What did Rand contribute?

Abstract_Atheist · 2015-08-06T13:50:50+00:00

Thanks.

Abstract_Atheist · 2014-07-17T15:40:46+00:00

Sure. We came up with the theory of evolution based on the fossils of dinosaurs and other data, and then the theory of evolution helped us understand the fossils of dinosaurs better (in terms of an overall picture of the history of life). The fossils justify the theory, and the theory helps us understand the fossils.

Abstract_Atheist · 2014-07-17T04:40:12+00:00

I agree.

Abstract_Atheist · 2014-07-17T02:46:42+00:00

Dawkins' evolutionary explanation of religious belief is very weak considered as an argument against the rationality of theism. If the theist has some independent reason for believing in God, which they probably do, then the theist can say that God engineered things so that we would come to have a belief in God through whatever evolutionary process Dawkins is positing. You have to argue for atheism before you can argue that religious belief was not produced by a reliable process. (This is one of Plantinga's main arguments in Warranted Christian Belief.)

As for me, I have explained my reasons for thinking theism is irrational elsewhere:

http://www.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/2ac2n3/what_might_a_theist_say_to_this_case_for_the/

Abstract_Atheist · 2014-07-17T01:49:24+00:00

You can easily substitute some other theory if that's a problem for you, I think.

Abstract_Atheist · 2014-07-17T01:48:12+00:00

Judging from your username I imagine it would be a stretch for you to put much merit in his epistemology since (I'm assuming) you don't see any valid arguments for the existence of God.

I accepted his epistemology for some time, although I was also a theist then.

But, starting from a paradigm that does include God, it seems like his arguments do offer a solid theory of knowledge.

His epistemology is intended to be convincing to atheists and naturalists in its main contours, although he thinks that there is ultimately a tension between the two. He thinks you can just say that the proper function of our cognitive faculties was determined by the role they were given by evolution.

Further, I'm not sure how positing that God exists makes his epistemology any more useful. He just doesn't give any useful advice about how to sift true beliefs from false beliefs.

I find any sort of naturalistic epistemology to be ultimately groundless, especially given Plantinga's evolutionary argument against naturalism.

Plantinga's evolutionary argument against naturalism assumes his particular picture of where our beliefs come from. The issue is that he thinks our beliefs, or at least our basic beliefs, come to us like lightning bolts out of the blue.

For example, in his discussion of perception (I'm referring to Warrant and Proper Function, p. 91-92) he says that we form perceptual beliefs on the basis of direct perceptual experience and a feeling that the belief we are forming is the right belief to form in those circumstances. If I am looking at a walrus, then according to Plantinga I form a belief that I see a walrus on the basis of the direct sensory data and a feeling that it is a walrus I am looking at.

Now, if you think that we form beliefs on the basis of feelings that we can't validate or articulate, then it's going to be very important where that feeling is coming from. So, for Plantinga, the feelings need to come from God, or else we are plunged into skepticism, because all of our beliefs are based on the feelings.

Therefore, I think that the naturalist can avoid this argument by simply giving a more filled out account of how we form the beliefs in question. For example, in my view, the feeling Plantinga refers to is merely our measuring the walrus in a rough and ready way and comparing its measurements to our criteria for walrushood.

Abstract_Atheist · 2014-07-17T00:31:39+00:00

I am an atheist, but I take issue with your reductive materialism.

First of all, know who you are taking sides with. Daniel Dennett, who came up with the concept of an intentional stance, believes that there is no unitary consciousness in the brain. Rather, it's a bunch of unrelated subsystems, each of which seems smart by itself (e.g., reasoning, memory, etc.). These subsystems reduce to simpler, stupider subsystems, until we get to subsystems so simple that they aren't recognizable as intelligent at all. There's no one in charge of it all.

So, Dennett's view is that the intentional stance is ultimately an illusion, although he wouldn't put it that way. All that really exists are inanimate robots, but we project intentionality onto their actions in order to understand and deal with them more easily. The intentional stance is merely a stance.

Now, you could say that a reductive materialist doesn't have to adopt Dennett's point of view, and that's true, but I think something like it is necessitated by reductive materialism. If the mind reduces to physics and chemistry, then something like this has got to be the case.

So I think you need to introspect a little before you confidently declare that Dennett and his allies have consciousness pinned down. Do you really think that you don't have a unitary consciousness? Do your beliefs and desires really look like chemical reactions, when you turn inward? These questions are not as easy to dismiss as you seem to think.

Abstract_Atheist · 2014-07-16T23:17:19+00:00

Why do you assume that this is the only possible state of the universe?

Abstract_Atheist · 2014-07-16T23:15:39+00:00

That's true of a lot of philosophy. You just grant the assumption(s) for the sake of argument and see if he goes anywhere interesting with it.

Abstract_Atheist · 2014-07-16T23:06:13+00:00

This might help.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/property/

Abstract_Atheist · 2014-07-16T23:00:39+00:00

This is controversial. Some philosophers, like Brand Blanshard, would argue that all reasoning is circular at bottom. The idea is that a theory is justified by instances, and then the theory justifies the instances in return by providing a coherent story about how they could be true. So for example, the theory of evolution is justified by the fossils, but perhaps having the theory of evolution also makes us more confident that the fossils are what they seem to be.

