The premise of my post has yet to be addressed. Ayn Rand claims that her metaphysics, and by default her entire philosophy, can be derived from the supposedly self-authenticating statement "existence exists," and that this is true on it's own grounds. If however, her simple analysis of the statement cannot alone prove this, then that means that we need to have an epistemological justification that introduces outside information, and that since it requires an epistemic view to justify, it cannot itself be a justification for any given view. In this respect I believe (for the above reasons and others) that objectivism does not possess a fully formed epistemology (and yes I have read both Rand and Peikoff's works on the subject, as well as criticisms published BY OBJECTIVISTs). Given Rand's thoughts on the chains of reasoning (politics dependent on ethics, dependent on metaphysics, dependent on epistemology) then by default the philosophy is built on a sandy foundation. The objectivist must, to refute my argument, show that existence existing is a function of a=a.
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