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Ayn Rand and Friedrich A. Hayek: A Side-by-Side Comparison – Article by Edward W. Younkins

Ayn Rand and Friedrich A. Hayek: A Side-by-Side Comparison – Article by Edward W. Younkins

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The New Renaissance HatEdward W. Younkins
August 1, 2015
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Ayn Rand and Friedrich A. Hayek did more than any other writers in the Twentieth Century to turn intellectual opinion away from statism and toward a free society. Although they are opposed on many philosophical and social issues, they generally agree on the superiority of a free market. Rand’s defense of capitalism differs dramatically from Hayek’s explanation of the extended order. In addition, Hayek approves of state activity that violates Rand’s ideas of rights and freedom. The purpose of this brief essay is to describe, explain, and compare the ideas of these two influential thinkers. To do this, I present and explain an exhibit that provides a side-by-side summary of the differences between Rand and Hayek on a number of issues.

In their early years of writing, both Hayek and Rand were dismissed by intellectuals, but they were heralded by businessmen. Hayek began to gain some respect from intellectuals when he published The Road to Serfdom in 1944. He wrote a number of scholarly books, attained formal academic positions, and earned the Nobel Prize for economics in 1974. Rand never did write scholarly works or hold a formal academic position. Her philosophy must be extracted from her essays and her fiction.

Hayek was read in college classes sooner, and to a much greater extent, than was Rand. He was viewed by intellectuals as a responsible and respected scholar, and Rand was not. His vision of anti-statism was more acceptable to intellectuals because he called for some exceptions to laissez-faire capitalism. In his writings he permitted concessions for some state interventions. In his immense and varied body of work, he touched upon a great many fields, including anthropology, evolutionary biology, cognitive science, philosophy, economics, linguistics, political science, and intellectual history. During the last 25 years or so, Rand’s works have been increasingly studied by scholars. There is now an Ayn Rand Society affiliated with the American Philosophical Association and a scholarly publication devoted to the study of her ideas—The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies. In addition, her writings are now being covered in college classes.

A Summary Comparison

Exhibit I provides a summary comparison of Rand and Hayek based on a variety of factors and dimensions. With respect to metaphysics and epistemology, Rand holds that “A is A” and that reality is knowable. Contrariwise, Hayek argues that reality is unknowable and that what men see are distorted representations or reproductions of objects existing in the world. The skeptic Hayek goes so far as to state that the notion of things in themselves (i.e., the noumenal world) can be dismissed. Whereas Rand’s foundation is reality, the best that Hayek can offer as a foundation is words and language.

Hayek supports the view that the human mind must have a priori categories that are prior to, and responsible for the ability to perceive and interpret the external world. He adds to this Kantian view by making the case that each individual mind’s categories are restructured according to the distinct experiences of each particular person.   Each person’s neural connections can therefore be seen as semi-permanent and affected by his or her environment and experiences. The mind’s categories evolve as each specific person experiences the world. According to Hayek, there is pre-sensory knowledge embedded in the structure of the mind and the nervous system’s synaptic connections which can be further created and modified over time. For the neo-Kantian Hayek, knowledge always has a subjective quality.

Reason for Rand is active, volitional, and efficacious. It follows that she sees rationality as man’s primary virtue. She sees progress through science and technology as the result of the human ability to think conceptually and to analyze logically through induction and deduction. Rand also contends that people can develop objective concepts that correspond with reality.

In his philosophy, Hayek relegates reason to a minor role. He argues for a modest perspective of people’s reasoning capabilities. He contends that reason is passive and that it is a social product. Hayek’s message of intellectual humility is primarily aimed at constructivist rationalism rather than critical rationalism. As an “anti-rationalist,” he explained that the world is too complex for any government planner to intentionally design and construct society’s institutions. However, he is a proponent of the limited potential of critical rationalism through which individuals use local and tacit knowledge in their everyday decisions. Hayek views progress as a product of an ongoing dynamic evolutionary process. He said that we cannot know reality but we can analyze evolving words and language. Linguistic analysis and some limited empirical verification provide Hayek with somewhat of an analytical foundation. His coherence theory of concepts is based on agreement among minds. For Hayek, concepts happen to the mind. Of course, his overall theory of knowledge is that individuals know much more than can be expressed in words.

Rand makes a positive case for freedom based on the nature of man and the world. She explains that man’s distinctive nature is exhibited in his rational thinking and free will. Each person has the ability to think his own thoughts and control his own energies in his efforts to act according to those thoughts. People are rational beings with free wills who have the ability to fulfill their own life purposes, aims, and intentions. Rand holds that each individual person has moral significance. He or she exists, perceives, experiences, thinks and acts in and through his or her own body and therefore from unique points in time and space. It follows that the distinct individual person is the subject of value and the unit of social analysis. Each individual is responsible for thinking for himself, for acting on his own thoughts, and for achieving his own happiness.

