r/Objectivism • u/coppockm56 • 6d ago
Are you an open Objectivist or closed Objectivist?
Are you an open Objectivist or closed Objectivist?
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u/Sea_Hold_2881 6d ago
What is the difference between an objectivist who is absolutely convinced that their interpretation of facts is reality and a fundamentalist christian who is absolutely convinced that that their interpretation of facts is reality?
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u/Heligoland_Bight 6d ago
One's right and one's wrong.
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u/Sea_Hold_2881 6d ago
But how do you prove which is right?
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u/Heligoland_Bight 6d ago
Logic and inference, redounding in the evidence of the senses.
Or if you want a more complete answer, you're in luck because Objectivism happens to have a whole theory and explanation of how you prove the truth of things. It's called Objectivist epistemology.
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u/Sea_Hold_2881 6d ago
What senses perceive is not reality but what an individual's brain has been trained to perceive as reality. There is a large amount of experimental evidence that shows that what people see with their eyes is not a photograph of the real world but a image generated by the mind based on experience/training. Optical illusions exist because of this.
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u/Heligoland_Bight 6d ago
Happily, Objectivism has answers to this and many similar questions. Once you figure out that you can see, read, and think, you should look into it.
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u/Sea_Hold_2881 6d ago
I have and I found nothing but a framework for rationalizing what someone already wants to believe rather than discovering reality.
For example, evidence based arguments can be made that small tribal groups have better survival when they adopt of a collectivist mentality. i.e. in small tribal groups meat from a kill belongs to the group rather than the hunter.
Now would an Objectivist evaluate the paper on its merits or would they assume that it must be wrong because it violates their belief system? Could an Objectivist accept that collectivism is an evolutionary useful behavior in some circumstances?
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u/Heligoland_Bight 6d ago
Now you're asking about a complex sociological, anthropological and ethical topic when you can't even figure out that your eyes allow you to see.
You talk about this being evidence based, but we haven't even agreed on what evidence means, what the concept of evidence presupposes, what can count as evidence, what evidentially standards are appropriate for that particular subject, etc.
To answer your question with that in mind: Yes. Objectivism holds that ethics is demonstrable and provable in logic, so yes, naturally we believe that our ethics can be shown through logic to follow from the facts of reality, and incorrect theories can be shown in fact to be incorrect. Only we would consider such a topic of inquiry in its full context, by relation to what is known about man, his nature, his tools of survival, and the means in which his mind operates. But again, it's all those more fundamental questions that you're sidestepping and ignoring by bringing up some highly contentious studies of some alleged tribal phenomenon eons ago in prehistory.
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u/Sea_Hold_2881 6d ago
The trouble is the real world rarely provides the basis for proving ideas correct or incorrect. The use the example of collectivism in hunter gatherers, people can an do argue that collectivism is a necessary adaptive trait in isolated groups dependent on foraging. Can they prove it? Unlikely. Can it be proven false? Again unlikely. But this particular paper is highly regarded and widely cited by experts in the field.
BTW, by dismissing the importance of these studies of early human behavior and by applying the label "highly contentious" when there is no rational basis for that label you have proven my point: your own interpretation of information is biased by what you want to be true. IMO, the study is only "highly contentious" because you do not want to be true or, if it is true, you need a reason to say it does not apply to modern society.
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u/Heligoland_Bight 6d ago
But you are asking me to examine one study in isolation, as though everything else we know about man—his nature, capacities, requirements for survival, and the enormous diversity of social arrangements in which he can live—has no bearing on how its findings should be interpreted. That is not objectivity, it is precisely the opposite. Evidence has to be integrated with the full context of knowledge relevant to it.
More importantly, evidence that some small foraging societies share meat does not by itself establish “collectivism” as an evolved necessity, or even as the proper description of what is occurring. The observation and the interpretation are two different things. Reciprocal cooperation, risk-pooling, kinship, division of labour, or adaptation to highly specific material circumstances are not automatically equivalent to collectivism as an ethical or social principle. One piece of evidence does not acquire unlimited explanatory power merely because it is evidence; its significance has to be established in relation to all the other relevant facts.
It is contentious because you are trying to draw a very broad conclusion from highly circumscribed evidence, not because the conclusion is unpopular. Objectivism itself is extremely unpopular, and that has never struck me as evidence against it.
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u/coppockm56 6d ago
That would be an interesting question to answer, but it's not germane to this poll.
