Ayn Rand

[Mme Erzulie]

I dread the thought of reading Kant (or any German-writing philosopher, for that matter) in their original language. And not just because I don't speak German.

And Sophie's World is a children's book. Of course it's better to read each philosopher's original work, but how many 9 year olds are likely to do that by themselves (much less comprehend what they are reading). Fact is that Mr Gaarder did such a good job in writing his children's book that it works for adults who want an introduction to philosophy as well. But it shouldn't be seen as an attempt to fully convey the ideas of all the philosophers it mentions or references. That would be lunacy. So a fantastic children's book, but hardly something the reading of equates to having studied philosophy.

If that and "something by Umberto Eco" will get you through a philosophy discussion at your university, it can't be much of a university.

[Gigei]

[quote name='Jon AS' post='1666725' date='Jan 29 2009, 07.44']Is it really? Because outside of the US (or possibly outside the English speaking world) she is virtually unknown.[/quote]

Uh, people seem to be assuming I live in the US. I don't. I was nto aware that Ayn Rand is virtually unknown outside of the US because I live outside of the US and she is very well known here. :P She's talked about *because* she is controversial and many don't like Objectivism.

This could be an age thing rather than a geographical thing though. Perhaps the younger college-age students nowadays no longer read Rand.

I believe it is still useful to read Rand's work, hey *we* still discuss it. :P

[Ormond]

[quote name='Gigei' post='1669176' date='Jan 31 2009, 05.01']Uh, people seem to be assuming I live in the US. I don't. I was nto aware that Ayn Rand is virtually unknown outside of the US because I live outside of the US and she is very well known here. :P She's talked about *because* she is controversial and many don't like Objectivism.[/quote]

So which country in the world DO you live in? Where is "here"??

[Jon AS]

[quote name='Erzulie the Unruly']I dread the thought of reading Kant (or any German-writing philosopher, for that matter) in their original language. And not just because I don't speak German.[/quote]

If you have a decent grasp on English, Kant is easier to read in translation even for a German.;)

[Galactus]

To be honest, even within the libertarian strain of thought you're more likely to see Nozick referenced than Rand.

[Elrostar]

[quote name='Jon AS' post='1669230' date='Jan 31 2009, 08.14']If you have a decent grasp on English, Kant is easier to read in translation even for a German.;)[/quote]

I have heard that my observation about Kirkegaard extends to Kant as well :)

The reason I knew it about Kirkegaard is that I grew up in Denmark, and am such one of the rare privileged few who can read Kirkegaard in the original. Lucky me? :)

[Gigei]

[quote name='Erzulie the Unruly' post='1669175' date='Jan 31 2009, 06.58']If that and "something by Umberto Eco" will get you through a philosophy discussion at your university, it can't be much of a university.[/quote]

Lol. Read my post. I didn't say a philosophical discussion, I said a literary discussion and if you are at all interested in philosophy which frankly most lit majors aren't. I specifically mentioned "philosophical fiction" which is what Sophie's World, Atlas Shrugged and Foucault's Pendulum are...saying it's better to just read Marx is besides the point as I don't believe Marx has written any novels. Same with Hegel, Kant, etc.

Meh, of course if it's a discussion of actual philosophy, you would need to read actual philosophical works instead of fiction.

On the other hand, if you are talking about fiction with a philosophical theme, I would like to know what the hell you would read if not Rand, Umberto Eco and Gaarder.

*rolls eyes*

Still asking for recs btw. I don't mean recs of Marx, I mean fiction that features some philosophical ideas.

[Galactus]

[quote]On the other hand, if you are talking about fiction with a philosophical theme, I would like to know what the hell you would read if not Rand, Umberto Eco and Gaarder.[/quote]

The big one would be Sartre of course.

Who, incidentally, is also generally mentioned in philosophy textbooks, unlike the above :P

[TheKassi]

[quote name='Gigei' post='1669701' date='Jan 31 2009, 17.43']On the other hand, if you are talking about fiction with a philosophical theme, I would like to know what the hell you would read if not Rand, Umberto Eco and Gaarder.

