The Politics of Objectivism is simply Ethics placed into a social context; Capitalism Is The Only Moral Social System

Politics, (all politics), is the application of ethics to a social context. Since the Objectivist ethics holds that each man is an end in himself, with his own life and happiness as his highest moral purpose, in politics it necessarily follows that each man possesses an absolute right to his own life. This does not mean that man has a right to survival, merely that he possesses sovereignty over his mind and body, and thus the right to act on his own judgement. All other rights, i.e. liberty, property, pursuit of happiness, etc., are merely applications of the right to life.

Individualism

In relation to other men, each man is fundamentally independent -- not because he can live on his own, but because he can only think with his own mind -- there is no "collective consciousness." All creative effort, every invention in history, every advance in the process that created the wealthy, industrial society in which we now live in, and which distinguishes us from the proto-humans that lived short, violent lives in caves without the aid of tools or fire was created by the mental effort of individual men and women. Sometimes they worked together, and their knowledge was increased by the work of predecessors, but each advance they made was their own. The mind cannot be received, shared, or borrowed. Every new idea in human history was a product of the work of an individual mind.

In a human society -- one that recognizes the independence of each man's mind -- each individual is an end in himself. He owns his life, and no one else's. Other men are not his slaves, and he is not theirs. They have no claim on his life or on the values he creates to maintain his life, and he has no claim on theirs. In a free society, men can gain immense values from each other by voluntarily trading the values they create to mutual gain. However, they can only create values if they are free to use their minds to exercise their creativity. A man is better living off on his own than as a slave to his brothers. Individualism is the recognition that each man is an independent, thinking being. An individualist recognizes no authority higher than his of judgment of the truth, and no higher standard of value than his own life. That which furthers his life is the good, while that which destroys it is evil. Individualism is opposed to collectivism, the idea that man does not have an independent mind, does not own his life, and lives as a slave to his brothers. Collectivism holds the evil idea that man's life has value only so far as it servers the society, State, or race.

Freedom and Force

To pursue the values necessary for his life a society, man requires only one thing from others: freedom of action. Freedom does not mean the freedom to act by permission of a state or a dictator, but the freedom to act however one pleases as long as one does not infringe on the same and equal freedom of others. To live in a society, man requires rights to protect the actions necessary to sustain his own life. All rights derive from a man's right to his own life, including the rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. Thus, rights are moral principles defining his freedom of action in a social context. Rights are inalienable -- they are not given to man by any government and may not be morally infringed upon. A man may have his rights violated by a criminal or a corrupt regime, but morally he remains in the right, and the dictator and criminal in the wrong. Rights are not guarantees to things or obligation placed on others, but only guarantees to freedom from violence (the right to life), freedom of action (the right to liberty), and the results of those actions (the right to property). The only obligations one's rights impose on other men is to respect the same and equal rights of others -- the freedom to be left alone.

In a political context, freedom means solely the freedom from the initiation of force by other men. Only by the initiation of force can man's rights be violated. Whether it is by a theft, force, fraud, or government censorship, man's rights can be violated only by the initiation of force. Because man's life depends on the use of reason to achieve the values necessary for his life, the initiation of force renders his mind useless as a means of survival. To live, man must achieve the values necessary to sustain his live. To achieve values, man must be free to think and to act on his judgment. To live, man must be free to think. To be free to think, man must be free to act. In the words of Ayn Rand, "Intellectual freedom cannot exist without political freedom; political freedom cannot exist without economic freedom; a free mind and a free market are corollaries."

Because force renders man's mind useless, every man has the right to self-defense -- and the right to use force to retaliate against those who initiate force against him. However, no man -- and no group of men -- has the right to initiate force against any individual. The initiation of force is a great moral evil, but the use of force in self-defense is a moral requisite.

Capitalism

The proper name for a social system based on political freedom is capitalism. The essence of capitalism is not private property or market-based prices -- these are the consequences, not the essentials of such a system. A capitalist society is based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights. Under capitalism, all property is privately owned, and the state is separated from economics just as it is from religion. Economically, capitalism is a system of laissez faire, or free markets.

There are exactly two ways for men to deal with other men. The first is by force, and the second is by reason, which in practice means by voluntary trade. For examples of the first, look at the anarchism of the period after the fall of Rome but before Feudalism ruled Europe, Christian rule after that point, fascist rule, communist rule, Muslim rule, tribal rule, etc.

