Talk:Objectivism/Archive 4

message: The summary of the basic concepts was removed because, according to philwelch, he already wrote a 'better' summary like this and it was taken off. I don't know why it was removed, and perhaps he should have put his old one back as a replacement. My summary was added because the previous intro, all of which still existed under the summary, was basically unreadable to someone who didn't already know every thing about Objectivism and study it as a pass time like ourselves.
Unless I get a reasonable argument, or, philwelch brings back his old basic summary that was taken back, I'm putting my extremely simplified one back at the top. (I stole most of it from the 'Ayn Rand' page and was told that there's nothing wrong with having it on two pages.)D prime 22:18, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The one I wrote was a direct quote from Ayn Rand. It was removed on the grounds that lists aren't the best way to communicate the information. I took a shot at rephrasing the paragraph that summarizes the content of her philosophy, but if anyone else can do a better job I invite them to. — Phil Welch 22:36, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

text: Why? We really don't need more than one summary. — Phil Welch 03:02, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

text: What's so difficult to understand about it as-is? — Phil Welch 18:45, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removing the Simplification 

message: Wow, this is an in-depth page. I know nothing about objectivism, and I'm afraid I'm non the wiser after looking at this page. Perhaps those of you who know a lot about the subject could try to make a very simple definition so uninformed people have a vague idea of what objectivism basically is? And it seems to me that people without specialist knowledge would find browsing this page very difficult.
::I'm going to add or change the opening into a more easily understood version, unless I have any reasonable complaints here. What do you think? ~ D-PRIME (The Anti-Libertarian Sidebar Guy, any one want to tell me how to make a signature?)
::: You do it by adding four tilades in a row like this '~ ~ ~ ~' except w/o the spaces, I have no objection to changes. Crazynas 11:44, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)
I fancy my self a Randroid and would like to drastically change the intro, as to make it more comprehensible for some one who doesn't study Objectivism as a hobby. I find that the basic concept is better put in the Ayn Rand article, but I don't want to repeat the same couples of paragraphs in different articles; in fact, I don't want to reword them either. How would one feel if I took the short summary on Rand's ideas out of the Ayn Rand article, put it in the intro to this one, and replaced the space in the Rand article with a normal English summary, opposed to laid-out point-form like the one I'd be moving here. I should probably do it with as little deletion as possible. Does any one, especially people who have worked on the intro in the past, have any input? I don't want to go arbitrarily changing the beginning of a large article too bluntly.D prime 04:54, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Go ahead.  be bold. I agree the article is currently useless for people who don't already know it.  See what you can do to make it better. Dave (talk) 02:18, Apr 11, 2005 (UTC)
I will do so later tonight. Sorry for the delay.D prime 22:14, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Simplification request

message: Objectivism is not "metaphysics, epistemology and morality combined". Objectivist Morality is implied from Objectivist Metaphysics and Epistemology. Had reality been different, Morality would have changed accordingly. Avi.aharon 17:40, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Metaphysics, Epistemology and Morality 

message: As, er...demanded by popular demand, I've started some major work on the article, rewriting the intro (I bailed out and let old Ayn do the part of actually summarizing Objectivism) and split Objectivist movement into a separate article. Anything else anyone wants done? Philwelch 08:20, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Introduction 

message: In my opinion, few readers will want to see the line-by-line details of working out objectivist epistemology unless they're willing to click on objectivist epistemology, rather than just "objectivism."  Most non-objectivists are interested in the ethics and politics part.  I spun off metaphysics and epistemology for this reason.  I hope both can be expanded again on this page, but in more of an overview rather than a list of random tenets of objectivism listed one-by-one. Dave 06:04, Mar 29, 2005 (UTC)
* Why not then, just have all of the branches of Objectivist philosophy (metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, politics, esthetics) as separate sub articles, with a synopsis on the main page?  Crazynas 21:50, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Spinoffs