*rolls eyes*

Still asking for recs btw. I don't mean recs of Marx, I mean fiction that features some philosophical ideas.[/quote]

Just about all fiction I would say. If it's not pulp, it is swimming with philosiphy. It is really hard to write four hundred pages about a struggle between good and evil without at least defining what makes people good and what makes people evil. Most books just do not beat you over the head for scores of pages the way Rand does.

Ethics, politics and aesthetics are really hard to leave out of an adult novel. Most books containing aspects of spirituality even have a healthy dose of metaphysics. Samuel Clemens, Hobb, Butcher, Lackey, Brooks and so forth all illustrate the values that are important to them just as vehemently as Rand and Goodkind.

Atlas Shrugged would have said everything that Rand wanted it to say even without the three hour speech. Most fiction writers do just that. They use their story to bring across what they wish to say, rather then extended monologues.

Rand did both. It doesn't make Atlas Shrugged more philosophical then other stories, just more ham handed.

If you really want deep philosophical fiction however, I would start with The Gospel according to Biff.

[Elrostar]

I think that anything by Camus is a pretty obvious choice of something to read if you're thinking of a novel which raises philosophical questions. [i]The Stranger[/i], [i]The Plague[/i], those are pretty much classics of the genre, aren't they?

[Werthead]

[quote name='Skyrazer' post='1667737' date='Jan 30 2009, 03.49']"It's very simple. Her work is one of the most talked-about philosophical fiction in [s]the world[/s] america. Everywhere else she's a nobody whom nobody really takes on seriously, [b]especially[/b] her 'philosophies'."

Fixed[/quote]

When I met Scott Bakker, who holds a philosophy PhD, he was more than happy to pour an incredible amount of scorn on Rand, her philosophy and her motivations at some considerable length, apparently honed by debates with Objectivists in the USA and the disgust of his own (Canadian) philosophy lecturers and professors.

Certainly in the UK Rand is very small fry indeed, and unless you are studying philosophy it's unlikely you'll have heard of her. [i]The Fountainhead[/i] and [i]Atlas Shrugged[/i] don't automatically appear on 'best of' lists as they seem to on American ones either.

[Galactus]

Over here Rand seems to be OK'ly regarded among literature people... But she's never even mentioned in philosophy class (as mentioned, Nozick is a better read if you want libertarian philosophy, flaws that he has)

[Nous]

I think that picking your reads so that you can talk about what everyone else is talking about is a mistaken notion. If you're a lover of wisdom, read what you think will help you gain wisdom. Read what you enjoy. Then you can talk about what you consider right and beautiful, and you will be better company than if you just went over the 'right' books and expressed your pale opinions along with everybody else. If the books you find enlightening or pleasurable to read are also much talked about, so much the better.

[Nous]

That Scott Bakker loathes Rand is not a surprise. It should be fairly easy to see for anyone who has read both of them that they are polar opposites. If there was an antonym for 'soulmates' that would describe them pretty well.

[Galactus]

[quote name='Nous' post='1671402' date='Feb 2 2009, 21.53']I think that picking your reads so that you can talk about what everyone else is talking about is a mistaken notion. If you're a lover of wisdom, read what you think will help you gain wisdom. Read what you enjoy. Then you can talk about what you consider right and beautiful, and you will be better company than if you just went over the 'right' books and expressed your pale opinions along with everybody else. If the books you find enlightening or pleasurable to read are also much talked about, so much the better.[/quote]

But there is a difference between enjoying stuff nobody else does (personally I like post-BND Spider-man) and straight out lying and saying it is the most talked about/most important book ever.

[Nerdanel]

This discussion is getting very sprawling. I now have some time again, so I think I'll try to get back to things, even if piecemeal.

I'm getting the the idea that the Objectivists use A = A to mean two things. The first is just the basic logical tautology from which nothing whatsover can be derived (although it can be used in proofs, just not as a premise). [i]No one with half a brain disagrees with A = A the tautology.[/i]

The other A = A is a non-tautology from which things could be derived. However, it also isn't automatically true. When the likes of Korzybski disagree with this second version, Objectivists try to confuse the issue by saying those people disagree with A = A, thus trying to make their opponents sound irrational by using truth-by-association from the first version of A = A.