The second is known as capitalism. It is the only social system based on a rational, usable moral code, namely that a man has a right to live. Moreover, his life is not a means to any other or others' ends; it is an end for its own sake.

Capitalism is a social system based on the principle of individual rights.



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5 big misconceptions about Objectivism that are just plain wrong

Objectivism is a religion 

False, Objectivism is a philosophy based on reason, not a religion (which is based on faith or mysticism).

Objectivism is a cult 

Many critics of Objectivism claim that students of the philosophy blindly follow Ayn Rand and treat her word as some kind of "divine revelation," but this is simply not the case. This view is diametrically opposed to the core tenants of Objectivist epistemology which hold that man must (and can only) gain knowledge through the use of his own rational faculty.

It's possible to be religious and be an Objectivist at the same time 

Objectivism rejects all forms of religion at its metaphysical base, the Primacy of Existence, and is thus an atheistic philosophy.

Objectivism is an "open system" to revision and changes 

Objectivism is the name Ayn Rand used for her philosophical achievement. As such, the term "Objectivism" may only be applied to the ideas by Rand or by those she explicitly endorsed. This is not to say that there are not other philosophical truths that rational thought can illuminate, but, that passing these ideas as the work of Ayn Rand is misleading.

The Laissez-Faire Capitalism advocated by Objectivism is a form of Anarchism or Anarchocapitalism 

Not true, Objectivism does in fact support government with a monopoly on the use of force. This government, however, is only to use force against those who initiate its use to violate others' rights. The three tasks of government in this function are (as stated by Ayn Rand): "...the police, to protect men from criminals—the armed services, to protect men from foreign invaders—the law courts, to settle disputes among men according to objective laws."

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The Ethics of Objectvism are probably not what you think they are; The Objectivist Ethics explained in detail.

"To live, man must hold three things as the supreme and ruling values of his life: Reason, Purpose, Self-esteem."

Morality is the recognition of the fact that as mortal beings with a rational, volitional consciousness, we need to adopt and practice certain principles in order to live.

Living beings clearly act to achieve particular values by particular means. Their actions are aimed at specific ends " namely, their survival and reproduction. But the question of purpose does not arise for them either because their actions are automatic, determined by instinct. They cannot choose, as men do, to live by one means or another, to be carnivores or herbivores, to live or die. Unlike non-living entities, they have various values, such as food, reproduction, and shelter, but they have no means to choose which values to achieve or which course of action to take to achieve them beyond their immediate environment.

Like all living organisms, man can be distinguished from non-living matter by the fact that in order to remain alive, he must act to attain the values needed for his survival (such as food, water, shelter, clothes.) For animals, which operate entirely on the perceptual level, this guidance comes automatically through their facility of instinct. Man does not have any automatic means of attaining the values needed for his life. He may have urges (hunger, thirst, etc) but he has no automatic means of fulfilling them. Unlike animals, human beings lack any kind of innate ideas or instinct - we learn our values and ideas from your experience of reality. We are the creators of our own mental nature - but we have no power over our metaphysical nature - we can refuse to recognize that we need food to live - but that does not change the fact that we are mortal beings who need food to live.

As a conceptual being, his survival depends on correctly using reason to identify and attain the values necessary for his life. As a volitional being, his thinking is neither automatic nor infallible, but is an active process that requires a constant focus on correctly identifying the facts of reality and applying them to achieve the values needed for his well-being. Unlike the automatic function of animal instinct, man must choose to think, " and his thoughts will determine his actions, his values, his emotions, and his character. The primary choice of every individual " to think or not" corresponds to his primary alternative " to live or not. His own life is the primary moral value of each individual" whether he chooses to accept it or not.

Rational self-interest, or egoism is therefore the proper morality each man must adopt if he wishes to live " the application of his reason to achieve the values needed for his survival. A man may choose not to think or to reject his life, but to the extent he does so, he chooses to act towards his death. Egoism is not a virtue by itself - simply knowing that one should act selfishly provides no guide to action. One must use reason to derive virtues, which are specific principles for practicing rationality in all areas of one's life.

Meta-ethics

The Objectivist ethic begins with a meta-ethical question: why do human beings need a code of values? The Objectivist answer is that humans need such a code in order to survive as human beings.

