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Ayn Rand ?

skeptic griggsy

Thinker
skeptic griggsy
Joined
Oct 1, 2006
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213
I find that one can take parts of Ayn Rands philosophy and leave other parts alone; it is not all or nothing- She and Nathaniel Branden led me to atheism and more appreciation of rationalism- using reason than whims or faith. As a liberal , I disagree with her economics. I hope she inspires more to be rational.But as Michael Shermer and some at Wipedia show she wanted others to agree with her on all matters. Have her writings helped others here to come to be rationalists and atheists ?There are the Peikoff- her choice - and the Kelly schools of thought. Might one add to all this?
 
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lamberthml@comcast. said:
Have her writings helped others here to come to be rationalists and atheists?
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I was exposed to the writings of Carl Sagan and Issac Asimov before ever reading Ayn Rand. Because of that I personally didn't find her writings about rationality to be all that eye opening. As for her economic views I've never been convinced that they have any merit, let alone that they are the only rational choice. The more I learned about her the less I cared for her. Too many contradictions and hypocrisies.

In Judgement Day Nathaniel Branden wrote:

There were implicit premises in our world to which everyone in our circle subscribed, and which we transmitted to our students at NBI.

Ayn Rand is the greatest human being who ever lived.

Atlas Shrugged is the greatest human achievement in the history of the world.

Ayn Rand, by virtue of her philosophical genius, is the supreme arbiter in any issue pertaining to what is rational, moral, or appropriate to man's life on
Earth.

Once one is acquainted with Ayn Rand and/or her work, the measure of one's virtue is intrinsically tied to the position one takes on her and/or it.

No one can be a good Objectivist who does not admire what Ayn Rand admires and condemn what Ayn Rand condemns.

No one can be a fully consistent individualist who disagrees with Ayn Rand on any fundamental issue.

Since Ayn Rand has designated Nathaniel Branden as her "intellectual heir" and has repeatedly proclaimed him to be an ideal exponent of her philosophy, he is to be accorded only marginally less reverence than Ayn Rand herself.

But it is best not to say these things explicitly (excepting, perhaps, the first two items). One must always maintain that one arrives at one's beliefs solely by reason. (1989,pp.255-256)
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Steven
 
I read Anthem first, when I was in high school, and was pretty impressed by the anti-totalitarian theme. Then I read one (can't remember the title) about a Russian girl who ended up being shot to death by border guards trying to escape the Soviet Union over the border into Finland, which I also liked pretty well.

I tried Atlas Shrugged several times but always found it too boring.
 
I read The Fountainhead many years ago but saw nothing in it to start a cult about.
 
Point 1 - this probably belongs in either Politics or Philosophy. The "cult" aspect of AR is probably minor. (New poster forgiven!)

Point 2 - If the various Rand supporters/believers on these boards find this, thread, this will go to a minimum of 10 pages.

As to the OP, no.... I had other sources as the origins of my rationalism and skepticism. Any philosophy-light is going to have elements you can agree with and disagree with. There are liberal and conservative atheists, as the membership on this forum would surely prove. The problem you may be expressing is that their are devotees of Rand who insist on what Foster Zygote lists - the NBI protocol. Rand herself was rather intransigent on people agreeing with her on all subjects, also.

@Foster Zygote - it's important to emphasize that Branden's list is from his biography, and thus hindsight. I've seen people post this as the "Rules" or "Charter" of the NBI.
I concur with his later estimation of the mindset of the organization, so file this under "clarification for sake of accuracy".
 
Foster Zygote said:
I was exposed to the writings of Carl Sagan and Issac Asimov before ever reading Ayn Rand. Because of that I personally didn't find her writings about rationality to be all that eye opening. As for her economic views I've never been convinced that they have any merit, let alone that they are the only rational choice. The more I learned about her the less I cared for her. Too many contradictions and hypocrisies.

In Judgement Day Nathaniel Branden wrote:



Steven
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Could you elaborate on what you see as contractions and hypocrisies in her teachings?
 
Start here (John Galt's radio address).
If you can parse "existence exists" in such a way that the rest of what she's laying out is entailed by it, please do so.

http://www.importanceofphilosophy.com/Metaphysics_ExistenceExists.html

Start with this

Existence exists.
To exist, an existent (an entity that exists) must have a particular identity.

