Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!mcsun!unido!sinix!es
From: es@sinix.UUCP (Dr. Sanio)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: SCI.PHILOSOPHY.OBJECTIVISM
Keywords: sci.philosophy.objectivism, Objectivism, science
Message-ID: <906@athen.sinix.UUCP>
Date: 6 Feb 90 09:48:43 GMT
References: <7363@tank.uchicago.edu>
Reply-To: es@athen.UUCP (Dr. Sanio)
Organization: Siemens AG, K D ST SP4, Munich
Lines: 75

In article <7363@tank.uchicago.edu> rwt1@tank.uchicago.edu (Robert Tracinski) writes:
>It is time to bring the discussion (if I may dignify it with that word) over 
>sci vs. talk for *.philosophy.objectivism to a close.
That's one of the very few statements in this article I completely agree to.
>
>Those of us who have been arguing for sci.philosophy.objectivism have given a
>lengthy, detailed and cogent defense of our position.  We have demonstrated
>that:
>	1) Philosophy is a science.
>	2) This accords with the intention and current usage of the sci.*
>		hierarchy.
>	3) Thus, the newsgroup should be sci.philosophy.objectivism.
>
That's your and your followers' opinion. Nobody has denied your right to
argue that way. A lot of people posted different points. I don't want to
force you to be convinced by them, but very few defenders of objectivism
or sci placement (Mehul Dave was an appreciating exception) ever tried to
even recognize their arguments.
>The response has been almost exclusively from those who get a power trip out of
>flaming people, or who derive some juvenile pleasure from using dirty words in
>public, or who apparently have nothing better to do than spend all day making 
>snide comments.  I will not dignify these people with a public response because
>they have contributed no actual content to the discussion.  (There have been a 
>few rare exceptions, but their arguments have not been very extensive, e.g. 
>Gene Spafford.)
>
IMHO, very few objectivism bashing has taken place in this discussion. Most
people agreed about creation of an xxx.objectivism group. The main argument
about not sci was preserving the clarity of the sci hierarchy. I didn't 
recognize any dirty word from the opposers of spo .
I am tired wasting bandwidth to make my own point clear again and again.
Only one thing: Following your proposal, we are creating a sci.philoso-
phy.$PHILOS_SCHOOL group, where PHILOS_SCHOOL=objectivism in this case.
Would you as well defend a group sci.philosophy.marxism? Marxism is a
philosophical school as well, it claims to be "scientific socialism", in
short, philosophy as a science.
I asked myself for that, to make the problem clearer. Either you say  yes,
(in case enough interest would exist). This would be at least a tolerant
and democratic point, with the risk to overload the  sci hierarchy.
Or you say no, because objectivism is good, reasonable etc, whereas 
marxism is bad, irrational etc. This would be a merely religious point,
clearly discriminating the proposed group from the sci hierarchy.
From an outside view (non-objectivist) objectivism is not a bit better
(or worse) than any philosophic school, as marxism, existencialism,
structuralism, positivism, eastern philosophies (which are expressively
non-scientific, as stated before by a poster - forgot who).


>The discussion is so intellectually one-sided that it is completely un-
>productive.  We have made convincing arguments and have received no substantive
>intellectual opposition.  It is time to close this case and move on the next
>issue, namely the SPO charter.
>
>The most fruitful area of discussion to start on is the issue of how to 
>maintain the quality of discussion on the newsgroup without a moderator.  Bob
>Stubblefield has made some very good comments on this subject, and I will
>continue on this subject in future messages.
>
Note that this group is not yet spo. I regarded Bill Wells' poll a good 
idea. I voted NO for spo, but yes for talk only if no better solution can
be found. In the current hierarchy, I would favour soc (where soc.history
is being established, for example), granting the respect of seriousness
of the topic.
I don't think that the recent mass invasion of news.groups by objectivists
stating "we made the convincing arguments, all others are stupid or evil"
doesn't help to make your issue convincing. Nobody of the objectivists
dismantled the real background - that sci is the widest distributed group,
whereas talk and soc are often absent especially on company sites.
Though I can understand that motivation, I guess everybody knows that it
is no valid argument for placement of spo, but I feel it shining through
a pretty big part of this discussion (maybe I'm wrong here).
>
>Robert Tracinski

regards, es