As a bonus, we won't be forced any longer to listen to newly minted Rand fanboys drone on and on and on and on about how much more enlightened they are than the rest of us hoi-polloi.
NOTE: If you want an example of the kind of behavior you can expect from Rand-influenced CEOs as well as other assorted follies check out these posts:. Facts trump man's feelings, wishes, hopes, and fears. When, as a self-absorbed college freshman, I first came across the Russian emigre author of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, she seemed like the coolest thinker ever — what selfish person doesn't want to hear that being selfish doesn't just feel good, but actually is good, too?
I quickly devoured nearly all of her atrocious tomes with a sort of blind hunger — that ferocious pseudo-intellectual reading you do only to confirm your beliefs, if you will. Indeed, I devotedly hung on her every word, even becoming an officer of my university's Objectivist club. At one point, I may even have been president. Much to the lament of my philosophy classmates, I was that girl who frequently and loudly!
Thankfully, I grew out of that phase. Not surprisingly, but a few years of minimum-wage work cleaning up cat faeces, without benefits, and other thankless, unstable odd jobs made me question Objectivism's foundations and rekindled an earlier interest in anarcho-syndicalism. Eventually, leaving Rand was no more different or difficult than, say, leaving a friend who had grown to annoy me over time — sure, I was very intimate with her ideas, but that just gave me more insight into their outright dysfunctionality, and the strength to say "sayonara!
What's scary is that so many Americans have not grown out of that mentally puerile phase. Instead, this contingent — now largely comprised of Tea Party radicals — remains mired in her pop philosophy. Only now has Republican Congressman Paul Ryan, perhaps realizing that supporting an atheist adulterer might hurt his veep chances, changed his tune from Objectivist fanboy to follower of Thomas Aquinas.
Granted, it's doubtful that any political group so suspicious of the intelligentsia would actually read Rand's 1, page magnum opus , Atlas Shrugged, but her ideas are clearly being used to justify inequality, giving credence to institutionalized wealth-based elitism. It's exactly the same! Probability is not objective, it is an observer bias. It's a personal matter and post-scientific. Rationality rules out all that nonsense.
Either something is possible, or impossible -- that's it, period! No middle ground, no belief, no opinions, no probabilities and personal certainties. Nature doesn't care about a human monkey's personal certainty or calculated probabilities. The Moon exists or doesn't; the man was dead or alive; atoms have a physical shape or they don't; the Yeti exists or it doesn't. It's not a matter of knowledge or guesswork or likelihood.
This is the scientific method. This is all subjective crap! I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. You're telling me something I don't disagree with. I already know that no theories are ever proven. We don't persecute or have dogmas in science and hopefully philosophy.
By competing, do you mean contradictory? As you already pointed out, belief isn't material here. If a theory is faced with a contradiction, it's been falsified, and dumped. I don't know about you, but when I see a theory that has a contridiction I don't hold it because of some belief. It's gone. End of story. If the idea is to arrive at or closer to the truth, which is all that matters to me.
If it doesn't it's fair game. There are no sacred cows. Rand for example is dogmatic and presents a theory of rationality that is full of holes. Why anybody would hold to that is beyond me. To you, it's unlikely that Nessy ate The Fisherman. To your neighbour, who witnessed events, it happened as a "fact". It's simply functioning based upon what we know at this time. As for my neighbor witnessing Nessy eating the Fisherman, if he can demonstrate that as true, then it is.
That might involve producing Nessy, and opening him up to find the unfortunate fisherman, and maybe he can do that. I'm not inclined to buy that, or give it any credibility. What you're saying with this is that everything is relative, and I don't agree. I'm not a relativist at all. I think you can arrive at a place much closer to the truth by eliminating those things that are demonstrably false. Rand certainly generates a lot of comments.
