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intrinsicist

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Everything posted by intrinsicist

  1. I simply mean, if we talk about some universal, take for example the proposition "All men are mortal", or "Water is composed of H2O" - is this true, in reality, at all time and all places? Objectivists will claim that universals hold true, that we can have concepts which refer to all units of the kind at all time and all places, or generalized propositions (that one arrives at say by induction) that we can rely on always being the case. What Objectivists will deny are that these universal "are real" or "exist", that they have some metaphysical reality to them. They will say that all that exists are concretes, that is the only thing that is metaphysically real. They will deny that universals are metaphysically real (McCaskey's article is a striking instance of that, but it is held by Objectivism generally too). This is odd to me, for the reasons I outlined above. This would be a slightly more consistent position to hold, although you run into terrible, ultimately self-contradictory consequences of course, since you are denying that induction, or any generalized knowledge, is possible. Any concepts or propositions made that generalize outside of some specific set of concretes you've previously observed would be unjustifiable. I can go further into these problems, however this is not the position that Objectivism tries to stake out. See for example Chapter 2 of ITOE, Objectivism tries to claim the possibility and validity of universal knowledge, while denying the metaphysical reality of universals which make them actually possible.
  2. One can mentally construct propositions, e.g. "All men are mortal", which are universal propositions. That doesn't necessarily mean they correspond to a real, metaphysical universal. Any contradictory proposition or invalid concept does not correspond to a real universal. Emphatically no. Non-existence is a relational term, the negation of the concept of existence (where the valid concept of "existence" does correspond to a real universal). Well contradictions don't actually exist. Again we can reference the phenomenon of mental constructs where someone is holding two contradictory propositions as true, this is a real phenomenon, it's not like the concept of "contradiction" itself is invalid. It just doesn't reference something that happens in reality among real universals. There are generally of course real universals referencing mental phenomena.
  3. First, a few points of clarification: "Concrete universals" is a contradiction in terms. You have, on the one hand, concretes, which are specific and particular, and on the hand, universals, which are abstract and general. A concrete would be something like "the man Easy Truth". A universal would be "Man", referring to all men at all times and places. - ITOE
  4. My argument doesn't actually depend on such a premise, merely that some are real. There can still be abstractions in the mind which do not correspond to real universals in reality.
  5. Continuing this thread... Rand believes everything in reality is concrete, that, in reality, there is "no such thing" as the universal "manness" which ties together, and holds true for, all concrete men, at all times and in all places. This "manness" is rather our organization of concrete men. She claims that, by properly organizing concrete men, we can thus arrive at a universal "manness" which does hold true for all concrete men, at all times and in all places. So... would you all argue that the universal does exist *mentally* but not *in reality*... it *holds true* in reality, it just doesn't "exist" in reality? I guess that's the crux of the thing, this odd reluctance to grant the existence of something "in reality". That's why it's so hard to bridge this gap in communication. Under a dual aspect metaphysics, I am just granting this idea of an "abstract reality". Some abstraction which holds true in reality, therefore is *real*. It's giving a kind of reifying existence and power to the abstraction, the abstraction is what is *making* it hold true, as opposed to *something else* making it hold true and the abstraction merely "recognizing" that the truth is holding, presumably for some other reason. It's kind of an odd question- what is the real thing which is making this universal hold true? There must be something with the force of reality which is making this truth hold- what is that force? where does that force come from? The weird thing to me, is this assertion that there are NO abstractions with this power: only concretes are "really real". But even some given concrete has to have some abstract nature. Are we supposed to think the *material* of the concrete is powering the *nature* of the concrete? It doesn't really make any sense if you think about it clearly. Only the dual aspect perspective, a la Aristotle's hylomorphic compounds, actually makes any sense. I guess the Objectivist perspective is that we can't say why, but things just "happen" to work universally. That's just the way the concretes behave- but they don't behave that way because of some abstract principle of their nature. That form or principle is just a "way we describe" what matter is doing, it only exists in our own minds, not in reality itself. It's just bizarre to say that, and also hold that induction is possible, like McCaskey's article, where he insists we have 100% certainty about regularities despite there being no principle of uniformity. How can we have 100% certainty that a regularity will hold, if we deny the reality of some principle to it? There is no way to make a valid inference from any number of observations of a behavior to a universal rule of the behavior. What's to say it won't change, if it's not a real aspect of the thing's nature? Since the denial of metaphysical universals undermines the justification for any sort of induction or universal concept which holds in all places and at all times, this yields a presuppositional argument for metaphysical universals: any argument which purports to deny them, if it's a logical and justifiable argument, must presuppose and use universal concepts and induction (which in turn rely on universals having metaphysical reality) in order to make that argument. Hence the conclusion that metaphysical universals must be axiomatic.
  6. @EiuolI've never heard of "foundationalism", how does it relate to this form of argument?
  7. Based on @Eiuol's question and your reaction here, maybe I need to explain why I think presuppositionalism describes the nature of the argument in the term itself, and hence why I regard being averse to that term as extraordinary and suspicious. For an axiomatic concept, you must presuppose it any attempt to refute it, and the counter-argument to someone denying said concept, is that they are presupposing the concept in order to deny it. This is why it's such a fitting term. I'll note that this is precisely the term Ayn Rand used above, "proof presupposes existence, consciousness and a complex chain of knowledge", as did Peikoff, "Existence, consciousness, and identity are presupposed by every statement and by every concept". I think "presuppositional" is far more intuitive and less esoteric than "transcendental".
  8. I share your distaste in those particular aspects, but find the book overall to be extremely good. Keep going and let me know how your opinion changes. Favorite Walden quotes... ---------- "If I should sell both my forenoons and afternoons to society, as most appear to do, I am sure that for me there would be nothing left worth living for." "We select granite for the underpinning of our houses and barns; we build fences of stone; but we do not ourselves rest on an underpinning of granitic truth, the lowest primitive rock." "In proportion as our inward life fails, we go more constantly and desperately to the post-office. You may depend on it, that the poor fellow who walks away with the greatest number of letters, proud of his extensive correspondence, has not heard from himself this long while." "I do not know but it is too much to read one newspaper a week. I have tried it recently, and for so long it seems to me that I have not dwelt in my native region. The sun, the clouds, the snow, the trees say not so much to me. You cannot serve two masters. It requires more than a day's devotion to know and to possess the wealth of a day." "Shall the mind be a public arena, where the affairs of the street and the gossip of the tea-table chiefly are discussed? Or shall it be a quarter of heaven itself, — an hypæthral temple, consecrated to the service of the gods?" "By all kinds of traps and signboards, threatening the extreme penalty of the divine law, exclude such trespassers from the only ground which can be sacred to you." "if you would know what will make the most durable pavement, surpassing rolled stones, spruce blocks, and asphaltum, you have only to look into some of our minds which have been subjected to this treatment so long." "We should treat our minds, that is, ourselves, as innocent and ingenuous children, whose guardians we are, and be careful what objects and what subjects we thrust on their attention. Read not the Times. Read the Eternities." "How many things there are concerning which we might well deliberate whether we had better know them, — had better let their peddling-carts be driven, even at the slowest trot or walk, over that bridge of glorious span by which we trust to pass at last from the farthest brink of time to the nearest shore of eternity!" "We tax ourselves unjustly. There is a part of us which is not represented. It is taxation without representation. We quarter troops, we quarter fools and cattle of all sorts upon ourselves. We quarter our gross bodies on our poor souls, till the former eat up all the latter's substance." "Why should they begin digging their graves as soon as they are born?" "Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate." "As if you could kill time without injuring eternity." "the same sun which ripens my beans illumines at once a system of earths like ours. If I had remembered this it would have prevented some mistakes. This was not the light in which I hoed them." "There are nowadays professors of philosophy, but not philosophers." "When he has obtained those things which are necessary to life, there is another alternative than to obtain the superfluities; and that is, to adventure on life now, his vacation from humbler toil having commenced. The soil, it appears, is suited to the seed, for it has sent its radicle downward, and it may now send its shoot upward also with confidence. Why has man rooted himself thus firmly in the earth, but that he may rise in the same proportion into the heavens above?" "I am sure that there is greater anxiety, commonly, to have fashionable, or at least clean and unpatched clothes, than to have a sound conscience." "We know but few men, a great many coats and breeches." "the number of those who own a shelter is a very small fraction of the whole. The rest pay an annual tax for this outside garment of all, become indispensable summer and winter, which would buy a village of Indian wigwams, but now helps to keep them poor as long as they live" "An average house in this neighborhood costs perhaps eight hundred dollars, and to lay up this sum will take from ten to fifteen years of the laborer's life, even if he is not encumbered with a family — estimating the pecuniary value of every man's labor at one dollar a day, for if some receive more, others receive less; — so that he must have spent more than half his life commonly before his wigwam will be earned. If we suppose him to pay a rent instead, this is but a doubtful choice of evils. Would the savage have been wise to exchange his wigwam for a palace on these terms?" "I reduce almost the whole advantage of holding this superfluous property as a fund in store against the future, so far as the individual is concerned, mainly to the defraying of funeral expenses. But perhaps a man is not required to bury himself." "On applying to the assessors, I am surprised to learn that they cannot at once name a dozen in the town who own their farms free and clear. If you would know the history of these homesteads, inquire at the bank where they are mortgaged. The man who has actually paid for his farm with labor on it is so rare that every neighbor can point to him. I doubt if there are three such men in Concord." "Most men appear never to have considered what a house is, and are actually though needlessly poor all their lives because they think that they must have such a one as their neighbors have." "what should be man's morning work in this world? I had three pieces of limestone on my desk, but I was terrified to find that they required to be dusted daily, when the furniture of my mind was all undusted still, and threw them out the window in disgust." "We now no longer camp as for a night, but have settled down on earth and forgotten heaven." "There is actually no place in this village for a work of fine art, if any had come down to us, to stand, for our lives, our houses and streets, furnish no proper pedestal for it. There is not a nail to hang a picture on, nor a shelf to receive the bust of a hero or a saint." "What is called eloquence in the forum is commonly found to be rhetoric in the study. The orator yields to the inspiration of a transient occasion, and speaks to the mob before him, to those who can *hear* him; but the writer, whose more equable life is his occasion, and who would be distracted by the event and the crowd which inspire the orator, speaks to the intellect and health of mankind, to all in any age who can *understand* him." "Little is to be expected of that day, if it can be called a day, to which we are not awakened by our Genius, but by the mechanical nudgings of some servitor, are not awakened by our own newly acquired force and aspirations from within, accompanied by the undulations of celestial music, instead of factory bells, and a fragrance filling the air — to a higher life than we fell asleep from; and thus the darkness bear its fruit, and prove itself to be good, no less than the light. That man who does not believe that each day contains an earlier, more sacred, and auroral hour than he has yet profaned, has despaired of life, and is pursuing a descending and darkening way. After a partial cessation of his sensuous life, the soul of man, or its organs rather, are reinvigorated each day, and his Genius tries again what noble life it can make. All memorable events, I should say, transpire in morning time and in a morning atmosphere. The Vedas say, "All intelligences awake with the morning." Poetry and art, and the fairest and most memorable of the actions of men, date from such an hour. All poets and heroes, like Memnon, are the children of Aurora, and emit their music at sunrise. To him whose elastic and vigorous thought keeps pace with the sun, the day is a perpetual morning. It matters not what the clocks say or the attitudes and labors of men. Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn in me. Moral reform is the effort to throw off sleep. Why is it that men give so poor an account of their day if they have not been slumbering? They are not such poor calculators. If they had not been overcome with drowsiness, they would have performed something. The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred millions to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face?" "We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor." "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion." "If we read of one man robbed, or murdered, or killed by accident, or one house burned, or one vessel wrecked, or one steamboat blown up, or one cow run over on the Western Railroad, or one mad dog killed, or one lot of grasshoppers in the winter — we never need read of another. One is enough. If you are acquainted with the principle, what do you care for a myriad instances and applications? To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea." "With a little more deliberation in the choice of their pursuits, all men would perhaps become essentially students and observers, for certainly their nature and destiny are interesting to all alike. In accumulating property for ourselves or our posterity, in founding a family or a state, or acquiring fame even, we are mortal; but in dealing with truth we are immortal, and need fear no change nor accident." "Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written." "A written word is the choicest of relics. It is something at once more intimate with us and more universal than any other work of art... It is the work of art nearest to life itself." "...when the Vaticans shall be filled with Vedas and Zendavestas and Bibles, with Homers and Dantes and Shakespeares, and all the centuries to come shall have successively deposited their trophies in the forum of the world. By such a pile we may hope to scale heaven at last." "yet this only is reading, in a high sense, not that which lulls us as a luxury and suffers the nobler faculties to sleep the while, but what we have to stand on tip-toe to read and devote our most alert and wakeful hours to." "How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book!" "Who would not be early to rise, and rise earlier and earlier every successive day of his life, till he became unspeakably healthy, wealthy, and wise?"
  9. "transcendental" is the philosophical term, and "presuppositional" I think describes the nature of the argument in the term itself, and so is my preferred term. I don't think there is anything wrong with the term "presuppositionalism", and as a form of Christian apologetics I think it's the best, due to the strength of that form of argument. That doesn't mean I agree with every presuppositional argument a Christian makes, but I think there's something pathological in being so desperate to avoid what is otherwise a good term, because some Christians use it, too. But by all means if you think you have a better term, let me know. I think it's good to reference as many of the related terms as possible when the whole point here is to identify this form of argument as a type.
  10. Hello again, I wanted make a thread to discuss my latest post from my blog Active Objectivism. I think this form of argument, known as "presuppositionalism" or a "transcendental argument", is crucial to philosophy, and largely unrecognized and unappreciated. Ever since Kant it has been fallaciously thought only to prove things about man's own mind or perspective (Kant's so-called "transcendental idealism", aka. the "Copernican revolution"), thus damning the science of metaphysics forever (the "noumena" or "things in themselves" are forever unknowable as we can only see things through our own form of perception). Fortunately I am in good company with Objectivists, who hold a (non-diaphanous) realism about man's perception, in rejecting this Kantian conclusion. Objectivism holds this Kantian view to be self-refuting. Contra Kant, presuppositional argument opens the way to having a philosophy of metaphysics, as Rand and Peikoff demonstrate below. I believe this form of argument can do far greater mileage yet in metaphysics than Objectivism has drawn out of it so far, by asking ourselves what other metaphysical truths must be the case when any argument for the contrary is inherently self-refuting by undermining the whole basis of argument in the first place. For example, it's not just existence, identity, and consciousness in general which are proven axiomatically and self-evidently by man having a mind in the first place, but more specifically conceptual consciousness, the validity of logic, and free will (see "Volition is Axiomatic" in Peikoff's OPAR)... and some other things as well, I believe. I originally happened across this form of argument (that is, when being used with this name "presuppositionalism"; I was aware of Peikoff and Rand's arguments prior) when it was used to devastating effect in a debate against a skeptical materialist, who was shown his arguments were unjustifiable even on the premises of his own worldview. --- In the following quote from Leonard Peikoff’s “Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand”, we see the presuppositionalist argument (or transcendental argument) for proving three axiomatic concepts: existence, identity, and consciousness. First, he appeals to our common sense perceptual judgments: things exist, things have definite identity, and we are consciously aware of them. We intuitively believe in these axioms because these judgments are implicit in every moment of conscious awareness: - Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, by Leonard Peikoff, p.8 Then, he proves that these axioms are inescapable – any argument which purports to deny them must concede them: - Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, by Leonard Peikoff, p.9-11 This position is not unique to Peikoff; he is faithfully fleshing out the arguments from Ayn Rand: - Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, by Ayn Rand - John Galt’s speech, Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand
  11. This is an irrefutable presuppositionalist (or, transcendental) argument against determinism, but it is not an attempt to reconcile physics with free will, as the OP requested. You can find my own such attempt here: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/4EbnT8uTcJKGDwNj4/philosophical-theory-with-an-empirical-prediction
  12. I wanted to bump this thread with some quotes on suicide: epistemologue: splitprimary: Kant: Tom K: Matt Walsh: Gotthelf: Spinoza: secondhander:
  13. I don't think that's entirely fair. Citizenship is voluntary, and its terms are written down in law. There is something of a legitimate social contract for that reason. Should it require a signed document, with informed consent? Yes, of course I agree. In fact, it should require much more than that (see my essay on Criteria for Citizenship). But that doesn't mean the social contract justification is entirely baseless in the United States and similar countries. You do have to take some responsibility for your choice to remain a citizen and participate in the system according to its laws. You are after all free to renounce your citizenship and leave. And yes I do give precisely the same justification for taxation. I don't agree with welfare for a different reason: that is not the proper role of government.
  14. You're right to call me on it; I need to flesh out a more comprehensive theory of positive ethics to justify this claim. I would still argue that my position here is largely correct. In the sense of having a so-called "central purpose in life", this is what I think it should be. There's more to positive ethics than this sense of a "central purpose in life", but it's still an important one, and I think it's properly related to life extension and the pursuit of physical immortality. I'll have to come back to this point.
  15. See above "Positive values are possible despite suffering" and related sections.
  16. But that's precisely what Ayn Rand defined morality to be in The Objectivist Ethics: is implies ought. Morality comes from your metaphysically-given nature, and moral significance comes precisely from your following that. To go against your nature is to violate exactly this fundamental principle, that is implies ought. This is why life is the ultimate standard of value in Objectivism.
  17. But isn't this exactly true? Where do you think desires come from if not human nature?
  18. I'm simply saying that making any choice, taking any action, logically implies a commitment to life, and that's whether you intend it or not, whether you are conscious of the logical implications or not. It is possible to proceed in a self-contradictory way without explicitly acknowledging it (see, "On moral condemnation" above), but there is still something inherently immoral in evading the responsibility of justifying your actions, if you are going to act at all.
  19. Yes, I've come to agree with you. I am an intrinsicist, hence the name. However, I do disagree on the point about objectivity. I think only intrinsicism can be objective. Objectivism, whenever it consists in denying intrinsicist metaphysics, is not objective. Hence I go back and forth on whether my philosophy of intrinsicism is a fundamentally different philosophy, or merely a correction to what is in essence exactly the philosophy of Objectivism originally discovered by Ayn Rand.
  20. The "manness" in man, or the "roseness" in rose", as in, Why would my ability or inability to present a perfect definition of something undermine my position? The reality of universals and our knowledge of them are two different issues, and as I've argued, the fact that universals are real does not imply that we have perfect, automatic knowledge of them. Why would it? I am wondering if the issue you are really asking about is around this idea of "no borderline cases", but you will need to clarify what you are getting at.
  21. I notice this post is highly rated, and yet does not engage with the argument presented whatsoever. You are simply asserting the opposite position. Well, how do you address his argument in the OP?
  22. Why do you think that? I don't see why immortality implies a lack of ability to kill yourself. It certainly isn't necessary to the point of this thread - one could imagine such a strong power of resilience that involuntary death is a solved problem, while voluntary death is still entirely possible. Secondly, why should one wish such a thing? Why should one ever be bored? Does a rose not smell sweet having smelled one before? Is a kiss not enjoyable because you've kissed before? I enjoy the sunrise despite having seen a thousand of them. It holds intrinsic beauty and pleasure. I enjoy art for art's sake; it's an end in itself. I'm intrinsically happy in my own person. I'm happy just to be able to see a sunrise. I'm happy just to be alive; just to be conscious is inherently enjoyable and meaningful. There are an endless number of things I wish I had the time to do. I want to play every game, I want to learn every language and every musical instrument, I want to see every part of the world, I want to learn all of history, I want to meet every person alive, I want to have great-great-great...-grandchildren. I want to explore and prove all of mathematics. I could give you more than a hundred thousand years of things I want to do right now. I love myself and I love my life. This is a permanent, undying, and insatiable love. What I'm describing is what being a human is like. All of the things I've mentioned aren't unique to me, they are intrinsic in human nature. It's death that is anti-human.
  23. You are making a circular argument. For a universal to be real does not imply that it's a concrete. That's only true under the premises of a non-realist metaphysics. You are assuming a metaphysics in which only concretes are real, and then telling me abstractions therefore cannot be real because only concretes are real. But it's your premise that I'm disagreeing with in the first place. The distinction between "abstract" and "concrete" is whether some thing is universal or specific - not whether the thing exists or not. The question of the reality of universals is a question of whether there are metaphysical natures, whether there are such abstract "kinds" in reality, or whether everything in reality is purely a specific and concrete, not of any real class or kind (other than those subjectively invented and justified). (side note, when someone uses the phrase "existed metaphysically", what they really mean is "existed physically" - they don't really understand the term "metaphysical". The "metaphysical" is not another realm of existence out there in the heavens above the physical. There is one realm of existence: the universe. Metaphysics is the study of the nature of things, and whether things have such a "nature". If a given thing has a metaphysical nature that means it is of a kind (a "kind" meaning a type or class of things). The thing itself is the concrete: it is entirely a specific particular. The type or the kind of which the concrete is an instance or examplar is the abstract: it is a universal, and stands for an unlimited number and variety of possible instances or examplars. The only question of what "exists metaphysically", are exactly these universals, that's what metaphysics is. Hence such arguments from materialists and positivists and nihilists, et al., that "metaphysics" is a dead subject.)
  24. Sorry, but this won't help you. If the theory is non-realist, then you have to own up to the fact that there are no universals in reality, and therefore "concepts" claiming universality (as in man referring to all men at all times, past present or future), are false and misleading.
  25. This Limited Liability Partnership isn't "our company"; companies are not owned by a collective. The flaw in your argument is that you're missing out on the concept of a contract. Citizenship is a contract, which is the whole argument of my article you didn't read. I even specifically addressed this point:
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