From: holmes@opal.idbsu.edu (Randall Holmes)
Subject: Re: mindwalking buddhists, oh
Organization: Boise State University
Distribution: sci
Date: Fri, 1 Jan 1993 18:00:58 GMT

In article <1993Jan1.4280.4181@dosgate> "stan pikul" <stan.pikul@canrem.com> writes:

[...]

>
>        On a somewhat more serious note, is there anybody out there in
>the philisophical (or any other) "community" who actually takes Ayn &
>co. seriously?  I've been looking...and looking...and looking... for
>good pooks on philosophy, economics, history, etc. that don't have a
>highly existentialist/postmodern/PC bent to them.  Do you have any
>suggestions in this regards? (Besides Ayn, of course...)

There are a number of liberal economists (in the classical sense).
Friedman, Hayek, von Mises are names which come to mind; I might be
misspelling some of them.  You might go back and read Adam Smith.  For
(mostly intellectual) history read Allan Bloom, "the Closing of the
American Mind" and Fukuyama, "the End of History and the Last Man";
I'm not endorsing these necessarily, but they might serve as a change
from the kind of thinking you are complaining about.  Earlier
political thinkers like Thomas Hobbes are good.  For philosophy, read
Bertrand Russell (I _know_ that Rand doesn't like him, but one thing
you need to learn is that Rand knows very little about what other
philosophers actually think, although she does understand the
_Zeitgeist_ to some extent), W. V. O. Quine, and Frege; these are
mathematical logicians, so you need to have or be able to develop some
technical knowledge.  If you can handle earlier philosophers, I
suggest Spinoza (but you might have trouble figuring out what he
actually means; he's not deliberately obscure, but his terminology is
old-fashioned).  I also suggest diving in and actually reading some of
the "bad guys" (according to Rand): I've read Kant (a more mixed
picture than Rand realizes), Nietzsche (a profound influence on Rand
herself, which should give you serious pause), and Martin Heidegger (I
read _Being and Time_ which is extremely difficult, but alarming;
other stuff of his is easier to read).  I do think that all of these
latter thinkers are misguided, but you won't get an accurate picture
of what's going on from Rand.  In particular, she can't tell the
proponents of logical analysis ("good guys", really) from the ordinary
language philosophers ("bad guys", I think).

What you need to learn from this (but I don't have high hopes) is that
Ayn Rand is not a great philosopher.  She is a novelist of ideas; as
such, her ethics and politics (good subjects to bring out in a novel)
are pretty good, while her philosophical underpinning in epistemology
and metaphysics, while laden with good rational intentions, is
unsound; she has some good ideas in these areas, but she should have
refrained from trying to construct a "system"; she did not know
enough.  Her approach to intellectual history is simply dishonest;
don't believe anything she says about any other thinker without
checking it first.

There are a few academic philosphers who take Rand seriously; look in
bookstores and you may find some anthologies of their articles.

[...]

>(By the way, the top 10% of the class was solidly sewn up by the comp.
>sci. and electrical engineering students--there were NO comp. sci. or e.
>eng. students in the "bottom" 90% ;), nor were there any "artsies" or
>management students (!!) in the top 10%.  Seems that we "ignorant
>rationalist" types were the only ones who have ever *seen* a graph
>before, and could figure out that the funny squiggles on the blackboard
>had some kind of "real" meaning...)

This is a good place to start thinking about Rand's philosophy
critically; her philosophy of mathematics is unworkable.

[...]

>Posting from my father's CRS account, as the Ryerson mainframe is shut
>down for the holidays. :(
>
>P. S. Do you know anything about a publication called the _Intellectual
>Activist_?

No.  Do you know about Jimbo Wales' mailing list for discussion of
Objectivism?  It might be a good thing for you to get into.


>--
>Canada Remote Systems  - Toronto, Ontario
>World's Largest PCBOARD System - 416-629-7000/629-7044


-- 
The opinions expressed		|     --Sincerely,
above are not the "official"	|     M. Randall Holmes
opinions of any person		|     Math. Dept., Boise State Univ.
or institution.			|     holmes@opal.idbsu.edu