| > forming a "competing government" is an initiation of force How? > I don't think this is an interesting issue, though. Rand's philosophy is hierarchical: metaphysics, then epistemology, then morality, then politics. Derivative issues in politics are largely "implementation defined." For example, I don't think you can have a government without any taxes at all in today's world, whereas Rand thought no taxes would be the ideal thing to aim for. That issue doesn't have any bearing on whether Objectivism is correct or not. Surely one derives from the other, and contradictory conclusions at one level should indicate flaws at a higher level. "Check your premises." > So, it's an error of context to say that the non-aggression is some universal moral rule that implies that we all have to have anarcho-capitalism. It's not a moral rule, it's a political rule. It's part of the next level up. Then surely this defines Objectivist politics down towards nothing at all, since it can be violated at the point where it's necessary for a government to maintain monopoly over the use of force, and it can be violated before there's a government, and so forth. If you want to abandon Objectivist politics entirely you may, but the main selling point of Rand is her ability to derive "privately owned roads" from "the validity of the senses" (qua "concepts in a hat": http://mol.redbarn.org/objectivism/ConceptsInAHat/) > I don't claim that I can provide evidence for the things I say about Kant, because that evidence presupposes agreement on fundamentals of Objectivism, and that's not something I can provide evidence for either, other than pointing to reality and suggesting someone undertake a multi-year study of the Objectivist literature. So, the stuff about Kant is just intended as a "sampler," something to get someone thinking and maybe intrigued. The stuff about Kant is, to give largely the same handwavy explanation, utterly wrong as well. Rand may have built up Kant as a kind of straw man, but this isn't an honest or realistic reading of Kant. Rand's misreading of Kant is an honest mistake and a historical accident, not a useful introduction to Objectivism. > normal people do not have the epistemological background to _not_ make errors that have to do with disassociating abstractions (concepts, principles) from the concretes they refer to. Ayn Rand calls that "rationalism," and I think that's the category in which your mistake falls I think it's Rand who makes this error by making measurement omission so central to her epistemology. > the only thing that kept drawing me back to Objectivism was honestly realizing that nothing else made sense It's interesting that you have this psychological need for everything to make sense to you within a comprehensive system. This is the biggest and most problematic appeal of ideologues and systematists in philosophy, whether Rand or Hegel. |