Rob Tracinski on "What Went Right?" Options

[Stephen Speicher]

==========NOTE FROM THE MODERATOR==========

I placed this thread in limbo when Rob Tracinski informed me that he had not given permission to a blogger to republish Rob's essays. Rob has now made those essays available on his own website, so I am now resurrecting this thread. The improper pointers are in strikeout and the proper ones I have inserted within brackets, with wording in blue.

When reading this thread please make note of Rob Tracinski's "Author's Note" which prefaces the web version of his essays. To his credit Rob has reworded and clarified some of the more contentious passages, so a number of objections voiced in the following posts no longer apply. Hopefully we can all now better focus on the positive aspects of his essays. I also note that Rob has made some non-essential editing changes throughout.

So, below is my original post, and all of the follow-up posts, and the thread is open for discussion again.

========END NOTE FROM THE MODERATOR=========

I must confess to not having read Rob Tracinski's writings for some time. Nothing personal involved, and not a judgment of Rob, but simply that my main interests lie in areas different from his. But, after reading some recent smears and personal attacks made against him in comments on Diana Hsieh's Noodlefood blog and other forums, I decided to take the time and read the recent series of essays referred to by his attackers.

It is my understanding that the first three parts of an intended six-part series have been made available for general viewing with Rob's permission. "What Went Right?" Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 [The first two parts are here, and Part 3 starts here]. Also relevant, A Note From Robert Tracinski.[Not currently available.]

I have now read this material and though I think there are some important identifications made in these pieces, my overarching concern is with what may be misunderstandings or confusions about Objectivism on Rob's part (or, at least, views presented that are in conflict with my own understanding of the philosophy). I do not here want to discuss the positive aspects of these pieces, nor do I want to dissect the negative ones. I just want to highlight what is perhaps the single most egregious point of my disagreement. (Note that the formatting in the reproduced copies of Rob's essays is not complete, and I have adjusted those in what follows):

Philosophy does have an indispensable role to play. It provides a crucial context for valid work in specialized fields, a context that provides the specialist with guidance on his basic method and with basic principles about the nature of the world and the nature of man. But philosophy does not and cannot dictate the content of a specialized field. A specialist cannot produce knowledge within his own field simply by "reading off" results from the assumptions taught to him by philosophers.

Unfortunately, that has been an implication of the standard Objectivist interpretation of the role of ideas in history. Here, for example, is how Leonard Peikoff describes it in his epilogue to Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand.

Philosophy is not the only cause of the course of the centuries. It is the ultimate cause, the cause of all the other causes.... The books of philosophers are the beginning. Step by step, the books turn into motives, passions, statues, politicians, and headlines.

This is a kind of trickle-down theory of intellectual influence, in which the philosopher is the originator and only source of the ideas that drive the course of history, while the public intellectuals and the men in the specialized sciences are mere transmitters and translators of those ideas.

Even without the material elided from the Peikoff quote, the quote itself does not imply what Rob has claimed, namely that philosophy dictates the content of a specialized field, or that a specialist in a field produces knowledge simply by "reading off" results from the assumptions taught to him by philosophers.

I am at a loss to explain how Rob can extract his conclusion from the quoted material provided. It may very well be that some Objectivists in some instances have done just what Rob claims -- I myself have seen some similarities in how some Objectivists deal with science -- but the Peikoff quote is not illustrative of this, nor do I think that Objectivism per se can validly be characterized as such. In my view, I do not think that Rob serves the purpose of his critque -- to the extent that his critque makes valid points -- by examples such as these.

To be fair, Rob does lend some perspective to his first three essays in the "Note" that I referenced above, where he states, in what seems to be a very direct and honest manner, the sense in which some of what he presents is still being developed in his own mind. And, he does promise evidence in future essays to back up his claims. Personally, I will hold off final judgment until Rob presents his full case, but I am rather disappointed with, and strongly disagree with, the evidence that has so far been presented. These are claims of import and substance, and they demand nothing less than completely accurate and precise evidence in support, which, so far, in my view, is lacking in these essays.