pug846

Eldwood said:

Eldwood, care to explain which philosophies are “anti-intellectual” and “nothing is real?” Quite frankly, one of the few philosophies off the top of my head that I would say are “anti-intellectual” is Objectivism – Rand herself wasn’t too fond of Academia and accepting criticism. Do you mean most people, or most philosophers think this how many people think of philosophy?

I’ll second what Ender said and add the Being and Time is probably regarded as the second most influential book of the 20th century. I’m actually making my way through Philosophical Investigations at the moment, and haven’t found it very enlightening – Perhaps it is my disposition towards the more continental types.

elwoodblues

Gee, I'd forgotten how unfriendly the Philo forum is to objectivism. Ah, well...

Ism-

The main idea of objectivism is that there is an objective reality that is the same for everyone, and that we can discover certain things about this world that are the same for everyone. From those pieces of knowledge, we can form a system of ethics dependent on reality, not independent of it.

Now, figuring out how to acquire knowledge about this world, and how to integrate and process that information, that's something entirely different, and a lot wider-open to interpretation. If you can create a good argument for your above statements, then we can at least talk about it and discuss it. As it is, you're just throwing it out there for the hell of it.

pug-

First, no big deal, but it's 'elwood'.

Rand had a big problem with Ivory-Tower Complex. Academics have a habit of shunning material concerns, while Rand was firmly rooted there. That's a big drawing point for objectivism: while most philosophers (and philosophies) seem to just like word games and ridiculously far-out situations, objectivism is concerned with much more practical aspects of the world.

Academcis attacked Rand ruthlessly. Partly because they didn't like her philosophy. Partly because of her popular success. No other philosopher of the century (with the exception of Marx, possibly) measured up to her broad, sustained appeal. Look how many copies her books STILL sell, every year. It's ridiculous.

"Do you mean most people, or most philosophers think this how many people think of philosophy?"

I know a broad range of people. I went to a public high school, worked in a factory, and went to three public universities. I've always been interested in philosophy, and have thus gotten some feel for what the people around me think of philosophy. The overwhelming majority see it as useless in 'real life'. They consider it detached from reality almost by definition. And, as much as I sometimes argued that this wasn't so, in some cases they definitely had a point.

pug846

Elwoodblues said:

Doh! Sorry. People generally butcher my name to pug486.

I disagree – foundations are important. Often times, philosophy isn’t simple. Although Rand’s philosophy in general is pretty easy to grasp, talk to any professional philosopher about it for 10 minutes and they would rip it to shreds. I certainly don’t think Objectivism is practical at all, and more importantly, it has huge holes in it.

Elwood, do you honestly believe this?!? First off, Rand her self left herself open to attacks by the way she treated people. Second, philosophers don’t like her philosophy because it is, in their eyes, childish and many of its adherents are stuck with this cult mentality, including Rand herself. If you can’t take criticisms very well, don’t bother being a philosopher. Wittgenstein was an asshole. Hiedger was a freaking Nazi – yet they wrote two of the most philosophically influential books of the 20th century. Why are they so popular and Rand wasn’t? Do you really believe it was because they just didn’t like her? Or because she was successful? There have been lots of successful authors who have written lots of successful books – do you really think Rand is some special case? Or could it be that a majority of philosophers see it as uninteresting and irrational?

I certainly agree that a lot of philosophy is abstract and much of it doesn’t have any direct practical use, but it builds up to something that does. There is a lot of science that by itself, doesn’t have any practical use, but that science is the building block for more useful science. If you want quick and easy answers that you can spoon feed to the public, then often times, no philosophy can’t help you out there. But, who said it had to be easy?

What about the bible? Look, being popular with the public doesn’t mean a whole lot. Look how popular “Creation Science” is.

Many of us here have such a low opinion of Objectivism because of A) many of us have honestly looked at it and feel it’s flat out wrong and B) whether you like it or not, there are a lot of Objectivists out there who very much have this cult mentality. I have a pretty bad taste in my mouth for the average objectivist. (I’m certainly willing to realize there are exceptions to that rule – I have a high opinion of you for instance.)

