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2 November 2017 Aristotle II In my own picture, if one is reading this and knows horses as horses and trees as trees, one knows that horses are not anything but horses, not anything such as trees. If one has concepts, such as the concept horse, then one knows identity, at least a thin identity, and knows classes, whether or not one yet realizes one is dealing in those general patterns identity, class inclusion, and class exclusion. Knowing horses and trees as such, one knows already that horses are necessarily horses and necessarily not anything other than horses, such as trees.[1] Then too, if one is reading this and has the concept horse, one knows validity of the inference from “All horses have blood vessels” and “Bucephalus was a horse” to “Bucephalus had blood vessels.” Also, being a horse, Bucephalus was necessarily not rooted in the soil like a tree. If one has concepts—even ones held, in early development, according to weighted sums of typical features, not yet according to natures and definitions[2]—I say one has the knowledge grounding recognition of elementary logically valid inference.[3] Where there is knowing things under concepts, there is knowing some what-it-is and what-it-is-not. If equipped with concepts—even before learning to read and before express understanding of grammar—one knows at least dimly that contradiction is false of all things said of the world under concepts, necessarily false. Rightness and necessity in our later grasp as concepts our concepts of things, things as they are, are inherited rightness and necessity from those earlier concepts of things as they are. Grasping logic requires grasping concepts as concepts. Then my view is that rightness and necessities of logic are heirs ultimately of rightness and necessities in our concepts not as concepts, but merely as of things as they are. My own picture then is a variety of logical ontologism.[4] Peikoff sets Locke in that broad stream as well. Locke did not have the vantage of our contemporary scientific research into early cognitive development. On his somewhat inconstant model of human cognition and its ontogeny, one has no knowledge which one had not been self-consciously aware of in its acquisition.[5] Moreover, Locke’s tendency towards nominalism in universal concepts sets him to reject possession of universal concepts of things empirical as funding logical necessities such as noncontradiction (or syllogistic inference[6]). Locke would reject the conveyance of empirical necessities to logical necessities by attainment of empirical concepts. Rather, he would have PNC be a generalization of our early notice of particular empirical distinctions and necessities, which were made without knowledge of PNC.[7] Further, in his congeniality towards nominalism, Locke has PNC with its formality and necessity grounded rather more in keeping our reflections on the world straight than in reflecting the world.[8] Locke rejected the realist theory of universals in both its extreme and moderate forms.[9] Locke understood Aristotle, or anyway the Aristotelianism of his own era, as moderate realism. He argued against our access to any such things as specific, substantial form or real essences.[10] We work with nominal essences, by the lights of Locke, and his own theory of universal concepts has been classified as conceptualism, wherein general words stand for general ideas.[11] Marco Sgarbi 2013 shows that highly empiricist Aristotelian logic texts flourished in Britain in the 16th and 17th centuries. Frances Bacon criticized the strain therein subordinating the world to the mind and the mind to its concepts.[12] Insofar as Locke took concepts as tightly bound to the mind-independent world, he is located, as Peikoff locates him, in the tradition of logical ontologism, specifically in its Aristotelian wing. Conceptualism is an alternative to realism in theory of universals and in theory of science. Insofar as a variety of conceptualism creates any breach or looseness between what Newton called phenomena (such as orbits of planets) and the mind, it leans away from logical ontologism, I should say.[13] Peikoff 1964, like Locke 1690, takes Aristotle in the usual way, which is as a moderate realist[14] in which universal concepts, such as horse or tree, derive from particulars in perceptual experience, particulars containing real essences, which are real forms. Aristotelian forms are the definite delimitations joined with fundamental indefinite matter in any actual particular.[15] Unlike Platonic Forms, Aristotle’s forms, even the forms essential to a thing being the kind of thing it is, are not residents of a realm separate from this world of particulars around us. Those essences reside in the particulars around us, and they are accessible to us through appropriation by intellect attending to things sensed. Essential form is of itself never separate from its matter; it is contemplated as separate by the intellect. Contra Plato, essences according to Aristotle do not themselves reside in a realm separately and independently from the realm of sensible particulars, and essences are not accessed by intellect alone. Where concepts and propositions, including the propositions that are logical principles, were thought to be bonded to and guided by mind-independent reality through their incorporation of Aristotelian form from particulars, supposed conformity to the world by concepts and propositions and logical principles was at stake should the existence of Aristotelian forms be rejected.[16] They were indeed rejected by moderns not Scholastic, excepting Leibniz. They were rejected, as I have mentioned, by Rand and Peikoff. Rightly so. Locke, as we have seen, rejected Aristotelian accounts of abstraction from perceptual particulars via mental absorption of Aristotelian forms, Aristotelian essence. Peikoff observes that Aristotle attempted to account for PNC as deriving from our assimilation of essential forms in particulars, yet account for such assimilation being reliant on our knowing PNC and for PNC being foundation of all knowing.[17] (A parallel tension appears in Rand’s proposition Existence exists as most fundamental axiom, yet as conceptually derived from perception.[18]) Locke rejected any need for any of the accounting after the yet. Before the yet, he rejected Aristotle’s forms and essences as existing and as sourcing the necessity of PNC we find in thought or in the world. Locke proposed necessity of PNC is perceived, by sense, in distinct particulars. I agree with Locke that there are directly perceived physical necessities. Peikoff, Kant, and virtually the entire bench of philosophers are right, however, to dismiss Locke’s idea that logical necessity is among the types of necessity perceived directly in sensory perception. There is another view on the ontogeny of PNC, my own view (supplementing what I wrote in the first three paragraphs of this installment), which is only a stone’s throw from Locke’s. That is the view that impossibility of performative contradictions have metaphysical and epistemological priority with respect to formal PNC. One was getting a grip on incompatibility of one’s alternative physical acts before reaching the one-word stage of language development.[19] Further, one has action- and image-schemata (and working memory) preceding and continually supporting one’s concepts. Furthermore, all defenses of PNC eventually invoke impossibilities in actual performances. Back to older philosophy. Logical necessity for Aristotle resides in character of concepts, predications, definitions, and inferences. These require abstractions from examination of groups of singulars. In Aristotle’s view, perception of a single object not yet conceptualized will not yet open conceptual necessities, such as PNC logical necessity, even though the basis of PNC stands in the intelligible forms and essences shared by and residing in each perceptible singular.