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Posted by K on August 19, 19100 at 07:37:52:
In Reply to: I do, I do... posted by Anne Rind on August 19, 19100 at 03:43:37:
I've been observing ya'll's little tit-for-tat on Jaynes with much amusement, but I couldn't help interjecting a question/objection (objectionable question or questionable objection??) about the idea of the "stolen concept." I know what is (having read more Objectivist literature than I'm comfortable admitting), and am curious of your defense of the climax of the NB quote.
AR/NB:": One will search in vain for a single instance of an attack on reason, on the senses, on the ontological status of the laws of logic, on the cognitive efficacy of man's mind, that does not rest on the fallacy of the stolen concept.
: The fallacy consists of the act of using a concept while ignoring, contradicting or denying the validity of the concepts on which it logically and genetically depends."
I can see how the fallacy can be used to attack solipism or Kant, but I'm unsure how it can be used as an absolute slayer against all critiques of reason.
I think that it carries the law of the excluded middles to extremes by uming that reason is either 100% valid or it is worthless, and then accusing any opponents of uming the latter and being caught in a contradiction. I don't understand why the fallacy would undermine intermediate positions such as "reason exists but isn't always valid" or "reaon exists but is not sufficient for determining world-views." These world views acknowledge the existence of reason and even their own use of reason, without taking the objectivist viewpoint.
As for "the ontological status of the laws of logic," I was under the impression that logic did that itself (e.g., Godel's Incompleteness Theorm).