis on mathematics and for his belief that mathematics will reveal the inner nature of things. (This attitude reflected the Pythagorean influence on Plato).

PC: The fact that Galileo admired Plato for this doesn't mean that he got it from Plato.

Again, how would you know? Moreover, do you think that most of the totalitarian thinkers cited by Peikoff actually got their ideas directly from Kant?

Plus, the rationalistic, otherworldly, deductive Plato was hardly an example for the experimental, fact-based, test it out approach to science of Galileo. Aristotle - although, yes, sometimes rationalistic and Platonic - his revolutionary emphasis on concretes, on investigation (the biological treatises and his gathering of specimens and dissecting them and inducing principles; other efforts at cataloging first and inducing later - compiling the constitutions of the Greek states and colonies....) ..that inductive and fact-based and fact-loving approach is what is akin to that of Galileo.

Galileo was fiercely anti-Aristotelian in his approach to science, but that doesn't matter to you, does it? After all, what do facts matter when you, through some mystical insight, know that Aristotle was really the main man behind Galileo's work? This is not only absurd, it is also presumptuous in the extreme.

The irony is that so many of the Renaissance scientists -thought- they were rejecting Aristotelianism, when what they were rejecting is some of his mistakes and those of later thinkers (especially the church) who froze some of his ideas into dogma.

Sure, Phil, whatever you say. Your citadel of faith is impregnable against any possible assault by reason or historical facts.

And, again, how could you possibly know any of this? If you didn't even know about the strong Platonic current in Renaissance thought, you obviously know next to nothing about that period. Oh, but I almost forgot! You read this in Rand and/or Peikoff, so it must be true!

Ghs: [Mathematics] is something we don't find in Aristotle, whose approach to science (including physics) was essentially based on a biological model.

PC: And the biological model, as I just described, is far more pro-science, pro-induction than the Platonic idea that we don't discover anything we just remember it from a previous life.

Once again, you have to go DEEPER to see the fundamental philosophical roots.

Right, Phil. We need to go deeper and deeper until we find something favorable to Aristotle that you can dub "fundamental." I could scarcely ask for a better and more pitiful example of the a priori approach to history that I discussed earlier. Aristotle's influence, for you, functions very much like Hegel's Absolute Spirit -- a force that manifests and develops itself through history, regardless of what people thought they were doing.

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

> You're making this up as you go along, aren't you? [GHS]

Another great, contemptuously insulting, response....

Yup -- and my responses will get even more contemptuous and insulting if you continue to evade the issues and parrot the pat Randian responses to every historical fact that contradicts your a priori conception of history. "Oh, but that is not fundamental!" "Oh, but, deep-down, so-and-so was really an Aristotelian, even if he explicitly repudiated Aristotle!" Etc., etc.

So goes the Randian Catechism of How to Deal With Inconvenient Historical Facts: Excuses For All Occasions.

Ghs

[Dragonfly]

> Are you really unaware of Plato's influence on the Renaissance? If so, a simple Google search... [GHS]

> Plato's influence on Kepler is illustrated by Kepler's attempt to fit the six known planets into a scheme based on Plato's five solids.

That is neither a fundamental part of Platonic philosophy, nor a fundamental of Kepler's major accomplishments.

Here I must agree with Philip. That Kepler tried to use the so-called platonic solids in his model of the solar system has little or nothing to do with Plato. The latter may have used those regular convex polyhedra which are named after him in his theory of the four elements, but he didn't discover them. Kepler was just looking if he could find simple mathematical and geometrical models that could describe the orbits of the planets, and as there were then 6 known planets and just 5 platonic solids, he came up with a theory of nested spheres and polyhedra which seemed to fit more or less the (not too accurate) available data at the time. One of Keplers other suppositions was that the planets moved in circles around the sun, because that would be the simplest and therefore perfect mathematical description. As the data didn't confirm this hypothesis Kepler tried all kinds of models, until he finally found that the orbits were ellipses and he could formulate his famous laws. His use of the 5 "platonic" solids was just an early attempt at finding a simple description and had nothing to do with a philosophical influence by Plato. Now for all I know he may have been influenced by Plato's philosophy, but for him the regular convex polyhedra were just a fascinating and beautiful mathematical subject, like circles and regular polygons, so these are in themselves no evidence of such an influence.

[Alfonso Jones]

> Are you really unaware of Plato's influence on the Renaissance? If so, a simple Google search... [GHS]

PC: Usually when we post [or write in an essay] arguments or claims, we don't require people to search the internet for the support that wasn't provided. Unless something is totally non-controversial, it's a good idea (not in every case, I'll grant you) to offer a bit of argument or an example or two. Offering 'support' is English comp 101. Something I always teach my students.

Plato's influence on the Renaissance is "totally non-controversial" for anyone who has read even a modicum of history of the period. You can find it in virtually any elementary history textbook. Yet here you are defending sweeping historical generalizations about Plato and Aristotle without exhibiting even a rudimentary knowledge of history.

