Philosophers of Today

[trees_please]

He contributed much to the field of gobbledygook indeed.

youre a jackass. watts is the man

 

[Hanniba1]

Chomsky?

 

[Jabberwocky]

chomsky. nietzsche. rand. limbaugh.
/okay maybe not the last one..

 

[P A]

rand.

lol

 

[Jabberwocky]

lol i KNEW you would come and have to make a quip.
are you denying she was a philosopher or something, or wanna say something of substance about her? Or just vague innuendo like the last time i mentioned rand?
/haha that's too hilarious tho, i mean despite how polarizing she is i just knew it'd be you to put that out there - even funnier because someone mentioned it upthread, and you posted since then but were silent on their mentioning of her, but i throw her in and it's technicolor lulz
//honestly would like to hear your thoughts, i mean all i've ever ascertained is you don't like her. I actually love discussing such things if ppl can stay civil

 

[rangrz]

youre a jackass. watts is the man

You're significantly lacking in intellectual capacity. Watts posits a large body of deepitys and incoherent nonsense.

 

[P A]

^I didn't know you were a Dennett fan. Cheers!

 

[Jabberwocky]

Okay so now it's twice you've mocked me mentioning rand, w/o offering up anything intelligible in opposition. From a mod, in their own forum, that's pretty damn weak if ya ask me
/doubt you woulda had anything useful to say on the matter anyways, prolly just the same crap ppl say about rand when they never actually evaluated objectivism themselves ;]

 

[P A]

Orly?

Okay so now it's twice you've mocked me mentioning rand, w/o offering up anything intelligible in opposition. From a mod, in their own forum, that's pretty damn weak if ya ask me
/doubt you woulda had anything useful to say on the matter anyways, prolly just the same crap ppl say about rand when they never actually evaluated objectivism themselves ;]

Mocking Ayn Rand does not, in my estimation, amount to disparaging her Kool-Aid imbibing legions. Though I suppose they're pretty amusing in their own right. Are you a political economist? A social scientist, perhaps? If you were, you'd be a fascinating outlier - few people who take such things seriously would characterize themselves as 'Randians' or 'Objectivists,' especially not these days, you know, what with all the laissez-faire economic crises, &c.

If you'd like to seriously discuss the relative merit of Rand's 'ideas,' I'd be more than happy to take you up; but I qualify the word 'ideas' with scare quotes for more reasons than one. Not only did Rand lack the creative faculty to muster a single new idea of her own - the ideas she mined from her (far superior) right-wing forebears were foolish and, in most cases, were outdated by about a century or more. One need not read very much of Rand's actual work to get her gist. I've read plenty of Smith and Ricardo and Nozick and Mill and Rothbard (well, admittedly very little of Rothbard) for my taste, thank you very much. I don't require the additional stimulus of a cheap simulacrum and glorified recycler/popularizer of the ideals of other, more eloquent and incisive specialists, working in the fields to which she pretended a shred of knowledge. In short, I simply do not have the time to spare reading a >1000-page screed by a crank with an ego every time someone invokes their name, nor do I feel any especial need, really, to pay said crank any more attention than a technicolor lol.

 

[Thorns Have Roses]

[Alan Watts] contributed much to the field of gobbledygook indeed.

Pffft..I don't think you understand the importance of gobbledygook. Try his translation of Basho's Frog Haiku, I had a kensho experience upon reading it.

 

[Comrade Kane]

Rand was a welfare queen lived off the american state her whole life under her maiden name (benefits fraud) while telling poor people to starve.

Rand was against democracy. She didn't believe a housewife should be allowed a vote in matters above her station like presidential elections.

From every page of her books you hear the shrill cry "to the gas chambers go".

Rands maths was simple: rich = good angelic beautiful while poor = evil pig person with squinty eyes.

She was not a philosopher as she could not tolerate different ideas. Rather Rand was a cult leader a female reverend jim jones.

In conclusion, Rand was a foul piece of shit who wouldn't give a dying child a sip of water.

 

[Jabberwocky]

Mocking Ayn Rand does not, in my estimation, amount to disparaging her Kool-Aid imbibing legions. Though I suppose they're pretty amusing in their own right. Are you a political economist? A social scientist, perhaps? If you were, you'd be a fascinating outlier - few people who take such things seriously would characterize themselves as 'Randians' or 'Objectivists,' especially not these days, you know, what with all the laissez-faire economic crises, &c.

