• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Ayn Rand ?

Objectivism is not objective. Don't let the name fool you. And if you really want to understand, read wider than just Rand.
 
I'm a drain on society! Privileged people are better than me by dint of the fact that they have more!

I need to get a job, I do nothing productive! Ayn Rand was a genius!
 
Senex said:
You can go the easy route -- however Rand makes it clear you will only have second class sex partners (Galt's wife) if you are lazy. (You don't want a second class sex partner, do you:confused:)
Click to expand...
I like nerdy girls with glasses.
 
I've been reading Ayn Rand: Boner Buster and I must say the photo spreads are intensely softening.
 
cj.23 said:
I've been reading about Objectivism today. Poor old Rand seems to get a lot of slagging off, and I can't really see why. The few Rand adherents i have met strike me as intelligent, decent folks with a useful perspective. In fact I have a lot of time for objectivity. Does RandFan stil lost here? He is a thoroughly sensible and very intelligent kind of guy, with a coherent philosophical position as far as I can tell? Anyway time to read the thread... but I must say the vehement abuse hurled at Rand may one day force me to actually read her properly, just to understand!

cj x
Click to expand...


Her posertive view of William Edward Hickman would probably rate as a reason.
 
D'rok said:
I have no idea what the overall philosophy of JREFers is or if such a thing even exists. But even if every last one of us agreed with Rand, that would be completely irrelevant to the truth of her assertions or the value of her ideas. If JREFers were all or mostly all Randians, why would'nt that say something uncomplimentary about the quality of JREFer thought, rather something complimentary about Rand's thought? And even if Rand mimicked some of the philosophical conclusions that JREFers value from other sources, why is it hypocritical to oppose Rand's pathetic caricatures of those conclusions?
Click to expand...

Again, you misinterpret my point. I am not arguing that JREFers--skeptics would a better word, I suppose--are or are not Randian. I am merely pointing out the inconsistency of certain people that dismiss the ideas of Rand outright yet openly trumpet similar ideas in the abstract. Just trying to get her a fair shake, that's all.

What Rand is is a caricature of actual philosophy. She takes the arguments of Kant, Nietzsche, Aristotle and even Plato, whom she despises, and totemizes them.
Click to expand...

Agree. The hypocrisy of objectivists when it comes to borrowing from other philosophers is immense. They go way out of their way to deny that it happens. Over-compensating, for sure. However, this has nothing to do with the philosophy itself.

Reason was the royal rule of the soul for Plato, but Plato paid due notice to honour-seeking, spiritdeness, passion, eros, etc. and to the people who were driven by those things at the expense of reason. Who were those people? At the level of archetype, it's Achilles. At the level of civil society, they were Gorgias, Thrasymachus, Callicles, Alcibiades, etc. - the wealthy, driven, successful, high-achievers of Athens; the men whose passion and ambition drove them to lead armies, to make speeches, to satisfy their appetites to the full extent of their skill. Men who would not be bound by the needs of lesser Athenians. Men to whom justice is the advantage of the stronger. John Galt, in other words, and all men like him who are driven, not by reason, but by ambition, honour, and eros. Men who Plato wanted to contain, to manage, and to orient towards civic virtue.

In opposing the philosophy of the Athenian Galts, Plato, through Socrates, stated their arguments in the strongest form he could and then made his case against them. This is showing your work in philosophy. What does Rand do? Simply assert with clumsy and juvenile prose that Achilles, not Socrates, was the rational one. She doesn't do philosophy. She totemizes reason in an absurd and contradictory caricature.
Click to expand...

Yes, Galt is a peculiar case. But take someone like Howard Roark, who in many ways resembles a Socrates-lite.

If you want to relate her to Greek philosophy though, I think Aristotle is a much a better fit. You have virtues of courage, magnificence, and magnanimity; also addresses ambition and pride as well. Not that there is a 1-to-1 overlap, but they still overlap in many ways. But where Aristotle & Rand depart greatly is when it comes to generosity, temperance, friendliness. Without these, one's soul is not going to be in conformity with virtue.

