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Article cross-talk

Use of cross-talk page

There doesn't seem to be much use of the Objectivism cross-talk page lately. I'm the only one who has used it since February. Is it still relevant? --RL0919 (talk) 20:41, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps not. Although I love it, I have to say it now seems like an esoteric feature. Karbinski (talk) 14:25, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Again, not a philosopher

Sydney Hook, a noted (conservative) American philosopher, noted elementary errors in Rand's "philosophical" 1962 work "Notes for the New Intellectual" in 1962, including the use of the analytic aPriori statement a=a to derive what Rand resoundingly yet erroneously considered profound, synthetic aPriori truths such as the value of capitalism and of selfishness, which cannot be derived from "a=a" in any way. He kindly, gently, but firmly dismissed Rand's work as being of philosophical utility. A "philosopher" is she or he who enters a conversation with people recognized as philosophers; this recursive, set-theoretic definition of philosopher is the only reasonable definition of one. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 120.88.255.151 (talk) 00:38, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

There are many sources saying she's not a philosopher, and sources saying she is. Is there some way we can edit to reflect this debate? --Frybread (talk) 09:02, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

It has been a problem for some time. She is called a philosopher in a limited number of texts (a lot of which are de facto funded by by Randian institutions). There are a limited number of texts that criticise he claims in that respect - Hook is one of several. A lot of these are blog posts as in general very few Philosophers take her seriously as a Philosopher. The main evidence that she is not a philosopher is that she is not mentioned in any major directory or text book covering the field as a whole. Negative evidence is difficult to assess. Personally I think the overall balance makes it clear that the label Philosopher should not be applied here but that resulted in a lot of nastiness and an Arbcom ruling some time ago ----Snowded 10:24, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

I think the editors of the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy will be surprised to learn that they do not cover the field as a whole and are funded by Randian institutions. Den Uyl and Rasmussen will probably also be surprised to hear that they were funded by such institutions (which did not exist at the time they prepared their book). And of course the previous citations used for this point included that venerable Randian institution, The New York Times. The "balance" against all this really needs to be something more than wishful thinking and reading implications into silences, which is what the "many sources saying she's not a philosopher" tend to be. Hook does not say she isn't a philosopher, notwithstanding the claims of the block-evading troll who started this section. --RL0919 (talk) 11:22, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

The Stanford entry is one of a series of essays commissioned as you know. Routledge I would need to see the next. There is little dispute she is largely ignored by Philosphers and criticised even by her followers. She is primarily a novelist not a philosopher ----Snowded 12:56, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Her novels are also criticized, but that doesn't make her not a novelist. I'm all for being discriminating about sources, but not for inventing seemingly arbitrary new criteria just to exclude sources that say things someone doesn't like. If you want to reject peer reviewed sources with no obvious conflicts of interest, it should be for better reasons than this. --RL0919 (talk) 20:00, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

In general the critics do see her as a bad novelist, but they say so. Philosophers with a few exceptions just ignore her ----Snowded 20:04, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

RL's analogy is totally wrong because the only requirement for being a novelist is having written a novel, but philosophy has objective standards. Even the worst writer in the world is a novelist once they've completed a single, terrible novel. Although an English degree might include classes in novel-writing, you don't need a degree to write a novel or even to get it published. All it takes is basic competence with the language, and you are judged on being creative and subjectively entertaining. It's even ok to make stupid English mistakes, because publishers have copy-editors on staff. It's a bit harder to be a published novelist, although it still doesn't mean being any good, and even harder to make a living at it. Rand succeeded as a novelist.

On the other hand, philosophy has an objective bar based on a certain level of academic competence in the field, which almost always comes from having degrees. Practicing philosophy requires a working knowledge of what has gone before so that you can both avoid the errors of the past and explain views by comparing and contrasting with well-known positions using common terminology. Rand had an open disregard for all philosophy since Aristotle (even though was obviously influenced by Nietzsche) and was criticized for not understanding the views she opposed, rather than (just) for being wrong. Her only degree was in education, and it shows.

