Objectivist Epistemology

A short discussion of the epistemic theory of Ayn Rand.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Ayn
• Rand
• Objectivism
• education
• Leonard
• Peikoff
• Brandon
• Cropper
• Aristotle
• read
• book
• epistemology
• philosophy
• concept

[SecretTheatre]

Oh dear, somebody needs to read Wittgenstein's 'On Certainty' pretty darn quick.

[RonGOdenJr]

Another question:

Since our coming into this world is not a matter of personal choice, how does it rationally follow that anyone be obligated to nurture the helpless baby into adulthood? And upon maturing, how can that life morally stake claim to anything, since he does not owe his initial existence to his own merits and personal accomplishments, but to the efforts of the generation that preceded him?

[Kikarok]

@LithiumLogica

The definition Cropper gives is implicit in the first definition you give. Cropper's description is what would be necessary for something to be self-evident and require no proof.

[ryan84160]

@cropperb Then the reverse is also true. You must accept an axiom as true in order to prove it to be true. This gets you absolutely fucking no where, you are just arguing in circles.

[derfos666]

Consciousness is identification needs more explanation: is this the claim that ALL consciousness is identification? If it is, I can deny it without self contradiction by making the claim "not all, but some, consciousness includes identification." Then all I would need to do is give an example of consciousness that doesn't include identification. Candidates could be: religious/spiritual experiences, aesthetic judgments. These are things you can be conscious of without identifying them as such.

[cuttlefishgem]

@tautologicalnickname You are wrong tautological. A=A. Rands axioms are self evident. That is a fact. That fact is an irrefutable fact by virtue of the fact that it is true. The axiom exists. Fact. Therefore it is true. Absolutely. Only an idiot could deny that what exists, exists in truth and is irrefutable. the axiom is a reality and reality has its own existence independent of your perception of it. So there.

[tautologicalnickname]

How do you think Rand got to her axioms, simply the way every other axiom is created: in an arbitrary fashion. Those axioms may appeare "self evident" to you but that's not an argument in favor for their "abstolutivity". Goedel demonstrated that you can't prove an axiom by using its internal formal logic. Hence your axioms are not superior to any other set of ones.

[tautologicalnickname]

I'm sorry but when you say that in order to refute an axiom you first have to accept it, are you saying that you accept it because you are using the logic that derives from those axioms in order to refute them? If so then ok the axioms are implicitely true. But I think there's another way to refute those axioms: simply by arbitrarily chosing axioms that are negative to the first ones. In that way I didn't accept your axioms.

[GreenFont]

I have only read "The Virtue of Selfishness" so I am not totally informed on the whole of Objectivism but Rand says that people should be guided be rationality in order to achieve their values morally, this implies that a person should always take the rational course of action, however paradoxically doesn't this just serve to trap one person within one avenue of action and thus not serving to individually emancipate them from the altruist morality, in short, an implication for free will?

[LithiumLogica]

I have a few problems with statements you make. An axiom is not "an irrefutable fact". By attempting to refute something as a claim or concept, you do not have to accept it.

ax·i·om

1. a self-evident truth that requires no proof.

2.ax·i·om

1. a self-evident truth that requires no proof.

2. a universally accepted principle or rule.

3. Logic, Mathematics . a proposition that is assumed without proof for the sake of studying the consequences that follow from it.