RoR: Forum

Dr. Reed,

Concerning your post 330 --

You make an excellent point. Had BB donated those tapes to such an archive, Peikoff would have had to challenge the Deed of Gift, a far stickier proposition. He could still have sued BB on grounds that the tapes were not her's to donate, but there would not have been much point in that, would there? And, the repository in question would still have to be a party to the suit, if Peikoff expected to gain any sort of control, not to mention actual possession. A solution, which is commonly worked out in such cases, would have been a decision by the Court that the originals might go to Peikoff (as heir to the Estate) and true copies remain with the repository. But I hightly doubt that would have satisfied LP, either.

-- Paragraph removed by author. --

Edit: Obviously, I was thinking of The National Archives rather than the Library of Congress. My apologies. -JA

(Edited by John Allen on 10/27, 10:05pm)

Post 341

Thursday, October 27, 2005 - 6:26pm

Dr. Campbell,

Re your post #332, that is a very interesting question. I, too, would be interested to hear what could be derived from the Objectivist Ethics on the score of meritless lawsuits, regardless of who comes up with an answer.

On a slightly different note, taken from the same "column" by Barbara Branden, we have something more along the lines of your own field, namely:

One only had to be with Ayn Rand for a very few minutes to realize that however her mind worked, it was vastly different and superior to the way that other people's minds worked - and that the philosophical results she achieved were vastly different and superior to those that others achieved.

The claims of “liar, liar” made by Mr. Valliant not withstanding, let’s suppose that BB was right, and it was that power and method of thinking that enabled Rand to produce not just ATLAS and THE FOUNTAINHEAD, but the whole of Objectivism as well. What are the implications of that???

One implication is this: you can kiss Objectivist Epistemology good-bye.

No, I’m not kidding. Now, I have not read the revised edition(s) of Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. I took the very first university course ever offered from Peikoff --at Denver University, in the fall of 1965, when there was no text. I received an “A” for the course, and in a box, somewhere in storage, is the final exam for that course.

I read ITOE, in it's first iteration; but I also attended the workshops on Objectivist Epistemology that were held in New York, from which much of the added content in the second edition (I am told) was taken. In the very first workshop, one of the written, 'pre-meeting-submitted' questions was: “How, Miss Rand, did you arrive at your theory of concept formation and how long did it take you to work it out?” (I don’t claim that to be verbatim, but it is certainly the gist of the question.)

Her answer was, “By introspection. I simply asked myself how I did it, and watched my own mind go through the process. In about 30 minutes I had the entire answer, almost as it appears in the “Introduction” today.”

Edit: removed the word "less" from in front of "about" in the immediately preceding graph.

SOLO members, and anyone else who may be reading this, I sat at the conference table around which the other attendees were seated, and I was stunned. I did not believe it. Something just did not add up, at least not to me. And, to me, it will never make sense that she arrived at her theory, by that means in "about 30 minutes." However, I don’t endorse her theory, either.

John Allen

(Edited by John Allen on 10/27, 10:18pm)

Post 342

Thursday, October 27, 2005 - 10:08pm

John Allen wrote,

"I read ITOE, in it's first iteration; but I also attended the workshops on Objectivist Epistemology that were held in New York, from which much of the added content in the second edition (I am told) was taken. In the very first workshop, one of the written, 'pre-meeting-submitted' questions was: 'How, Miss Rand, did you arrive at your theory of concept formation and how long did it take you to work it out?' (I don’t claim that to be verbatim, but it is certainly the gist of the question.)

"Her answer was, 'By introspection. I simply asked myself how I did it, and watched my own mind go through the process. In less about 30 minutes I had the entire answer, almost as it appears in the “Introduction” today.'

"SOLO members, and anyone else who may be reading this, I sat at the conference table around which the other attendees were seated, and I was stunned. I did not believe it. Something just did not add up, at least not to me. And, to me, it will never make sense that she arrived at her theory, by that means in 'about 30 minutes.' However, I don’t endorse her theory, either."

Thirty minutes. Hmm. And to think that Wallace I. Matson, Chair of Philosophy at UC Berkeley back in the halcyon days of the New Left, and author of _A History of Philosophy_, dubbed it the best thing he'd seen written in philosophy in the last 50 years. In case you think that Matson was an Objectivist stooge, think again!

- Bill

Post 343

Thursday, October 27, 2005 - 10:29pm

Bill, I'm curious to know more detail on that anecdote if you can spill, as I'm sure others would also find it of interest. What was the full quotable context and content of Matson's statement?

