Trivial Incomprehensible Borefest

According to cultist epigone Leonard Peikoff:

“Though irrationally combined, the elements of invalidly created wholes, like those of valid wholes, are related not by juxtaposition but by necessity. The necessity within the invalid whole derives not from objective facts, but rather from the relationships the integrator can establish based on his non-rational framework. In other words, the source of necessity here is not reality, but the systemic internal consistency of the product – that is, its consistency within its non-rational framework. However unjustified that framework, within it the parts are connected; as with any whole, the parts require one another.” (The DIM Hypothesis, 2012, chapter 1, page 20)

But while slogging thru Peikoff’s Kantian prose, two thoughts kept occurring to me: 1) Does the integration of ideas really require a 350-page tome which is impossible to follow or care about? 2) And does this integration-of-ideas phenomenon really drive human history and destiny to such a powerful extent?

Peikoff clearly says yes to both. Or at least his book does. But far more important in guiding mankind, I would argue, is philosophy as a whole. Or even epistemology as a whole.

In my view, what truly counts – when it comes to individual greatness and happiness, as well as societal prosperity and progress – are the following fundamental epistemological issues:

1) How rational you and your ideas are. 2) How many actual truths you discover and how knowledgeable you become. 3) How relevant and important those new truths and ideas are. 4) How profound and wise they are. 5) How exact and error-free they are. 6) How closely and carefully you observe, measure, record, and publicize your new insights about reality. 7) How intellectually honest you are. 8) How intellectually brave you are. 9) And, yes, how well you organize and integrate your new ideas and insights into a cohesive, non-contradictory whole; or a helpful, comprehensive hierarchy; or a clear, perceptive, deft, nimble, practical, useful, intellectual system in regard to the specific hard or soft science you are currently studying.

Do these nine well and the Holy Individual and society will thrive and ascend like a rocket! How a person thinks is indeed important.

Because as Peikoff endlessly notes, it’s far better to have organized and integrated ideas and concepts in your mind and intellectual system, rather than misorganized and misintegrated ones. It’s more important still to avoid massively disorganzied and disintegrated ideas and concepts. But in order to figure out that simple idea, do we really need to struggle thru 350 pages of turgid, baffling, tedious, pointless, Kantian gibberish?