I too use philosophy to 'push my understanding of the world around me' but for what possible reason should I want to do this except to better inform the decisions I make in my life?
All of Objectivism can be extrapolated from 'Existence exists.' That statement implies that 'something' exists (hence law of identity, A is A) and that you are conscious of it (hence consciousness). That gives us the three axiomatic concepts on which Objectivism rests - everyone directly perceives them - and they cannot be denied because any argument against them would inevitably involve/imply existence/identity/consciousness resulting in self-contradiction. In a similar way, the validity of the senses is not up for debate because any attempt to negate this validity would at some point rely upon it. So you need to accept the three irreducible primaries (existence/identity/consciousness) and the validity of the senses - and happily basically everyone does accept those things, and lives accordingly, and would only so much as attempt to deny them during rare philosophical debates.
When I said rational beings are defined by their ability to reason, I did not mean such beings are automatically acting rationally. Its a different sense of the word, like a fast car vs a car that is actually going fast. Just a misunderstanding.
All of Objectivism can be extrapolated from 'Existence exists.' That statement implies that 'something' exists (hence law of identity, A is A) and that you are conscious of it (hence consciousness). That gives us the three axiomatic concepts on which Objectivism rests - everyone directly perceives them - and they cannot be denied because any argument against them would inevitably involve/imply existence/identity/consciousness resulting in self-contradiction. In a similar way, the validity of the senses is not up for debate because any attempt to negate this validity would at some point rely upon it. So you need to accept the three irreducible primaries (existence/identity/consciousness) and the validity of the senses - and happily basically everyone does accept those things, and lives accordingly, and would only so much as attempt to deny them during rare philosophical debates.
When I said rational beings are defined by their ability to reason, I did not mean such beings are automatically acting rationally. Its a different sense of the word, like a fast car vs a car that is actually going fast. Just a misunderstanding.