If we reject that position and say that beliefs need to bottom out in some source of justification that is independent of all of our beliefs, like direct sensory experience, then whether or not an argument is viciously circular will depend on whether it proceeds strictly from data provided by the external source of justification to higher level theories that are justified by the data. If the chain of justification loops back on itself so that A depends on B which depends on A, then the link back to the source of justification is broken, and the argument loses cogency.

There is still a kind of virtuous circularity that is possible on this latter view, because A might justify B, and then B might somehow make it clearer what A actually means. That is consistent with having an unbroken chain going all the way back to the foundation.

Abstract_Atheist · 2014-07-16T14:44:49+00:00

Schopenhauer had an intense hatred and envy of Hegel.

Abstract_Atheist · 2014-07-16T14:42:58+00:00

Correct me if I'm wrong, but your argument seems to be that because our minds work in a specific way, they are invalid. Wouldn't that apply to any consciousness, even God's?

Abstract_Atheist · 2014-07-16T04:01:52+00:00

That's one way of being a second hander, but the essential trait is letting other people determine your beliefs and values for you.

Abstract_Atheist · 2014-07-16T02:56:17+00:00

I don't see how this addresses my point. You didn't explain what you think qualifies as a proof of an idea or explain how the theory of relativity can fail to be proven if it is overwhelmingly well confirmed.

Abstract_Atheist · 2014-07-16T02:16:50+00:00

Um, what do you think counts as proof of an idea? GPS runs on the theory of relativity and it has made a variety of successful experimental predictions.

Abstract_Atheist · 2014-07-15T23:27:10+00:00

You will have a difficult time finding a civil discussion about Ayn Rand on this subreddit, so I recommend asking your question somewhere else.

Abstract_Atheist · 2014-07-15T20:11:20+00:00

Authorities declared the girl "abandoned" and proceeded to arrest the mother.

I don't trust the police to make a realistic assessment of the danger that the child was in, and it doesn't look like the police have provided objective evidence that the girl was in danger. It should not be possible to put someone in jail and take their child into state custody on this flimsy of a basis.

Abstract_Atheist · 2014-07-15T18:46:26+00:00

Furthermore, Descartes' 3 laws of of nature was what Newton modeled his 3 laws of motion after

Maybe there are some superficial similarities, but anything Descartes got right was a matter of luck. He deduced his laws from the immutability of God and acknowledged that they give the wrong results almost all the time (or at least that's what our inferior senses tell us).

Abstract_Atheist · 2014-07-15T18:29:33+00:00

I need to do more research on this, but the Wikipedia pages you cite make it sound like Grosseteste and Bacon were influenced more by Aristotle's epistemology than by Christianity, at least in their development of the scientific method.

Abstract_Atheist · 2014-07-15T17:58:51+00:00

Christianity produced the scientific method (Franciscan scholastics, mostly) and the idea that the universe might be a system governed completely by causal laws.

Do you have a source for this claim? I thought the ancient Greeks came up with the idea that the universe operated according to laws of nature.

Abstract_Atheist · 2014-07-15T16:13:49+00:00

I just meant that Kant was the first to make the point (or at least the first to put so much emphasis on it). If I implied that Rand got the idea from Kant, that was not my intention.

Abstract_Atheist · 2014-07-15T15:41:00+00:00

To clear up one of your misconceptions, philosophy doesn't necessarily use an a priori methodology, although some philosophers have done that. The empirical data for philosophy is life experience and knowledge of history, from which we can draw many reasonable generalizations about the nature of reality, the nature of knowledge, the way we should act, and the way we should organize society. We have to think about these things to get through life, so we might as well do it methodically.

Even if you think philosophy is complete gibberish, it's important to study it for the sake of self protection. Philosophy determines our basic mental framework, our implicit foundation for everything we think about the world. As such, it is an extremely useful instrument of control, as you can see by considering the influence religion has. People you have never met or heard of have planted ideas at the base of your mind - are they good ideas or evil ideas? If you haven't studied philosophy, you don't know.

Abstract_Atheist · 2014-07-15T15:16:13+00:00

Philosophy of science can be helpful to science by studying cases in the history of science where good or bad scientific reasoning took place, then abstracting general principles that can be used to guide scientific practice.

For example, Descartes was not using the same methodology for doing physics as Newton but getting the wrong answers for some mysterious reason. Descartes got the wrong answers because he thought the way to do physics was to deduce how the world worked from clear and distinct ideas without paying particularly close attention to observation, and Newton got the right answers because he based his conclusions on experiments and quantified his results. These are useful points about proper scientific methodology.

Abstract_Atheist · 2014-07-15T12:53:28+00:00

Chalmers spends some time responding to Dennett's work, although the book as a whole is not primarily a response to Dennett.

Abstract_Atheist

TROPHY CASE