You're post inspired my curiosity, I confess.

Casey

Post 344

Thursday, October 27, 2005 - 10:42pm

30 minutes of conscious effort, yes.

But such quick insight only favors the prepared mind. For insight to work in 30 minutes of focus on a problem involving the integration of prior solutions of so many component problems, those component problems had to be solved first, consciously or unconsciously, explicitly or explicitly, in the course of the preceding days or months or years - what we cognitive psychologists call the "incubation" of the problem. Those 30 minutes were the final result of a lifetime habit - a lifetime virtue - of always striving for cognitive integration.

That, at least, is what one knows from the perspective of objective cognitive psychology. Let's not forget what it took under and behind and before the 30 minutes that stood out to Ayn Rand's own introspection. Primacy of existence (over consciousness, including introspection) and all that.

Post 345

Thursday, October 27, 2005 - 10:57pm

Adam, thank you.

Thursday, October 27, 2005 - 10:55pm

"You can kiss Objectivist Epistemology good-bye"? Oh, please, John, you keep tripping your circuit breakers. What are you talking about now?

--Brant

(Edited by Brant Gaede on 10/27, 11:06pm)

Post 347

Thursday, October 27, 2005 - 11:01pm

Casey, you asked,

"Bill, I'm curious to know more detail on that anecdote if you can spill, as I'm sure others would also find it of interest. What was the full quotable context and content of Matson's statement?

"You're post inspired my curiosity, I confess."

Well, there isn't much that I can add. I was a student of philosophy at UC Berkeley back in the early '70's along with an Objectivist friend. We both had Matson as one of our professors. My friend, Bill Kaufmann, gave Matson a copy of Rand's monograph, which had yet to include the extra material from her workshop. So, Matson had only the bare bones Intro with none of the accompanying dialogue. After reading it, he handed it back to Bill with the above quoted comment.

One further anecdote: Matson subsequently agreed to have Harry Binswanger give a course on Objectivism under the auspices of the Berkeley Philosophy Department, which I attended. Unfortunately, since Matson was overseeing the course, which was given for credit, he had certain expectations about how it should be taught, which conflicted with Harry's. Apparently, Matson disagreed with the format of Harry's presentation, and Harry was quite upset with Matson's attempt to control how he taught the course. So, unfortunately, they parted company with a good deal of lingering animosity, and that was the last time Objectivism was taught at U.C. Berkeley!

- Bill

Post 348

Thursday, October 27, 2005 - 11:41pm

Thank you, Adam. Adam's post [#344] is a superb example of how to take a topic which others would devote a page or more to and confuse still further and instead, distill the -essential answer- into five or six very well-thought out sentences.

[Long-winded, fuzzy, repetitious, tangential posters... please, please for the sake of all of your suffering readers, pay attention!! Less is more: Copy #344 and paste it on your refrigerator.]

Post 349

Friday, October 28, 2005 - 1:25am

Bill,

OK, I remember it now. Mark Riebling's an old friend, and I remember the story I think...

Post 350

Friday, October 28, 2005 - 1:51am

Post 344 does take me by surprise. I would not have guessed, from reading Professor Reed's personal description, that he is a "cognitive psychologist," in addition to being an employee of the state of California's education system.

Perhaps I am misinterpreting him to think that he is saying that Rand actually, at times, reached conclusions "implicitly," that she solved problems "unconsciously," or that her lifelong, virtuous habit of "striving" for cognitive [subconscious] integration, was what enabled her, with a mere thirty minutes of "conscious effort" to form, in complete sentences, her entire theory of concept formation.

Indeed, I must have misunderstood Dr. Reed, because a) Rand did not believe in the existence of an "unconscious," and b) she frequently claimed not to have a "subconscious."

According to Professor Reed, such (30-minute) insights are favored only by [and, one must suppose, to] the "prepared mind." There certainly seem to be an abundance of such minds here on SOLO-HQ. And most, it appears to me, were prepared inside the same Objectivist box. Having such a box so full of stock answers, and referring so ofter to the same set of reference books, is very economical: it completely saves the effort of independent thought. In short, it is so convenient! Anything, and everything, can be apprehended through the lens of Objectivism, which, as in the case of Ayn Rand, has become one's habitual [read 'virtuous'] way of approaching existence. Then, it can be discussed in shorthand and Objectivist code. And THIS is what Professor Reed would have us believe is "the primacy of existence ... and all that." Well, perhaps it is: the existence which each of you call "home" -- a conceptual construct, formulated by "the greatest novelist and philosopher of all time."

