She's a horrible writer, albeit one with valuable insights into philosophy? That's a start ;)
Makes more sense than most of the objections on this thread. Sadly.
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Why do you, roscoe & the boyos here sneer & ridicule the axioms she supports, -- The same ones you embrace & admit are 'useful'?
The problem isn't the philosophy per se, it's the sales pitch. Objectivism has no special claim to rationality over and above any other system of morality, and yet it purports exactly that - "the only objectively true and rational system of morality", is how it was phrased earlier in the thread, IIRC.
Big deal. One persons opinion, 'IIRC', is not proof that Rand made "special claims".
But it can't be proven objectively true unless the premises can be proven objectively true, and so that claim is of the same order as it would be about any other system of morality - an unproven assertion, that may or may not be actually true.
You seem to think this what, -nihlist?- view of 'unproven assertions' you have is some sort of trump philosophical card. It makes no sense. Get over yourself.
I cant speak for others, of course, but my own objective is not to knock objectivism down, and show that it's somehow inferior to other moral systems - I don't believe that to be the case, really. Rather, this is more dealing with claims of exceptionalism than anything else. It's not worse than any other given system as far as I can tell, but neither is it inherently superior.
You keep repeating the claim that Rands objectivism sees itself as exceptional.. So what?
“Man’s reason is fully competent to know the facts of reality. Reason, the conceptual faculty, is the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by man’s senses. Reason is man’s only means of acquiring knowledge.” Thus Objectivism rejects mysticism (any acceptance of faith or feeling as a means of knowledge), and it rejects skepticism (the claim that certainty or knowledge is impossible).
Everything is knowable, sez Ayn. Unfortunately, not everything is provable, so how do we know things to be true that we can't prove to be true? "Acting in one's self-interest is inherently rational" is likely to be fiendishly difficult to prove, or flat-out impossible, so how do we know it to be true? Can't be mysticism, we're not supposed to take it on faith, or just intuitively feel that it's true... so how are we supposed to know it to be true?
Unprovable assertions...it's not a trump card, but it sure doesn't look good when you rely on unprovable assertions - assertions that you can't know are true - to construct a philosophy that says that everything is knowable and rationally accessible.