Talk:Objectivism/Archive 4

Libertarian Bar

 * The libertarian sidebar should stay. A large portion of this article's readers, I'm guessing, are libertarians, or would be interested in learning more about it.
 * Regarding your other points: Do you have any specific contradictions you'd like to point out? --zenohockey 07:20, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm primarily talking about the general article quality, its English, its layout, etc. The 'contradiction' that's almost inherent in a Wikipedia article about Objectivism is the fact that it's difficult to be impartial about an ideology that holds itself to be factually correct; for any particular instances of this, I'd have to go through it, which I will.

Can it really be right to have the philosophy of someone who denounced Libertarianism as part of the 'libertarian ring.'? I'm sure that a lot of people who like, or would want to learn about, R.R. would also want to read about The Soviet Union, but the two wouldn't be categorized as though they're the same thing. Most Libertarians, and many Objectivists, would claim that the two don't contradict; this can be put into the article. However, being impartial doesn't consist of intending that whatever 'many' people think is valid. D prime 16:58, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Even disregarding the majoritarian issue, Rand is a libertarian under most, if not all, defitions. --zenohockey 19:53, 21 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree. Rand is a libertarian who objected to the non-Objectivist libertarian movement on the basis of its incompleteness.  (In other words, there are theistic libertarians and so on.) Alienus 22:42, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

I'd argue to the death against that association. However, it's not necessary, because Wikipedia's policy on controversy wouldn't have us try to debate until everyone associated with the article came to a consensus on what Ayn Rand should have labled her philosophy as. Its policy is being impartial.

Everyone knows and 'agrees' that Objectivism is Ayn Rand's philosophy, pure and simple. She named it, she developed it, etc. etc. It is what she calls it. She also disassociated it from libertarianism. Therefore, despite allegations (even if they were correct,) that it should be considered a libertarian philosophy, it isn't.

Objectivism doesn't hold words to be made up of their definition, but by what they refer to; definitions, according to the Objectivist epistemology, are a clarification of what the referent is. She did not agree that what 'libertarian' refered to was compatible with Objectivism, and seeing as 'Objectivism' is Ayn Rand's philosophy, you cannot classify it as a libertarian philosophy. D prime 00:03, 22 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Imagine if Rand had said that, since not all atheists agree with her views on capitalism, Objectivism isn't atheistic. Would that mean we should hide the fact that Objectivism entails a disbelief in the existence of God?  We can't hide the truth under the pretense of neutrality.  Instead, we would report that Rand doesn't consider Objectivism to be atheistic, and why, and then we'd also report that a large number of other people disagree, supporting this with citations.  I think the same applies to Objectivism and libertarianism.  As far as I can tell, the only distinction is that Objectivism is a superset of a certain class of libertarian views. Alienus 01:25, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

On libertarian: Kindly observe that Rand herself created the conceptual framework adopted under the banner of "libertarian" on April 17, 1947. "...agree that no men or number of men have the right to *initiate* the use of force against any human being... that would achieve a perfect Utopia on earth, that would include all the moral code we need." (Letters... p. 364) translator

First of all, Rand didn't say that. She also wouldn't have.

The difference is that libertarianism is an ideology, while atheism is merely a term denoting the lack of having a theologic(al?) ideology; 'atheist' like, say, 'not communist' is merely a description of someone who doesn't believe in something, and is not an actual set of ideas. Libertarianism, however, is a set of ideas, and she did not believe that what the term 'libertarian' referred to (see her and Peikoff's writing on definitions v. referants in Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology) was consistent with Objectivism, because Libertarianism (according to Rand, who developed Objectivism) supports/implicates a dichotomy between politics and more basic philosophical ideas. She also believed that politics is a direct result of morality, and that the justifications given by 'libertarians' are wrong.

You may be thinking something along the lines of 'Okay, capitalism isn't merely a negative, and Rand supports it, even though not all who support capitalism agree with Rand.' The difference is that (according to Rand and myself) capitalism is not a movement, and refers to something more concrete, i.e. a dichotomy between state and economics, while libertarianism is. (Really, if libertarianism weren't a movement or prinicple, but merely the alleged political implications of their ideology, then it and 'lassiez-faire capitalism' would be interchangable.) Obviously Rand disagress with most interpritations of the word 'libertarian,' and seeing as Objectivism is 'the philosophy of Ayn Rand,' every part of the article called 'Objectivism' must be described as what she believed, not as what most on Wikipedia think is compatible with the rest of her ideas.

If they don't have anti-nazi POV on the Hitler article, I think we can avoid having a biased POV on this because most people believe the rest of her ideas are compatible with it, even though the formulator didn't. D prime 02:36, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Post-note: if those are the words of Ayn Rand herself, they are being taken out of context and/or are being translated from Russian badly (probably the first.) She did not believe morality was primarily, let alone exclusively, a social construct. She would never have said that 'not initiating force' is all one needs for morality. Also, she hadn't written anything political before the publication of Atlas Shrugged, which was in the 1950s. I believe that her own explicit statements against libertarianism hold more yield than the similiarities between what she said in a letter and what most libertarians consider to be the essence of their philosophy.

Lastly, you should consider the Rand quotes referenced here: http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=education_campus_libertarians D prime 02:43, 31 January 2006 (UTC)


 * The Libertarianism template includes a link to this article, so it makes no sense to remove the template unless you're also going to remove all mention of this article from it. Alienus 23:43, 11 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I have taken it out since seeing your message. Does anyone have any real suggestions as to why the philosophy of someone who explicitly spoke against libertarianism should be in the libertarianism series? Though I've received no rebuts in almost two weeks, it's repeatedly being put back with reference to the talk page. D prime 16:27, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

As I explained, the Libertarianism side-bar on other pages already has a link to Objectivism. Ayn Rand did speak against libertarianism, but her views were themselves libertarian. As the article points out, her complaint was mostly on the basis of libertarians not accepting all of Objectivism. What's funny is that you vandalized that side-bar, which I've since fixed. I'm going to fix your changes here, too, since you have no factual basis. By the way, removing text without explanation is a type of vandalism, so you should avoid making that mistake again. Alienus 23:24, 12 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I've got three significant problems with what is going on here:


 * 1) I'm against including the libertarianism sidebar, but why are you also deleting the disambiguation notice for the broader use of the term "objectivist"? The two items aren't at all related, other than that the person who recently restored one also restored the other. I've seen no argumentation in Talk for why the disambiguation notice should be removed. Did I miss that discussion? Please explain, or I'm putting the disambiguation notice back again tomorrow (if no one beats me to it).


 * 2) Removing the link to this article from the lib sidebar isn't the right approach to resolving this dispute. Objectivism quite clearly has been an important influence on libertarianism. This can be documented through quotes and references to historical materials. But the argument from Alienus above is flawed: not every article linked in the sidebar has to have the sidebar on it. For example, the Classical liberalism article is linked from the sidebar, but the sidebar doesn't appear there. There are other examples, both for the libertarianism sidebars and for other sidebars, where a linked article doesn't carry the sidebar itself. In fact, I would tend to say that items listed as "Influences" (the heading this article falls under on the sidebar) should probably not have the sidebar on them. So there is no need to change the content of the sidebar -- it simply shouldn't be included on this article.


 * 3) You (that is, D prime) are claiming no rebuts to your position for two weeks, but there is clearly more recent discussion than that. Perhaps part of the problem is that the discussion has becoming fractured, with comments about the edits appearing in several sections on the Talk page. Did you miss those? Or do you mean something else, like "There are no rebuts that I find plausible"? Personally, I don't agree with the arguments for including the sidebar, but there are people making arguments for it, and definitely more recently than two weeks ago. Making a controversial edit without getting any consensus in Talk is not a productive way to handle the situation. -- RL0919 17:07, 12 February 2006 (UTC)


 * First of all, thank you for the well laid-out explanation of your position.


 * The reason that I removed the metaphysical objectivism header is because when you search for 'Objectivism,' that's one of the options. There's no point in linking to it twice. I explained that along with the edit, but perhaps I should have put it on the talk page.


 * There is more recent discussion about this than two weeks, which is why I believe I said 'almost two weeks,' as I saw nothing in this section for 12 days (I believe that constitutes 'almost two weeks.') Is there talk about the libertarian bar somewhere else? Why wouldn't it be in this section?


 * Though they might be related, it's misinformative to have Objectivism as part of the libertarianism series. Much in the way it would be misinformative to put the article on Ronald Reagen in the 'Soviet Government' series (I made that up as an example.) How about we put Neo-Objectivism or 'Objectivism and Libertarianism' in the series? That way, no one looking at the Objectivism article will be led to believe that it's a faction of libertariainism, while the two will still be connected. D prime 20:31, 12 February 2006 (UTC)


 * There is more recent discussion of the issue under the "Re-placing" subhead toward the bottom of the page. This is why I thought you might have missed it, since there hasn't been a consistent place where the comments are all appearing.


 * For the libertarianism sidebar, I actually like your suggestion of linking the Libertarianism and Objectivism article instead of this one. That article is more directly related and provides a much fuller discussion of the relationship between the two. I also wouldn't oppose having the libertarianism sidebar included there.


 * Regarding the disambiguation notice, I think it is important to have adequate disambiguation on any article that a user is likely to reach while searching for something with a similar name. Although the word 'objectivism' points to a disambiguation article, the word 'objectivist' and the phrase 'objectivist philosophy' both come directly to this article. Since these terms also have a historical association with non-Randian objectivism (small-O), I think it is highly desirable to have a disambig notice for those users who are looking for that other subject. (And likewise, there are articles on other topics that should have disambiguations to help people searching for Rand's ideas.) -- RL0919 21:52, 12 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm going to respond down there, as that's where this seems to have moved. D prime 22:40, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

NPOV Challenge
The section on principles is not currently written in NPOV. Each principle is critiqued in the section purporting to describe it. This leaves the article with no section objectively describing the principles. This section should be rewritten with critical arguments against the principles relocated to the section on criticism.