Ghs: Plato's influence on Kepler is illustrated by Kepler's attempt to fit the six known planets into a scheme based on Plato's five solids.

PC: That is neither a fundamental part of Platonic philosophy, nor a fundamental of Kepler's major accomplishments.

How would you know?

I expressly offered this as an illustration. If you want to know more about Plato's influence on Kepler, then read something -- anything.

Ghs: Galileo admired Plato principally for his emphasis on mathematics and for his belief that mathematics will reveal the inner nature of things. (This attitude reflected the Pythagorean influence on Plato).

PC: The fact that Galileo admired Plato for this doesn't mean that he got it from Plato.

Again, how would you know? Moreover, do you think that most of the totalitarian thinkers cited by Peikoff actually got their ideas directly from Kant?

Plus, the rationalistic, otherworldly, deductive Plato was hardly an example for the experimental, fact-based, test it out approach to science of Galileo. Aristotle - although, yes, sometimes rationalistic and Platonic - his revolutionary emphasis on concretes, on investigation (the biological treatises and his gathering of specimens and dissecting them and inducing principles; other efforts at cataloging first and inducing later - compiling the constitutions of the Greek states and colonies....) ..that inductive and fact-based and fact-loving approach is what is akin to that of Galileo.

Galileo was fiercely anti-Aristotelian in his approach to science, but that doesn't matter to you, does it? After all, what do facts matter when you, through some mystical insight, know that Aristotle was really the main man behind Galileo's work? This is not only absurd, it is also presumptuous in the extreme.

The irony is that so many of the Renaissance scientists -thought- they were rejecting Aristotelianism, when what they were rejecting is some of his mistakes and those of later thinkers (especially the church) who froze some of his ideas into dogma.

Sure, Phil, whatever you say. Your citadel of faith is impregnable against any possible assault by reason or historical facts.

And, again, how could you possibly know any of this? If you didn't even know about the strong Platonic current in Renaissance thought, you obviously know next to nothing about that period. Oh, but I almost forgot! You read this in Rand and/or Peikoff, so it must be true!

Ghs: [Mathematics] is something we don't find in Aristotle, whose approach to science (including physics) was essentially based on a biological model.

PC: And the biological model, as I just described, is far more pro-science, pro-induction than the Platonic idea that we don't discover anything we just remember it from a previous life.

Once again, you have to go DEEPER to see the fundamental philosophical roots.

Right, Phil. We need to go deeper and deeper until we find something favorable to Aristotle that you can dub "fundamental." I could scarcely ask for a better and more pitiful example of the a priori approach to history that I discussed earlier. Aristotle's influence, for you, functions very much like Hegel's Absolute Spirit -- a force that manifests and develops itself through history, regardless of what people thought they were doing.

Ghs

George -

We're getting a marvelously clear illustration of the use of the Randian concept of "thinking in fundamentals" as, instead, "disregarding everything which does not fit with what I assume to be facts about reality, while keeping precisely those things which fit with my preconceptions."

Amazing.

Bill P

[9thdoctor]

In matters such as this, the Randian approach to history is truly a theater of the absurd.

If by Randian approach you mean wrenching the facts of history to fit the premise that Kant was Satan, I agree. But then it’s being defined by an error in application. Understanding history through the development and clash of philosophical principles is what the Randian approach should mean, this as opposed to the premise of Guns, Germs, and Steel (very interesting btw), which minimized the importance of ideas. Reality doesn’t neatly fit any model, I admire the integrated history of a Will Durant or Edward Gibbon, they strike a good balance, but take a lot of pages to do so.

Phil: this is a good use of the quote function. I didn't include his whole post, just enough for a start, but the date/time is displayed so you can easily go back and see the full post I'm replying to. You can do it too, I'm sure of it.

[George H. Smith]

Here I must agree with Philip. That Kepler tried to use the so-called platonic solids in his model of the solar system has little or nothing to do with Plato. The latter may have used those regular convex polyhedra which are named after him in his theory of the four elements, but he didn't discover them. Kepler was just looking if he could find simple mathematical and geometrical models that could describe the orbits of the planets, and as there were then 6 known planets and just 5 platonic solids, he came up with a theory of nested spheres and polyhedra which seemed to fit more or less the (not too accurate) available data at the time.

It's been many years since I've read anything about Kepler, so I'm not willing to go to the wall on this issue. But it is my recollection that Plato's five solids were far more than a convenient geometrical model for Kepler. Kepler, by Rand's standards, was a thorough-going "mystic" for whom Plato's five solids had significant metaphysical implications. The article "Symmetry and Symmetry Breaking" in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy gives some indication of this. (There are doubtless better accounts online, but this is the first I happened across.)

