DIY demonic possession. (Demon not included.)

Too late to edit the typos, but it should read "lack of" and "scholarly."

Joe Maurone -- I think Billy Beck is correct. And Rand friend and philosopher John Hospers would agree.

On the lacl of footnotes and scolarlt citations, Billy Beck posits a theory:
"If you understand what happened to her [Rand] after "Atlas" was published, then the condition of her non-fiction work comes into perspective. In her non-fiction, she reads like no other philosopher that I'm aware of. It is not the most organized work you'll ever see -- and I think that this is a big part of why many people sneer her off as a "philosopher": it's because she simply doesn't write like any of the rest of them, in terms of organization, and there is a good deal of assembly required. (In an almost perverse way, however, I think this is also why she really works in some peoples' minds: they're the ones who have little or no problem with abstraction and integration, and a presentation like Rand's non-fiction is very exciting to them.)"

I attempted to answer some of the comments made in this discussion, but my reply got away from me, and so I decided to start a different discussion: http://www.solopassion.com/nod...

The plagiarism charge is pretty outrageous. A casual reader of the linked-to article who hadn't read any or much Rand would be conned into thinking she was an intellectual thief. That is shitty, and why I called him on it.

Fair enough.

However, if he wants to build a "community" of - as he sees it - rational people, then pissing off someone who might have been sympathetic to him is not very clever tactics.

Oh well, fuck him.

Rand's philosophical notions are unoriginal. Why? Pigliucci's inference to the best explanation is lazy, uncharitable and wrong but I don't think he intended to piss you off. Do you want to build and/or be part of a "community of reason"? Because, if you do, "Oh well, fuck him" is not very clever tactics!

(More serious is Pigliucci's charge that Rand’s philosophy is "an incoherent jumble of contradictions.")

(Far more serious is Pigliucci's dismissal of "The Singularity is near!" as "little more than a cult for nerds." Humanity stands on the verge of extinction.)

Ross, she was not very much into providing footnotes and bibliographical stuff. What this professor seems to be asserting is that Rand did not pepper her paragraphs with lots of "as explained by X, I mean this" all the time.

I think Rand credited her readers with enough intelligence to know that ideas such as human rights had been explained and defended by other thinkers, for example (Locke, et al).

The plagiarism charge is pretty outrageous. A casual reader of the linked-to article who hadn't read any or much Rand would be conned into thinking she was an intellectual thief. That is shitty, and why I called him on it.

Richard Goode, I am sure the professor won't lose any sleep on the fact that I and others are unimpressed by his comments. He's smeared someone, just as he branded AGW skeptics as irrational dolts, for example. (I am glad to see some pushback in the comments). Such arrogance is par for the course in the circles he moves in. However, if he wants to build a "community" of - as he sees it - rational people, then pissing off someone who might have been sympathetic to him is not very clever tactics.

Oh well, fuck him.

...here.

Rand didn't cite much. If at all.

I'll admit, when I first read Rand I was a little frustrated that she provided me with little reference. I had to find it on my own.

It seems to me that academics like references. It makes them feel like they have a grip on context. Actually, that's fine. But it doesn't mean that if you don't cite, that you're hiding anything.

Rand challenged you to take it or leave it. You want references to bolster your appreciation of Objectivism? Tough shit. You better work it out on your own.

One of today's "New Atheists" smears Rand, loses my respect

I'm sure he won't lose any sleep over it.

Pr Pigliucci likes to set himself up as an arbiter of what he thinks is correct thinking. Well, one of the most important tests is the precise use of language.

Certainly. For example, never say

Language uses symbols to represent things.

when instead you can say

Language is a code of visual-auditory symbols that serves the psycho-epistemological function of converting abstractions into concretes, or, more precisely, into the psycho-epistemological equivalent of concretes, into a manageable number of specific units.

Much more precise! And original, too!

developing a cautious and circumspect theory about humans and the concepts of liberty.

Those unaware of the philosophy are ignorant.

Those demonstrably aware of the underpinnings but who disregard them - are evil.

Its binary, really?

Based on the article you cite, Tom, Massimo Pigliucci seems smug, long-winded, and small-minded -- three things that frequently go together. He's evidently quite ignorant and boring -- and probably not worth reading. Many religiosos and ARIans are this way too.

If you want to I bet you can find many New Atheist writers superior to Pigliucci.

Remember that Ayn Rand and Objectivism are very radical, relatively speaking. They're usually significantly misrepresented in the mainstream media. Probably Pigliucci has never actually read Rand or heard an accurate account of her views.