Kant also priveleged reason, but he, like Plato and unlike Rand, showed his work and made his arguments. Without getting into the details, he argued for a categorical imperative that applied to humanity, where each person was an end rather than a mere means. This imposes a duty on everyone to treat everyone else as ends in themselves. It is a communitarian duty. What does Rand do with this? Totemize the categorical imperative into a duty of the individual to himself over the community, without even making an attempt to address, much less refute Kant. Not philosophy.
Click to expand...

I think Kant would be quite offended that you characterized the categorical imperative as communitarian.

But I agree wrt to Kant & Rand.

And, of course, Nietzsche elevated the individual will over the herd. He too wanted to re-inject Achilles into fully Platonized, Christianized western civilization. But to get into the ways in which Rand totemizes and trivializes Nietzsche would take far longer than I have the patience for here. I've already thought about Ayn Rand too much today. Same goes for her treatment of Enlightenment rationalists like Locke and Adam Smith.
Click to expand...

I agree.

Rand was not a philosopher. She was an intellectually impoverished, second-rate novelist. Not because she took the ideas of philosophers and tried to re-cast them in the form that she preferred, but because she did so by assertion and without showing her work, and without justifying the illogic and absurdity of her conclusions. She was a sophist.
Click to expand...

So it may be (I agree). But what she is is irrelevant.

Monkey Ghost said:
I've been reading Ayn Rand: Boner Buster and I must say the photo spreads are intensely softening.
Click to expand...

I would rather lock lips with Socrates, myself. He would make a better looking woman than Rand did.
 
You can't be both a good skeptic and a good believer of Rand's pop-psychology BS.

Quite simply, Objectivism as described by Rand is as much a matter of faith, ideology and naive oversimplification as any religion.

Rand's pap has many, many fatal flaws to it, but in summary to quote Gore Vidal:
This odd little woman is attempting to give a moral sanction to greed and self interest, and to pull it off she must at times indulge in purest Orwellian newspeak of the “freedom is slavery” sort. What interests me most about her is not the absurdity of her “philosophy,” but the size of her audience .... She has a great attraction for simple people who are puzzled by organized society, who object to paying taxes, who dislike the “welfare” state, who feel guilt at the thought of the suffering of others but who would like to harden their hearts. For them, she has an enticing prescription: altruism is the root of all evil, self-interest is the only good, and if you’re dumb or incompetent that’s your lookout.
Click to expand...


Every Randian I've ever come across starts their argument by spewing the same old tired axioms as "self-evident Truth". Good luck proving the existence of a natural right to property is all I can say.
 
Last edited:
barrymore said:
Uh, no--try again. I was not arguing the merits of her philosophy. I was pointing out that people tend to agree with many tenets of objectivism in the abstract, yet when they are associated with Rand people vehemently argue against them and usually resort to criticizing her writing style.

I could care less about defending Rand herself or her voluminous novels, but any writer above a minimum quality deserves a fair and rational discussion concerning their ideas irrespective of the way they are presented. After all, I could call Critique of Pure Reason **** and leave it at that.



Of course. What kind of argument is "it's worthless"? Whoop-de-do. We all hold ourselves to a higher standard here to at least lay out a coherent argument. Do you agree?



Well said, and I agree. Someone said on this thread or another one that it is a philosophy for the management class, which I agree with as well. Way too focused on commercial success and industrial-age definitions of productivity.



I agree that it is idealistic to think that people will help each other out of the goodness of their hearts, but IMO, no ethical framework has resolved this. It is not self-evident to me that people should be forced to be magnanimous to others, if that is what you are getting at.



Do not agree. Anarchy is the default state of nature so any modifications to that must essentially be justified by some kind of ethical framework. Thus, any ethical framework will always have rich language concerning the individual since that is the building block. All frameworks that lead to communism will still have strong flavors of individuality, but not other way around. It is asymmetric, and that is why they are not the same. I am interested in hearing your thoughts if you disagree with this analysis.

But I do agree that both sides can be over idealistic, but that can be said for any party really.
Click to expand...

I think you're actually agreeing with me there.

I was saying that there should be absolutely no expectation that people will hand stuff out to others for free. That if there is no system of taxation then people who are rich and in good jobs will give those who are out of work whatever they need to get them back on track, such as charity for healthcare, or money for a place to live.

This idea, that we're all good people inside and isn't everyone wonderful without this evil gubmint taxing us to me seems exactly the same as the central idea of Communism. That is that if we free ourselves, then we will all contribute to a central pool of our own free will, and only take what we need. I think both ideas are inane.

