And highly technical.
This is not an axiom. An axiom is conceptually irreducible. Your axiom
"no one single person knows everything, has the perfect epistemology, or is equipped with the genius to solve all of humanities problems.", is not conceptually irreducible. That means it rests on prior knowledge. A true, philosophical axiom identifies the foundation of knowledge, therefore it can not rest on prior knowledge. Also, philosophical axioms identify facts that are perceptually self evident. your "axiom" is not self evident, in fact your axiom is an inductive generalization, which means it's a higher level abstraction, not a self evident primary.
No, I don't because as I've already pointed out it's not an axiom. Not only that but it's based on an irrational standard of knowledge: Omniscience. I hold as my standard of knowledge the facts of reality and the type of consciousness that man possesses. It's precisely because man does not know everything and is fallible and imperfect that he needs a method like logic to guide his reasoning and a good theory of concepts to teach him how to use his conceptual faculty. He also needs a principle that identifies the proper orientation of his consciousness to reality, one that teaches him to distinguish between the real and the imaginary, fact from fantasy. And he needs an objective starting point to ground his knowledge in reality. Objectivism supplies all of these things.
What is the Christian theory of concepts? Where does the Bible discuss concepts. Where does the Bible tell you what a concept is, How it's formed, the purpose of concepts, how concepts are validated, Why measurement omission is a crucial step in forming them, what the relationship between concepts and reality is, what commensurate qualities are, what the conceptual common denominator is, and the purpose and method of defining them? And what is the Bible's position on metaphysical primacy?
Now I've looked long and hard and I can't find one. In fact I can not even find one instance of the word concept in the Bible much less a theory of concepts.
Oh really. What would that be?
I don't see how any of that is relevant. As for my interest in philosophy, I need it to live.
I already have read it. I've read as many criticisms of Objectivism as I can find though I haven't read them all. After a while, a pattern starts to develop.
First off I'd like to thank you for picking such a fair and unbiased critique. It fairly drips with contempt for Ayn Rand.
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There are so many of these organizations it is hard to keep track. Apart from the Atlas Society, there is the Ayn Rand Institute, the Nathaniel Branden Institute, the Anthem Foundation and the Institute for Objectivist Studies. Numerous libertarian think-tanks, like the Cato Institute, promote Rand. Campus groups–which receive funding from objectivist foundations–are everywhere, promoting Rand via slick newsletters". Wow, sinister stuff. How dare those people form organizations to promote ideas that they believe in and fund them with voluntary donations. And there are campus groups which receive funding from objectivist foundations? Say it ain't so.
"The fantastically rich find in Rand’s celebration of individual achievement a kindred spirit, and support her work with pecuniary enthusiasm: in 1999, McGill University turned down a million-dollar endowment from wealthy businessman Gilles Tremblay, who had given the money in the hopes of creating a chair dedicated to the the study of her work." Oh how horrible. Celebrating individual acheivement? What was Rand thinking in this age full of hatred of the good, for being the good. Didn't she get the memo? And imagine donating a million dollars of one's own money to endow a chair of Objectivist studies at an institute of learning, creating jobs for academics and graduate students and offering an alternative to the irrationality of postmodern philosophy. This is just beyond the pale!
"Rand literally ends her most famous novel, Atlas Shrugged, with the dollar sign replacing the sign of the cross, traced in the air" This is an out and out lie. She doesn't end the novel with Galt replacing the sign of the Cross. There's no mention of the sign of the cross. The dollar sign is the symbol of the people of Galt's Gulch not of the country as a whole. This is simply absurd. The Gold dollar sign that hangs over the gulch started out as a Joke. It was a gift to the owner of the valley from Franscisco D'anconia ( my favorite character of all time). The owner, Midas Mulligan, liked it and took it as his symbol, and then it was adopted as such by the rest of the people of Galt's Gulch because they saw it as a symbol of productive achievement and economic freedom which they held as supreme values.
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Rand’s books have sold in the millions, never quite losing steam in the half-century since publication. A now-infamous Library of Congress survey placed Atlas Shrugged as the second-most influential book in America, trailing only the Bible". Wow, this guy is really butthurt that Ayn Rand's books are selling like hotcakes nearly 40 years after her death and that people find her book nearly as influential as the Bible.
The other way [of approaching Objectivism] in[sic] is via her ‘system’ of philosophy: resolutely materialistic, godless, and rationalistic. It proceeds largely from a set of basic axioms (‘existence’, ‘identity’, ‘consciousness’)Another out and out lie. Objectivism is not materialistic. We hold as one of our founding principles the axiom of consciousness. Materialism denies the axiom of consciousness. Nowhere in any of her writings and in the writings of other objectivists will you find support for this piece of slander. Objectivism holds that existence exists and nowhere does objectivism hold that only material things exist. Concepts exist but they are not material. Time exists but time is not material. consciousness exists but consciousness is not material. It is true that Objectivism is atheistic and with good reason. The rest of this is a steaming pile of bovine excrement. Objectivism is not Rationalistic. Ayn Rand once said that rationalism was a disease. What Objectivism promotes is reason on the basis of the perception of reality. Rationalism is reason without reference to reality.
And one more blatant lie
. "Rand, in the same 1957 interview with Mike Wallace linked above, described herself as the most creative thinker alive." Where does she do this? Timestamp, please. I've watched that interview dozens of times over the years and this is simply not true.
Here is the interview so readers may judge for themselves:
Now there's no excuse for this. Apparently this author took a "glance' at the wikipedia article on Rand even though her writings have been out there starting in the 1930's and many of them are available for a pittance at used bookstores. Shame. Shame. Shame. How about reading from her original writings instead of glancing at wikipedia.
I thought there was a prohibition in Christianity about lying. In fact, I remember a commandment......Oh yes, "Thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor". That's precisely what this author has done and what you have done 2philovoid. Because of what you've perpetrated here, you are no longer deserving of my time. I won't deal with dishonest people.
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