I'm glad to fascinate then! (?) And no I'm not an economist by trade tho it was what i majored.
What is it that is unique about 'these days' that you feel was unconsidered in her works? Like, what about right now is unique and changes perception of her, in your opinion?

If you'd like to seriously discuss the relative merit of Rand's 'ideas,' I'd be more than happy to take you up; but I qualify the word 'ideas' with scare quotes for more reasons than one. Not only did Rand lack the creative faculty to muster a single new idea of her own - the ideas she mined from her (far superior) right-wing forebears were foolish and, in most cases, were outdated by about a century or more.

well, if you wanna be technical, she prolly lifted the most from aristotle, so yeah...way more than a century lol. But, about those ideas- some of the most completely fundamental, or maybe I should say the most fundamental, ideas of objectivism are:
- joy/happiness is hte purpose of being
- the only 'right' and proper contact amongst men is consensual, and
- teh supremacy of reason

Why do you think those basic tenets flawed? The way rand approached philosophy was from those principles, I'm interested a more specific reply (if not about objectivist ideology, then at least about which parts you find wrong and why)
(also I find it incredulous that you consider those things "dated", although perhaps you didn't mean the core principles)

One need not read very much of Rand's actual work to get her gist. I've read plenty of Smith and Ricardo and Nozick and Mill and Rothbard (well, admittedly very little of Rothbard) for my taste, thank you very much. I don't require the additional stimulus of a cheap simulacrum and glorified recycler/popularizer of the ideals of other, more eloquent and incisive specialists, working in the fields to which she pretended a shred of knowledge. In short, I simply do not have the time to spare reading a >1000-page screed by a crank with an ego every time someone invokes their name, nor do I feel any especial need, really, to pay said crank any more attention than a technicolor lol.

c'mon play nice PA. You can show where she's wrong, or her basic premises flawed, and leave that^ shit out of it. Otherwise there's really no point to a "philosophers of today" thread in the 1st (or to your participating in it).

I would like to hear your thoughts on why the basic principles are flawed (or, if that's not your beef with those ideas, then what is?)

 

[Jabberwocky]

Rand was a welfare queen lived off the american state her whole life under her maiden name (benefits fraud) while telling poor people to starve.

Rand was against democracy. She didn't believe a housewife should be allowed a vote in matters above her station like presidential elections.

From every page of her books you hear the shrill cry "to the gas chambers go".

Rands maths was simple: rich = good angelic beautiful while poor = evil pig person with squinty eyes.

She was not a philosopher as she could not tolerate different ideas. Rather Rand was a cult leader a female reverend jim jones.

In conclusion, Rand was a foul piece of shit who wouldn't give a dying child a sip of water.

I shouldn't even acknowledge your post, but i will, since those are arguments i very often hear against her (but those ideas are not yours, so i'm writing for purposes of the thread and to explain rand/objectivism, not to reply to you)

1- if you pay into the welfare state it is only fair to collect your money back, BUT that's pretty irrelevant to me, i don't even care to know if she paid more in taxes than she took out, wanna know why? Because it's objectivism, not rand, that i'm most concerned with philosophically. When anti-smoking people can present me with strong arguments, i do not automatically discard them if i know one of the ppl is themselves a smoker.
Also she did not live off the state her entire life by a long shot, she got medicare/aid when dying of cancer. The idea of considering her someone who lived off the state her whole life shows an absurd level of ignorance about her life.
Oh and she didn't tell poor ppl to starve. Championing productivity, and being against state-forced redistribution of wealth, /= wishing ill on unproductive ppl.

2- you say that as if it's a bad thing...

