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Although unpopular with many people, Ayn Rand approached philosophy in some ways as you are proposing. She strove to discover general principles that, once gra

by JeffL 19y ago

Although unpopular with many people, Ayn Rand approached philosophy in some ways as you are proposing. She strove to discover general principles that, once grasped, change the way one acts. Personally, reading and understanding her philosophy has changed my life and the decisions I make a great deal. For anyone interested, I have a site http://www.ImportanceOfPhilosophy.com http://www.ImportanceOfPhilosophy.com that explains why I think philosophy is so important and which is mainly based on Ayn Rand's philosophy.

byrneseyeview 19y ago
One of the ways I (and others) knock Ayn is that she didn't have an effect on later developments in philosophy. But she did have an effect on people's lives. By pg's definition, is she more relevant -- or is she reheated Nietzsche with some Stirner stirred in?
- neilc 19y ago
  IMHO Rand is vastly different from Nietzsche. There is obviously some degree of influence, but Nietzsche is subjective, anti-systematic and anti-rational, while Rand is almost the canonical example of a philosophy that attempts to be objective, systematic and rational. As for Rand's limited influence on subsequent development in philosophy, that's an interesting point. Why is this the case? Even if you disagree with Rand's philosophy, I think it's pretty outrageous that her work isn't even mentioned in more university philosophy programs. There are only a few other philosophers whose work provides as complete a system for understanding reality, the nature of knowledge, and the nature of ethics (I'd include Aristotle, Plato, and Hegel as others that are similarly complete, but there aren't too many after that). So why is Rand's work not taught more often? I'd say that is mostly the result of the biases and predilections of the typical university philosophy department.
  - axiom 19y ago
    This is changing very quickly these days. Rand is mentioned in most courses on contemporary philosophy. Her ethics is usually called "enlightened self-interest" or "rational egoism." There are now quite a number of Ayn Rand philosophy chairs at various high profile universites in the country. It's funny, but one of the reasons Rand is coming into universities these days is the attitude that no theory is any better than any other i.e, subjectivism. The very thing that Rand spent so much time attacking! (I got this from talking to the guys who run the Ayn Rand Institute, which is largley responsible for these developments.) Edit: Regarding Nietzsche, you are 100% corrent. For what it's worth Rand was adamant that her ethics was nothing like Nietzsche. Here's the most positive thing she had to say about him: "as a poet, he projects at times (not consistently)a magnificent feeling for man's greatness, expressed in emotional, not intellectual terms."
    - kaufmajm 19y ago
      Re: Rand's ethics being nothing like Nietzsche's... When you really dig into Rand, her ethics are essentially a modernized version of Aristotle's virtue ethics. Most of her ethical theory revolved around core values (Reason, Purpose, Self-Esteem) and virtues that supported these values (Pride, Rationality, Integrity, Productiveness, Independence, and Justice). Many argue she left out a few important virtues like benevolence, but overall it's a pretty good and useful list. She didn't necessarily agree with Aristotle's "Doctrine of the Mean" (virtue is the mean between two extremes), but otherwise her ethics are very Aristotelian.
  - gwenhwyfaer 19y ago
    No, it's for the same reason that intelligent design isn't taught in biology classes, or that the timecube theory isn't taught in physics classes, or that homeopathy isn't taught in med school. Rand's output was pseudophilosophy.
    - neilc 19y ago
      On what grounds would you call Rand's work "pseudophilosophy", rather than philosophy proper? Just because you don't like something does not mean it is automatically disqualified from the class of philosophies. I think that to qualify as a philosophy, something must be a system of thought that proposes a notion of metaphysics, epistemology, and a system of ethics. Rand's "output" obviously qualifies, whether you happen to agree with it or not. Intelligent design and time cube theory ought not to be taught because they can be objectively verified as false. Such a test plainly does not apply to philosophy -- and even if it did, it would disqualify plenty of philosophers who are taught, such as the pre-Socratic philosopher Thales.
      - gwenhwyfaer 19y ago