Hayek denies the existence of free will. However, he explains that people act as if they have free will because they are never able to know how they are determined to act by various biological, cultural, and environmental factors. His negative case for freedom is based on the idea that no one person or government agency is able to master the complex multiplicity of elements needed to do so. Such relevant knowledge is never totally possessed by any one individual. There are too many circumstances and variables affecting a situation to take them all into account. His solution to this major problem is to permit people the “freedom” to pursue and employ the information they judge to be the most relevant to their chosen goals. For Hayek, freedom is good because it best promotes the growth of knowledge in society. Hayek explains that in ordering society we should depend as much as possible on spontaneous forces such as market prices and as little as possible on force. Acknowledging man’s socially-constructed nature, he does not view individuals as independent agents but rather as creatures of society.

According to Rand, the principle of man’s rights can be logically derived from man’s nature and needs. Rights are a moral concept. For Rand, the one fundamental right is a person’s right to his own life. She explains that rights are objective conceptual identifications of the factual requirements of a person’s life in a social context. A right is a moral principle that defines and sanctions one’s freedom of action in a social context. Discussion of individual rights are largely absent from Hayek’s writings. At most he says that rights are created by society through the mechanism of law.

Whereas Rand speaks of Objective Law, Hayek speaks of the Rule of Law. Objective laws must be clearly expressed in terms of essential principles. They must be objectively justifiable, impartial, consistent, and intelligible. Rand explains that objective law is derived from the rational principle of individual rights. Objective Law deals with the specific requirements of a man’s life. Individuals must know in advance what the law forbids them from doing, what constitutes a violation, and what penalty would be incurred if they break the law. Hayek says that the Rule of Law is the opposite of arbitrary government. The Rule of Law holds that government coercion must be limited by known, general, and abstract rules. According to Hayek certain abstract rules of conduct came into being because groups who adopted them became better able to survive and prosper. These rules are universally applicable to everyone and maintain a sphere of responsibility.

Rand espouses a rational objective morality based on reason and egoism. In her biocentric ethics, moral behavior is judged in relation to achieving specific ends with the final end being an individual’s life, flourishing, and happiness. For Hayek, ethics is based on evolution and emotions. Ethics for Hayek are functions of biology and socialization. They are formed through habits and imitation.

Rand advocates a social system of laissez-faire capitalism in which the sole function of the state is the protection of individual rights. Hayek, or the other hand, allows for certain exceptions and interventions to make things work. He holds that it is acceptable for the government to supply public goods and a safety net.

For Rand, the consciousness of the individual human person is the highest level of mental functioning. For Hayek, it is a supra-conscious framework of neural connections through which conscious mental activity gains meaning. He states that this meta-conscious mechanism is taken for granted by human beings. The set of a person’s physiological impulses forms what Hayek calls the sensory order. Perception and pattern recognition follow one’s sensory order which is altered by a person’s own perception and history of experiences

Aristotle is Rand’s only acknowledged philosophical influence. They both contend that to make life fully human (i.e., to flourish), an individual must acquire virtues and make use of his reason as fully as he is capable. Hayek was influenced by Kant and Popper in epistemology, Ferguson and Smith in evolutionary theory, Hume in ethics, and Wittgenstein in linguistics.

Although Rand and Hayek are opposed on many philosophical questions, they generally agree on the desirability of a free market and are among the most well-known defenders of capitalism in the twentieth century. The works of both of these intellectual giants are highly recommended for any student of liberty.

 Exhibit I

A Summary Comparison

 

Rand

  

Hayek
Foundation Reality Words and Language
Knowledge Reality is knowable. Skepticism – The idea of things in themselves can be dismissed.
Reason Reason is active, volitional, and efficacious. Reason is passive and a social product.
Progress Based on power of human reason and conscious thought Evolution and social selection
Analytic Method Logical analysis, including induction and deduction Linguistic analysis and empiricism
Theory of Concepts Objective concepts that correspond with reality Coherence or agreement among minds
Freedom Positive case for freedom Negative case for “freedom”
Free Will Man has free will. Man is determined but acts as if he has free will.
Subject of value and unit of social analysis Individual happiness Perpetuation of society (i.e., the group)
The Individual Independent Dependent—man is socially constituted
Rights Based on the nature of the human person Created by society through law
Law Objective Law Rule of Law
Ethics and Morality Rational objective morality based on reason and egoism Evolutionary and emotive ethics based on altruism which is noble but cannot be implemented because of ignorance. Established through habits and imitation
Desired Social System Laissez-faire capitalism Minimal welfare state that supplies public goods and safety net
Highest level of understanding and mental functioning Consciousness of the Individual Meta-conscious framework—neural connections
Philosophical influences Aristotle Ferguson, Smith, Kant, Hume, Popper, Wittgenstein
G. Stolyarov II Interviews Kyrel Zantonavitch, Author of “Pure Liberal Fire”

G. Stolyarov II Interviews Kyrel Zantonavitch, Author of “Pure Liberal Fire”

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On March 7, 2015, Mr. Stolyarov invited Kyrel Zantonavitch, the author of Pure Liberal Fire: Brief Essays on the New, General, and Perfected Philosophy of Western Liberalism and founder of The Liberal Institute, to discuss his original philosophical framework and its relationship to Objectivism, Classical Liberalism, Austrian Economics, Libertarianism, and Transhumanism. Mr. Zantonavitch was asked challenging questions regarding his ideas and provocative approach, as well as the objectives of his philosophical system. The intense discussion – which, in some places, became a debate – highlighted both areas of agreement and areas of disagreement between Mr. Stolyarov and Mr. Zantonavitch.

