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December 20, 2004

Kant And The New Tactics To Destroy Objectivism by Manfred F. Schieder

Under the pretense of “bettering and correcting"(!) Objectivism, a new breed of attacks against it has been launched by academics, commentators and sundry intellectuals. Some do it aiming at accommodating Objectivism to Kant and all of them, whether declared or implicitly, follow the Kantian guide of destructiveness. By doing so they unwittingly confirm that Ayn Rand perfectly recognized Kant as the paramount of nowaday's evilness, following the path whose philosophical originator was Plato.
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Discuss this Article (77 messages)

Tuesday, December 21, 2004 - 6:44am

Hello, Ed,

First of all thanks for your congratulations.

Second but not least, I am very, very sorry for having misspelled your name. I hate doing it and promise that it will never happen again. However it looks like having been written OK in my article.

I will prepare the English translation of some of my articles on Objectivism as they appeared in newspapers and magazines in my country of birth, Argentina, and supply them to SOLO as soon as they are ready.

Best regards from

Manfred

Tuesday, December 21, 2004 - 6:48am

Hello to all the comments on "Kant and the New Tactics to Destroy Objectivism":

By all means, please hold back!

My article dealt about Objectivism and Kant, not about “All You Always Wanted To Know About SEX”.

Smiles from Manfred

Tuesday, December 21, 2004 - 6:48am

Hello to all the comments on "Kant and the New Tactics to Destroy Objectivism":

By all means, please hold back!

My article dealt about Objectivism and Kant, not about “All You Always Wanted To Know About SEX”.

Smiles from Manfred

Tuesday, December 21, 2004 - 6:49am

Hello to all the comments on "Kant and the New Tactics to Destroy Objectivism":

By all means, please hold back!

My article dealt about Objectivism and Kant, not about “All You Always Wanted To Know About SEX”.

Smiles from Manfred

Tuesday, December 21, 2004 - 7:16am

For all the people who believe I or anyone else has been "insensitive" to Jeanine Ring, Linz says:

"More, dissenters are positively *welcome* if they put up good arguments in good faith. That's a selfish thing on our part - there's nothing that keeps one on one's intellectual toes better than thoughtful arguments sincerely proffered."

Yes, and these dissenters should be prepared to have their arguments countered when we believe they're wrong. I suspect that I am one of the few who has read most if not all her "War and Peace" length posts. Linz himself admitted he is not one of these few, and he is mistaken in believing our only problem was with her being a "transgender prostitute" (especially after my last post). George said she has dozens of lines where she carefully weaved a straw man of Objectivism that nobody I know of has refuted at length, and offered an irrational alternative. I say dozens is too few a count. This harks back to my observation that perhaps hedonists and non-Christian theists get more of a pass. Or maybe everyone else should pay more careful attention to what Jeanine Ring actually wrote.

Tuesday, December 21, 2004 - 7:18am

Manfred,

Not at all angry, and thanks for the sources.

Before I even look at the sources, I will tell you that no evolutionary scientist will tell you that the "senses evolved in accordance with reality" using "accordance with reality" in an epistemic fashion. They will tell you that the senses evolved in order to handle and alert the species to the kinds of threats that one would face in the environments in which the specie lives.

Therefore, on this view of evolution, what would not be important is whether the human eye sees "reality", but whether as it evolved from a part of the brain, it was more efficient for processing information relevant to aiding human survival in certain kinds of environments within which human beings lived. To the degree that it did so, because eyes are believed to have evolved from rods and cones that were brain parts in more primitive animals, the eyes selected for have less to do with reality, but more to do with how well they aided survival as part of the nervous system of an animal.

If I am wrong about this, I will say so. But if the senses give more accurate perception of reality, it is more a result of improved information processing, which also involves the brain, and not just an argument about the senses. Moreover, in evolutionary theory, it is less about "accordance with reality", but more about what survives. This is my primary argument against your trying to bring in evolution as support for your claim. You claim about the efficacy of the senses has little to do with evolutionary theory and I think that your concluding statement (which I have repeatedly quoted) has little to do with Kant's argument.

Why is this important? Because Kant's argument, when most generously understood (as I took it when I heard it from Mises before reading more common interpretations), is an argument that our perception of reality, even to the degree it is objective, is not the same as reality (the dualism that you mock). Therefore, Kant's argument, which was about ubiquity of the forms of perception in human nature, is not affected by evolutionary arguments, but might even get some defense from them, since it is quite conceivable that other animals will have representations of reality not as powerful as ours, but which do the job of sustaining them in their environments.

