99Percent

Thanks, I will let the admins and other mods decide there and hopefully get that issue out of the way for the benefit of better coherent discussions.

Again, if you are going to discard Objectivistic ideological claims based on empiricism, you must also discard any other ideology because empiricism is factual observation of things, it has nothing to do with ideas and concepts.

A subjectivists can certainly make intellectual copouts with even such a simple example as Zar's. He can claim for example that the definition of a "crow" is subjective, there is no "pure" crowness. Or easier yet, he can claim that "black" or "white" is subject to interpretation. You can never find a pure black or white crow to begin with. Its all an escape to confront reality and discussion, in effect it would be an intelletual copout.

That is what I was trying to say in my original statement:

Gurdur

Fallacy of composition - I simply disproved the central claims of Objectivism as compared to the physical evidence.
I don't need to do anything else, and you're going off-topic.

Just to answer your off-topic defence: I'm not ideological --- in any kind of way.
But I stress again --- your defence there is beside the point.


And that is again abuse of anyone thinking differently.
Let me put it into easy steps:

We have already agreed here what a "crow" is.
It is an objectively verifiable fact (or at the least, intersubjectively verifiable fact) that most people throughout history have accepted social responsibilities and ethics as well as other ethics, contrary to the Libertarian/Objectivist claims of having the only "true ethics", individual-sderived ones.

Therefore Objectivist claims are mistaken --- or you must claim that the great, great majority of humans are mistaken, and that over long, long lengths of history.

Moreover, Libertarian/Objectivist claims are simply not accepted by the great consensus of philosophy and science --- not even taken seriously enough to be taught in uni's.

Which option do you want to choose ?
EITHER
a) admitting your claims were wrong
OR
b) insisting, with no proof, that almost everyone else is wrong.

I've detailed every single step of this argument - several times.
So I'ld like a straight answer - and I assume you are responding to my posts now, despite your earlier statement.

tk

Not really, a "copout" is someone who disagrees with objective truth. And "objective truth" = "Objectivism"... of course they must be equal, since they share the same root words, right? :notworthy

Perhaps we can refer to Ayn Rand's philosophy as "Aynrandism" instead. This may clear up a lot of confusion.

Celsus

Actually, 99% is half correct. Empirical data must be interpreted through some theoretical or ideological framework. Hence Hugo, Zar, Gurdur and others' interpretation that empiricism disproves Objectivism is correct under their theoretical framework, but incorrect under 99%'s. Why? Because 99% defines any evidence to the contrary as being an "intellectual copout". All you can really criticise from this is that his methodology is extremely shoddy and possibly dishonest.

Joel

Gurdur

Sorry, Celsus, if this sounds like a mere quibble, but I've thought right back along the whole line of my reasoning here, and I'm prepared to discuss each and every step --- and I want to avoid generalities.

Theoretical yes, ideological no.

I can take several different theoretical approaches and arrive at the same conclusion I've done; the only real rock-solid premise I need to make is that there is an outside, natural world independent of human perceptions and interpretations.

That's a working premise, not an ideological one; and if that premise is not allowed, then the whole game is anyone's, from UFO's to Flying Toasters.

There's a huge difference between ideology --- especially a political ideology applied to interpreting the physical world --- and rough-hewn, simultaneously-used theoretical approaches towards interpreting the world.

Again, sorry if it sounds like a quibble.

Hugo Holbling

If this is how 99 hopes to avoid the issue, i'd like to see him go back and respond to my charge that it is he who is making the "intellectual copout".

RED DAVE

Just to keep it going on the personal side, here is Nathaniel Brandon's wife's observations on Ayn Rand at the end of her life.

Devers Brand and Ayn Rand

Very sad.

RED DAVE

fando

Interesting piece. Seems that Rand is incapable of being honest with herself when facing her limitations.

I'm already bored with Atlas Shrugged. Same impression as The Fountainhead. After discussing Rand with friends who liked her work, I managed to get two to admit that they haven't thought very deeply about her philosophy and were probably mistattributing their own idealisms to her. As a result of this, I suspect that the allure of Rand is mostly due to the rebellious nature of youth. I also suspect that stubborn individuals like how she praises stubbornness as a virtue, which completely explains the fanboyism. Rand herself seemed stubborn to a fault.

I'm through with Ayn Rand. I don't care to study her philosophy any further because her Platonic Dialogue failed to impress me in any fundamental way.

Kantian

Ayn Rand is no bore.

While Ayn Rand does not deserve the title "philosopher," for reasons i will not go into here, she does deserve literary acclaim. Since there are very few authors who have a worked-out attempt at philosophy in their fiction, and one that radically stretches as far away as possible from the kowtowing, bleating chatter of the collective, Rand is to be commended as a great author worth reading.

Her philosophy is questionable at best, but at worst, her books made us think differently, and look at man heroically, in an novel way. I will continue to recommend people her books, particularly Fountainhead.

~transcendentalist~
__________________
Reason has often led us into transcendent metaphysics that "overstep the limits of all experience, [and] no object adequate to the transcendental ideal can ever be found within experience."

Feather

Um, my view of man wasn't altered after reading Atlas Shrugged. I also didn't find the persons in the book to be heroic in any sense of the word. In point of fact, they were more like automatons than thinking individuals. They each fit in a specific niche into Rand's perfect little fantasy world, and none of them ever changed. To be honest I didn't finish the book--I got to the mystical shield covered wonder land where everybody is a perfect little capitalist and gave up because of the unbelievability of it all.

No, I would not rate Rand as worthy of being commended--either for her "philosophy" or her writing. The thread title isn't entirely correct, though, for while Rand herself (and her writings) may have been a bloody bore, her herd of sheeple followers never cease to amuse me.