Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Gurdur · 01-01-2003, 02:20 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by tk

The argument that "most people don't recognize the validity of Objectivism, thus Objectivism is invalid" hinges on the assumption that most humans evaluate ideas through rigorous logic. But as you know, this is not true. Thus the rejection of Objectivism by most people in the world may be because they have chosen to reject a true statement based on their own pseudo-logic. It says nothing about the intrinsic correctness of Objectivism.

tk, you appear to have misunderstood my argument.
Allow me to spell it all out again in terribly boring high-falutin' prose:

for the sake of the argument, I'm ignoring for the moment all contradictions in Objectivist pseudo-philosophy --- I am treating their whole main case as a possible, then comparing their claims with the actual results.

This is a standard procedure in science - compare a theory with reality.

OK with no. # 1 ?
.
Objectivists make two main claims:

a) Humans are inherently rational
(whatever that might mean - they're not good at all at defining their terms )

b) their"objective ethics" are inherently self-observable and self-derivable
.
(heh, heh, in both senses of the word "self-")

OK with no. # 2 ?
.
They then make the further claim that their "objective ethics" are the only true ethics --- that all other ethics are both invalid and nonexistant

OK with no. # 3 ?
.
RESULTS: What do we actually observe ?

We observe that over the great stretch of human history that the great majority of humans do not agree with Objectivist "ethics", and insist on living by completely different ethics (notably, including social ethics and responsibilities.

OK with no.# 4 ?
.
heh, heh, heh.

The only way to make sense of these problems is then to:
either
claim the great majority of humans over all recorded history ---- 99.9999999999 % ----- are completely stark raving mad bonkers, i.e. irrational,
or
to conclude the Objectivists' claims are a load of pure bollocks.

Do you get me ? This is an empirical, compare-theory-with-results argument.

I will now accept your self-correction and acknowledgement that my argument is very far from "weak", and demands an answer.

Quote:

To save my own face:

It seems the Objectivist notion of "reason" and "rationality" is an extremely vague one. Sometimes it means the ability to recognize patterns, sometimes the ability to generalize (wrongly), sometimes the ability to perform logical proofs. Because the word's so vague, it's easy for a person to slide from one meaning to another. Perhaps it's best to abandon the word "reason", and use more concrete words such as "logic", "generalization" and "induction".

heh, heh, heh, you appear confused.
Tell the Objectivists to clean up their definitions - I have been rigorously precise all along here, using their terms to contradict them.

I look forward to the bouquets tossed in my direction.

August Spies · 01-01-2003, 10:41 AM

nicely spelled out Gurdur

Sassyone · 01-02-2003, 05:52 AM

Who is John Galt??

August Spies · 01-02-2003, 11:41 AM

a cardboard cutout

trientalis · 01-02-2003, 03:05 PM

Nah. Cardboard has too much depth.

Zar · 01-02-2003, 10:04 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Sassyone
Who is John Galt??

Apparently he's a bloody bore.

And I have to agree with Gurdur's recent commentary here...Oh, those younger days of curling up with an Ayn Rand book seem so distant to me now...

99Percent · 01-02-2003, 10:15 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Zar
And I have to agree with Gurdur's recent commentary here..

Zar, I respect you so I draw the line here. I must be a fucking dimwit because I can't find a single coherent idea or comprehensible statement on Gurdur's latest post. Just what is he saying exactly, in your own words?

August Spies · 01-02-2003, 11:25 PM

99, his post seems self-explanatory to me (which is not to say it is right or wrong)

he is claiming that libertarians claim
1. Man is a rational being
2. Objective Morality is inherently self-observable and self-derivable

if these claims are true to libertarianism, then the outcome should be that the most people would accept libertarian principles as true if they were confronted with them. Since most do not, something must be wrong with one of the two.

99Percent · 01-03-2003, 12:20 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by August Spies
99, his post seems self-explanatory to me (which is not to say it is right or wrong)

he is claiming that libertarians claim
1. Man is a rational being
2. Objective Morality is inherently self-observable and self-derivable

if these claims are true to libertarianism, then the outcome should be that the most people would accept libertarian principles as true if they were confronted with them. Since most do not, something must be wrong with one of the two.

Good try, August, but I already responded to Gurdur in this respect. Simply substitute anti-"libertarianism" with "God" and you get the same result.

Its called argumentum ad populum.

tk · 01-03-2003, 02:13 AM

Let me try to make the argument more formal, so that it's more obvious what's going on.

To start, we have the following premises:

(1) Objectivism is based on reason.
(2) Objectivism states that all humans work according to reason.
(3) Not all humans recognize the validity of Objectivism.

- I -

In the above I avoided defining the word "reason". Suppose we take the word "reason" to mean "logic". Then we have the following premises:

(1') Objectivism is logical, i.e. it is true.
(2') Objectivism states that all humans work according to logic.
(3') Not all humans recognize the validity of Objectivism.

From these premises, we can derive the following:

(4') [from (1') and (2')] All humans work according to logic.
(5') [from (4') and (1')] All humans recognize the validity of Objectivism.
(6') [from (3') and (5')]

- II -

One way to attempt to resolve this contradiction is to use a different definition of "reason", to mean (e.g.) the ability to crudely recognize patterns in the environment, which may sometimes produce bogus answers. Then (1) becomes

(1'') Objectivism is based on crude pattern recognition.

But this obviously doesn't portray Objectivism in a very good light.

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01-01-2003, 10:41 AM	#92
August Spies Contributor Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: The Vine Posts: 12,950	nicely spelled out Gurdur

01-02-2003, 05:52 AM	#93
Sassyone Junior Member Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: AL Posts: 66	Who is John Galt??

01-02-2003, 11:41 AM	#94
August Spies Contributor Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: The Vine Posts: 12,950	a cardboard cutout

01-02-2003, 03:05 PM	#95
trientalis Senior Member Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: Washington state Posts: 848	Nah. Cardboard has too much depth.

01-02-2003, 11:25 PM	#98
August Spies Contributor Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: The Vine Posts: 12,950	99, his post seems self-explanatory to me (which is not to say it is right or wrong) he is claiming that libertarians claim 1. Man is a rational being 2. Objective Morality is inherently self-observable and self-derivable if these claims are true to libertarianism, then the outcome should be that the most people would accept libertarian principles as true if they were confronted with them. Since most do not, something must be wrong with one of the two.

01-03-2003, 02:13 AM	#100
tk Regular Member Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Singapore Posts: 158	Let me try to make the argument more formal, so that it's more obvious what's going on. To start, we have the following premises: (1) Objectivism is based on reason. (2) Objectivism states that all humans work according to reason. (3) Not all humans recognize the validity of Objectivism. - I - In the above I avoided defining the word "reason". Suppose we take the word "reason" to mean "logic". Then we have the following premises: (1') Objectivism is logical, i.e. it is true. (2') Objectivism states that all humans work according to logic. (3') Not all humans recognize the validity of Objectivism. From these premises, we can derive the following: (4') [from (1') and (2')] All humans work according to logic. (5') [from (4') and (1')] All humans recognize the validity of Objectivism. (6') [from (3') and (5')] - II - One way to attempt to resolve this contradiction is to use a different definition of "reason", to mean (e.g.) the ability to crudely recognize patterns in the environment, which may sometimes produce bogus answers. Then (1) becomes (1'') Objectivism is based on crude pattern recognition. But this obviously doesn't portray Objectivism in a very good light.

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