(Conclusion - Existence is a thing that exists - huh?).

And she takes guys like Heidegger and Sartre to task for reducing philosophy and metaphysics to verbal games.
 
Kullervo said:
Ayn Rand: philosophy = Claus Larsen: skepticism
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Oh I get it. Anything you disagree with (or don't understand) is made fun of? Please define philosophy as you see it. Then we can all make fun of you. That will be too easy.... Instead Tell us why you disagree with this part of her philosophy. Thanks.

"There is a dangerous little catch phrase which advises you to keep an "open mind." This is a very ambiguous term. That term is an anti-concept: it is usually taken to mean an objective, unbiased approach to ideas, but it is used as a call for perpetual skeptisism, for holding up no firm convictions and granting plausability to anything. What objectivity and the study of philosophy require is not an "open mind" but an active mind - a mind able and eagerly willing to examine ideas, but to examine them critically. An acitve mind does not grant equal status to truth and falsehood: it does not remain floating forever in a stagnant vacuum of nuetrality and uncertainty: by assuming the responsibility of judgement, it reaches firm convictions and holds to them. Since it is able to prove its convictions, an active mind achieves an unassailable certainty in confrontations with assailants - a certainty untainted by spots of blind faith, approximation, and fear.

From Philosophy: Who Needs It Ayn Rand

I'd say that partial quote taken from PWNI is quite appropriate for JREF. It is also a part of her philosophy.
I am not surprised that liberals disagree with people being resonsible for their own actions. Where would all the government programs be without all of those hands stuck out waiting for their "free" money and services?
 
Deathshead said:
Oh I get it. Anything you disagree with (or don't understand) is made fun of? Please define philosophy as you see it. Then we can all make fun of you. That will be too easy.... Instead Tell us why you disagree with this part of her philosophy. Thanks.

"There is a dangerous little catch phrase which advises you to keep an "open mind." This is a very ambiguous term. That term is an anti-concept: it is usually taken to mean an objective, unbiased approach to ideas, but it is used as a call for perpetual skeptisism, for holding up no firm convictions and granting plausability to anything. What objectivity and the study of philosophy require is not an "open mind" but an active mind - a mind able and eagerly willing to examine ideas, but to examine them critically. An acitve mind does not grant equal status to truth and falsehood: it does not remain floating forever in a stagnant vacuum of nuetrality and uncertainty: by assuming the responsibility of judgement, it reaches firm convictions and holds to them. Since it is able to prove its convictions, an active mind achieves an unassailable certainty in confrontations with assailants - a certainty untainted by spots of blind faith, approximation, and fear.

From Philosophy: Who Needs It Ayn Rand

I'd say that partial quote taken from PWNI is quite appropriate for JREF. It is also a part of her philosophy.
I am not surprised that liberals disagree with people being resonsible for their own actions. Where would all the government programs be without all of those hands stuck out waiting for their "free" money and services?
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Just to point out one little problem with Ayn (not even getting into her personal life): she has done the little trick of several of our "philosopher" posters (look up light for an example) : she sets up a straw definition of skeptical mind and co-opts the real meaning of skeptical to define her term "active mind" . Nothing wrong with that since philosophy is fun mental exercise but ultimately without real meaning, but it is intellectually pointless.....Oh no, my interest in this is fadin..................
 
Deathshead said:
"There is a dangerous little catch phrase which advises you to keep an "open mind." This is a very ambiguous term. That term is an anti-concept: it is usually taken to mean an objective, unbiased approach to ideas, but it is used as a call for perpetual skeptisism, for holding up no firm convictions and granting plausability to anything. What objectivity and the study of philosophy require is not an "open mind" but an active mind - a mind able and eagerly willing to examine ideas, but to examine them critically. An acitve mind does not grant equal status to truth and falsehood: it does not remain floating forever in a stagnant vacuum of nuetrality and uncertainty: by assuming the responsibility of judgement, it reaches firm convictions and holds to them. Since it is able to prove its convictions, an active mind achieves an unassailable certainty in confrontations with assailants - a certainty untainted by spots of blind faith, approximation, and fear.
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Great example. I reject it -- and Rand's pseudo-philosophy utterly.

Because what the paragraph above describes is not "an active mind," but dogmatism.