Now, Senex.
Senex said:
Ayn Rand might be a bit deeper thinker than you give her credit for. Just look at your post. Five paragraphs and every one starts with "I." "I,I,I,I," give us a break. (I think I missed one).

The world doesn't turn because because you woke up this morning --you commie. You are on the dole aren't you?
Click to expand...

I can't tell if you're trolling, drunk, or being serious here, but if you're actually being serious, then you're an idiot. I was asked for my opinion on Ayn Rand so I gave my opinion.
 
barrymore said:
...
So, all in all, people who want to peg Greenspan as an objectivist like to point to derivative deregulation, but if you look at the pudding, there is more than enough proof that he meddled in the economy much more than a true laissez-faire proponent would and should.
Click to expand...
So to be clear here, are you claiming Rand's idea of total absolute laissez faire really would work if only all the real interference in the markets stopped? That's just not supported by the historical evidence. It's a fantasy.
 
cj.23 said:
I've been reading about Objectivism today. Poor old Rand seems to get a lot of slagging off, and I can't really see why. The few Rand adherents i have met strike me as intelligent, decent folks with a useful perspective. In fact I have a lot of time for objectivity. Does RandFan stil lost here? He is a thoroughly sensible and very intelligent kind of guy, with a coherent philosophical position as far as I can tell? Anyway time to read the thread... but I must say the vehement abuse hurled at Rand may one day force me to actually read her properly, just to understand!

cj x
Click to expand...
She is a fascinating phenomena. And much of the criticism is indeed critical of positions she didn't really hold.

Intelligent and very rational, yes. But she was also very narcissistic and wrong about many of her beliefs about humankind. For example she believed if individuals failed they must be inferior. But that contradicted her belief that if governments interfered with your success or failure, that wasn't reflective of the individual's actual ability. It's hard to have both of those things be true in the real world.
 
Objectivism is a rational philosophy

As a professional philosopher who's been an Objectivist for 48 years, I suggest we talk about the actual content of the philosophy. So far, the discussion has not considered what Objectivism holds.

Which tenets of Objectivism do antagonists want to oppose:

1. Existence exists, reality is real. There is no supernatural realm.

2. A thing is what it is; A is A. The law of causality is the law of identity applied to action: a thing can only do that which its identity gives it the potential to do.

3. Man is conscious. The primary cognitive contact with reality is via sensory perception. Reason is the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by the senses. The first and basic act of reason is concept-formation. A "concept" is "a mental integration of two or more units possessing the same distinguishing characteristic(s) with their particular measurements omitted." (Rand, Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, p. 13.)

4. The use of reason is volitional. The senses function automatically, but the process of concept-formation and thought is a matter of choice. The choice to think or not to think is man's basic free will.

5. Reason is man's only means of gaining conceptual knowledge and his only proper guide to action. Logic, "the art of non-contradictory identification," is the method of reasoning. Objectivity is the self-conscious, deliberate employment of logic.

6. The basis of values is the fact that living organisms have to act in order to survive. "It is only the concept of 'Life' that makes the concept of 'Value' possible." (Rand, Atlas Shrugged, p. 1013) One's life is one's ultimate value. Man's life qua man is the standard of moral evaluation. Rationality is man's basic virtue.

Those basics should be enough for now. You can find passages from Rand's writings on 400 topics in my book The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z. It can be searched for free online (Google aynrandlexicon).
 
OK, I'll bite. The problem with reason is, garbage in garbage out. Reason relies on accurate perception of the reality you speak of. One of Rand's problems, IMO, is her perception of reality was distorted by her experience in Russia.
 
HBinswanger said:
As a professional philosopher who's been an Objectivist for 48 years, I suggest we talk about the actual content of the philosophy. So far, the discussion has not considered what Objectivism holds.

Which tenets of Objectivism do antagonists want to oppose:

1. Existence exists, reality is real. There is no supernatural realm.

2. A thing is what it is; A is A. The law of causality is the law of identity applied to action: a thing can only do that which its identity gives it the potential to do.