I think it is a mistake to critique Rand from the perspective of the philosophic canon. It only seems to egg on people who love her and and can then whine: "but, but, but it's her ideas that matter not theirs". Most of her fan club probably haven't read much of the canon and won't understand that sort of critique anyway. In any event as you point out , philosophy doesn't care a whit about Rand who is nearly universally viewed as both a light weight and blowhard by academic philosophers.
It just doesn't make sense to take this approach. On the other hand, why not just apply some good old fashioned common sense. Rand would appreciate this right? The extreme individualism of Rand is ridiculous on its face. Take Atlas Shrugged for instance where several of the titans of humanity we are supposed to love and admire are scientists or inventors. One only need observe the history of science to immediately see that science is has not been driven forward by a handful of individuals.
Certainly there were a few great thinkers who were present at the right moment to tie ideas together and push across certain boundaries, but science is at its heart a collectivist endeavor.
Myriad thinkers contribute tiny bits of new knowledge, posit almost correct ideas, extend slightly the work of others, or event make the right mistakes at the right times, and what rises out of this is an overall progression of thought that eventually culminates in breakthroughs. Some of those breakthroughs are made by leaps of insight by great thinkers others are stumbled upon by accident by less great ones.
One might even argue that there is a certain historical arc to the progression of science and that certain ideas only ripen at a certain moment in history at which point they are waiting to be plucked. Individuals play a role, but the great advancements in science and invention exist in a complex web of thought and action out of which it would be very difficult indeed to quantify the exact role of the individuals involved.
In many ways, I'm living a Randian dream. I work at a company that started small, but has grown big. There are lot of great individuals here. Many of us have worked incredibly hard. The company now employs thousands and generates hundreds of millions in revenue. How did this happen- individual ability, very hard work, and.
There are thousands of guys just like me who have worked as hard, are as smart, and were just not so lucky to have exactly the right ideas and opportunity at exactly the right time.
There are a smaller number of guys just like me who are as capable and hardworking but have been exponentially more successful. The CEO i. The CTO my boss is a brilliant woman. They have both been successful in industry. Yet, Bill Gate has been more successful if we are to judge success as the market does i. Is Bill Gates times more capable and driven than the executives I work for? Is Bill 25, times more capable and driven than I am?
These are back of the envelop figures but probably in the right galaxy. So where am I going here? Rand, in Atlas Shrugged at least, seems to attach a certain moral worth to success as defined by capital markets. If so, it is a morality that demands of its adherents not a little bit of good fortune.
Rand seems to think that titans of industry achieve what they do through personal ability, ambition, and drive. There is almost no such thing as a CEO who is consistently successful. She may have a great run at one company and then fail miserably at the next only to perform adequately in the three following that one.
When individual ability and style are aligned with the right support staff in the right market at the right time you get great success stories. If, however, it was all about personal ability it would seem much more likely that the same handful of titans would always be successful. The books "Fooled by Randomness" and "The Black Swann" by Nicholas Taleb are fascinating reads for anyone interested in luck, randomness, and rare events.
So many people who call themselves capitalists seem to totally not get it. The great thing about capitalism isn't that it allows a few "great" individuals to succeed. It is the exact opposite! Capitalism is a powerful economic system because it allows many, many people to try and fail.
When socialism fails the consequences are much different because it is the government and by proxy the whole country that fails. Capitalism is designed to allow a vast number of aspirants to through mud at the wall and see what sticks and what slides off without upsetting the whole system.
With all these individuals trying to succeed sometimes everything aligns and the greater good is served and value is created. Meanwhile all the failure gets recycled. Competition IS good, but competition requires a lot of players and a lot of losers.
Rand never seems to account for the losers. That's absolutely true. My point was that prior to our understanding of that, the idea of a flat earth was put forth without facts.
Fact undermined the theory. So, it was merely a theory as I would understand it and was debunked later. Copernicus heliocentric theory changed things even more. A theory might be WHY the earth is a sphere A theory is a long, complex piece of work. Well put. Facts replace theories. They either support it, or contradict it.
I always tend to hold theories at arms length. I'm kind of a fact based guy. Political theories are always garbage. I always question or reject a political or economic theory that tends to inflict damage on people.