3- I can see how it can come across as such when you do not put things in context. If htere's a particular passage(s) you would like to use to illustrate your example, plz reference them (you won't, but i'll get to WHY that is once i cover the rest of 'your' points)

4- no, it was not nearly so simple, but generally speaking yes, a person who contributes to society is held in higher regards than someone who takes from society. You may disagree with that, but it's childish to be so hyperbolic. I like stuff- whether food, cars, healthcare, whatever - so not only am i capitalist (as such systems increase total utility better than other systems), but I see an ethical component to production (or lack thereof) too. I do not think it is "right" or "just as valid" for someone to try and slide through life w/ as little effort as possible and trying to gain as much as possible from society, while contributing as little as they can. I see how it is very easy to say "rand wants to see the poor burn" and stuff like that, but in reality rand was against ppl who advocated for / facilitated what she considered to, basically, be theft (state-sanctioned redistribution, "at the barrel of a gun"<ie as force is the state's final argument>)

5- yes, she was a philosopher. Do you know hte meaning of the word? And yes, there was absolutely a "cult of personality" phenomena about her (am unsure wtf that has to do with the philosophy)

also, drawing the conclusion that she "wouldn't give a dying child a sip of water" shows how misunderstood the ideas are. SHE would, but she was a rabid advocate against THE STATE having the powers to redistribute citizens' wealth. Being against the state having such rights does NOT mean you think helping others is wrong; perhaps the distinction is too subtle for some but i promise you it is there lol.

Bbbut, honestly i've noticed you doing this before and didn't say anything, but given the context I figure i'll toss it out there- IT IS WRONG TO STEAL OTHERS' WORDS AND PASS THEM OFF AS YOUR OWN. PLAGIARISM IS WRONG, COMRADE.
Please quote the next time you google for shit and then copypasta it here as your own. At least part of the crap you dumped here was from the article "Ayn's Stupid Legacy". I don't know, or care to find, where you lifted the rest from.
Nobody here has any interest in arguing with google, and if the height of your capacity is googling so that you can have a voice, maybe it's better to stay silent, ya? Or just put your own ideas out there, even if they suck. Just stop fucking copypasta'ing shit into threads so you can participate, it's lame and annoying.

 

[Comrade Kane]

Rand was a mouth breathing sociopath.

“It was while I was fixing the blindfold that the urge to murder came upon me,” he continued, “and I just couldn’t help myself. I got a towel and stepped up behind Marian. Then before she could move, I put it around her neck and twisted it tightly. I held on and she made no outcry except to gurgle. I held on for about two minutes, I guess, and then I let go. When I cut loose the fastenings, she fell to the floor. I knew she was dead. Well, after she was dead I carried her body into the bathroom and undressed her, all but the underwear, and cut a hole in her throat with a pocket knife to let the blood out.” -
William Edward Hickman description of his rape and killing of a young girl.

Ayn Rand praised Hickman endlessly.

"The best and strongest expression of a real man's psychology I have heard,"

"a brilliant, unusual, exceptional boy," shimmering with "immense, explicit egotism." Rand had only one regret: "A strong man can eventually trample society under its feet. That boy [Hickman] was not strong enough."

“the amazing picture of a man with no regard whatsoever for all that a society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. A man who really stands alone, in action and in soul. Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should.”

"He shows how impossible it is for a genuinely beautiful soul to succeed at present, for in all [aspects of] modern life, one has to be a hypocrite, to bend and tolerate. This boy wanted to command and smash away things and people he didn't approve of."

“He has the true, innate psychology of a Superman. He can never realize and feel ‘other people.’

This echoes almost word for word Rand’s later description of her character Howard Roark, the hero of her novel The Fountainhead: “He was born without the ability to consider others.”

Rand discusses the jury in the case: "Average, everyday, rather stupid looking citizens. Shabbily dressed, dried, worn looking little men. Fat, overdressed, very average, 'dignified' housewives. How can they decide the fate of that boy? Or anyone's fate?"

"The first thing that impresses me about the case is the ferocious rage of a whole society against one man. No matter what the man did, there is always something loathsome in the 'virtuous' indignation and mass-hatred of the 'majority.'... It is repulsive to see all these beings with worse sins and crimes in their own lives, virtuously condemning a criminal...

"And when we look at the other side of it -- there is a brilliant, unusual, exceptional boy turned into a purposeless monster. By whom? By what? Is it not by that very society that is now yelling so virtuously in its role of innocent victim? He had a brilliant mind, a romantic, adventurous, impatient soul and a straight, uncompromising, proud character. What had society to offer him? A wretched, insane family as the ideal home, a Y.M.C.A. club as social honor, and a bank-page job as ambition and career..."

"he was not able to serve, when he felt worthy to rule; to obey, when he wanted to command." How sad for him.


