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With regards to rationality is good I was responding to that not claiming that, please read the thread. In this case it is you that needs to properly read my r

by Tycho 16y ago

With regards to rationality is good I was responding to that not claiming that, please read the thread. In this case it is you that needs to properly read my reply. That's the second time you've misread my post (the first was the [insert Objectivism here] bit). I want philosophy to help guide me through life, yeah. Whereas you want philosophy for, um, what exactly? I feel like there's a lot of empty rhetoric in your responses. First you just keep asserting that individuality and certainty are impossible. You think you've made the case for this by mentioning the words 'context' and 'vacuum' or something. You also try to use the prestige of science (QM, biology, neuroscience) to trash Rand without offering any specific evidence/argument, and try the same thing with the emotional appeal of family. Maybe you do have arguments involving those things but I've yet to hear them. You also keep saying 'universal claims' without really explaining what you mean. Put it like this. Objectivism is only for rational beings, that is beings with the power to reason. Which is fine, because non-rational beings could never understand/use it anyway. She says 'man' in place of 'rational animal' or 'rational being' because on Earth as we know it humans are the only entities that develop rationality. Anyway, if you don't think that usage of the word 'man' is correct, it doesn't really matter - again the point is that anybody reading Objectivism qualifies as a subject. By the way, Rand does discuss epistemology and metaphysics in some detail in her paper 'Introduction To Objectivist Epistemology' if you were interested in reading more about these low-level details of Oism.

ThomPete 16y ago
Well you are asking philosophy to do something that it can't. Guiding you through life is the job of self-help books and religion and objectivism. I don't want philosophy to help guide me through life. I use philosophy to constantly question assumptions in order to push my understanding of the world around me, not dictate what is right or wrong which is how Rand uses it. First you just keep asserting that individuality and certainty are impossible. Well by all means please show me something that is certain. Existence exist just isn't going to do it as existence itself is an open question. What is existence, how can you with certainty say something is the way you experience it. I would be more than happy to be proven wrong. But if it goes like in most cases when I ask objectivist to prove their claim there will be silence. Objectivism is only for rational beings, that is beings with the power to reason. So the ability to reason makes you rational? Surely you can see what is wrong with that statement. A religious person is able to reason, a communist is able to reason. That isn't what Rand was doing. She was reasoning a specific way based on specific premises. The rationale that followed her premises are what makes for objectivism. It is a specific moral claiming how man ought to be. Of course as most first year student's of philosophy will quickly learn is that there aren't any certain premises. Existence isn't a certain premise as you need to describe what existence is. That is the whole point of philosophy. It's not to give you ten commandments to follow.
- Tycho 16y ago
  I too use philosophy to 'push my understanding of the world around me' but for what possible reason should I want to do this except to better inform the decisions I make in my life? All of Objectivism can be extrapolated from 'Existence exists.' That statement implies that 'something' exists (hence law of identity, A is A) and that you are conscious of it (hence consciousness). That gives us the three axiomatic concepts on which Objectivism rests - everyone directly perceives them - and they cannot be denied because any argument against them would inevitably involve/imply existence/identity/consciousness resulting in self-contradiction. In a similar way, the validity of the senses is not up for debate because any attempt to negate this validity would at some point rely upon it. So you need to accept the three irreducible primaries (existence/identity/consciousness) and the validity of the senses - and happily basically everyone does accept those things, and lives accordingly, and would only so much as attempt to deny them during rare philosophical debates. When I said rational beings are defined by their ability to reason, I did not mean such beings are automatically acting rationally. Its a different sense of the word, like a fast car vs a car that is actually going fast. Just a misunderstanding.

by Tycho 16y ago

ThomPete 16y ago

Well you are asking philosophy to do something that it can't. Guiding you through life is the job of self-help books and religion and objectivism. I don't want philosophy to help guide me through life. I use philosophy to constantly question assumptions in order to push my understanding of the world around me, not dictate what is right or wrong which is how Rand uses it. First you just keep asserting that individuality and certainty are impossible. Well by all means please show me something that is certain. Existence exist just isn't going to do it as existence itself is an open question. What is existence, how can you with certainty say something is the way you experience it. I would be more than happy to be proven wrong. But if it goes like in most cases when I ask objectivist to prove their claim there will be silence. Objectivism is only for rational beings, that is beings with the power to reason. So the ability to reason makes you rational? Surely you can see what is wrong with that statement. A religious person is able to reason, a communist is able to reason. That isn't what Rand was doing. She was reasoning a specific way based on specific premises. The rationale that followed her premises are what makes for objectivism. It is a specific moral claiming how man ought to be. Of course as most first year student's of philosophy will quickly learn is that there aren't any certain premises. Existence isn't a certain premise as you need to describe what existence is. That is the whole point of philosophy. It's not to give you ten commandments to follow.

Tycho 16y ago
I too use philosophy to 'push my understanding of the world around me' but for what possible reason should I want to do this except to better inform the decisions I make in my life? All of Objectivism can be extrapolated from 'Existence exists.' That statement implies that 'something' exists (hence law of identity, A is A) and that you are conscious of it (hence consciousness). That gives us the three axiomatic concepts on which Objectivism rests - everyone directly perceives them - and they cannot be denied because any argument against them would inevitably involve/imply existence/identity/consciousness resulting in self-contradiction. In a similar way, the validity of the senses is not up for debate because any attempt to negate this validity would at some point rely upon it. So you need to accept the three irreducible primaries (existence/identity/consciousness) and the validity of the senses - and happily basically everyone does accept those things, and lives accordingly, and would only so much as attempt to deny them during rare philosophical debates. When I said rational beings are defined by their ability to reason, I did not mean such beings are automatically acting rationally. Its a different sense of the word, like a fast car vs a car that is actually going fast. Just a misunderstanding.