Tertius

Ontology was bracketed from physics already by Newton. He described gravity mathematically, and when people asked about the cause of gravity, his famous response was “hypotheses non fungo”. Classical mechanics was essentially reduced to a purely mathematical discipline by Euler and Lagrange before Kant’s Critique was even published. If anything, Bohr and Heisenberg were much more enthusiastic about ontology. Heisenberg in particular was heavily drawing on Aristotle’s concept of potentia in his attempts to construct quantum metaphysics. And Bohr isn’t a reductionist either. Copenhagen interpretation isn’t just “shut up and compute”. There are some pretty deep metaphysical ideas there.

Was Kant responsible for Hitler’s Nazi Germany? Is philosophy the prime mover of history? Can the rise and fall of civilizations really be explained by the ideas of a handful of great philosophers? Ayn Rand and Leonard Peikoff‘s theory of history answers ”yes” to all three. Next Tuesday, I’ll present a systematic refutation of their theory of historical causation. I’ll challenge its underlying conception of historical causality, argue that its account of the relationship between philosophy and psychology is fundamentally mistaken, and show that their claim of philosophy being the prime mover of history is false. I’ll also address Rand & Peikoff’s attempt to trace the cause of Nazism to Kant, and argue that his account amounts to historical mythology rather than serious intellectual history. Objectivists are especially welcome. I invite defenders of Rand and Peikoff to challenge my arguments and offer a positive defense of their theory. Format: Three 10-minute arguments, each followed by moderated Q&A, with an open discussion afterward. Tuesday, November 10, 7 PM ET. nitter.gq/i/spaces/1WXKOPq…