I think the second so-called "A = A" would be better served with a more honest representation, something like:

[code]perception(x, A) = perception(y, A) = A
where x and y are rational beings capable of perceiving the world.[/code]

The trouble with this definition is that for any non-trivial A, humans are not capable of taking in every nuance of A, thus perceiving only an approximation of A, which may moreover be different for different people. For example, someone who is red-green colorblind and a normally sighted person do not perceive a red rose the same way.

[Nous]

[quote name='Bruce Galactus' post='1671931' date='Feb 3 2009, 03.04']But there is a difference between enjoying stuff nobody else does (personally I like post-BND Spider-man) and straight out lying and saying it is the most talked about/most important book ever.[/quote]
Of course. Has someone on this thread straight out lied in this manner, as opposed to having been mistaken or spoken hastily?

[Nous]

Nerdanel,
Korzybski's denial of the Law of Identity is, as far as I can see, generally accepted. It is not just misleading Objectivists (by which I assume you mean me). That he doesn't do so directly and may attack a strawman (I don't know this for sure) is somewhat beside the point. Another person I recall assaulting the principle of A=A was Bart Kosko in a book on fuzzy logic; his grounds were also semantical. That doesn't change the fact that he explicitly attacked Aristotle's Law of Identity, mentioning him by name. That Kosko's argument missed the target doesn't mean that he didn't think he'd hit it.

I may come back to Korzybski once I'll have access to my logic book. Your second sense of A=A is not the same second sense I used before. In my second sense, A=A means that whatever is, is what it is, regardless of who may or may not perceive it, or the means that it might be perceived with. If I recall correctly, my logic book also mentioned that Korzybski did attack A=A in this sense, using a somewhat Heraclitean argument that there is no identity, only change.

[TerraPrime]

[quote name='Nous' post='1672506' date='Feb 3 2009, 13.55']In my second sense, A=A means that whatever is, is what it is, regardless of who may or may not perceive it, or the means that it might be perceived with.[/quote]

Shroedinger's cat? Heisenberg?

[Nerdanel]

Classical two-value logic and fuzzy logic are two distinct fields with different rules. As constructs of pure theory, neither contradicts the other is or more right than the other. Which of the two is more useful in the real world depends on the situation.

So let me restate myself with more precision:

[i]No one with half a brain disagrees that A = A in classical two-value logic.[/i]

And by the way, as I've already said the claim that a real-world object is itself is a fact-free tautology. Any "denials" of this I have seen on this thread have been more like claims that two-value logic isn't the right tool for handling fuzzy real-world concepts.

A man with X hairs on his head is a man with X hairs on his head. However, the concept of (non-total) "baldness" is a fuzzy one. We cannot clearly and unanimously say that a man with X hairs on his head is bald and a man with X + 1 hairs is not. Taken strictly that kind of thing could lead to things like non-bald man dropping a hair and without visible chance to other humans, even to himself or his wife, becoming bald and then next day starting to grow another hair and still without anyone noticing becoming non-bald again. Fuzzy concepts like "a little bald" and "mostly bald" make a great deal of practical sense here.

Anyway, in the Crazy Objectivist "Science" department I have found the following link about [url="http://forum.objectivismonline.net/index.php?showtopic=2984&st=0"]whether one = 0.9999... violates the Law of Identity[/url]. The thread is ten pages long and although it contains viewpoints both pro and con the very fact that there is such a controversy tells something about the intellectual level of the local Objectivist laity on that board (no insinuations about the present company meant since I have no information on that point).

Meanwhile the primary sources for Crazy Objectivist Official Hard "Science" (I'm thinking of physics and the like) have been scarce. There doesn't appear to be that much of it, and "Einstein was wrong and corrupted" Harriman's articles are locked behind a pay wall except for their very beginnings which don't have enough material to critique. I would like to look at some, though, but:

1. It must be available for free on the Internet. (If you think I'm going to spend money on this you're very wrong.)

2. It must be in text form. (I'm not going to annoy myself with multimedia, assuming it even works on my system. I read faster than I listen and am a visual rather than auditory learner.)

3. It must be in popular English. (This is as much for the benefit of others reading this thread as it is for mine.)