The Page of Reason

Objectivism: The Philosophy of Reality Integrated Reason

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The Page of Reason: A Preview

  • The Title/​Preface page.
  • Part 1: The Pre­lim­i­nary Intro­duc­tion.
  • Part 2: The Top­i­cal Out­line.
  • Short sub­ject titles from The Post­scripts.

 

 

The Page of Reason

Third Edi­tion: Inte­grat­ing 2600 Years of Ratio­nal Inves­ti­ga­tions

Objectivism: The Philosophy of Reality Integrated Reason

Eight-Parts in Eight-Pages

Part 5 is The Page

A Brain is Free. A Mind is Earned.

Orrin Smith

TheP​a​ge​Of​Rea​son​.com

 

Welcome to The Page of Reason

A sem­i­nal essay for the ratio­nal-self-inter­est of each able indi­vid­ual,

and for the cul­tures and civ­i­liza­tions that they will glo­ri­ous­ly enrich.

Supplement: The Great Persuasion

A par­tic­i­pa­to­ry project to enrich ratio­nal­i­ty,

with­in all cul­tures and civ­i­liza­tions, all around the Earth.

The Declaration of Intent

From all of my life expe­ri­ence, from all knowl­edge that I have ever acquired from a mag­nif­i­cent array of gen­er­ous knowl­edge pre­de­ces­sors, I assert that Objec­tivist Prin­ci­ples are the only pos­si­ble prin­ci­ples, for inci­sive pur­suits of sur­vival, pros­per­i­ty, and hap­pi­ness, for all humans, all around the Earth. With­in The Page of Rea­son, I will make my case.

 

The Preface

Since the advent of primeval lan­guages, our human minds have been assault­ed by ever-more, ever-var­i­ous, ever-con­tra­dic­to­ry, and ever-eva­sive, irra­tional ideas. And, on count­less occa­sions through­out the ages, will­ful­ly cho­sen and enact­ed to their final social con­clu­sions, irra­tional ideas have caused vast des­ti­tu­tion, destruc­tion, and death.

Our primeval natures will always be with us. How­ev­er, irra­tional ideas are just sim­plis­tic con­cep­tu­al errors. They are just ideas that have become entan­gled with the per­sis­tent and per­ni­cious, primeval prin­ci­ple that: any­thing-goes!

With great counter-destruc­tive effect, we are able to counter-assault primeval any­thing-goes ideas by wise­ly employ­ing our rea­son­ing skills. And it is only by such ratio­nal­ly wise counter-assaults that we will ever become able to con­sis­tent­ly cul­ti­vate our pur­suits of hap­pi­ness.

Ratio­nal­i­ty has always been our dis­tinc­tive human attribute, our prin­ci­pal moral virtue, and our fun­da­men­tal tal­ent. Nev­er­the­less, it has only been with­in the most recent 2600 years that we humans have engaged in mean­ing­ful inves­ti­ga­tions of ratio­nal­i­ty. Thus, with­in the prodi­gious­ly long dura­tion of human his­to­ry, we have only just recent­ly begun to actu­al­ize the vibrant­ly good life that ratio­nal­i­ty offers.

Why? has this inves­ti­ga­tion work only just recent­ly begun, and then evolved at such an excru­ci­at­ing­ly slow pace? For four pri­ma­ry rea­sons:

  • One: Rationality’s fun­da­men­tal impor­tance must become rec­og­nized.
  • Two: Rea­son (rationality’s method of work) is a set of vol­un­tary skills that can only become per­formed with­in indi­vid­ual human minds.
  • Three: Ratio­nal-work (non-con­tra­dic­to­ry inte­gra­tions of obser­va­tions and con­cepts by log­i­cal rea­son) must become per­formed.
  • Four: Cul­tur­al­ly sig­nif­i­cant ratio­nal-work always depends upon present states of lit­er­a­cy and of var­i­ous sorts of infor­ma­tion tech­nolo­gies.

It is only with­in indi­vid­ual human minds that rea­son­ing skills and con­cep­tu­al knowl­edge can exist and devel­op. How­ev­er, at birth, our minds became formed devoid of such con­tent. Nev­er­the­less, since our births, our minds have become slates, upon which, by choice, we can write and rewrite to the very end of our con­scious lives.

