RoR: Forum

Post 0

Sunday, September 16, 2007 - 8:13am

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I am -- in all actuality -- in disagreement with this notion. But perhaps I just require more study. [?] ;-)

Though I am officially a scientist (biological and nutrition science), I have chosen to spend a full fifth of my time studying philosophy -- and I constantly find myself to be more provably correct than my academic and professional peers.

Ed

Post 1

Sunday, September 16, 2007 - 10:49am

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The Meaning of a Concept is Not its Definition.

Ed, I appreciate that you quoted that, especially since I understand your different attitude.

But truly, philosophy is based on a wide area of integration. Rand's arguments are almost always absolutely convincing, but they should be because they fit the data you already have. I was a free market hawk who took words seriously years before I read Rand, she validated most of my beliefs and really only changed one thing, turning me from a deist to an emergent pantheist (or an atheist if that's less objectionable.)

One's study need not be academic, most knowledge is self taught. But one must read widely, especially in history and all that deals with human nature but also in so many other topics that to list one would be unfair against the others, so I won't here and now.

I read Rand from 1985-1987 and then, except for rereading her fiction or occasionally glancing at ItOE or RM I immersed myself in history, literature, the sciences and the humanities until I reread all her works again in the mid nineties. I did that interim research knowing her methodology, and would not have gotten as much out of it if I hadn't. One needn't adhere to any strict 10/1 temporal ratio, as in only reading rand in years that end in 7!

My main concern with limiting oneself to Rand alone is that the depth of one's concepts depends upon the breadth of the data integrated into them. One must learn (human)nature from (human)nature. Rand provides methods, guidelines, and definitions. But the meaning of a concept is not its definition. You have to extrospect to learn the true width of the meanings of concepts. Reality seldom floats by your armchair.

Rand herself was in her fifties before she started writing her non-fiction. She had a hue amount of integration done before then. But she mostly presented essentials, and although we know she was widely read, how many of her essays or books contain footnotes or bibliographies? I would to God they had!

Ted Keer

Post 2

Sunday, September 16, 2007 - 3:22pm

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Ted,

But the meaning of a concept is not its definition. You have to extrospect to learn the true width of the meanings of concepts. Reality seldom floats by your armchair.

While this, in general, is good advice -- I don't see how it applies to the original context of foreign policy evaluation. I guess you could argue, because foreign policy is political, that you've got to have been in political trenches in order to be in the position to judge foreign policy (and procedures). I respectfully disagree.

And this business of reminding me to "extrospect" -- i.e. to mix-in a dose of induction with my deductions -- is a little fecescious (I spell that word differently than most) on your part. It's too bad that you didn't go to the trouble of making a list of those things in the world which cannot be known from an armchair. It would have been of such immense value because I'm so obviously in need of such a lesson in what it is which can be known, and how this can be so.

In a nutshell, you're saying that civilian judgment of war efforts is impossible, or at least only possible for a select few book-worms who've exposed themselves to the appropriate works -- which I'm sure that you'll all too gladly list for us here. If you want to judge war, then you must first have read Sun Tzu's Art of War, Machiavelli's The Prince, Richard Perle and David Frum, etc., etc., etc., on ad nauseum.

Imagine a society wherein folks suspended judgment of foreign policy decisions (because they hadn't read "the right" books first). Whatever. No thanks, Ted. I'd rather make these judgments from my current constellation of facts (information set) and then just have you sneering -- condescendingly -- from the sidelines and letting everyone else know what books I should have first read before engaging in the discussion that I just did.

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 9/16, 3:24pm)

Post 3

Sunday, September 16, 2007 - 3:53pm

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Plato Did It

Ed, there was no insult meant to you, and the need to extrospect applies to everyone, myself included. I had no intention of addressing you alone or implying that you alone need this advice. I do and so does everyone else.

I suppose a good example would be discussing how we deal with supposedly private individuals attacking our country as terrorists from the soil of foreign countries. This has happened many times in our past. It is ALWAYS AN ACT OF WAR if the host country does not take immediate good faith efforts to stop and arrest those individuals or allow the attacked country to pursue them. Rand didn't have to establish or address this policy, and I am certain she endorsed it. This was the cause of war during Roman times, it was a cassus belli in the French & Indian War, the Mexican-American war, and was falsely adduced as a cause for the Spanish-American war. Ever heard of Pancho Villa?

Now, if you want to argue from scratch on this issue, feel free. Plato did it. But a study of history would give your thouhhts more depth and clarity and would be necessary for any serious person who wants to debate on these issues in a serious matter. My telling you this can in no way harm, but only help you and any others who take the same advice. Rand always expressed her great respect for the Founding Fathers. The Founding Fathers read Locke and other political philosophers but they also avidly read history, Read Cicero, knew British and Roman history like people know baseball statistics, and based the Constitution in a large part upon that knowledge of history. The airmchair political philosopher of all time was Plato, his Republic being a would-be dictator's fantasy come true, facts be damned.

Please don't take this post as a personal attack or insult. (Believe me, I'm sure you know I can be explicit if I want to call someone a scoundrel.) I myself have followed politics avidly since the Iranian Hostage Crisis. I have read Will Durant's world history in full. I have read Suetonius and Xenophon and Herodotus and the Federalist and the Anti-Federalist Papers and Isabel Paterson and so much more I could bore this forum to tears. That doesn't make me automatically right or superior - but it does give me a grounding in factual content beyond the current headlines and the scope of what can glean from four or five decade old essays by Rand. I think everyone can benefit from a broader education - I have no monopoly.

Ted Keer