message: Hi, I removed this line: 
[By "dogma" in this context, libertarian critics mean "integrity", i.e., uncompromising allegiance to the Truth.]
For a few reasons:
# It presupposes that Objectivism is the truth.
# It spells Truth with a large T, emphasizing it's bias towards objectivism.
# It does not properly define dogma, or the way libertarian critics are using it (that is to say it is not, as the sentence claims, what they "MEAN").
# It is, once again, clearly biased.
Sorry if that's stepping on anyones toes, but I don't think that wikipedia should be claiming any philosophy is Truth with a capital T, especially this one, and least of all in a section about those who disagree with it.  I'm surprised that was even in there for so long. -- Anonymous
:It seems like a very reasonable edit to me. The wording was obviously not NPOV. --RL0919 22:59, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Not being biased towards Objectivism doesn't imply that Objectivism isn't objectively/factually valid, which Objectivists (such as myself) believe. Wikipedia's policy is not simply to 'only report on what's true,' because people disagree on that as well. Wikipedia's 'neutral policy' is really to not take sides on things that people disagree on, such as Objectivism and its alleged validity. D prime 02:34, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dogma v. Integrity 

message: I just removed the following section that was recently added under the "Responses to Objectivism" header. It appears to be one writer's personal commentary on Objectivism rather than the repetition of a common critism. No prior sources were given, and what appears to be the author's personal email address was included at the end of the comment.
<begin cut text>
=== "Objectivism Weapon of the Egoist" ===
[Objectivism essentially rejects ideas of mysticism due to it's irrationallity.  However, it's weakness may lie in it's inability to reflect the needs of the subconscious which is inherently more complex and irrational.  Instead the focus of objectivism is on the ego and conscious structures and as such operates in opposition to such wider structures (the truth is grey and varied).  Hence, as an ideology it is dangerous in that logical justifications can be made and held as truisms for actions that are immoral in a wider/foreign context (viz. US foreign policy).] - markville@gmail.com
<end cut text>
--RL0919 06:19, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: POV Comment Removal

message: [Objectivism essentially rejects ideas of mysticism due to it's irrationallity.  However, it's weakness may lie in it's inability to reflect the needs of the subconscious which is inherently more complex and irrational.  Instead the focus of objectivism is on the ego and conscious structures and as such operates in opposition to such wider structures (the truth is grey and varied).  Hence, as an ideology it is dangerous in that logical justifications can be made and held as truisms for actions that are immoral in a wider/foreign context (viz. US foreign policy).] - markville@gmail.com
<end cut text>
--RL0919 06:19, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Objectivism Weapon of the Egoist" 

