[Scott Ryan] "We began by describing the essence of Objectivism as the claim "there is no God, and man is made in His image." We have shown that Rand's arguments do not make sense on their own terms. Rand is trying to show, that we can have reason and liberty without God -- and she is doing so, not by following the argument where it leads, but by determining in advance where she wants the argument to lead and rejecting, for altogether inadequate reason, everything that stands in the way of her preferred conclusions. In short, she deliberately eliminates from philosophy every doctrine, every tenet, which she associates with theism, ultimately for no better reason than that she does associate it with theism.
She tended to construct false dichotomies, argue against one side, and conclude in favor of the other side. For example, she argued in effect as follows: morally, a living organism's actions must serve either its own good or someone else's; if they serve someone else's the organism will die; therefore the proper beneficiary of the organism's actions is itself. The possibility that one's own good and that of others are not at odds in the first place does not emerge until much later-- and even then, the initial premise is not questioned. Likewise, she argued for the "primacy of existence" against the "primacy of consciousness" by simply importing into her argument the presumption that the two "primacies" are opposed to one another; the possibility that they are as inseparably related as two poles of a magnet is just never raised. She also tended to attach riders to important opposing positions, reject the riders and assume (or at least write as though) she had thereby disproved the positions themselves. For example, she rejected the existence of real universals which the mind apprehends passively and thought she had thereby rejected the existence of real universals, period. Likewise, she rejected any versions of nominalism and conceptualism which held resemblances to be vague or arbitrary, and thought that she had thereby rejected nominalism and conceptualism, period. She also tended to be vague about the difference between a necessary and a sufficient condition. She failed to distinguish, for example, between the claim that sensory perception is a valid means of acquiring knowledge and the claim that is is the ONLY valid means of acquiring knowledge; she failed to distinguish between the recognition that it is morally acceptable to pursue one's own interests and the claim that it is morally acceptable ONLY to pursue one's own interests." [Craig] I know this quote is just a blurb from the book's dust-jacket, but it sounds like a very superficial book, even at 400 pages. For instance, she certainly doesn't hold that "sensory perception s the ONLY valid means of acquiring knowledge". Also Ryan's claims that "the essence of Objectivism is the claim "there is no God"" and "Rand is trying to show, that we can have reason and liberty without God", show he has little understanding of Objectivism. With charity toward none;: An analysis of Ayn Rand's philosophy by William F. O'Neill, would I think be a better birthday present if you want a critique of Rand. Craig Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