Back in the 2000-2003 time frame, I spoke to a few local "freethinker" audiences about Objectivism. Reception ranged from tepid to extremely hostile. Everything said here about them resonates with my own experience, e.g.:

It seems to me that what is missing from your philosophy is a sense of compassion, such as assuring that everyone receives a living wage, and by the way, it is the fault of free marketeers like yourself that there are innocent children in South American sweatshops losing their fingers in factory machinery!

See also this one:

I read about Ayn Rand before this talk and learned that if she had her way, there would be no teachers, because teachers get paid terrible wages and they would all quit and work elsewhere!

"Rationally Speaking" -- not!

On the positive side, I noticed that younger members of these audiences seemed more receptive than the older ones, though not receptive enough to keep me engaged with those groups.

Some clearly see the Christian right as a religious threat...while few see the Progressive Left as a religious threat.

So true. This, BTW, includes a lot of Objectivists. The Left has become a secular civic religion. Egalitarianism and Comtean altruism serve the same function as the Catechism did under Catholic rule. Today's atheists are almost uniformly Leftists. And these Leftist atheists hate Rand. They hate her ethics, her politics and her epistemology. She rejects altruism, collectivism and skepticism, the three things they see as untouchable.

I hate the Left to a far, far, far greater degree than the Conservatives. I actually have sympathy for today's Conservatives even though I disagree with their philosophy.

Marcus:

"Therefore the more that you feel that Atheism defines you the more you will be repelled by free-market conservatives. Once this link is established, you will reject Libertarians and Objectivists too."

Sadly true. There is insight in that observation as to exactly how freedom is eroded. One of the keystone principles of defending freedom is to respect each other's freedom without necessarily worshiping their religion. When that respect is governed mainly by issues of religion, then freedom itself is sold out in the name of tribal religious wars.

This is as energetically ignored by the Christian religious-right as it is the Progressive (as in Scott Nearing's 'social religion) religious left. A religion based on "S"ociety=God and the state is its proper church is as much a fundamentalist religion as the one based on the other unseen magic spirit that also requires mere humans to speak for it. The difference is, in writing (see the Virginia Bill of Rights), there is a history of tolerance in the majority religion for other religions, and a statutory exhortation to practice 'Christian forbearance' (failure to enforce) on the topic of freely selectable religion.

There is no such history of tolerance evident in the Progressive movement, which if you read Nearing's lament(published twice at the beginning of the last century, once when he was a crusading Christian, and later, when he was a crusading socialist), is characterized as being the result of frustrated religionists impatient with the centuries long failure of the church to eliminate poverty, hunger and crime. From the frustration came a desire for a more muscular religion not cowed by the first amendment, intent on taking over the state in service to implementing that war on poverty, hunger, and crime.

Onward Christian soldiers...with the Christian whitewashed and replaced by 'Progressive.'

Some clearly see the Christian right as a religious threat...while few see the Progressive Left as a religious threat. And so, today, there are entire cabinet departments devoted to the Holy wars. But the schools and courtrooms and public commons are free of harmless icons...

regards,
Fred

...brings many Atheists into the bossum of the left is that the pro-capitalist right-wing is so often associated with religion.

I mean, your average Atheist would note Romney/ Ryan as being pro-religion and someone like Obama to be more pro-Atheist/ humanist.

Therefore the more that you feel that Atheism defines you the more you will be repelled by free-market conservatives. Once this link is established, you will reject Libertarians and Objectivists too.

Marcus, I think Rand made a glancing reference to Smith in Capitalism, the Unknown Idea, but that was more or less it. I don't think she had a systematic understanding of groups such as the "Scottish Enlightenment". She also avoided use of footnotes in her non-fiction essays. But it is a stretch for Pigliucci and others to claim that she was a plagiarist.

From what I read, Rand was, to a remarkable extent, a person who developed her ideas on her own. Some of the components of her philosophy were not original - not that that counts against her - what was, in my mind, original was how she integrated them into a single approach, both with its good and not-so-good aspects.

Maybe some of these "new atheists" are just suffering from a form of envy. Let's face it, Rand smoked out many of the errors they are up against years ago. And she did so in the form of a novel.

...background as I observed with Hitchens.

Unless of course their Atheism is grounded in science (rather than politics or morality) and then they tend to simply accept the current "socialist" status quo.

But when did Rand critique Adam Smith? I would really like to know.

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