Pure Liberal Fire is available on Amazon here.

The website of The Liberal Institute is here.

Mr. Stolyarov’s review of Pure Liberal Fire  describes Mr. Zantonavitch’s thinking thus: “There is perhaps not a single thinker in the world more fearless than Kyrel Zantonavitch. Pure Liberal Fire is the direct, provocative distillation of his thoughts on metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, politics, economics, culture, religion, and the history of philosophy – including Objectivism and Classical Liberalism. Zantonavitch seeks to evoke a pure, true liberalism, and he shows no mercy for ideologies and attitudes that constitute its antithesis. He certainly leaves no doubt in the reader’s mind about where he stands on the issues addressed – and each article within the book employs an abundance of superlative expressions – be they positive or negative. When Zantonavitch praises, he really praises – and the same goes for when he condemns.”

Mr. Stolyarov’s response to Mr. Zantonavitch’s approach is characterized by the following comment: “Zantonavitch’s approach and style would entail achieving a fiery, dramatic, immediate deposition of everything (every person, every policy, every idea) he considers evil, dangerous, or damaging. My view of reform is more surgical, focused on getting the sequence of steps right so as to minimize the damage inflicted during the transition while ridding the world of the disease of bad policies (and, in a more long-term fashion, through persuasion and free-market education, also ridding it of bad thinking of the sort that motivates bad policies).”

Freedom Encourages Goodwill to All – Article by Bradley Doucet

Freedom Encourages Goodwill to All – Article by Bradley Doucet

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The New Renaissance Hat
Bradley Doucet
December 18, 2014
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“Christopher Hitchens on libertarians: ‘I have always found it quaint and rather touching that there is a movement in the U.S. that thinks Americans are not yet selfish enough.'”

A friend posted the above statement on Facebook a few weeks ago, along with a photo of the late Christopher Hitchens, and added the following comment of his own: “He was often a complete idiot (being a contrarian was his fatal, childish flaw), but in this case, he’s right on target.” I couldn’t help myself; I responded, no doubt unhelpfully, that although Hitchens was always an entertaining writer, he was as childishly wrong about this as he could possibly be.

In the spirit of the season, let me take a few moments here to try to be a bit more helpful. First of all, to clarify, far from thinking that Americans are not yet selfish enough, libertarians think that human beings are not yet free enough, whether they live in Bangor, Maine or Bangladesh. Whether you use the greater liberty libertarians want you to have to help your fellow man or to go off and live in the woods by yourself is strictly speaking immaterial. Freedom makes you free; what you do with that freedom is up to you, and has nothing really to do with libertarianism.

To be fair to Hitchens, though, there are some libertarians who explicitly endorse a form of selfishness, and these are probably the people to whom he was referring. They are fans and followers of Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand. Provocatively enough, Rand wrote a book entitled The Virtue of Selfishness, so part of the blame falls on her shoulders for preferring provocation over clarity. Because the selfishness to which this title alludes is more properly called rational or enlightened self-interest.

As anyone who has actually read Rand’s work will confirm, the selfishness that she advocated amounts to saying: Your life belongs to you. It does not belong to your parents, or your neighbour, or your honourable representatives in government. It is yours to live as you see fit. But as a direct and explicit corollary, neither does your neighbour’s life belong to you. Neither a slave nor a master be.

The alternative to dealing with other human beings through the use of force, as masters and slaves, is to deal with each other voluntarily, as traders, offering value for value. If your self-interested end is to become rich, the only way to do so while respecting the code of honour promulgated by Ayn Rand is to offer other people something they want and are willing to pay you for. What a rotten, selfish bitch, eh?

In fact, liberating people to enrich themselves through trade and innovation, and assigning dignity to this pursuit of material plenty, is precisely what has made large swaths of the world so fabulously wealthy by historical standards. Criticizing the “selfishness” of honest, hard-working, creative people who just want to improve their lot—as did a feature on the rise of China in this weekend’s Globe and Mail—therefore risks undoing the great material progress of modern civilization.

The notion that forcing people to be less self-interested would promote anything but resentment is really difficult for me to wrap my head around, Hitch’s wisecracks notwithstanding. If we want to promote a feeling of goodwill to all, we need to let people be free to enrich themselves by providing value to others. Only to the extent that we come to see each other primarily as sources of value rather than as threats to our security, as traders rather than as masters and slaves, will we approach that other Christmas ideal: peace on Earth.

Bradley Doucet is Le Québécois Libre‘s English Editor and the author of the blog Spark This: Musings on Reason, Liberty, and Joy. A writer living in Montreal, he has studied philosophy and economics, and is currently completing a novel on the pursuit of happiness.
Nathaniel Branden Remembered – Article by Edward Hudgins

Nathaniel Branden Remembered – Article by Edward Hudgins

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The New Renaissance Hat
Edward Hudgins
December 7, 2014
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I first met Nathaniel Branden, who passed away on the morning of December 3, 2014, in fall 1983. I had successfully passed my Ph.D. oral defense of dissertation that morning, so except for shuffling paperwork, I was now “Doctor Hudgins.” I don’t know how others would mark such a milestone, but I was eager that evening to hear Branden’s talk on “The Benefits and Hazards of the Philosophy of Ayn Rand [1].”

