I read Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology decades ago.
I often advise people to read it after Atlas Shrugged.
Before I'd even heard of Ayn Rand, I asked a librarian in the NYC library (the big one at midtown) if there were any modern writers continuing the Aristotelian tradition.
She said, "What about Ayn Rand?"
To which I replied, "I believe I know that name..."
And the the book she brought me was ITOE.
@Tsar_Martyr it is a null proposition.
same with leprechauns.
I believe in leprechauns - not null, requires evidence.
I do not believe in leprechauns - null, does not require evidence.
for the same reason you are innocent until proven guilty. One is null (innocence) the other is not (guilt).
@_Vermin_ My good man, you can say this for the next hundred years and they will not get it. I've spent the last two days trying to define for them a "null proposition" and they will not get it.
Ever.
Understand nullities in logic. "God does not exist" is a null proposition because of the "does not". - Not because it is a statement.
Null propositions are not susceptible to evidence. Every other proposition is.
Leprechauns do not exist - null
Leprechauns exist. - Not null.
Your claim presupposes that God does not exist.
The onus is on you to prove your claim, as it is a positive claim about reality. Otherwise, your claim remains an unproven assumption, and can be dismissed as such.
To understand the Creationist mind, read Aristotle's essay on coincidence, and how it ties in with an understanding of events before they occur vs. an understanding after they occur.
Intelligent Design proponents generally take an event (the creation of the universe), and project themselves via their imaginations back in time to before the event occurs. Of course, everything they know about the event now seems wildly coincidental, because... they are living post-event and pretending to live pre-event.
Aristotle makes this plainer in On Interpretation, Chapter 9.
HL Mencken made this point:
THE ARGUMENT from design, once the bulwark of Christian apologetics, has been shot so full of holes that it is no wonder it has had to be abandoned. The more, indeed, the theologian seeks to prove the wisdom and omnipotence of God by His works, the more he is dashed by the evidences of divine incompetence and stupidity that the advance of science is constantly turning up. The world is not actually well run; it is very badly run, and no Huxley was needed to labor the obvious fact. The human body, very cunningly designed in some details, is cruelly and senselessly bungled in other details, and every reflective first-year medical student must notice a hundred ways to improve it.
Mencken, H.L.. Mencken Chrestomathy (p. 67). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
P1: The Gospels were written by ordinary men of no philosophical or theological training.
P2: Yet the Gospels contain perfect theology, profound moral depth, and transcendent wisdom surpassing the greatest philosophers and theologians in history.
C: Therefore something beyond human ability produced them—they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.