[20] Aristotle had located the source of logical necessities in active operations of intellect and not in the perceptual, memorial, and imaginative supports of active intellect. This stance of Aristotle, which Locke rejected, would please Leibniz, whom Peikoff places in the Platonic line of logical ontologism.[21] Recall that the Platonic line takes some ideas to be innate. In their view, PNC is an innate guiding principle we posses, not a principle derived from or delivered by sensory perceptions. And they take logical necessities to reflect necessity in relations between essences or essential forms obtaining apart from any participation of concrete existents in those eternally true patterns. I want to indicate Leibniz’ shredding of Locke’s outlook on PNC, along with my display of Peikoff’s diagnosis of the failures of both Platonic and Aristotelian logical ontologism. Leibniz argued persuasively against Locke’s thesis that we know nothing that was not explicitly known by us at least in its initial appropriation.[22] Locke had rejected the Platonic picture in which there is knowledge of geometry or logic possessed by us implicitly prior to it becoming explicit to us. By way of blocking possibility of innate knowledge, Locke had declined possibility of implicit knowledge. It is implausible, I say (as would most moderns), that we have no implicit knowledge hanging about things known explicitly in their initial acquisition. Yet, contra Leibniz, this is no license for thinking any ideas (as distinct from faculties) to be innate. Demise of doctrines of the innateness of ideas, including necessary truths, cuts down the Platonic line in their defense of the view that logical truths are grounded in something fixed and independent of our knowing those truths. Likewise in ruins became the Platonic support of PNC ontologism by reification of universals and essences, whether residing in an other-worldly place and whether constituting or inhabiting God’s this-world-independent understanding.[23] Leibniz challenged Locke’s position that PNC is simply an empirical generalization from particular oppositions in experience such as that bitter is not sweet or that wormwood is not sugarplum or that the nurse is not the cat.[24] Leibniz objects that such oppositions of sense have not the absolute certainty of freedom from illusion or other defect as has PNC. I should say against Leibniz that that is no airtight showing that PNC is not derived by empirical generalization. A triangulated result can be more sure than its individual elements of evidence towards that result; we fare well with Whewell’s consilience of inductions.[25] Be that as it may, Leibniz was correct, I say, to hold that PNC is not derived merely by empirical generalization because ideas of being, possible, and identity intertwined in PNC are at hand in any of our general concepts. Leibniz errs, to be sure, in his rush from that picture to innateness of such ideas and PNC. Leibniz argues well against Locke’s tendency towards nominalism in universals, essences, definitions, conceptual taxonomies, and logical principles. Leibniz submits their bases to be in the similarity of singular things in reality and in possibilities that are independent of our thinking.[26] But Leibniz’ own realist account, with its Platonic and Aristotelian elements, is upset with the upset of those elements and, as well, of his particular amalgam of them.[27] Aristotle had written in Physics: Following out this line of thought, Aquinas thought of being and its opposite nonbeing as contained in some way in any knowledge we might have, however elementary the knowledge.[28] Aquinas maintained the Aristotelian view that PNC is learned by an integrated employment of sense experience and reason. However, on Aquinas' view, The Aquinas over-writing of Aristotle is a right strand, I say, in an adequate theory of acquisition of PNC and logical ontologism. Aquinas is able to support the theses on both wings of the Aristotelian tension Peikoff highlights across the yet I mentioned in connection with Locke. One does not ascend to grasp of PNC by inductive steps, according to Aquinas. Rather, the more comprehensive precedes the less so, in both sense and intellect. Our first possible empirical knowledge of any singular is that it is. And, to this knowledge, we must have (in some form) the awareness of being; and once this latter is attained, the Law of Contradiction is, for all practical epistemological purposes, thereby known. . . . Sensory experience is unquestionably necessary to the cognition of the law of contradiction . . . and yet experience teaches us no truths prior to our cognition of the Law since, in the act of grasping the first (singular) truth that it teaches, we have, simultaneously, grasped the Law. (Peikoff 1964, 86–87) Aquinas’ utilization of Aristotle in metaphysics and epistemology of logical ontologism land the ship in wreckage for modern thought since the time of Newton and Locke. Aquinas had nous, or reason, as our essentially human capability in cognition, but nous itself as derived from realities transcending nature. Peikoff shows Aristotle’s sayings in that same voice.[29] For Aquinas formal structure among particulars are latched to Aristotle’s hylomorphism, his fundamental metaphysics of prime matter and form, essential and incidental form, which all would be coming to wreckage.[30] Peikoff argues the unraveling of Platonic logical ontologism into logical conventionalism (as of mid-twentieth century) to have been mediated significantly by Kant. Unraveling of the Aristotelian logical ontologism is mediated significantly by Locke.[31] The Aristotelian moderate realism of universals collapses. Aristotelian Matter, Form, and their join collapse. Concrete particulars, individuated by “matter” nigh well itself “unknowable” apart from form, is a soggy base for any universals, including those entrained in PNC and funding its objectivity. An assembly of super-strong axioms resting ultimately on things unknowable is problematic.[32] In the next installment, I want to convey and assess Peikoff’s account of Kant’s contribution to the transition to conventionality in philosophy of PNC. I hope to touch on not only conventionalist theories to the time of Peikoff’s dissertation, but on those flourishing today and their historical setting. I plan to add a coda that is an inventory of the elements and works in Peikoff’s dissertation that plainly contributed to things addressed in the early ’60’s in the Rand/Branden journals, points in Rand’s epistemology (1966–67), and points, with morphisms, in Peikoff’s own writings from his “Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy” (1967) to The DIM Hypothesis (2012). Notes [1] Cf. Sullivan 1939, 52–53, 62. [2] Boydstun 1990, 34–36. [3] Cf. Salmieri 2010, 160n12. [4] See also Rasmussen 2014, 337–41. [5] Locke 1690, I.1.5, IV.1.9; Peikoff 1964, 87–102. [6] Locke 1690, IV.7.8. [7] Locke 1690, I.1.15, 25, 3.3, IV.1.4, 2.6, 7.9–10; Peikoff 1964, 103–13. [8] Locke 1690, IV.7.4, 10–14, 8.2; Peikoff 1964, 216–26. [9] Locke 1690, III.3.11. [10] Locke 1690, III.6.23–26, 10.14–15. [11] Aaron 1952, a fine work I learned of through Peikoff 1964. Similarly, Salmieri 2008 renders Locke as conceptualist, rather than as realist (51n118). Hobbes is today also argued to be a conceptualist, rather than a nominalist (Sgarbi 2013, 190–92). The conceptualism and empiricism of Locke is presaged in the century before him by