        > On what grounds would you call Rand's work "pseudophilosophy", rather than philosophy proper? Well, for a start, there was the fact that she reviewed, and dismissed on "philosophical" grounds, a book of Immanuel Kant's after she read the back cover. Sure, that's an example, but by no means an atypical one. She dismissed nearly everything after Aristotle, usually on superficial grounds. Such wholesale dismissal of the established field, such grandiosity of claims (especially in the face of such shallow thinking) has direct parallels with pseudoscience. > I would personally say that to qualify as a philosophy, something must be a system of thought that proposes a notion of metaphysics, epistemology, and a system of ethics. Rand's "output" obviously qualifies ...for a definition of "philosophy" you have pretty much quoted verbatim from her work, but without admitting that or even acknowledging the existence of alternative perspectives? You do see the problem with that, don't you...? > Intelligent design and time cube theory ought not to be taught because they can be objectively verified as false. No. They can't. That's the whole point of pseudoscience - if their claims were verifiable but wrong, it would just be forgotten. But pseudoscientists make unverifiable claims precisely in order to claim that because their claims have not been disproven, they should be given parity. As for teaching Thales, how does one teach that Socrates was an advance if one does not teach what he was advancing from? Similarly, the Rutherford model of the atom is still mentioned in science classes - by your logic it should be forgotten as pseudoscience, but it wasn't. One cannot teach science without teaching that models are superseded by better models as they are created - that is the very nature of the scientific process. And the reason science and philosophy were commingled until a couple of centuries ago is that it's at the heart of the philosophical process too. One rejects models because one can demonstrate that an alternative model better fits the observable reality; one doesn't superficially reject them without bothering to understand them first because one finds their implications in disagreement with the conclusions one is seeking to prove!
  - brennen 19y ago
    > while Rand is almost the canonical example of a philosophy that attempts to be objective, systematic and rational. I tend to think of Rand's work as the canonical example of a philosophy that is defined primarily by its _claims of_ being objective, systematic, and rational.
- xentek 19y ago
  > But she did have an effect on people's lives. But isn't that the point? Its the only reason I have an interest in philosophy. -- > didn't have an effect on later developments in philosophy And in a sense, Paul was arguing against that in this essay. When you think about it, it was exactly this effect that has lead Philosophy to remain so stagnant for so many years.
uuilly 19y ago
I agree with you. Ayn Rand basically says: -People are self interested. -This is not a bad thing. I think those are pretty good axioms to build upon. I don't think Rand came up with a grand unified theory of human behavior but she started from the right place... As opposed to our Greek ancestors...
- geebee 19y ago
  yes, but what is "self?" what is "interested?" How does the meaning change when you put "self interested" together as a phrase? As Paul mentioned in his essay, you're already bumping into what words mean. I can tell you what an integer is, what a square root is, and what a ratio is, and as a result, I can (by looking it up in a book and typing in the text, heh heh) prove that the square root of 2 can't be expressed as the ratio of two integers. But can we do the same thing with the phrase "self interested"? Without pushing the meaning of words out to their breaking point?
  - forgotmylastone 19y ago
    >I can tell you what an integer is, what a square root is, and what a ratio is, and as a result, I can (by looking it up in a book and typing in the text, heh heh) prove that the square root of 2 can't be expressed as the ratio of two integers. Not without words you can't.
    - geebee 19y ago
      sure, but these words have precise definitions. Paul alluded to this when he wrote "in fact, it would not be a bad definition of math to call it the study of terms that have precise meanings". "Ratio", "Square Root", and "Integer" have precise definitions, whereas "self interest" is imprecise.
      - euccastro 19y ago
        Define 'precise'. :P http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del's_incompleteness_theorem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del's_incompleteness_the...