Objectivism maintains that, alone among all the species of which we know, human beings do not automatically act to further their own survival. A plant seems to have no awareness of any kind and simply grows automatically; an organism that possesses a faculty of sensation relies on its pleasure-pain mechanism; an animal that operates at the level of perception can use its perceptions to muddle its way through its essentially cyclic life; but a human being, who at least potentially operates at the conceptual level, lives a life that consists of an integrated whole.

Objectivism recognizes, of course, that biologically a human being can survive in a physical sense without operating at the conceptual level at all. Indeed, Objectivism regards the conceptual level as a volitional achievement that not everyone in fact attains. In speaking of "survival" here, however, Objectivism is speaking of survival as a "human being" — that is, as a being that has realized its cognitive potential and attained the conceptual level. It is at this level, Objectivism says, that a life is the sort of continuous whole proper to a human being.

Ayn Rand also recognized that in humans, who are conscious organisms, the motivation to pursue life is experienced as the pursuit of a conscious state - the pursuit of happiness. Indeed, in her one-sentence summary of Objectivism, Ayn Rand condensed her ethics into the statement that man properly lives "with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life." According to Objectivist epistemology, however, states of mind, such as happiness, are not primary; they are the consequence of specific facts of existence. Therefore man needs an objective, principled standard, grounded in the facts of reality, to guide him in the pursuit of this purpose. Rand regarded happiness as a biological faculty evolved from the pleasure-pain mechanism of pre-human animals. This faculty functions as an instrument providing a continuous measurement of how successful one is at meeting the challenge of life. As she wrote in The Virtue of Selfishness (23, pb 27)

Just as the pleasure-pain mechanism of man's body is an automatic indicator of his body's welfare or injury, a barometer of its basic alternative, life or death - so the emotional mechanism of man's consciousness is geared to perform the same function, as a barometer that registers the same alternative by means of two basic emotions: joy or suffering.

That is, the faculty of happiness continuously provides one's consciousness with a current measurement of one's success on the continuum between full life and actual death (by analogy with the barometer, which continuously provides the current measurement of atmospheric pressure.) The measurement provided by the faculty of happiness is experienced as emotion on the continuum between joy and suffering. To achieve happiness (the purpose,) one must recognize, choose, and pursue that which preserves and enhances one's life (the standard.)

Values

Since operating at the conceptual level remains volitional for the duration of one's life, Objectivism holds, human beings require a code of values — an ethic — in order to guide them in making the choices and taking the actions that will not only keep them biologically alive but preserve their status as fully human beings. For Objectivism, a "human being" who is not operating at the conceptual level is not, in the proper sense of the word, conscious, and indeed is not even properly human: by lapsing from the conceptual level, a human being "can turn himself into a subhuman creature."

The purpose of Objectivist ethics, then, is to guide human beings in becoming and remaining "fully human" — or, in Rand's language, in promoting their survival as "man qua man". In so doing, it adopts life — the specifically human form of life — as its standard.

However, the purpose of Objectivist ethics as applied by any particular human being is the preservation of that person's own life (again, as man qua man). In this context, Objectivism seeks to differentiate between the "standard" and the "purpose" of ethics, adopting "life" as its standard and "one's own life" as its purpose.

"Value", again, is understood as anything which a living organism seeks to gain or keep. Objectivism contends that values make no sense without a single "ultimate value" — and argues that this ultimate value is, for each person, that person's own life.

Objectivism contends that "value" makes no sense apart from the context of "life". Here the Objectivist trichotomy reappears: Objectivism rejects both "intrinsicism" and "subjectivism" with regard to values just as with regard to universals. On the Objectivist account, value (or the "good") is not "intrinsic" to external reality, but neither is it "subjective" (again meaning "arbitrary"); the term "good" denotes an objective evaluation of some aspect of reality with respect to a goal, namely, the life of the human being with respect to whom the evaluation is made. In making this argument, Rand claimed to have solved David Hume's famous is-ought problem of bridging the gap between empirical facts and moral requirements.

