To: jennyp
PLEASE tell us exactly what is this "evil" that's "built in" to Objectivism! For a quick refresher on objectivism:
- Objectivism rejects any belief in the supernatural and any claim that individuals or groups create their own reality.
- The first part makes evil's work easier. The second presumes some detached, faceless, abstract objectivism in the universe, independent of context and perception, and effectively treats it as a deity--also evil.
- Reality, the external world, exists independent of mans consciousness, independent of any observers knowledge, beliefs, feelings, desires or fears.
- We are part of reality, and it does not exist independently of any of us. Even at the raw physical level, given that consciousness is (at least) an amalgam of electrochemical processes, we are part of reality, not detached from it. Thus, this tenet of objectivism is false, and in that sense evil.
- "Man's reason is fully competent to know the facts of reality. Reason, the conceptual faculty, is the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by man's senses. Reason is man's only means of acquiring knowledge." Thus Objectivism rejects mysticism (any acceptance of faith or feeling as a means of knowledge), and it rejects skepticism (the claim that certainty or knowledge is impossible).
- First, the world is replete with empirical evidence that man's reason is not fully competent to know the facts of reality. One only has to observe the unecessary chaos and net slowdown caused by frequent lane changers on a busy freeway. It is an objective fact that in many circumstances, if most drivers stay mostly in the same lane, traffic will move faster for everyone. Yet this is often not the case. Man has limited capacity to accurately integrate input from his senses. His rational faculties, while impressive, are still limited and subject to frequent error. Couple this with the objectivist dismissal of faith as a means of knowledge, and you have the ingredients for evil.
I could go on. Ayn Rand was a fine writer, if only a passable philosopher. There are certainly worse philosophies (the Year Zero insanity of Pol Pot's collectivist nightmare comes to mind), but there is plenty of evil in objectivism.
To: captain11
What a strange analysis. (But thanks for posting it.)
Your first point I can't even begin to understand.
Your second point misses the point. Sure we are part of reality, but Peikoff is saying we don't create reality, in the sense that wishing something were true won't make it so. "Nature, to be controlled, must be obeyed." (Or however the saying goes.)
Your third point is a complaint that Man is imperfect. This also misses the point. The point is, the world is knowable in principle. The more facts we know about the world, the more we're able to understand it. More knowledge + valid logical inferences lead to a closer approximation of the Truth - it doesn't lead us away from Truth.
168 posted on
02/16/2003 1:50:02 AM PST by
jennyp
(http://crevo.bestmessageboard.com)
To: captain11
Ayn Rand was a fine writer, if only a passable philosopher. Man have you got that backwards. Her writings were like bad Harlequin romances, obviously influenced by the overly dramatic Hollywood era she immersed herself in.
Her philosophy on the other hand is the clearest and most down-to-earth you will find. From first principles to derived concepts she lays out her reasons step by step with an obvious disgust for the obfuscations and fantasies given by most philosophers.
THAT's where she deserves the most credit. Deliberate clarity. A few philosophers have the same virtue, e.g. Popper, but without the same scope. She belongs to that small band of thinkers who have tried to take the SCIENCE of philosophy back from the bu!!shit artists (like Schopenhauer and Berkley) and mystics (so many new agers and theologians).
As such she lays her ideas wide open for you to identify any fallacies. You may be able do so, but not until you learn her philosophy--which you obviously haven't.
BTW, "objectivism" (with a small "o") bears only the most superficial comparison with her philosophy. "Objectivism" (capitalized) is the term she coined for herself.
218 posted on
02/16/2003 11:37:33 AM PST by
beavus
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