by JeffL 19y ago

byrneseyeview 19y ago

One of the ways I (and others) knock Ayn is that she didn't have an effect on later developments in philosophy. But she did have an effect on people's lives. By pg's definition, is she more relevant -- or is she reheated Nietzsche with some Stirner stirred in?

neilc 19y ago
IMHO Rand is vastly different from Nietzsche. There is obviously some degree of influence, but Nietzsche is subjective, anti-systematic and anti-rational, while Rand is almost the canonical example of a philosophy that attempts to be objective, systematic and rational. As for Rand's limited influence on subsequent development in philosophy, that's an interesting point. Why is this the case? Even if you disagree with Rand's philosophy, I think it's pretty outrageous that her work isn't even mentioned in more university philosophy programs. There are only a few other philosophers whose work provides as complete a system for understanding reality, the nature of knowledge, and the nature of ethics (I'd include Aristotle, Plato, and Hegel as others that are similarly complete, but there aren't too many after that). So why is Rand's work not taught more often? I'd say that is mostly the result of the biases and predilections of the typical university philosophy department.
- axiom 19y ago
  This is changing very quickly these days. Rand is mentioned in most courses on contemporary philosophy. Her ethics is usually called "enlightened self-interest" or "rational egoism." There are now quite a number of Ayn Rand philosophy chairs at various high profile universites in the country. It's funny, but one of the reasons Rand is coming into universities these days is the attitude that no theory is any better than any other i.e, subjectivism. The very thing that Rand spent so much time attacking! (I got this from talking to the guys who run the Ayn Rand Institute, which is largley responsible for these developments.) Edit: Regarding Nietzsche, you are 100% corrent. For what it's worth Rand was adamant that her ethics was nothing like Nietzsche. Here's the most positive thing she had to say about him: "as a poet, he projects at times (not consistently)a magnificent feeling for man's greatness, expressed in emotional, not intellectual terms."
  - kaufmajm 19y ago
    Re: Rand's ethics being nothing like Nietzsche's... When you really dig into Rand, her ethics are essentially a modernized version of Aristotle's virtue ethics. Most of her ethical theory revolved around core values (Reason, Purpose, Self-Esteem) and virtues that supported these values (Pride, Rationality, Integrity, Productiveness, Independence, and Justice). Many argue she left out a few important virtues like benevolence, but overall it's a pretty good and useful list. She didn't necessarily agree with Aristotle's "Doctrine of the Mean" (virtue is the mean between two extremes), but otherwise her ethics are very Aristotelian.
- gwenhwyfaer 19y ago
  No, it's for the same reason that intelligent design isn't taught in biology classes, or that the timecube theory isn't taught in physics classes, or that homeopathy isn't taught in med school. Rand's output was pseudophilosophy.
  - neilc 19y ago
    On what grounds would you call Rand's work "pseudophilosophy", rather than philosophy proper? Just because you don't like something does not mean it is automatically disqualified from the class of philosophies. I think that to qualify as a philosophy, something must be a system of thought that proposes a notion of metaphysics, epistemology, and a system of ethics. Rand's "output" obviously qualifies, whether you happen to agree with it or not. Intelligent design and time cube theory ought not to be taught because they can be objectively verified as false. Such a test plainly does not apply to philosophy -- and even if it did, it would disqualify plenty of philosophers who are taught, such as the pre-Socratic philosopher Thales.
    - gwenhwyfaer 19y ago
      > On what grounds would you call Rand's work "pseudophilosophy", rather than philosophy proper? Well, for a start, there was the fact that she reviewed, and dismissed on "philosophical" grounds, a book of Immanuel Kant's after she read the back cover. Sure, that's an example, but by no means an atypical one. She dismissed nearly everything after Aristotle, usually on superficial grounds. Such wholesale dismissal of the established field, such grandiosity of claims (especially in the face of such shallow thinking) has direct parallels with pseudoscience. > I would personally say that to qualify as a philosophy, something must be a system of thought that proposes a notion of metaphysics, epistemology, and a system of ethics. Rand's "output" obviously qualifies ...for a definition of "philosophy" you have pretty much quoted verbatim from her work, but without admitting that or even acknowledging the existence of alternative perspectives? You do see the problem with that, don't you...? > Intelligent design and time cube theory ought not to be taught because they can be objectively verified as false. No. They can't. That's the whole point of pseudoscience - if their claims were verifiable but wrong, it would just be forgotten. But pseudoscientists make unverifiable claims precisely in order to claim that because their claims have not been disproven, they should be given parity. As for teaching Thales, how does one teach that Socrates was an advance if one does not teach what he was advancing from? Similarly, the Rutherford model of the atom is still mentioned in science classes - by your logic it should be forgotten as pseudoscience, but it wasn't. One cannot teach science without teaching that models are superseded by better models as they are created - that is the very nature of the scientific process. And the reason science and philosophy were commingled until a couple of centuries ago is that it's at the heart of the philosophical process too. One rejects models because one can demonstrate that an alternative model better fits the observable reality; one doesn't superficially reject them without bothering to understand them first because one finds their implications in disagreement with the conclusions one is seeking to prove!
- brennen 19y ago
  > while Rand is almost the canonical example of a philosophy that attempts to be objective, systematic and rational. I tend to think of Rand's work as the canonical example of a philosophy that is defined primarily by its _claims of_ being objective, systematic, and rational.
xentek 19y ago
> But she did have an effect on people's lives. But isn't that the point? Its the only reason I have an interest in philosophy. -- > didn't have an effect on later developments in philosophy And in a sense, Paul was arguing against that in this essay. When you think about it, it was exactly this effect that has lead Philosophy to remain so stagnant for so many years.

uuilly 19y ago

I agree with you. Ayn Rand basically says: -People are self interested. -This is not a bad thing. I think those are pretty good axioms to build upon. I don't think Rand came up with a grand unified theory of human behavior but she started from the right place... As opposed to our Greek ancestors...

geebee 19y ago
yes, but what is "self?" what is "interested?" How does the meaning change when you put "self interested" together as a phrase? As Paul mentioned in his essay, you're already bumping into what words mean. I can tell you what an integer is, what a square root is, and what a ratio is, and as a result, I can (by looking it up in a book and typing in the text, heh heh) prove that the square root of 2 can't be expressed as the ratio of two integers. But can we do the same thing with the phrase "self interested"? Without pushing the meaning of words out to their breaking point?
- forgotmylastone 19y ago
  >I can tell you what an integer is, what a square root is, and what a ratio is, and as a result, I can (by looking it up in a book and typing in the text, heh heh) prove that the square root of 2 can't be expressed as the ratio of two integers. Not without words you can't.
  - geebee 19y ago
    sure, but these words have precise definitions. Paul alluded to this when he wrote "in fact, it would not be a bad definition of math to call it the study of terms that have precise meanings". "Ratio", "Square Root", and "Integer" have precise definitions, whereas "self interest" is imprecise.
    - euccastro 19y ago
      Define 'precise'. :P http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del's_incompleteness_theorem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del's_incompleteness_the...