(Part 2) Top products from r/Objectivism

Fiction books written by Objectivists:

• Noble Vision: A brilliant surgeon must choose between his career and freedom, and the woman he loves.
  
• The Sparrowhawk Series: Set at the time of the American Revolution, Jack Frake falls in with a band of smugglers and learns the meaning of freedom.
  
• Table For One (Graphic Novel): An artist must navigate his last night at his uncle's restaurant, and the return of his mysterious ex.
  
• Hunter: Thriller, who is hunter and who is hunted?
  
  And finally, here is a list of tons of libertarian and Objectivist fiction including several lesser known works by Rand.

By the way, this conversation has followed a very typical routine.

Person A says "How does one directly perceive the universe, as Rand says is possible, without the flaws of the senses interfering? That doesn't make sense." Rand says it's logically impossible for your perceptions to be incorrect or you wouldn't be able to argue that your perceptions are incorrect.

Someone like you comes along and after several rounds winds up backpedaling to a perfectly reasonable position, in this case, "my senses are sufficiently accurate that with additional reasoning and instrumentation, I can figure out to a large extent how the universe works."

This happens repeatedly with Rand's works, I find, because she tends to make outrageous and easily countered statements (such as it being impossible for one's perceptions to be flawed, or that man is the only rational animal, or the only creature capable of thinking conceptually as she defines it) and then goes on to argue something completely prosaic (if not downright mundane) from that that is nevertheless open to discussion (such as your argument that useful information is available to your senses, or that people think and use their judgment). She'll want to make point X which is open to debate, but then express it as X+++ and assert that X+++ is inarguable. If you point out that X+++ is actually flawed, supporters will say "but X is perfectly reasonable, how can you disagree?" But the actual following arguments depend on X+++ being logically true, not just "reasonable."

As for authorities, start with these two, which I found to be quite readable. Of course, feel free to consult actual college courses in neurophysiology or something if you actually want science instead of Rand's guesses about how objective reality behaves.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Brains-Machines-Ernest-Kent/dp/0070341230

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Mistook_His_Wife_for_a_Hat

I don't disagree that your senses give you important and useful information about the world. I disagree that it's impossible for your perceptions to be inaccurate, and I disagree that you directly perceive the universe as it really is without your senses distorting it. (Indeed, you'd probably be a pretty crappy organism, survival-wise, if your senses didn't distort your perception of the universe, as you'd likely be unable to pick out the important features.)

> Yes, that's the efficient causation. But final causatively, action begins with ideas. Recall the 4 kinds of causation identified by Aristotle. One of the errors determinists make is not recognizing final causation

Hmm... hadn't heard of that before. Interesting but I think I'd rather read Judea Pearl's book Causality than Aristotle's thoughts on Causality.

> I believe man is born as tabula rasa

I used to believe that, there's a lot of science that contradicts it, or at least limits how blank the slate is. But you don't need science to refute the general idea. If we're all born with no preconceived notions than how did thought itself emerge? Clearly our tools (culture) have written on our slate, often ways we aren't conscious of.

>Regardless, the valuing of society is not part of man's nature; rather, it's discovered and chosen.

Choice is another philosophically loaded concept. If you believe choice can occur on a subconscious level, then I don't disagree with you. But I believe people don't make significant choices unless their emotional state is worse than they think it should be.

>And while human are typically irrational and emotional thinkers in this point of time, I don't think that makes it their nature

It's their history. And my perspective is that history is a pretty good predictor of the future. Young people are often lead to believe that some great change is just around the corner, but that's rarely true.

Libertarianism is a political movement without a proper philosophy. It essentially advocates whim worship; it treats "freedom" as a sort of irreducible, contextless primary. It advocates anarchism (or "anarcho-capitalism", which is a contradiction in terms), which defaults to statism.

I highly recommend reading "Libertarianism: The Perversion of Liberty" by Peter Schwartz in "The Voice of Reason" for an in-depth explanation.

If you'd care to discuss any particular point though, it could be a fun reddit discussion!

For a reasonably short book, you might try:

http://www.amazon.com/Objectivism-One-Lesson-Introduction-Philosophy/dp/0761843590

For something chapter-length or essay-length, this is a really good place to start, from the source herself:

http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ari_ayn_rand_the_objectivist_ethics

a few more beginner essays here:

http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=objectivism_advessays

(Audio) Miss Rand gives a half-hour speech, "Introducing Objectivism":

http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=reg_ar_introducing

and last but not least:

http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/objectivism.html

and follow the "see also" links at the bottom wherever your interests lead you. "Reason" or "Objectivity" might be good starts.