Any one else find it ironic that there's a lack of 'objectivity in the article about objectivism? Olleicua 23:09, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Definitely. If you read the bottom of the page you will also find that it's proponents are distinguishing between "Objectivism" in name, and objectivism in philosophy.  Actually, Rand is not accepted among most philosophers as a philosopher, and Objectivism with a capital "O" is not accepted as a viable philosophy.  So, the whole idea of an article under the subdirectory title of "Objectivist philosophy" with content dedicated to Rand is a misnomer. Amerindianarts 00:10, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Whether or not contemporary philosophers respect it, it's still a 'philosophy,' by definition. 70.29.230.230 21:16, 31 January 2006 (UTC)


 * This assertion that "Rand is not accepted among most philosophers as a philosopher" is just crackpotism. We had this discussion at talk:list of philosophers a while back; maybe it's still there. Michael Hardy 22:49, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Amerindianarts. It is not 'crackpotism' (whatever that is) to make it clear that Objectivism is not taken seriously as a philosophical school in mainstream philosophy departments. You may as well argue that the lack of support for astrology in mainstream scientific study is irrelevent to the question of whether astrology should be considered a real science. Huple scat 01:24, 11 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Ditto, more or less. It's a simple fact that Rand's Objectivism gets no respect in philosophical circles, although it's struggling for acceptance.  It would be blatant POV to deny this. Likewise, it would be blatant POV to say that Objectivism must be invalid because it's unpopular.  The reaction of academia is useful information, certainly, but we have to let people draw their own conclusions here.  Objectivism has to succeed or fail based on its own merits or lack thereof, not merely the opinions of others. Alienus 02:56, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Crackpotism is pontification from a position of total ignorance. Did either Amerindianarts or Alienus look at the discussion at talk:list of philosophers before posting these responses? Michael Hardy 03:46, 11 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Thank you so much for the unwarranted hostility. I makes me feel better about myself to watch people like you stoop so low. Alienus 05:25, 11 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I was not being hostile. I was rebuking you.  Why don't you respond to the actual substance of what I wrote instead of responding to me in a hostile way?


 * Your "rebuke" was hostile and not grounded in the facts. The lesson here is that excessive hostility will not conceal lack of content.
 * The fact is that, although her supporters have made a point of getting her name into journals, she is still not taken seriously by academia. This is a neutral fact that we must report in a neutral way.  Any attempt to hide this is inherently POV, as it constitutes whitewashing. Alienus 23:53, 12 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I believe I agree with Alienus. You can cite the fact that Objectivism is primarily not respected among intelligenstia without being biased towards the validity or invalidity of that criqitue. D prime 17:00, 12 February 2006 (UTC)


 * But it is not a fact. That's why I spoke of crackpotism.  Yes, it is true that the few hundred academic philosophers who have cited Rand's arguments respectfully in scholarly publications are only a tiny proportion of the professoriate, but: (1) The few ones who have cited the writings of nearly any particular professor of philosophy in that way are similarly few in number by comparison to the whole professoriate, and (2) the ones who say explicitly that she should not be taken seriously are generally those who are ignorant of her (e.g. one such professor recently told his class that Rand was a psychological egoist.  That's just stupid and irresponsible.  He should be corrected politely and respectfully, but his words should not be quoted as if they're the considered opinion of a learned expert.)  The fact is that those in philosophy departments who assert that Rand is not taken seriously are at the very best repeating something they learned two or three decades ago in graduate school and have not kept up with some of the trends of the last 15 years or so.  And what "critique" are you referring to.  To be ignorant of Rand is not to write a "critique" of Rand.  Yes, some have written critiques, but that's not what you're writing about in the sentence where you used the word "critique". Michael Hardy 23:47, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Alienus, you are, and continue to be, the one whose comments are not grounded in the facts. You say that "her supporters have made a point of getting her name into journals". That is largely false. That's why it has taken so many decades. Rand was urged by John Hospers to publish in scholarly journals but was not convinced. For a long time, most of her followers who wrote, did so mainly elsewhere than in scholarly journals. Only in the the last 15 years or so has it begun to be commonplace to find professors who support her philosophy. Many professors who have cited her in scholarly journals have done so in order to disagree with her. Prof. Robert Nozick at Harvard was not one of her supporters, so his statement that she was worthy of attention was not a case of "her supporter mak[ing] a point of getting her name into journals". When a professor of theology at a Catholic university did the same thing, ditto. You want facts? Look at talk:list of philosophers. I ask you again: have you in fact read that? Michael Hardy 21:53, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Removing the Simplification
The summary of the basic concepts was removed because, according to philwelch, he already wrote a 'better' summary like this and it was taken off. I don't know why it was removed, and perhaps he should have put his old one back as a replacement. My summary was added because the previous intro, all of which still existed under the summary, was basically unreadable to someone who didn't already know every thing about Objectivism and study it as a pass time like ourselves. Unless I get a reasonable argument, or, philwelch brings back his old basic summary that was taken back, I'm putting my extremely simplified one back at the top. (I stole most of it from the 'Ayn Rand' page and was told that there's nothing wrong with having it on two pages.)D prime 22:18, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * The one I wrote was a direct quote from Ayn Rand. It was removed on the grounds that lists aren't the best way to communicate the information. I took a shot at rephrasing the paragraph that summarizes the content of her philosophy, but if anyone else can do a better job I invite them to. &mdash; Phil Welch 22:36, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

How about we use quotes as a more complicated summary, and, in paragraph form, proceed it with a simpler one?D prime 02:57, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * Why? We really don't need more than one summary. &mdash; Phil Welch 03:02, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

They wont be formatted to look very seperate, but we need a more simplistic statement of Objectivism overall so that people who aren't philsophy nerds understand it.207.35.188.13 18:34, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * What's so difficult to understand about it as-is? &mdash; Phil Welch 18:45, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It was slightly hard to understand if you weren't already aware of Objectivism or philosophy in general. Some one added a paragraph to the top to clarify. Thanks!D prime 01:22, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Simplification request
Wow, this is an in-depth page. I know nothing about objectivism, and I'm afraid I'm non the wiser after looking at this page. Perhaps those of you who know a lot about the subject could try to make a very simple definition so uninformed people have a vague idea of what objectivism basically is? And it seems to me that people without specialist knowledge would find browsing this page very difficult.


 * I'm going to add or change the opening into a more easily understood version, unless I have any reasonable complaints here. What do you think? ~ D-PRIME (The Anti-Libertarian Sidebar Guy, any one want to tell me how to make a signature?)


 * You do it by adding four tilades in a row like this '~ ~ ~ ~' except w/o the spaces, I have no objection to changes. Crazynas 11:44, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)

I fancy my self a Randroid and would like to drastically change the intro, as to make it more comprehensible for some one who doesn't study Objectivism as a hobby. I find that the basic concept is better put in the Ayn Rand article, but I don't want to repeat the same couples of paragraphs in different articles; in fact, I don't want to reword them either. How would one feel if I took the short summary on Rand's ideas out of the Ayn Rand article, put it in the intro to this one, and replaced the space in the Rand article with a normal English summary, opposed to laid-out point-form like the one I'd be moving here. I should probably do it with as little deletion as possible. Does any one, especially people who have worked on the intro in the past, have any input? I don't want to go arbitrarily changing the beginning of a large article too bluntly.D prime 04:54, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * Go ahead. be bold. I agree the article is currently useless for people who don't already know it.  See what you can do to make it better. Dave (talk) 02:18, Apr 11, 2005 (UTC)

I will do so later tonight. Sorry for the delay.D prime 22:14, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I finally changed the intro to include a basic summary of Objectivism. Does any one have any suggestions as far as how/if I should include basic summarys at the beggining of each subject?D prime 15:00, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Overall Article Quality
The entire article is confused. Most sections are filled with what appears to be Objectivist jargon, which has not been defined or identified anywhere in the article. This is not ok. This is not a meeting place for objectivist experts, nor an area for debate and answering of objections, but an article in a reference work. It may be that Objectivism is in fact as confused and poorly stated as this article is. However, I choose to suspend my believe that a philosophy of this quality could possibly attract as many followers as Objectivism seems to have attracted. I propose that the article be restarted from scratch, and the length and quality of  edits be carefully monitored to prevent the abomination that is there currently from coming back. No one with even the slightest education in philosophy could seriously propose what is found in this article.--Ltbarcly 23:52, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * I agree that this is not a proper forum for debate about the merits of Objectivism. The function of the article should be: an accurate presentation of the philosophy, end of story. That said, it is unrealistic to expect that any systematic philosophy is going to be persuasively presented in a few thousand words. A systematic philosophy &mdash; one with integrated theories in metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, politics and art &mdash; will create new concepts and consequently have both new terminology and new perspectives on many fundamental ideas. What we should hope for is that the article presents the essentials of the philosophy and the most significant philosophic and practical consequences in a way that reflects the worldview of that philosopher.  With this, interested readers can proceed farther by looking to more lengthy sources.   Gyrae 06:09, Feb 2, 2005 (UTC)

Criticisms Section
I think that the criticisms section should be rewritten as a summary of all significant, published criticisms of Objectivism as a philosophy. Criticisms of Objectivism as a movement would go to the much-needed Objectivist movement article while personal criticisms of Ayn Rand would go to the Ayn Rand article. The main exposition here needs some significant improvement too--it's been very much messed with.

The Criticisms section should not catalogue every conceivable difference between Objectivism and every other philosophy, religion, worldview, or personal opinion in existence. It should not be a dumping ground for "Wikipedians' critiques of Objectivism". The criticisms section is a train wreck as it is. Similarly, will you people stop making unilateral decisions as to whether or not it's even in the article?

I'll work on an edit of the criticisms section. Y'all argue and vote here about whether or not we have it in the main article. I no longer care, but I'll help enforce whatever we agree on.