the British logicians John Case and Giulio Pace, who were in the lineage of the Paduan Aristotelian Jacopo Zabarello (Sgarbi 2013, 91–97, 101–6). / Binswanger 2014 takes moderate realism most generally as holding there are non-specific properties of things in the world independently of our cognizance of such properties. He argues Locke falls into that general bin in spite of himself (102–4). Binswanger divides theory of universals (Rand’s Objectivist theory aside) into the jointly exhaustive bins of realism and nominalism, as had Armstrong 1978. A conceptualist theory could then belong in either of these bins, depending on the particulars of the conceptualist theory. Salmieri 2008 argues the division of concept theories into realist and nominalist (anti-realist) is not a distinction adequate for classing theories of concepts in accordance with their comparative degrees of similarity and their comparative degrees of difference (52–54). [12] Sgarbi 2013, 169. [13] Conceptualism in which general ideas are thought of as unbound to the world is what Rand meant by Conceptualism in her 1966 and what David Armstrong meant by Concept Nominalism in his 1978. [14] The usual view that Aristotle held to moderate realism is disputed by Greg Salmieri (see Gotthelf 2012, 302n19). Salmieri argues in his dissertation that Aristotle thought our concepts of natural kinds, such as horse or tree, stand to their instances not under identity of shared essential, nonaccidental form, identity of a shared kind-form, or identity of a shared real essence resident in each particular instance. Rather, as a relation of determinables to determinates (2008, 44–51, 56–122). (See citation of Johnson, Prior, and Searle in Boydstun 2004n5. Salmieri aligns Aristotle with the Johnson version of the determinable-determinate relation.) Salmieri’s cast of Aristotle’s relation of horse to an instance such as Bucephalus as a complex of determinable-determinate relations incidentally locates Aristotle closer to Rand than traditional moderate realism is close to Rand. Determinable-determinate relations, I should mention, have a realist underlining, for determinable-determinate relations are along dimensions, such as length or material hardness, plainly real and accessible. / Against the traditional interpretation of Aristotle as a moderate realist holding to shared essences of kind by instances of the kind is also Lennox 2001, Chapter 7. For Peikoff 1964, prevailing interpretations of Aristotle across the long arc of the history of philosophy are the pertinent interpretations to his tracing of logical turns in that history. [15] Aristotle, Ph. 193a30–94b15, 199a30–33, 209b22–23; Metaph. 1033b24–1034a8, 1036a27–31. [16] Peikoff 1964, 212–16. [17] Aristotle, APo. 71b10–72b4, 73b17–74a4, 75b21–36, 77a5–35, 81a37–b9, 85b16–23, 87b28–88a17, 99b15–100b17; De An. 429a10–30a26; Metaph. 1005b9–08b27, 1015a20–b15, 1018b30–34, 1035b32–36a11, 1040b25–27, 1061b34–62b11; NE 1143a32–b6; Peikoff 1964, 60-79, 119–20, 124–35, 213–14. [18] Lennox 2005. [19] Boydstun 1991a, 39; 1991b, 34. [20] APo. 71b35–72a6, 87b28–88a11; Metaph. 982a23–25, 1029b1–12; Peikoff 1964, 63–75; Barnes1993, 95–97; McKirahan 1992, 30–33. 127, 219–22; Ferejohn 2013, 76–80; Salmeiri 2010, 158–60. [21] On the Platonism of Leibniz, see Mercer 2001, 173–205, 243–52. [22] Leibniz 1704, 76–78, 359–61, 411–12. [23] Peikoff 1964, 187–200, 205–9. [24] Leibniz 1704, 86–87, 101–2, 412. [25] See also Zabarella, in Sgarbi 2013, on the perfection of first principles in intellect from received empirical inductions (65–70). On Whewell’s consilience, see Snyder 2017. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/whewell/ [26] Leibniz 1704, 286–96. [27] Leibniz 1704, 317–19, 343–48. [28] Cf. Spinoza: “The first thing that constitutes the actual being of a human mind is nothing but the idea of a singular thing which actually exists” (1677, 2p11). [29] Peikoff 1964, 119–23. [30] On the separation capability of Form from Matter, greater for Christian Aristotelians such as Aquinas than for Aristotle, see Peikoff 1964, 148–56. [31] Peikoff 1964, 212–35. [32] Peikoff 1964, 67–68, 126, 214–15; Lewis 2013, 177n4, 185, 251; Reeve 2016, 400–402n691, 428n796. A similar problem is argued in Ferejohn 2013 for Aristotle’s conception of substances as most-primary and as simple beings resisting definition, yet they are to be explanatory grounds of other, complex beings (172–73). References Aaron, R. I., 1952. The Theory of Universals. Oxford: Clarendon. Aquinas, T. c.1256–59. De Veritate. J. V. McGlynn, translator. 1994. Indianapolis: Hackett. Aristotle c.348–322 B.C. The Complete Works of Aristotle. J. Barnes, editor. 1984. Princeton: University Press. Armstrong, D. 1978. Nominalism and Realism. Volume 1 of Universals and Scientific Realism. Cambridge: University Press. Barnes, J., translator and commentator, 1993. Aristotle – Posterior Analytics. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon. Binswanger, H. 2014. How We Know –Epistemology on an Objectivist Foundation. New York: TOF Publications. Boydstun, S. C. 1990. Capturing Concepts. Objectivity 1(1):13–41. ——. 1991a. Induction on Identity – Part 1. Objectivity 1(2):33–46. ——. 1991b. Induction on Identity – Part 2. Objectivity 1(3):1–56. ——. 2004. Universals and Measurement. The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies 5(2):271–305. Ferejohn, M. T. 2013. Formal Causes – Definition, Explanation, and Primacy in Socratic and Aristotelian Thought. New York: Oxford University Press. Gotthelf, A. 2012. Teleology, First Principles, and Scientific Method in Aristotle’s Biology. New York: Oxford University Press. Leibniz, G.W. 1704. New Essays on Human Understanding. P. Remnant and J. Bennett, translators. 1996. Cambridge: University Press. Lennox, J. G. 2001. Kinds, Forms of Kinds, and the More and the Less. In Aristotle’s Philosophy of Biology. Cambridge: University Press. ——. 2005. Axioms and Their Validation. Paper at APA session of The Ayn Rand Society. Lewis, F. A. 2013. How Aristotle Gets By in Metaphysics Zeta. Oxford: University Press. Locke, J. 1690. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. New York: Dover. McKirahan, R. D. 1992. Principles and Proofs – Aristotle’s Theory of Demonstrative Science. Princeton: University Press. Mercer, C. 2001. Leibniz’s Metaphysics – Its Origins and Development. Cambridge: University Press. Peikoff, L. 1964. The Status of the Law of Contradiction in Classic Logic Ontologism. Ph.D. dissertation. Rand, A. 1966. Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. H. Binswanger and L. Peikoff, editors. 1990. New York: Meridian. Rasmussen, D. B. 2014. Grounding Necessary Truth in the Nature of Things. In Shifting the Paradigm: Alternative Perspectives on Induction. P. C. Biondi and L. F. Groarke, editors. Berlin: De Gruyter. Reeve, C. D. C., translator, 2016. Aristotle – Metaphysics. Indianapolis: Hackett. Salmieri, G. 2008. Aristotle and the Problem of Concepts. Ph.D. dissertation. ——. 2010. Aisthêsis, Empeiria, and the Advent of Universals in Posterior Analytics II 19. In From Inquiry to Demonstrative Knowledge – New Essays on Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics. J. H. Lesher, editor. Kelowna: Academic Printing and Publishing. Sgarbi, M. 2013. The Aristotelian Tradition and the Rise of British Empiricism. Dordrecht: Springer. Snyder, L. J. 2017. William Whewell. Online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Spinoza, B. 1677. Ethics. In The Collected Works of Spinoza. E. Curley, translator. 1985. Princeton: University Press. Sullivan, J. B. 1939. An Examination of First Principles in Thought and Being in the Light of Aristotle and Aquinas. Washington: Catholic University of America.

