Sure there are alternative logics, but the question of interest is which form of logic does the world happen to behave in accordance with? At the level of the middle-sized furniture of the world, at least, it seems to be good old-fashioned binary logic. — gurugeorge
And that's something philosophers can do, but the question is whether it's worth doing - or whether philosophers doing that has been simply an artifact of the academic system. — gurugeorge
And I take it the clear answer is that the majority of this community does not hold her work in very high esteem. — John Doe
Presumably the way the world "behaves" matters at all levels and in all disciplines as opposed to just being restricted to the everyday world. — MindForged
At best you'll get an attempt at unifying other people's work. Which... is fine but everyone can't be doing that otherwise the entire discipline stagnates. — MindForged
Sure, that's always been obvious. But there are many possible reasons for that other than "She's a moron and her philosophy is shit." — gurugeorge
But how the ordinary world behaves is of concern to the vast majority of people in their everyday lives, and part of philosophy's job is (or Rand and I would say ought to be) to give ordinary people in their everyday lives some sense of the big picture - otherwise, in lieu of a rational big picture, they'll accept an irrational big picture, or flounder around in a state of permanent anxiety. — gurugeorge
That's true of basically every field though. I'm not going to hit up any random physicist for, say, particle physics questions. This seems like an issue with it any real resolution. If we want to curb specializiation we will have to stop drilling down on the very debates that drive the numerous parts of philosophy. And that seems unlikely to produce novel developments in those areas. Interdisciplinary work is all well and good.All I'm saying is that the discipline is skewed too much to specialization, — gurugeorge
They're apt to treat some things more fuzzily. — MindForged
Outside of what they get from religious activities and social networking, — MindForged
We just don't hardly ever need to think about that wide range of things at once in ordinary life. — MindForged
I'm not going to hit up any random physicist for, say, particle physics questions. — MindForged
Some yes, but mostly it's binary. Planes either fly or they don't, etc. — gurugeorge
That's my point - what they get from those things isn't very good, it would be better if they got things from clever people who had actually spent a lot of time thinking about them.
That's begging the question - we may not, but do we need to? Maybe we need to. Maybe a consistent, structured picture is better than an inconsistent, haphazard one. — gurugeorge
Why not? Who would be a better person to ask so that you, as a philosopher, could be more informed about the topic and be able to incorporate it into your big picture?
There is nothing to dislike about Rand, she did nothing wrong. — Marcus de Brun
Bizarre, the thread is about Rand but you'd rather have an irrelevant rant instead...??? — Marcus de Brun
Rand would be heartily amused I'm sure. — Marcus de Brun
I think that Rand's philosophy is largely ignored for the same reason that L. Ron Hubbard's philosophy is ignored: both wrote a bunch of novels and expressed a bunch of philosophical musings, both did so in a way that convinced a few folks that they're super geniuses with the keys to life answers, but ultimately there's nothing valuable, profound, or interesting to it — John Doe
What evidence have you for this egregious interpretation of Rand? — Marcus de Brun
they're perfectly content to stay with their folk understandings of these things — MindForged
The point there was that for, say, particle physics questions you should got to the particle physicist, not just any physicist, because the former has the best and truest grasp of the topics in that part of the discipline. — MindForged
I'd only want to say, his ideas resonated with me especially at that time in my life, and have had a lasting influence. — Baden
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