Especially when it's cloaked in the Bible or buzz words like "freedom". I would not be inclined to try to prove that the Yeti exists or doesn't. It would be like trying to prove that Unicorns exist. I can't prove that they don't. That would be trying to prove a negative, but I'm not going to waste my time trying to prove that the do.
When I see one, maybe I'll change my views. As for the earth, that's something that we can empircally measure. It's "map-able". The idea of the earth being flat was falsified long ago. Science should reveal nature's secrets and unlock mysteries. You appear to be including Popper among the Empiricist School. He wasn't. He rejected classical empiricism and the classical observationalist-inductivist account of science that had grown out of it.
Popper was a Critical Rationalist he even coined the term William Warren Bartley expanded that into "Pancritical Rationalism" by applying that to everyday life. However this is a requirement that can never be adequetly met due to the problem of validation or the dilemma of infinite regress vs. The framework I come from permits a rationalist to be characterized as one who is willing to entertain any position and holds all his positions, including his most fundamental standards, goals, and decisions, and his basic philosophical position itself, open to criticism; one who never.
However I don't stop there. I begin there. I'm not inclined to accept any explanation that can't be falsified. What makes the hypothesis or the theory supporting it true? A theory isn't rational because it can be proven. It's rational because it's criticizable. If the theory is subjected to relentless criticism, and still stands, we hold on to it, until such a time when it doesn't. When that happens the theory is replaced by another that falsified it, and that stands until it's replaced by another.
It's an endless process that constantly brings us closer to the truth. I think too many people don't understand that we are fallible and can never own the truth. They want desperately to prove they are right. But we can get glimpses of it when we discard the garbage that obscures it. It's a stripping away process.
Deductive rather than inductive. Kind of like a sculpture chipping away at a block of marble in order to reveal the form that lies inside. We don't query those, we take them for granted, on face value, so we can understand a theory. I don't argue with facts. But I do question definitions. Language can be vague, and there are many languages in the world making concepts even more vague. Mathmatics is probably the only universal language. But that is all inductive and doesn't prove the theory.
You're using things to support the theory. We can always find things that will support a theory. I'm more interested in looking for those things that disprove the theory. I wan't to know if the theory is false. Unless is some metaphysical idea. Then it's not in the realm of science, but the supernatural, and I'm not interested in that.
If it can't be falsified, then it's just somebody preaching a belief to me. We're not trying to "prove" our dino bone exists, or might exist under the mud. The Dino bone exists and we see it. Why it exists becomes part of our theory. That theory is that creatures like this roamed the earth. What makes the theory work is that it stands up to criticism.
The theory is falsifiable. We can deductively determine that the theory holds. Nothing has been offered to make that theory false so it stands. Maybe we'll find out that they all came from outer space some day, but until that happens the theory stands up to criticism. But, that the earth is flat, or not, isn't a theory: its just a plain description.
Either it is, or isn't flat. So, the Flat Earth or Sphere Earth would be part of the hypothesis, specifically the exhibits phase. We're not trying to "prove" the Yeti exists, or that the Earth is spherical. That's science or ought to be: I'm no fan of Popper and the Empiricist School though. Assumptions includes the definitions, exhibits, facts, etc. In the theory we use the hypothesized "pieces" to explain something as part of our theory. Another example. We're trying to use it as part of our theory, i.
WHY it's there and what happened to the monster that it comes from. I don't think I was making a point that any theory is believed or disbelieved. Belief is irrelevant as far as I can see. A theory can never be proven to be true, since attempting to do so would necessarily involve induction which won't prove anything.
However it only takes one example to disprove a theory. The theory that the earth is flat, was falsified. We can now rule that out. Are you sure you're addressing the right person? You're saying that it is a persons duty to recognize this theory based on an Argumentum ad Verecundiam argument with Rand as the authority?