"The fact that he looks like 'a bad boy with a very winning grin,' that he makes you like him the whole time you're in his presence..."

One sick puppie. Rand that is.

“If [people] place such things as friendship and family ties above their own productive work, yes, then they are immoral. Friendship, family life and human relationships are not primary in a man’s life. A man who places others first, above his own creative work, is an emotional parasite.”

"what is right for me is good"

Thats textbook sociopathy.

Atn Rand believed might equals right.

"They (Native Americans) didn't have any rights to the land, and there was no reason for anyone to grant them rights which they had not conceived and were not using. What was it that they were fighting for, when they opposed white men on this continent? For their wish to continue a primitive existence, their 'right' to keep part of the earth untouched, unused and not even as property, but just keep everybody out so that you will live practically like an animal, or a few caves above it. Any white person who brings the element of civilization has the right to take over this continent."

"If one believes one's right, one shouldn't wait to convince millions of fools, one might just as well force them."

Rand surrounded herself with a tightly policed cult of young people who believed she had found the One Objective Truth about the world. One student said: "There was a right kind of music, a right kind of art, a right kind of interior design, a right kind of dancing. There were wrong books which we should not buy."


Rand had become addicted to amphetamines while writing The Fountainhead, and her natural paranoia and aggression were becoming more extreme as they pumped though her veins. Anybody in her circle who disagreed with her was subjected to a show trial in front of the whole group in which they would be required to repent or face expulsion. Her secretary, Barbara Weiss, said: "I came to look on her as a killer of people." The workings of her cult exposed the hollowness of Rand's claims to venerate free thinking and individualism. Her message was, think freely, as long as it leads you into total agreement with me.

...she imagined the super-rich in America going on strike against progressive taxation...
The abandoned masses are described variously as "savages," "refuse," "inanimate objects," and "imitations of living beings," picking through rubbish.
One of the strikers deliberately causes a train crash, and Rand makes it clear she thinks the murder victims deserved it, describing in horror how they all supported the higher taxes that made the attack necessary.

She said the United States should be a "democracy of superiors only," with superiority defined by being rich.

In her 70s Rand found herself dying of lung cancer, after insisting that her followers smoke because it symbolized "man's victory over fire" and the studies showing it caused lung cancer were Communist propaganda.

In the end Hickman "died yellow" - he was dragged, trembling and fainting, to his execution, his courtroom bravado having given way at last.
In the end Rand "died yellow" a complte hypocrite sucking desperately at the teat of welfare and medicare. Ayn Rand was damaged goods from day one and never produced a single thing in her entire life. She was the truest definition of a parasite by her own claims.

Those who have written biographies of Rand--including former acolytes--paint a uniformly disturbing picture. Rand, according to Nathaniel Branden's My Years with Ayn Rand, Barbara Branden's The Passion of Ayn Rand, and Jeff Walker's The Ayn Rand Cult was narcissistic in the extreme, incapable of empathy, often cruel--going so far as to have an affair in full view of her husband--as well as paranoid, addicted to amphetamines, and obsessed with her belief that average people were "ugly, stupid and irrational."

The only real question that remains is what kind of fucked up sickos are sucked in by Rands Vomitus Opus of immorality?


PS: BMX your accusations display your randian like intolerance of reality in you not being able to accept that other people have genuinely different views to yourself. My original comment was off the top of my head, with no research or googling or copy pasting whatsoever, just from my general knowledge reaction to the aweful THING that was Rand. You of course cannot accept this as you are a randian acolyte and as such have no grasp on reality morality decency or simple common sense.


Of course the worst indictment of Rand was that she was just plain wrong.

 

[P A]

What is it that is unique about 'these days' that you feel was unconsidered in her works? Like, what about right now is unique and changes perception of her, in your opinion?