Objectivism regards the concept of "duty" as one that divorces value from its context in life (and therefore as an "anti-concept"). On its Objectivist definition, a "duty" is a moral obligation rooted in nothing more than obedience to an external authority and independent of one's goals and desires. Such a supposed moral obligation Objectivism sees as particularly destructive; according to Objectivism, one has no obligations other than those one has voluntarily assumed. Even obligations rooted directly in the needs of one's own life count as "voluntary" in this sense, for Objectivism regards the "choice to live" as the fundamental choice from which all other ethical requirements flow.

Virtue

A "virtue" is any act by which one gains or keeps a value. It is in this sense of the word that Objectivism speaks of the "virtue of selfishness": the Objectivist view is that adopting one's own life as one's ultimate ethical purpose, and then making the specific choices and taking the specific actions that implement that fundamental choice to live, is an achievement worthy of moral respect. It is in this sense that Rand wrote, "Man is a being of self-made soul."

In fact, Objectivism does not list "selfishness" among its official virtues. The "values" officially recognized by Objectivism are "reason," "purpose," and "self-esteem," and the "virtues" by which these are achieved are said to be "rationality", "productiveness," and "pride." Objectivism maintains that productiveness — work productive of objective value — is the central purpose of a rational human being's life, reason its precondition, pride its outcome.

Rejection of altruism

Objectivism rejects as immoral any action taken for some other ultimate purpose. In particular it rejects as immoral any variant of what it calls "altruism" — by which it means, essentially, any ethical doctrine according to which a human being must justify his or her existence by service to others. According to Objectivism, every ethical or moral action has the agent as its primary beneficiary.

Objectivism especially opposes any ethical demand for sacrifice. Objectivism uses this term in a special sense: a "sacrifice", according to its Objectivist definition, is the giving up of a greater value for a lesser one. (In other worlds of discourse, for example baseball and chess, the term is used to mean the giving up of a lesser or shorter-term value for the sake of a greater or longer-term one. Objectivism does not regard such an exchange as a genuine "sacrifice.")

Not all superficially self-interested actions count as moral, however. Objectivism espouses an ethic of genuine self-interest — that is, of choices and actions that genuinely do promote one's life qua human being, not merely those that we think or hope may do so. The Objectivist ethic can be called one of "rational self-interest" (rational egoism) on the grounds that human beings must discover, through reason, what genuinely is of value to them.

"Conflicts" of interest

Objectivism rejects the possibility of a conflict of interest between two rational individuals under normal circumstances (though it may happen in emergencies). Ordinarily, if human beings behave rationally, do not claim what they have not earned, and recognize that rational, productive human beings are of tremendous value to one another as trading partners, no irresolvable conflicts will arise.

"Emergency situations"

In The Virtue of Selfishness, Ayn Rand argues that emergencies should not form the basis, or be a test of one’s moral system, since the purpose of morality is to be a practical guide to life, not deal with improbable scenarios. Actions taken under threat of physical force are considered immune from moral judgment, as they occur in a special type of "emergency situation". A man's actions under initiation of force — for instance, if one man points a gun at another man and instructs that man to kill a third man — are neither moral or immoral, as he is not free to choose his actions. In the words of Ayn Rand,

“

No rights are applicable in such a case. Don't you see that that is one of the reasons why the use, the initiation of force among men, is morally improper and indefensible? Once the element of force is introduced, the element of morality is out. There is no question of right in such a case.

”

This particular emergency situation can only be interpreted literally — as Rand also said,

“

For instance, you couldn't claim that the men who served in the Gestapo, or the Russian secret police, [...] that they were merely carrying out orders, and that therefore the horrors they committed are not their fault, but are the fault of the chief Nazis. They were not literally under threat of death. They chose that job. Nobody holds a gun on a secret policeman and orders him to function all the time. You could not have enough secret policemen.

”

“The three cardinal values of the Objectivist ethics ... are: Reason, Purpose, Self-esteem, with their three corresponding virtues: Rationality, Productiveness, Pride.”
   ~ Ayn Rand

The virtues on which the primary values depend are rationality, productivity, and independence. The man who is successful in living is able to derive the values necessary for his life and to translate them into the virtues necessary to gain and keep them. Some skeptics might say that this is a "cold, unemotional, and rationalistic" way to go about life, but nothing can be further from the truth. The man who confidently acts to achieve the values necessary for his life knows that it is his life he is acting to further, and that it is his values that he is achieving. The emotional state of knowing that one is an effectual, capable, productive individual, who is master of his own destiny, is self-esteem. Self-esteem is the confidence one has in his own worth as a human being and his ability to achieve his values. When a man makes the achievement of his values a way of life, happiness is the state of consciousness that results. Thus, the rational, productive, and self-confident man knows the values of their life and takes pride in their achievements.

List of Objectivist Virtues

• Rationality - this is the cardinal virtue, which leads to all other virtues. Rationality means using reason (and rejecting emotions) to identify reality.

• Honesty is the refusal to fake reality.

• Integrity is consistency in the application of reason.

• Productivity means working to create one's values.

• Independence means being first-handed, or refusing to leave one's thinking to others.

• Pride is the pursuit of moral perfection. Pride is related to self-esteem - the belief that one is capable of gaining and keeping one's values--and that one deserves them.

• Justice is the principle of applying reason to the actions of other men, or giving other people what they deserve.

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The Epistemology of Objectivism is simply the truth and facts are your guide; Rationality and Reason.

Epistemology

Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that deals with the validity and requirements of human knowledge. Epistemology includes those facts about how one thinks and how one should think which one must understand to minimize errors when learning about other subjects.

In essence, Objectivist epistemology holds that all of man's knowledge comes from the senses, and is developed in the following order- Percepts, which come from the automatic integration of certain sensations that lead to awareness of a specific existent, and Concepts, the mind's organization of percepts [as well as other concepts] into groups based on their essential characteristics that differentiate them from other entities. Furthermore, Objectivist epistemology rejects all forms of faith or mysticism as means of knowledge.

The foundational writing for Objectivist epistemology is Ayn Rand's Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology (ITOE); Leonard Peikoff's Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (OPAR) further develops a number of the basic ideas of ITOE.

From sensations to concepts

Sensations are the basic information provided to the mind by the sensory organs, such as the light from the computer screen you're reading now. The awareness of these sensations is considered axiomatically"valid" on the grounds that it is self-contradictory to deny the efficacy of the senses as sources of genuine knowledge, because such an assertion implicitly assumes the validity of the senses. For example, something which is an "illusion" is something which is perceived falsely; reality contradicts your awareness of it. Since that is part of what "illusion" means, to suggest that reality is an illusion means that reality contradicts itself.

Sensation, or awareness of raw sensory data, counts as knowledge in a limited way. However, sensations as such are not retained by the mind and so cannot provide guidance beyond the present moment. (To refer to the previous example, if the computer screen you're reading turns off, the sensation ends.) Perception extends the awareness of the objects of sensation over time, a "percept" being a group of sensations that is automatically retained and integrated by the mind. Some animals other than human beings operate at the level of sensory perception and thus possess a measure of knowledge.

Human beings are unique in possessing another, higher level of cognition: the conceptual level. According to Objectivism, the human mind apprehends reality through a process of reasoning based upon sensory observation, in which perceptual information is built up into concepts and propositions.

However, humans are not guaranteed to achieve this level of consciousness, instead possessing a "volitional consciousness", reaching the "conceptual level" only by an act of volition to which no one can be led or forced from the outside. All humans by definition have the potential to achieve the conceptual level, but some may fail to actualize this potential — and some may lapse from the conceptual level by practising evasion, by which is meant evasion of reason, a deliberate abandonment of the rational consciousness.

Any mind, human or nonhuman, can explicitly hold only so many perceptual units at a time. But the human mind is able to extend its knowledge over a wide range of space, time, and scope by organizing its perceptual information into classifications.

Topics In Epistemology

The analytic-synthetic dichotomy

Objectivism explicitly rejects the analytic-synthetic dichotomy. This dichotomy — which stems from the views of David Hume and Immanuel Kant — is the view that there is a fundamental distinction between statements that are true in virtue of meaning, alone, and statements whose truth depends upon something more (usually, upon the way the world is). Rand rejected the view that there is any such fundamental distinction, because she accepted that the meaning of a word is its referent, including that referent's every attribute. Consequently, any true proposition is in a way true in virtue of meaning, while its truth simultaneously depends upon the way the world is.

In specific, Rand holds that the meaning of a non-singular term is the concept associated with that term, while this concept somehow includes or subsumes all the particulars of a given class, including all the attributes had by these particulars. Which particulars a concept subsumes, according to Rand, depends upon what the concept-coiner was discriminating from what when he or she formed the concept (this appears to be how Rand accommodates Gottlob Frege's insight that there are different "modes of presentation" of the same content). This view is a version of content externalism, similar in certain ways to the views of Hilary Putnam and Tyler Burge.

The analytic-synthetic dichotomy is intimately related to the distinction between a priori and a posteriori knowledge, as some philosophers believe that analytic truths are known a priori (i.e., they are justified independent of any experience), while synthetic truths are known a posteriori (i.e., they are justified in virtue of experience). Rand rejects the view that there is any a priori knowledge. All knowledge, she holds, including mathematical knowledge, is about the world (though possibly at some very high level of abstraction or quantization). Justification always terminates in the evidence of the senses.

The analytic-synthetic dichotomy is also related to the alleged distinction between necessary and contingent truths, i.e., the claims of a distinction between truths that could not have been otherwise and truths that could have been otherwise. Many contemporary philosophers believe that mathematical truths such as "2 + 2 = 4" are necessary (could not have been otherwise) while statements such as "There are nine planets in our solar system" are contingent (could have been otherwise).

These notions of contingency and necessity have led many contemporary philosophers to elaborate metaphysical systems-building. In constrast, Objectivism holds that there is no distinction between necessary vs. contingent facts in the natural world (that is, all natural facts are necessary) and that the concept of "contingent" applies exclusively to the results of human choice (that is, there is a fundamental distinction between the metaphysical and the man-made).

All facts hold in virtue of the natures or identities of the entities involved. Man-made facts hold in virtue of actions that were initiated by volitional beings ("I went to the grocery today" is a man-made fact, because I could have done otherwise). Metaphysical facts, by contrast, hold without reference to any action of a volitional consciousness.

Objectivism holds that, in a sense, all facts are "necessary": all knowledge is knowledge of identity, i.e., a statement that an entity (or aspect, potentiality, condition etc. of an entity) is what in fact it is. Many contemporary philosophers claim that, while the proposition "1 + 1 = 2" is "necessary" because true in all possible realities, the proposition "the atomic mass of hydrogen is 1" is "contingent" because it is not constant across possible worlds. Objectivism would reply that the second proposition is just as "necessary" as the first: if the atomic mass differed, the substance in question would not be hydrogen. Objectivism recognizes no legitimate meaning of "necessity" other than this one.

Additionally, Objectivism also accepts so-called "nomological" possibility and necessity. Statements of nomological possibility say that certain states-of-affairs are in accordance with natural reality in the sense that they reflect the potential of an entity to act in a certain way. For example, consider the propositions, "This glass could break" and "It could rain this weekend." These report truths, because they say that, it is in the nature of glasses that they can break (given the right circumstances) and similarly it is in the nature of the weather that it has the potential to produce rain. Objectivism analyzes counterfactuals, e.g., "If I had dropped this glass, it would break," in similar terms.

Objectivism does not insist, as many contemporary philosophers do, that there must be some fact in another possible world for this proposition to correspond with, in order for it to be true. Objectivism also rejects the now-popular view that these nomological facts should be analyzed using a "possible worlds" framework that builds on a distinction between the necessary and the contingent.

The problem of universals

Objectivism offers the foregoing account as the solution of the problem of universals. This problem has throughout the history of philosophy been regarded as a problem of metaphysics, but Objectivism asserts that its proper resolution lies in epistemology. Traditional solutions to the problem divide generally into realism and nominalism. Objectivism regards the first as "intrinsicism" (the view that universals are "intrinsic" to reality) and the second as "subjectivism" (the view that universals are arbitrary creations of the human mind). The proper resolution, Objectivism says, is that universals are concepts, created to meet the unique cognitive needs of the human mind, but objective so long as they are validly formed.

Objectivism, classical rationalism, classical empiricism

There are many notable differences between Objectivist epistemology and classical rationalism. While a classical rationalist would defend a "thick" conception of reason that includes a priori knowledge and the grasp of relations of necessity, Objectivism defends a "thin" conception that denies the possibility of a priori knowledge, tends to treat the grasp of necessity as something akin to mystical insight, and relegates reason to the role of classifying and organizing the information provided by sensory perception.

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The Metaphysics of Objectivism is simply living in reality.