[[I wonder if Dr. Reed was in the audience during a Q&A session following one of Dr. Peikoff's lectures, when she discussed her own sense of life. She asked that people stop sending her gifts, such as art works, and recordings of music they were sure she would like. She said that almost invariably those things were not all what she liked, and though she understood the sentiment, they were so wrong it was almost painfully embarrassing. She went on to say that they did have an excellent way of knowing her sense of life {you should aleady be there}, because it was painted across every page of ATLAS SHRUGGED. But, she said, she hated to think how little the members of the audience actually understood. There was only one person who knew her sense of life, "as he infallibly does." And that was Frank O'Connor.

[[Why do I mention any of this? Because of the title of this unique web site; because she would have absolutely hated the short film, 'Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life.']]

But, as I said, I must have misunderstood what Dr. Reed said. And while I'm not actually from Missouri, a state with a motto I've always admired, almost as much as Vermont's, I have too many other things on my plate to stick around for the "show me" part.

I'll leave you with this thought, this admonition:

For you own sakes, for the sake of the long-term self interest of each of you, I would echo what Robert Campbell suggested in Post # 333: read the quotes from AR's journals in Mr. Valliant's book, and interpret them for yourself. Do not let him interpret them for you. To do that, to accept or even to consider his interpretation before you interpret her quotes for yourself, would be a betrayal of the core of what you advocate as your own philosophy. It would be a betrayal of everything Ayn Rand stood for and faught for. His book ought to be read, carefully, by every admirer of Miss Rand or potential admirer. She may not have wanted her private thoughts "out there." But now that they are, she WOULD want them heard directly -- not filtered, not explained, but listened to and independently evaluated by each and every reader. (And, if "less were always more," you would not have had to skip over Galt's speech and come back to it, as almost every reader does the first time he reads ATLAS.)

John Allen
10/28/05

edit: change "the" to "them" and fill in Campbell's Post #.
edit #2: correct the spelling of "fought." [big fan of Annie Sullivan, probably too obscure for P. Coates]

(Edited by John Allen on 10/28, 2:18am)

(Edited by John Allen on 10/28, 8:42am)

Post 351

Friday, October 28, 2005 - 3:52am

Mr. Coates,

There is no requirement that you suffer through long-winded posts. But simply because you cannot follow them does not mean that no one can.

Learn to be selective of the "bylines" you read. Not to worry, though; I'm out of here. Fahy was right all along -- I have no confidence in my ability to change his, repeat his, mind.

I agree with the notion that "Brevity is the soul of wit." But I am also fond of Mark Twain's reply to a criticism of "Roughing It" -- "If I'd had more time, I'd have written a shorter book."
And now the best one: "There is more in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than is drempt of in your philosophy."

-John

Post 352

Friday, October 28, 2005 - 4:30am

In his essay "Rand on Concepts" in The Philosophical Thouht of Ayn Rand Matson says:

"A graduate student of philosophy with heretical ideas -- thrust on me a copy of ITOE. My reaction was mixed. On the one hand, the leading ideas struck me as both important and neglected; on the other, the luminous annd vigerous style only brought to the fore a number of questionable argumentitive moves, and the many shafts directed at 'modern philosphy' seemed to miss their mark." [p. 21.]

He goes on to say that upon rereading ITOE his opinion of it lessened.

Post 353

Friday, October 28, 2005 - 10:30am

Well, for my part, I think Mr. Valliant won the CINDY's all by himself, or derserved to. I think he should have won some DENISE, BECKY, THERESA, and GERTRUDE awards, too. (I am not sure if this makes him a Saddamite, or a pomo wanker, or both, or neither).

I think John Allen is either:

1. A robot computer from the future; or

2. His real name is Len LaJohn, but he rearranged the letters of his name to protect his secret identity.

He ~might~ be a Saddamite pomo wanker, but it would depend on his evil robot programming.

I want to start a reality show and make Casey Fahey and MSK live together. Maybe with some strippers for mass audience appeal, or LP could be the landlord or something. There would be action and adventure in every episode, and the moral of the story could always be somehow tied in to the Affair, the Break, or Barbara's book, or Mr. Valliant's book. We could call it "The Pomo Wanker Saddamite Apartment." All characters in the show would wear sunglasses, trench coats, and hats, and the other characters could spend alot of time speculating about whether any of the trenchcoat crowd was actually NB, BB, the ghost of AR, or maybe evewn Hitler's Brain.

