Path: utzoo!hoptoad!well!pan
From: pan@well.UUCP (Philip Nicholls)
Newsgroups: alt.individualism
Subject: Re: Objectivism? Who he?
Message-ID: <5727@well.UUCP>
Date: 17 Apr 88 07:14:52 GMT
References: <5430002@otter.hple.hp.com> <5430005@otter.hple.hp.com> <864@vixie.UUCP>
Reply-To: pan@well.UUCP (Philip Nicholls)
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, Sausalito, CA
Lines: 43

In article <864@vixie.UUCP> paul@vixie.UUCP (Paul Vixie Esq) writes:
>I wish more people would.  Noone is to be trusted in passing judgement on
>philosophical ideas, except oneself.

I might add that you take your own advice here.  It is obvious to me that 
your notions of what modern philosophy is all about come from Rands own books.
I am not trying to flame you, but anyone who would make statements like the
ones below is on unfamiliar ground.

>Of the philosophers you named, I am unfamiliar with the ideas of Kierk.,
>Ayer, Popper, Haack, and Quine.  Of the rest, *none* of them formulated the
>(objective,subjective,intrinsic)/(whatever,you-want,to-call-it) trichotomy
>in quite the same way Aristotle (and later, Rand) did.  And, certainly, none
>of those I recognize fall on the side of the objective.  Skeptics and mystics,
>the lot of them.  Plato chief among the mystics, I might add.  Aristotle, as
>his student, inherited some of it -- but he was the _first_ philosopher in
>history to come out on the side of objective reality, and Rand was one of
>the _last_ (so far), other than _her_ pupils and various quasi-original
>Aristotelian (sp?) scholars presently making non-waves in the philosphical
>community.

This is what I mean.  I will focus for a minute on Kant, since Rand's slander
of him is one of her most ignorant deeds.  Kant is diffinitely not a mystic.
If he is a skeptic, he is skeptical of sloppy metaphysical speculations 
common in his day.  Kant's philosophical system was part of the reaction
by modern philosophy against the epistemological straightjacket of Plato
and Aristotle.  This reaction began with Decarte.  Prior to it, all 
philosophy had to begin with an appeal to these authorities.    

I would also like to suggest that you review Aristotle again.  There seems
to be much you have missed.

Again, I am not interested in flames.  I am not trying to claim any sort
of intellectual superiority.  Most of these guys are a bitch to read, and
almost impossible outside of the context of a classroom or study group.
Part of Rand's appeal is due to the fact that she is accessible- one does
not have to have a background in philosophy to understand her.

Nonetheless, as she stirs your interest in this stuff, find some friends
and take on, even if only for critical evaluation, some of these "Great
Books."