Discovering Ayn Rand [2] and Nathaniel Branden

 

I had discovered and loved the works of Rand a decade earlier. She presented a vision of a rational world of flourishing, self-actuated, self-confident, achievement-oriented individuals, in sharp contrast to the corrosive culture of whim-worshipping irrationality and self-abnegation of that time.

Nathaniel Branden, Edward Hudgins, and Barbara BrandenThe author with Nathaniel Branden (1930-2014) and Barbara Branden, 2007.
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With Rand, of course, I encountered Nathaniel Branden. I knew he had been her philosophical heir-apparent, and that they had had an angry break. And I had heard rumors of their affair. But even though he was persona non grata in Objectivist circles, I eagerly read his post-Rand books, including The Psychology of Self-Esteem [3], Breaking Free, and The Disowned Self.

The latter two were especially important. The Objectivist world at the time had what some called cult-like qualities, which Branden himself later acknowledged he had helped create in his years with Rand. One simply was to assume that Ayn Rand [2] was right about everything, and as a “student of Objectivism [4]” your goal was simply to understand her philosophy. Ironically, independent thinking–a key Objectivist virtue–was frowned upon in practice.

Nathaniel Branden’s Breaking Free

 

While Branden in Breaking Free and The Disowned Self was not directly addressing the defects of the Objectivism [4] movement, he was dealing with self-alienation and other deep problems that held individuals back from being independent and flourishing. He was clearly drawing from the problems he had encountered in individuals who loved Rand’s vision but found the official Objectivist movement stifling.

So that evening in 1983 I listened to Branden address head-on the benefits and hazards of Rand’s philosophy. It was refreshing and liberating. Whether I agreed completely with his analysis or not, there was now a more open, adult conversation going on about the Rand and the philosophy.

Branden argued that Objectivism [4] indeed presented a radiant vision of, in Rand’s words, what the world can be and should be. But too many individuals who loved Rand’s vision saw themselves as so far removed from the heroes of her novels that they despaired. Too many would say “I’m no Roark or Galt, so I must be no good.”

Technology for Self-Esteem Pioneered by Nathaniel Branden

 

Branden defined his goal as creating the psychological technology to help individuals get from where they were to where they wanted to be.

Branden is often credited as being the father of the modern self-esteem movement. This is true, but misleading. Today, many see “self-esteem” as a lazy and vacuous glance in the mirror to say “I’m great!” Branden defined self-esteem as the recognition that one is worthy of happiness and capable of achieving it. But happiness and flourishing require effort.

In The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem [5] he identified the necessary practices to reach those goals as living consciously, self-acceptance, self-responsibility, self-assertiveness, living purposefully, and personal integrity. Branden was, in effect, operationalizing Rand’s dictum that “as man is a being of self-made wealth, so he is a being of self-made soul.”

Over the decades that followed “Benefits and Hazards” I had many opportunities to attend and to host conferences with Branden, to discuss with him his insights about psychology and about Objectivism [4], and to see the benefits that his own work brought to many in this world.

To his wife, Leigh, and all his friends I pass along my condolences. Keep in your hearts and minds the good memories of him. He would have wanted it that way.

Links:

[1] http://nathanielbranden.com/the-benefits-and-hazards-of-the-philosophy-of-ayn-rand-mp3
[2] http://www.atlassociety.org/ayn_rand
[3] http://nathanielbranden.com/on-self-esteem/the-psychology-of-self-esteem/
[4] http://www.atlassociety.org/objectivism
[5] http://nathanielbranden.com/on-self-esteem/the-six-pillars-of-self-esteem-the-definitive-work-on-self-esteem-by-the-leading-pioneer-in-the-field/

***

Dr. Edward Hudgins directs advocacy and is a senior scholar for The Atlas Society, the center for Objectivism in Washington, D.C.

Copyright, The Atlas Society. For more information, please visit www.atlassociety.org.

The Straw Rand Fallacy – Article by Bradley Doucet

The Straw Rand Fallacy – Article by Bradley Doucet

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The New Renaissance Hat
Bradley Doucet
September 13, 2014
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MythsRandMany critics of Ayn Rand have a maddening tendency to take her to task for ideas she did not defend and in fact explicitly rejected. They would rather score cheap debating points, it seems, than actually think about her challenging vision of the possibilities of human life. Disagree with her all you want, but as Laurie Rice puts it in the introduction to Myths about Ayn Rand: Popular Errors and the Insights They Conceal, “If you value your argument, you do it a disservice by misrepresenting its opponent.”

This slim volume of essays, published by the folks at The Atlas Society (for whom I have written) does a good job of dispelling some of the disinformation you may have come across regarding the author of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. And when the Kindle edition is available for a buck and can be read through in one sitting, critics have no excuse for getting it wrong.