message: # I think the previous summary worked too hard to remain NPOV and had an excessive number of scare quotes and qualifiers. This summary, as on countless other pages, can remain neutral without constant reminder that every statement in the essay is merely Rand's opinion. This over-hard work lead to...
# Unwieldly wording.
# The quotes, incl "living on earth", appears to me to try to capture her sense of life, yet failed to do so. This can probably be left out of the summary.
# As others have pointed out, a philosopher characterizing their work as "gounded in reality" isn't original, and in general that paragraph does not do much to distinguish Objectivism from other philosophical schools, or from a lay understanding of philosophy.
# I think the primary goal here is to facilitate that lay understanding, and so setting Objectivism in the context in which it was developed and presented to the world is instructive. As such,
# A simple summary, sans qualifiers, is the best way to summarize the material. Clarification will obviously be given in the longer sections.
Note that a few places that I am unhappy with phrasing are marked with asterisks, and specific comments on that phrasing follows the rewrite. Links and formatting is omitted here it didn't cause an itch so I didn't scratch it.
--
Objectivism is the philosophy of Russian-born American philosopher and author Ayn Rand, first set out as the principles behind characters in her fiction works and later described in non-fiction books and essays. Objectivism is a *comprehensive philosophy; that is, it *describes a  Metaphysics, Epistemology, Ethics, Politics, and Esthetics. As formulated by Rand, each successive branch of the philosophy follows logically from the previous branches and rational observation. Rand contrasted her philosophy with academic philosophies, contending that Objectivism is a philosophy necessary for and *understandable by every man.
Objectivism holds that reality exists independent of consciousness, whether human or supernatural; reason is the only method of gathering knowledge and only the individual rational mind can process these data; the proper moral purpose of one's life is to pursue one's own rational self-interest; and finally laissez-faire capitalism with a _minarchist government is the only moral social system. Ayn Rand *also set out a system of Esthetics, *favoring Romanticism.
Objectivism derives its name from the conception of knowledge and values as objective. Rand rejected intrinsic values (such as "natural parks have a value within themselves independent of anyone's use of those parks") and intrinsic concepts (that is, she denied that the notion of catness somehow exists within a cat itself) as well as subjectivism (by which Rand means "created by [one's] feelings, desires, 'intuitions,' or whims"). Rather, properly formed concepts and values are objective in the sense that they meet the specific cognitive and/or biocentric needs of the individual. Valid concepts and values are, as she wrote, "determined by the nature of reality, but to be discovered by man's mind." "Objectivism" was actually a secondary choice for the name of her philosophy; her first choice, "Existentialism," had already been appropriated by Jean-Paul Sartre.
Many use Rand's own brief summary given while standing on one foot as the official simplified description. [2] 
--
Notes:
*Comprehensive: I don't know if this is the right term. I'm an economist, not a philosopher, so I don't know the proper way to describe a philosophy (like Objectivism) that is comprehensive vs, say, logical positivism.
*Describes: includes? subsumes? incorporates? prescribes? Consists of? I'm looking for a better phrasing here.
*Understandable: probably contentious. However, her view of esthetics is that it is a way of packaging complex concepts (such as philosophy) into easily-digested bite-sized nuggets, which in part inspired her career as a writer. I want to communicate that she wanted to contrast her philosophy as one which the average reader could grasp the basics of from simply reading a novel, vs an "academic" philosophy (like her interpretation of Kant) that she viewed as essentially unknowable.
*Also esthetics: she does not include esthetics in her one-foot summary of the philosophy, and it does not appear in some of the ARI summaries. However, it is included in OPAR, and in my experience is included by adherents and critics. I think it is fair to include it as an "also" to the list that begins this paragraph.
*Favoring: This could be improved.
One final note: it's a couple hours after my bedtime but I'm posting this anyway, since this is 'just' the talk page. Comments welcome, of course, which is why it's here. Heresiarch 07:32, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rewrite of the summary 

message: The article states: "...because it is the only system where humans are barred from initiating the use of physical force upon each other."  But it does not explain how, other than by physical force, this bar is to be enforced.  People or organizations that use or attempt to use "physical force" (this includes governments, gangs, police forces, court officials such as bailiffs, private police, armies, mercenaries, and so on) do not respond well to exhortations not to use force.  Seemingly, the only way to enforce (sic) Ms. Rand's injunction not to use force is by the use of force, so she is Begging the question.
:You've overlooked the term "initiating." Objectivists don't oppose the use of physical force. They oppose a first use of it. Responding with force to an initiation of force is fine. Objectivist support government using force, as long as it doesn't initiate it. In other words, the only way to use force legitimately is in defense against an initiation. That's basic libertarianism.
Good point - I missed that word. I was going to agree, at first.  But on further thought, I still think the concept is meritorious in principle but unrealistic.  For example, in many revolts, such as Algeria (against the French), Hungary (1956), and so on, the authorities would claim that "terrorists" were initiating the violence.  You tell me who is initiating the violence between the militant Palestinians and Israel.  Similarly, the police often beat up someone and charge him with resisting arrest.  You try to figure out in which cases the police are right, and justified, and in what cases they went too far. In the last analysis, the party able to apply the most force usually wins. There is no arbiter equipped to decide who "initiated" the use of force. Carrionluggage 19:39, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It doesn't matter who claims to be retaliating.  What matters is who actually is retaliating.  Kurt Weber 03:32, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Begging the Question 