Introduction

Because Objectivism is an integrated philosophy with a hierarchical structure, all other branches of Objectivism rest on Objectivist metaphysics. Metaphysics includes those basic facts about reality which one must understand before one can learn Epistemology, because one cannot attempt to study knowledge until one has established that there is a reality to know.
Objectivist metaphysics relies on three primary axioms which are (in order of primacy): Existence, Identity (and its corollary Causality), and Consciousness. These axioms can be summarized as follows:

Existence 

Something exists, including the things I perceive.

Identity (and Causality)

Everything is something specific and acts according to its nature.

Consciousness 

I am conscious of the things I perceive and my perceptions reflect reality.

The three axioms are also implicitly stated and affirmed by any statement made, which boil down to: "There is [Existence] something [Identity] that I am aware of [Consciousness]."

The Axioms

The Primacy of Existence

The Primacy of Existence premise says that reality is objective: the universe exists independently of the particular psychological states (beliefs, desires, etc.) of individual cognizers. This view was also held by Aristotle. Objectivism distinguishes The Primacy of Existence from the Primacy of Consciousness. The Primacy of Consciousness holds that consciousness is prior to existence. It is the view that one could, in principle, be conscious exclusively and entirely of one's self. Objectivism rejects this view: it holds that objects present themselves to consciousness in such a way that they must be genuinely "other," that is, non-identical to one's own consciousness. This axiom is the basis of the Objectivist refutation of both theism and idealism. Though Objectivism grants that some particular existents are mental (e.g., minds, thoughts, desires, intentions), it holds that, if what fundamentally exists is independent of any consciousness, then the universe as a whole is neither the creation of a divine consciousness nor itself mental. (This argument is laid out in Chapter 1 of Leonard Peikoff's Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand).

The Law of Identity

The Law of Identity states that everything that exists has an identity. In saying this, Objectivism is asserting more than the tautology of self-identity (i.e., "everything is identical to itself"). It is asserting that everything that exists has a specific nature, consisting of various properties or characteristics (as Rand wrote, "to be is to be something in particular"). Moreover, Objectivism holds that the properties and characteristics in question must exist each in a specific measure or degree; in this respect "identity" also means finitude. According to Objectivism, then, everything that exists has a specific finite nature. To have a specific, finite nature, is incompatible with having a self-contradictory nature. Therefore, the whole of reality is noncontradictory; though contradictions might exist in thought, there are no contradictions in the real world.

The Law of Causality

Each thing's specific nature determines how it acts. This principle is Objectivism's formulation of the Law of Causality; it is held to be a corollary of the Law of Identity (see above). Contemporary philosophers define the Law of Causality differently, e.g., as "Every event has a cause." Objectivism rejects this contemporary definition because it leads to paradoxes concerning free will and cosmology. A further implication of the Objectivist account of causality concerns explanation: since genuine explanation is causal, nature can only be explained in terms of nature (i.e., without reference to the supernatural).

The Axiom of Consciousness

This axiom states that consciousness is an irreducible primary. It cannot be analyzed in terms of other concepts and it is at the foundation of all knowledge. While we can study the faculty of consciousness, we cannot study what it means to be conscious as such. She writes that "consciousness is conscious," affirming both that the thinker is conscious and that he is conscious of something external to himself. She writes, "If nothing exists, there can be no consciousness: a consciousness with nothing to be conscious of is a contradiction in terms" (Atlas Shrugged, p. 1015). One cannot be self-conscious without first being aware of something other than one's awareness. Rand's axioms of consciousness is different from Descartes' Cogito principle in that Descartes' Cogito is an a priori principle, while Rand's axiom of consciousness is a self-evidency only available in perception.

Mind and body

Objectivism rejects the mind-body dichotomy, viewing man as a single integrated being, with both the mental and physical realms having particular causal properties.



Retrieved from http://wiki.objectivismonline.net/Metaphysics

ENCORE ENCORE ----- Yaron Answers: How Would A Government Gain Revenue Without Taxes?

Published on Sep 11, 2012 by Ayn Rand Institute 

Yaron Brook answers a question from Justin: "How would a government gain revenue without taxes?" 

www.laissezfaireblog.com

ENCORE ENCORE --------- Yaron Answers: What's The Difference Between Altruism And Benevolence?

