Metaphysics from Descartes

Objectivists also say they believe in freedom. Rand said man has free-will. Yes, they also believe in causation and an objective reality which cannot be controlled by man. They believe in immutable laws of logic and physics, but they also believe in free-will because Rand said entites cause things, and this somehow fits in, self-evidently, with thier other beliefs.

Well, I don't think that Rand ever said that entities cause things — and I think that the statement is more than a misrepresentation. But I can't prove that she never said it because I can't prove a negative.

Check Galt’s Speech in For the New Intellectual, 188; pb 151. Or, check page 64 n the Ayn Rand Lexicon, the first entry under Causality. It says:

The law of causality is the law of identity applied to action. All actions are caused by entities. The nature of an action is caused and determined by the nature of entities that act; a thing cannot act in contradiction to its nature…

Then check “The Metaphysical Verses the Man-Made.” PWNI, 38;pb31, or page 179 in the Ayn Rand Lexicon, under free-will:

What the unalterable basic constituents are to nature, the attribute of a volitional consciousness is to the entity “man.”

 

Peikoff says, in The Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy,” ITOE, 149:

Volition is not an exception to the Law of Casualty; it is a type of causation.

Okay, are you going to concede, Sam. I think it would be the honest thing to do.

You are just being obtuse. Your statement, "Entities cause things" implies that all entities have the capacity to cause things. Rand's statement, "All actions are caused by entities" doesn't imply that a rock can change anything.