No matter how you slice it, Rand was not an academic philosopher, though she does fit into the Russian tradition of novelists with a philosophical bent. She had philosophical ideas which were highly influential in the world at large, but almost entirely ignored by academia. This makes her a professional writer and amateur philosopher. That's not so say she wasn't a philosopher at all or even that her philosophy was bad. It just means that this wasn't her profession and we'd be lying to readers by saying it was. MilesMoney (talk) 21:51, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Weasel words in the lead

This edit by Medeis changed the wording of the lead, with the apparent goal of putting a more positive spin on how philosophers and literary critics reacted to Rand. It should be reverted, per WP:WEASEL. Polisher of Cobwebs (talk) 19:00, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree it should be reverted, although I don't know that WP:WEASEL is the reason. "During her life" is just wrong as a qualifier, since the qualified remark is still true after her death. "With some exceptions" is true, but already absorbed earlier in the sentence where it says "generally" (not "universally"). Poorly vs. hostilely is a subtle difference, but "poorly" is more general and therefore I think more correct, since not every negative review was openly hostile. The "often for non-literary reasons" part is intuitively correct from reading the reviews, but it is not in the source that is currently cited, so to keep it would require an additional source -- preferably a peer-reviewed academic to minimize wrangling about source biases. So definitely revert for now, and perhaps add back the one phrase (or something similar) later if it can be supported with sources. --RL0919 (talk) 19:31, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

List of people Rand influenced

I was considering the problem of the "Influenced" list in the infobox, which has been discussed on this talk page in the past. There are more people who could be added to the list, but at some point it becomes unwieldy to list them all, not to mention problematic to cite them if her influence on them isn't properly cited in their own articles. I wondered how this was handled for other popular thinkers, so I looked at the infobox for Rand's own idol, Aristotle, one of the most influential thinkers in the history of the world. Seeing what was done there has led me to create a new article, List of people influenced by Ayn Rand. There are about a hundred people listed therein (all bluelinks), with supporting citations. I'm hoping we can use this to both shorten the infobox list and perhaps cut down on the prose discussions of people she has influenced. Let me know what you think. --RL0919 (talk) 07:24, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Reducing the list here to the really notable would be a blessing. I am less sure of the list itself as there are some potential BLP violations. The fact someone is listed in a book on the "cult" would really need corroboration for example. I suggest a drastic reduction to self-identification of a major influence ----Snowded 10:35, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

BLP is of course a concern for any article that mentions the living, but limiting to just explicit statements of self-identification creates oddities because not everyone makes public autobiographical statements. So, for example, if we can't find an autobiographical statement by Robert Bidinotto or Peter Schwartz, both of whom have worked for Objectivist organizations, should they be excluded? That seems weird. That's why I went with the three-part statement of inclusion that appears at the top of the list (partially modeled on a similar list at List of thinkers influenced by deconstruction). In most cases additional sources could be provided; I actually tried to limit the number of different sources used to avoid reference overload. --RL0919 (talk) 17:47, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

If they worked for an objectivist institution then there is a case - my point is they are to some thing they said or did which makes it clear, not just someone claiming they were ----Snowded 18:02, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that should be mostly accounted for in the initial list; I tried to avoid any instances that seemed unconfirmed or gossipy. I didn't include some people mentioned by Branden or Merrill for this reason. The Block book is all autobiographical essays and Weiss did one-on-one interviews, so anything referenced to them should be very solid. I used Walker sparingly, although despite the title and tone of the book he was relatively careful about what he said about living individuals. That said, going forward over-inclusion is probably one of the biggest potential problems for the new article, since we have seen here the tendency to name-drop every celebrity who mentions one of her books in an interview. --RL0919 (talk) 21:15, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

OK sounds good, not able to check all the books but assume you have done your work there. Fully agree on name dropping. Suggest we now cull the list on this page to maybe 4/5 and link?----Snowded 21:45, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I tried, but if any seem dubious I can double-check. Everyone makes mistakes. (In the other direction, I already noticed a couple of omissions.) As for the infobox on this page, I'd be happy if we omitted names from the Influenced list entirely and did something like this:

If folks can live with that, it would short-circuit future wrangles over who is "worthy" to appear in the box. --RL0919 (talk) 23:24, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree with that - no one else seems engaged so I suggest you do it!

Aristotelian Philosophers

She certainly liked him (the famous 3As and all that) but to say she was one requires a third party source. So I have deleted the addition of that category ----Snowded 11:12, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Not too hard to find sources that say this: Edward Younkins says it Philosophers of Capitalism, Thomas Gramstad in Feminist Interpretations of Ayn Rand, David Kelly in The Contested Legacy of Ayn Rand, James Sterba in From Rationality to Equality. In The Philosophic Thought of Ayn Rand, Jack Wheeler argues that Rand is even more Aristotelian than she thought herself. On the other hand, it is not an entirely non-controversial classification: Roderick Long argues that Rand isn't really an Aristotelian in Reason and Value: Aristotle versus Rand. On balance it seems there are more sources saying she is than saying she isn't, with the usual large number of sources that don't discuss the question. YMMV about how one-sided it needs to be to justify a category. --RL0919 (talk) 15:38, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Exactly its controversial and given that she is hardly taken seriously in main stream philosophical circles the balance (if its there) is understandable. How anyone can read Aristotle on virtue and think that Rand is an Aristotelean I can't understand. I would want to check some of those sources anyway, saying that she was influenced by is not the same thing ----Snowded 16:16, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Sources with quotes and page numbers to facilitate the discussion:

• "I am an Aristotelian." Rand, Letters of Ayn Rand, p. 394
• "Ayn Rand's philosophy is Aristotelianism without Platonism." Peikoff, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, p. 459
• "Ayn Rand, whose philosophy is a form of Aristotelianism, had the highest admiration for Aristotle ..." Younkins, in Philosophers of Capitalism, p. 82. In the preface, he calls her philosophy "neo-Aristotelian" (p. ix).
• Sterba's section about Rand is titled "Ayn Rand's Aristotelian Alternative" (From Rationality to Equality, p. 94).
• "...Rand is an Aristotelian. Although much of Objectivism (especially its metaphysics) differs significantly from Aristotelian philosophy, Rand falls generally within the Aristotelian tradition..." Smith, Atheism, Ayn Rand, and Other Heresies, p. 191
• Notwithstanding what Smith says, Kelley says her metaphysics is "basically Aristotelian" in The Contested Legacy of Ayn Rand, p. 81.
• Burns calls her "neo-Aristotelian" in Goddess of the Market, p. 148.
• Sandefur also calls her "neo-Aristotelian" in an entry on individualism in The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism (p. 241). The Rand entry in that same encyclopedia (by Sciabarra) refers to her "Aristotelian premises" (p. 414).
• In Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical, Sciabarra manages to mention Aristotelianism numerous times without ever quite saying whether Rand was an Aristotelian or not.
• Machan refers to "Aristotelian characteristics" and "Aristotelian-inspired" metaethics in Ayn Rand (pp. 12, 19). He calls her metaethics "neo-Aristotelian" in an essay in Objectivism, Subjectivism, and Relativism in Ethics, p. 116.
• Long says that while her philosophy "proclaims itself a version of Aristotelianism", it takes various positions that "undermine her basically Aristotelian inclinations and sentiments". (Reason and Value, p. 5)

I started this list not particularly caring whether the category was included or not, but after accumulating the material I'm inclined to say it should be there. I also note that the category page says (in text stable since 2006), "This category is for philosophers who have been strongly influenced by Aristotle." That seems to fit Rand. --RL0919 (talk) 22:00, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Which of those are reliable third party philosophical sources? If those say it OK, otherwise its dubious and even influence has to show some understanding :-) ----Snowded 06:28, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Add to that the simple fact that she is not universally accepted as a Philosopher and I think we need something that is third party and authoritative ----Snowded 11:21, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

I hope you don't want to turn this into a reprise of the lopsided "philosopher" dispute. Only one of the sources above is Rand herself, so most are "third party", but I expect that isn't what you really mean. Sterba and Burns are non-Objectivist academics writing in books published by a prestigious university press. Machan and Younkins wrote in peer-reviewed academic essay collections. To the sources above I can now add the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on Rand by Chandran Kukathas, and an essay by John C. Merrill in Ethical Communication: Moral Stances in Human Dialogue. Both are non-Objectivist academics. So even if you dismiss everyone who is an Objectivist or even "Objectivish", that's at least four peer-reviewed sources. --RL0919 (talk) 16:39, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

The issue of how do you prove a negative on Misplaced Pages is well illustrated by the "philosopher" issue, no idea why its "lopsided". Not sure the Burns quote counts, Sterba possibly. Long would be a contra argument and I own up to that being my sentiment. Routledge is more the sort of source I was looking for. If that is unambiguous (unlike Sterba) it could be enough ----Snowded 22:51, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

oh my god ......you guys are still fighting over Ayn Rand. its been like 4 years since i last checked in. i guess everyone needs a hobby. Brushcherry (talk) 21:51, 3 May 2013 (UTC)brushcherry

