Objectivism

[Milks Empire]

It's not that I can't, but that I simply choose not to--because there's no need.

That's not the way it works here. You make a claim; you back it up. It is not our job to prop up your arguments.

[Kamsaki]

I doubt Rand would accept the blow to her epistemology, but she could have acknowledged that the degradation of free will and empiricism is not particularly harmful to a formulation of rights. Considering we are dealing in metaphysics here, one can effectively divorce our understanding of rights from our understanding of reality. One can argue that there are basically two worlds, one physical and real, the other a superceding conceptual world based in the rules of our understanding.

Basically, we MUST understand ourselves as free actors. It is not possible to fathom the opposite.

It is possible to recognize that one's metaphysical position eliminates the possibility of free will, but then retreat to the conceptual world.

Rights and ethics exist only according understanding of the world, if we are automatons in the real world, you can simply respond "Who cares?"

I might be wrong on this, but I'm fairly sure Rand doesn't propose a dualist metaphysics in all her talk about consciousness. I know that's not your point, but the ontology of this "conceptual world" that would be needed in order to allow for free agency in a superessential determinism is hard to envisage as anything other than causally isolated from the physical (if it is not to be entirely predetermined itself, that is).

I think she's going to have to stick with the Leibniz route and assert a sort of Monadology if she wants to provide a consistent metaphysical story, whereby things and concepts are really of the same sort of object amenable to the old "A is A" declaration of being. At first glance, it would seem as though most of the problems remain in place in this formulation, particularly as regards free will and the empirical acquisition of facts, though I think it's the only way she can effectively go about her take on directly realist epistemology.

(Which, incidentally, is totally destroyable by even the most basic sceptical challenge)

[Vittos Ordination]

Jurgen Habermas

Habermas was heavily influenced by Kant.

More than just about any major philosopher today.'

I generally reference Habermas because I like the idea of communicative discourse and the modern science behind evolutionary behavior.

[Xsyne]

"The Sun rises in the East and sets in the West". This is not an opinion but a subscription to an "Absolute Truth".

An absolute truth that happens to be entirely wrong, given that the Sun does not rise and east and west are merely words with no actual objective existence.

[Neesika]

Very true. All knowledge is founded axiomatically. Rand is not alone in this.

I'd actually like to know of an example where that isn't the case. I can't think of one.

[Neesika]

Reasons that are against the rules.

But I still don't see why people mock you, even if you do sound like a complete douche.

You find that after a while, you just can't help yourself...

The only solution is ignoring him, because he never follows through with his arguments.

[Neesika]

And again, the exact reason why objectivist arguments are routinely mocked. The argument presented is nothing more than "we don't ASSUME things, we KNOW them."

That is not at all what he said.

He is entirely correct that he doesn't assume rights to be natural. They are derived in objectivism from far more basic metaphysical assumptions. Assumptions which, I might add, are not all that different from the assumptions necessary for science.

and this is where we veer off the tracks and into the land of bullshit. *snip*

Holy triple post!

[Gift-of-god]

Very true. All knowledge is founded axiomatically. Rand is not alone in this.

I'd actually like to know of an example where that isn't the case. I can't think of one.

Kinaesthetic knowledge, also known as the knowledge of how to move your body.

Your mind may rely on axioms, but your flesh doesn't.

[Neesika]

Very true. All knowledge is founded axiomatically. Rand is not alone in this.

I'd actually like to know of an example where that isn't the case. I can't think of one.

Kinaesthetic knowledge, also known as the knowledge of how to move your body.

Your mind may rely on axioms, but your flesh doesn't.

Hmmm. Can an axiom only exist as an intellectual proposition? Can't it exist as an underlying truth in even kinesthetic knowledge, outside of the conscious mind? As in, is an axiom dependent on self-awareness?

[Vittos Ordination]

Very true. All knowledge is founded axiomatically. Rand is not alone in this.

I'd actually like to know of an example where that isn't the case. I can't think of one.

Kinaesthetic knowledge, also known as the knowledge of how to move your body.

Your mind may rely on axioms, but your flesh doesn't.

I would imagine we come with built in mechanisms for moving our bodies, seeing as how certain failures within the brain and certain genetic mutations can lead to very, very strange changes in how we motor about this world.

These aren't axioms in that they do not inform our conscious thoughts, but physically they operate in much the same way.

[Dakini]

Well, let me ask you this in response:

Can you give me one objective fact?

Consciousness implies existence. I cannot be conscious without establishing that a consciousness exists in relationship to whatever physical thing it is conscious of.

....so "cogito ergo sum"...?

Descartes was not an objectivist.

[Callisdrun]

Why has it become fashionable and acceptable to mock the proponents of objectivism on here?

I have seen Objectivism argued effectively on the old Jolt Forums, and the argument was sufficient to be acceptable to an old poster that I respect a whole lot more than any of the people I have seen posting this A=A bullshit.

Have any of you even researched Objectivism, the one's that mock it at least.

It seems if you actually understood the subject and dismissed it on an acceptable level, you wouldn't resort to mocking it.

http://forums.joltonline.com/showthread ... or+Deleuze

I find most ideologies that people follow dogmatically are deserving of mockery.

[Bluth Corporation]

It's not that I can't, but that I simply choose not to--because there's no need.

That's not the way it works here. You make a claim; you back it up. It is not our job to prop up your arguments.

I never said it was. You need to pay attention to everything I've said in here; I don't think you quite understood what I was getting at.