| | Seddon wrote: "Robert Pasnau ... asked one question of Rasmussen that stunned the audience, to wit: “Do any of you gain concepts by measurement omission?” The silence was rather deafening. Even Allan, who usually has an answer for all the tough questions, remained silent." Well, I was in the audience and wasn't stunned, nor did anyone else seem stunned. Gotthelf couldn't have responded since when Pasnau asked the question, it was his turn to continue with his comments and others weren't supposed to just jump in to answer what was clearly a rhetorical -- and mainly humorous -- question from someone who admitted that all he knows of Ayn Rand's views is what he learned from Rasmussen's paper which covered but one issue, namely, the similarities and differences between Rand's and Aquinas's views on universals. (BTW, Kelley wrote an entire book, based on his Princeton University PhD dissertation, which was completed under the chairmanship of Richard Rorty, The Evidence of the Senses [LSU Press, ????]. By now innumerable students of Ayn Rand have entered the discipline of philosophy and have undergone the drill that this entails, so hardly any of them would find the objections and questions addressed to Rand's position "stunning." Gotthelf's work in these and related areas of philosophy, as that of many other philosophrs in the audience who had sympathies for Rand's position, pretty much prepares someone for the kind of exchanges that go on at these sessions. We are all pretty well prepped, as indeed was Rand, who deliberately surrounded herself with philosophy professors as she prepared her work on concept formation. But maybe we need to give Seddon some literary license -- what's a story without a little embellishment?)
Also, Rand didn't believe that we "gain concepts by measurement omission" but that when we form concepts (notice the active verb in the last formulation versus passive one in the first)--e. g., that of "apple"--what we retain in mind is not the specifics of some particular apple but what apples are "for the most part" (Aristotle). This is why when I say to someone on the phone 16 thousand miles away that "I am holding an apple in my hand," I can be clearly understood without having to give a full description of my hands, holding, or some apple.
(Edited by Machan on 1/01, 2:43am)
(Edited by Machan on 1/01, 6:19am)
(Edited by Machan on 1/01, 6:26am)
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