I have to assume that you're a fallibalist. Perhaps not. But assuming you are, how can a fallible person come up with an infallible theory? No theory is ever proven, you must surely know that. Something is implied, but never properly defined or reasoned out. If I say, for example, "people should not tell lies", is this just an opinion, i. Or am I saying something else?
If so, WHAT?! I don't think this has gotten through to him. If value is a fact, I'd ask him to demonstrate that truth to me. He should be able to demonstrate them.
Maybe he can demonstrate why it is true? How silly of him. So we should ignore the logical problems and embrace this stuff ad vericundium. No it isn't. I think you need to define freedom before you make that statement.
It seems that you are taking the narrow view of freedom as deciding for yourself what you will do. Exercising prerogatives on a daily basis. That's one view of it. However another is the freedom FROM something that restricts you from doing what you might choose to do.
When that is the case is it not your duty to do whatever you must to be free FROM what ever has you in chains? If Freedom is you goal, you have a duty to free yourself. If the freedom to practice their religion was important to them, then they had a duty and obligation to find a way to do that. Duty is NOT the opposite of Freedom. More often than not, it is necessary for it exist. I think it would be a difficult argument for you to tell anyone in the military that duty is opposite to Freedom.
Critical dualism is the view that there is no way to derive moral principles from matters of fact. The problem arises because philosophers want to find some way to justify moral principles and the best way would be to find some way to derive moral principles from some set of facts, unless it is believed that they can be handed down from some supernatural authority.
In each case the hope is to derive general principles natural laws in the case of science, moral rules in the case of moral philosophy from statements of fact. In each case the problem arises from the desire for justification based on facts and in each case the problem is insoluble in principle.
The way forward is to aim to establish critical preferences for scientific theories or moral proposals based on their capacity to solve the problem that they are supposed to solve, and to stand up to criticism. People who preach the impotence of arguments are in a paradoxical position, analogous the paradox of the liar.
Rands assumption of infallibility stands out in her dismissal of contrary views as irrational, which put her squarely in in the cross hairs. Hume showed that moral ought proposals cannot be logically derived from factual is propositions. Moral philosophers have tried to close the gap in various ways in the hope of finding a rational base for ethics rather than being forced to make a choice between some arbitrary external authority or an existential leap of faith or lonely despair.
It isn't that he doubted it. It's that he couldn't rationally justify it inductively. It's the same David Hume that introduced the Problem of Induction. He pointed out that we cannot rationally justify our science through induction. The "problem of induction" plagued philosophers for centuries.
In order to deal with the problem, they found themselves using induction to try to solve it. You obviously can't use the problem to solve the problem. You can't justify induction by using induction. Rand is clearly a foundationalist.
Hume then argued that the attempt to ground our scientific knowledge upon sense experience leads to irrationalism. Einstein described a natural world that rational beings before him had never conceived. And his descriptions were then corroborated by the results of the experiments that he conceived in order to test them.
If Kant could be wrong about the a priori certainty of Newtonian Mechanics and Euclidean Geometry, then how could anyone ever claim to be a priori certain again? Wittgenstein and the logical positivists, in particular, argued, as Hume had argued before them, that the meaning of a term is reducible to sense impressions, and that empirical verifiability is what distinguishes science from metaphysics, and sense from nonsense.
When you Michael state; "It is the self-evident fact of existence—that something is—and its corollaries, I am aware of it consciousness , and of myself as distinguished from it identity that reside at the base of all knowledge. It was in this context that induction and demarcation emerged for Popper as the two fundamental problems of epistemology. Popper realized that the attempt to explain the rationality of science as a byproduct of its justification had failed.
We cannot rationally ground science upon a priori cognition because a priori cognition is unreliable, and we cannot rationally ground science upon sense experience because inductive inference is invalid. But where Hume, Kant, Wittgenstein, and the positivists all agreed that our knowledge must be justified in order to be rational, Popper cut the Gordian knot by arguing that scientific knowledge cannot, and need not, be justified at all — and by saying that it is rational not because we have justified it, but because we can criticize it.