message: Hi,
This is my first edit with a Wiki account.
I just deleted the last sentence from the Objectivist Philosophy subsection.
 However, it is patently untrue that the world is "causal," because  many events are at random. Radioactive decay and the weather are random processes. Psychologists cannot explain, let alone predict why a person who previously seemed rational, such as Lee Harvey Oswald, or Jack Ruby, suddenly becomes murderous and disrupts society.
The above statement is itself patently untrue.  Radioactive decay and weather are the results of enormous systems of particles whose behavior is entirely deterministic.  The macroscopic patterns may look random to our macroscopic eyes but the molecules and nuclei involved in these systems are all following ordered, deterministic steps.
I actually came upon this article to learn about Rand's Objectivist philosophy so I don't know a ton about it.  The details on determinism are a little confusing and possibly contradictory but in any case the removed sentence was definately a POV and basically contradicted the tenant of Law of Causality immediately after defining it!
CriX 22:40, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You mean "tenet" I suppose, not "tenant" but your physics is worse than your diction. Since the days of Schroedinger and Heisenberg it is known that Quantum Mechanics is not deterministic. In radioactive decay, only the average rate or probability of decay is known; when an individual nucleus will decay cannot be predicted. Also see Double-slit experiment. Also see Radioactive decay , which says "As discussed above, the decay of an unstable nucleus (radionuclide) is entirely random and it is impossible to predict when a particular atom will decay".  The weather is also unpredictable beyond a short period. The concepts of chaos and strange attractor were a result of Edward Lorenz's study of the atmosphere. See  or  Attractor or the nice undergraduate thesis at .  (The word "normailization" before equation (20) should obviously be "normalization.") Anyway, to put it more briefly, the uncertainties in Quantum Mechanics and Radioactive Decay were for a long time thought to be the only fundamental ones,limiting human ability to predict the results of an action.  Now it is known that in chaotic systems, such as turbulence, and even the inclinations of the rotational axes of some of the planets (see  ), classical systems also exhibit indeterministic behavior; minuscule changes in the initial conditions or immeasurably small perturbations can send these systems into a widely differing state.  Carrionluggage 07:45, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The Objectivist view of causality does not necessarily implicate quantum physics.  It holds that everything acts in accordance with its nature, not that everything is proximately caused by something else.  If it is the nature of subatomic particles to move in a way classical mechanics cannot explain, so be it.  And Objectivism certainly does not reject "uncertainties."  --zenohockey 16:21, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

text: -Correct, CriX. I hope that the Randists don't initiate a power-struggling revert war to push their biased POV in this matter. Have you seen the RFC above? It regards the lack of objectivity of the terms 'objectivism' and 'rationalism', and the objective alternative term 'Randism'. 23:24, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: In my experience, both Randian and Randianism are much older and more common than "Randism." Calling somebody a Randian is more specific, these days, than calling them an Objectivist. For example, many people would still call David Kelley an Objectivist, though not a Randian. --Christofurio 02:02, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deleted section 

message: This section is horribly POV.  I don't have time to fix it now, but someone else should. (How un-Objectivist is that?) --zenohockey 02:37, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I took a shot at it, read and fix... Dominick (ŤαĿĶ) 19:13, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

text: I have no interest in arguing with Rand is right or wrong. I'm just reporting information. Rand's position on altruism is very misunderstood. People don't realize she's mostly talking about the ethical doctrine called altruism, rather than the act of altruism. She believed that if one holds the belief that people have a moral obligation to help others then it's not a very large leap to take it to the next level and force people to help others. The extreme case of this is state communism, where each individual is forced by the state to serve the greater good of the collective. The opposite of this is laissez-faire where individuals are free to pursue their own self-interest, whether that entails voluntarily helping others or not. RJII 07:50, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ethics: rational self-interest 