Philwelch 09:40, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * You know, I think what we REALLY need to do is merge the Bibliography into this article, with extended summary of the relevant critiques. Philwelch 10:12, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * I agree that it makes sense to have a (brief) section on (significant) criticisms of the philosophy -- and that discussion of the movement, whether pro or con, belong in a separate article (because a movement is not part of the contents of a philosophy). Gyrae 00:24, Feb 1, 2005 (UTC)


 * I looked at several other philosophy articles (e.g. Platonism, Aristotle, Scholasticism, Thomism, Kantianism, Pragmatism and Existentialism). If these have a criticism section at all, it is brief and plain.  Given the length of this article on Objectivism and the fact that criticism of a philosophy is not per se part of the philosophy, I recommend that we follow the practice of the other articles, and either abbreviate to a size similar to that in Existentialism, move it to a separate article, or eliminate it as in Platonism and Kantianism.  Thoughts? --Gyrae 19:27, Feb 6, 2005 (UTC)

I've reformed the Criticisms section into a Response section (as some parts of it weren't and aren't actually criticisms) and deleted stuff that clearly wasn't attributable to any given critique of Objectivism. The rest might have to be changed and moved back to the Bibliography. Philwelch 20:30, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * Which I've done. Philwelch 20:40, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I don't understand what a section on "Criticism of Rand's reading of the history of philosophy" is doing in an article about Objectivism. Isn't that something like having a section criticizing Einstein's political views in an article on his Theory of Relativity? I suggest that it be moved to the Ayn Rand page. Serge 19:00, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC) all of you hear this, the actual quality of this article is irrelevant. this may seem like an opprobious statement to make, but i am far more apalled by the articles ridiculous attempt at balance. this is an article projecting objectivist philosophy to intelligent laymen- there is no place for pedantry like "response to objectivism". All this belongs in Rand's biography, which would have to include the criticisms because of the fact that a biography is a journalistic report of all the events in a person's life please pursue an end based approach to any further editing and don't nitpick over silly non essentials like the language. for this, all of you self appointed philosopher historians have to define your end. as an example, see the article on existentialism- the part dealing with responses and critiques is tiny

Philwelch's latest edit
Philwelch, can I ask why you removed St Augustine from the primary of consciousness discussion (I didn't put him in, but still wonder why you removed him; why you removed "and the role of" from Epistemology:reason (which makes it look as though they are the same thing); and why you removed "what she called" from "what she called objective reality", because as you know this phrase is fraught with difficulty, and to leave it there without a quote and without a definition makes either Rand or the authors of this article look stupid. If it's what Rand called it, then "what she called" is accurate. You also removed my insertion that Kantian scholars would dispute Rand's view of Kant; and instead just removed his name entirely, even though Rand listed him as an idealist.  I'd appreciate if you'd explain your problems with my edit. Slim 21:18, Dec 16, 2004 (UTC)


 * Alright, I'll justify the changes I made.


 * Augustine: In terms of the axiom of self-consciousness, I think we only need to cite one philosopher as an example. Descartes is the more famous example. The article flows better when we don't spend as much space on these digressions.


 * Agreed.


 * Objective reality: Again, this was for stylistic reasons, although if you notice I placed the term "objective" in quotes so it reads: grounded in "objective" reality. Obviously, an explanation of what this "objective" reality follows, in the section on metaphysics.


 * Don't agree with this change. If you put it in quotation marks, you're suggesting it's a quote and you have to attribute it. Scare quotes aren't really appropriate for an encyclopedia, I'd say. It's a lot easier to say "what she called objective reality."  Objective reality is a phrase that few, if any, philosophers would use nowadays because it's pretty meaningless.


 * I still don't like the way yours flows. This article has too much stuttering and qualification as it is, adding a phrase like "what she called" is inadvisable. So, I changed it to "grounded in reality". It's NPOV because the grammar of the sentence clearly states "She characterizes it as...grounded in reality", which is indeed factual. Philwelch 10:18, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * The title "Epistemology: reason" (as well as the titles Metaphysics: objective reality, Ethics: self-interest, Politics: capitalism) comes from a rather-famous incident where Rand was asked to summarize the basics of Objectivism while standing on one foot. In other words, they are the titles Rand used to denote the four main branches of her philosophy. "Reason" is the term Rand used to describe the Objectivist epistemology, although it is certainly far different from what, say, a classical rationalist would call "reason". This point should be clarified in the main text.


 * Yes, point taken.


 * As for Kant, Rand's poor interpretation of Kant may be worthy of note somewhere, but in the context of an explanation of Objectivist philosophy, it is merely a distraction. This is another case of an unnecessary digression disrupting the flow of the article and distracting the reader from, well, what the article is supposed to be about. The article flows far better without it. Philwelch 01:27, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * Also, agreed.

Thanks for your explanation, Phil. Slim 02:04, Dec 17, 2004 (UTC)


 * Phil, I much prefer "grounded in reality." Thanks for changing it and for checking that I was okay with it.  Very decent of you. Best, Slim 21:17, Dec 17, 2004 (UTC)

Metaphysics, Epistemology and Morality
Objectivism is not "metaphysics, epistemology and morality combined". Objectivist Morality is implied from Objectivist Metaphysics and Epistemology. Had reality been different, Morality would have changed accordingly. Avi.aharon 17:40, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Alright watchers of this article, let's get started!
Lot's of talk, little action. I propose we make a modest start by fixing the intro. Currently:

''Objectivism is the name chosen by Ayn Rand for her philosophy. She characterizes it as a philosophy "for living on earth": grounded in reality, and aimed at facilitating knowledge of the natural world and harmonious, mutually beneficial interactions between human beings.''

Broadly speaking, Objectivism combines a realist, empiricist, secular, naturalistic orientation in metaphysics and epistemology with an egoistic ethics of human flourishing and a social philosophy of capitalism and individual liberty.

One major theme of Objectivist philosophy is a focus on the potential of the individual human being...

Honestly, have we really said anything at all at this point? Not really! Maybe nihilism doesn't focus on the potential of the human being, but most other philosophies do. Most philosophies are for "living on earth", eg the late Bernard Williams who seriously wondered "What does it mean to live well?". I'm not saying we can't mention these points, i'm just saying that they don't help us newcomers much, who are wondering, "What the hell is objectivism? I remembering hearing about subjectivism..how come i've never heard of this?". I think it might help to start a bit with subjectivism, something peopl are are familiar with, and then contrast it with objectivism. WARNING: I DONT KNOW WHAT THE HELL I'M TALKING ABOUT!

Proposed start (edit the crap out of this!) Objectivist philosophy, often simply called "Objectivism", was introduced by the novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand in the middle of the 20th century. The antithesis to subjectivism, in which a person's conception of reality can be influenced by their thoughts and feelings, Rand's philosophy states that reality is that which we see in the world around us, and exists just as it is regardless of individual perceptions and judgements. This nature-centric way of thinking about the universe, alongside a focus on man's ability to reason, led Rand to what she considered to be an ideal way of "living on earth".  

--Alterego 07:07, Feb 2, 2005 (UTC)


 * Objectivism wasn't formulated to be "opposed to" subjectivism. I'll see what I can do. Philwelch 08:02, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Hey Philwelch. No offense, but that first section is looking really bad.  Can't we muster up a couple of introductory and light overview paragraphs? Lists are not a good way to go, and especially not a good way to describe a philosophy!  Regarding the above, I changed it to 'antithesis' to be less ambiguous (also maybe antonym, diametric), but still, objective IS the antonym of subjective. Can we start with the above, reword anything that is not precisely correct, and hopefully end with a couple of nice paragraphs?   The Perfect Article states, "Begins with a definition or clear description of the subject at hand. This is made as absolutely clear to the nonspecialist as the subject matter itself will allow. The purpose of an encyclopedia is to codify human knowledge in a way that is most accessible to the most people, and this demands clear descriptions of what the subject matter is about. So we aren't just dropped into the middle of the subject from the first word—we are eased into it. --Alterego 18:21, Feb 2, 2005 (UTC)


 * "Objectivism" is a proper noun which refers specifically to the philosophy of Ayn Rand. In fact, the clearest concise definition of Objectivism is that it is the philosophy of Ayn Rand. It's hard to come up with a better concise summary, although Ayn Rand managed to do so standing on one foot. The fact that "objective" is an antonym of "subjective" is only marginally relevant, and then again, only in the way explained by the exposition on the trichotomy between the "intrinsic", the "subjective", and the "objective". I think your warning that "I don't know what the hell I'm talking about" is, to put it bluntly, all that had to be said. Philwelch 22:36, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * Also, it's not just against the idea that that one can change one's conception of reality. Rather, it's against the conception that one can change reality through thought alone AND against the concept that there is no objective reality. - Loweeel 15:57, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * No need to get snarky is there? I guess I understand if you are unable to write a couple of clear paragraphs about what Objectivism is. That said, i'll keep working on it. Since my roommate is an Objectivist, and the bookshelf in my living room has pretty much all of Rand's works, it shouldn't be that big of a deal for me to figure it all out from the ground up. I'm mainly interested turning what should be two nice and clearly understandable paragraphs into just that, rather than four paragraphs, a quote, and two lists! I guess it would suffice to say i'm a little dissapointed though... --Alterego 06:54, Feb 3, 2005 (UTC)
 * We should get Jimbo to come in and take care of this problem :) --Alterego 06:56, Feb 3, 2005 (UTC)