Ah, now I feel better.

WHY are we screwing around with this decades old crap again?

Post 354

Friday, October 28, 2005 - 11:47am

Neil Parille wrote, "In his essay "Rand on Concepts" in The Philosophical Thought of Ayn Rand, Matson says:

'A graduate student of philosophy with heretical ideas -- thrust on me a copy of ITOE. My reaction was mixed. On the one hand, the leading ideas struck me as both important and neglected; on the other, the luminous annd vigerous style only brought to the fore a number of questionable argumentitive moves, and the many shafts directed at 'modern philosphy' seemed to miss their mark.' [p. 21.]

"He goes on to say that upon rereading ITOE his opinion of it lessened."

Thanks, Neil, for mentioning this. I had not read that particular essay by Matson. As I say, when Matson returned ITOE to my friend Bill Kaufmann, Bill did say that Matson was very impressed with it. I wonder what caused Matson to change his mind. I hope it wasn't peer pressure, after he found out how unpopular Rand was in academia.

- Bill

Post 355

Friday, October 28, 2005 - 12:03pm

WHY are we screwing around with this decades old crap again?

For the same reason the posting traffic has gone over the top just by starting a topic with the word "Lesbo" in it. For the same reason the posting traffic went over the top on the other recent thread that supposedly has something to do with the aesthetics of erotica versus what is porn. Because that's what even "elevated" people do, that's where they go, and there's your proof.

In a phrase, welcome to the entertainment business... :)

I hope it's for those reasons, because the alternative has to do with insisting on revisionist history, and points to cult of personality, and that, to me, disrespects Ayn Rand far more than anything the Brandens (or her for that matter) have been called to task for.

It's always been bullshit as a topic. I suppose you could argue that public figures have to expect to live public lives, but the fact is that none of this was anyone's business but the people involved. It was handled poorly by all, and that's mainly because there is no "good" way to handle a situation that should have never happened in the first place. Oh fucking well.

Post 356

Friday, October 28, 2005 - 1:57pm

Decades old -- and still affecting so much of Rand criticism so unfairly. Snuffing this urban legend -- involving much more than a mere affair -- sure won't end the attack, but it will clean it up to some extent.

And, do justice.

(Edited by James S. Valliant
on 10/28, 1:59pm)

Post 357

Friday, October 28, 2005 - 2:54pm

James,

I'm glad you made the last post you did because it brings up what I consider to be a core point in all this. Here's where I'm at with it, and I am seriously asking you to sell me otherwise...

It seems to me that you have, as a main premise, something along the line that the Affair, its handling, aftermath, etc. is one of, if not the primary driver of criticism of Ayn Rand's writing. That what actually happened has turned bigger than life into an urban legend, as you say, and it is that thing that poses a significant impediment to growth of interest in Ayn Rand's writing, and by extension the growth of those who incorporate her philosophical tenets into how they live on earth and deal with others.

Now, I'm not sure who, if anyone, could actually determine that fact. So, what I have is my personal experience, which many conversations with many other people of all makes and models, obviously including those within the Objectivist world, as it were. I've been around this now for 25 years, on a reasonably well-informed level. It also includes pretty regular monitoring of various published critiques and comments that have appeared; meaning that I have always kept an ear out for any kind of mention of Ayn Rand.

And, I gotta tell you, I don't see it. Not to any meaningful, significant extent. There are far too many other things that make The Affair chump change in this. I can't even remember hearing of situations where people got interested, and then were repulsed and ran from AR once they got under the covers and found out about The Affair in their readings. And, let's be fair, in the population at large, the ones that get that far only represent a minute fraction of the population.

What have I seen that might account for lost potential? If I had to pick one thing, it would be college-level teachers of philosophy. Most of them have either terrible things to say about AR or very vague ones. I have gone through this process since I was in college (1970's) through recent times when my daughters were taking their philosophy classes, and results have generally been pretty similar. That's a whole 'nother topic, what they're up to, but I'll reduce it to saying that they very rarely teach the branches of philosophy (and if they do at all, it's incomplete and out of order), and that apparently A is not necessarily A if you're working on your doctorate. I've asked practically every academic I've ever known (that's a lot) about Ayn Rand, and not once did The Affair come up. Not one mention of her character or her personal life. Never once in 25 years. In the academic world of both philosophy and literature, the general concensus I got was that Ayn Rand wasn't to be taken seriously (meaning, she wasn't one of them, a career academic, she didn't publish academic papers, etc., much like how NB has sometimes been treated in the academic psychology world). She wasn't in their little club.