The use of Sciabarra's "Transcript" article as a source

I have a question on the use of Sciabarra's 1999 JARS' article "The Rand Transcript". The article is used several times, mostly for very innocuous information. However, as I was reading the second edition of Essays on Ayn Rand's We The Living (ed. Robert Mayhew, 2012), I came across this very interesting critique of Sciabarra's source by Shoshana Milgram (p108-110, notes 26 and 32). Milgram makes several arguments as to why Sciabarra's analysis is problematic. Since the article only cites Sciabarra for evidence that Rand studied Plato and Aristotle in college, I don't have a problem with the citation per se. But I'm wondering if it's more intellectually honest or whatever to cite Milgram's article in conjunction with Sciabarra's? (In any case, the citation for the Mayew essay anthology should probably be updated with the information for the second edition as it incorporates three new articles.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brandonk2009 (talk • contribs) 00:31, 6 May 2013‎

What claims in the article would Milgram's piece be cited in support of, and why? The notes you mention above relate to matters that aren't discussed anywhere in this article, so there would be no reason to cite Milgram in relation to them. As to the book citation, we ought to be citing the edition used to source the material, regardless of what the most recent edition is. To change the edition, someone should review the four instances where it is cited to confirm that the text still supports the claims and that page numbers haven't changed, updating the citations if needed. Otherwise we will have a mismatch. --RL0919 (talk) 19:58, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, the notes I pointed to in particular cite problems with Sciabarra's 1999 analysis of Rand's transcripts. His article is used to back up very innocuous facts, such as Rand's introduction to Aristotle and Plato (note 14). As such, it's not really a problem. However, Milgram's article supports the exact same fact with additional and up-to-date scholarship. The article could reflect that--or it doesn't need to. Brandon K (talk) 21:03, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

"un" or "less"?

In this sentence, "After two early novels that were initially less successful, she achieved fame with her 1943 novel The Fountainhead...", the mistaken impression is that there were "more" successful novels that preceeded AR's two early novels. I suggest that you replace "less successful" with "unsuccessful"; it's accurate and succinct. Autodidact1 (talk) 01:45, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

What it says now is that "We the Living" and "Anthem" were unsuccessful in America, moderately successful elsewhere. For the first, "Initial sales were slow and the American publisher let it go out of print, although European editions continued to sell". The second, "initially could not find an American publisher". MilesMoney (talk) 03:47, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Input for Night of January 16th

I have been working recently on the Night of January 16th article, with the thought of nominating it for good article status. Since this page has a lot more watchers than that one, many of whom are familiar with Rand's works and perhaps that play in particular, I'm hoping others can take a look and see if there are further improvements needed before moving forward. Thanks in advance for any input. --RL0919 (talk) 22:46, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

For anyone watching, I've opened a peer review request for the article. No feedback yet after the first week. --RL0919 (talk) 17:59, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Rand on discrimination

An editor has been attempting to edit the description of Rand's statements about homosexuality into a more general statement that she had views "opposing laws against private-sector discrimination while also opposing public-sector discrimination" (in this edit, for example). First this was done with no source, in the process mistakenly suggesting the information may have come from the source previously cited for Rand's views on homosexuality. When challenged for a source, it was re-done with a source borrowed from the Objectivism and homosexuality article. There are a couple of problems here. Most important, the cited source still does not support the text. It says nothing about homosexuality or gay rights, and only briefly alludes to discrimination without explicitly stating any view Rand had on the subject. Second, the mention of Rand's views on this subject in this particular article is in a specific biographical context, that of her making controversial statements in public appearances. To fit into the article as it stands, the stated position would not just need to be an accurate (and sourced) representation of her views, but it would need to be a view she stated in a public appearance and which a secondary source had described as controversial. Even if the cited source could be interpreted as representing Rand's views on discrimination (which it doesn't explicitly do), it gives no such biographical context. So I've reverted the change here, and tagged the source as "failed verification" in the Objectivism and homosexuality article. --RL0919 (talk) 01:10, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Before we talk about sources, let's make sure we got the facts right, so lemme know which ones are off:

1) She opposed public-sector discrimination against gays.

2) She opposed laws interfering with private-sector discrimination against gays.

You run http://www.noblesoul.com/orc/index.html so you should know this stuff, right? And it's not like you've got any sort of conflict of interest or anything... MilesMoney (talk) 07:08, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Did I say anywhere, "this statement is factually wrong"? My suggestion is that you read WP:VERIFY and WP:TRUTH before proceeding. To play off a common phrase, "sources or it didn't happen". Also please note the concern about biographical context. As for your personal comments, you are also welcome to read WP:COI and then explain specifically what conflict of interest you believe exists, rather than vaguely insinuating that there is one. My talk page is linked in the signature stamp for this comment. --RL0919 (talk) 09:47, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

You know, I've been reading up on policies with names like BLP and RS, and behind all the jibber-jabber, they're here so that we don't post nonsense. If we agree that those two statements are true and we both want this bio to be correct, then we're on the same side. All we gotta do is make sure that we back it up with refs so nobody has any doubts.