3. Man is conscious. The primary cognitive contact with reality is via sensory perception. Reason is the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by the senses. The first and basic act of reason is concept-formation. A "concept" is "a mental integration of two or more units possessing the same distinguishing characteristic(s) with their particular measurements omitted." (Rand, Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, p. 13.)

4. The use of reason is volitional. The senses function automatically, but the process of concept-formation and thought is a matter of choice. The choice to think or not to think is man's basic free will.

5. Reason is man's only means of gaining conceptual knowledge and his only proper guide to action. Logic, "the art of non-contradictory identification," is the method of reasoning. Objectivity is the self-conscious, deliberate employment of logic.

6. The basis of values is the fact that living organisms have to act in order to survive. "It is only the concept of 'Life' that makes the concept of 'Value' possible." (Rand, Atlas Shrugged, p. 1013) One's life is one's ultimate value. Man's life qua man is the standard of moral evaluation. Rationality is man's basic virtue.

Those basics should be enough for now. You can find passages from Rand's writings on 400 topics in my book The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z. It can be searched for free online (Google aynrandlexicon).
Click to expand...

I touched on many of these points in my post, particularly Rand's bizarre deification of "reason". Frankly, that single post, incomplete though it is, is nearly all the effort that I personally am willing to expend discussing the content of Rand's musings. Best of luck in your professional career.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
OK, I'll bite. The problem with reason is, garbage in garbage out. Reason relies on accurate perception of the reality you speak of. One of Rand's problems, IMO, is her perception of reality was distorted by her experience in Russia.
Click to expand...

The Ad Hominem fallacy is committed here. The topic is not the person but the ideas. (As one who knew Ayn Rand well, I also disagree with that claim about her, but that's not the point.)

On the ideas: reason relies on sensory perception, and the accurate use of logic. Sensory perception cannot be inaccurate or in error (this Objectivist/Aristotelian tenet I defend at length in my forthcoming book How We Know). One can mess up with the conceptual processing of things--as in, uh, committing an Ad Hominem or equivocating on "perception"--because how and whether one reasons is up to one's choice. Error exists where things are not physiologically determined, which is at the conceptual level.
 
Replies to replies

"Rand's bizarre deification of 'reason' . . ." I don't find anything bizarre about holding that reason is what makes us human, or that reason must never be sacrificed to feelings.

"Deification" suggests religion, and reason is the very opposite of religion. So this is the fallacy Ayn Rand identified as "the stolen concept"--using a concept (here "deification") while denying one or more prior concepts (here "reason") on which the first concept depends. In other words, this is the same stolen concept as in saying: "The acceptance of reason is an act of faith."


"Rand's musings . . ." She rarely mused. And never in print. The writing of Atlas Shrugged took her 12 years. She estimated that she re-wrote each page an average of 5 times (judging by the number of reams of paper she used in drafting it, compared to the number of final draft pages). Her non-fiction is the clearest, most disciplined writing in philosophy you will ever read. For one thing, she defines all the crucial terms of the discussion. She defined over 100 terms. Not bad for a muser.

I don't want to rest on mere assertion. Here is the beginning of the Preface to her book on epistemology:

-------------------------
The issue of concepts (known as "the problem of universals") is philosophy's central issue. Since man's knowledge is gained and held in conceptual form, the validity of man's knowledge depends on the validity of concepts. But concepts are abstractions or universals, and everything that man perceives is particular, concrete. What is the relationship between abstractions and concretes? To what precisely do concepts refer in reality? Do they refer to something real, something that exist--or are they merely inventions of man's mind, arbitrary constructs or loose approximations that cannot claim to represent knowledge?

"All knowledge is in terms of concepts. If these concepts correspond to something that is to be found in reality they are real and man's knowledge has a foundation in fact; if they do not correspond to anything in reality they are not real and man's knowledge is of mere figments of his own imagination." (Edward C. Moore, American Pragmatism: Peirce, James & Dewey, New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 27.)

To exemplify the issue as it is usually presented: When we refer to three persons as "men," what do we designate by that term? The three persons are three individuals who differ in every particular respect and may not possess a single identica characteristic (not even their fingerprints). If you list all their particular characteristics, you will not find one representing "manness." Where is the "manness" in men? What, in reality, corresponds to the concept "man" in our mind?
-------------------------------

Pretty clear, huh? Not the kind of writing you'd be led to expect from some of the attacks on her.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom