Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Some Holiday Reading
Bill Bartley is a philosopher who deserves to be better known. In this essay, Rationality Versus The Theory of Rationality(with some opening remarks from my friend Rafe Champion), using the tools first formulated by Karl Popper, he tackles the important and longstanding conflict in the theory of rationality itself. While this essay has no direct connection to Objectivism, it is useful because it shows just how completely unoriginal Objectivism really is in its underlying justificationist and authoritarian approach to knowledge. For it turns out there is a good reason for the rise of irrationalism, and that is not due to Immanuel Kant and Plato, nor to the neglect of Aristotle and the Introduction To Objectivist Epistemology, but to a basic logical problem with the theory of rationality itself. But you would never know this from reading Rand, mainly as I doubt she knew it to begin with.
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Recent additions to the site
http://www.the-rathouse.com/James/Introduction.html
http://www.the-rathouse.com/Bartley/Popperian-Harvest.html
Sounds like a good read, thanks for the reco.
I myself shall be giving a "Holiday Reading" tonight, so wish me luck! I'll be giving a short talk on Synaestho-Nihilism with excerpts from the introduction to my forthcoming book,q.v.
The venue is the Hag & Sporran, a local establishment where I often moderate aesthetic and economic discussions, and am vice president of the H&S Corrie Canucks.
As it is New Years Eve the place will be full for once, and I am hopeful of engaging with new, open minds as well as such known quantities as Hamish the landlord, Mad Rab, Big Shuggie, Wee Shuggie,Mrs Beatie MacArdle and the like.
On a sobering note, there will be one "absent friend" and that is my mentor and collaborator Dr. Louise N. Marbles, who wrote the brilliant "introduction" to the volume and without whom it would not exist. She is having some kind of minor surgery and cannot be present, but assures me she will be thinking of me and that when we next meet will have a bit of an aesthetic surprise for me!
I must go over my notes now so will just end with Happy New Year!
As it is New Years Eve the place will be full for once
I find Barley''s style to be far more academic and convoluted than necessary though I may simply not understand it.
Moreover, many modern philosophers treat Popped and Hume as brands of radical skepticism. Is this a necessary corollary of treating all truth as fallible?
This list did not appear on Letterman because of the evil humanity-diminishing commie bias in the media.
TOP TEN REASONS YOU WILL NOT BECOME AN OBJECTIVIST
1. You can't firmly grasp concepts because you have a weak grip--can't even open JARS.
2. You think the Law of Identity is why Cousin Eugene is serving six years at Coleman.
3. You have a recurring dream in which Atlas shrugs, but the world just floats off his shoulders and sails away into space.
4. When told to check your premises, you run home in a panic, because Cousin Eugene's former friends know where you live.
5. You can't convince your family that they don't understand you.
6. Nobody will engage in resoned philosophical debate with you, except Cousin Eugene.
7. No #7- suggested idea was without sufficient cognitive content.
8. Your introspections are constantly interrupted by the sqwa kings of a parrot.
9. For you, A is Eh
because
10. You're Canadian.
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