By my choice, for twelve years, I direct­ed my mind towards impor­tant, pur­pose­ful work:

  • First: I worked hard to sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly inves­ti­gate and to there­by rea­son­ably assim­i­late a very broad knowl­edge con­text.
  • Sec­ond: Once I came to under­stand their utter­ly cru­cial impor­tance, I then worked hard to acquire an inci­sive under­stand­ing of fun­da­men­tal ratio­nal prin­ci­ples.
  • Third: Begin­ning with a lim­it­ed set of writ­ing skills, I then worked very hard to fur­ther devel­op, hone, and pol­ish those skills.
  • Fourth: Dur­ing near­ly five years, as I worked on those writ­ing skills, I com­posed The Page of Rea­son, the final pur­pose of which is to com­mu­ni­cate fun­da­men­tal ratio­nal prin­ci­ples to you, and to each oth­er able indi­vid­ual, on Earth.

With­in The Page of Rea­son, I have done my utter best to com­mu­ni­cate those prin­ci­ples.

  • For inci­sive pur­suits of sur­vival, pros­per­i­ty, and hap­pi­ness, on Earth, such prin­ci­ples, Objec­tivist Prin­ci­ples, are absolute­ly nec­es­sary.

I invite you to now embark with me upon this brief great­est ever pos­si­ble adven­ture, and to then employ The Page of Rea­son, as a potent tool, with­in your own endur­ing great­est ever pos­si­ble adven­ture. You and I have much to dis­cuss: me with­in my ratio­nal text, you with­in your own ratio­nal mind.

$Free Read­ing: Enjoy read­ing the com­plete essay from the web­site:

  • The Web­Text page: A stan­dard, font-size adjustable web­page.
  • The PdfText1 page: An embed­ded pdf file, in the orig­i­nal 8‑point font.
  • The PdfText2 page: An embed­ded pdf file, in a larg­er 11-point font.

Eight-Parts in Eight-Pages is a self-imposed, one part per page, artis­tic con­straint that is imple­ment­ed in an 8‑point font, on legal-size pages, with­in the mas­ter doc­u­ment. Dur­ing near­ly five years’ worth of ratio­nal-work, I employed this artis­tic con­straint to sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly pre­vent tex­tu­al bloat, while pro­gres­sive­ly enrich­ing, refin­ing, and tight­ly pack­ing tex­tu­al con­tent, most par­tic­u­lar­ly with­in Part 5, the part that drove the need for the 8‑point font. Some indi­vid­u­als will find one of the larg­er font pre­sen­ta­tions to be more read­able.

Copy­right © 2020 Orrin Smith

 

The Page of Reason

Part 1 of 8: The Preliminary Introduction

Some ages, brow did sweat.
Some pages, brow did whet.
From dust came pages, brow, and sweat.
And to dust they shall pay their debt.
But not, just, yet.

Section 1: The Principal Themes

  • Rea­son con­sti­tutes the essen­tial tool for the sur­vival, pros­per­i­ty, and hap­pi­ness of each human indi­vid­ual.
  • Objec­tivism con­sti­tutes the phi­los­o­phy of real­i­ty inte­grat­ed rea­son.
  • Each able indi­vid­ual, on Earth, would most cer­tain­ly ben­e­fit from an inci­sive under­stand­ing of Objec­tivism.
  • Objectivism’s prin­ci­ples have been inci­sive­ly defined on a sin­gle page of about 2000 words (Part 5: The Page).

Section 2: Reality Integrated Objectivist Principles:

The absolute­ly sub­lime, eas­i­ly under­stood, ratio­nal prin­ci­ples that are nec­es­sary for inci­sive pur­suits of sur­vival, pros­per­i­ty, and hap­pi­ness:

• Ratio­nal Real­i­ty and Knowl­edge •
• Ratio­nal Ethics, Virtues, and Rights •
• Ratio­nal Free­dom, Lib­er­ty, Jus­tice, and Gov­ern­ment •
• Ratio­nal Artis­tic Pur­pose •

Phi­los­o­phy is not a bauble of the intel­lect, but a pow­er from which no man can abstain. Any­one can say that he dis­pens­es with a view of real­i­ty, knowl­edge, the good, but no one can imple­ment this cre­do. The rea­son is that man, by his nature as a con­cep­tu­al being, can­not func­tion at all with­out some form of phi­los­o­phy to serve as his guide.

Peikoff, Leonard. Chap­ter 1, “Real­i­ty.” Objec­tivism: The Phi­los­o­phy of Ayn Rand. New York: Merid­i­an, 1993. Page 1, para­graph 1.

Section 3: Reason, Integration, and Pursuits of Happiness

Through­out the ages, to achieve ben­e­fi­cial out­comes, humans have rearranged bits and pieces of cause-and-effect nat­ur­al real­i­ty. How­ev­er, not being nature’s cre­ators, to achieve those cause-and-effect rearrange­ments, it has always been nec­es­sary for us to first grasp nature’s non-con­tra­dic­to­ry truths. And, just as non-con­tra­dic­to­ry rea­son ever has been our tool for grasp­ing those truths, it will ever be just so.

Nature is only to be com­mand­ed by obey­ing her.

Sir Fran­cis Bacon. First Book. Novum Organum. 1620. Apho­rism 129.

Rea­son is a set of vol­un­tary skills that can only become pro­gres­sive­ly mas­tered by punc­tu­at­ed ratio­nal-work with­in indi­vid­ual human minds. And to inte­grate is to assem­ble valu­able parts into a non-con­tra­dic­to­ry pur­pose­ful whole. The pur­pose of non-con­tra­dic­to­ry rea­son is to inte­grate obser­va­tions of real­i­ty into non-con­tra­dic­to­ry knowl­edge; from non-con­tra­dic­to­ry knowl­edge, to inte­grate non-con­tra­dic­to­ry val­ues and judg­ments; and from those, to inte­grate non-con­tra­dic­to­ry actions.

Close eval­u­a­tions of knowl­edge, val­ues, judg­ments, and actions will dis­close that, to the degrees well-inte­grat­ed, they are ulti­mate­ly employed with­in pur­suits of hap­pi­ness. More­over, it is from these inescapable facts of every­day life that the fab­ric of each individual’s life becomes com­posed.

Section 4: Irrationality, Consequences, and Corrections

Nat­ur­al real­i­ty = objec­tive real­i­ty + sub­jec­tive real­i­ty. With­in objec­tive real­i­ty, con­tra­dic­tions do not exist. How­ev­er, with­in sub­jec­tive real­i­ty, irra­tional ideas (which always entail con­tra­dic­tions) do exist. And ideas do cause con­se­quences. At min­i­mum, they sim­ply con­sume pre­cious time. How­ev­er, at worst, on count­less occa­sions through­out the ages, will­ful­ly cho­sen and enact­ed to their final social con­clu­sions, irra­tional ideas have caused vast des­ti­tu­tion, destruc­tion, and death.

Except­ing sim­ple acci­dents and inno­cent knowl­edge deficits, such ideas are the root caus­es of all human gen­er­at­ed tragedies. And ulti­mate­ly, such ideas can only become cor­rect­ed by ratio­nal-work (non-con­tra­dic­to­ry inte­gra­tions of obser­va­tions and con­cepts by log­i­cal rea­son), not by suf­fer­ing fur­ther irra­tional ideas.

I present The Page of Rea­son, as a potent tool, to sub­stan­tial­ly cor­rect irra­tional ideas: to there­by dimin­ish human gen­er­at­ed tragedies.

Choic­es are required. Time and work are also required. How­ev­er, this is not par­tic­u­lar­ly dif­fi­cult work, and it is vir­tu­al­ly guar­an­teed to become extra­or­di­nar­i­ly reward­ing and plea­sur­able work. Our choic­es. Our time. Our work. Our rewards. Our plea­sures. Rea­son is noble. Wel­come! And I am pleased to meet you here.

Section 5: Understanding The Page of Reason

The Ini­tial Pur­pose: My work to com­pose The Page of Rea­son began with a desire to ratio­nal­ly inte­grate a lifetime’s worth of per­son­al expe­ri­ence with a broad range of impor­tant knowl­edge to which I had recent­ly been apply­ing years of sys­tem­at­ic study (p4, s4). Towards that pur­pose, I have worked con­sis­tent­ly to make this text a work of inter­nal con­sis­ten­cy. How­ev­er, …

A fool­ish con­sis­ten­cy is the hob­gob­lin of lit­tle minds.

Emer­son, Ralph Wal­do. Self-Reliance. 1841. Para­graph 14.

  • Clear­ly, Ralph Wal­do would judge my mind to be: a fool­ish lit­tle hob­gob­lin mind.

From the very first page of my writ­ing, I employed a self-imposed one-page con­straint. I sensed a pur­pose­ful need to tai­lor a big mem­o­ry full of big ideas into a fash­ion­able hat of a con­sis­tent tex­ture and style that would com­fort­ably fit my own fool­ish lit­tle hob­gob­lin mind.

Fur­ther­more, also from the very first page, I employed the prin­ci­ple that I should com­pose in a con­sis­tent tex­ture and style that would con­sis­tent­ly com­mu­ni­cate my ideas to you. If I could con­sis­tent­ly com­mu­ni­cate my ideas to you, then I would like­wise con­sis­tent­ly com­mu­ni­cate them to my own fool­ish lit­tle hob­gob­lin mind.

Oh Ralph, Ralph, Ralph Wal­do! Take a hike! Slump along now, and hump your fool­ish, incon­sis­tent, mis­fit ideas into some stinky slug-plumped swamp—somewhere, light-years away. Dump ‘em there. Then, sprint back to us: unbur­dened and refreshed.

The Long Project: I began com­pos­ing this text on Octo­ber 15th of 2015 as a novice author who pos­sessed rea­son­ably well-devel­oped ver­bal lan­guage skills. How­ev­er, I did not pos­sess any sig­nif­i­cant writ­ing expe­ri­ence, and I most def­i­nite­ly did not pos­sess the writ­ing skills that were nec­es­sary to pro­duce this work. There­fore, I had to acquire, hone, and pol­ish much of that, and that work, well-increased by count­less bits of ratio­nal-work on all oth­er aspects of this project, con­sumed con­sid­er­able dos­es of time and effort.

Judg­ing it com­plete, I first pub­lished The Page of Rea­son on April 1st of 2016 (on the web­site). How­ev­er, I was then unable to restrain myself from author­ing fur­ther enrich­ments and refine­ments. On July 4th, I called a final halt. Then, on August 15th, fol­low­ing numer­ous re-reads, I embarked once more! Then, all over, again, again, and again! On August 28th of 2020, I called one last final halt.

The Parts: I began com­pos­ing this text with ini­tial work on Parts 4 and 5. And, through­out my long writ­ing project, I worked assid­u­ous­ly to make those two parts easy to read, easy to under­stand, and inci­sive­ly accu­rate. How­ev­er, my self-imposed one-page con­straints exclud­ed fur­ther, impor­tant and valu­able, infor­ma­tion and con­text. There­fore, once I had resolved to share Parts 4 and 5 with you, I then con­cur­rent­ly com­posed the addi­tion­al parts and sup­ple­ments.

Part 5 con­sti­tutes an excep­tion­al­ly inde­pen­dent sub-essay. How­ev­er, to estab­lish impor­tant con­text, the com­plete essay should first be read in sequen­tial order. Once that con­text has been estab­lished, then Part 5’s val­ue becomes great­ly enriched, and all oth­er parts and sup­ple­ments become sub­stan­tial­ly inde­pen­dent sub-essays.

  • Nev­er­the­less, ratio­nal def­i­n­i­tions do reside on each page.

The Razor: Part 5, Orrin’s Razor, con­cludes my attempt to for­mu­late an utter­ly essen­tial, one-page, inci­sive def­i­n­i­tion of Objec­tivism. I am con­fi­dent that indi­vid­u­als who pos­sess sig­nif­i­cant pre­knowl­edge of Objec­tivism will find Part 5’s def­i­n­i­tion to be extra­or­di­nar­i­ly accu­rate and valu­able. How­ev­er, con­cern­ing such con­clu­sions, each Stu­dent of Objec­tivism must for­mu­late their own judg­ments.

The Cul­ti­va­tors: Here are four facts that each able indi­vid­ual should know:

  • Objec­tivism con­sti­tutes the present­ly unsur­passed cul­ti­va­tor of fun­da­men­tal ratio­nal prin­ci­ples.
  • The Page of Rea­son, cou­pled with The Great Per­sua­sion, con­sti­tutes the present­ly unsur­passed cul­ti­va­tor of Objec­tivism (my inten­tion).
  • By choice, one can cul­ti­vate one’s own con­cep­tu­al mind: to there­by cul­ti­vate one’s own pur­suits of hap­pi­ness.
  • Prodi­gious­ly few adults are ever thor­ough­ly unable.

The Emo­tions: Though I am most def­i­nite­ly not an emo­tion­al­ist, each time that I have read through this text, I have expe­ri­enced impor­tant emo­tion­al respons­es. I can there­fore tes­ti­fy that one’s ratio­nal efforts to grasp the truths of real­i­ty, knowl­edge, the good are not cold, dry, and remote.

Well-inte­grat­ed knowl­edge con­sis­tent­ly caus­es appro­pri­ate, noble, well-informed, and well-nuanced emo­tions. Val­ue judg­ments con­sti­tute con­se­quen­tial sub­sets of our knowl­edge. And vig­or­ous­ly, sub­con­scious­ly, at light­ning fast speeds, our minds match our var­i­ous­ly direct­ed, var­i­ous­ly focused, lim­it­ed obser­va­tions with our pre­formed val­ue judg­ments, and there­by cause our emo­tions. (p5, s3, p10).

  • Ratio­nal knowl­edge enrich­es and refines val­ue judg­ments, and there­by enrich­es and refines emo­tions.

Should you choose to read the com­plete essay, then know that I will be engag­ing in a no holds barred effort to com­mu­ni­cate to you: the essen­tial facts of Objec­tivist Principles—with all of the emo­tion­al pow­er that my fool­ish lit­tle hob­gob­lin mind can pos­si­bly muster.

The Final Pur­pose: Too often, our lives become swamped, by treach­er­ous assaults, of mul­ti­far­i­ous kinds, from copi­ous-cadres of death-wor­ship­ing, death-deal­ing, any­thing-goes mis­fits.

Dis­tinct­ly counter-assault­ing such evils: Objec­tivism inci­sive­ly iden­ti­fies, defines, and explains the only known full-set of fun­da­men­tal ratio­nal prin­ci­ples that are absolute­ly nec­es­sary to estab­lish ratio­nal order with­in each of our cul­tures and civ­i­liza­tions: for the life-enrich­ing ratio­nal-self-inter­est of each human indi­vid­ual.

There­fore, due to Objectivism’s unri­valed impor­tance, amongst all pos­si­ble earth­ly ideas, I absolute­ly intend that The Page of Rea­son become shared with each able indi­vid­ual, on Earth. Then, for each one, to read, or not to read: that be the choice. To ascend to the moun­tain top, or not: that also be a choice.

Section 6: Interregnum: Reproduction Rights

Copy­right © 2020 Orrin Smith. All rights reserved. Nei­ther The Page of Rea­son text nor any oth­er con­tent on TheP​a​ge​Of​Rea​son​.com (the web­site), may be repro­duced or dis­trib­uted, in whole or in part, in any form or man­ner, with­out pri­or writ­ten autho­riza­tion from Orrin Smith.

  • The defin­i­tive autho­riza­tion state­ments reside on the website’s Reprints page.

Briefly: Repro­duce this text only from the website’s Reprints page. On that page, you can link to the pdf files for unlim­it­ed read­er pub­lished reprints of these texts on Legal, Let­ter, or a4 paper, in small to medi­um sized fonts. A small roy­al­ty fee will usu­al­ly be required:

  • Pref­ace Fly­ers: $Free, sin­gle-sided, one-page fly­ers for Let­ter and a4 paper.
  • Part 1 Intro­duc­tions: $10.00 for 100. These include the full title/​preface page.
  • The Com­plete Essay: $10.00 for 10. For many indi­vid­u­als, an in-hand com­plete essay reprint can be prefer­able to web­site read­ing. In any case, it can become an exquis­ite, well-appre­ci­at­ed gift.
  • The Com­plete Essay: $2.50 for one, if that is all that you might want or need.

 

The Page of Reason

Part 2 of 8: The Topical Outline

Noth­ing Can Be Ratio­nal­ly Known to Exist That Is
More Mag­nif­i­cent, More Impor­tant, or More Glo­ri­ous
Than One’s Own Con­cep­tu­al Mind.

  • Part 1: The Pre­lim­i­nary Intro­duc­tion
    • Sec­tion 1: The Prin­ci­pal Themes
    • Sec­tion 2: Real­i­ty Inte­grat­ed Objec­tivist Prin­ci­ples
    • Sec­tion 3: Rea­son, Inte­gra­tion, and Pur­suits of Hap­pi­ness
    • Sec­tion 4: Irra­tional­i­ty, Con­se­quences, and Cor­rec­tions
    • Sec­tion 5: Under­stand­ing The Page of Rea­son
    • Sec­tion 6: Inter­reg­num: Repro­duc­tion Rights
  • Part 3: About Orrin Smith and The Page of Rea­son
    • Sec­tion 1: Ear­ly Work His­to­ry: Respect for End-to-End Evil-Force-Free Trade
    • Sec­tion 2: Ear­ly Edu­ca­tion His­to­ry: Mod­er­ate Achieve­ments: Dribs and Drabs
    • Sec­tion 3: Intel­lec­tu­al Bedrock: Just Anoth­er Guy (With an Every­day Light!)
    • Sec­tion 4: Mid­dle Pro­fes­sion­al His­to­ry: Adept, Pro­duc­tive, and Respect­ed
    • Sec­tion 5: April Fools’ Day of 2008: The Secret Plan: Blend Tasty Lemon­ade
    • Sec­tion 6: The Accom­plish­ments: Yes! Yes! and a Vibrant Sprint-In-Progress!
    • Sec­tion 7: Refresh­ment Time! A Superbly Blend­ed Batch of Tasty Lemon­ade!
  • Part 4: The Crit­i­cal Intro­duc­tion: A Dis­cov­ery of Objec­tivism
    • Sec­tion 1: Objec­tivism and The Page
    • Sec­tion 2: Mas­ter­ing Any Sub­ject
    • Sec­tion 3: Mas­ter­ing the Sub­ject of Ratio­nal Phi­los­o­phy
    • Sec­tion 4: The Sweat of His Brow: Orrin’s Great Big Ratio­nal Chew
    • Sec­tion 5: Com­ments on Key Objec­tivist Lit­er­a­ture
    • Sec­tion 6: Table of Key Objec­tivist Lit­er­a­ture (with brief com­ments)
  • Part 5: Orrin’s Razor: His One Page Def­i­n­i­tion of Objec­tivism
    • Sec­tion 1: The Require­ment: A Vig­or­ous Phi­los­o­phy for a Vibrant Life
      • The Root: Real­i­ty: “What defines con­cep­tu­al real­i­ty?” Plus: Knowl­edge: “What defines con­cep­tu­al knowl­edge?” (An inex­tri­ca­bly inter­twined pair.)
      • The Trunk: Ethics: “What defines good indi­vid­ual judg­ment?”
      • The Branch­es: Pol­i­tics: “What defines good social judg­ment?” And: Esthet­ics: “What is beau­ti­ful, wor­thy of admi­ra­tion, wor­thy of emu­la­tion?”
    • Sec­tion 2: Real­i­ty: “What Defines Con­cep­tu­al Real­i­ty?”
      • Note: With­in zero to absolute degrees of cer­tain­ty, our con­cep­tu­al minds pos­sess only real­i­ty per­spec­tives. And, to the degree that a con­cept is ratio­nal­ly valid, is ratio­nal­ly cer­tain, it is a fact. Ideas, propo­si­tions, def­i­n­i­tions, etc. are inter­min­glings of con­cepts, each of which must pos­sess valid­i­ty.
      • Objectivism’s Three Axiomat­ic Con­cepts: The imme­di­ate­ly observ­able, mutu­al­ly inte­grat­ed, and ratio­nal­ly irrefutable, human real­i­ty per­spec­tives.
        • Exis­tence: The human uni­ver­sal, spher­i­cal, real­i­ty per­spec­tive.
        • Iden­ti­ty 1: The human dif­fer­en­ti­at­ing real­i­ty per­spec­tive.
        • Iden­ti­ty 2: The human cause-and-effect real­i­ty per­spec­tive.
        • Con­scious­ness: The human iden­ti­fi­ca­tion real­i­ty per­spec­tive. Plus: Objectivism’s Pri­ma­cy of Exis­tence Corol­lary.
    • Sec­tion 3: Knowl­edge: “What Defines Con­cep­tu­al Knowl­edge?”
      • 1. Per­cepts: The orig­i­nal raw data: for all high­er-ani­mals.
      • 2. Con­cepts: Pos­si­ble knowl­edge: for human high­er-ani­mals, only.
      • 3. Per­cept Range: From an indi­vid­ual human mind’s all-inclu­sive iso­la­tion to its poten­tial tur­bo-charg­ing from civ­i­liza­tions’ rich intel­lec­tu­al lega­cies.
      • 4. Con­cept Pow­er: For life, ratio­nal-work shuf­fles sym­bol­i­cal­ly named mem­o­ry files to pack, unpack, and repack evolv­ing con­cept def­i­n­i­tions, there­by pro­vi­sion­ing indi­vid­ual humans with life-enrich­ing ben­e­fits.
      • 5. Gen­e­sis: From start to fin­ish, we for­mu­late our knowl­edge by inter­mit­tent and nat­u­ral­ly lim­it­ed rearrange­ments of obser­va­tions and con­cepts.
      • 6. Valid­i­ty: The roots of valid con­cepts reside exclu­sive­ly with­in non-con­tra­dic­to­ry cause-and-effect objec­tive real­i­ty.
      • 7. Just Know­ing: By spew­ing tur­bu­lent clouds of smoke and fog, mem­o­ry fac­to­ries sub­tly fuel alleged forms of “just know­ing.”
      • 8. Lan­guage: Ratio­nal-work is per­formed exclu­sive­ly in intro­spec­tive lan­guage. And lan­guage is pri­mar­i­ly a tool of rea­son, only sec­on­dar­i­ly of com­mu­ni­ca­tion.
      • 9. Emo­tions 1: Their three impor­tant func­tions: attach­ment, report­ing, and moti­va­tion.
      • 10. Emo­tions 2: Their one essen­tial cause: obser­va­tions matched with pre­formed val­ue judg­ments.
    • Sec­tion 4: Ethics: “What Defines Good Indi­vid­ual Judg­ment?”
      • 1. Irra­tional­i­ty: Irra­tional­i­ty is the prin­ci­pal root cause of human gen­er­at­ed tragedies.
      • 2. Judg­ment Tree: Root: the good­ness of indi­vid­ual human life; trunk: virtues; branch­es and leaves: sub­or­di­nat­ed val­ues, laws, rules, and options.
      • 3. Virtues: The trunk of impor­tant, life-enrich­ing, and root inte­grat­ed prin­ci­pal moral val­ues for good judg­ment guid­ance.
    • Sec­tion 5: Pol­i­tics: “What Defines Good Social Judg­ment?”
      • 1. Rights: Rights bridge ethics and actions with­in social con­texts. Each indi­vid­ual pos­sess­es a nat­ur­al right to per­form evil-force-free actions. Group rights are derived exclu­sive­ly from legit­i­mate­ly del­e­gat­ed indi­vid­ual rights.
      • 2. Evil-Force: Any human gen­er­at­ed force that is aimed towards abro­gat­ing any valid, non-self-abro­gat­ed, indi­vid­ual human right is pro­hib­it­ed.
      • 3. Gov­ern­ment: Its only source, pur­pose, and oblig­a­tion: indi­vid­ual rights. Its only meth­ods: civ­il adju­di­ca­tion and retal­ia­to­ry force jus­tice.
    • Sec­tion 6: Esthet­ics: “What Is Beau­ti­ful, Wor­thy of Admi­ra­tion, Wor­thy of Emu­la­tion?”
      • Artis­tic Pur­pose: Weav­ing affir­ma­tions, inspi­ra­tions, and moti­va­tions for bound­less evil-force-free pur­suits of sur­vival, pros­per­i­ty, and hap­pi­ness.
    • Sec­tion 7: The Deliv­ery: A Vig­or­ous Phi­los­o­phy for a Vibrant Life
      • Real­i­ty Inte­grat­ed Log­i­cal Rea­son: The only pos­si­ble razor for valid­ly cul­ti­vat­ing knowl­edge, val­ues, judg­ments, and actions.
      • Real­i­ty Inte­grat­ed Objec­tivist Prin­ci­ples: The sub­lime, nec­es­sary, and eas­i­ly under­stood ratio­nal prin­ci­ples for sur­vival, pros­per­i­ty, and hap­pi­ness.
      • Objec­tivism: The only known inde­struc­tible map to ratio­nal human life.
  • Part 6: The Crit­i­cal Analy­sis: Objec­tivism in Con­text
    • Sec­tion 1: Objec­tivism in Knowl­edge Con­text: About Con­cept Def­i­n­i­tions
    • Sec­tion 2: Objec­tivism in His­toric Con­text: Our Fun­da­men­tal Axiomat­ic Race
    • Sec­tion 3: Objec­tivism in Learn­ing Con­text: Inci­sive­ly Cog­niz­ing Objec­tivism
  • Part 7: Ratio­nal Knowl­edge Resources
    • Sec­tion 1: Time and Choice
    • Sec­tion 2: Objec­tivism: Key Objec­tivist Lit­er­a­ture
    • Sec­tion 3: Objec­tivism: Ayn Rand: The Philoso­pher
    • Sec­tion 4: Objec­tivism: Dr. Leonard Peikoff: Ayn Rand’s Cho­sen Heir
    • Sec­tion 5: Objec­tivism: The Objec­tive Stan­dard
    • Sec­tion 6: Objec­tivism: The Page of Rea­son
    • Sec­tion 7: The Great Cours­es: The Deep Well-Chewed News
    • Sec­tion 8: The Great Cours­es: A Vibrant Foun­da­tion­al Enrich­ment
    • Sec­tion 9: The Great Cours­es: A Broad Knowl­edge Con­text
    • Sec­tion 10: The Great Cours­es: A Vast Con­cep­tu­al Hier­ar­chy of His­to­ry One
    • Sec­tion 11: The Great Cours­es: A Vast Con­cep­tu­al Hier­ar­chy of His­to­ry Two
    • Sec­tion 12: Objec­tivism: A Brief Nom­i­na­tion of Addi­tion­al Virtues
  • Part 8: John Galt, God, Jesus, Can­dide, and The Huck­le­ber­rys!
    • Sec­tion 1: The Irra­tional Night­mare: Ghosts and Zom­bies Galore!
    • Sec­tion 2: Inter­reg­num: Betwixt the Night­mare and the Dream
    • Sec­tion 3: The Ratio­nal Dream: Your Very Own Noble Prize
    • Sec­tion 4: And Thank You for Rea­son­ing
  • Sup­ple­ment 1: The Great Per­sua­sion
    • Open­ing Remarks:
      • Sec­tion 1: Your Invi­ta­tion to The Great Per­sua­sion
      • Sec­tion 2: Apoc­a­lyp­tic Con­clu­sions
      • Sec­tion 3: Con­text Keep­ing and Ratio­nal Def­i­n­i­tions
      • Sec­tion 4: Cap­i­tal­ism and Pol­i­tics
    • Squawk­ing with Great Par­rots:
      • Sec­tion 5: A Jere­mi­ad for Jus­tice (squawks includ­ed)
      • Sec­tion 6: The Great Par­rot High-Brow Squawks
      • Sec­tion 7: Our Mid­dle-Brow Gold­smith Counter-Squawks
    • Cause-and-Effect:
      • Sec­tion 8: Big Cos­mos and Free Will
      • Sec­tion 9: Pure Gold from Gray Ores
      • Sec­tion 10: Choic­es and Prin­ci­ples
      • Sec­tion 11: Defin­ing Insti­tu­tions
      • Sec­tion 12: Ratio­nal Per­sua­sion
    • Prop­a­ga­tion Work:
      • Sec­tion 13: Mid­dle-Brow Gold­smiths
      • Sec­tion 14: Our usa Project
      • Sec­tion 15: Our usa Sub-Projects
      • Sec­tion 16: Ratio­nal-Self-Inter­est Ser­vice Fees
    • Clos­ing Remarks:
      • Sec­tion 17: Our Pro­gres­sive Con­quests of Evil
      • Sec­tion 18: Glim­mer­ing Pearls and Gems
      • Sec­tion 19: I Rest My Case
  • Sup­ple­ment 2: The After­word
    • Ayn Rand: The Philoso­pher
    • Dr. Leonard Peikoff: Ayn Rand’s Cho­sen Heir
    • The Page of Rea­son: Three Impor­tant Seeds of Its Incep­tion
  • Sup­ple­ment 2: The Post­scripts
    • Brief com­ments, def­i­n­i­tions, remarks, etc. on numer­ous short sub­jects.

• • • What’s in your phi­los­o­phy? • • •

 

The Page of Reason

Supplement 2: The Postscripts

Brief def­i­n­i­tions, com­men­taries, remarks, etc. on the fol­low­ing short sub­ject titles.

  • Objec­tivism
  • Objec­tivists
  • Objec­tivist Thun­der
  • Abet
  • Abro­gate
  • Action and Rea­son
  • Ad Hominem
  • Anchors
  • Archimedes
  • Auto­di­dact
  • Bal­ance
  • Bonus Ben­e­fits
  • Can­dides and Huck­le­ber­rys
  • Col­lec­tive Knowl­edge
  • Col­lec­tivism
  • Con­cepts 1: Abstrac­tions
  • Con­cepts 2: Evo­lu­tion
  • Con­cepts 3: Pic­tures
  • Con­cepts 4: Pow­er
  • Cor­rup­tion
  • Ear­ly Edu­ca­tion
  • Earn­ings
  • Ego­ism vs. Ego­tism
  • Emo­tions 1: Ill-Judged (p5, s3, p9)
  • Emo­tions 2: Evi­dence (p5, s3, p10)
  • Evil
  • Evolve
  • Explic­it vs. Implic­it
  • Fire-and-For­get
  • Frauds
  • Genius
  • Gov­ern­ment: Intel­lec­tu­al Dis­course (p5, s5, p3)
  • Gray Def­i­n­i­tions
  • Ground Zero (p5, s3, p5)
  • Hap­pi­ness
  • His­tor­i­cal vs. His­toric
  • Huck­le­ber­ry
  • Huck­le­ber­ry Cap­i­tal­ist
  • Human Prod­ucts
  • Humans and Nature
  • Inci­sive
  • Ini­ti­ate
  • Knowl­edge
  • Mas­ter Doc­u­ment
  • Mys­ti­cal
  • Objec­tive vs. Sub­jec­tive
  • Orrin’s Great Big Ratio­nal Chew
  • Par­rots 1: Def­i­n­i­tions
  • Par­rots 2: Masks
  • Per­pe­trate
  • Pol­i­tics 1: Earth­wide Pur­suits of Hap­pi­ness
  • Pol­i­tics 2: Ide­olo­gies
  • Primeval 1: Humans
  • Primeval 2: Lan­guages
  • Punc­tu­at­ed Study
  • Rea­son
  • Richard Hal­ley
  • Rights (p5, s5, p1)
  • Sanc­tion
  • Swirling Words
  • Valid
  • Val­ue
  • Vast Des­ti­tu­tion, Destruc­tion, and Death
  • Vibrant
  • Vig­or­ous
  • Vir­tu­al­ly
  • Virtue
  • Wealth 1: Mate­r­i­al
  • Wealth 2: Ratio­nal
  • Will­ful Eva­sions
  • Smoke and Fog