Fine, I wrote a second paragraph in the opening. Are you happy now? Philwelch 19:07, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Introduction
As, er...demanded by popular demand, I've started some major work on the article, rewriting the intro (I bailed out and let old Ayn do the part of actually summarizing Objectivism) and split Objectivist movement into a separate article. Anything else anyone wants done? Philwelch 08:20, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not an encyclopedia of philosophy!
Seeing as Wikipedia is a general encyclopedia and not an encyclopedia of philosophy, we should avoid writing in "philosophy-geek" in favor of plain English wherever possible, especially in say, the opening, where the basic subject matter should be comprehensible to those outside the field. If we must slip into philosophic jargon later in the article we can do that, but the main (and, frankly, most spot-on) criticism of this article is that it's incomprehensible to the roughly 99% of the internet-viewing population that does not consist of philosophy geeks. I'm a philosophy geek myself, as is, I suppose, everyone who bothers to edit philosophy articles. But philosophical jargon is only understood by philosophy geeks, with the effective result of holding back information from the unwashed. Unfortunately, this runs exactly counter to the purpose of Wikipedia. Philwelch 00:27, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * It's often not understood by philosophy geeks either. My own view is that, if philosophy geekery can't be translated into ordinary language, there's a good chance it's meaningless. (I'm excluding logic from that generalization, but I'm thinking particularly of philosophy of mind, metaphysics, ethics, and theory of knowledge). SlimVirgin 00:33, Feb 5, 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Good edits. --Gyrae 04:04, Feb 5, 2005 (UTC)

The intro is looking a lot better now. A couple things; I don't think starting the second paragraph of a long entry with "in summary" works. Also, describing objectivism as "existence exists" is going to get a newbie confused with Existentialism. "Existentialism is a philosophical movement emphasizing individualism, individual freedom, and subjectivity." On those lines, we are pretty much OK up until that subjectivity part :)   "Objectivism emphasizes actuality?" or how about "Objectivism emphasizes reality?"--Alterego 04:27, Feb 5, 2005 (UTC)

(libertarian sidebar issue moved to end)

Deleted section
The following deleted section has little to do with Objectivism and much to do with Ayn Rand's own understanding of other philosophers. I have removed it and placed it here in case someone wants to transplant the content into Ayn Rand. Philwelch 20:20, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

In Ayn Rand's work, the criticism of other philosophers, especially Kant, is an integral part of her own philosophizing -- it sets the problems that she believed she has solved. She believed, in short, that the problems of the modern world are philosophic problems, i.e. the uncritical acceptance of Kantianism (as she understood it) and that the world can be vastly improved (turned into one big Galt's Gulch) by the acceptance of her own philosophy. So criticism of her scholarship is not a separate issue from criticism of her philosophy, and this should be acknowledged to properly round out this article. --Christofurio 13:39, Mar 3, 2005 (UTC)


 * In theory, perhaps. In practice, you've done a very half-assed job of it and it makes the article look like a mess. Philwelch 21:17, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * Very little of it is "mine" -- and I'm not going to muck about in the page history right now to find out who deserves proper authorial credit. I'm simply exercising my editorial prerogative to judge that it makes the article better than its arbitrary exclusion. Feel free to improve. --Christofurio 13:31, Mar 4, 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry, I didn't know you were the supreme editor of Wikipedia. I thought we followed a collaborative process. I've managed to improve your addition by actually putting it in the right place and making the content actually conform to the heading. Philwelch 20:27, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * AFAIK, You and I are equally supreme in our respective supreme editorships. My re-introduction of this material was neither more nor less collaborative than your initial decision to delete it. I appreciate your new tact, though. --Christofurio 20:32, Mar 4, 2005 (UTC)

Criticisms of Objectivist scholarship
Can someone add a set of links to "scholarly criticism" at the end of the article? I'm too new to know how to do it, but I think it would be valuable.

Especially in the title essay of her early work, For the New Intellectual, Rand levels serious accusations against canonical historical philosophers, especially David Hume, Immanuel Kant, G. W. F. Hegel, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Herbert Spencer. In her later book, Philosophy: Who Needs It?, she repeats and enlarges upon her criticisms of Kant, and she also accuses famed Harvard political theorist John Rawls of gross philosophical errors. Some have accused Rand of misinterpreting the works of these (and other) philosophers. And some have faulted Rand for failing to provide documentation to support her interpretation of these philosophers' views.

In particular, Rand is criticized for her reading of Immanuel Kant, whose philosophy she frequently denigrates as the opposite of Objectivism. Some critics take issue with Rand's interpretation of Kant's metaphysics: like early critics of Kant, Rand interprets Kant as an absolute idealist. It is a long-standing question of Kant scholarship whether this interpretation is correct; in the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant claimed that his transcendental idealism was different from absolute idealism. Contemporary philosophers such as Jonathan Bennett, James van Cleve, and Rae Langton continue to debate this issue.

Other critics focus on Rand's reading of Kant's ethical philosophy. Rand alleges that Kantian ethics is a version of altruism, an ethics of self-sacrifice. Kant's defenders claim that Kantian ethics is primarily an ethics of reason, because the categorical imperative amounts to a demand that the intent behind one's actions be logically consistent, or in Kantian terminology, that "the maxim of one's act be universalizable." In Rand's favor, Kant clearly does maintain (in his Groundwork for the Metaphyiscs of Morals) that an action motivated by inclination or self-interest is entirely lacking in moral worth. Still, fewer commentators have agreed with Rand's characterization of Kantianism as self-sacrificial. The contemporary philosopher Thomas E. Hill has explicitly defended Kant against this charge in his article, "Happiness and Human Flourishing in Kant's Ethics," in the anthology Human Flourishing.

Libertarian sidebar
Why is there a bar on the side linking Objectivism with Libertarianism, one is a philosophy and one is a political position (with a variety of philosophical backgrounds) Crazynas 04:36, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * The libertarianism article (and especially its spinoff, Libertarianism and Objectivism) have a bunch of information about the relationship between the two. Libertarianism is heavily influenced by Objectivism, with most libertarians having been introduced to their current position by objectivism.  If you don't want the sidebar here, ya'all can agree to take it off of this page.  Dave 04:44, Mar 29, 2005 (UTC)

I thought about it, and decided to remove the sidebar. While Objectivism is important to libertarians, libertarianism is relatively unimportant to objectivists. Dave 05:14, Mar 29, 2005 (UTC)


 * Oh, I wouldn't say that. Other than the insane hard-core Leonard Peikoff types, most of us *are* libertarians. Philwelch 05:18, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * I didn't want to piss off the Randroids :-). Hopefully the current version with a sub-subheader on Rand's influence on Libertarianism will work. Dave 05:38, Mar 29, 2005 (UTC)


 * It makes perfect sense to have the section at the bottom about how it has affected libertarianism, but Objectivism is not libertarianism, and an actual Objectivist is not a libertarian. It shouldn't be part of the 'libertarian' series.


 * This is an issue of controversy among Objectivists (touched upon in "Libertarianism and Objectivism"), but there is plenty of reason to have the sidebar. Philwelch 20:03, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * An "actual" Objectivist is not a libertarian? How can that be?  A libertarian is simply someone who believes that no one has the right to initiatiate the use of force against anyone else.  If an "actual" Objectivist is not a libertarian, then he believes that someone does have the right to initiate the use of force against someone else, at least sometimes.  But if he believes that, then he could not be an "actual" Objectivist.  Therefore, an "actual" Objectivist must be a libertarian.  No?  (note that I used small-l libertarian throughout this note, intentionally) Serge 20:07, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * The term 'Objectivism' in this context is refering to Rand's philosophy. What ever she describes it as is what it is, just like there's no 'debate' on the definition of the meaning of the word 'too'.

Objectivism could be considered alike to Libertarianism, but it is in no way factually affiliated with it. http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=education_campus_libertarians I see absolutely no controversy as to whether the 'Philosophy of Ayn Rand' as it is put in the beggining of the article is affiliated with libertarianism. She said that she has more respects for Marxists, which means that you could more accurately put this page in the 'communist series'.


 * I recommend that you read the libertarianism and Objectivism article (or any of the sources listed there), which address your concern. Also, signing your posts with ~ makes communicating easier.  It's okay if you forget occassionally (I know I do) but try to make it a habit.  Dave (talk) 04:40, Apr 5, 2005 (UTC)


 * They're just anonymous, and probably Randroid POV-mongers. Anyone who understands the content of both Objectivism and libertarianism understands that Objectivism is libertarian, any statements to the contrary having the same meaning as "A is not A". That's probably a POV statement, but it's as least as commonly held and valid as the Randroid POV, so the sidebar is obviously in place here. Besides, regardless of whether Rand personally approved of the libertarian movement, she influenced it, and Objectivism is a topic very, very clearly related to libertarianism, whether Rand wanted it or not. (I also hasten to add two things. First, Ayn Rand tells you to think for yourself. Ayn Rand doesn't tell you to take Ayn Rand quotes as gospel (although she certainly thinks that if you think for yourself, you will agree with her!) Second, Ayn Rand's personal opinions are not necessarily part of Objectivism. If Ayn Rand, at some point, said "I like fudge," that doesn't mean liking fudge is part of Objectivism. Philwelch 05:22, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * If Ayn Rand said "Every one should like fudge." it would be part of Objectivism. I don't like fudge, but I would agree with her in the fact that she likes fudge. She has stated that if you disagree with any thing she has written, you are not an Objectivist. She did influence it, but she has influenced a lot of things. It isn't a series of articles that influenced each other. It's a series of articles that are on the same political basis. Libertarians prefer a smaller government, while Objectivsts don't think that politics is some thing that you can have a preference for, and see it as a branch of their philsophical basis. She did tell people to think for themselves, which means using your own rational judgement, which can be used to decide that she is right. She was not a fan of 'fashionable non-conromists' which she launched an assault on. It is fair to say that 'Randroids' are too extreme, but we are exactly who you should listen to when it comes to defining the 'philosophy of Ayn Rand'
 * If you think "Randroids" have a monopoly on Objectivism, you may want to read work by self-described objectivists that disagree with you like Nathaniel Branden (whom Rand said knew more about Objectivism than anyone but her) or by David Kelley, who runs the Objectivist Center. The number of people influenced by Objectivism greatly exceeds the number of orthodox Objectivists (according to Branden), so those people would be interested in Objectivism as an "open" philosophy that can move beyond Rand herself than the version promoted by the Ayn Rand Institute, and would therefore be interested in her influence in other areas.