Popper argued that any attempt to justify our knowledge must, in order to avoid infinite regress, ultimately accept the truth or reliability of some statement or faculty, or person without justification. But the fact that the truth or reliability of this statement or faculty, or person is accepted without justification means that we attribute to it an authority that we deny to others.
The observation statements that report our experience never entail the truth of a strictly universal statement or theory. So universal statements or theories cannot be justified or verified by experience.
But it takes only one genuine counter-example to show that a universal statement is false. So some universal statements or theories can be criticized or falsified by experience—or, at least, by the acceptance of observation statements that contradict them. And then, by pointing out that there is a logical asymmetry between universal and singular statements—so that universal statements can be falsified, but not verified; and singular statements can be verified, but not falsified—he showed that the distinction between science and metaphysics cannot coincide with the distinction between meaningful and meaningless statements, because if a statement is meaningful then its negation must be meaningful as well.
In this way, Popper argued that the growth of science is both empirical and rational. It is empirical because we test our solutions to scientific problems against our observations and experience. And it is rational, because we make use of the valid argument forms of deductive logic, especially the modus tollens, to criticize theories that contradict the observation statements that we think are true—and because we never conclude from the fact that a theory has survived our tests that it has been shown to be true.
One must rely on that validity in any attempt to refute it. Actually your statement should read; IF the validity of the senses is axiomatic, THEN one must rely on that validity in any attempt to refute it. Almost everyone is familiar with the classical method of reasoning know as modus ponens. The well known example goes as follows:. Few know that the progress of science no longer depends primarily upon this method, but on the less familiar form known as modus tolens, which goes like this:.
We have two different kinds of statements, both of which are necessary ingredients of a complete causal explanation. They are 1 universal statements, i. It is from universal statements in conjunction with initial conditions that we deduce the singular statement,.
The initial conditions describe what is usually called the "cause" of the event in question. And the prediction describes what is usually called "effect". To give a causal explanation of an event means to deduce a statement which describes it, using as premises of the deduction one or more universal laws, together with certain singular statements, the initial conditions. The first criterion required for a set of statements to be admitted as a theory is that it must be internally consistent from a formal, logical point of view.
In order to meet this criterion the following conditions must be satisfied. The set of "axiom" statements must be independent and not contradict one another. Also, there must be no dependent statements which contradict other dependent statements. Aristotle believes that the being and predictable behavior of perceived objects is a result of an independently existing nature, which exists through a substantial form.
Kant believes that the being and predictable behavior of perceived objects comes from an inbuilt mental conditioning of an unknowable outside Thing-in-itself through the categories of time, space, and causality. The Kantian position is a little counter-intuitive, but a loose understanding of it can be gained by imagining every human being as having a built in virtual reality system that transforms all material data from the outside world into something completely different; and since the program for every one of those virtual reality systems is the same, each human being perceives the same "empirical" reality.
The difference between this analogy and Kant's actual position, of course, is that Kant left the question open as to whether perceived, "empirical" reality matches or is different from the independently existing reality of Thing-in-itself.
In fact, it's Aristotle's philosophy that leaves the way open for things not explainable by normal "scientific" reasoning, and Kant's that closes the door. This is because Aristotle believed that beings exist through having a certain nature, while Kant believed that that beings, or at least beings in perceived reality, exist through a kind of pre-determined conditioning. Thus, in Aristotle's system, there could very conceivably be beings whose nature has a power beyond the human to effect results by means beyond human understanding; and in fact Aristotle thought the natural world could not be fully explained except by positing such beings, which he called "separated substances.
The perceived reality can always be quantified by mathematics, and thus the empirical world is entirely explainable by scientific measures. There can be no extraordinary occurences, no "miracles", no "bending spoons.
Kant would seem much more in line with their so-called epistemology. I think it's reasons like this that have led to Rand's philosophy being dismissed by academics.