Clutch

A clinical complex, this? Well-defined? Or are you throwing this out for the hell of it?

What is the habit of shunning material concerns? What is the evidence that academics have this habit? How was Rand "rooted" in the material in some way that, say, Robert Nozick or Van Quine were not? I know philosophy PhDs: they play baseball, raise families, break the occasional bone, pay taxes, suffer through committee meetings... What did Rand do, absorb nutrients through the soil? It sounds like you're just reciting a script, here.

Most philosophers just like word games? I suppose it would be a "word game" to ask you justify this.

Substitute the name "Henry Morris" for "Rand" here. Would it work just as well? It's remarkable how you refuse to consider a third alternative -- ironically, one that takes seriously the claim of rational discourse to objective status. Isn't it just possible that Rand's thought is a sophomoric mish-mash of ideas from the great academic philosophers, from which a convenient ethics of selfishness is extracted by means of non-sequitur? I mean, someone who thought that there were objective facts to be had here would recognize that maybe academic philosophers first ignored, then laughed at, then responded hostilely to Rand's work (as it became more popular) for all the same reasons that biologists first ignored, then laughed at, then reacted hostilely to young-earth creationism (as it became more popular).

Finally, we agree!

Ism Schism.

For the "hell of it"-

"Natural Law Objectivism" or "Actual Objectivism":

1) If it is possible to do it, it is an objective right.

2) Possibility exists for the sole purpose of exploitation by the free will of man.

3) Where one will pass up on a possibility, another will take it -- this is his right given the laws of nature.

4) There are no moral judgements to be made, only possibilities to benefit one or another in his own rational self interest. This after all is nature, it is life or death out there -- is it not? The one best suited to survive will survive.

5) If one had the inherent right to life -- one would not die.

6) If one had the inherent right to property -- theft would be impossible.

7) Absolute freedom is a right inhereted at birth -- the limits you place on this freedom is yours alone.

That's the 4 minute version, if I had the time to waste like Rand did in building a version of objectivism I could write a book about it. By the way how can there be versions of "objectivism"??

Is mine more or less "objective" then Rand's?

"Gold nuggets? We don' need no stinkin' gold nuggets!"

[ February 10, 2002: Message edited by: Ism Schism. ]</p>

Adrian Selby

I've read a few essays that Franc has put together on his own websites regarding Rand's objectivism, and his own arguments that attempt to link facts of nature to normative conclusions.

I have to say that while I disagree with the links it does seem that the attempt to posit conclusions about how to live life are explicit here with regard to the epistemic foundations. That does help people carry through the ideas to how they might and ought to impact on society. These essays of Franc's show a commitment to the assessment of what conclusions follow from objectivist premises.

This isn't to say that such thought isn't attempted outside of objectivism, far from it, but perhaps thats the popular appeal, its all in one package. I've referred before to the book The Mental as Physical, here is a personal favourite that explores the mind brain identity theory and offers its own conclusions, but does so for only half the book, the author (my former lecturer) then spending the second half discussing issues of jurisprudence and ethics that may or may not result from the determinism inherent in his ideas about materialism and identity theory.

Perhaps, as has been said, the issues are so complex, many philosophers spend their lives trying to sort them out without regard for the consequences. Then again, I don't think we should criticise these thinkers for that, its what they're interested in. We're absolving ourselves of any responsibility if we criticise a philosopher for not carrying through theories that we could in fact carry through, if that is something we found important.

A 'professional' thinker is not diminished in value or importance for not following these things through, and by corollary, I don't think a thinker should be lauded for nothing more than attempting to do so.

Adrian

NialScorva

Hear hear!