The deductive forms of Aristotelian Logic comes in 256 forms, of which 24 are valid. (Reference: Wikipedia's Syllogism) There are 46 references, to date, of Aristotelian Logic being discussed on this forum. I've listened to Leonard Peikoff's Introduction to Logic course. This familiarizes me with the materials contained therein, but by no means makes me a master of their content. This course does not appear in the ARI Campus courses for free. I'm also on my first time listening to Aristotle's Posterior Analytics. This is not the translation Robert Mayhew suggests in his recorded talk Aristotle For Objectivists. I might also add, this is not the most user friendly reading of a text I've encountered either. I've also read, several times, David Harriman's book: The Logical Leap. This is considered to be the first objective examination of inductive logic from a perspective of Objectivism, thus falls under the Latin expression "Caveat Emptor". Logic has two essential branches per Aristotle—deductive and inductive. Aristotle deals extensively with the deductive side, and is considered the Father of Logic from this aspect. Inductive logic is referenced in the Posterior Analytics, but is not treated as exhaustively. The law of identity, or its corollary, as Aristotle did not state the law of identity explicitly, the law of non-contradiction, serves as the fulcrum for Aristotle's development of the syllogisms. Logic, as Aristotle derived it, is considered to have an ontological basis. The first question I would ask, following this intro, is: If there is a difference between "Aristotelian Logic" and "being logical", is there an ontological basis for such a distinction?

I seem to recall that Rand rejected modern formal logic in favor of Aristotelian logic, which is the system of logic that you might find explained in Aristotle's Organon or H. W. B. Joseph's An Introduction to Logic. However, I am having trouble finding specific sources that confirm this memory, and I don't know what Rand's reasons would have been for taking this position. So, did Ayn Rand reject modern formal logic in favor of Aristotle's logic? If so, why?

PSYCHOLOGY BY FREUD AND OBVERSE PLATONISM Sigmund Freud [1] was an Austrian-German psychotherapist, who wrote some books and presented many ideas in the field of psychology, when the subject was in its infancy. Here are the key points that Freud brought into this field. Division of mind into conscious, subconscious, and unconscious elements. Further claiming that unconscious and subconscious aspects like dreams and hypnosis are most important. Emphasizing on the urge to break rules, like longing to incest with mother (what he called the Oedipus complex). Overall, generalizing ideas from behavior of individuals like Dora[7], who was in a mentally disturbed state of hysteria. CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE OF SIGMUND FREUD Despite many shortcomings and contradictions I see in his approach, the one thing that draws me to the ideas of Sigmund Freud is his cultural impact. In this age, when Pragmatism or aversion from principles, or aversion from abstract ideas as such, is mainstream; in this age you can just look at ideas of Freud, and cultural products like movies or commonly spoken phrases, and point out that ideas do impact culture and people. Specifically the lingua or phrases I am thinking about is slang like mother f*****r or sister f*****r, connecting it to the idea of Oedipus complex by Freud. Or his focus on characters like Dora (Ida Bauer), and widely popular movies like Psycho, or Exorcist, or Shutter Island, or Silence of the Lambs. If we look into essence of lead characters in these movies and also few other plot elements, signature of Freud is unmistakable. ANCIENT GREECE AND PLATO The deeper understanding of Freud’s ideas will require some digression. A look into the ideas of Ancient Greece, specifically those of Plato and Aristotle. How these ideas, which originated in 4th Century BC, impacted the intellectuals like Freud in 19th century AD? Basic summary of Plato’s ideas is as follows. There is this world that we see, which is imperfect in every respect. There is this other world that we should strive to know, but we cannot see. For example this world has circular rings or spherical rocks, which clearly vary from ideas of circle or sphere. The other world has perfect circle and sphere, which are the cause of corresponding imperfect objects in this world. Similarly it can be extrapolated that perfect human is in the other world, and humans on earth are shadows of the One. There were other Platonic ideas like Authoritarian dictator he called Philosopher King, pure (Platonic) love devoid of carnal instincts etc. With some application these ideas can be also traced back to the dual world theory. ARISTOTLE Aristotle’s focus, as is quite clear from this painting, was on this world. He rejected existence of the other world of forms by Plato, and instead focused on forming concepts through categories, inferences through syllogisms etc., and deriving ideas from objects one could look and see. Geometric circles for example are a “quality” (in contemporary terminology we will call it “attribute”) of circular rings. DISSEMINATION OF PLATO’S IDEAS A chain of intellectuals, mostly in Roman-Christian culture, distributed and applied the ideas of Plato. These intellectuals included Plotinus, Porphyry, Saint Augustine, and some more. The Christian idea of Original Sin, cemented by Saint Augustine, claims that every human is not just imperfect, but irredeemable in this world. Only hope is to give up pride and focus on salvation in the other, most perfect world. DISSEMINATION OF ARISTOTLE’S IDEAS ­­­Aristotle’s influence started becoming mainstream with Saint Aquinas in 13th Century AD. With Newton applying Aristotelian logic to usher scientific revolution in 17th Century, and ideas like Liberty from American Revolution through John Locke in 18th century; this worldly Aristotelian ideas started dominating Platonic-Christian ideas. IMMANUEL KANT This brings me to the reaction to Aristotelian dominance in 18th century. A committed Christian and intellectual Immanuel Kant came up with a new Philosophical system. Rather than uphold Plato, his intent was to develop a system similar to that of Plato, with the objective of confusing Aristotelian ideas. So here also two worlds were postulated, but the other world was not a higher reality like that by Plato. Like Plato the inferior world was the one we could look and see, but the superior world was also around us, not an entity like heaven. Only we could not observe (or infer from Observation) this noumenal world, because our senses distorted the true view. Since Aristotelian idea of one world had established the Law of Identity, Kant discredited Aristotle by appealing to the identity of human sense organs. Unlike Plato who claimed that superior world can be known through some direct connect like intuition, for Kant noumenal world was unknowable. And since abstract ideas like those of Ethics cannot be seen, so he postulated that ideas like Altruism or sacrifice as good cannot be scientifically derived. Instead these should be accepted on faith, through the term he called Categorical Imperative [2]. LONG TERM IMPACT OF IMMANUEL KANT The contemporary philosophy of Pragmatism is the product of ideas of Kant. Since as per Kant abstract ideas were unknowable, so advocates of Pragmatism denounced principled and abstract thinking. Instead advocating action based on limited or no thought. Further, current wave involving ideologies like Egalitarianism and Nihilism is also an application of Kantian Philosophy. Since Altruism through Categorical Imperative is an important component of Kantian Ethics, so Equality of outcome through Egalitarianism, and destruction of well-to-do through Nihilism for achieving equality are often advocated. CAUSE AND MEANING OF OBVERSE PLATONISM The ideas of Pragmatism, Egalitarianism, and Nihilism have become mainstream in 20th century. Before, in 19th century and early part of 20th century, the time when Freud was active, Kant had a different type of impact. Instead of directly leading to ideas like Pragmatism, application of his philosophy, the ideas of Kant (and ideas of his predecessor Hume to a lesser extent), mainly stunted and stopped the dissemination of application of the Aristotelian ideas. As a result of this sudden halt, the academic focus shifted back to the application of Plato’s philosophy, and also application of Platonic thinking Christian ideas encouraged. During Aristotelian rise since 13th Century, and dominance since Newton and Locke in 17th and 18th century, the cultural focus was on understanding and improving this world, through methods like scientific discoveries, institutionalizing Liberty, and Industrial Revolution. With Platonic thought coming back to forefront, the focus on this world remained, but the perspective of this worldly focus became Platonic. Plato had postulated that superior world is perfect, and this world is transient and miserable. So Christian-Platonic culture in pre-Aquinas era involved focus on superior world, with cultural representatives like priests and nuns giving up the worldly pleasures. But Christian-Platonic thought in post-Kantian era focused on what Plato regarded as inferior and miserable, this world. Therefore the term Obverse Platonism. (Obverse means the other side). DISSEMINATION OF OBVERSE PLATONISM First major product of this thought was the Philosophy of Hegel. The superior world is eternal and static, but the world we live in is changing and full of flux. Then came Communist Manifesto. Superior world is harmonious, where there is peaceful co-existence. In our world you are either exploiter or exploited. Since Win-Win relationships in this world are impossible, bourgeois ends up exploiting Proletariat in a Capitalist society. So while Plato proposed dictatorship of Philosophers, Karl Marx tweaked the idea and offered dictatorship of Proletariat to curb and reverse ugly human instincts that drive this miserable world. Similarly French Revolution started with Aristotelian idea of Liberty, but they too ended up with a dictator. This seemingly contradictory time has been elegantly captured in the opening of the novel A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens [3]. Best Time (Aristotelian perspective) — Worst time (Obverse Platonic perspective), Wisdom (Aristotelian) — Foolishness (Obverse Platonic), Light (Aristotelian) — Darkness (Obverse Platonic), hope-despair, everything-nothing etc. So in a nutshell, scientific, free-thinking, and industry inducing ideas of Aristotle were in a decline. And depravity upholding, reason disparaging, and industry hating Marxist ideas of Obverse Platonism were on the rise. SIGMUND FREUD IN THE ERA OF OBVERSE PLATONISM It was during this dominance of Obverse Platonism that Sigmund Freud started his practice of psychotherapy in Vienna. Since Plato and Christianity upheld rules of decorum in public space, Freud through Obverse Platonism believed that humans have an urge to break rules. Further, due to Kantian influence which intended to confuse Aristotelian ideas, Authoritarian rules from Christian-Communism-Platonism were falsely packaged with naturally derived rules like respecting and learning from wise people in society and family. There is nothing authoritarian about respecting genuine social boundaries, when these promote material and mental flourishing. So end result of Obverse Platonic application of Freud were ideas like incest with mother. At a broader level, ideas like Freudian slip communicated a general view of human nature. Focus on conscious ideas deliberately written in certain books is what Christianity and other religions promote (especially the monotheistic ones). Freud with Obverse Platonic premise promoted primacy of sub-conscious and unconscious aspects, over conscious aspects. Aristotelian application would have upheld conscious over sub-conscious, while acknowledging that sub-conscious is extensively used in productive endeavors like driving or drawing or forging. (I reject the idea of unconscious mind as proposed by Freud, because mind, a faculty for awareness not being conscious and still working is a contradiction of terms. There is enough empirical evidence for sub-conscious though.) Further, since Aristotle upheld this world, so application of his ideas focused on positive people like wise men and productive humans. But Obversely Platonic Freud had a world view of earth as miserable. So according to him disturbed and deranged individuals like Ida Bauer were true representatives of humans. For Freud purpose of Psychology was to focus on Criminals or negative aspects of humans like lying, cheating, manipulation etc. Aristotelian purpose would have been to train sub conscious using conscious, for improving skills like writing or machine use or repairing. So it’s no surprise that post-Freudian world came up with ideas like Game Theory, focusing on thought process of criminals trying to Game the system. (In Aristotelian Psychology focus on criminals will still be there, but not as prime-movers. Instead criminals will be secondary, being blockers or speed-breakers for producers). USING IDEAS OF FREUD TO IMPROVE PSYCHOLOGY Despite focus on negative human attributes and social elements, like Plato, Freud also had one positive contribution to the field he worked in. Plato rightly classified philosophy as the study of 5 branches. Metaphysics or the nature of reality and worldview, Epistemology or the method of thinking, Ethics or the methods of action based on guidelines, Politics or social structures involving Government, and Art or creation of artificial reality. The answers by Plato were two worlds in metaphysics, supernatural thinking as primary in epistemology, emphasis on authoritarianism in Ethics and Politics, and Art as a distraction from rational thought. These answers were of course wrong, but questions or the division of the subject into proper branches was correct. And eventually, we did get right answers from Aristotle’s philosophy, and now even better answers from Ayn Rand[4], Dr. Peikoff[5], and Dr. Binswanger[6]. Like Plato, Freud also correctly classified the key insights in the subject of Psychology. Insights like the division of mind into conscious and sub-conscious, with one of them being primary, is perhaps the most significant. Emotions being a critical part of psychology is another insight. Of course, given the Obverse Platonic premise which upheld miserable world, focus was on negative emotions of hate, anger, sadness and fear. Positive emotions of desire, joy, and love were mostly explored from a hedonistic perspective, rather than the depth of thought these emotions deserve. With right questions from Freud, and right guidelines from Aristotelian philosophy and Objectivism of Ayn Rand, subject of Psychology has a lot to offer to humanity. So let’s introspect using correct methods, and explore the most complex entity in nature, the human mind. References [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freud [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative [3] Opening lines of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens — It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way — in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only. [4] http://aynrandlexicon.com/ [5] https://www.amazon.com/Dim-Hypothesis-Lights-West-Going/dp/0451466640 [6] http://www.how-we-know.com/ [7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dora_(case_study)

. Normativity of Logic – Kant v. Rand Stephen Boydstun 2009 In the perspective of Immanuel Kant, reasoning in accordance with logic can falter due to various empirical circumstances of the reasoning mind. Knowing those pitfalls and how to avoid them is what Kant would call applied logic. Principles of applied logic are partly from empirical principles. As for the principles of pure logic itself, logic apart from such applications, “it has no empirical principles” (B78 A54). The principles of logic are not principles of empirical psychology, and their ultimate authority stems from something deeper than empirical necessities of thought. Logic for Kant was Aristotelian logic. [Or so Kant thought. Stoic logic had been mixed into what he took for simply logic and credited to Aristotle.] He thought this discipline to have been set out completely by Aristotle, and he thought such finality of the discipline was due to the distinctive character of the discipline that is logic. “Logic is a science that provides nothing but a comprehensive exposition and strict proof of the formal rules of all thought” (Bxiii). The office of logic is “to abstract from all objects of cognition and their differences; hence in logic the understanding deals with nothing more than itself and its form” (Bix; B170 A131). Logic is “vestibule” of the sciences in which we acquire knowledge. Logic is presupposed in all judgments constituting knowledge (Bix). Knowledge requires the joint operation of a receptivity of the mind and a spontaneity of the mind. In our receptivity, sensible objects are given to us. In our spontaneity of conceptualization and judgment, those objects are thought (B29 A15). Sensory presentations are givens. The spontaneity of cognition is the ability to produce presentations ourselves. Kant calls understanding the faculty for bringing given sensible objects under concepts and therewith thinking those objects (B74–75 A50–51). Logic is “the science of the rules of the understanding as such” (B76 A52). These are “the absolutely necessary rules of thought without which the understanding cannot be used at all” (B76 A52). Kant distinguishes the faculty of understanding from its superintendent, the faculty of reason. The understanding can arrive at universal propositions by induction. Correct syllogistic inferences among propositions are from reason (B169 A130; B359–60 A303–4). By its formal principles, reason provides unity to the rules of understanding (B359 A302). I should mention that it is not the role of reason (or of understanding) in logic that Kant tries to curb in his Critique of Pure Reason (B=1787 A=1781). This role Kant takes as within the proper jurisdiction of reason. Kant regards logic as “a canon of understanding and of reason” (B77 A53; B170 A131). A canon is a standard or rule to be followed. How can rules of logic be rules to be followed by the understanding if they are the rules that characterize what is the form of all thought? How can the rules prescribe for X if they are descriptive of what X is? Let X be alternatively the faculty of understanding or the faculty of reason, the question arises. Kant calls such logic general logic, and this he takes as abstracting away “from all reference of cognition to its object” (B79 A55). This conception of logic is significantly different from that of Rand: Logic is an art of identification, regimented by and towards the fact of existence and the fact that existence is identity. Over a period of forty years, Kant taught logic at least thirty-two times. Syllogistic inference and non-contradiction were the rules for formal logic. Kant took these rules to concern some of the requirements for truth. They do not amount to all of the requirements for truth, “for even if a cognition accorded completely with logical form, i.e., even if it did not contradict itself, it could still contradict its object” (B84 A59). That much is correct, and Kant is correct too in saying that “whatever contradicts these rules is false” (B84 A59). Why? “Because the understanding is then in conflict with its own universal rules of thought, and hence with itself” (B84 A59). How can the normativity of logic be accounted for if its principles are taken for correct independently of any relations they might have to existence and any of the most general structure of existence? Kant needs to explain how general logical norms for our thinking can be norms without taking their standard from the world and how such norms can be rules restricting what is possibly true in the world. Might the source of norms for the construction of concepts be the source of norms for inferences when concepts are working in judgments? Can the normativity of forms of inference among judgments be tied to normativity in forms of judgments and normativity in the general forms of concepts composing those forms of judgment? What requirements must concepts meet if they are to be concepts comprehending particulars in true ways? From the side of the understanding itself, the fundamental forms concepts may take are required to be systematically interconnected to satisfy the circumstance that the understanding “is an absolute unity” (B92 A67). Considered apart from their content, concepts rest on functions. “By function I mean the unity of the act of arranging various presentations under one common presentation” (B93 A68). So far, so good, but then Kant’s account stumbles badly. Concepts are employed in the understanding to make judgments. In judgments, according to Kant, “a concept is never referred directly to an object” (B93 A68). Concepts, when not referring to other concepts, refer to sensory or otherwise given presentations (B177 A138–42). This is part of Kant’s systematic rejection of what he called intellectual intuition. That rejection is not entirely wrongheaded, but this facet of the rejection is one of Kant’s really bad errors. I say as follows: the fact that concepts relate perceptually given particulars does not mean that concepts do not refer directly to the particulars of which we have perceptual experience. It simply does not square with the phenomenology of thought to say that when we are using a concept we are not referring directly to the existents (or the possibility of them) falling under the concept. Kant will have cut himself off from an existential source of normativity in judgment through concepts, thence a possible source of normativity for inferences among judgments, unless that normativity can be gotten through his indirect reference for concepts to existents through given presentations of existents. For Kant, as for most every epistemologist, concepts are unities we contrive among diverse things according to their common characteristics (B39 A25, B377 A320). The problem for Kant is that the diverse things unified are diverse given presentations in consciousness that become objects of consciousness only at the moments of conceptualization and judgment themselves (A103–6, A113–14, A119–23, B519–25 A491–97, B141–46). (Kant’s empirical realism, in A367–77, B274–79, and B232–47 A189–202, is subordinate to his transcendental idealism; but see Abela 2002 and Westphal 2004.) The concept body can be used as a logical subject or in the predicate of a judgment. As subject in “Bodies are divisible,” body refers directly to certain given presentations of objects, but body does not refer to those objects unless in use in a judgment. In use for predicate in “Metals are bodies,” body refers to the subject concept metal, which in turn refers to certain given presentations of objects (B94 A69). “The only use that the understanding can make of . . . concepts is to judge by means of them” (B93 A68). According to Kant, we cannot begin to understand the concept body otherwise than as in judgments. Right understanding of body means only knowledge of its particular right uses as the logical subject or in the logical predicate. Kant observes that judgments, like concepts, are unities. It is the faculty of understanding that supplies those unities by its acts. The logical forms of judgment are not conformed to identity structures in the world or in given sensory presentations. Kant conceived those presentations as having their limitations set by relations of part to whole. He thought they could not also, in their state as givens, have relations of class inclusion (B39 A25, B377 A320). This is a facet of his overly sharp divide between sensibility and understanding. I have long held that relations of class inclusion are not concrete relations, unlike the relations of part-whole, containment, proximity, or perceptual similarity. That does not conflict, however, with the idea that what should be placed in which classes should be actively conformed to particular concrete relations found in the world. Kant thought that our receptivity of given sensory presentation is not cognitive and requires conceptualization in order to become experience (B74–75 A50–51). “All experience, besides containing the senses’ intuition through which something is given, does also contain a concept of an object that is given in intuition, or that appears. Accordingly, concepts of objects as such presumably underlie all experiential cognition as its a priori conditions” (B126 A93). The sensory given presentation contains particular and specific information about the object that can be thought in concepts and judgments concerning the object. But the most general and necessary forms of objects in experience is not information supplied by the sensory given presentations (sensory intuitions), but by the understanding itself for agreement with itself (B114–16, B133n). Without the general form of objects supplied by the understanding, there is no cognitive experience of an object. “Understanding is required for all experience and for its possibility. And the first thing that understanding does for these is not that of making the presentation of objects distinct, but that of making the presentation of an object possible at all” (B244 A199). Kant is concerned to show that there are general patterns of necessity found in experience that are seamless with logical necessities. He errs in supposing that that seamlessness comes about because the general forms for any possible experience of objects logically precedes any actual experience of objects. That a percipient subject must have organization capable of perception if it is to perceive is surely so. Consider, however, that a river needs channels in order to flow, yet that does not rule out the possibility (and actual truth) that the compatibility of a valley and a river was the result of the flow of water. According to Kant, we could have no experience of objects without invoking concepts bearing, independently of experience, certain of the general forms had by any object whatsoever. The unity-act of the understanding that is the conceptual act, which gives a unified content, an object, to given sensory presentations is also the very unity-act that unifies the various concepts in a judgment (B104–5 A78–79). An additional power Kant gives to the understanding is the power of immediate inference. From a single premise, certain conclusions can be rightly drawn. “The proposition All human beings are mortal already contains the propositions that human beings are mortal, that some mortals are human beings, and that nothing that is immortal is a human being” (B360 A303). In these inferences, all of the material concepts, human being and mortal, appearing in conclusions were in the premise. Such inferences can be made out to be the mediate inferences of a syllogism, but only by adding a premise that is a tautology such as Some mortals are mortal (D-W Logic 769; J Logic 115). Mediate inferences require addition of a second judgment, a second premise, in order to bring about the conclusion from a given premise. The proposition All scholars are mortal is not contained in the basic judgment All men are mortal since the concept scholar does not appear in the latter. The intermediate judgment All scholars are men must be introduced to draw the conclusion (B360 A304). The basic judgment—the major premise of the syllogism—is thought by the understanding. This is the thinking of a rule. Under condition of that rule, the minor premise of the syllogism is subsumed, by the power of judgment. Lastly, reason makes determinate cognition by the predicate of the basic rule the new judgment, which is the conclusion (B360–61 A304). “What usually happens is that the conclusion has been assigned as a judgment in order to see whether it does not issue from judgments already given, viz., judgments through which a quite different object is thought. When this is the task set for me, then I locate the assertion of this conclusion in the understanding, in order to see whether it does not occur in it under certain conditions according to a universal rule. If I then find such a condition, and if the object of the conclusion can be subsumed under the given condition, then the conclusion is inferred from the rule which holds also for other objects of cognition. We see from this that reason in making inferences seeks to reduce the great manifoldness of understanding’s cognition to the smallest number of principles (universal conditions) and thereby to bring about the highest unity of this cognition.” (B361 A304–5) The faculty of reason, in contradistinction from understanding, does not deal with given sensory presentations, but with concepts and judgments. “Just as the understanding brings the manifold of intuition under concepts and thereby brings the intuition into connection,” so does reason “bring the understanding into thoroughgoing coherence with itself” (B362 A305–6). Reason provides cognition with logical form a priori, independently of experience. The principles of the understanding may be said to be immanent “because they have as their subject only the possibility of experience” (B365 A309). The principles of reason may be said to be transcendent in regard to all empirical givens. The spontaneity of thought is unifying activity, whether in conceiving, judging, or inferring. Readers here will have probably noticed in Kant the themes of integration and economy, which are major in Rand’s analyses of cognition. However, for Kant the unifying activity of the understanding and of reason is not “an insight into anything like the ‘intelligible’ structure of the world” (Pippin 1982, 93). Kant represents understanding and reason as working together as a purposive system. I maintain, in step with Rand, that all purposive systems are living systems or artifacts of those living systems. We hold that only life is an ultimate end in itself; life is the ultimate setter of all needs. The purposive system that is the human mind is the information-and-control system having its own dynamic needs derivative to serving the needs of the human individual and species for continued existence. Life has rules set by its needs for further life. Life requires not only coherent work among its subsystems, but fitness with its environment. Rules of life pertain to both. Rules of mind pertain to both (cf. Peikoff 1991, 117-19, 147-48). Rules of logic do indeed enable coherent work of the mind, but they also yield effective comprehension of the world. Identity and unity are structure in the world, and, in their organic elaboration, they are structure of the viable organism (cf. ibid., 125–26). The normativity of logic arises from the need of the human being for life in the world as it is. References Abela, P. 2002. Kant’s Empirical Realism. Oxford. Kant, I. 1992. Lectures on Logic. J. M. Young, translator and editor. Cambridge. ——. 1996. Critique of Pure Reason. W. S. Pluhar, translator. Hackett. Peikoff, L. 1991. Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand. Dutton. Pippin, R. B. 1982. Kant’s Theory of Form. Yale. Westphal, K. R. 2004. Kant’s Transcendental Proof of Realism. Cambridge.