She talks, for example, about "grant[ing] equal status to truth and falsehood," ignoring the problem that a properly skeptic mind cannot with certainty identify either (except in the most limited of contexts such as tautologies). She supports a mind that "by assuming the responsibility of judgement, [...]reaches firm convictions and holds to them," and "achieves an unassailable certainty in confrontations with assailants" regardless of whether or not those convictions are correct.

In the Randian epistemology, wrong but certain is better than provisionally right.

In particular, she rejects the epistemology of science, since science is "tainted" by "spots of ... approximation," since no empirical fact can ever be free from approximation. She derives from inherently uncertain and approximate observations complete and utter certainty, based solely on the "blind faith" that she decries.
 
Deathshead said:
Oh I get it. Anything you disagree with (or don't understand) is made fun of? Please define philosophy as you see it. Then we can all make fun of you. That will be too easy.... Instead Tell us why you disagree with this part of her philosophy. Thanks.
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Fascinating - you assume that I am making fun of Ayn Rand and Claus Larsen?
Evidences?

Ayn Rand wrote (specific cite not available) that she considered herself a novelist rather than a philosopher. Her only stab at hard philosophy is Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. It is pretty thin.
Her characterizations of academic philosophers bear very little resemblence to their actual positions.
Now, Peikoff actually has some credentials, but he serves more as St. Thomas to Ayn's Jesus, fleshing out semi-formed concepts and putting them into something like traditional form (The Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy for instance).
I read pretty much everything she wrote up through 1975. There's very little there there.
Please trace the logic from "existence exists" to laissez-faire capitalism and show your work.
I can agree with the premisses and conclusion and reject the arguments in between as invalid.
True premises, true conclusion, does not entail valid argument.

That's my big issue with her. She argues by assertion and doesn't show her work.
 
RandFan said:
It's called a tautology.
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A is A is a tautology. It tells us nothing about A. From a tautology only tautologies can be logically inferred.

"Existence exists" is treated as an axiom, from which non-tautological truths are to be derived. I contend that the logic producing such conclusions is mere handwaving and assertion.

I post this only because it was suggested that I have no good reasons for finding Ayn Rand quite lacking in philosophical rigor, a position that I think she is on record as agreeing to. (thus my jocular characterization of the two personalities above)

(but we can discuss whether existence is a thing rather than an abstraction or universal attribute - if it exists it has a strange sort of existence)
 
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Deathshead said:
Tell us why you disagree with this part of her philosophy. Thanks.

"There is a dangerous little catch phrase which advises you to keep an "open mind." This is a very ambiguous term. That term is an anti-concept: it is usually taken to mean an objective, unbiased approach to ideas, but it is used as a call for perpetual skeptisism, for holding up no firm convictions and granting plausability to anything. What objectivity and the study of philosophy require is not an "open mind" but an active mind - a mind able and eagerly willing to examine ideas, but to examine them critically. An acitve mind does not grant equal status to truth and falsehood: it does not remain floating forever in a stagnant vacuum of nuetrality and uncertainty: by assuming the responsibility of judgement, it reaches firm convictions and holds to them. Since it is able to prove its convictions, an active mind achieves an unassailable certainty in confrontations with assailants - a certainty untainted by spots of blind faith, approximation, and fear.

From Philosophy: Who Needs It Ayn Rand

I'd say that partial quote taken from PWNI is quite appropriate for JREF. It is also a part of her philosophy.
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I'd say that the problem with the bolded part, at least, is that it doesn't allow for the possibility of new knowledge, which can cast your "firm convictions" in a new light.

Ancient people observed the sun coming up and going down each day, and came to the conclusion that the sun revolves around the Earth. Later, more accurate observations contradicted this conclusion, but we wouldn't have figured that out if we weren't open to the possibility that our firm convictions were wrong. It's fine to have firm convictions, and actively defend them, so long as you remain open to new data, which would contradict the part about "a certainty untainted by spots of blind faith, approximation, and fear".

Also, she only allows two sorts of informaton: Truth and Falsehoods. In real life, there are a lot of things that are uncertain. Anything dealing with psychology, economics, and quite a bit of medicine and biology, involves statistics, which necessarily involves approximations and uncertainties, and can never be said to apply to every single case.
 
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