Rand didn't understand philosophy, and consequently Objectivism is based not on real premises and arguments but on a whole host of misunderstandings and half-truths about what other philosophers actually thought. So Objectivism isn't really a philosophy. It's internally self-contradictory - if anything, it can be best called a political ideology.
Rand disagrees with a lot of bad ideas that are fashionable among philosophers. Many philosophers want to say that it is sometimes right for you to sacrifice your own interests, or those of others.
An example, of this would be the framing and discussion surrounding the trolley problem. This is a fictional scenario in which they say your only options are to allow one person to die or murder him by pushing him off a bridge , or let lots of people die. It is notable that the people proposing this never flesh it out in any detail: they say you can't solve the problem by fiat. But in reality, you either lack the knowledge required to make the judgement necessary to kill people, or there are other options that may be difficult but might work, e.
Many philosophers interpret insistence on individual rights as lack of nuance, but in reality they are the ones who neglect the complexity of real life, and the fact that you have to adopt moral principles to deal with it. A related issue is that many philosophers seem to imagine they can prove their views, but that Rand can't prove hers.
Neither Rand nor her opponents can prove their views correct because proof is impossible. To clarify, this is not Rand's position, it is mine. Rand did have some good epistemological ideas, like the idea that knowledge is contextual, see Peikoff's "Understanding Objectivism" for a good discussion. But Rand came up with devastating arguments against common, flawed ideas about morality, partly by regarding morality as a set of ideas you have to be able to enact in reality.
She also explained and illustrated a lot of detail about the logic of both good and bad ideas and what happens if you act on them in her novels. But most philosophers imagine they can prove their ideas and so are not interested in criticism. There are rituals among philosophers that pass for critical discussion, see "Words and Things" by Ernest Gellner for a description of this that applies to most philosophers, not just the language philosophers he happened to criticise.
Philosophers who don't want to do that and insist it is not acceptable are not part of the club. Rand is not the only example of this, Popper also didn't want to play that game and was hated as a result. In addition, Rand was opposed to the idea of the state doing anything other than national defence, courts and police, including handouts to academics. Her best description of the ideas that lead academics to want government support is her description of Robert Stadler in "Atlas Shrugged", a description that goes far to explain why academics hate Rand.
The simple answer is she challenges fundamentals. She doesn't just bare assert that this world exists, that is this objective reality independent of your conscious awareness of it, she makes an effort to validate it, providing her own rigorous solutions to major longstanding problems in philosophy such as the Problem of Universals and the Is-Ought dichotomy.
Her ethics and politics are diametric opposites of what dominates the culture. The individual in her view doesn't have to justify his existence by serving others, and has a right to exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing others for himself or himself for others, a false alternative.
So win win trade or individual rights and its non-coercion between people, so freedom and its economic system animated by capital because of all property being privately owned, etc, being her politics, alienates her from religious morality of sacrificing for the community and the dominant secular version of sacrifice to the community through "giving back", envy, class warfare, wealth redistribution, etc.
She's the only philosopher relentlessly for reason, logic and profit, and against mysticism and sacrifice. A brief comment. Rand's "epistimology" is an egoist ideology at best, or a idealization of self-centrism at worst.
Simply put, she does not state philosophy. She states simple beliefs she labeled as objectivist. The problem is that objectivism self-destructs when presented from such a quasi-solopsistic point of view; indeed, it becomes subjective.
The fact is, Rand's limited training in philosophy simply doesn't stand up to standards that raise it to a philisophical level. Even Popper does a better job at this, from and his work is relatively simple to present refutations. The fact is, like other quacks, as far into lunacy as L. Ron Hubbard, representing a move toward insanity , relay upon using narcissist manipulations to draw followers to legitimize their work. The fact is, few, if any, of these sycophants have the or intellectual capacity, training or expertise to give credence in support of Rands work.