EDIT: Also this: http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=objectivism_pobs

The Enlightenment's allegedly "secular" and "rational" beliefs were really derived from the emotional desire to find a pure form of religion. Traditional Christianity stopped feeling true to a lot of Brits and Europeans in the 16th and 17th Centuries, and then they looked for philosophical arguments to rationalize their feelings.

The British historian Alec Ryrie has uploaded a series of lectures about this on YouTube which I recommend. He has a very interesting book coming out about the emotional prehistory of the Enlightenment in the fall:

https://www.amazon.com/Unbelievers-Emotional-History-Alec-Ryrie/dp/0674241827/

Private Security and Dispute Resolution in a Free Society (part 3)

-------------

History

• Article: "Merchant law developed in medieval Europe without the involvement of the state. This is particularly remarkable given that it sought to provide dispute resolution and basic legal standards across a wide territorial expanse that included peoples who spoke different languages and practiced different customs. You can read a good discussion of it in the classic work of Bruce Benson, The Enterprise of Law: Justice Without the State."
  
  
• Medieval Iceland and the Absence of Government (Free Market Analysis) "The history of Viking Age Iceland has lessons to teach. One is the importance of a decentralized enforcement power. Iceland's decentralized legal system managed to keep its leaders on a short leash for much of its history. Chieftains only had power if they could convince people to follow them, without the use of coercion. This minimized the principal-agent problem. Who wants to voluntarily follow an incompetent or evil leader? And even if an evil leader did sucker a few free farmers into following him, in the long run he would lose credibility."
  
  --------
  
  Recommended Videos:
  
  
• Law without Government - Pt 1 - video (basic) & Part 2 & Part 3
  
• Funding Public Goods: Six Solutions
  
• Prof. Edward Stringhman: Security and Law without government (moderate)
  
• Private Law - Hans Hoppe (advanced + economics)
  
• Anarchy and Efficient Law - David D. Friedman - video/lecture (advanced + economics)
  
  

I've commented about this before. Rand herself was happy with how the movie turned out, save the omission of one line (according to http://www.amazon.com/The-Passion-Rand-Barbara-Branden/dp/038524388X). She was heavily involved with production of the movie. As the other two mentioned, it's not a substitute for reading the book, by any means, but it stands on it's own as a very brief summery of the ideas in the book.

I've found value in a form of meditation invented by Eugene Gendlin called (what else) Focusing. Actually it does not have anything to do with focusing as AR defined it. Its a specific method to set aside or turn down all the self-talk and analysis and let you just feel what's going on in your body and subconscious. Below is a link to the book which is still available through Amazon.

Focusing

Indeed it does. I read this book after I had read John Allison's book and I think they complement each other nicely. Brook's and Watkin's book is more conceptual but offers concrete examples, whereas Allison's book does deal with concepts but focuses primarily on a particular concrete.

If you want to read arguments on the affirmative end of the Marxism debate, then the best books on Marxism I have come across are:

"Main Currents of Marxism", by Leszek Kołakowski; and

"An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought" (note the "Resources page" links where you can get Volumes 1 and 2 in pdf (Marxism is in Volume 2, but I suggest you read both), and note the "Audiobook" links where you can get the books in mp3) by Murray Rothbard.

"Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics", by George Reisman. Reisman was a student of both Ayn Rand and Ludwig Von Mises, and he is an Objectivist.

https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Objectivist-Epistemology-Expanded-Second/dp/0452010306

Also, this just came out yesterday, but it seems to be more of a companion to his other book, rather than a replacement.

A couple of those stories are about to be republished here

Galt's Gulch Sticker:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00PGE0EK6/ref=mp_s_a_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1504336398&sr=8-9&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=ayn+rand+sticker

Rearden Steel Sticker:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00P84G8P4/ref=mp_s_a_1_12?ie=UTF8&qid=1504336446&sr=8-12&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=ayn+rand+stickers

Rand's collection called The Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution has an essay titled "The Anti-Industrial Revolution", which addresses environmentalism.

Note: The book is also sold under the title The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution. I am not sure whether there is a difference other than the titles themselves.

Aristotle for Everybody: Difficult Thought Made Easy by Mortimer Adler.

https://www.amazon.com/Aristotle-Everybody-Difficult-Thought-Made/dp/0684838230