David Kelly kicks things off by showing that Rand was not an elitist. Yes, the heroes of her novels are high achievers, which is what makes them so inspiring, but she explicitly rejected the notion that such people were morally superior to others and should rule over the rest of humanity. On her vision, Kelly writes, “It isn’t for the privileged, but for the productive. It isn’t against the poor, but against the irrational, the slothful, the envious, and the power-seeking—whatever their origin or social status.”

Will Thomas takes the baton for myths two to five, explaining why Rand was not a conservative, was not for dog-eat-dog selfishness, and was not simply pro-wealthy or pro-business, and arguing also that she was indeed a serious philosopher. On this last point, Thomas tells us that although she was not an academic scholar, her views have come to have some influence on academic philosophy, especially in the realms of ethics and political philosophy, but also increasingly in epistemology as well.

Yet her philosophy, in very non-elitist fashion, has admittedly had more influence on ordinary people, and indeed, Rand argued persuasively that philosophy is for everyone, that it is something we all need. As Thomas writes, her novels are not just popular because of their entertainment value—though they are entertaining, despite another widespread myth not explicitly addressed in this collection. “When people read Rand, they are inspired, and challenged, and made to rethink what they’ve been taught. That’s because Rand offers them timeless and compelling ideas about human life and the world we live in. It’s her philosophy that keeps readers coming back.”

In the postscript, Alexander Cohen takes up this theme in an open response to President Obama’s implication, during the 2012 election campaign, that Rand is for teenagers. Cohen writes, “If you’re the sort of teenager who wants an uplifting moral vision, a vision of joy and achievement rather than suffering and sacrifice […] then Ayn Rand is for you.” But if you didn’t happen to discover her as a teen, and if you’re the sort of adult who also wants to be uplifted and inspired, then Ayn Rand just might be for you, too.

Bradley Doucet is Le Québécois Libre‘s English Editor and the author of the blog Spark This: Musings on Reason, Liberty, and Joy. A writer living in Montreal, he has studied philosophy and economics, and is currently completing a novel on the pursuit of happiness. He also writes for The New Individualist, an Objectivist magazine published by The Atlas Society, and sings.
Ontological Realism and Creating the One Real Future – Video by G. Stolyarov II

Ontological Realism and Creating the One Real Future – Video by G. Stolyarov II

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The New Renaissance Hat
G. Stolyarov II
August 23, 2014
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An ongoing debate in ontology concerns the question of whether ideas or the physical reality have primacy. Mr. Stolyarov addresses the implications of the primacy of the physical reality for human agency in the pursuit of life and individual flourishing. Transhumanism and life extension are in particular greatly aided by an ontological realist (and physicalist) framework of thought.

References

– “Ontological Realism and Creating the One Real Future” – Essay by G. Stolyarov II
– “Objective Reality” – Video by David Kelley
– A Rational Cosmology – Treatise by G. Stolyarov II
– “Putting Randomness in Its Place” – Essay by G. Stolyarov II
– “Putting Randomness in Its Place” – Video by G. Stolyarov II

Review of “The Transhumanist Wager” by Zoltan Istvan – Article by Kyrel Zantonavitch

Review of “The Transhumanist Wager” by Zoltan Istvan – Article by Kyrel Zantonavitch

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The New Renaissance Hat
Kyrel Zantonavitch
August 20, 2014
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The Transhumanist Wager by Zoltan Istvan is available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle formats.

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This is the best novel I’ve read in over 30 years! I don’t ever expect to see its like again. Fascinating, amazing, and shocking to the point of numbness.

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It’s rather comparable to Atlas Shrugged — the earth-shaking epic and classic by Ayn Rand from 1957. It has Atlas Shrugged’s magisterial story sweep and stunning philosophical ambition. It has Rand’s quasi-god-like heroism too. And like the other novel, Zoltan Istvan’s book is looking to mercilessly conquer the world.

***

Let’s hope!

***

Mr. Istvan’s thunderous 300-page saga, The Transhumanist Wager, is a truly remarkable novel of ideas. It’s unique. It has no peers or rivals. And it’s completely unexpected and unprecedented.

***

Like Atlas Shrugged, it offers many formidable intellectual challenges. One or two of these I’ve yet to work out. Like Rand’s lengthy magnum opus, The Transhumanist Wager is mesmerizingly philosophically bold and rich. And like Atlas, it’s rather repetitive in introducing these dynamic, new ideas to a silently dumbfounded world. But at least you clearly know where each novelist-philosopher stands on the issues, and what controversial and ferocious thing they each have to teach us.

***

I find this to be an unapologetically extreme and revolutionary book. A true tour de force and deep-thinking book which comes at all of us from out of the blue. If you don’t read it, you’re fatuously and tragically missing out. Wager is a historical game-changer, and likely to spark a new era in mankind’s evolution. Humans will never be the same.

***

It seems a shame and crime to give away virtually anything in the plot, so I’ll keep it very light. The hero of the story seeks a truly astounding level of personal growth and, simultaneously, human evolutionary ascent. He effectively threatens to dethrone Zeus himself. Whether Jethro Knights — the alter ego of Zoltan Istvan – actually achieves this is something the high-intelligence, high-virtue reader will have to find out for himself.

