71–80 of 241 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have never understood how people can make this claim. It is so dishonest as to be ridiculous.
No. Dishonesty is dismissing any argument with which one disagrees as "dishonest" without actually making a substantive counterargument. If you don't understand how people can make the claim, fine - but please do grasp that all this demonstrates is the paucity of your understanding.
I agree that one test of it is whether it changes the way you do things -- or at least gives you an imperative to do so that you're too weak or cowardly to heed (see Nietzche, Thoreau, Schopenhauer, Seneca).
But I dunno -- the whole math versus the world mentality always strikes me as a symptom of too much craving for certainty. Math never told us anything about the rights of man.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I like how you call Rand's work bullshit but don't provide a single example. In fact it wouldn't surprise me if you haven't read any of her work. Most of her critics haven't. Also, it's interesting that you don't try to reconcile the fact that the Y Combinator is one of the most successful startup incubators ever, and that there is a large presence of Ayn Rand fans on here. Do ya think there might be a connection the…
> In fact it wouldn't surprise me if you haven't read any of her work. Try "all her novels and at least 4 books of essays". In fact, I seem to have read more Rand than many Objectivists. It was a while ago, though, and the books have long since left my possession. Let me guess - your next argument will be "you didn't understand it then". If so, we're done here, for the same reason I don't argue with Christian fundame…
You think you can just dismiss an entire body of thought by throwing out ad hominems?
Look, I know that you're smart enough to know that I'm a pretty smart guy, so comparing me to a "Christian fundamentalist" just makes you look ridiculous. Offer a serious argument to support your claims (as I did to support mine, if you read the above posts) or just don't bother posting.
Edit (response to above "edit", since you didn't feel like writing a new post): This really isn't going anywhere, let's just leave it here. I'm sure you're a top notch programmer, but seriously man it's just not cool to go around name-calling people you disagree with. I replied to your posts with respect, so did everyone else on this site.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 happ…
> 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…
Please provide a reference.
2. You don't like his definition of philsophy.
What definition do you like?
3. You claim pseudophilosophy should not be taught in philosophy classes.
Anyone and everyone agrees with that point. You still leave open the issue of whether Rand's work is in fact pseudophilosophy. Please support your claims.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
IMHO it's hard to argue that any philosopher is more influential than Plato, especially when you consider the clear neo-Platonic influences on Christian theology, and the subsequent influence that that tradition has had on Western civilization.
Influential, yes. Plato was an elitist to the extreme, and his notions of a rigid class hierarchy did shape early feudal civilization in Europe. But most important? Would you want to live in his Republic?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ultimately, Diogenes is more important. I don't see how you can say that. He left no work. All we have to judge him by is a few probably apocryphal stories.
Plato, despite his intellect (or perhaps because of it), turned out to be, as you say yourself, "naive and mistaken". Yet Diogenes was able to see that about Plato then, as a contemporary. And while it's true that he never sat down to write anything himself, his work has endured via written accounts of others (Diogenes was a real person, not a mythical figure).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> In fact it wouldn't surprise me if you haven't read any of her work. Try "all her novels and at least 4 books of essays". In fact, I seem to have read more Rand than many Objectivists. It was a while ago, though, and the books have long since left my possession. Let me guess - your next argument will be "you didn't understand it then". If so, we're done here, for the same reason I don't argue with Christian fundame…
What argument of yours should I respond to? then one where you assert without any evidence that her work is bullshit? You think you can just dismiss an entire body of thought by throwing out ad hominems? Look, I know that you're smart enough to know that I'm a pretty smart guy, so comparing me to a "Christian fundamentalist" just makes you look ridiculous. Offer a serious argument to support your claims (as I did to…
I didn't assert that, I implied that in the course of asserting something else.
> You think you can just dismiss an entire body of thought by throwing out ad hominems?
Yeah, actually I do, if it's a very small body and hasn't done much thinking.
> comparing me to a "Christian fundamentalist"
Again (and this is REALLY getting tedious), I didn't compare you to a Christian fundamentalist, I compared Objectivist arguments that I have heard before (and predicted that you would use, partly in order to ensure that you didn't) with those of Christian fundamentalists.
> I know that you're smart enough to know that I'm a pretty smart guy
Er, no - at the moment that is a conclusion I simply cannot draw. Your thinking displays evidence of being muddled and irrational, with little grasp of logic or ability to distinguish between claims made of the argument and claims made of the arguer.
I have no doubt that you think you're a pretty smart guy, and I bet you didn't have to work too hard at school to achieve results. But I also think that because of this, you tend to interpret criticism as a personal attack, and you are slow to recognise when someone really does have something to teach you, especially when you don't think that person is as bright as you think you are.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Plato, despite his intellect (or perhaps because of it), turned out to be, as you say yourself, "naive and mistaken". Yet Diogenes was able to see that about Plato then, as a contemporary. And while it's true that he never sat down to write anything himself, his work has endured via written accounts of others (Diogenes was a real person, not a mythical figure).
Every reddit commenter is "able to see" that my essays are mistaken. Does that make them smart?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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...
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 a…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Considering that the people on this site are more or less exactly the kind of people with whom Rand surrounded herself, and anyone who fancies themselves at all creative or exceptional is likely to identify with the Roark or Galt characters (who are, nonetheless, only ever described from an external perspective) - and frankly, the more likely to so identify the less their achievements tally with their self-estimation…
I like Roark, but I think Galt is overrated. He doesn't do much. Dagny is more appealing and more similar to Roark -- they both heroically pursue active goals against stiff opposition.
Yeah, I thought there just wasn't enough characterization with Galt, compared to any of the other characters. He just kind of appears towards the end of the novel and you never really understand what is motivating him on an emotional level. Maybe I'm just not remembering it properly, it's been 6 or 7 years since I read Atlas Shrugged.