Are you joking? Trolling, perhaps (though I perceive that subtlety is not your style)? Or are you just too rich and dumb to take a sober assessment of the world's condition after a single century's experimentation with global capitalism? Does "the worst economic recession since the Great Depression" ring any bells? "Ecological devastation?" Inter- and intranational military conflict on an unparalleled scale? A resurgence of chauvinism and fundamentalism in the world's most (supposedly) 'civilized' nations? Over one billion living below the poverty line? A couple billion more living thereabouts? Everyone always scrambling to make ends meet, always worrying, always in competition for bread - for things (like food, for instance) that humans make more of in a day than the entire world (including those parts currently plagued by famine) could consume in weeks, and that is wasted, or fed to cattle in industrial superfarms, for no better reason or guiding principle than that of ever-increasing profit and personal advancement (toward what, may I ask?), a.k.a. greed? And all of this madness because of the manner in which humans have chosen to organize their societies. So yes indeed, to answer your question, I think right now is a perfect time to put Rand's notions of Justice and Prosperity to the rhetorical test.

well, if you wanna be technical, she prolly lifted the most from aristotle, so yeah...way more than a century lol. But, about those ideas- some of the most completely fundamental, or maybe I should say the most fundamental, ideas of objectivism are:
- joy/happiness is hte purpose of being
- the only 'right' and proper contact amongst men is consensual, and
- teh supremacy of reason

Would my telling you that Adolf Hitler espoused similar precepts do anything other than win me further distaste? I just can't keep a straight face while reading this stuff.

Why do you think those basic tenets flawed? The way rand approached philosophy was from those principles, I'm interested a more specific reply (if not about objectivist ideology, then at least about which parts you find wrong and why)
(also I find it incredulous that you consider those things "dated", although perhaps you didn't mean the core principles)

Well, as far as 'first principles' go, they're pretty lame and passe, if only because they're so nebulous in their generality. Considering they were first discussed a couple millennia ago, this is unsurprising. Aristotle was an extremely intelligent person, and a highly original and innovative thinker in quite a lot of ways...for his time. I mean, Christ, if you want to ignore temporal context and intellectual posterity entirely, I'm smarter than Aristotle! You are, too, I imagine. I understand a greater variety of mathematical concepts with a greater degree of depth than any he conceived, I know more facts about the world in which I live than he ever could have, and I've probably even read more books to boot. But such a perspective is ridiculous. You can't pass off Rand's ideas as Aristotelian any more than you can call Hitler a Nietzschean. It's just silly.

c'mon play nice PA. You can show where she's wrong, or her basic premises flawed, and leave that^ shit out of it. Otherwise there's really no point to a "philosophers of today" thread in the 1st (or to your participating in it).

1) Ayn Rand is not alive, nor was her work particularly well-received at any time, save for her little mini-cult consisting of Alan Greenspan and stupid teenagers, so I think her status as a 'Philosopher of Today' (the thread's topic, last I checked) is debatable at best. 2) Like I said, I'm more than happy to shoot the shit with you about whatever crank suits your intellectual fancy - but this thread is not the place for it. Either UTFSE to find a thread on Objectivism and make a post there, to which I will likely reply; or make a new thread addressing the philosophical merit/relevance of Ayn Rand. Within the scope of this thread, I've said all that I wanted to say on this topic, and then some.

/digression

 

[Jabberwocky]

PS: BMX your accusations display your randian like intolerance of reality in you not being able to accept that other people have genuinely different views to yourself. My original comment was off the top of my head, with no research or googling or copy pasting whatsoever, just from my general knowledge reaction to the aweful THING that was Rand. You of course cannot accept this as you are a randian acolyte and as such have no grasp on reality morality decency or simple common sense.

orly?

From every page of her books you hear the shrill cry "to the gas chambers go".

So that's your original thought? I guess Whittaker Chambers must've used a time machine to plagiarize from you then...

From almost any page of Atlas Shrugged, a voice can be heard, from painful necessity, commanding: " To the gas chambers — go!"

I think this is the 1st time i've seen someone so boldly deny an obvious case of plagiarism.

Are you joking? Trolling, perhaps (though I perceive that subtlety is not your style)? Or are you just too rich and dumb to take a sober assessment of the world's condition after a single century's experimentation with global capitalism?

No, I honestly hold a lot of objectivist principles in very high regard, and I'm sure you know that. You are correct, subtlety is not something i am very good at.

