RoR: Forum

One of your best efforts yet, Joe - and that's saying something. Huge wisdom compressed into a few short words. I'm coming to the view that among the many distinguishing virtues of SOLO's leading luminaries is their practice of the virtue of economy, as opposed to the verbal jerk-offs who take thousands of words to say ... nothing. I'm proud to be associated with you, comrade!

Oh, & I hope the vile, snide Catholic & his cheerleader with the phony name who think SOLO is a sell-out to postmodernism read & absorb this article.

Linz

Post 1

Friday, September 17, 2004 - 5:06am

Thanks so much for the article Joe! I had an experience of this very phenomenon last night, at an atheist discussion group. Our discussion devolved into a discussion of whether or not it's possible to prove that God doesn't exist, and I was the only person in the room who thought that it was. All the others seemed to take the position: It's not possible to prove or disprove God's existence, but since I can't find any evidence to believe in Him, I won't. Needless to say, I left the meeting a little disappointed, thinking, "With friends like these, who needs enemies?"

Jana Beck

Post 2

Friday, September 17, 2004 - 11:39am

This really helps clarify things. The world is divided into two camps: those who want things to work, and those want things to break down. Talk about a positive or negative sense of life...

Post 3

Friday, September 17, 2004 - 12:01pm

Great essay, Joe.

As a fellow Objectivist, I can verify beyond any reasonable doubt - and in spite of any recent reviews to the contrary - that you are a man who has an extraordinarily passionate concern for fundamentals (and that this is something worthy of reverence).

Ed

Post 4

Friday, September 17, 2004 - 12:42pm

The attitude of most contemporary academic philosophers has been abstracted by one of them (Phillipa Foote) as follows:

"Ask a philosopher, and in 20 minutes you won't understand your question any more."

Thanks, Joe, for an excellent and effective attack on that execrable perversion of philosophy.

Post 5

Friday, September 17, 2004 - 1:41pm

hahaha, that was so much fun to read!

Michael

Post 6

Friday, September 17, 2004 - 8:00pm

As someone who teaches philosophy and have done so for four decades now, I share some of these views but I also don't mind that initially my students leave class puzzled, perplexed, worried--at the point of their philosophical education they are a bit upset because many of their highly confused beliefs were shown to be ill founded, confused, and so on. And at first it is bad teaching to provide them ready answers, be these Objectivist of whatever. They need to collect themselves and get on to the path of enlightenment on their own initiative, with some help from professors and readings and such. When I first encountered Rand I was terribly confused, upset, worried because all my beliefs, held loosely and without much thought, came undone and for a young person that's frightening (and I was completely alone, in a new country, to boot). How Rand helped is by suggesting to me that I can figure things out, again with a little help from others (her, of course, primarily). I am against imparting ready made ideas, which have taken no effort to develop on one's own, to students.

Post 7

Friday, September 17, 2004 - 8:10pm

Machan wrote:

How Rand helped is by suggesting to me that I can figure things out, again with a little help from others (her, of course, primarily).

Unfortunately, my first exposure to formal philosophical inquiry in high school came from typical postmodern philosophers who told us that one cannot find firm answers because no firm grounding for knowledge or morality exists. Six more years of "confusion" passed before a kind and thoughtful classmate shoved The Virtue of Selfishness under my nose. I feel grateful to organizations like Camp Indecon who help young people onto the right path to right mindedness.

Luke Setzer

Post 8

Friday, September 17, 2004 - 8:35pm

Thank you for that, Joe.

I remember struggling through my first philosophy class as a freshman at NYU (pre-Enlightenment), and questioning my intelligence because I simply could not grasp Marxism, couldn't understand why this would be considered an optimal structure for a society.

That I passed the class with a B is a clear indication of how much talent the professor lacked, because I didn't even understand the papers I wrote. They were pure B.S. She was a vile little socialist bitch with a pinched face -- I'll never forget her sneer.

Then I would go to my business classes and study capitalism, industrialism, entrepreneurialism, and the world was right again. I did not then have the tools to understand why I felt that way.

I now take immense delight in talking with young college students, and guiding them down a new path -- it tickles my soul with joy. :)

Thanks for the reminder of why I need to keep doing so.

Jennifer

Post 9

Saturday, September 18, 2004 - 1:15am

A very interesting and valuable article, Joe.