Tuesday, December 21, 2004 - 7:19am

This is absolutely the right thread to be talking about that other tactic to destroy Objectivism.

There seems to be a pattern of Jeanine being treated "badly" by objectivist oriented boards. At first glance this would suggest that she is a victim of the worst in Objectivism. No doubt this confirms her hypothesis that she is a brave and sensitive, yet persecuted soul.

It seems others here have bought into this fiction and are shedding tears for her.

The fact is, that she has, on all the Objectivist oriented discussion boards I am aware of, set herself up in the most calculating way.

Then, when, after more dissertations than are contained in a university library, she is CALLED on her irrational, incoherant, pretentious drivel, she cries foul. See, Objectivism (and my parents and society) is to blame!!!!

Well, NO!!!

This is either pathology, error, or evil. I won't label it, (though I am tempted to) unlike her who recently called several of us on another thread evil, and cursed us with the suicides of every child who isnt allowed to have sex.

To all who have sympathy, I would suggest you have been had. A troll by another name is still a troll. She has done EXACTLY the same thing on every other objectivist discussion board, and the results have been THE SAME.

I do think the reaction on SOLO has been more benevolent, more rational. In the end I am grateful to George and others who finally, having had enough, called it like it is.

John

Tuesday, December 21, 2004 - 7:21am

Something went wrong when I senz my message to Next Level, while another message repeated three times.

Dear Next Level:

Dear me! Do I have to go into this question? After all: what is the Internet good for if it isn’t to find the answers for oneself? Just be entering Google and typing +”human eye” +”evolution” we get an enormous amount of information on the development of the eye (and all the other living beings, organs, etc. for that matter), for example:

http://www.karger.com/gazette/64/fernald/art_1_1.htm

http://www.athro.com/evo/gen/inherit1.html

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/01/1/l_011_01.html

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=15595

http://library.thinkquest.org/28030/eyeevo.htm

http://www.2think.org/eye.shtml

http://www4.d25.k12.id.us/phs/biology/humaneye.html

http://atheism.about.com/b/a/123440.htm

http://www.separationsnow.com/basehtml/SepH/1,,6-5-7-0-49662-ezine-0-2,00.html

Of course I could have started from there but by the time I was working on my writing “Ayn Rand, I and the Universe” I had behind me some four decades of reading books on the matter of which I just mention a very few, to say nothing of Darwin, of course: Isaac Asimov’s (to me, one of the greatest geniuses that ever existed) “Asimov’s New Guide to Science” and “The Wellsprings of Life” as well as most of his other books (yes, Science-Fiction too), scientific essays and articles, “The Language of Life” by George and Muriel Beadle (Beadle was Nobel Price in Medicine of 1958 and his book is very, very good, with one exception shich is not necessary to be mentioned here), Hoimar von Ditfurth’s “Im Anfang war der Wasserstoff” (“At the Beginning stands Hydrogen”) and “Der Geist fiel nicht vom Himmel” (“The Spirit did not descend from heaven”), and, and, and…

From one of the Internet pages above I quote:” As Charles Darwin would agree, the eye is indeed the result of an acceptable evolutionary process by gradual increase in complexity of a photoreceptor that changed one day into an awe-inspiring organ. Darwin himself said: “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory (natural selection) would absolutely break down, but I can find no such case."

But this goes far beyond what should be said. I by myself think that Ethan Dawe gave the shortest and most precise answer to your question. The question of Evolution, which is grounded directly on reality, has long been settled, as the “Monkey Trial” (1927, there’s a good picture of it by Spencer Tracy and Frederic March: “Inherit the Wind”) showed.

Good Internet surfing wishes Manfred.

Tuesday, December 21, 2004 - 7:22am

George,
You do not have to apologize for that, because I understood that you misinterpreted my sentence and that has since been clarified. But, since you offered it, I accept it and thank you. Much of your style and tone was far from ideal (funny to hear that from Linz of all people) but none of the substance was incorrect.

Manfred,

I sincerely apologize for participating in the hijacking of your article's thread. I confess I have not actually read your article . . . I do not know too much about Kant, much less about how his language and premises were similar to mine and my moral objection to prostitution. This will be my last post on this thread about this topic.

Tuesday, December 21, 2004 - 7:57am

Byron said to Mr. Schieder:

I sincerely apologize for participating in the hijacking of your article's thread.

