Pragmatism vs Objectivism
Sometimes I wonder what a contemporary philosophy would look like that had the appeal of Ayn Rand's Objectivism had on me as a teenager.
There are certain aspects of her philosophy that resonated with me including the emphasis on Logic and Reason; the multi-discipline introduction to psychology, economics, politics, philosophy, ethics, and religion; that it felt anti-establishment; that it felt like a unified view; and that it was understandable to a bored precocious teenager.
Her version of logic and reason seems alien to me now. It has to do with us grasping the essence of objects. This is a version of essentialism and naive realism. This would be thrown out and there would be an emphasis on mathematics, logic, and informal reasoning. There would be a pragmatic sense of truth since there is no Essences or Facts to correspond to. Math and logic would be seen as man-made constructions that are incredibly useful and can reluctantly be changed. Her reasoning now feels like appeals to authority, appeals to belonging to the group "Objectivist", and plain bullying. Informal reasoning skills including how to detect logical fallacies such as those would be highlighted.
There would be an emphasis on contemporary psychology. Without Essentialism, how do we learn? There would be a focus on the cognitive side of psychology that would include development psychology including the theories of Piaget. There would be a focus of behavioural psychology that contrasts the psychological egoism (Homo Economicus) with observed behaviour. There would be a focus on the aspect of psychology and feelings/emotions are something that Objectivism does especially poorly on.
On economics, there would be an emphasis on macroeconomics. Looking at how government spending and tax cuts to the middle class can avoid a recession. Looking at the effects on the poor and middle class when there is an effective progressive tax rate. It would look at the ways to allocate scarce resources.
On politics, rights no longer have the essentialism of Natural Rights. There are no objectively defined laws. There is no Man's Nature to base a government on. There are only pragmatic ways to allocate scarce resources.
In ethics, we no longer have the essentialism of Man's life which supposedly gives us an objective standard of value. We have to look an pragmatically effective behaviour from psychology and ways of allocating scare resources from economics/politics.
In philosophy, without Essentialism, we have a pragmatism concepts of truth, behaviour, and societies.
In religion, she called herself an Atheist and was against faith, but her essentialist views were quite mediaeval Christian. In place of this, would simply be the academic and non-doctrinal University-level historical-critical approach to religion. This would include such things as the Documentary Hypothesis.
The anti-establishment feeling of Objectivism is odd as it feels radical and like you're rebelling against your tribe, but it ends up being only pedantically different from Christian Conservative Republican. Pragmatism would feel radical to those same people and might just be pedantically different from progressive liberals. The pragmatic philosophy I'm thinking of is still anti-establishment in philosophy compared to Analytic and Continental philosophy, but is more common place in other departments.
The unified view of essentialism has an appeal. We think we understand a great deal over many disciplines all based on one view. Pragmatism is broad, perhaps not equally so. Instead we need to go into greater details to the various disciplines.
The stuff I'm thinking of would be available to a bored precocious teenager. It is really just be material from introductory freshman courses in math, logic, informal reasoning, macroeconomics, philosophy, ethics, psychology, and religious texts. The big question would be whether to add in some calculus in there, which would be helpful, but not necessary.
There are certain aspects of her philosophy that resonated with me including the emphasis on Logic and Reason; the multi-discipline introduction to psychology, economics, politics, philosophy, ethics, and religion; that it felt anti-establishment; that it felt like a unified view; and that it was understandable to a bored precocious teenager.
Her version of logic and reason seems alien to me now. It has to do with us grasping the essence of objects. This is a version of essentialism and naive realism. This would be thrown out and there would be an emphasis on mathematics, logic, and informal reasoning. There would be a pragmatic sense of truth since there is no Essences or Facts to correspond to. Math and logic would be seen as man-made constructions that are incredibly useful and can reluctantly be changed. Her reasoning now feels like appeals to authority, appeals to belonging to the group "Objectivist", and plain bullying. Informal reasoning skills including how to detect logical fallacies such as those would be highlighted.
There would be an emphasis on contemporary psychology. Without Essentialism, how do we learn? There would be a focus on the cognitive side of psychology that would include development psychology including the theories of Piaget. There would be a focus of behavioural psychology that contrasts the psychological egoism (Homo Economicus) with observed behaviour. There would be a focus on the aspect of psychology and feelings/emotions are something that Objectivism does especially poorly on.
On economics, there would be an emphasis on macroeconomics. Looking at how government spending and tax cuts to the middle class can avoid a recession. Looking at the effects on the poor and middle class when there is an effective progressive tax rate. It would look at the ways to allocate scarce resources.
On politics, rights no longer have the essentialism of Natural Rights. There are no objectively defined laws. There is no Man's Nature to base a government on. There are only pragmatic ways to allocate scarce resources.
In ethics, we no longer have the essentialism of Man's life which supposedly gives us an objective standard of value. We have to look an pragmatically effective behaviour from psychology and ways of allocating scare resources from economics/politics.
In philosophy, without Essentialism, we have a pragmatism concepts of truth, behaviour, and societies.
In religion, she called herself an Atheist and was against faith, but her essentialist views were quite mediaeval Christian. In place of this, would simply be the academic and non-doctrinal University-level historical-critical approach to religion. This would include such things as the Documentary Hypothesis.
The anti-establishment feeling of Objectivism is odd as it feels radical and like you're rebelling against your tribe, but it ends up being only pedantically different from Christian Conservative Republican. Pragmatism would feel radical to those same people and might just be pedantically different from progressive liberals. The pragmatic philosophy I'm thinking of is still anti-establishment in philosophy compared to Analytic and Continental philosophy, but is more common place in other departments.
The unified view of essentialism has an appeal. We think we understand a great deal over many disciplines all based on one view. Pragmatism is broad, perhaps not equally so. Instead we need to go into greater details to the various disciplines.
The stuff I'm thinking of would be available to a bored precocious teenager. It is really just be material from introductory freshman courses in math, logic, informal reasoning, macroeconomics, philosophy, ethics, psychology, and religious texts. The big question would be whether to add in some calculus in there, which would be helpful, but not necessary.