Your own site quotes her with "All laws against homosexual acts should be repealed" and "...I do not believe that the government has the right to prohibit it", so that backs up the first.

It also backs up the second by quoting her as opposing laws against private discrimination, even when it means allowing racism, which she despised.

Now, if we didn't say that Rand was against discriminatory laws, we could just stop there. But we do, so we have to add the part about her being opposed to anti-discriminatory laws, otherwise we wind up lying by omission. We can't do that, can we? MilesMoney (talk) 02:52, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

We omit lots of things, since an encyclopedia article cannot recount every detail of Rand's life and views -- it would be hundreds of pages long. We try to use secondary sources as a guide to what should be included. The portion of the article you have been editing discusses what secondary sources have called out as controversial commentary Rand made in her public appearances. It is not a list of every thing Rand ever thought or that we might infer she thought. To my knowledge, Rand never made any public statements about laws against private anti-gay discrimination. Such laws were rare in Rand's lifetime and arose after she stopped most public speaking, so possibly it just never came up. It is not acceptable for us to infer what she might have thought and claim it as her view.

She did make statements about racism and laws against racial discrimination, which is a different topic from homosexuality. If there is a secondary source that says Rand's public statements on race were controversial, then potentially we could include that in addition to what we now say about her controversial statements on homosexuality and other topics. But we would need a source for that. The two main sources being used now, Burns and Heller, describe no such controversy. --RL0919 (talk) 04:18, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

In Commando, Arnold lied by saying "I let him go", when he'd just dropped the guy off a cliff. He lied by telling part of the truth. We're not going to do that.

The way it sounds now, Rand opposed discrimination against gays. That's a lie. She opposed any laws pro or con. This means she opposed discrimination by the government but also opposed the government getting in the way of other discrimination.

Now, you already admitted it's true, but now you're flip-flopping like Romney. She said that the government has no business trying to stop discrimination. It's original research by you when you say she only meant racism. In fact, she opposed racism as immoral but still supported the right of racists to discriminate. Since she thought homosexuality was immoral and disgusting, it's sticking your words in her mouth to say she'd make an exception by supporting laws forbidding private discrimination against gays.

I'm going to fix the article. If you want to break the rules, you're going to get in trouble. MilesMoney (talk) 05:49, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

You should worry less about whether I am "flip-flopping" or might "get in trouble" (I got a good chuckle from that), and more more about whether there are sources to support the changes you want to make. There is a difference between what a Misplaced Pages editor might believe and what can be documented using sources. We should not put a claim in the article that Rand made controversial public statements about something that she is not documented as speaking about. To call such restraint "sticking ... words in her mouth" is an Orwellian way to describe the situation. Your latest, much more modest edit is close enough to what the sources say that I don't object, so it may be an acceptable compromise. --RL0919 (talk) 14:51, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Comment

This article has been vigorously policed by a Rand fan base that will not continence the inclusion of information they feel "damaging" to Rand's legacy as an iconic avatar in the field of philosophy. The grip of this Rand watch group is continuous, and manipulatively vigilant, compromising the integrity of Misplaced Pages. That this entry has been considered for "Good Article" status is particularly egregious. The caution box posted on top of this page, only confirms the lack of impartiality practiced by "interested parties."Betempte (talk) 22:25, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

You need to list specific items rather than make general accusations. There are plenty of non-randinistas who monitor the page, but we have to take an evidence based approach ----Snowded 16:02, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

I'll bring one up. Rand is known for having a typically libertarian position on gay rights, which is that she's against the government discriminating but also against the government preventing discrimination. This isn't a secret, it's not even embarrassing (among libertarians), but I've had a lot of push-back when trying to fix the page so it says all this correctly. Coincidentally, this all came from a huge fan of Rand who runs a popular pro-Rand web site. MilesMoney (talk) 21:20, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

What is not coincidental is that there are no sources for this, because that's why you are getting pushback. Similarly, when another editor attempted to insert a long, blatantly non-neutral commentary against Rand based primarily on a posting to a political blog, it was quickly reverted by an editor who seems to have little interest in Rand but can recognize tendentious content. We are also confronted with the other side of the POV coin, editors who want to remove negative comment, no matter how well sourced. This fellow, for example, insisted that her literary and academic reception was not negative. Fortunately there was a cabal of hardened anti-Rand critics who resisted this ... oh, wait. --RL0919 (talk) 22:13, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

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