Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!mcdchg!ditka!teraida!vsi1!daver!llustig!xanadu!apple!mips!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ncar!tank!iitmax!demodsb
From: demodsb@iitmax.IIT.EDU (David Bombardier)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: SCI.PHILOSOPHY.OBJECTIVISM
Message-ID: <3284@iitmax.IIT.EDU>
Date: 28 Jan 90 21:40:53 GMT
Reply-To: demodsb@iitmax.iit.edu (David Bombardier)
Organization: Illinois Institute of Technology
Lines: 41


Several individuals have stated that those of us who support placing the
proposed Objectivist newsgroup in the sci hierarchy have not justified our
position.  In fact, there have been lengthy justifications posted in the
last few weeks.

In his recent proposed charter, Bob Stubblefield gave a concise explanation
for placing the newsgroup in the sci hierarchy.  It has been ignored.

A couple weeks ago, two lengthy postings by Robert Garmong and Mehul Dave
presented excellent arguments for placing the newsgroup in the sci hierarchy.
They have been largely ignored.  Perhaps these individuals could re-post the
sections of their postings relevant to the issue?

Since the arguments for placing the newsgroup in the sci hierarchy have been
presented and ignored I'm not going to present them again.  But I do have a
couple of related points:

It is not only Ayn Rand that regarded philosophy as a science.  Many
philosophers have held this view, enough philosophers to make philosophy
an "established" science.  Perhaps some of the philosophy students on the
net could provide a list of philosophers holding philosophy as a science.

Fields in the humanities and social sciences that are included in the sci
hiearchy include education, language, economics, psychology and philosophy
(these are only the ones that come to mind immediately).  Even if these groups
did _not_ exist, the sci hierarchy would be the proper place for the
newsgroup, given the nature of philosophy in general and Objectivism in 
paticular.

If a hiearchy (or two) were established for the humanities and social
sciences, I would not be opposed to placing the Objectivist newsgroup there.
In that scenario, the sci hierarchy could exist strictly for the natural
sciences.  But now, the sci hiearchy is for established sciences, not strictly
natural sciences.  Relegating a newsgroup devoted to a serious, technical
philosophy to the talk hierarchy is an injustice.  There are those who
disagree.  This is not surprising, given the nature of their postings, whose
style belongs to the talk, not the sci, hierarchy.

-- David Bombardier
   demodsb@iitmax.iit.edu