Reddit reviews The Logical Leap: Induction in Physics

Metaphysics

>The dual wave/particle nature of matter is something that Rand has trouble with.

Not so long as the duality is accounted for in a non-contradictory way. It's self-evident that you will never find both sides of a contradiction existing in reality. If you could, you would never be able to know anything about anything. I explain this point further here.

Epistemology

>Rand's epistemology posits a fundamentally knowable world, so much so that we can draw strong conclusions about ethics and politics from principles founded on literally any observation.

I think it's pretty clear that this was not Rand's view of how principles are derived and grounded. It certainly isn't Dr. Leonard Peikoff's view of the induction of ethical and political principles, and he studied under Rand for 30 years and, to the best of my knowledge, agrees with Rand on every philosophical principle she wrote on, (and some she never wrote on.)

An individual's conceptual knowledge is an integrated whole, with a network of relationships between the different concepts and propositions.

Inductions of principles are not made by any random observation, but by multiple, relevant observations that are then integrated with each other and with other concepts, by a certain method (inductive logic) ultimately forming a theory that explains the observations causally. There is a whole lecture course and a book extending Objectivist theories to the issue of induction.

>I think there is a very powerful case that the complexity of the real world is such that drawing universal conclusions from a tiny base of priors will lead you far astray.

As I mentioned earlier, Rand isn't basing principles on "a tiny base of priors," but on concepts and theories that rest on a large number of perceptions and observations. But I also want to emphasize that complexity does not preclude the derivation of principles. Issac Newton derived principles from a tremendously complex physical world. And these principles still work in the context (including the precision of measurement) in which they were derived, (i.e. when things are not too small, too large, or too fast.) (That is another thing about principles that Objectivism recognizes: they are contextual with respect to evidence. See: Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand.)

>She is also extremely uncharitable to Kant, who explores very similar ideas...

Not really similar, actually. Rand didn't take respresentationalism, or the causal theory of perception (in which external objects are the causes, but not the direct objects of perception) for granted as starting points. Nor did she make a distinction between "things-in-themselves" and "appearances," nor did she believe in the "synthetic a priori," nor did she posit that "objects must conform to our knowledge."

Rand was a direct realist (but not a "naive" one) about perception, and her philosophy goes on from there. (I recommend The Evidence of the Senses by David Kelley. If you want a more in depth explanation of what's wrong at the root of Kant's epistemology, I recommend this post, especially my last couple of comments: A Critique of Kant on the Noumenal World / Phenomenal World Distinction (“Thing-in-Itself” vs “Appearance”).)

Ethics

>However, Rand's conception of human happiness seems at odds with what we see in actual human lives. The deep and lasting connections of love that form among people and the genuine sacrifice people will make for their loved ones are such a big part of human behavior that it pushes me away from Rand's philosophy here.

If this is supposed to be persuasive, you're relying on an argumentum ad populum. The fact that many people behave a certain way doesn't make it right.

Now, you might say that the great prevalence of certain behaviors in people makes theories that condemn that behavior, prima facie, counter-intuitive. But to oppose the theory on these grounds, in the face of solid philosophical argument, is succumbing to the ad populum fallacy.

I would also like to note, for clarity here, that a genuine sacrifice is one in which a person willfully does net damage to his ability to carry forward with life, when everything, including his mental (conceptual and healthy emotional) needs over the long term are taken into account. I must say that I doubt that genuine sacrifices are quite as common as you indicate.

Politics

>Interpersonal relations are maddeningly complex, and a political system which presupposes to answer nearly all questions from basic principles is going to fail to account for that complexity.

Again, complexity does not preclude principles. Things that are varied and disparate in perceptual reality can be organized and kept track of conceptually. Principles can be derived from them.

>The modern liberal democratic welfare state has in fact worked really well.

To what are you comparing it and what standard of measurement are you using?

Countries today that can be called "modern" in the sense of technology and prosperity appear to be so, largely to the extent that they have been good at respecting the principles of freedom (that is, individual rights: life, liberty and property.)

Welfare, (redistribution based on need) on the other hand, exists, not only in these prosperous countries, but also exists in abundance in places like Cuba, North Korea, the former USSR, Haiti, and Somalia. (In these last two cases, the redistribution is in the form of international aid.)

This video shows the correlation between economic freedom and quality of life: Episode One: Economic Freedom & Quality of Life. Explanation of the causation can be found in works like Rand's Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal and Bernstein's The Capitalist Manifesto.

As Bono said,

>Aid is just a stop-gap. Commerce [and] entrepreneurial capitalism takes more people out of poverty than aid.

>In dealing with poverty here and around the world, welfare and foreign aid are a Band-Aid. Free enterprise is a cure.

>Entrepreneurship is the most sure way of development.

(Though I think that even calling welfare and foreign aid a "stop-gap" is giving them too much credit. I think it actually hinders economic progress by helping to insulate the county's people and--especially--leadership from the full consequences of their failure to uphold individual rights on principle.)

[Edit: Added the first sentence of the first response.]

The Logical Leap: Induction in Physics

Talks about how renaissance scientists used induction in physics. Author is a U.S. Department of Defense physicist and Leornard Peikoff, who is Ayn Rand's chosen intellectual and legal heir.

BTW it is still unclear as to whether induction can be performed on human choices. If that were possible I would have made a shit load of money in the markets.

Except we do have a logical justification for induction.

Well, based on Objectivism Peikoff and Harriman have given an answer to the problem of induction (philosophy of science):
https://www.amazon.com/Logical-Leap-Induction-Physics/dp/0451230051

And Tara Smith has been working on the philosophy of law: https://www.amazon.com/Judicial-Review-Objective-Legal-System/dp/1107114497