Everything I've read of Rand has been watered down ideas taken from dead white men a century or more before her writing. I'm still trying to find an objective definition for "enlightened self interest", or a good article about how objectivism deals with incomplete, incorrect, or unavailable knowledge in making such decisions. The only intelligent thing I've heard attributed to Rand was a quote along the lines of "Epistemology is the only true philosophy", though I think that David Hume pretty much beat her to it by a couple hundred years, with the bonus of having a good argument to back it.

elwoodblues

Look, I'm going to concede this. I'm far from an expert on philosophy, or even objectivism. I dabble; I've always been pretty up-front about that. But I know that it's helped me live my life better and happier, and has helped a few of my friends. I'm a better person for it.

I've never befriended an 'evangelical' or cultist Objectivists. I find such people ridiculous and reprehensible. And I really think it a twisting and perverting of Rand's original ideas to form a cult out of it. It isn't honest to the roots of it at all. I've read enough of Rand's to know that much.

Remember, it isn't really so unbelievable that some idiots will take an entirely rational thing and pervert it beyond all belief. Look at the cults that formed around Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land". Heinlein was an author who valued the individual human, whose characters were fiercely anti-collectivist, and often atheist. People will fuck up anything, given half a chance. I don't take the existence of idiotic Objectivists as an indictment against objectivism, as by the same token I don't take idiotic atheists to be an indictment against atheism. It strikes me as odd (and not a little bit disturbing) that some otherwise intelligent people here WOULD do so.

I concede the point. Objectivism is flawed, though I never said otherwise. But as a practical philosophy for living, compared to 90% of philosophers out there, it's a lot more accessible, understandable, and helpful. THAT is why I thought it might have significant influence over the next century, combined with it's central idea of an objective reality.

pug846

Elwoodblues said:

I absolutely disagree – Rand was the ultimate cultist. If you didn’t agree with her premises, you were, by her definition, irrational and not worth talking to. If you disagreed with her moral philosophy you were, by definition, immoral and not to be trusted and to be avoided. She didn’t take criticism well at all (and after awhile just stopped taking criticism.) She apparently knew nothing about the history of philosophy, yet took great liberty in attacking views that no one held, but had no problem attaching them to people.

I don’t take the existence of idiotic Objectivists as an indictment against Objectivism, per se. I do believe that the philosophy tends to attract people who have abandoned Christianity and need something else to feed them the answers. (Again, this is NOT an indictment of all Objectivists and certainly not you.) I do however think most people here have dealt with enough objectivists that we each have a preconception of what most Objectivists are like. Just like I have a basic idea of what a fundamentalist Christian will say to me and I prejudge them accordingly, I do the same with objectivists – I AM open to changing that judgment when the person has demonstrated they don’t fit the profile of most (in my experience) who hold a similar ideology.

And this is exactly what most Christians would say about Christian philosophy. I think at the root of most philosophies, they aim to be practical – A philosophy being understandable is obviously dependent on the individual. But sadly, some times things aren’t too simple. I’ve asked you this earlier and I didn’t feel I got a satisfactory answer. What do you mean by ‘objective reality’ and further, what popular (preferably secular) philosophies don’t hold to some form of ‘objective reality.’ Through the Radian lens, no one does but her – She never seemed to understand often things come in degrees and not stark ‘black and white’ terms.

I’d like to make a post some time next week dealing with a least a few of my many objections to Rand’s ethics.

ohwilleke

Personally, I'm inclined to see feminism and deconstructionism as the most influential philosophical movements in the 20th century. The way most people see men and women, and cultural differences at the end of the century differs dramatically from the way it was seen in 1900.

I'm also inclined to think that philosophy and activism move in lockstep. Philosophy that really works reflects and influences actions that people take. By that measure, the philosophical basis for anti-globalism has to be at the top of my list for movers and shakers in the 21st century. I'm not sure that it has a name, but it seems to me to be a combination of wholistic ideas like ecology and the universality of humanity, and a broadened sense of personal responsibility. The utilitarian idea that ever person's pain is equal, seems to be overtaking the more comfortable way of looking at life that says if you didn't cause the problem that it isn't your fault.