Then you are mistaken or I was not clear. Absolutes in the sense of absolute knowledge, the omnis of theology and so on are irrelevant. Knowledge is contextual with the context being what we are aware of and have grasped and the degree we have grasped it and the certainty of our grasping to date.

In the context of the top post, saying there is a problem with objective knowledge because of some overarching unanswerable absolute question of cosmic Why of existence is a speciment of irrelevant absolutist thinking.

I am very very aware of OPAR and understand it quite well. You misunderstood the context of my remarks. Are knowledge can be exact and unassailable without any claims we have some "absolute knowledge" that can never be deepened or replaced if found lacking. I am not in the least denying objective reality or epistemology.

I am not so sure you understand these things as well as I.

This has been my experience as well. I rarely down vote but many of his comments warrant that choice based on my reasoning.

Even if it were true that Rand "stole" her concepts -- so what? Was Nels Bohr stealing Einstein's work when he sought to amend and further it? Scientists build on one another's work all the time. Why not philosophers?

Yes- typing too fast. I created a separate post on this fallacy.

People don't know what they don't know. That, however, does not eliminate the possibility that someone very bright will find the answer tomorrow, or next month or next year. The quest for understanding the unknown is the true job of the human race. Without it, we become mired in a never-ending repetition of sameness,

I have heard many Platonic, Kantish, crapola that I have lined them up according to how much they amuse me. My favorite is that the universe is a bubble in a glass of beer being swallowed by a university freshman. After all, no matter how erudite the language that the statements are couched in, they are still a bunch of crap.

"By purpose or accident" assumes someone or something put us here. The fundamental fact is that we are here. Existence exists. Man has to choose life in order to live. One cannot force a man to accept reason.

Isn't it more - If you do not know something, you do not know anything?

I"I think, therefore, I am." AND
I reason, therefore I sustain.

"An axiom is a statement that identifies the base of knowledge and of any further statement pertaining to that knowledge, a statement necessarily contained in all others, whether any particular speaker chooses to identify it or not. An axiom is a proposition that defeats its opponents by the fact that they have to accept it and use it in the process of any attempt to deny it."

In Jame 464 statement, do I see the attempt to use reason to defeat reason?

And the corollary that existence does not begin until after coffee.

The Perfect Knowledge Fallacy

Jame464 made a similar comment to me. He is using the perfect knowledge fallacy common among religionist (him), but also Kant and the German counter enlightenment. The argument is that if you do not know anything, then you do not know anything. The tactic of these people is to say since you do not know x, then you can't know anything.

This argument is based on a false definition of knowledge. They will argue that a man 3000 years ago who thought the Earth was flat had no knowledge. Note however if you are building a small house, even today, we assume the Earth is flat and this is fine. This does not mean we do not have knowledge. We still don't know the mechanism for how gravity works, that does not mean that we do not have knowledge about gravity. There are also open questions about mass and inertia, not to mention question about calculus. This does not mean we do not have knowledge.

I have to admit that the perfect knowledge fallacy usually sneaks up on me and it takes awhile to see that this is the other person's argument. However, it is used quite a bit so it is worth remembering.

I tried to point this out by example to Jame464, but he is not interested in logic, reason, and evidence.

Cogito ergo sum.

"Existence exits" immediately awoke a memory that goes back to the 60s when old dino was a young college freshman.
I recall a professor all dreamy-eyed and smiling as he asked the class, "How do we know that all we see around us is really real? How do we know it's not some dream we're having?"
That professor spoke on of alternate dimensions and dream state other stuff that have dimmed in my memory banks over time.
On that same day I told my roommate what that professor had said.
My roommate sneered and said, "Shove his face in a cow pile and ask him if that's real."

I think we make waaaay to much out this statement. In order to reason one must begin with an observation: existence exists; then we move on to: how might it come into existence and why, what was the cause or will it continue to exist. It would be illogical to think it has always existed and always will, ex. no beginning and no end, It is simply an observation. The statement was never intended to be the end of the discussion.
As I posted at the time, it just might have been a reaction that expresses: Come on, lets not make a big deal about it...it exists, we might never know why so let's move on and live out our lives. That's what I think Ayn meant at that time and somehow we've tried to make a big thing about it. It's something no one can be purely objective about therefore it is not the basis of being objective.

Otherwise known as the "Rumpelstiltskin Dilemma". :)

thanks ...getting old...

Indeed, stolen concept.

Remark to those defending the concept of "the stolen concept":

Occasionally you will encounter someone who says it is invalid to talk about the stolen concept in Objectivist philosophy because "Rand stole her concepts from other philosophers." That is of course the fallacy of equivocation, where the opposition deliberately misconstrues term "stolen concept" in an attempt to overturn the discovery of his error.

I find james464's commentary somewhat illiterate or, at the very least imprecise; and if I'm looking for holes, I'll look in a "pail", not a "pale".

"Liberal reasoning" is an oxymoron.

the person is using reason and logic to deny reason and logic...fallacy of the stolen concept...