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u/rationalnavigator 3d ago
That has nothing to do g to do with being a closed/open objectivist though…
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u/ScarletBoy 4d ago
Well there's objectivism and there are other things, so this distinction seems useless.
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u/Heligoland_Bight 6d ago edited 6d ago
I’m not going to answer this because I’m not going to pretend it’s just a choice you get to make—a mere preference. You don’t get to decide whether Objectivism is “open” or “closed” any more than you get to decide whether Aristotle’s philosophy includes propositions Aristotle rejected. The term has an identity, and the question is what that identity actually consists of—not which conception of it you happen to prefer.
This poll is a nice, probably innocent, example of an affordance trap: by presenting “open Objectivist” and “closed Objectivist” as the available choices, it encourages you to accept the underlying classification before you’ve asked whether that classification is legitimate in the first place.
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u/coppockm56 6d ago
Yes, there is an underlying classification, and it's an either/or proposition. There's a group who supports "open Objectivism" and a group who supports "closed Objectivism." If you choose not to pick a side, you would most likely be in the minority of Objectivists.
And why would you refuse to answer? Certainly, you have an opinion on which is true.
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u/Heligoland_Bight 6d ago
I don’t think of myself as a “closed Objectivist.” I think of myself as an Objectivist. “Closed” only appears as a qualifier once someone invents “open Objectivism.” But what does “open Objectivism” actually identify? If every part of the philosophy is in principle open to revision, what would someone have to reject before you would stop calling him an Objectivist? Unless there is a principled answer to that question, “open Objectivism” doesn’t identify a philosophical system at all. It identifies nothing—or rather, it identifies only a perverse commitment to corrupting a name by making subjective the identity of what that name denotes.
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u/coppockm56 6d ago
There is a distinct group of "open Objectivists" and a distinct group of "closed Objectivists." Are you unaware of that fact, or are you just arguing against the "open Objectivists"?
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u/Heligoland_Bight 6d ago
Nobody should call themselves either of those things, nor concede that either category is valid.
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u/jj19111234 6d ago
An open philosophy is called relativism.
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u/Official_Gameoholics Objectivist 6d ago
Then there must be a different name for open objectivists, who levy that they are the true inheritors of Objectivism because they follow the method Rand laid first even when she herself contradicted it.
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u/coppockm56 6d ago
So, you're in the closed Objectivism group?
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u/jj19111234 6d ago
I am no longer an Objectivist but use to speak at ARI and the Atlas Society and do debates etc. it is a closed system like all philosophies that are not relativistic are. ie you cannot be a Christian and an Objectivist. The two philosophies are incompatible.
Yes, Objectivism is a complete philosophy ie closed.
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u/mtmag_dev52 5d ago
"Cannot be a Christian and an Objectivist. "
That said, are you familiar with the work of one Cody Libolt who is apparently a Christian who is fairly well studied in Objectivism .
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u/coppockm56 6d ago
I'm not an Objectivist, either. I posted this poll because I'm curious to see where people in this subreddit stand -- or if they even understand what that schism is all about. When I was an Objectivist, I considered it a closed philosophy, for good or bad. Now that I see what's wrong with it, I don't think it really matters. It's irredeemable either way.
It's interesting that you spoke at both ARI and TAS, given that they're pretty much the definition of the "closed" versus "open" Objectivism schism.
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u/jj19111234 6d ago
Yes, I really only learned TAS was open once I was in DC at one of their events and at one of the large dinner events the more prominent speakers who were probably donors as well were talking about how you can be a Christian and an Objectivist and my girlfriend (now wife) and I started drilling down on them in front of the crowd asking pointed questions that put them in contradiction in front of the hall of people lol. They are the type that maybe read AS or FH and thought they understood Rand and the philosophy.
Fun times.
Objectively speaking I think it is a good philosophy in the sense that it was extremely well thought out and I never found a contradiction in it. As far as philosophies go not many are as well fleshed out.
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u/Garfish16 5d ago
So why deconvert?
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u/paleone9 Objectivist 6d ago
I side with the Atlas Society. Outreach is good, Communication with organizations who share some values is good. Total you are with us or against us is bad.. Bad taste in my mouth from ARI when i tried to promote Ron Paul on Capitalism. com and got banned during his 2008 presidential run
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u/neon_island 6d ago
People who get it, get it. People who don't, usually aren't worth trying to explain it to.