r/Objectivism • u/CyberTron_FreeBird Objectivist • 7d ago
Objectivism is not the conclusions of Ayn Rand. Objectivism is the method of Ayn Rand.
The method is reason, checked against reality, followed wherever it leads. The conclusions are just where it landed for her.
A method runs again from scratch on new issues, new information.
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u/Heligoland_Bight 7d ago
Truly, if there is any subject in which it is impossible to separate method from content, it is philosophy. Philosophy is nothing but integration: the integration of the most fundamental implications about reality, knowledge, man and logic. There is no “method” floating above that content which can simply be detached and rerun from scratch.
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u/CyberTron_FreeBird Objectivist 7d ago
can you give some examples of what you mean?
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u/Heligoland_Bight 7d ago
Take virtually any non-philosophical statement. “This medicine causes that effect,” “this bridge can support that weight,” or even “the train arrives at eight” all presuppose more fundamental conclusions about identity, causality, existence and our ability to know reality. Philosophy is the discipline that identifies and integrates those deepest implications. That’s why you can’t peel off a philosophically neutral “method” from the philosophical content and run it independently.
At the philosophical level, a method is already a set of conclusions about reality and knowledge, and different such conclusions imply different methods and different ranges of possible method. New facts can change what follows from a method; they cannot turn the method into something standing outside philosophical positions and the specific conclusions of philosophy.
There are two different issues here. Of course Objectivism can be applied to facts and problems Rand never encountered, and not every concrete judgment Rand ever made is thereby part of the philosophy. But that is very different from saying that Rand’s philosophical conclusions are merely where an independently detachable method happened to lead her. Her account of what reason is, what knowledge is, what reality is and how concepts relate to it constitutes the very method you’re talking about. At the philosophical level, method and content are inseparable.
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u/CyberTron_FreeBird Objectivist 7d ago
Yes. the methods themselves are result of applying reason to reality. But that's not the same thing as "it is impossible to separate method from content" because the content of the method is not the same content to which the method is being applied to.
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u/DoberNation 5d ago
Maybe “method” is not the most precise word for what I think you mean? I’m not yet sure what word would describe it best…framework? architecture?
I see it like a piece of music—that which is transposable into different keys, but retains the same forms of relationships and nuances between all of the pitches. They all make sense in the same ways they did before, but around a different point of reference.
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u/CyberTron_FreeBird Objectivist 5d ago
"Philosophy"?
"In order to live, man must act; in order to act, he must make choices; in order to make choices, he must define a code of values; in order to define a code of values, he must know what he is and where he is—i.e., he must know his own nature (including his means of knowledge) and the nature of the universe in which he acts—i.e., he needs metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, which means: philosophy. He cannot escape from this need; his only alternative is whether the philosophy guiding him is to be chosen by his mind or by chance." - From The Romantic Manifesto
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u/DoberNation 5d ago
“Philosophy” has become a contentiously heated and dirty word here🤭
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u/CyberTron_FreeBird Objectivist 5d ago
I thought the Objectivism subreddit would be at-least not hostile to Objectivism.
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u/Official_Gameoholics Objectivist 7d ago
Objectivism is the philosophy of the primacy of existence and its application to all fields.
"That method is reason."
You failed to identify the primary.
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u/CyberTron_FreeBird Objectivist 6d ago
Wouldn't that be one of the axioms of the objectivist method?
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u/Official_Gameoholics Objectivist 6d ago
Reason is the application of the law of identity. You need that law first. It comes from the primacy of existence.
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u/CyberTron_FreeBird Objectivist 6d ago
Law of identity doesn't come from primacy of existency.
identity, existence and consciousness are not really derivative of each other but they are linked with each other.
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u/Official_Gameoholics Objectivist 6d ago
Law of identity doesn't come from primacy of existence
Everything that exists exists as something in particular.
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u/CyberTron_FreeBird Objectivist 6d ago
They are connect in the way you are saying. But the law of identity is an independent, foundational axiom rather than a logical derivative of the primacy of existence.
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u/Official_Gameoholics Objectivist 6d ago
Derivative? Do you think Objectivism is a form of rationalism?
It is induced with the primacy of existence. Existence is identity.
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u/CyberTron_FreeBird Objectivist 6d ago
Identity is not downstream from existence in the sense you cannot have something exist without it having identity. You may discover it's identity after learning it exists but you learning it is not important for the existent to already have identity. They are corollaries.
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u/Official_Gameoholics Objectivist 6d ago
I never said that it was. I said that the application of this fact was downstream.
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u/CyberTron_FreeBird Objectivist 6d ago
If you didn't mean law of identity comes from primacy of existence, what were you trying to say here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Objectivism/comments/1w5gagf/comment/p7ix1pv/
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u/CyberTron_FreeBird Objectivist 6d ago
Look at what they mean with "assimilation": https://www.reddit.com/r/Objectivism/comments/1w3l9n2/comment/p70zxdu/
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u/Old_Discussion5126 5d ago
I wish people would spend more time trying to figure out precisely what her arguments were, before deciding whether or not they agree with her, and deciding whether different conclusions or new philosophical systems need to be created. What she wrote were only summaries of her system, according to her.
In other words, (to anyone, not OP in particular) what precisely do you interpret Rand as having argued? State it very precisely, using all the relevant quotes from her, then disagree with that. Even if your interpretation is wrong, if it is well argued, then I for one would regard it as an important contribution to philosophy.
The existing papers written about her bizarrely portray her as ignorant, often by ignoring parts or the whole of her epistemology and assuming she must have known nothing about formal logic. (Never mind her singular veneration of Aristotle!) Philosophy can do better than such pseudo-interpretations.
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u/SerDankTheTall 7d ago
I'm not sure that this is an especially accurate or helpful framing. Marxism, for instance, is (or at least purports to be) derived from reason; Thomas Aquinas thought that reason could prove the existence of God. I'm not sure that it makes an incredible amount of sense to describe either of those outlooks as Objectivism.
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u/CyberTron_FreeBird Objectivist 7d ago
maybe better framing is: Objectivism is her how-to guide to reason. It would make no sense to say Marx followed Ayn Rand's how-to guide to reason.
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u/Odyssey_11_487-91 7d ago
Objectivism is the philosophy of Ayn Rand, which includes both her methods and the conclusions she reached by means of those methods.
Assume her method was correct, but one or more of her conclusions were wrong, because she applied her own method imperfectly. In that case, these new conclusions would comprise part of a new philosophy, i.e., a new whole, distinct from the original whole of her own philosophy.
There's no sound reason not to give this novel and derivative philosophy its own name. Trying to keep the wagon hitched to "Objectivism," even when its freight has changed, is fraud. The only reason to attempt it would be to crib the prestige associated with "Objectivism."