I, on the other hand, am glad that this thread was hijacked. The ridiculous claim that people like Fred Seddon are trying to destroy Objectivism because they think that perhaps Rand was wrong about Kant doesn't deserve discussion.

Mr. Schieder: I understand they are taking recruits over at the Ayn Rand Institute. And, after reading your article, I don't think you will need the requisite prefrontal lobotomy.

Luke Setzer made the following challenge to Jeanine:

I challenge you to write an article justifying sex work from an Objectivist viewpoint. I think it can be done, but it would be most convincing from someone who works in the field.

George Cordero, in his tightly-argued response, said:

My reply is; it cannot be done.

I think this "article" was written by Robert Malcom in post #37. What I would like to see is someone showing that there is anything in Objectivism that would rule out prostitution as a moral occupation. I can't find anything explicit in Rand's writing.

Thanks,
Glenn

Tuesday, December 21, 2004 - 7:58am

Several people have mentioned Amy Hayden's tape from the 2001 TOC Summer Seminar. I went in the back and found that we have one copy (other than the master) left.
We are willing to sell it for $13.50 plus shipping and handling. It isn't listed on our Web site, so anyone interested should call 1-800-374-1776 between 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m EST. First come first served.

The tape was not a top seller. I attended the presentation. Although the Jeanine Ring has left the site, I should point out that Amy had been in the "sex business" to the extent that she was a topless dancer in her youth. That experience was part of the reason for her position.

Bill

Tuesday, December 21, 2004 - 8:03am

I haven't been following this thread, nor do I know Jeanine very well, but I must say I am very sorry to learn that she has left SOLOHQ due to the insensitive remarks that have been made - and reading back over this thread I am stunned at exactly how insensitive some of those comments were.

Though she isn't an Objectivist I felt that she brought a real breath of fresh air to SOLOHQ, and am particularly saddened that she apparently no longer wishes to have any dealings with any Objectivists due to the at times moronic statements of a few individuals here (and repeatedly calling a male-to-female transgenderer "Mr" is in my opinion moronic!)

(Edited by Matthew Humphreys on 12/21, 3:20pm)

Tuesday, December 21, 2004 - 8:12am

Indian Prayer

Grant that I may not criticize my neighbor until I've walked a mile in his moccasins.

That's a nice thought, Chris.

Ah, what to say about a transgender pagan prostitute that hasn't been said a million times before?!

First of all, Jeanine, I'm sorry to see you go and I hope you will find what you're looking for elsewhere. If you search earnestly you will find it.

___

Fundamentally, Jeanine is a human being and she has given me no reason to shun her on an internet message board. Her posts are an outlet for her to write about things that are on her mind. She isn't concise. She goes off on interplanetary tangents. She undoubtably hopes, as we all do, to find someone out here in the world that will give her visibility about her way of life. My guess is that the smallest shared idea would make Jeanine's day. I see no reason why she shouldn't continue to participate if that's what she's after.

As far as being a threat to Objectivism. Nah. Not in the least. Jeanine doesn't argue in a logical line. From what I've read, she is a feeler right now. Though she can recite obscure poetry at length, her focus is not on a philosophical verity at all. Her focus is on the experience of communicating. She loves that! Makes sense for a hedonist.

Nietzsche says, Convictions are more dangerous enemies of the truth than lies...

In this context, self-proclaimed Objectivist scholars and rhetoriticians are far more dangerous enemies of Objectivism than Jeanine. Objectivism can be found in Ayn Rand's books and in your life. If you look any place else you aren't likely to find it. So-called leaders in Objectivism can, at their best, be guides that will point in a direction for you. Usually they're too pre-occupied with themselves to do even that much.

Tuesday, December 21, 2004 - 9:36am

Bill Perry wrote:

The tape was not a top seller. I attended the presentation.

I ordered the tape. After I listen to it, I will make it available for borrowing via http://www.moogul.com for those interested. I may also address my own challenge, but that remains to see. I need to hear all informed sides of the argument and then draw my own conclusions.

Luke Setzer

Tuesday, December 21, 2004 - 11:44am

Chris, I am in total agreement with your post -- and I think every Objectivist should have the Indian Prayer over his desk.

George, you wrote: "no one has shrank from making immediate moral judgments of my having made the statements I made." No one, certainly not I, has been morally judging you. I think you made a bad mistake in your manner of responding to Jeanine; I think your response was cruel and thoughtless. But you can be sure that if I intend denouncing you as immoral, I won't leave any doubt about it.