Tibor, I'm profoundly in agreement with your post. By first showing your students that "many of their highly confused beliefs were. . . ill founded, confused," you give them the means to arrive at crucial philosophical questions by themselves and to understand first hand why answers to those questions are important, and important to them. It's usually quite useless to give people answers, if they don't have the questions. That's what can turn people into parrots, giving rote answers without real understanding. If I don't grasp, say, the monumental importance to every moment of my life, of the question: Do I have volition, or am I a machine without the capacity for morality, it doesn't do much good to present me with the case for volition . I'll probably simply accept it as something all thinkers should know, but not apply it to my own choices and actions or to the choices and actions of others.

Barbara

Post 10

Saturday, September 18, 2004 - 1:43am

Jennifer:

Marxism, while dead wrong, is actually quite a simple and easy to understand system. if you didn't understand it, blame pinchface.

And about the papers, lets face facts: most professors, whatever their philosophic and ideological beliefs, simply don't read the papers of their students at all, and grade entirely based on skimming the papers for buzzwords. Given how lamentably bad most undergraduate paper writing is, I don't really blame 'em.

Post 11

Saturday, September 18, 2004 - 8:03am

Jana,

You wrote, "Our discussion devolved into a discussion of whether or not it's possible to prove that God doesn't exist, and I was the only person in the room who thought that it was."

Actually, you can't. You can only prove a positive, not a negative. As such the burden is on the "believers" to prove their preposterous notion that there is a God.

The word atheist means neither believing nor disbelieving in God. It's valid as an atheist to say "I don't believe in God" or "There is no God" because you don't want to grant sanction to the concept. The complete thoughts would be "I don't believe in God nor do I disbelieve in God' and "There is no God and I won't entertain the concept until someone presents a valid proof."

Depending on one's definition, the concept God contradicts the facts of reality or is just preposterous. Many "believers" will say you cannot define God, that he is beyond definition, that you shouldn't think about defining him, that you should just feel his spirit and have faith. You can't argue with these people and you shouldn't try.

Best wishes,

Bob Palin

Post 12

Saturday, September 18, 2004 - 8:45am

"...typical postmodern philosophers who told us that one cannot find firm answers because no firm grounding for knowledge or morality exists."

Ditto. Absolutely horrible entre into the world of philosophy. I found my way out on my own. Once I understood that all of my Liberal Arts professors implicitly believed what the Philosophy professor explicitly believed, it was easy for me to figure out how and why I ~so~ disagreed with 90 % of what I was taught.

Post 13

Saturday, September 18, 2004 - 2:36pm

"...typical postmodern philosophers who told us that one cannot find firm answers because no firm grounding for knowledge or morality exists."
The claim of such philosophers is so blatantly confused, so paradoxical--it being an answer of considerable magnitude and scope--that I really know no philosopher to claim it (which doesn't mean there aren't some). But the vast majority of those I am aware of go about this stuff with a lot more finesse, really. The claim that one cannot find answers requires an impossibility proof that is incredibly rare and difficult to come by, and most reasonably well educated students of philosophy know this.

Post 14

Saturday, September 18, 2004 - 5:36pm

Hi Tibor,

I have enjoyed your posts very much.

I agree with you about the finesse part from my experience with postmodern artists and teachers. Many times they are very astute, very perceptive, intelligent, but then I don't find them to have much of a romantic soul or too great at "enlightening" students towards exploiting their talents and desires.

Michael

Post 15

Sunday, September 19, 2004 - 6:47pm

I'm just grateful that I was able to discover Objectivism before entering into college. I now find that I am unable to keep from laughing in my Asian philosophy class, or while listening to crap in Composition studio. I laugh for one main reason: They can't stop me from knowing what I know, from acting on what I know, and from making my life better because of it! They can't stop my vision because I see too clearly. They are no match for me because I carry the banner that they dropped. I am a man of the mind.

Adam Buker

Post 16

Sunday, September 19, 2004 - 10:17pm

If I may (mis)quote King Soloman:
(sorry to the Bible haters out there!)

There is a time to build, and a time to destroy.
A time for doubt, and a time for certaintly.
A time to for skeptisism, and a time for (rational) belief.....

Philosophy at times needs to to deconstruct, and to be very skeptical - otherwise false ideas will become entrenched....on the other hand if it becomes reduced to a game of doubting at all times then it becomes impossible to build anything of lasting value.

There must be a balance between the two...and intricate dance of the mind.

Post 17

Friday, June 24, 2005 - 4:11pm

This article popped up. It's a prime example of the value Joe brings to the site and a succinct summation of why certainty is important to a philosophy for living on earth.

Jim

Post 18

Friday, June 24, 2005 - 9:33pm

'Rational belief"? Reason is a consequence of knowing, not believing....

Post 19

Monday, January 23, 2006 - 11:32pm