Published on Dec 10, 2012 by the Ayn Rand Institute

Yaron Brook answers a question from Robert: "What's the difference between altruism and benevolence?"

www.laissezfaireblog.com

Ayn Rand - I Love This Benevolent Universe

What is Objectivism? Not the Boogeyman people think or want you to think.

Objectivism is the name chosen by Ayn Rand for her philosophy. Some essentials of Objectivism are that reality is real (i.e., Existence exists), and that we are conscious of reality (Consciousness is conscious).

From this, Objectivism propounds that knowledge is objective: it is not simply revealed or "obvious", nor is it whimsically subjective. Knowledge is the result of a consciousness gaining understanding of reality.

The better we understand reality, the better we can deal with it. Ayn Rand described Objectivism as a philosophy for living on earth -- by which she meant that it was a philosophy grounded in reality with the purpose of enabling its adherents to better deal with reality. A common thread running through all of Objectivism is the sanctity of the individual, rational human being. In Rand's own words:

"My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute."

Ayn Rand rejected the idea that men who pursue their own interests must end up in conflict with one another. Objectivism holds individual rights to be the mechanism by which men can pursue their individual interests without being in conflict with one another.

Objectivism is a closed system -- it consists of the philosophical writings of Ayn Rand (which she finished for publication) and those philosophical writings of other people which she specifically approved (for example the articles in the Objectivist Newsletter). The statements on this blog are not authoritative nor definitional of Objectivism.

There are philosophical truths which were not incorporated into Objectivism. You should not assume without proof that everything in Objectivism is true.

In fact, to assume without proof that everything Ayn Rand said is true, contradicts Objectivist Epistemology.

A Review of Dr. Judy Wood’s Book Where Did The Towers Go? - #2 - Myles Reviews

It’s been over a year since I sat down to review another part of Dr Judy Wood’s book ‘Where Did The Towers Go?’ so I thought it’s about time I put on my tin foil hat and dived in. This time, let’s look at chapter seven, which, unbelievably, I found myself agreeing with for the most part and chapter eight where I think she is trolling us all. 

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Blog
A Review of Dr. Judy Wood’s Book “Where Did The Towers Go?” #3 – Conventional Controlled Demolition
http://mylespower.co.uk/2016/01/10/a-...
A Review of Dr. Judy Wood’s Book “Where Did The Towers Go?” – Dustification
http://mylespower.co.uk/2016/01/23/a-...

Videos
A Review of Dr. Judy Wood’s Book Where Did The Towers Go? #1 – Myles Reviews
http://mylespower.co.uk/2015/01/10/a-...
Debunking 9/11 Conspiracy Theorists
http://mylespower.co.uk/911-mini-series/
Debunking 9/11 conspiracy theorists part 3 -Thermate, thermite and glowing aluminium
http://mylespower.co.uk/2012/11/24/de...

World Trade Center Debris Pile Mass and Volume
http://911encyclopedia.com/wiki/index...
Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 Word Trade Centre Catastrophe
http://benthamopen.com/contents/pdf/T...
North Tower Spire Close Up
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wozw...




Intro Music by Michael 'Skitch' Schiciano
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soundcloud: http://www.soundcloud.com/skitchstudio

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A Review of Dr. Judy Wood’s Book Where Did The Towers Go? #1 - Myles Reviews

In this video Myles reviews the first few chapters in Dr. Judy Wood’s book Where Did The Towers Go? He discusses her theories on the speed in which the twin towers collapsed and the evidence for a directed beam weapon used that day.

Support Myles through Patreon
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Debunking 9/11 Conspiracy Theorists
http://mylespower.co.uk/truther/911-m...

A Review of Dr. Judy Wood’s Book “Where Did The Towers Go?” – The Twin Towers Collapse
http://mylespower.co.uk/2014/10/04/a-...
A Review of Dr. Judy Wood’s Book “Where Did The Towers Go?” – The Jumpers
http://mylespower.co.uk/2014/10/12/a-...
Say Hello to the Goodbye Weapon
http://archive.wired.com/science/disc...
Millimetre waves, lasers, acoustics for non-lethal weapons? Physics analyses and inferences
http://www.ssoar.info/ssoar/bitstream...
FLIR Footage of Twin Towers Burning
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQEd8...

"Mesmerize" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) 
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
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Intro Music by Michael 'Skitch' Schiciano
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