Reason vs. Faith, Question 7 of 8 - Ayn Rand Institute

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Dr. Onkar Ghate of The Ayn Rand Institute discusses the crucial need to promote reason in the culture.

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• philosophy
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• Rand
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• Objectivism
• Objectivist
• religion
• Onkar
• Ghate
• faith
• new
• intellectual
• God
• ethics

[shovelcharge]

Cheers for the New Intellectuals! Go Onkar!

[jprational]

I've never seen/heard Onkar before this YouTube series.

I'm very impressed with his style and delivery, and have renewed hope for the future of humanity!

[Radeo]

@LakeShaman

But then it wouldn't really be faith. It would be trust,

To honestly say one has "faith in science", would mean that one believes in it not for any logical agreement one has with its method, not because of observing a history of accomplishments and life-saving developments, not because it's in accordance with reality, but rather because one just "wants to".

The person who advocates science for this reason is also undercutting it at the same time, by holding opposite premises.

[MrChirpsky]

I think the questioners implication is that if you simply (and successfully) promote good ideas, all opposing schools of thought will either adapt or go extinct. Many atheists today (such as myself) love and find inspiration in Greek, Hindic, even Teutonic (if it isn't too soon), mythology. It is my hope that we may similarly, someday soon, be able to safely advocate Judeo-Christian mythology as a source of inspiration as well.

[oscar7557]

see Atlas Shrugged

[Youhavethebody]

I think it depends more on rbilkie's meaning of "irrefutable." He could simply mean that the philosophy's logically consistent, and thus can't be refuted by an argument. An example I can think is the atomic theory of matter (I'm reading the history of it right now). There were so many angles and issues covered, and questions about matter answered, that the theory was proven sometime in the late 19th century. I think that's the sense that rbilkie is employing.

[MyITRcom]

That is such a great question and the first one that should be asked. That one can think in terms of values to ones life, something is either for your life or against your life, this forms the basis of judging reality. That A is A, existence exists and that man can perceive and know reality accurately that perception is valid.

[xdorian5]

He did not answer the question.

What is the basis of reason? On what grounds is any rational accepted as fact.

What is truth?

[DagnyTT]

It is possible to "appoint" men to know everything? If so, they appointed themselves using the one tool that is error proof: logic. You either know something or you don't - they hold the positions they do because they know Objectivism and Ayn Rand's convictions.

[jetta230]

who appointed these Men to know everything? Not that they don't! They might just know everything, but i just have to ask

[rbilkie]

...you "wish" for becomes a guiding point of your life, instead of reality. A wish is a hypothetical propostition. Every writer, including Rand, thinks in such terms, as does every mathematician when soliving abstract problems. My kind of "wish" is the same--a hypothetical proposition that I know is not true. Study Objectivist epistemology before you pretend to be a spokesman for it.

[rbilkie]

How does a "wish" constitute skepticism? Obviously "had accepted" is outside of reality, as is the existence of conceptual "wishes"--that's what a wish means! It's something that doesn't exist, like Galt's Gulch, that you wish did, which presupposes the idea that you KNOW that it DOESN'T. That is KNOWLEDGE of EXISTENCE. Read Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand by Leonard Peikoff...I'll add that "wishing," though far from "skepticism," is bad ethically if this "hypothetical reality" that...