 * As a side-note, I think you're mistaken about Objectivist politics. She did advocate a specific political program, had specific views about what her ideal political reality would look like, and advocated some specific policies in the short-term like school vouchers and a switch to the Gold standard. Dave (talk) 15:50, Apr 6, 2005 (UTC)


 * I think you misunderstood me. If some one told a Libertarian that having a smaller government was only "Their opinion", they would say "Yes. What's your opinion?" If some one told an Objectivist that lassiez-faire capitalism was only "Their opinion", the Objectivst would go "No, it's true.". This is because of the philosophical basis of Objectivism. What Brandien believes in is not Objectivism; it is a seperate philosophy based on Objectivism. Ayn Rand, whose philsophy is what you're describing, said that he isn't, and the philsophy is simply what she says. If you think agreeing with her completely is too extreme, go ahead, but it isn't Objectivism. If communists suddenly started calling them selves Objectivists, and there was more of them, you wouldn't say that the 'Philsophy of Ayn Rand' was communism. I suggest that another article is made for 'Open-Objectivism', which would include the Libertarian sidebar. Note: she said that before he seperated and became a Libertarian. Any one, of any political orientation, could objectively (no pun intended) know about Objectivism, and it doesn't affect their validity. ~


 * First, you're wrong about the "opinion versus fact" distinction. Try telling Lew Rockwell that his views are "just opinions" and see what happens, if you don't believe me.  The fact that Branden and the Objectivist center, as well as countless thousands of others, call themselves Objectivists without adhering to every one of its dogmas is sufficent to include them.  An example would be telling Christian that doesn't hate homosexuals (e.g. a member of the United Church of Christ) that he's not a Christian or a Reform Jew that she's not a Jew because they don't adhere to every commandment.  Given that Branden still knows more about Objectivism than you do and considers it a framework rather than a set of commandments, I think you're in a bit of a hole. Dave (talk) 02:45, Apr 7, 2005 (UTC)


 * A libertarian *could* say that, because there's no philsophical basis; a libertarian could say it's just opinion or that it's all fact. Any one can *call* themselves an Objectivists; Josef Stalin could have, like I explained above. But Objectivism as you're defining it here is the philsophy of Ayn Rand, so we have to go based on what she said. If Jesus Christ once said that 'To be a Christian, and to get to God through me, you must hate homosexuality.' then that would be a neccessary part of Christianity. Rand did in fact say that have to agree with every thing. It's irrelavent how much Branden knows. Ayn Rand would back me up here, I can quote her with refernces, and I think she trumps Branden when it comes to Objectivism. Ayn Rand said that if you disagree with any of it, it isn't Objectivism. In order to define it as any thing else, you would have to stop opening the article with "the philsophy of Ayn Rand." It would even be okay if you kept the side bar and said Objectivism is "A philosophical system based on the writing of Ayn Rand.", but that wouldn't look too nice, and it would probably be much better if you made another article for "Neo-Objectivism"; I'll make it my self, if neccessary, and it will get you take the Libertarian bar off the page of a philsophy created by some one who bashed Libertarianism.


 * There is already an articles on Neo-objectivism. A few points, though:
 * Objectivism is opposed to "semantic mysticism". Something is what it is. Any ideology that supports property rights and limitation of government power, while opposing the initiation of force, is a libertarian ideology. Objectivism fits those criteria.
 * Ayn Rand said that the failure to call something what it is is just that. If Ayn Rand had issues with the libertarian movement of her time, that is her prerogative. If she ever attempted to flat-out say that "Objectivism is opposed to libertarianism", she would be making a false statement.
 * All of Rand's statements about libertarianism talk about libertarianism qua political movement, not libertarianism qua political ideology. Rand's opposition to the libertarian movement has been duly noted--her influence and relevance to libertarian ideology has been clearly established as well.
 * Libertarian political ideology can come about from several philosophical bases (plural of "basis"). However, one of the single biggest, most popular, most important bases that libertarians rest upon is Objectivism, Rand's personal opinion of the libertarian movement 20-30 years ago notwithstanding. Philwelch 00:47, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * I've edited the sidebar to make it more clear where Objectivism stands with regard to libertarianism. Philwelch 00:51, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * Only good argument that I've come across here. Fair enough.

Can someone add a set of links to "scholarly criticism" at the end? I'm too new to know how to do it, but I think it would be valuable.

Spinoffs
In my opinion, few readers will want to see the line-by-line details of working out objectivist epistemology unless they're willing to click on objectivist epistemology, rather than just "objectivism." Most non-objectivists are interested in the ethics and politics part. I spun off metaphysics and epistemology for this reason. I hope both can be expanded again on this page, but in more of an overview rather than a list of random tenets of objectivism listed one-by-one. Dave 06:04, Mar 29, 2005 (UTC)


 * Why not then, just have all of the branches of Objectivist philosophy (metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, politics, esthetics) as separate sub articles, with a synopsis on the main page? Crazynas 21:50, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Examples
A good article, as much as any brief article can capture an individual's world view or describe a philosophy.

The one thing that could make it more understandable to the average reader would be more examples. Rand gave concrete descriptions of what a society operating under the tenents of objectivism would look like. In that sense, it's a philosophy with political and social implications. There's some mention of that -- government should only have limited police and military power, for example.

Was Rand calling for political action? Did she prescribe specific behavior? Did her philosophy support freedom of religious practice? Does objectivism have a position on any of the important questions in today's world, such as the dealth penalty, public education, marriage, abortion, taxes?

I don't have the knowledge or understanding to contribute directly, and I know it's a tall order, but there are smart people here. -- DavidH July 3, 2005 20:41 (UTC)


 * As far as I've been able to understand: yes, no, not an issue, yes, no, respectively on the examples you list above. /Wik-E

"Intellectual heir"?
It said "... her intellectual heir (Leonard Peikoff)." I changed it to just "... Leonard Peikoff".

Peikoff is Rand's heir, i.e. he inherited her copyrights, manuscripts, etc. He may be among her "intellectual heirs", if that term is understood to mean those who follow her ideas. But, contrary to urban legend, she did not call him her "intellectual heir" nor appoint him a sort of successor as leader of the movement, who was to be the only person bearing that title. Before she split up with Nathaniel Branden, she called him her "intellectual heir". Are we to suppose she made the same mistake a second time, after getting burned that way? When I saw him speak at the Ford Hall Forum, the MC said "he has been called [her] intellectual heir", but didn't say who called him that. It seems he was carefully avoiding attributing the statement to Rand. Michael Hardy 6 July 2005 01:29 (UTC)

Dogma v. Integrity
Hi, I removed this line: "[By 'dogma' in this context, libertarian critics mean 'integrity', i.e., uncompromising allegiance to the Truth.]"

For a few reasons:
 * 1) It presupposes that Objectivism is the truth.
 * 2) It spells Truth with a large T, emphasizing it's bias towards objectivism.
 * 3) It does not properly define dogma, or the way libertarian critics are using it (that is to say it is not, as the sentence claims, what they "MEAN").
 * 4) It is, once again, clearly biased.

Sorry if that's stepping on anyones toes, but I don't think that wikipedia should be claiming any philosophy is Truth with a capital T, especially this one, and least of all in a section about those who disagree with it. I'm surprised that was even in there for so long. -- Anonymous


 * It seems like a very reasonable edit to me. The wording was obviously not NPOV. --RL0919 22:59, 26 July 2005 (UTC)


 * Not being biased towards Objectivism doesn't imply that Objectivism isn't objectively/factually valid, which Objectivists (such as myself) believe. Wikipedia's policy is not simply to 'only report on what's true,' because people disagree on that as well. Wikipedia's 'neutral policy' is really to not take sides on things that people disagree on, such as Objectivism and its alleged validity. D prime 02:34, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

It's a good edit. I'm an Objectivist myself; frankly, whoever put this in either has no idea about Objectivism, no idea about the rules of Wikipedia. If we abandon the need to assume good faith for a moment, whoever added that could be an agent provacateur or troll, trying to make Objectivists look like dogmatists; I've never seen an Objectivist write "truth" with a capital letter. LaszloWalrus 10:59, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

POV Comment Removal
I just removed the following section that was recently added under the "Responses to Objectivism" header. It appears to be one writer's personal commentary on Objectivism rather than the repetition of a common critism. No prior sources were given, and what appears to be the author's personal email address was included at the end of the comment.

"Objectivism Weapon of the Egoist"
[Objectivism essentially rejects ideas of mysticism due to it's irrationallity. However, it's weakness may lie in it's inability to reflect the needs of the subconscious which is inherently more complex and irrational. Instead the focus of objectivism is on the ego and conscious structures and as such operates in opposition to such wider structures (the truth is grey and varied). Hence, as an ideology it is dangerous in that logical justifications can be made and held as truisms for actions that are immoral in a wider/foreign context (viz. US foreign policy).] - markville@gmail.com

--RL0919 06:19, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Making critics look stupid
Just passing by. I found this passage kind of strange: "Critics, however, point to the fact that creativity is only possible within a reasonable secure financial framework...many of the greatest artists lived in poverty... ." So, the critics are saying that you need substantial money to be creative, and many creative people didn't? Doesn't that defeat the argument? Maybe some rephrasing is in order. If someone who understands the criticism doesn't rephrase it, I'll figure out a better way. 24.162.140.213 22:08, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

This criticsm was lame, so I removed it. (Dean Michael Gores 15 Aug 2005) Why: 1. It seems like it tries to apply the idea "The rich get richer and the poor get poorer"... which is simply rediculous in pure capitalism. (Why would the poor get poorer? Doesn't their standard of living actually increase when the rich get richer?  How does that make poor people poorer?) 2. If artists etc need funding, then capitalism would be the best place for them, because capitalism provides the potentially highest standard of living... and more people would have more resources to spend on art.


 * I'll try to rephrase it. On the one hand, there's a certain familiar ideological warrior who has become addicted to the phrase "the fact that" as a POV marker. In any article about any pro-capitalist theory or theorist,, she'll write, "Although some weirdos actually believe XYZ, sensible critics point out the fact that XYZ is obviously false"! I found that kind of phrasing here, and page history traces it to the usual suspect.


 * On the other hand, the general point of the sort of critics referenced here (and I'm not one of them, BTW, but this is an encyclopedia and their point should be acknowledged) is that the poverty of many great artists has limited what they could have done, and so deprived the world of masterpieces. Obviously, that's speculation, but there's no contradiction there. --Christofurio 14:43, August 15, 2005 (UTC)
 * "Struggle gives meaning to life" {?}. I would say it's a non-understanding of art. Anyone who's truly experienced it just once knows. Art is self reflection. "Enduring habits I hate... yes, at the very bottom of my soul I feel grateful to all my misery and bouts of sickness and everything about me that is imperfect, because this sort of thing leaves me with a 100 backdoors through which I can escape from enduring habits" {Nietzchse} {Seas 04:32, 31 August 2005 (UTC)}


 * Right, but the way it was phrased, it sounded like the critic was saying that creativity was impossible, not merely hindered by poverty. MrVoluntarist 02:20, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Rewrite of the summary

 * 1) I think the previous summary worked too hard to remain NPOV and had an excessive number of scare quotes and qualifiers. This summary, as on countless other pages, can remain neutral without constant reminder that every statement in the essay is merely Rand's opinion. This over-hard work lead to...
 * 2) Unwieldly wording.
 * 3) The quotes, incl "living on earth", appears to me to try to capture her sense of life, yet failed to do so. This can probably be left out of the summary.
 * 4) As others have pointed out, a philosopher characterizing their work as "gounded in reality" isn't original, and in general that paragraph does not do much to distinguish Objectivism from other philosophical schools, or from a lay understanding of philosophy.
 * 5) I think the primary goal here is to facilitate that lay understanding, and so setting Objectivism in the context in which it was developed and presented to the world is instructive. As such,
 * 6) A simple summary, sans qualifiers, is the best way to summarize the material. Clarification will obviously be given in the longer sections.

Note that a few places that I am unhappy with phrasing are marked with asterisks, and specific comments on that phrasing follows the rewrite. Links and formatting is omitted here it didn't cause an itch so I didn't scratch it.

--

Objectivism is the philosophy of Russian-born American philosopher and author Ayn Rand, first set out as the principles behind characters in her fiction works and later described in non-fiction books and essays. Objectivism is a *comprehensive philosophy; that is, it *describes a Metaphysics, Epistemology, Ethics, Politics, and Esthetics. As formulated by Rand, each successive branch of the philosophy follows logically from the previous branches and rational observation. Rand contrasted her philosophy with academic philosophies, contending that Objectivism is a philosophy necessary for and *understandable by every man.

Objectivism holds that reality exists independent of consciousness, whether human or supernatural; reason is the only method of gathering knowledge and only the individual rational mind can process these data; the proper moral purpose of one's life is to pursue one's own rational self-interest; and finally laissez-faire capitalism with a _minarchist government is the only moral social system. Ayn Rand *also set out a system of Esthetics, *favoring Romanticism.

Objectivism derives its name from the conception of knowledge and values as objective. Rand rejected intrinsic values (such as "natural parks have a value within themselves independent of anyone's use of those parks") and intrinsic concepts (that is, she denied that the notion of catness somehow exists within a cat itself) as well as subjectivism (by which Rand means "created by [one's] feelings, desires, 'intuitions,' or whims"). Rather, properly formed concepts and values are objective in the sense that they meet the specific cognitive and/or biocentric needs of the individual. Valid concepts and values are, as she wrote, "determined by the nature of reality, but to be discovered by man's mind." "Objectivism" was actually a secondary choice for the name of her philosophy; her first choice, "Existentialism," had already been appropriated by Jean-Paul Sartre.

Many use Rand's own brief summary given while standing on one foot as the official simplified description. [2]

--

Notes:


 * Comprehensive: I don't know if this is the right term. I'm an economist, not a philosopher, so I don't know the proper way to describe a philosophy (like Objectivism) that is comprehensive vs, say, logical positivism.


 * Describes: includes? subsumes? incorporates? prescribes? Consists of? I'm looking for a better phrasing here.


 * Understandable: probably contentious. However, her view of esthetics is that it is a way of packaging complex concepts (such as philosophy) into easily-digested bite-sized nuggets, which in part inspired her career as a writer. I want to communicate that she wanted to contrast her philosophy as one which the average reader could grasp the basics of from simply reading a novel, vs an "academic" philosophy (like her interpretation of Kant) that she viewed as essentially unknowable.


 * Also esthetics: she does not include esthetics in her one-foot summary of the philosophy, and it does not appear in some of the ARI summaries. However, it is included in OPAR, and in my experience is included by adherents and critics. I think it is fair to include it as an "also" to the list that begins this paragraph.


 * Favoring: This could be improved.

One final note: it's a couple hours after my bedtime but I'm posting this anyway, since this is 'just' the talk page. Comments welcome, of course, which is why it's here. Heresiarch 07:32, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Begging the Question
The article states: "...because it is the only system where humans are barred from initiating the use of physical force upon each other." But it does not explain how, other than by physical force, this bar is to be enforced. People or organizations that use or attempt to use "physical force" (this includes governments, gangs, police forces, court officials such as bailiffs, private police, armies, mercenaries, and so on) do not respond well to exhortations not to use force. Seemingly, the only way to enforce (sic) Ms. Rand's injunction not to use force is by the use of force, so she is Begging the question.
 * You've overlooked the term "initiating." Objectivists don't oppose the use of physical force. They oppose a first use of it. Responding with force to an initiation of force is fine. Objectivist support government using force, as long as it doesn't initiate it. In other words, the only way to use force legitimately is in defense against an initiation. That's basic libertarianism.

Good point - I missed that word. I was going to agree, at first. But on further thought, I still think the concept is meritorious in principle but unrealistic. For example, in many revolts, such as Algeria (against the French), Hungary (1956), and so on, the authorities would claim that "terrorists" were initiating the violence. You tell me who is initiating the violence between the militant Palestinians and Israel. Similarly, the police often beat up someone and charge him with resisting arrest. You try to figure out in which cases the police are right, and justified, and in what cases they went too far. In the last analysis, the party able to apply the most force usually wins. There is no arbiter equipped to decide who "initiated" the use of force. Carrionluggage 19:39, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
 * It doesn't matter who claims to be retaliating. What matters is who actually is retaliating.  Kurt Weber 03:32, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

RFC
Should this article mention that fact that many opponents and neutral parties to Ayn Rand's beliefs and ideals refer to them simply as 'Randism' due to the inherent bias of the term 'objectivism' (which assumes that Rand's beliefs and ideals are the correct ones), or should that fact be forbidden from inclusion, as Dominick prefers? Due to this dispute, the NPOV tag has been added. Do not remove it. 19:19, 23 October 2005 (UTC)


 * This isn't the way to do an RfC. As to my removal of your tag, "Randism" is an almost unknown term. It appears to be a neologism. Objectivism is synonymous with Ayn Rand. Other people's comments are welcome. In 24 hours if there are no comments we can remove the tag. Dominick (????) 21:19, 23 October 2005 (UTC)


 * For what it's worth, I've never heard anyone complain that rationalism implies it's the only rational philosophy... --zenohockey 22:30, 23 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Do not edit comments to insert things again please. Google hits do not constitute proof. Dominick (????) 23:57, 23 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Objectivists do believe that their philosophy is objectively correct. That is the philosophy's name, which Rand choose. Opponents may think that it's a bad name, however. You may want to reference this concept 'Randism' as relevant, but whether or not Objectivism is correct, that is still the name.24.101.83.78 01:22, 24 October 2005 (UTC)


 * I found 997 hits for Randism, vs 1.2 Million for Objectivism. Out of the 997 Rand hits, many non-blog, non-forum hits are hits from a copied geocities page, in a few other places it is mentioned because other people discussed why it was a poor choice to use the neologism for Objectivism. Apparently the term was coined on the spot by Al Gore, "Yet, just as often, his performance clunks along in a deadly drone, coining the phrase "Ayn Randism" before a crowd of New Democrat Network members". So, it seems the term is known in the media as a neologism, which is my complaint, in looking at the term, it isn't used in any discussion except for the oft-copied geocitied writing. Wikipedia can't be used to introduce or further a new term, it should onlyreport those in current use. I think I am safe in removing the NPoV tag now. Dominick (????) 11:17, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Of course the terms 'objectivism' and 'rationalism' are inherently biased, and the approximately 1000 google hits from various sources definitively proves that the term 'Randism' is not a neologism. As hard as you argue, you can not turn a term with 1000 google hits into a neologism, because A = A. -Ironic that a supposed 'objectivist' does not recognize that. As for my personal experience, I personally have used the word 'Randism' to describe Ayn Rand's beliefs without having heard that term before, due to the subjectivity of Rand's own self-descriptive terms, and I have known an other person who has done the same. I am therefore surprised by the 1000-fold difference in google hits. See that's the difference between Randists and anti-Randists. The former chirp the terms 'objectivism' and 'rationalism' at the top of their lungs like starlings, so as to popularize them, to make their publicity compensate for their inaccuracy, whereas the anti-Randists feel no such need to chirp loudly, but instead use the terms more casually. Anyway, I strongly support objectivism aka rationalism, which is why I am strongly opposed to the subjective and irrational beliefs and ideals of Ayn Rand. 23:16, 24 October 2005 (UTC)


 * I came here for the RFC. Like it or not, Objectivism is the common term for Rand's philosophy. While the criticism section can, and probably should mention that some people object to the term and prefer Randism, the bulk of the article should use Objectivism. Kit 00:14, 25 October 2005 (UTC)


 * I found 1000 hits from some people trying to define it as a neologism. The only public figure I can find using the term is Al Gore, and he had little to do with real objectivism. If I called her ideas "flofliparism" and decided to post on forums that are talking about objectivists, I could produce any number of google hits, but google is not a indicator of the use of the term, it is only an indicator that some person made a web page pushing the neologism, "fl0fliparism".
 * You seem new, so I will explain this to you. Mentioning you find another editor "ironic that a supposed ___" is bad manners, and bad discussion ethics. Your rest of your post seems like you have a argument raging with some objectivists, that is your business, not mine. Your debate with others will not be won on wikipedia, and more so will not be in the article except maybe as a criticism if it is a notable criticism which so far is not convincing. Insulting others will simply cause us to dismiss you, as is human nature.
 * The term, as used by the majority of people when discussing her philosophy is Objectivism. I really don't care that you feel one way or the other about Ayn Rand or Objectivists, it certainly impacts you, but in objective reality, where all of us live, the term used shall be objectivism. Even more topical, NPoV mans we do not take sides, we list the controversies as explained in terms those participants can explain, but non-notable criticism doesn't always warrant a mention in an article. The reason Rand gets to pick the philosophy's name is that she identified the first tenents of it, has pioneered it's applications, and is still the giant in objectivist thought, despite the issues many have with her after her death. A "holy war" with the objectivists who like Rand and those who do not like Rand, will not be fought here, but it may be reported here, if it is notable. Dominick (????) 15:57, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

A google search for the similar term 'Randian' yielded 80,000 hits as compared to 680,000 for 'objectivist'. That's 1 to 8.5, so 'Randian' is a major alternative term to the deceptive term 'objectivist'. In the google hits, I have also seen the term 'objectivism' used in single quotes, to denote it's deceptiveness. Dominick's illogical comparison of a term of obvious meaning and a random term, his lie (which can be disproven via google) that the term 'Randism/Randist' was created and popularized by just one person, his discrediting of objective facts as mere insults, his libelous discrediting of the opposition so as to attempt to invalidate it, his projection of his own bad manners onto the opposition, and his removal of the NPOV tag to suppress the opposition rather than face it, further demonstrates the weakness of his position. That's it then, the ultimate clincher, yet Dominick still has not restored the deleted criticism, or even the NPOV tag. Oh by the way, Dominick- I don't think that anyone here is trying to change YOUR mind, or the mind of any Randists. I don't know about 66.90, TodFox, or 24.101, but as a mostly-genetic determinist, I already consider all of you to be a lost cause. I only desire to inform and enlighten unbiased third parties. 18:41, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

...Being as multiple people believe that the objective alternative terms should be mentioned in the criticism, I will restore the mention of said criticism. Dominick- I ask that you follow wikipedia's strict NPOV policy and do not make POV vandalist deletions of that criticism. I wouldn't be surprised if Dominick did though, as he has already played unfairly by the various methods that I mentioned. 19:56, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Looks like you've gone off the deep end. I don't know Dominick, but he made a reasonable point about the term Randism which is used by almost nobody. The terms Randianism and Randian are very widely used, but they weren't the ones that Dominick was addressing! And Randian has a different shade of meaning than objectivist. Especially since the Peikoff/Kelley split ... Randian refers to one side of that split, "neo-objectivist" to the other, and they both claim the label "objectivist." --Christofurio 23:24, 25 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Great, now the neo-Randist Christofurio is using personal attacks to try to libelously falsely portray me also, because I am opposed to neo-Randism. The terms 'Randian' and 'Randist' are nearly identical, so they should be interchangeable. I did not consider the distinction to be important. 19:14, 26 October 2005 (UTC)


 * YOu may not alter discussion that was previously placed on a talk page after others respond. Thats why I rolled back your change, you altered your argument. You should have followed wikipedia process preperly. Nobody though the PoV tag was right. Right now there is a free for all on the article. The consensus is that the term randian can be mentioned as a part of the criticism if it is significant. We don't have that consensus that your criticism is significant to explain why a small minority of people call it "randism". Dominick (????) 15:05, 26 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Another one of Dominick's lies. I'm not surprised. If there are any third parties reading this, you can go back and plainly see that all I did was add "(~1000 google hits)" to support my original argument, not to alter it. Dominick is just using his usual bag of dirty tricks to make the opposition look bad when it is not, and to attempt to justify his unfair actions. Being as multiple people and the strict NPOV policy are against Dominick, and Dominick has not deleted my restored criticism in the article, it appears that he is now backpeddling to try to make excuses for his past unfair actions. No one even gave a position on the NPOV tag except for myself and Dominick, but an RFC inherently calls the neutrality and/or factual accuracy of an article into question. I don't imagine that there are many articles with an RFC that lack an NPOV tag or a similar tag. Hell, Dominick and Christofurio are probably the only ones reading this anyway, so I may just be wasting my time replying. 18:14, 26 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Snip Matthew 7:6 Dominick (????) 21:57, 26 October 2005 (UTC)


 * -Yes; thank you for removing your act of attacking me for disseminating my metaphoric 'pearls' of insight. I did not really mean to give them to YOU though.


 * Please sign your comments. Dominick (ŤαĿĶ) 11:05, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

(SNIP personal attack, read the policy WP:RPA. If you really need to see it look at history, left the comments that were not directed at me. Dominick (????) 20:26, 26 October 2005 (UTC))

"I'll let any third parties judge whether my minor addition to my argument was adequete grounds for, or had anything at all to do with, Dominick suppressing my criticism (which he did before I even made the RFC) and suppressing the NPOV tag. As for RFC protocol, I followed it in most respects, and Dominick has not even attempted to state any specific manner in which I violated said protocol." "Anyway, everything that I have said about Dominic is intended to inform and enlighten people about his character and motives so that people understand him." -This is part of the material that Dominick deleted

I'll also say that the statement "I don't have a dog in the fight between the objectivist groups." (I assume that this is supposed to mean that Dominick has no position on the issue of whether or not he supports Randism) strongly and clearly contradicts the statement "Calling this by any name other than Objectivism is not factual.". The former quote might also refer to the libelous personal attack that he made earlier of 66.90 so as to attempt to invalidate his/her comments.

"Without discussion of any other sort you put the PoV tag up, and after discussion it came down." -Dominick stated that he would remove the NPOV tag if there were no comments within 24 hours. There were comments, and he broke his word and took down the tag anyway. View the history to confirm this. 20:14, 26 October 2005 (UTC)


 * The discussion was so lopsided that after 24 hours of the tag going up, it came down. Thanks for discussing the issues. I am sure we are all informed and elightened. Dominick (????) 20:22, 26 October 2005 (UTC)


 * 1-to-1 after 24 hours, not counting Dominick and I, the initiators. Yeah, real lopsided. 20:46, 26 October 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm not any sort of Objectivist or Rand-anything-ist myself. I'm a guerilla of accuracy. And it isn't accurate to use the term "Randist" as if it were a label with sufficient widespread use to be notable and encyclopedic. Nor does it make sense to say that it looks similar to "Randian" so they must be the same thing. Nobody used "Kantism," for example. Its Kantianism. Likewise, almost nobody uses Randism, but if you google the different term "Randian" or Randianism you'll see they're both quite widespread. They are "nearly identical" only in the same way that marital and martial are nearly identical! There's still a difference between going to the chapel and going to the battle. --Christofurio 02:22, 27 October 2005 (UTC)


 * I beg to differ! The only difference is the weaponry used... Dominick (????) 10:43, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Via RFC: I was going to make a comment that yes it should mention that, then I looked at the actual article and honestly, I laughed. I'm sorry, but suggesting that Ayn Rand "developed objectivism" is ridiculous. Objectivism can't "developed", it is a philosophical perspective. You might say she "examined objectivism." And then there is all the stuff about capitalism? Wow. Obviously a bunch of Ayn Rand's followers have taken over the article. You don't see subjectivism saying... wait.. it says... what the hell? The subjectivism article redirects to whatnow...? Sheesh. Oh wait, there's a tiny subjectivism section and bahahahaahha it says " given his reliance on God as the prime mover of human perception." Good luck, these articles really don't make any sense to me. Craziness.--Ben 12:17, 2 November 2005 (UTC)


 * That was pretty inappropriate, but I was really being honest. It really did throw me for a loop to see an article about Rand's philosophy instead of objectivism. If you think I'm a troll, just don't feed me. I actually understand it a bit better now, that this article is only about Rand's "Objectivist philosophy," and isn't trying to present itself as objectivism in general. While I don't know if this is the right title for this particular article (though what else would it be?), it is an important article to have (and it is very comprehensive). I added a disambiguation link on this page and I'm ok with it now. I also think that perhaps Objectivism shouldn't redirect here, but to a separate disambiguation page with both Rand's Objectivist philosophy (this article) and to plain old metaphysical objectivism. If I saw that instead I wouldn't have flipped :P. --Ben 08:13, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Why would the article use Randism throughout the article when she called her philosophy objectivism?

Why would the article not mention in the criticisms or controversies section that some people don't like the term objectivism because of what it applies?

I have no read answer to either of these questions here that satofies me.

peace, Sethie 09:21, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Deleted section
Hi,

This is my first edit with a Wiki account.

I just deleted the last sentence from the Objectivist Philosophy subsection.

'' However, it is patently untrue that the world is "causal," because many events are at random. Radioactive decay and the weather are random processes. Psychologists cannot explain, let alone predict why a person who previously seemed rational, such as Lee Harvey Oswald, or Jack Ruby, suddenly becomes murderous and disrupts society.''

The above statement is itself patently untrue. Radioactive decay and weather are the results of enormous systems of particles whose behavior is entirely deterministic. The macroscopic patterns may look random to our macroscopic eyes but the molecules and nuclei involved in these systems are all following ordered, deterministic steps.

I actually came upon this article to learn about Rand's Objectivist philosophy so I don't know a ton about it. The details on determinism are a little confusing and possibly contradictory but in any case the removed sentence was definately a POV and basically contradicted the tenant of Law of Causality immediately after defining it!

CriX 22:40, 24 October 2005 (UTC)


 * You mean "tenet" I suppose, not "tenant" but your physics is worse than your diction. Since the days of Schroedinger and Heisenberg it is known that Quantum Mechanics is not deterministic. In radioactive decay, only the average rate or probability of decay is known; when an individual nucleus will decay cannot be predicted. Also see Double-slit experiment. Also see Radioactive decay, which says "As discussed above, the decay of an unstable nucleus (radionuclide) is entirely random and it is impossible to predict when a particular atom will decay". The weather is also unpredictable beyond a short period. The concepts of chaos and strange attractor were a result of Edward Lorenz's study of the atmosphere. See  or  Attractor or the nice undergraduate thesis at .  (The word "normailization" before equation (20) should obviously be "normalization.") Anyway, to put it more briefly, the uncertainties in Quantum Mechanics and Radioactive Decay were for a long time thought to be the only fundamental ones,limiting human ability to predict the results of an action.  Now it is known that in chaotic systems, such as turbulence, and even the inclinations of the rotational axes of some of the planets (see  ), classical systems also exhibit indeterministic behavior; minuscule changes in the initial conditions or immeasurably small perturbations can send these systems into a widely differing state.  Carrionluggage 07:45, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
 * The Objectivist view of causality does not necessarily implicate quantum physics. It holds that everything acts in accordance with its nature, not that everything is proximately caused by something else.  If it is the nature of subatomic particles to move in a way classical mechanics cannot explain, so be it.  And Objectivism certainly does not reject "uncertainties."  --zenohockey 16:21, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

The article itself states "The Law of Identity states that anything that exists is qualitatively determinate, that is, has a fixed, finite nature." But that contradicts physics. For example, an electron whose spin is up has a finite probability of having its spin at right angles to up (say, left or right). The K1 meson oscillates into the K2 state and back - they are very different particles. In a more practical sense, I return to the impossibility of predicting human action. Carrionluggage 19:35, 25 October 2005 (UTC)


 * -Correct, CriX. I hope that the Randists don't initiate a power-struggling revert war to push their biased POV in this matter. Have you seen the RFC above? It regards the lack of objectivity of the terms 'objectivism' and 'rationalism', and the objective alternative term 'Randism'. 23:24, 24 October 2005 (UTC)


 * In my experience, both Randian and Randianism are much older and more common than "Randism." Calling somebody a Randian is more specific, these days, than calling them an Objectivist. For example, many people would still call David Kelley an Objectivist, though not a Randian. --Christofurio 02:02, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Ethics: rational self-interest
This section is horribly POV. I don't have time to fix it now, but someone else should. (How un-Objectivist is that?) --zenohockey 02:37, 25 October 2005 (UTC)


 * I took a shot at it, read and fix... Dominick (ŤαĿĶ) 19:13, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Rand's exaggeration of self interest is an absurdity that I have just corrected. One does not face an either-or decision to live for oneself or for others. The Golden Rule and its generalisation, Immanuel Kant's Categorical Imperative take proper note of the situation that behaviour beneficial to others, even at some compromise of self-interest when necessary, leads to a stable and advancing civilisation. We are neither savages or Gods - come off it, Rand (and RJII) - it is not either-or. Carrionluggage 06:55, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I have no interest in arguing with Rand is right or wrong. I'm just reporting information. Rand's position on altruism is very misunderstood. People don't realize she's mostly talking about the ethical doctrine called altruism, rather than the act of altruism. She believed that if one holds the belief that people have a moral obligation to help others then it's not a very large leap to take it to the next level and force people to help others. The extreme case of this is state communism, where each individual is forced by the state to serve the greater good of the collective. The opposite of this is laissez-faire where individuals are free to pursue their own self-interest, whether that entails voluntarily helping others or not. RJII 07:50, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

A is A
I took out the bit about Aristotle asserting that "A is A." Does anyone know if he ever refers to the law of identity explicitly, or was Aquinas (or someone else) the first? --zenohockey 23:06, 27 October 2005 (UTC)


 * I believe Aristotle got this from Plato. There's an explicit passage in The Republic about how a thing might stay still in one respect, but move in another (i.e. a twirling top, whose axis stays still while the surface revolves) -- and about how, in any one respect, at any one time, the top is either moving or staying still, not both. One could make the case that the three laws all came from this passage. &mdash;The preceding unsigned comment was added by Christofurio (talk &bull; contribs).


 * Ah yes, the spinning top. Didn't think about that one.  Thanks.  --zenohockey 02:51, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
 * But where did Aristotle say it? --zenohockey 03:31, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Partial agreement
216.241.38.129 removed some text, claiming that it was a "rambling paragraph about partially agreeing with Objectivism. Same could be said of any field of study and so is meaningless." This turns out not to be the case. The purpose of the paragraph was to explain a very nonobvious phenomenon, which is that Rand's biggest critics tend to agree with her on some, but not all, of her stances. This phenomenon comes from Rand's (and the ARI's) view of Objectivism as a complete and closed system. Alienus 11:27, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Ok, I figured it out. There's a clear pattern: 216.241.38.129 is a partisan who removes text that isn't sufficiently pro-Rand. To be clear, it's not that that the removed text was POV, but that the article becomes POV once the text is removed. Alienus 11:32, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

ARIWatch Vandalism
There's been a consistent pattern of vandalism by 65.115.199.90, both on Objectivist Philosophy and Ayn Rand. The vandalism is the removal of the ARI Watch link, presumably because the vandal is a supporter of ARI. Whenever this comes up for a vote, the response is strongly towards keeping the link, but the vandal doesn't much care for consensus. I'm thinking it's time to consider blocking their access to these two pages, so as allow us to stop wasting time cleaning up their vandalism. I think the pattern is quite visible if you look at: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=65.115.199.90&offset=0&limit=500 Alienus 20:08, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

“ARI watch” is Alienus’ campaign to spread libel and blatant lies about the Ayn Rand Insitute and Ayn Rand’s views. I have challenged him to back up his claims, but he refuses to do so. He lies about his association with his site, calls anyone who calls his bluff an “ARI sympathizer,” and tries to get them banned from Wikipedia. Well, I may be a sympathizer, but I have no relation to ARI, and I am not trolling my website all over the internet. --24.0.56.97 05:18, 5 January 2006 (UTC) (I would sign with my nick, but I don’t want to get banned too.)


 * Wow, that's really funny. Just for the record, I have no connection with either ARI or ARIWatch.  In fact, I have yet to form an opinion on the matter of which group is more accurately interpreting Rand's ideas. I do think that the people who like to remove the ARIWatch link while leaving ARI are revealing their partisan support for the latter site.  In fact, you appear to be admitting this in your case.  Finally, I have no special ability to get people banned.  If vandals such as yourself do get banned, that's cool by me, though. I would take you more seriously if you signed with your account name. As it stands, I'm finding this quite amusing, if pointless. Alienus 05:27, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I get the following error when trying to open the page: This Account Has Been Suspended Please contact the billing/support department as soon as possible. The link is invalid, and if someone other than me can verify it, they should remove it. (unsigned)


 * I've seen sites go down temporarily due to billing errors. Let's give this one a few days and see if it either resolves itself or switches to a more permanent error. Then, if it's really dead, let's remove it. Alienus 22:33, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikilinks added
I've added wikilinks for foundationalism, coherentism, naive realism, and representationalism since they are all important philosophical vocabulary that should perhaps be properly understood to understand the article. If people see more of these, I'd suggest they do the same. jvs 00:44, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

== Sorry. I just went to this page after doing a raft of changes to the intro and "epistimology' sections, the latter of which was unreadable. Afterwards, I linked to this page, and now realize that I probably sidestepped some process.  I'm sure you'll be able to track the changes I made.  I'm not an expert on Objectivism, but I think the parts I altered are much clearer.  I expect that someone else will clean up any inadvertent misrepresentations I might have made about the topic. 68.175.32.72 23:03, 6 January 2006 (UTC)Marc 6:02 1/6/06
 * "Objectivism" is a philosophy developed by Rand in name only. The concept of objectivism goes back to Fichte in his denial of the Kantian things-in-themselves. So, an article on objectivism (philosophy) would be a good place to start.  I'm not sure that the current article shouldn't be merged with "Ayn Rand".Amerindianarts 03:22, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
 * It may well be the case that the ideas contained within Objectivism are not original to Rand, but capital-O Objectivism is her personal philosophy. There is no Objectivism without Rand. Alienus 05:02, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
 * "capital O- Objectivism is her personal philosophy". Gee, I think I said that-"Objectivism" is a philosophy developed by Rand in name only. "There is no Objectivism without Rand". is not NPOV. Neither is the fact that links around Wiki for "objectivism" led to this article until someone with a little more sense created a disambig page for objectivism.  Why is this page entitled Objectivist philosophy?  Because to name it objectivism (philosophy) would be incorrect. Objectivist philosophy as an article dedicated to Ayn Rand is also incorrect.  There are plenty of objectivist notions in Philosophy prior to Rand, as well as notions of objectivism.  The correct page title for this article is either Objectivism (Ayn Rand), or have a subdirectory under Ayn Rand for Objectivism.  The current naming scenario is a categorical mistake. If you are really interested you probably ought to try and correct it before someone else does.Amerindianarts 06:15, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
 * This is not the article, but a discussion about it, so I don't have to worry about stating the facts in a neutral manner. The fact is that Objectivism is the personal philosophy of Ayn Rand.  There is also objectivism, which refers to a number of related philosophical stances, of which one is Rand's.  That's the capitalization distinction.  Inconveniently, Wikipedia has trouble with case sensitivity, so we can't use it in searches.  In any case, I don't think there's anything to fix.Alienus 22:40, 21 January 2006 (UTC)