And please, no one tell me that "thoughtlessness" is immoral. If it is, there's not a moral person on Solo -- hell, not on the Internet -- hell, not in the world.

Barbara

Tuesday, December 21, 2004 - 7:51am

Linz,

This is a small comment on thread that contains few different issues, but I wanted to give some input on a specific phrase of yours. You mentioned:

What enrages me, to the point where I physically shake when I behold it, is the spectacle of clever-dick smart-ass word-play wankers posturing as philosophers who *never* state their own actual position on anything but simply try to tear apart the stated positions of others. In one such case on this board, the wanker doesn't even have the guts to state his name.

I doubt you are the only one who is annoyed by this. No matter what happens a forum of this, it is innevitable that people will attack others' points of view withouts stating thier own point and be true "word-play wankers." However, would it be possible for SOLO to require "real" names for all accounts? Sure, they could always be made up, but at least the effort may inspire more people to use real names. There are a few ways this could be accomplished.

Tuesday, December 21, 2004 - 1:25pm

Ryan,

I was going to respond to Linz's post, but since I have expressed my views on that matter on another thread in a direct response to Linz, who, as others have shown, has double standards for those he likes who insult Objectivists ( I try to lay out arguments with facts that people can check up if they so desire, and reserve the insults for those who attack me), I will not repeat them. I will however, remind people that my post exists.

The last post on the thread, Machan's Musings: Why Bad Isn't The Same As Evil states my precise view, and it has some points of agreement with you.

Finally, I strongly support the Indian Prayer, and in the way only a compatibilist can. The message of the Indian Prayer, when push comes to shove, is what Linz reviles as "clever hair dick splitting" (after all, why listen to a person when you know that they are irrational??), and while I wish the Indian Prayer was a part of Objectivism, I have learned through way too much personal experience that empathy (not sympathy) is a difficult virtue, even for non-Objectivists. However, I think that there are elements of Objectivism that promotes the rejection of the Indian Prayer.

If it wasn't for SOLO, I would have assumed that such a teaching wasn't possible for an Objectivist to embrace.

(Edited by Next Level on 12/21, 1:39pm)

Tuesday, December 21, 2004 - 1:36pm

Barbara,

Okay Barbara, my remarks were cruel (not thoughtless, I can assure you).

Were they as cruel as calling Objectivist patriarchs, as cruel as denouncing the evil of big business in America, as cruel and insensitive as lumping the majority of Americans into a group of pathetic stupid and bourgeois people, as cruel as posturing to be the Bill Gates of prostitution when the reality is an owner of a hot dog stand, as cruel as advocating new age pagan theism while denouncing other forms of theism, as cruel as mocking our military and its soldiers, as cruel as spouting socialist drivel to no end, as cruel as taking every possible cheap shot that could be made against both Objectivism as a philosophy and objectivist as people?

Was that not cruel Barbara? No Barbara, Mr. Rings statements were not 'thoughtlessness', they were calculated and poorly masked under a barrage of poetic drivel.

You said that if you ever decide to denounce me as immoral you would leave little doubt about it; I respect that. I chose to denounce as immoral and inane Mr. Ring (my evidence; his 358 post that are antithetical to nearly every tenet of objectvism), and like you, when I did so I chose to leave no doubt about it.

The cruel slap I gave Mr. Ring, was one he earned long ago. He earned it for chosing an objectivist forum as the place to spit on objectivism every chance he got.

George

(Edited by George W. Cordero on 12/21, 1:39pm)

Tuesday, December 21, 2004 - 2:19pm

George,

"He earned it for choosing an objectivist forum as the place to spit on objectivism every chance he got."

I've read many of Ms. Ring's posts and I didn't get that. Critical yes, "spit on", no. I found Ms. Rings posts to be thought provoking, she has a point of view I have rarely had the privilege of observing. When I was much younger I heard the phrase many times "It takes all kinds". I believe that, I hope that objectivism has room for that as well.

I appreciate many of your posts, I like "The Birthday Cake" story very much. I will continue to read your posts. But I think what you said to Ms. Ring was just mean. Objectivism is not a religion and doesn't need to be defended against heretics. Criticism and different points of view should be welcome. If you don't like what you're reading, go on to the next post. Big deal.

Mike Erickson

Tuesday, December 21, 2004 - 2:25pm

George,

There was a much easier way to avoid Jeanine's remarks. All you had to do was not read her posts. I have a short list of members whose posts I don't read. You just made the list.