***

This book is jaw-droppingly ambitious and powerful. It’s also massively persuasive. The novel is filled with energy, zealotry, ferocity, honesty, courage, and heedless impetuosity. A visionary and fundamentalist book of gigantic and fearless integrity which is almost utterly loyal to its own monumental and yet somewhat narrow beliefs. But make no mistake: these ideas and beliefs are world-rocking.

***

Ultimately, Mr. Istvan is a slightly but significantly limited philosopher. He’s not an Objectivist, and isn’t that familiar with Ayn Rand’s intellectual beliefs and theories, evidently. Still, I consider Zoltan Istvan to be an immensely powerful neoliberal thinker and a formidable cultural warrior. He fights for the Good Guys; and he aims to capture a great deal of the future. Amazingly, Mr. Istvan may have come to these ultra-high-level theories and points of view without having had much help from today’s leading neoliberals: the economic Austrians, the political libertarians, and the philosophical Objectivists. Maybe Zoltan Istvan just used his own exceptionally high virtue and Herculean fearlessness to derive his “transhumanist” philosophy from the classics of human literature and intellectualism, especially the Greeks, Romans, Renaissance, and Enlightenment thinkers. Astonishing, if true!

***

And yet…Mr. Istvan isn’t that strong a neoliberal. He, his hero, and this novel don’t entirely believe in the epistemology of reason, the ethics of individualism, and the politics of liberty.

***

Still, what a dynamo and hero this Zoltan character is! What a vivacious, ferocious, and catastrophic cultural warrior! Mr. Istvan is a one-man wrecking crew of contemporary culture and evidently a magnificent being of immense and singular stature. Or at least his alter ego in the story is.

***

Altho’ the ideas inside somewhat overwhelm it, The Transhumanist Wager is a genuine novel which tells a dramatic, wonderous, and wide-ranging tale. The plot is exciting, involving, and enthralling. The characters are generally believable, often archetypal, and sometimes indelible. This is a heroic epic which transverses the entire planet and overwhelmingly impacts all of mankind.

***

I also found this book to be a hugely enjoyable, winding, and suspenseful yarn. It’s great fun to read, and even more fun to think about.

***

Overall I consider Zoltan Istvan’s The Transhumanist Wager to be outstanding as a novel, and even better as a book of theoretical and practical philosophy, regarding the shooting-star ascent of man, and our soon-to-be superhuman future.

***

Kyrel Zantonavitch is the founder of The Liberal Institute  (http://www.liberalinstitute.com/) and a writer for Rebirth of Reason (http://www.rebirthofreason.com). He can be contacted at zantonavitch@gmail.com.

Ontological Realism and Creating the One Real Future – Article by G. Stolyarov II

Ontological Realism and Creating the One Real Future – Article by G. Stolyarov II

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The New Renaissance Hat
G. Stolyarov II
August 13, 2014
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An ongoing debate in ontology concerns the question of whether ideas or the physical reality have primacy. In my view, the physical reality is clearly ontologically primary, because it makes possible the thinking and idea-generation which exist only as very sophisticated emergent processes depending on multiple levels of physical structures (atoms, cells, tissues, organs, organisms of sufficient complexity – and then a sufficiently rich history of sensory experience to make the formation of interesting ideas supportable).

One of my favorite contemporary philosophers is David Kelley – an Objectivist but one very open to philosophical innovation – without the dogmatic taint that characterized the later years of Ayn Rand and some of her followers today. He has recently released a video entitled “Objective Reality”, where he discusses the idea of the primacy of existence over consciousness. Here, I seek to address the primacy of the physical reality in its connection with several additional considerations – the concepts of essences and qualia, as well as the implications of the primacy of the physical reality for human agency in the pursuit of life and individual flourishing.

Essences

Some ontological idealists – proponents of the primacy of ideas – will claim that the essence of an entity exists outside of that entity, in a separate realm of “immaterial” ideas akin to Plato’s forms. On the contrary, on essences, I am of an Aristotelian persuasion that the essence of a thing is part of that very thing; it is the sum of the qualities of an entity, without which that entity could not have been what it is. The essences do not exist apart from any thing – but rather any thing of a particular sort that exists has the essence which defines it as that thing – along with perhaps some other incidental qualities which are not constitutive to it being that thing.

For instance, a chair may be painted blue or green or any other color, and it may have three legs instead of four, and it may have some dents in it – but it would still be a chair. But if all chairs were destroyed, and no one remembered what a chair was, there would be no ideal Platonic form of the chair floating out there somewhere. In that sense, I differ from the idealists’ characterization of essences as “immaterial”. Rather, an essence always characterizes a material entity or process performed by material entities.

Qualia

Qualia are an individual’s subjective, conscious experiences of reality – for instance, how an individual perceives the color red or the sound of a note played on an instrument. But qualia, too, have a material grounding. As a physicalist, I understand qualia to be the result of physical processes within the body and brain that generate certain sensory perceptions of the world. It follows that different qualia can only be generated if one’s organism has different physical components.