Did you notice a strong theme through most any post I've ever made? Atheist; pro-legalization; pro-capitalism; for limited governmental powers; for personal responsibility, productivity, and reason.
You know damn well these are my positions and that i'm not trolling (I like to think I'm not dumb, and at the moment i do not have any unique financial situation)

Does "the worst economic recession since the Great Depression" ring any bells? "Ecological devastation?" Inter- and intranational military conflict on an unparalleled scale? A resurgence of chauvinism and fundamentalism in the world's most (supposedly) 'civilized' nations? Over one billion living below the poverty line? A couple billion more living thereabouts? Everyone always scrambling to make ends meet, always worrying, always in competition for bread - for things (like food, for instance) that humans make more of in a day than the entire world (including those parts currently plagued by famine) could consume in weeks, and that is wasted, or fed to cattle in industrial superfarms, for no better reason or guiding principle than that of ever-increasing profit and personal advancement (toward what, may I ask?), a.k.a. greed? And all of this madness because of the manner in which humans have chosen to organize their societies. So yes indeed, to answer your question, I think right now is a perfect time to put Rand's notions of Justice and Prosperity to the rhetorical test.

Global standards of living are still increasing rapidly. You can throw around all the loaded terms like "poverty"(god don't start me on how abused that term is), "ecological devastation" and generally cry that the sky is falling, but the truth is standard of living, life expectancy, etc are *increasing* still (and quite rapidly, at that).
Now, if you want to argue that things should be spread more fairly, fine, but pretending mankind isn't progressing along quite rapidly is disingenuous.

Would my telling you that Adolf Hitler espoused similar precepts do anything other than win me further distaste? I just can't keep a straight face while reading this stuff.

No, because i'm already aware that those are NOT the basis of his philosophy (and, if they were, it's kind of irrelevant because his final "formulation" of his ideals very clearly DID NOT keep in harmony w/ the principles. Absurd comparison.)
And no, it wouldn't win you more distaste, it'd win you some respect. Ideas and open-mindedness in these threads earn my respect; ad-hom's, plagiarism, and other intellectually bankrupt approaches earn my distaste.

Well, as far as 'first principles' go, they're pretty lame and passe, if only because they're so nebulous in their generality.

Okay, they're "lame". I find them to be concepts that should properly define inter-personal contact/relation (ie "society" or civilization). You can think they're lame all you want, but that's not really a refutation is it?
[and those are the foundational principles, so yes they are inherently broad; that's not to say they weren't developed extremely thoroughly, but I imagine you knew that]

1) Ayn Rand is not alive, nor was her work particularly well-received at any time, save for her little mini-cult consisting of Alan Greenspan and stupid teenagers, so I think her status as a 'Philosopher of Today' (the thread's topic, last I checked) is debatable at best. 2)

Wasn't particularly well-received at any time? Well, with ideas that challenge some of hte most basic principles of the status quo, i hardly feel "well-received" is the proper barometer.
God, ppl try to get so revisionist and pretend she had zero relevance in her time...
Before her death she:
- was a bestseller
- had a major hollywood adaptation of Fountainhead
- was brought back to Johnny Carson's Tonight Show (3) times in 5months due to popularity
- cover of national review

I could continue adding stuff, though I'm sure you will just take an item or two and say "that is meaningless". The point is that she was relevant during her time, contrary to what a lot of her current-day detractors try to assert.
Was she "popular"? Was she 'liked'? I don't see how those are relevant to the merit of her ideas.

Like I said, I'm more than happy to shoot the shit with you about whatever crank suits your intellectual fancy - but this thread is not the place for it. Either UTFSE to find a thread on Objectivism and make a post there, to which I will likely reply; or make a new thread addressing the philosophical merit/relevance of Ayn Rand. Within the scope of this thread, I've said all that I wanted to say on this topic, and then some.

PA, *this* thread could not be more appropriate for this. Ayn Rand is easily the most controversial philosopher of the past century.


/how you have a modstick in P&S is beyond me..not just because you seldom compose yourself in a manner befitting a mod, but to assert this topic isn't relevant to the thread is absurd.

 

[nervousone]

watts is the man

Watts is one of the people I have gained the most from. I am not sure if he counts as a "philosopher of today" but definitely a great thinker and orator.

You're significantly lacking in intellectual capacity. Watts posits a large body of deepitys and incoherent nonsense.

Just because you are unable to comprehend something does not make it incoherent. Should I even bother pointing out the irony of you accusing others of lacking in intellectual capacity because *you* don't grasp someones ideas?

 

[rangrz]

It's not that I don't grasp them, it's that I find them trivial, patently absurd, or frankly incorrect.