On the other hand, I have talked to scads of people who read one or more of the novels. Generally they thought highly of them. Sometimes, they knew that the novels had a purpose beyond being novels. The main conversations tended to move to capitalism. Many times, I got the impression that AR had successfully transferred her concepts to readers via the novels, but it was more through osmosis- they couldn't define the philosophy too well, but they could practice it.

I think you should get the picture I am painting.

So, to me, the more I look at this thing big picture, the more it looks like a straw man. And, even if it were urban legend (which I find it far too small in audience to qualify for anyway) it seems to me that urban legends are not able to be positively changed by perpetuating them in almost any fashion- they kind of take their own lifecycle.

I question the significance of it on the global scale. I am not sure there is even a "problem" at all. If you plug the variables into other scenarios (outside of maybe the Presidency) there would not likely be a problem.

Outside of our microcosmos, it feels like a tempest in a teapot.

Thoughts?

Post 358

Friday, October 28, 2005 - 3:06pm

Neil Parille piqued my curiosity when he mentioned that Professor Matson had written a chapter in _The Philosophic Thought of Ayn Rand_, criticizing Rand's theory of concepts. So I dug up the book and took a look at Matson's comments. Here are few points that he raises which ought to give you a feel for his criticism's level of competency:

He quotes Rand, and then restates the point the way he thinks it should have been expressed:

Rand: "A concept is a mental integration of two or more units which are isolated according to a specific characteristic(s) and united by a specific definition" (p. 15).
Matson: "A word is a symbol that is used to refer to two or more units which are isolated according to a specific characteristic(s) and united by a specific definition."

Rand: "Every word we use (with the exception of proper names) is a symbol that denotes a concept, i.e., that stands for an unlimited number of concretes of a certain kind" (p. 15).
Matson: "Every word we use (with the exception of proper names) is a symbol that refers to an indefinite number (including zero) of concretes of a certain kind."

Rand: "The first concepts a child forms are concepts of perceptual entities; the first words he learns are words designating them." (p. 23).
Matson: "The first words a child learns are words designating perceptual entities."

Rand: "It is often said that definitions state the meaning of words. This is true; but it is not exact. (p. 40)
Matson: It is often said that definitions state the meaning of words. This is true."

Rand: "An invalid concept invalidates every proposition or process of thought in which it is used as a cognitive assertion" (p. 47)
Matson: "A misused word invalidates every sentence or process of thought in which it is misused as a cognitive assertion."

This should be enough to give you flavor of Matson's criticism. He sounds very much like a nominalist, although he might not classify himself as such. Observe his failure to differentiate between a word and a concept. This is especially evident in his claim that "definitions simply state the meaning of words." The definition of the concept man is not simply the definition of the word "man," but of what the word symbolizes, i.e., the classification "human being" in terms of its genus and differentia. If one were really being strict about it, one would define the word "man" as a three-letter visual-auditory symbol used to designate the concept "man," the latter being defined as "rational animal." The fact that this distinction was lost on Matson does not speak well for him, especially given his status as the chair of Philosophy at a major university. And here I had thought that his initially favorable impression of Rand's epistemology was a sign that professional philosophers might be more receptive to her ideas than was commonly thought.

This is why I say that social and academic pressure can often color a person's ideas and beliefs and make him or her less than objective, even when the person is intelligent enough to know better. The obstacles that Rand faces in academia have less to do with the strength of her ideas than with the emotional resistance to her politically. I know three professors of economics who are pro-free market, who are very intellectual and very bright, much brighter than I, who place a very high value on reasons and evidence in forming one's ideas. Yet all three are Catholic, the likely explanation for which is that there are strong emotional factors (family pressures, etc.) affecting their judgment.

So, the uphill battle that Objectivists face is not that their ideas lack credibility, but that most people are not sufficiently independent to recognize that credibility. I've lamented the true-believer mentality among Objectivists, but the truth is that in our society, that mentality is the norm rather than the exception.

- Bill

(Edited by William Dwyer
on 10/28, 5:28pm)

Post 359

Friday, October 28, 2005 - 3:53pm