[Objectivist]

Quote by: Morality Games But overall, the logical form of Objectivist epistemology does not not acknowledge such limits [of knowledge]. When you state you have found the ideal society, the ideal human nature, the ideal economy, the ideal morality, etc, it basically equates to saying you have found the ideal reality, or that you know every abstract of significance. The only thing you don't know is how these abstracts should play out in every particular situation, and that is not a strong restraint.

That's incorrect. Objectivist epistemology does not embrace the idea that I, or you, or anyone else knows everything. I know that I do not know everything. What the Objectivist epistemology does promote is the idea that one can know something and that certainty is possible.

I hold the conviction that my thoughts on metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and politics are logically correct. I do not hold (nor did Rand) that Objectivism knew every "abstract of significance". What I think and what Rand thought was that Objectivism laid down general principles from which other truths, concepts, abstractions, and premises can be established.

I'm not speculating anything. I know what Ayn Rand says other philosophers say, and I know what these philosophers really say, and the two, contrary to her claims, are not the same thing, anymore than Richard Rorty (a pragmatist, albiet one in a different style than myself) accurately represents the views of his opponets, except he is willing to admit this. It is also annoying she thinks the only rational explanation for the behavior of these philosophers is that they are twisted and malevolent, a mentality she seems to have passed along to you.

Until you give actual examples of where she does this, it is an empty speculation.

Furthermore Rand did not really waste her time in trying to figure out why certain philosophers believed in certain things. What she did believe was that Western philosophy embodies a conflict between Plato and Aristotle and on both sides of this war lie various philosophers with various ideas. She categorized various views of philosophy such as subjectivism, intrinsicism, pragmatism and others and disproved those. As far as I know, she never dealt with a particular philosophers view explicitly. Some of her close friends did (Leonard Peikoff dealt with Kant, another close philosopher discussed Hume, and there are others).

The only philosopher she really felt malevolent about was Immanuel Kant. A philosopher who managed to discredit knowledge with superb consistency.

I don't know where you get off in making personal remarks about what I choose to agree with and what I choose not to agree with and what relevancy it has to what we are discussing other than the fact that you would rather insult me personally than discuss the content of my ideas.

Some failures are intrinistic to the audience. A mentally handicapped person, for example, utterly lacks even the potential to comprehend certain ideas.

So if the audience has the intrinsic quality of not being able to understand you, then why bother to express your opinion to them in the first place?

You can't engage in an intellectual debate with someone who abiturarily decides that it is acceptable to change the conventional meaning of a term without explaining in particular (in each and every individual situation) why they deserve do to this, or who is unwilling to admit they don't deserve to do it when they are presented with an argument based on sounder reasoning.

Agreed.