"From the outset, then, symmetry was closely related to harmony, beauty, and unity, and this was to prove decisive for its role in theories of nature. In Plato's Timaeus, for example, the regular polyhedra are afforded a central place in the doctrine of natural elements for the proportions they contain and the beauty of their forms: fire has the form of the regular tetrahedron, earth the form of the cube, air the form of the regular octahedron, water the form of the regular icosahedron, while the regular dodecahedron is used for the form of the entire universe. The history of science provides another paradigmatic example of the use of these figures as basic ingredients in physical description: Kepler's 1596 Mysterium Cosmographicum presents a planetary architecture grounded on the five regular solids...."

I recall that Koestler discusses this issue in The Sleepwalkers, so when I get the time I will see if I can find my copy and look through it. I think it may be hiding out in a closet somewhere.

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

If by Randian approach you mean wrenching the facts of history to fit the premise that Kant was Satan, I agree. But then it’s being defined by an error in application. Understanding history through the development and clash of philosophical principles is what the Randian approach should mean, this as opposed to the premise of Guns, Germs, and Steel (very interesting btw), which minimized the importance of ideas. Reality doesn’t neatly fit any model, I admire the integrated history of a Will Durant or Edward Gibbon, they strike a good balance, but take a lot of pages to do so.

I subscribe to the view that ideas have played a crucial role in history. I also believe that the influence of Aristotle, such as during the 12th Century Renaissance, has often been for the good.

What I don't believe is that we can ignore the political theories of philosophers, rejecting them as nonfundamental, while appealing to their metaphysical and epistemological theories as the ultimate forces that drive history. In many cases, these political theories, when measured in terms of their influence, have been far more fundamental than any epistemological or metaphysical theories.

The supposed relationship between epistemological theories and political theories has never been explained satisfactorily by Randians. Consider the fact that Marxists have repudiated Kant (and Hume) almost as vigorously as Rand ever did. Consider this passage from Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy, by Engels:

In addition, there is yet a set of different philosophers — those who question the possibility of any cognition, or at least of an exhaustive cognition, of the world. To them, among the more modern ones, belong Hume and Kant, and they played a very important role in philosophical development. What is decisive in the refutation of this view has already been said by Hegel, in so far as this was possible from an idealist standpoint. The materialistic additions made by Feuerbach are more ingenious than profound. The most telling refutation of this as of all other philosophical crotchets is practice — namely, experiment and industry. If we are able to prove the correctness of our conception of a natural process by making it ourselves, bringing it into being out of its conditions and making it serve our own purposes into the bargain, then there is an end to the Kantian ungraspable “thing-in-itself”. ...If, nevertheless, the neo-Kantians are attempting to resurrect the Kantian conception in Germany, and the agnostics that of Hume in England (where in fact it never became extinct), this is, in view of their theoretical and practical refutation accomplished long ago, scientifically a regression and practically merely a shamefaced way of surreptitiously accepting materialism, while denying it before the world.

We find similar attacks on Kant and Hume throughout Lenin's Materialism and Empirico-Criticism . Here is just one brief example that I picked at random:

The only trouble is that all the authorities mentioned by Mr. Chernov are

the very Neo-Kantians whom Engels refers to on this very same page of his

Ludwig Feuerbach as theoretical reactionaries, who were endeavouring to

resurrect the corpse of the long since refuted doctrines of Kant and Hume.

Marxists admired Hegel partially because they believed he had thoroughly discredited Kant's major theories in both ethics and epistemology. As Lenin put it:

No one has criticized more severely the impotent “categorical imperative” of Kant — impotent because it demands the impossible, and therefore never attains to any reality — no one has more cruelly derided the philistine sentimental enthusiasm for unrealizable ideals purveyed by [the Kantian] Schiller than precisely the complete idealist Hegel (see, for example, his Phenomenology).

Now, we could hardly do a survey of modern totalitarian ideas without including the theories of Marxian philosophers. Yet the major Marxian philosophers were rabid anti-Kantians who rarely spoke of him except in the most scornful of terms.

So how does the Randian "historian" (I use the term loosely) explain this inconvenient fact? Well, he will simply explain it away. He will tell us that Hegel -- who heaped far more praise on Aristotle than he ever did on Kant -- was a Kantian whether he knew it or not, and that Marxists are therefore Kantians as well, whether they know it or not.

To this manner of reasoning, I reply: Give me fucking break!

Ghs

[9thdoctor]

So how does the Randian "historian" (I use the term loosely) explain this inconvenient fact? Well, he will simply explain it away.

More specifically, they invoke philosophical hierarchy. The trouble is that doesn’t explain the influence of Locke on political theory, for one example. The reductio ad absurdum was Peter Schwartz’s Libertarianism article, which would have you refusing to make common cause politically with someone who agrees with Kant’s epistemology, lest you sanction their evil. Never mind your position on NIOF, tell me what you think of synthetic a priori!