| | 1) Definition: "A definition is a statement that identifies the nature of the units subsumed under a concept." [Rand, ITOE, 52.]
Note that in order to form a concept one must have units: "A concept is a mental integration of two or more units which are isolated by a process of abstraction and united by a specific definition." [Rand , 'Psych-Epistemology of Art,' RM, 19; pb17].
In order to be a unit, of course, a thing must actually exist: "A unit is an existent regarded as a separate member of a group of two or more similar members."
And if one does try to form concepts or to make definitions of things which don't exist - such as of imaginary mental units called Categories [Can't, A79/B105] - or to make distinctions that aren't valid - such as the distinction between analytic and synthetic [Cunt, CPR, A6/B10]- ...... why, then one is talking empty nonsense, and one's name is Immanuel Kant. Or Fred Seddon. The Rand-Trasher.
2) As I said much earlier on this thread: "Fred uses a review of Rand's treatment of Rawls to once again continue his obsession with Kant, while failing to discuss what Rand actually said about Rawls, or even what Maggot Rawls said himself. Bizarre." It still is.
As this was ostensibly an article about Rand's treatment of Rawls, has Doctor Seddon yet told anyone whether or not he agrees or disagrees with her treatment of Rawls, or whether or not she got him right or wrong? Or has he, like his hero Kant, talked up a storm and as usual said very little, and that with a sneer.
3) A criticism is often made of Great-Uncle Aristotle that he should have done more, or done differently, or done better. Yet Aristotle single-handedly invented two sciences and set many others off on the proper footing, which is surely enough for any one man in any one lifetime - to demand that he have done more is surely gilding the lily.
This criticism seems to drop the context of what it is to be a genius - something assuredly with which none of us is challenged, or even of which most of us have much experience. Geniuses (genii?) see more clearly, in more depth, and with more precision than any of us manage possibly ever in our lives. It was often said that Rand herself had a 'mountain-top' perspective in that she could hear the basic principles of a profession or science, ask a few pertinent questions, and almost immediately leap to the many implications of those principles.
We are all the beneficiaries of her amazing mind, and of the lightning-like formation of her conclusions. To complain, as so many here have done, that in delivering her conclusions she didn't do so in a way similar to or in a way acceptable to posturing academic posuers with an axe to grind is, frankly, just dumb. To have thought, written and formulated a whole integrated philosophy (as she did) and to have introduced many of that philosophy's many earth-shattering implications as Rand did is surely enough for one woman in one lifetime - even standing on Aristotle's shoulders as she was doing; to demand that she have done more or that she should have done it differently is surely to be asking for the lily to be well and truly gilded, if not something much worse. It's not just seeking to gild the lily, it's looking to shred, grind up and dispose of the lily altogether.
I expect Rand would have understood that she was in many cases in much of her writing simply opening up new paths of exploration for those of her followers her chose to follow her; fruitful new paths that only an integrated reality-based philosophy would open up. Her shoulders were open for any thinker to follow her into any field and to cross the i's and dot the t's and produce the ibid thickets in fields for which she had helpfully opened the gate and said 'Follow me! And then head for that far horizon!' She did for instance choose to call ITO an introduction to Objectivist epistemology, since as she suggested her contribution was just that. Her expectation was no doubt that philosophers of integrity would follow her and make manifest what she had merely suggested.
Philosophers of integrity - what a fucking, oxymoronic joke. How many have their eyes on the horizons she pointed out? And how many have their eyes instead on the contents of her garbage can, and refuse to even contemplate the stars she set fire to.
Ask yourself this question: How many of her followers in a position to do so have not just signally failed to follow up most of her leads, but have instead spent too much time trashing what she did achieve and complaining that she should have done it differently, instead of getting on and doing it themselves with the lead she gave them. To answer the question is to realise why Objectivism is where it is: spending too much time in clever-dick hair-splitting one-upmanship on the one hand, and on the other hand debating the merits or not of a failed affair between four people who might well have known better but chose to try it out anyway, and who paid the consequences.
The whole situation is just heart-breakingly sickening. For those few heroic individuals like Tibor - who has been doing the follow-up work in the gardens she and Aristotle first planted - my thanks. The rest of you know who you are. In the latest 'Free Radical' Tibor suggests presciently that:
After all these years of too much distracting gossip about Ayn Rand, it is time to stop it and have everyone get to the meat of her philosophy. It doesn’t matter how angry she tended to be at times, how she blew up at folks, how many people she slept with, how often she gave in to the temptation to make her own idiosyncratic tastes the stuff of universally great art. OK, Rand was, contrary to her own self-delusions, not perfect.
It doesn’t matter. What matters is whether what she thought about various philosophical topics is true, as true as possible in philosophy. ...
Which is why I for one am heartily sick and tired of getting nothing but Rand-trashing and Kantian nonsense from one who claims to subscribe to Objectivism - who claims to value what she got right - but who as I see it has not done one whit to do the follow-up work Objectivism requires; and who instead spends too much of his time (and ours) in clever-dick smart-arse bleating about what he claims she got wrong; one, that is, who looks increasingly like just another blowhard, academic, po-mo wanker.
Salvos, my arse. Salve. For an arse that needs kicking.
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There, I've said more than I wanted, and now I'm off for the weekend. Enjoy your trashing while I'm away.
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