 

[Psyduck]

Are there any notable philosophers of our time?

Every human being who is able to look at his own hands with full of wonder that there is something and not nothing.

If so, who and what have they contributed to the world of philosophy?

Why do you assume philosophy makes progress?

“Philosophy begins in wonder. And, at the end, when philosophic thought has done its best, the wonder remains.” (A.N. Whitehead)

 

[P A]

Global standards of living are still increasing rapidly. You can throw around all the loaded terms like "poverty"(god don't start me on how abused that term is), "ecological devastation" and generally cry that the sky is falling, but the truth is standard of living, life expectancy, etc are *increasing* still (and quite rapidly, at that).

That's quite an inflammatory thing to say, especially in the absence of statistical qualification of any kind. At any rate, know that many people beg to differ.

Now, if you want to argue that things should be spread more fairly, fine, but pretending mankind isn't progressing along quite rapidly is disingenuous.

No, it's disingenuous and, frankly, embarrassing to bandy about words like 'progress' in this day and age. Big Pharma's spree of miracle drugs has all but ceased (forcing them to relabel similar compounds to maintain brand power once the originals go generic), the auto and petrol industries are years behind the times (Why don't we all drive electric again? Oh, yes, that's right, bullshit politics and money, money, money), the incidence of armed conflict still hasn't been curbed in any meaningful way, and famines, droughts, and natural disasters still ravage entire nation-states as though we're still living in the seventeenth century.

No, because i'm already aware that those are NOT the basis of his philosophy (and, if they were, it's kind of irrelevant because his final "formulation" of his ideals very clearly DID NOT keep in harmony w/ the principles. Absurd comparison.)

I could say the exact same thing about the particulars of Ayn Rand and her Objectivism.

ad-hom's, plagiarism, and other intellectually bankrupt approaches earn my distaste.

I find it amusing when people misuse the term 'ad hominem' on the internet. It happens quite a lot on philosophy and science fora especially, for reasons I can't reliably fathom. Perhaps people think it makes them sound smart to use Latin in such contexts? Whatever.

Okay, they're "lame". I find them to be concepts that should properly define inter-personal contact/relation (ie "society" or civilization). You can think they're lame all you want, but that's not really a refutation is it?
[and those are the foundational principles, so yes they are inherently broad; that's not to say they weren't developed extremely thoroughly, but I imagine you knew that]

All this whinging, and I still have yet to see a cogent point emerge.

Wasn't particularly well-received at any time? Well, with ideas that challenge some of hte most basic principles of the status quo, i hardly feel "well-received" is the proper barometer.

Lol, ahhhh yes, the perennial refuge of the quack and the moron - just misunderstood in their own time (because they're so ahead of the curve, right?), with all the sheep unable to see the light! Of course, that's what it is! I honestly can't tell if you're being serious, but listen to yourself, man.

I could continue adding stuff, though I'm sure you will just take an item or two and say "that is meaningless". The point is that she was relevant during her time, contrary to what a lot of her current-day detractors try to assert.
Was she "popular"? Was she 'liked'? I don't see how those are relevant to the merit of her ideas.

Well, hold on now: I didn't say that the merit of her ideas was to be tested solely by the warmth of her popular or critical reception; but more often than not, it is an artist's critical reception that serves to indicate the quality of the material that they produce, with a handful of notable exceptions. Fountainhead and Atlas were written quite a while ago - it's certainly been long enough for another look at the material that they contain with a clearer head. So where are all the overdue accolades?

PA, *this* thread could not be more appropriate for this. Ayn Rand is easily the most controversial philosopher of the past century.

No, she's not. She's just one of the more undeservedly discussed ones. The only thing about her 'philosophy' that I could call genuinely controversial without a smirk on my face is the extent to which it has earned mention in a history textbook for being a notable example of how schlock can be mistaken for insightful commentary and straightforward moral vacuity be taken for calm, level-headed rationality. If Ayn Rand produces controversy at all, it is through her legions of (short-lived) disciples trying oh-so-hard to convince everyone else of her relevance - don't worry, it's just a phase; you'll grow out of it.

/how you have a modstick in P&S is beyond me..not just because you seldom compose yourself in a manner befitting a mod, but to assert this topic isn't relevant to the thread is absurd.

Rest assured that your feedback is much appreciated.