message: 216.241.38.129 removed some text, claiming that it was a "rambling paragraph about partially agreeing with Objectivism. Same could be said of any field of study and so is meaningless."  This turns out not to be the case.  The purpose of the paragraph was to explain a very nonobvious phenomenon, which is that Rand's biggest critics tend to agree with her on some, but not all, of her stances.  This phenomenon comes from Rand's (and the ARI's) view of Objectivism as a complete and closed system. Alienus 11:27, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Partial agreement 

message: There's been a consistent pattern of vandalism by 65.115.199.90, both on Objectivist Philosophy and Ayn Rand.  The vandalism is the removal of the ARI Watch link, presumably because the vandal is a supporter of ARI.  Whenever this comes up for a vote, the response is strongly towards keeping the link, but the vandal doesn't much care for consensus.  I'm thinking it's time to consider blocking their access to these two pages, so as allow us to stop wasting time cleaning up their vandalism.  I think the pattern is quite visible if you look at: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=65.115.199.90&offset=0&limit=500 Alienus 20:08, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Wow, that's really funny.  Just for the record, I have no connection with either ARI or ARIWatch.  In fact, I have yet to form an opinion on the matter of which group is more accurately interpreting Rand's ideas. I do think that the people who like to remove the ARIWatch link while leaving ARI are revealing their partisan support for the latter site.  In fact, you appear to be admitting this in your case.  Finally, I have no special ability to get people banned.  If vandals such as yourself do get banned, that's cool by me, though. I would take you more seriously if you signed with your account name. As it stands, I'm finding this quite amusing, if pointless. Alienus 05:27, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

text: I've seen sites go down temporarily due to billing errors. Let's give this one a few days and see if it either resolves itself or switches to a more permanent error.  Then, if it's really dead, let's remove it. Alienus 22:33, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  ARIWatch Vandalism 

message: I've added wikilinks for foundationalism, coherentism, naive realism, and representationalism since they are all important philosophical vocabulary that should perhaps be properly understood to understand the article.  If people see more of these, I'd suggest they do the same. jvs 00:44, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: "Objectivism" is a philosophy developed by Rand in name only.  The concept of objectivism goes back to Fichte in his denial of the Kantian things-in-themselves. So, an article on objectivism (philosophy) would be a good place to start.  I'm not sure that the current article shouldn't be merged with "Ayn Rand".Amerindianarts 03:22, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It may well be the case that the ideas contained within Objectivism are not original to Rand, but capital-O Objectivism is her personal philosophy.  There is no Objectivism without Rand. Alienus 05:02, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "capital O- Objectivism is her personal philosophy". Gee, I think I said that-"Objectivism" is a philosophy developed by Rand in name only. "There is no Objectivism without Rand". is not NPOV.  Neither is the fact that links around Wiki for "objectivism" led to this article until someone with a little more sense created a disambig page for objectivism.  Why is this page entitled Objectivist philosophy?  Because to name it objectivism (philosophy) would be incorrect. Objectivist philosophy as an article dedicated to Ayn Rand is also incorrect.  There are plenty of objectivist notions in Philosophy prior to Rand, as well as notions of objectivism.  The correct page title for this article is either Objectivism (Ayn Rand), or have a subdirectory under Ayn Rand for Objectivism.  The current naming scenario is a categorical mistake. If you are really interested you probably ought to try and correct it before someone else does.Amerindianarts 06:15, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is not the article, but a discussion about it, so I don't have to worry about stating the facts in a neutral manner.  The fact is that Objectivism is the personal philosophy of Ayn Rand.  There is also objectivism, which refers to a number of related philosophical stances, of which one is Rand's.  That's the capitalization distinction.  Inconveniently, Wikipedia has trouble with case sensitivity, so we can't use it in searches.  In any case, I don't think there's anything to fix.Alienus 22:40, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikilinks added