Talk:Objectivism

Article Cross Talk

Use of cross-talk page

There doesn't seem to be much use of the Objectivism cross-talk page lately. I'm the only one who has used it since February. Is it still relevant? --RL0919 (talk) 20:41, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps not. Although I love it, I have to say it now seems like an esoteric feature. Karbinski (talk) 14:25, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Metaphysics

The metaphysics article now re-directs here --Karbinski (talk) 12:33, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Unnecessary rebuke

From the article:

Rand is not found in the comprehensive academic reference texts The Oxford Companion to Philosophy or The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy. A lengthy article on Rand appears in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy; she has an entry forthcoming in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, as well as a brief entry in the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy which features the following passage:

The influence of Rand’s ideas was strongest among college students in the USA but attracted little attention from academic philosophers. … Rand’s political theory is of little interest. Its unremitting hostility towards the state and taxation sits inconsistently with a rejection of anarchism, and her attempts to resolve the difficulty are ill-thought out and unsystematic.

Allan Gotthelf (chairman of the Ayn Rand Society) responded unfavorably to this entry and came to her defense. He and other scholars have argued for more academic study of Objectivism, viewing Rand's philosophy as a unique and intellectually interesting defense of classical liberalism that is worth debating.

(end of excerpt) Why is Allan Gotthelf's rebuke necessary to include in the text? Why is it noteworthy that an Ayn Rand Society chairmen opposed the description of a philosophy he is attempting to promote as "of little interest"? Please provide a source showing why this is noteworthy. This isn't supposed to be a debate whether Objectivism is interesting or not, it's an encyclopedic article. Every point of criticism doesn't have to be answered by one of the philosophy's preachers - unless it is actually notable. An article built on a "right of respond" to criticism will end up farcical. 81.170.235.35 (talk) 14:21, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

If math prof. A says problem x is not worthy of study, and then math prof. B counters that problem x is indeed worthy of study, and then wiki-editor C says math prof. B is a preacher of problem x, would it be reasonable to stick with what prof. A and prof. B had to say about problem x? --Karbinski (talk) 15:24, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

You are comparing Apples and Pears and out of context at that. This is a criticism section, it is not noteworthy that the Chairman of the AYn Rand society responded to criticism, it would be noteworthy if he supported the criticism. Every criticism does not have to have a counter criticism, unless the purpose of the article is to advocate Objectivism and argue that Ayn Rand an intellectual hero. --Snowded (talk) 17:30, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. 81.170.235.35 (talk) 18:10, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Indeed every crticisim does not have to have a counter criticism. However, the purpose of the article is not to criticize Objectivism and for sure not to argue what Ayn Rand was or wasn't. Intellectual impact is the topic of the section, and the AG content is on topic, as it would be under the Criticism section. --Karbinski (talk) 20:07, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

We have been through this already. The purpose of the article is to reflect the opinion of reliable sources. If reliable sources are uniformly critical, then the article has to reflect that. Peter Damian (talk) 18:20, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Karlin

If Karlin is a reliable source, then it doesn't need to say "according to Rick Karlin". Indeed it would actually constitute the use of weasel words. TallNapoleon (talk) 06:09, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. --Karbinski (talk) 12:03, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Criticism

Is there any point in having separate criticism and intelectual impact sections? Shouldn't criticism be distributed throughout the article as per recommended practice?

1Z (talk) 16:30, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Trimmed some fat

I cut down some of the bloated writing in the ethics section. A lot more needs to be done on the epistemology section. How exactly did Rand disprove scepticism? Why has her proof not been mentioned in any of the books in my large library devoted to scepticism, include a great deal of recent work? Surely such a proof should have brought its author into great fame and renown and honour, given the problem is more than 2,000 years old, and reckoned to be of great difficulty and subtlety. Oh well. Peter Damian (talk) 17:05, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Facetious comments are not discussion - most of what was characterized as bloated writing wasn't. --Karbinski (talk) 17:42, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

PS. scepticism artcile is here --Karbinski (talk) 17:42, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

It was indeed bloated writing. Trust me. Peter Damian (talk) 21:16, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

The evidence for trusting you is: personal attacks on talk pages and blatant POV pushing on article pages. Karbinski (talk) 00:58, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

rand, n. An angry tirade occasioned by mistaking philosophical disagreement for a personal attack and/or evidence of unspeakable moral corruption. "When I questioned his second premise, he flew into a rand." Also, to attack or stigmatise through a rand. "When I defended socialised medicine, I was randed as a communist." Peter Damian (talk) 13:04, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Parenthesized Redundancies

While reporting that rand maintained that only one's own life is an end in itself, there is no need to add POV statement that rand assumed only one's own life is an end in itself, and that she took this assumption for granted. But of course, some people are so biased they can't even believe Rand for what Rand said, they need to hear it from some other source. As well, this is exposition, not argument, so the second POV statement in parenthesis is also nothing more than POV. --Karbinski (talk) 17:11, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

I reverted back. Can you please show where Rand is explicit? Peter Damian (talk) 21:12, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] You also need to report the implicit assumption exactly as specified, namely "there is nothing else [an entity] gets or maintains for its own sake". Not 'an end in itself'. Peter Damian (talk) 21:15, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] "that rand assumed only one's own life is an end in itself" [sic]. The point is, the argument is not valid unless you supply the premiss (which Rand did not give, apparently) that "there is nothing else [an entity] gets or maintains for its own sake". Peter Damian (talk) 21:18, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

lol, this isn't JARS. And if it was, everyone would know that if there is only one thing, that there is well, ummm, how do I explain this without begging the question, hmmm, lets try there is only one thing. --Karbinski (talk) 01:13, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I have reverted back until you can clarify your statements above. The point I was making was simple. Rand believes that we can get from

(A) Every living thing maintains its life for its own sake

to

(B) for any living thing, nothing apart from its own life is valuable for its own sake

It logically follows from this that she was assuming that there is nothing else that any living thing gets or maintains for its own sake. I say 'she took this assumption for granted' because, as well as making it, it is not documented that she said it. Does that explanation help? As I said before, you have considerable intelligence but you need to organise your thinking. I am trying to help you. Please don't interpret every slight criticism as a 'personal attack'. Thanks Peter Damian (talk) 07:36, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

The personal attack evidence is on the Ayn Rand talk page, not this one. As for your Original Research, it doesn't belong in the article. As for clarifying my point: we know what Rand posited, we don't care what you think about it. Maybe JARS would? --Karbinski (talk) 15:26, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I asked if you could clarify your claims above. You have not done this. You have reverted a substantial change to the introduction (which is merely a re-arrangement of existing material). Please stop this. I am reverting once again. Peter Damian (talk) 15:40, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Let's get this straight

Karbinski, you are presumably happy that we say Rand claimed

(A) Every living thing maintains its life for its own sake

because Rand says this. And pari ratione you would be happy if it says that Rand claimed

(B) for any living thing, nothing apart from its own life is valuable for its own sake

But what you are not happy with is the statement that this requires the assumption that there is nothing else that any living thing gets or maintains for its own sake, even though this statement is logically implied by (A) and (B). Can you please at least confirm what you are objecting to. Thanks Peter Damian (talk) 15:55, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Its not logically implied, its _right there_ in (B) --Karbinski (talk) 21:28, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

You misunderstand. Rand is trying to derive (B) from (A). It follows that she is making the implicit assumption. The edit you are objecting to reads "Since every living thing maintains its life for its own sake (and assuming, which Rand takes for granted, that there is nothing else it gets or maintains for its own sake) it follows that for any living thing, nothing apart from its own life is valuable for its own sake". You see the words 'it follows'. If (B) is to follow from (A), then the assumption has to be made. That is all. Peter Damian (talk) 21:42, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

"... the fact that living entitites exist and function necessitates the existence of values and of an ultimate value which for any given living entity is its own life." (Ayn Rand) She is, previous to saying this, explicit about what is meant by ultimate value. To represent her presentation as comming to a full stop at (A) and then picking-up again at (B) is at best OR, and at worst POV pushing. Either way it isn't suitable for the article --Karbinski (talk) 22:48, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

You keep returning to the conclusion of the argument (B) which is on p. 17, which you have quoted above. But this conclusion does not follow from the premiss (A), that every living thing acts to maintain its life, for its own sake, unless we supply the (implicit) premiss "There is no other thing that it acts to maintain or get for its own sake". Where does Rand explicitly state this premiss? You are going to say 'it's in the conclusion', I expect. But that's the whole point of the fallacy in question, which is the invalid from 'p' to 'p&q', without a further premiss 'q'. You seem deeply confused about some elementary principles of logic, without knowledge and understanding of which this discussion is not going to proceed very far. How are we going to resolve this? You need a basic understanding of the terms used in logical and philosophical discussion, such as 'premiss', 'conclusion', 'follow from' and so on. You need to understand, in particular, why logicians consider that 'p&q' does not follow from 'p'. Can you agree to do some basic reading on these subjects before we go any further? This is not original research, just elementary preparatory work. Thanks. Peter Damian (talk) 12:02, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

While on the subject of what she did and did not explicitly say, where does she say (B) follows from (A)? Certainly not page 17. --Karbinski (talk) 14:47, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Well if it doesn't follow, then she is not giving an argument. Rather a series of unsupported claims. But that is precisely the criticism that the section you deleted was suggesting. You seem to be agreeing with me. So why delete my edits? :-) Peter Damian (talk) 15:49, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

First, we are talking about only one edit here, and that is the paragraph you want at the top of Ethics. Correct? --Karbinski (talk) 15:59, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Second, I am not agreeing with you. This (A) thus (B) presentation is not of Ayn Rand's creation. I'm not saying that she doesn't make her case, only that its her case that gets reported in this article. In wiki terms, the (A) thus (B) presentation isn't verified by the cited source (The Virtue of Selfishness) --Karbinski (talk) 15:59, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that is the paragraph in question. So you agree that Rand thinks she is making an argument and therefore thinks that (B) follows from (A). You also now follow the elementary logic and you agree that (B) does not in fact follow from (A), which is a matter of logic. But you refuse to allow any comment on this, because this is original research? Even though it is logically deducible from reliable indepdendent sources? Peter Damian (talk) 16:37, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Post the claim, identify specifically which references support which clauses, and let's see if it can be verified. Skomorokh 16:55, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

As far as I can see, K is happy to attribute "Every living thing maintains its life for its own sake", and to attribute "for any living thing, nothing apart from its own life is valuable for its own sake". For she says this. What I am not allowed to note that this is a blatant non-sequitur, even though it is a blatant non-sequitur. Peter Damian (talk) 21:17, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Edit Warring

I would like to remind both of you that, per the latest Arbcom ruling, you should not be edit-warring--by which I mean, reverting each other's edits. Settle down and try and get a consensus... I would help with that but right now I'm in major academic crunch time, so vOv... TallNapoleon (talk) 18:41, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

So long as K doesn't revert mine, this is fine. It really is impossible, and he refuses to have any kind of reasonable discussion. I wasn't involved in the recent 'ruling' anyway. Peter Damian (talk) 18:59, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I restored some deleted content - not even all of it - I contested the assertion that this 'trimming of fat' was just removal of bloated writing - and without further discussion (other than a nice condecending 'trust me') my restorations were reverted. I'm not sure why user 'Peter Damian' doesn't want to discuss his re-writing of large chunks of the article, perhaps he does, but bundling it up as trimming some fat isn't it. I may be stubborn or aloof about reverting these re-writes until they are actually raised in discussion. --Karbinski (talk) 21:27, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

this isn't it either --Karbinski (talk) 21:30, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks - I have corrected the problem with the references. I think your objection was due to a misunderstanding - see above. There was a lot of research involved in the latest rewrite, please can we have some serious and informed discussion if there are to be any further reversions. Thanks again. Peter Damian (talk) 21:40, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Unless there is consensus that a section on the academic reception of Rand belongs in this article, I will move it to the talkpage of the Rand article to discuss how it could be used there. Skomorokh 21:46, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Academic reception of Rand's philosophy does not belong in an article on her philosophy? Peter Damian (talk) 21:48, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Objectivism is not equivalent to the personal philosophy of Ayn Rand. I should have thought that anyone who has read into the topic to any significant degree would understand that. Skomorokh 21:51, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Karbinski's edit here fails to spot that the section he tries to replace was simply moved. Please stop this foolishness. Peter Damian (talk) 21:48, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

And he has reverted again. Now the article contains the same section twice. Good night. Peter Damian (talk) 21:53, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Academic Reception Section

• Most of the section relies on Heumer's personal website posting. Having the Journal of Ayn Rand Studies affords Heumer plenty of opportunity to publish his critique on Ayn Rand's ethics. Considering he has published there many times before, it is clear that neither the topic (Objectivist Ethics) nor the author(Heumer) are so obscure that we need to resort to self-published web pages. Besides JARS, Cambridge University Press has published a book on the subject.
• Most of the section is weasel and peacock

As a minor logistical point, the guideline for citing a website should be properly followed. --Karbinski (talk) 22:14, 4 May 2009 (UTC)