A bat, a fly, or a whale would certainly experience the same external reality differently from a human. Most humans (the ones whose sense organs are not damaged or characterized by genetic defects) have the same essential perceptual structures and so, if placed within the exact same vantage point relative to an object, would perceive it in the same way (with regard to what appears before their senses). After that, of course, what they choose to focus on with their minds and how they choose to interpret what they see (in terms of opinions, associations, decisions regarding what to do next) could differ greatly. The physical perception is objective, but the interpretation of that perception is subjective. But by emulating the sensory organs of another organism (even a bat or a fly), it should be possible to perceive what that organism perceives. I delve into this principle in some detail in Chapter XII of A Rational Cosmology: “The Objectivity of Consciousness”.

Importance of Ontological Realism to Life, Flourishing, and Human Agency

Some opponents of ontological realism might classify it as a “naïve” perspective and claim that those who see physical reality as primary are inappropriately assigning it “ontological privilege”. On the contrary, I strongly hold that this world is the one and that, certainly, events that happen in this world are ontologically privileged for having happened – as opposed to the uncountably many possibilities for what might have happened but did not. Moreover, I see this recognition as an essential starting point for the endeavor which is really at the heart of individual liberty, life extension, transhumanism, and, more generally, a consistent vision of humanism and morality: the preservation of the individual – of all individuals who have not committed irreparable wrongs – from physical demise.

I am not an adherent of the “many worlds” interpretation of quantum mechanics, which some may posit in opposition to my view of the primacy of the single physical reality which we directly experience and inhabit. Indeed, to me, it does not appear that quantum mechanics has a valid philosophical interpretation at all (at least not until some extremely rational and patient philosopher delves into it and tries to puzzle it out); rather, it is a set of equations that is reasonably predictive of the behavior of subatomic particles (sometimes) through a series of probabilistic models. Perhaps in part due to my work in another highly probability-driven area – actuarial science – my experience informs me that probabilistic models are at best only useful approximations of phenomena that may not yet be accessible to us in other ways, and a substantial fraction of the time the models are wildly wrong anyway. As for the very concept of randomness itself, it is a useful epistemological idea, but not a valid metaphysical one, as I explain in my essay “Putting Randomness in Its Place“.

In my view, the past is irreversible, and it happened in the one particular way it happened. The future is full of potential, because it has not happened yet, and the emergent property of human volition enables it to happen in a multitude of ways, depending on the paths we choose. In a poetic sense, it could be said that many worlds unfold before us, but with every passing moment, we pick one of them and that world becomes the one irreversibly, while the others are not retained anywhere. Not only is this understanding a necessary prerequisite for the concept of moral responsibility (our actions have consequences in bringing about certain outcomes, for which we can be credited or faulted, rewarded or punished), but it is also necessary as a foundation for the life-extension premise itself.

If there were infinitely many possible universes, where each of us could have died or not died at every possible instant, then in some of those hypothetical universes, we would have all already been beneficiaries of indefinite life extension. Imagine a universe where humanity was lucky and avoided all of the wars, tyrannies, epidemics, and superstitions that plagued our history and, as a result, was able to progress so rapidly that indefinite longevity would have been already known to the ancient Greeks! This would make for fascinating fiction, and I readily admit to enjoying the occasional retrospective “What if?” contemplation – e.g., what if the Jacobins had not taken over during the French Revolution, or what if Otto von Bismarck had never come to power in Germany, or what if the attacks of September 11, 2001 (a major setback for human progress, largely due to the reactionary violation of civil liberties by Western governments) had never happened? Unfortunately, from an ontological perspective, I do not have that luxury of rewriting the past.  As for the future, it can only be written through actions that affect the physical world, but any tools we can create to help us do this would be welcome.

This is certainly not the best of all possible worlds (a point amply demonstrated in one of my favorite works, Voltaire’s Candide), but it is the world we find ourselves in, through a variety of historical accidents, path-dependencies, and our own prior choices and their foreseen and unforeseen repercussions. But this is indeed our starting point when it comes to any future action, and the choice each of us ultimately faces is whether (i) to become a passive victim of the “larger forces” in this world (to conform or “adapt”, as many people like to call it), (ii) to create an alternate world using imagination and subjective experience only, or (iii) to physically alter this world to fit the parameters of a more just, happy, safe, and prosperous existence – a task to which only we are suited (since there is no cosmic justice or higher power). It should be clear by now that I strongly favor the third option. We should, through our physical deeds, harness the laws of nature to create the world we would wish to inhabit.

