Necessary Facts: Ten Years of Necessary Facts

Saturday, January 2, 2021

Ten Years of Necessary Facts

This blog was launched on 2 January 2011. It was inspired by Gregory Browne’s Necessary Factual Truths (University Press of America, 2001). I met Dr. Browne at Eastern Michigan University in the fall semester 2007. Waiting for a class in police operations, I was walking the halls and heard him lecturing. It was obviously a philosophy class and he sounded reasonable. I looked in and saw “Ayn Rand” on the blackboard closing an array of philosophers in historical sequence. A couple of weeks later, I heard him actually mention Ayn Rand. So, I introduced myself. And I bought the book format of his doctoral dissertation. It derives from a refutation by Leonard Peikoff of the Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy.

All-time Readership Frequency
(The anomalous spike is Hurricane Harvey)

All-time Readership Geography
At times Russia, India, or China dominated.

Before EMU, I was at Washtenaw Community College. Taking a class in symbolic logic (required for criminal justice majors), the instructor was Elizabeth E. Goodnick. She displayed a nervous habit typical of high-IQ children. So I took a Platonic interest in her and asked about her research. She said that she was pursuing David Hume even though she herself was a rationalist. I replied, “So you accept that A is A, but you are not certain that the sun will rise in the east tomorrow?” She said that was correct. That is the Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy: rational versus empirical; logical versus real; theoretical versus practical; moral versus practical; art versus science.

Reclaiming the worldview of Aristotle, Ayn Rand’s Objectivism is a modern instantiation of the rational empiricism of the Enlightenment. We commonly know it as the scientific method. Theories explain facts; facts validate theories. Contradictions do not exist. Existence is identity: to be is to be something. The senses are valid. Knowledge is possible because reason works. Moral actions are practical and money is a valid measure of moral action. It is not the only measure.

Ten Most Popular Posts

Second Ten Most Popular Posts

After ten years posting 668 articles, resulting in 351,444 page views, I have seven followers. I stopped taking comments this year after a spate of spammers inserted their own links. I have had offers from search engine optimizers to help me monetize this blog. I turn them all down because here I write for myself. I do get paid to write what other people want and I am happy for those opportunities. For myself, writing here is research and development, or maybe just keyboard practice. Socially, for myself, this is like a concert violinist taking his guitar and a bottle of wine down to the park to jam, or Itzak Perlman playing klezmer.

Speaking of music, though, I do not, or at least have not yet. That seems a curious lacuna.

A Partial Index of Ideas Within This Blog (2017)

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

General Topics:

Imaginary Numbers are Real: Pegasus is Not

Sociology: A Defense and a Call for Reform

The Economic Value in a Liberal Education

Why Evidence is Not Enough

Supplies and Demands

Military:

Leaders are Readers

Hurricane Tejas