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Objectivist (aka Common Sense) Theory: I don't Like It

 
 
coberst
 
Reply Thu 19 Jan, 2006 08:35 am
Objectivist (aka Common Sense) Theory: I Don't Like It!

From the Internet I took this information about Objectivist (that is often referred to as Common Sense) Theory

What is the Objectivist Theory of Knowledge (Epistemology)? http://www.objectivistcenter.org by William Thomas

"Reason is the faculty which… identifies and integrates the material provided by man's senses. Reason integrates man's perceptions by means of forming abstractions or conceptions, thus raising man's knowledge from the perceptual level, which he shares with animals, to the conceptual level, which he alone can reach. The method which reason employs in this process is logic?-and logic is the art of non-contradictory identification.
?-Ayn Rand "Faith and Force: The Destroyers of the Modern World," in Philosophy, Who Needs It? p. 62."

Also from the Internet I took this information about Faculty Psychology. http://employees.csbsju.edu/esass/facultypsychology.htm

Faculty Psychology is a point of view that became prevalent in the eighteenth century and its effects are strongly evidenced still today. The faculties of mind; will, emotions, and intellect were considered to be autonomous and the elements even considered to be like people with an appropriate personality and job.

The mind, especially the intellect, was considered to be somewhat like a muscle that needed training and exercise for proper functioning. The "faculties" of mind might be considered as comprising a ?'Society of Mind'. This society consisted of Perception, Imagination, Feeling, Will, Understanding, Memory, and Reason.

The external, ?'objective', world was filled with material objects and the internal, ?'subjective', world was filled with mental entities, i.e. thoughts, ideas, emotions, sensations, and feelings.

Each faculty had a personality: Perception was methodical and reliable, Imagination was generally reliable but often playful, Feeling is undisciplined and volatile, Understanding is calm, sober, and reliable; etc.

Faculty Psychology fell out of favor but there remain significant vestiges yet today.

It appears to me that OT is FP and also that OT considers mind to be a supernatural entity different in kind from the body. Furthermore perception is a function of the body and conception is a function of mind. Thus perception is natural and conception is supernatural. Why else is perception part of the animal world and conception is of the supernatural world? I assume that since logic is a work of the mind that logic is supernatural.

How does OT reconcile a human that is different in kind with Darwin's theory? Does OT require the existence of a supernatural creator?
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Shapeless
 
  1  
Reply Thu 19 Jan, 2006 01:02 pm
Most people I know who swear by Ayn Rand also happen not to believe in a higher, supernatural creator. There's a fair share of atheistic sloganeering in Atlas Shrugged, and most of it is targeted specifically at the Judeo-Christian God, but Rand has stated elsewhere that Objectivism (as she construes, which is not the same way that others construe it) is not incompatible with a belief in God. She seems willing to allow for a higher being whose existence explains the creation of the universe, but it sounds like she doesn't want her god to do much more than that. (A Deist god, in other words.) She is opposed to the kind of god to whom people attribute their personal strengths and aspirations--she would much rather the credit for personal strength go to individuals themselves, those who, through their own sweat and blood, have earned it.
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coberst
 
  1  
Reply Thu 19 Jan, 2006 03:00 pm
Shapeless wrote:
Most people I know who swear by Ayn Rand also happen not to believe in a higher, supernatural creator. There's a fair share of atheistic sloganeering in Atlas Shrugged, and most of it is targeted specifically at the Judeo-Christian God, but Rand has stated elsewhere that Objectivism (as she construes, which is not the same way that others construe it) is not incompatible with a belief in God. She seems willing to allow for a higher being whose existence explains the creation of the universe, but it sounds like she doesn't want her god to do much more than that. (A Deist god, in other words.) She is opposed to the kind of god to whom people attribute their personal strengths and aspirations--she would much rather the credit for personal strength go to individuals themselves, those who, through their own sweat and blood, have earned it.


Rand seems to speak of mind as being radically different from body. Does this mean that the mind is not material and is thus some sort of spirit reality?
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Shapeless
 
  1  
Reply Thu 19 Jan, 2006 03:35 pm
I think Rand would be happy to associate mind and body; that's not the problem for her. The problem is the mind/heart duality (if one perceives it as a duality). Rand deplores those who let the heart take precedence over the mind. As the passage you quoted from her shows, she believes in reason as our most valuable and powerful tool, and anything that gets in the way of it (like emotions) is, for her, subhuman. (In the world of Atlas Shrugged she has no hesitation killing off characters who fit that mold since, as she sees it, they aren't really human anyway.)
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Ray
 
  1  
Reply Fri 20 Jan, 2006 11:55 pm
Quote:
(In the world of Atlas Shrugged she has no hesitation killing off characters who fit that mold since, as she sees it, they aren't really human anyway.)


Rolling Eyes

Does she believe in a teleological universe?
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Shapeless
 
  1  
Reply Sat 21 Jan, 2006 03:53 am
Quote:
Does she believe in a teleological universe?


I doubt she did. I can't see her endorsing a view of history that wasn't in the hands of strong-willed individuals or a view of the universe that wasn't determined solely by the actions of strong-willed individuals.

She was an emigrée of the Soviet Union, and much of her philosophy is an explicit rejection of everything it stood for... and to the extent that it stood for the realization of Marx's social teleology, I imagine she would have rejected any notion of a world whose course was following an inevitable trajectory.
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