Philosophy: Who Needs It
Posted by jchristyatty 10 years, 7 months ago to Philosophy
Ayn Rand's address To The Graduating Class of The United States Military Academy at West Point New York — March 6, 1974
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"In the titular essay, “Philosophy: Who Needs It,” Rand shows why, in order to deal with concrete, real-life problems, an individual needs some implicit or explicit view of the world, of man’s place in it, and of what goals and values he ought to pursue. The abstract premises an individual holds may be true and consistent, reached by conscientious thought—and the purpose of the science of philosophy is to teach one how to achieve this—or his premises may be a heap of clashing ideas unwittingly absorbed from the culture around him. But either way, she argues, the power of philosophy is inescapable. It is something everyone should be concerned with."
fare.tunes.org/liberty/library/pwni.html
"In the titular essay, “Philosophy: Who Needs It,” Rand shows why, in order to deal with concrete, real-life problems, an individual needs some implicit or explicit view of the world, of man’s place in it, and of what goals and values he ought to pursue. The abstract premises an individual holds may be true and consistent, reached by conscientious thought—and the purpose of the science of philosophy is to teach one how to achieve this—or his premises may be a heap of clashing ideas unwittingly absorbed from the culture around him. But either way, she argues, the power of philosophy is inescapable. It is something everyone should be concerned with."
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what is the point here? nothing follows.
An anomaly is a fact that cannot be explained by science, i.e., an empirical observation for which no theoretical explanation exists. Pure empiricism - and I know that you did not intend that - leads to a bewildering array of anomalies: the sun rises, but no one knows why; heck, it might not rise again...
Thanks also for recommending Susan Langer. I just requested her book from the UT Library. In fact, early editions are stored at the Rare Books Archive, but two can be had from the Architecture Library. I got a later, third, edition from A&S.
Ayn Rand was pro-union and anti-gun.
She was not supportive of the US entry into World War Two.
She did say that the USA had the moral right to launch a first strike agains the USSR; but she also said that the USSR was wholly impotent to be a threat to the USA because communism is so hopelessly inefficient.
On the matter at hand, Rand was pro-abortion, of course; and she also was not sanguine about capital punishment, begging to let the issue be settled by a future generation of jurisprudence scholars.
I'm not convinced, by the way, that philosophies often turn on a dime. Those who seem to condone an action in one setting and condemn it in another have simply started from a premise which permits that. The example in your first sentence, for example, rests on the premise that one is a person and the other is not. The reverse - anti abortion, pro death penalty - assumes both are persons but one is innocent and helpless while the other is guilty and was able to mount a proper defense. The difference is in the premises.
There are also those whose philosophy/morality seemingly changes on a whim. Blacks are killing one another in record numbers in the large cities, but let one white cop shoot a black guy (and seemingly with justification after being beaten himself) and people start raising holy hell. Or let a football player discipline his son (we can argue the merits of such a different time) and one would think that the kid had been strung up and beaten half to death, but in Milwaukee mothers are sleeping with their babies in their beds and rolling over on top of them and killing them (truly - look it up, something like 30 of them this year alone) and nobody says a peep.
I would like to put a word in for the philosopher Susanne Langer (Philosophy in a New Key) who wrote in the 1st half of the 20th c. and did a good job of integrating art and science (using the sonata format).
Jan (Good morning!)
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