Fearless, Provocative, and Inescapably Thought-Provoking: Review of Kyrel Zantonavitch’s “Pure Liberal Fire” – Article by G. Stolyarov II

Fearless, Provocative, and Inescapably Thought-Provoking: Review of Kyrel Zantonavitch’s “Pure Liberal Fire” – Article by G. Stolyarov II

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The New Renaissance Hat
G. Stolyarov II
May 16, 2014
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Pure Liberal Fire by Kyrel Zantonavitch is available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle formats.
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There is perhaps not a single thinker in the world more fearless than Kyrel Zantonavitch. Pure Liberal Fire is the direct, provocative distillation of his thoughts on metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, politics, economics, culture, religion, and the history of philosophy – including Objectivism and Classical Liberalism. Zantonavitch seeks to evoke a pure, true liberalism, and he shows no mercy for ideologies and attitudes that constitute its antithesis. He certainly leaves no doubt in the reader’s mind about where he stands on the issues addressed – and each article within the book employs an abundance of superlative expressions – be they positive or negative. When Zantonavitch praises, he really praises – and the same goes for when he condemns.
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I give this book a rating of five stars because it invariably makes people think – no matter who they are or what their starting persuasions and assumptions might be. There are many areas in which I strongly agree with Zantonavitch – and quite a few where I strongly disagree as well. He articulates many valid points about the fundamentals of philosophy, the importance of liberty in political theory, atheism, the damage perpetrated by various political movements and policies, and the unfortunate tendencies among historical and current Objectivists toward dogmatism and conformism instead of independent thought and the honest pursuit of truth. Some of our areas of disagreement include war, areas of foreign policy, and, perhaps more generally, the desired mechanisms for achieving societal change.

Zantonavitch’s approach and style would entail achieving a fiery, dramatic, immediate deposition of everything (every person, every policy, every idea) he considers evil, dangerous, or damaging. My view of reform is more surgical, focused on getting the sequence of steps right so as to minimize the damage inflicted during the transition while ridding the world of the disease of bad policies (and, in a more long-term fashion, through persuasion and free-market education, also ridding it of bad thinking of the sort that motivates bad policies).

Zantonavitch combines his no-holds-barred treatment of his subject matters with a unique dialectical technique. There are several places in a book where he characterizes a particular set of ideas (or people) in a strongly negative way – but then later (or earlier) also portrays them as either highly praiseworthy, or at the very least understandable and characterized by redeeming attributes. Two examples that come to mind are (1) his discussions of Objectivism as a brainwashing cult in some places and as the most advanced, best-developed philosophy to date in others, and (2) his characterizations in some places of religious believers as not particularly bad as long as they do not take their belief too seriously – and in other places of anyone who believes in a god or teaches his/her children such beliefs as being guilty of evil and/or abuse. The reader can glimpse in this a deliberate juxtaposition of these opposing characterizations in a dialectical fashion – in an attempt to examine both the positive and the negative aspects of the ideas and behaviors Zantonavitch is writing about. (With regard to Objectivism, there is definitely merit in pointing out both the great strengths and the failures, as I have myself done, for instance.) This also creates a second layer of meaning in Zantonavitch’s work, as his uses of positive and negative superlatives with regard to the same subject are seldom immediately close to one another. While the rest of his writing endeavors to be extremely direct (indeed, provocative) with regard to its meaning, he seems to expect his readers to make their own connections in this respect without him deliberately pointing them out. As a result, with regard to Objectivism especially, Zantonavitch’s readers have the opportunity to acquire a more balanced, nuanced view after having been exposed to both his glorious praise and his scathing condemnation of the philosophy.

A Rational Cosmology – Treatise by G. Stolyarov II – Third Edition

A Rational Cosmology – Treatise by G. Stolyarov II – Third Edition

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A Rational Cosmology - Third Edition - by G. Stolyarov II

A Rational Cosmology – Third Edition – by G. Stolyarov II

Contemporary science does not make as much progress as it could, due the fallacy of empiricism-positivism – the idea that no knowledge is certain beyond refutation and that every claim is contingent on highly narrow, particular, and expensive experiments. A Rational Cosmology, however, provides a thorough refutation of prevalent empiricist-positivist fallacies, both in content and in method. It shatters some of the erroneous philosophical interpretations of theories such as Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. Moreover, it refutes the ex nihilo origin of the universe – including its manifestation in popular views of the Big Bang and Big Crunch – the particle/wave view of light, and a host of other fallacious ideas, using the proper, axiomatic-deductive methodology of identifying those theories’ conceptual flaws and internal contradictions.

As constructive alternatives to these fallacies, A Rational Cosmology presents objective, absolute, rationally grounded views of terms such as universe, matter, volume, space, time, motion, sound, light, forces, fields, and even the higher-order concepts of life, consciousness, and volition. The result is a system verified by ubiquitous observation and common sense, the underpinnings of objective science which demonstrate a knowable, fathomable reality and set the stage for unfettered progress, confidence in reason, and full-scale logical investigation of just about everything existence has to offer.

The Third Edition of A Rational Cosmology has been enhanced and edited, with augmentations and revisions to several of the previous essays. There is a new, beautiful cover design by Wendy D. Stolyarov. Furthermore, there are two additional numbered essays and more recent writings within the Related Essays section.

For the first time, A Rational Cosmology is available for free download in the form of unified files. There are four options to choose from.

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The Rational Argumentator welcomes your reviews of A Rational Cosmology. You can submit them to TRA by sending them to gennadystolyarovii@yahoo.com. You are also encouraged to spread the word by reprinting the information on this page or your own comments concerning the book on other media outlets.