Some views on Objectivism

[Fegelnator]

Hi, first post!

Anyways, it came to my attention that people here aren't just negative of Objectivism (Ayn Rand's ideology), they're plain vitriolic. Now, for some this makes plain sense as she utilizes usually faulty logic and a lot, lot of strawmen and distortions of reality to prove her point, but frankly I found that a lot of the conclusions she drew could actually be incorporated in a leftist sense (What??? I know :p) and it's always good not to just confirm oneself in your own position by reading just left-wing literature...

So, what are the basic tenets of Objectivism? In it's basis, it was all about so called, 'objective reality', and drawing morals from that. To be able to do that, there has to be an independent objective reality existing outside of the Ego.

Rand attempted to solve this problem with the following reasoning:

1. You perceive, so you are. (Variation of I think, so I am.)
2. You perceive something, so something is.
3. Something is independent of you, so there is independent reality.

However, the cardinal flaw here is that you can't be entirely sure that you're not just perceiving an extension of the self. (Think a simulation, a dream, whatever.) If one is dreaming, the ego actually perceives the ego, and thus not any independent reality. Conclusion: you can't be absolutely sure independent reality exists a 100%, thus the foundation isn't solid to build on. Once you start assuming, you enter subjective territory...


But if we leave foundations behind and go to individual premises, Rand actually had some solid basic principles we leftists she drew irrational conclusions from, but that we can utilize.

1. You can't consume more than you produce.

This seems rather obvious at first, but it's the conclusions that matter. Rand saw the producing capitalists as the men that carried the wealth of the world since they ensured consumption by enabling mass-production. I partially agree (for which I'll probably be verbally killed, but hear me out).

See, capitalists don't actually seem productive since they don't create any value themselves, but to call them parasites implies that they have no relation to value-creation themselves, which is absolutely untrue.

You see, the function of the capitalist is to drive down value by checking the production process to make it more efficient and thinking of the best deals he can make, besides producing as cheaply as possible. That's because he's not just interested in exploiting labour, he also wants to produce as much as possible by driving complete value down, because that in the end drives his profits up. Capitalists are not lazy pigs I'm afraid, if anything they usually work very, very hard to ensure production is driven up to ensure more profits, enabling more consumption.

Of course, I still wish for the abolition of wage labour and capitalists as a top-down function, but I do think that Rand was right in that capitalists are usually hard-working people with leadership capabilities. Engels might agree there ;)


Shame for Rand however, is that her rule can only applied collectively. I, as an individual can consume way more than I produce, it's merely the collective that can't. And if we accept this (labour) as a norm, we'll have to accept it as a norm for the individual. And guess what, suddenly capitalists are out of the picture. This norm is the reason I gravitate between Anarcho-Collectivism and Mutualism.

2. From each according to his ability, to each according to his need might backfire.

This was a straw man, since her explanation dealt with scarcity, but it did confirm for me why anarcho-communism is probably not the best of ideas. Better to work for post-scarcity and then see what happens.

3. Altruism wipes out the self.

Now I'm going to be really, really careful with my explanation. I'm a Stirnerite which means that I'm a nihilist in a very, very weird way. First, allow me to lay down Rand's definition of Altruism which might differ from yours...

Altruism is the belief that the only judgement towards an action can be its effect towards others.

So an Arch-Altruist would believe that if you could choose between gaining five million dollars or giving one dollar to a human, you should give one dollar to a human because only that can be judged.

The problem here is that this implies that the only reason you exist is to serve others since you may not judge any action beneficial to you, they simply do not matter. All that matters is the other! You erase yourself, and is that what you want to do?

However, her deceit was that she implied that Marx was an altruist, which is (partially) untrue. His critique of ideology stemmed from the belief that it was against the worker's self-interest.

For interesting literature on the subject: h*ttp://libcom.org/library/right-be-greedy-theses-practical-necessity-demanding-everything

(Egoist communism. Has nothing to do with present discussion and I do not adhere to it, but it's interesting nonetheless. Remove Star :p)

Of course, she'd still hate me. Rand was a moralist to the bone and I'm a nihilist. Still, nuance was needed ;)

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

1. You can't consume more than you produce.

This seems rather obvious at first, but it's the conclusions that matter.

Actually, I'd argue that this isn't "obvious", and, in fact, it's somewhat repugnant. Starting from "production" erases entire "unproductive" spheres of human activity (particularly reproductive and "affective" labour). On a practical level, these spheres are highly resistant to any sort of quantification. Consequently, in terms of measuring this activity against any sort of "consumption" (again, in and of itself problematic) becomes problematic.


Rand saw the producing capitalists as the men that carried the wealth of the world since they ensured consumption by enabling mass-production. I partially agree (for which I'll probably be verbally killed, but hear me out).

See, capitalists don't actually seem productive since they don't create any value themselves, but to call them parasites implies that they have no relation to value-creation themselves, which is absolutely untrue.

OK, but a "relation to value creation" isn't the same as creating value. In terms of the capitalist totality, taking a shit has a relation to value creation (since keeling over and dying of constipation would constitute a real limit on production), but that doesn't mean taking a shit is productive.


You see, the function of the capitalist is to drive down value by checking the production process to make it more efficient and thinking of the best deals he can make, besides producing as cheaply as possible. That's because he's not just interested in exploiting labour, he also wants to produce as much as possible by driving complete value down, because that in the end drives his profits up. Capitalists are not lazy pigs I'm afraid, if anything they usually work very, very hard to ensure production is driven up to ensure more profits, enabling more consumption.

The laziness or not of individual capitalists isn't particularly interesting one way or the other. The fact is, what you're talking about isn't value-creation though. Not to be a total condescending dick, but you should read Capital.


Of course, I still wish for the abolition of wage labour and capitalists as a top-down function, but I do think that Rand was right in that capitalists are usually hard-working people with leadership capabilities. Engels might agree there ;)

Just . . . no. (http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCoQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fnymag.com%2Fdaily%2Fintelligencer %2F2014%2F02%2Fi-crashed-a-wall-street-secret-society.html&ei=bDtZU8HkFsaN3AWK0YHICw&usg=AFQjCNFW2Vj9yD5pCD-sb7rmNdqgvtzd-w&bvm=bv.65397613,d.b2I)


2. From each according to his ability, to each according to his need might backfire.

This was a straw man, since her explanation dealt with scarcity, but it did confirm for me why anarcho-communism is probably not the best of ideas. Better to work for post-scarcity and then see what happens.

OK, but ability and need are totally socially contingent as is "scarcity". There's a scarcity of iPhones in the world, but . . .

Point being, the premises here are starting from a whole host of assumptions which need to be problematized.


3. Altruism wipes out the self.

Blah blah blah the individual.

The liberal individual is a fiction, and a pretty bad one at that. Find me somebody who gave birth to and then suckled themselves, and I'll reconsider.

[synthesis]

So an Arch-Altruist would believe that if you could choose between gaining five million dollars or giving one dollar to a human, you should give one dollar to a human because only that can be judged.

What? That doesn't make any damn sense. What would stop you from gaining the five million dollars and then giving it all away? You could say I'm being pedantic, but I really think this hypothetical scenario is arguing for a distinction that doesn't actually exist.

[Thirsty Crow]

So, what are the basic tenets of Objectivism? In it's basis, it was all about so called, 'objective reality', and drawing morals from that. To be able to do that, there has to be an independent objective reality existing outside of the Ego.

Rand attempted to solve this problem with the following reasoning:

1. You perceive, so you are. (Variation of I think, so I am.)
2. You perceive something, so something is.
3. Something is independent of you, so there is independent reality.

Which problem is there to solve?

The only problem here is the pseudo-problem of philosophers and assorted mystics somehow either doubting the existence of "reality" (the existence of physical entities outside the workings of the individual mind).


However, the cardinal flaw here is that you can't be entirely sure that you're not just perceiving an extension of the self.The cardinal point is that solipsism is a stupid fantasy that can't take you anywhere; it's completely useless either for action or for examining the world.

Aristotle has a neat distinction between so called exo logos and eso logos. What he wanted to demonstrate by these terms was that stuff like denying the "law" of non-contradiction cannot even be a part of the human life; thus it is mere exo logos, words of mouth, a mere argument with no real bearing, and not a person's eso logos.

So it is with your idea of "not being able to be really sure" (really that's an extension of that stupidity called the Cartesian hyperbolic doubt). And I think you're consciously referring to Descartes' evasions and arguments by claiming that "this is a simulation, a dream, whatever".

[Fegelnator]

Which problem is there to solve?

The only problem here is the pseudo-problem of philosophers and assorted mystics somehow either doubting the existence of "reality" (the existence of physical entities outside the workings of the individual mind).

The cardinal point is that solipsism is a stupid fantasy that can't take you anywhere; it's completely useless either for action or for examining the world.

Aristotle has a neat distinction between so called exo logos and eso logos. What he wanted to demonstrate by these terms was that stuff like denying the "law" of non-contradiction cannot even be a part of the human life; thus it is mere exo logos, words of mouth, a mere argument with no real bearing, and not a person's eso logos.

So it is with your idea of "not being able to be really sure" (really that's an extension of that stupidity called the Cartesian hyperbolic doubt). And I think you're consciously referring to Descartes' evasions and arguments by claiming that "this is a simulation, a dream, whatever".

Well, I wouldn't start going on and on about this if it was a discussion on more subjectivist grounds, but Objectivism needs a 100% certainty of an objective reality, and Rand decided that it was a problem and thus utilized the following logic. I did not agree and said so.

I see what Aristotle means, but there's a clear distinction between doubtless laws and empirical observations... the rational vs the empirical, if you will. I know what you mean by mystic, but there's nothing mystic about this.

You know the example of the teapot flying around Jupiter, yes? If someone would shout about such a teapot, who would believe him? Why would there be a teapot there? But the problem is that there, well, could be a teapot there.

Take David Hume. As he pointed out, for a long time mankind had believed that swans could only be white because this was all they saw. Then they reached Australia and found out that there were proper Swans living there... but black. The induction in this case (The gathering of fact through empirical knowledge-gathering) had proven to be wrong, since new facts were added. And with this he showed that induction never actually makes one completely sure of anything.

Now if we move that example to life, our induction is that we've experienced not Idea of the mind , but Matter existing outside of us. Now, this is most probably true by an insane percentage, so insane that you'd be insane to seriously doubt it. But there's still doubt, eh Berkeley? Thing is, induction is simply not something you can't twist around, like the more 'mathematical' laws like:

1. Socrates is human.
2. It is always evil to kill humans.
3. Therefore, we should not kill Socrates.

Rand tried to establish such a 100% law, I disagreed. That was all. Now would you please cease to call me a pseudo-philosopher? I might not be one ( a philosopher ) at all, but I'd also rather not be insulted.

[Thirsty Crow]

You know the example of the teapot flying around Jupiter, yes? If someone would shout about such a teapot, who would believe him? Why would there be a teapot there? But the problem is that there, well, could be a teapot there.

This isn't any kind of a problem. It's a fantasy.
Problems is what we call situations which can be solved in one way or another.


Take David Hume. As he pointed out, for a long time mankind had believed that swans could only be white because this was all they saw.Whoever said induction dealt with certainties? But this doesn't have anything to do with an invisible flying teapot around my arse (oh yes I have a nagging feeling it is there; wanna check it out?)


Now if we move that example to life, our induction is that we've experienced not Idea of the mind , but Matter existing outside of us. Now, this is most probably true by an insane percentage, so insane that you'd be insane to seriously doubt it. But there's still doubt, eh Berkeley? Thing is, induction is simply not something you can't twist around, like the more 'mathematical' laws like:

1. Socrates is human.
2. It is always evil to kill humans.
3. Therefore, we should not kill Socrates.This has nothing to do with modal logic - which deals with induction.

On the other hand, this could be considered as falling under the workings of deontic logic. Please learn the difference.

And there is no real doubt which would be encompassed by Aristotle's eso logos; there's only philosophical and religious ideology.

[Rafiq]

Which problem is there to solve?

The only problem here is the pseudo-problem of philosophers and assorted mystics somehow either doubting the existence of "reality" (the existence of physical entities outside the workings of the individual mind).


This has little to do with philosophy, but metaphysics. Philosophy in the modern sense is hardly, seriously metaphysical, and the metaphysical views espoused by philosophers (such as Descartes) only serve to further express their core philosophical views.

It is utterly ridiculous, even within the paradigm of bourgeois rationalism, to speculate as to the existence of "reality", this simply has no place in any serious intellectual discourse, but an adequate place in science fiction.

[LeftCrusade]

Objectivism is total bullshit.
Go back tot Stormfront with your Fegelein.

[Fegelnator]

This isn't any kind of a problem. It's a fantasy.
Problems is what we call situations which can be solved in one way or another.


*Ahem.*

1. A question to be considered, solved, or answered: math problems; the problem of how to arrange transportation.
2. A situation, matter, or person that presents perplexity or difficulty: was having problems breathing; considered the main problem to be his boss.
3. A misgiving, objection, or complaint: I have a problem with his cynicism.

From the Free Dictionary. Nowhere it says that it can be solved. Nowhere it says that it's a particular situation. It's a question.

Rand's metaphysics solved a particular problem (that of independent reality), if she didn't think of it as a problem, she wouldn't have attempted to solve it. I wasn't content with her solution. That's what the first part was all about.


Whoever said induction dealt with certainties? But this doesn't have anything to do with an invisible flying teapot around my arse (oh yes I have a nagging feeling it is there; wanna check it out?)

You misreading my post? My logic was that there was still doubt in Rand's reasoning, the dream "fantasy" you like ranting about. Thus, it became inductive reasoning for me, which doesn't deal with certainties and is thus metaphysics. And I was merely saying you can't build on metaphysics.

Why is this such a big deal, anyways? If you want to get insulted, be my guest. The teapot was an example of inductive reasoning, because we have no induction of that teapot not existing, thus we can't know. I honestly don't care if you think metaphysical doubt is a mere fantasy, but I kinda like Hume as a philosopher so I'll stick with him, thank you very much.



This has nothing to do with modal logic - which deals with induction.

On the other hand, this could be considered as falling under the workings of deontic logic. Please learn the difference.

And there is no real doubt which would be encompassed by Aristotle's eso logos; there's only philosophical and religious ideology.


Thanks for pointing out that this isn't induction, since that totally wasn't my point or anything...

The Socrates reasoning is deductive. That's why it's necessarily true. Rand's reasoning is inductive. That's why it's not necessarily true.

[Fegelnator]

What? That doesn't make any damn sense. What would stop you from gaining the five million dollars and then giving it all away? You could say I'm being pedantic, but I really think this hypothetical scenario is arguing for a distinction that doesn't actually exist.

No, you're right. It wasn't the best comparison I've ever made.

[Fegelnator]

Actually, I'd argue that this isn't "obvious", and, in fact, it's somewhat repugnant. Starting from "production" erases entire "unproductive" spheres of human activity (particularly reproductive and "affective" labour). On a practical level, these spheres are highly resistant to any sort of quantification. Consequently, in terms of measuring this activity against any sort of "consumption" (again, in and of itself problematic) becomes problematic.

Yes, that's true. However, production in the sense of reproduction and affection, I suppose all production you can't express in money, doesn't really count as you can't put a number tag on it representing value. How could you possibly measure the value of a baby, why would you want to?

In other words, this merely means that there's no such thing as a free lunch in the form of money. If you gain free money, it's never really free since someone had to make it. And the unproductive capitalists, like landlords, thus really don't deserve any rent. But you didn't need me to tell you that ;)



OK, but a "relation to value creation" isn't the same as creating value. In terms of the capitalist totality, taking a shit has a relation to value creation (since keeling over and dying of constipation would constitute a real limit on production), but that doesn't mean taking a shit is productive.

Errr... a discussion regarding shits and values will be awkward, but why not?

Taking a normal shit outside of work is somewhat different, as in that the shit doesn't influence the value creation itself, but ensures you can create value later. But say I was to take a shit during my shift, at work, that would mean I'd create less value during my labour time and thus would be directly connected. After all, I could have waited with shitting until I was home and worked just as effectively. Shitting then is not being productive, which of course, capitalists do not like. They want you to work, work, work!

The capitalist himself is not connected to just the production limit (picking the right employees who will produce at the right cost/reward ratio when there's, for example, a minimum wage) but also the production process (the active capitalist oversees business partially himself precisely to create more for the same value, driving average value down... less labour, less cost, lower price if the good has an elastic price.)

In short, shitting is not productive but ensures you can be, capitalists try to increase the productivity of their workers and therefore (might be called?) productive.




The laziness or not of individual capitalists isn't particularly interesting one way or the other.

Yup.


The fact is, what you're talking about isn't value-creation though. Not to be a total condescending dick, but you should read Capital.

Hmmm... tell me if I'm wrong, but isn't the marxist definition of value creation adding your labour to something until it's a commodity? or is exchange value something else as marxist value?

That's the whole point, right? You mix labour for which you receive an inadequate amount of wages, which you exchange for labour in the form of a different product...

Anyways, the labour theory of value is somewhat defunct. There are objections of methodology (even if all memories of previous expenditures were lost, markets would still form), time preference (higher price of aged wine) and it's only applicable to reproducible goods (a guitar played by Elvis for a little while will have a much higher price)...




[
Just . . . no.

Impressive story. I should have stated: some industrialists, not all. And certainly not most people at Wall Street...


OK, but ability and need are totally socially contingent as is "scarcity". There's a scarcity of iPhones in the world, but . . .

Point being, the premises here are starting from a whole host of assumptions which need to be problematized.

True.


The liberal individual is a fiction, and a pretty bad one at that. Find me somebody who gave birth to and then suckled themselves, and I'll reconsider.

Hmmm... Liberal individualism says you should be judged on what you are, not on heritage or culture or family. It's indeed laughable that people take that stuff seriously, since heritage or culture or family makes you what you are :D.

That doesn't have anything to do with it being right or wrong to wipe out yourself in ethical considerations, though. Whether I'd be superhuman and brought up myself or my mother did it only matters for me in that it makes me love my mother more and give her more. But not out of moral considerations.

[Fegelnator]

This has little to do with philosophy, but metaphysics. Philosophy in the modern sense is hardly, seriously metaphysical, and the metaphysical views espoused by philosophers (such as Descartes) only serve to further express their core philosophical views.

It is utterly ridiculous, even within the paradigm of bourgeois rationalism, to speculate as to the existence of "reality", this simply has no place in any serious intellectual discourse, but an adequate place in science fiction.

1. The claim that metaphysics isn't a part of philosophy is utterly ridiculous, 2. I couldn't even begin to fathom why rationalism can be or is bourgeois... 3. well, that's just like your opinion man and 4 I don't care if it's a part of modern philosophy or not. My appreciation is not with modern philosophers... although that might be a mistake. Descartes, Hume, Kant, and Wittgenstein were strongly involved in metaphysics and Hume even stated that you can't even be sure about causality it seems, and I think I can appeal to authority here by claiming they are in my opinion worthy of intellectual discourse.

[Rafiq]

My point is that philosophy is not inherently metaphysical, and again, it only served to express the underlying views of the mentioned philosophers.

Rationalism or the rational thought systems developed during the enlightenment period are unquestionably bourgeois in nature - I don't see how you could argue against this. Rationalism is uniquely bourgeois and in many ways has replaced the role of religion in bourgeois societies. I believe Bordiga briefly talked about this in the Democratic Principle.

[Thirsty Crow]

Philosophy in the modern sense is hardly, seriously metaphysical,
What do you mean by "in the modern sense"?

From my experience, a shitload of contemporary philosophy is just as metaphysics, perhaps not so brazenly and consistently as that of earlier epochs, but still. The whole complex of philosophy of mind with its consciousness pseudo-problem and qualia is a good example.

Anyway, I'll let Guy Robinson speak (from his Philosophy and Mystification):


There are two currents that run through this book, both of which set it in opposition to a practice and conception of philosophy that can be traced back to the seventeenth century and is exemplified most clearly in Descartes. One current flows from the view that the business of philosophy is not with some special kind of truth, such as Descartes sought, a truth higher and more elusive than that found in the everyday world, a truth requiring special techniques for its discovery. The contrary view informing this book is that the object of philosophy ought to be clarity and putting order into our thoughts and our ways of talking about the everyday. These thoughts often enough get tangled when ways of talking that have been developed in one area or field get transferred to
another, or come up against ways of talking devised for entirely different subject matter and for different purposes...

But there is also, beyond this, a view about the source of the tangles and confusions that have been characteristic of that era (which is our era), their source in certain moves, certain assumptions and projects that seemed natural and necessary to the philosophers of the seventeenth century, seemed so for very good historical reasons. But good historical reasons, as their name implies, have a shelf life, and in any case, while they may be motivating, they are not compelling with the universal, timeless and abstract force that philosophers generally set themselves to pursue, and often think they have found.

And this brings the discussion into a deeper conflict with the self-image of philosophy that has been particularly sharply drawn in the modern era, the image of it as the pursuit of the absolute and the timeless and what is unconditioned by circumstance and history.Emphasis mine.

[Rafiq]

Modern as in - circa enlightenment to now.

The question of what is physically real, and how we perceive reality (reality in the sense of our social reality) are different questions. The former is a rather childish one. Though metaphysics is something I have yet to see defined coherently, I have always held that it is pseudo-scientific in nature, I.e. that it concerns the natural sciences. Contrastly, Heidegger for example, claimed that all philosophers before him had the common pathology of metaphysics, because of the way he defined it. I think that if we understand metaphysics on those terms, a whole lot of things otherwise legitimate fields of study become "metaphysical".

Moreover, to my point, I don't think that such a banal question - what is real, is everything a projection of the mind, whatever, can reduce all of philosophy to its level. Take for example materialism - it is arguable that this is completely metaphysical, surely someone like Heidegger would say so. But materialism as a means to explain the natural world, the universe and materialism that explains the social reality of things are very different.

I want to be clear when I say science can't exist without philosophy and this is something that makes Anglo Saxon empricism deeply hypocritical.

[Thirsty Crow]

Modern as in - circa enlightenment to now.
Then, I'm afraid, you're very, very wrong.

German Absolute Idealism, irrationalisms of all kinds (think Bergson, Dilthey and Rickert) and philosophies of life, Italian neo-idealism (Croce for instance)...should I go on? I'd say that the huge majority was indeed metaphysical. You even mention Heidegger who only toyed with specifics of the definition but was completely dependent on that big tradition in philosophy.


Take for example materialism - it is arguable that this is completely metaphysical, surely someone like Heidegger would say so. But materialism as a means to explain the natural world, the universe and materialism that explains the social reality of things are very different.

Of course that someone like Heidegger, whom people consider as one of the proponents of "the idealist reaction against science" (I can't remember the guy who came up with the term, but it was the 1910s in Italy and used it favorably as proponent of the same thing under that name).

Apart from that, I can't see how one would take materialism - the basis of all science - as something metaphysical. Is it a metaphysical statement to say that physical stuff actually exist? That seems like a play on words idealists use to turn the table on materialism (for instance, Hegel used the term "dogmatism" to designate that very idea that stuff exists independently of any working of a mind). I think you're correctly emphasizing that it's not that easy to define the term coherently. Anyway, and I might have said this earlier, I use it as an interchangeable term with idealism.

For other takes on it, see the quote I posted by Guy Robinson to get some idea on what kind of projects and problems (or rather - pseudoproblems) can be placed under this category.

Also, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has this to say:


It is not easy to say what metaphysics is. Ancient and Medieval philosophers might have said that metaphysics was, like chemistry or astrology, to be defined by its subject matter: metaphysics was the “science” that studied “being as such” or “the first causes of things” or “things that do not change.” It is no longer possible to define metaphysics that way, and for two reasons. First, a philosopher who denied the existence of those things that had once been seen as constituting the subject-matter of metaphysics—first causes or unchanging things—would now be considered to be making thereby a metaphysical assertion. Secondly, there are many philosophical problems that are now considered to be metaphysical problems (or at least partly metaphysical problems) that are in no way related to first causes or unchanging things; the problem of free will, for example, or the problem of the mental and the physical.

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

That bolded part is interesting; I completely disagree with this perspective, but okay there's a twist: it's not necessary to deny that "existence", but you can sure as hell discard it wholesale and forget about it in thinking about actual problems.

I also hold that the problem of free will is such a pseudo-problem; people demonstrate in their practice of everyday life that choices are made - and this very mundane fact as well as self-reports of desires and reasons make of all of this a rather tedious exercise and a problem that doesn't have any connection to either our life practice or problems of a particular research (just imagine a sociologist researching one area of life go into a fit and discuss some particular choices and behavior in the light of the grand problem of free will)


I want to be clear when I say science can't exist without philosophy and this is something that makes Anglo Saxon empricism deeply hypocritical.I think you're kinda wrong on two points here.

Science indeed can exist without philosophy; scientists have done their thing without ever bothering to employ any particular standpoint of a philosophy of science, not to mention more traditional philosophical systems (imagine a Bergsonian biologist). But sure, I think your concern with conceptual analysis and clarification, as well as logic - if this is what we understand philosophy to be like - is very useful. No disagreement here. But as something that is called philosophy can be very useful, so other things under the same name are just plain bullshit - an example would be the attempts at making particular sciences dialectical (also see Lysenko) as part of the dialectical materialist project (one that could only result in mystification and indeed, idealism).

And about the empiricism you mention, yeah I don't think it's "hypocritical"; but that's a minor point.

[Rafiq]

If we assume the scientific method is not philisophical, which is another discussion alltogether, then yes, you're right. What I'm trying to get at, perhaps, is that while scientists might be able to do their thing, yield results, and so forth - philosophy is necessary in understanding them insofar as they are part of a whole, or a universe of things. Without philosophy, very little conclusions of substance or meaning can be drawn from the results scientists yield - this isn't something we can all ignore, knowing the natural sciences quite simply isn't enough in relation to our consciousness - ideology, whatever.

I say, thus, the Anglo Saxon tradition is hypocritical (if this is a good word) because it takes things inherently philosophical for granted, as unquestionable under the guise of being a logical conclusion.

[Thirsty Crow]

If we assume the scientific method is not philisophical, which is another discussion alltogether, then yes, you're right.
This is the only way to even have a separate and distinct field of inquiry which can meaningfully be called philosophy - no matter is it idealist or along the lines outlined by Guy Robinson above.


What I'm trying to get at, perhaps, is that while scientists might be able to do their thing, yield results, and so forth - philosophy is necessary in understanding them insofar as they are part of a whole, or a universe of things.What does this mean? Sorry, but I cannot make sense of the idea that philosophy is necessary in "understanding what scientists do", the results they reach and so on because "science is a part of a whole, a universe of things". The appropriate word here would, in my opinion be, popularizing accounts of scientific research, like Brian Greene's in physics for example. Not philosophy. But that hardly has anything to do with an idea of "the universe of things"




Without philosophy, very little conclusions of substance or meaning can be drawn from the results scientists yield But this is completely wrong - do you really think that basic research in science and its application in creation of new technologies for instance goes on only by means of some philosopher connecting it to the universe of things?

Conclusions of substance are actually drawn without explicitly involving any philosophical work. On the other hand, conceptual analysis and philosophy of science can help clarify some dead ends and particular problems, but that doesn't mean that not a single substantial conclusion is reached without it.

Of course, the ruling ideology will undoubtedly exert its influence and do its work in structuring research programs, also trough funding, and especially in connecting basic research with technological and other kinds of application. But what does this have to do with philosophy and the universe of things or a whole?

It seems as if you're arguing from that old, traditional idealist philosophical position which sees philosophy as a sort of a super-science; connecting the isolated insights of ordinary sciences into a comprehensive worldview. I think this simply needs to be discarded as a way of viewing these things. For instance, it's not at all a problem of any kind that the results of research in the biology of plants has the fuck to do with historical problems of let's say free trade after world war 2, or the physics of fluids (though this of course does work to explain a very particular part of plant life - how fluids "behave" in these organisms). To try to connect all of these really unrelated dots necessarily involves thought procedures that either result in idealism a la the laws of all motion in diamat or even has idealism as its basis.

If there's any sense to continuing this debate, you might provide some example of philosophy which does what you say it does best and with sense.