Where Rand's strong suit is, is as a fiction writer, who presents worlds runamock by tattered governance, destroying the ideal and freedoms of the individual. She ignores the fact that, even in her novels, she supports her individualistic protagonists by community -just as is represented in her own life. Though her stories reflect her absolutist pseudo objectivist ideologies, if analyzed against a free world, would end with markedly different conclusions. For example if the wealthy industrialists of the world abandoned the complaining masses to an island, the rest of the world would be chaotic Eventually, more leaders would arise, and, hopefully, some people will have learned lessons and created more equitable societies.
Atlas would have shrugged, and picked up another rock. In conclusion. Rand must be taken with a grain of salt. She makes good points about the oppression of governance, but ignores the oppression of oligarchs and corporatists who endenture their workers, presenting them with a choice: live for my work, or strike out on your own.
Neithe are proper choices. The proper choice is not to believe in philosophies that offer a lifestyle that is simply idealistic, regardless if it is pie in the sky social utopias, or orderly corpocracies.
For the same reason that almost no economics major has ever heard of Ludwig Von Mises or the Austrian school of economics: it isn't very popular. Rand's objectivism is a slap in the face of academics and their pet-ideology, socialism. The same can be said for Von Mises' free-market theory.
Or to put it slightly differently: while socialism appeals to intellectualism, Objectivism appeals to rational self-interest, which can be interpreted as selfishness by academics.
The real question should be why anyone takes Rand seriously. The flaws in her work are numerous, probably the most glaring is her refusal to deal honestly with conlfict between reasonable people by declaring that there are no such things. I'm having trouble reading this because all of the points stated about Ayn Rand and her philosophy are simply wrong.
Anyone who has read any of her non-fiction will know this. As stated above, she bases everything back to the metaphysical Following that of Aristotle, reality is absolute and the mind perceives it If you agree with science and logic, and that reality is real and absolute, then you will like Ayn Rand and Objectivism. If you believe in a Platonic or Kantian metaphysics Then her philosophy is not for you and you should continue to pray to God or stare at a spoon and try to bend it.
Objectivism and Randism are different. Objectivists will almost always agree with each other because everything is based off of reasoning deductive and inductive logic.. Objectivism is a closed system, meaning that every single piece affects the other Morality is not subjective When approaching the philosophy of Objectivism:. It is a mind that has dispensed with or never acquired the practice of thinking or judging, and feels threatened by any request to consider anything.
An active mind does not grant equal status to truth and falsehood; it does not remain floating forever in a stagnant vacuum of neutrality and uncertainty; by assuming the responsibility of judgment, 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, evasion and fear.
If you are to attack her Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. Why is Ayn Rand's Objectivism philosophy dismissed by academics?
Ask Question. Asked 10 years ago. Active 1 year, 2 months ago. Viewed 39k times. Improve this question. Community Bot 1. RationalGeek RationalGeek 1 1 gold badge 6 6 silver badges 11 11 bronze badges. Again, wikipedia offers some helpful context: "The tenor of the criticism for her first nonfiction book, For the New Intellectual , was similar to that for Atlas Shrugged, with philosopher Sidney Hook likening her certainty to "the way philosophy is written in the Soviet Union", and author Gore Vidal calling her viewpoint "nearly perfect in its immorality".
Her subsequent books got progressively less attention from reviewers. JosephWeissman So the rejection was based on her presentation and not the ideas themselves? Have the ideas themselves ever been addressed academically? What I'm really looking for with this and the previous question is some suggestions on reading material for investigating Rand's ideas further.
Literature either in support or against her ideas would be helpful. Not very insightful. Contains basic errors that anyone trained in philosophy and some who have not should be able to catch pretty easily. For example: kiekeben. Chad - An answer deserves somewhat more depth than was found in my comment. If you want to understand why Academics don't tend to take Rand seriously, you probably need to familiarize yourself with the impact German philosophy has had on American intellectuals, including those who made up the pragmatist school like Sidney Hook and John Dewey.
And then read about Eric Hoffer and his criticism of modern intellectuals, and you'll probably be able to put two and two together to understand why academics don't like Rand.
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