William, I link below a good book of modern formal logic. (The author has another book on mathematical logic, which is beyond this much logic.) I learned a lot from it, and he has some neat historical notes at the ends of chapters. This logic is not a rejection of Aristotelian logic (leaving aside A’s modal logic, which is a further area, beyond what we’d think of as standard formal logic, and beyond the scope of this textbook), certainly not whole cloth, though it assimilates advances in deductive logic attained in the late 19th and early 20th century. I’m not aware of anything Rand wrote decrying modern formal logic itself. She probably never took up mastery of the contents of the textbook I link here. I’d think she would have taken issue, however, with common philosophies of logic with then-current views on the ways in which logic is situated with our understanding of the world. I’m thinking of the various views on logic expressed by Dewey or Nagel or Wittgenstein (in his later phase). When I look into the Index of The Letters of Ayn Rand, I find no entry for logic, only for basis of logic. The basis of logic in her philosophy (and I concur in this view) and setting the nature and use of logic in serious sensitivity to that basis was a part of Nathaniel Branden’s lectures in those days The Basic Principles of Objectivism and later in Leonard Peikoff’s Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand. Beyond those, I incline to take issue, springing from Rand’s view of the nature of logic, with a couple of ways in which inference is treated in standard modern logic texts. But this is no wholesale rejection of formal modern logic, the contested friction points are actually old, and there are contemporary experts on both sides. https://books.google.com/books/about/Methods_of_Logic.html?id=liHivlUYWcUC&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button#v=onepage&q&f=false

2 December 2019 PNC Ground Shifts to the Side of the Subject – Conventionalism VI (Nagel and Pap will not be reached in this installment after all.) In the Preface to the first edition of his Language, Truth, and Logic (1936), Ayer writes: “Like Hume, I divide all genuine propositions into two classes: those which, in his terminology, concern ‘relations of ideas’, and those which concern ‘matters of fact’” (31). The propositions of logic and mathematics belong to the former, and they are necessarily true, as Hume would have it. That is clear from his texts. But Hume could not concur with Ayer’s further characterization of such propositions as a priori, where an a priori proposition is one known not only independently of this or that perceptual experience, but independently of each and every one of them. Ayer erred, as so many before him and after him, in identifying such a radical sense of the a priori with Hume’s notion of the a priori for propositions of pure mathematics and logic (including PNC) understood as concerning only relations of ideas. Hume, like Berkeley and Locke before him, was a full-blown empiricist. Ayer’s route to holding forth the logical empiricist view as an empiricist view was to shrink fact to only facts ascertained by the methods of the empirical sciences, to characterize all necessary propositions as radically a priori, which class coincides with a logic-centered analytic, whose truth and necessity are not from relations to the world, but from arbitrary convention hand-waved (in Ayer’s case) from grammar. Then, Ayer proclaims his view as empirical: all knowledge derives from experience because his genre of analytic propositions do not state facts; they are not knowledge. (See also Friedman 1999, 5–6, 9, 18–19, 32–33, 116–18.) Graciela De Pierris 2015 concludes of Hume: “The addition in the Enquiry of a seemingly logical criterion for identifying ‘relations of ideas’ does not mean a departure from the sensible phenomenological model of apprehension and ultimate evidence. Hume does not uphold the logical law of non-contradiction in its own right, prior to and independently of phenomenological sensible factors. On the contrary, the status of non-contradiction as a criterion for the acceptance of propositions based on ‘relations of ideas’ depends solely on the phenomenological inspection of intrinsic characteristics of particular items ostensively present before the mind. Necessary a priori methods, in both the Treatise and Enquiry, are ultimately grounded on nothing but the sensible phenomenological model.” (102) In consistency with their rejection of Kant’s containment-of-predicate-in-subject criterion for seeing which concepts stand in a logically necessary relation each to the other (see Convention IV), the logical empiricists should have spurned Hume’s model of pure relations of ideas (or thoughts). That is to say, they should have spurned his explication of the a priori character of arithmetic, geometry, and logic. Had Ayer understood Hume on this point in Enquiry as harmonious with Hume’s treatment in Treatise, perhaps Ayer would not have set up Hume for worship on analyticity. In Hume’s picture, discernment of necessary union of items forming a sum or the union of triangularity with the 2R sum of those three angles stands us in high certainty, indeed our highest certainty. We stand on PNC with that highest certainty, and for that reason, PNC can have normative force. “Hume uses his version of the presentational-phenomenological model of apprehension, just as the tradition before him had done, to give a verdict about ultimate evidence” (De Pierris 2015, 228; see also 220–22). Locke had taken reason as “the discovery of the certainty or probability of such propositions or truths, which the mind arrives at by deduction made from such ideas, which it has got by the use of its natural faculties; viz. by sensation or reflection” (EU IV.xviii.2). Reason investigates ideas and their degrees of certainty or probability of being true, insofar as said ideas are grounded in sensory experience of outer things or in reflection, where reflection means our notice of our own inner, mental operations (EU II.i.3–4, II.v). I mentioned in Aristotle II that Peikoff argued the unravelling of Platonic logical ontologism into logical conventionalism (as of mid-twentieth century) to have been mediated significantly by Kant. He concluded the unraveling of Aristotelian logical ontologism had been significantly mediated by Locke (Peikoff 1964, 212–35). I had written in Conventionalism III: “Logical necessity holds unconditionally and in all contexts. What I’ve called physical necessity is traditionally taken to be necessity under some sort of limiting conditions, and this necessity has been called a contingent connection, reserving necessary connection for logical (and other formal) necessity. . . . “Peikoff 1964 points out that Locke avoided the contingent/necessary terminology. Locke instead applied probable/certain to the division. We have seen in my section Aristotle II that Locke maintained we have by sensory perception instances of the general fact that different things are not same things and that a thing is never both A and not A at the same time and in the same respect. Philosophers, including Peikoff in 1964, are correct to fault Locke’s blurring under probable/certain a clear understanding that ampliative inductive generalizations over perceived instances do not suffice to land the absolute necessity in general principles of logic or pure mathematics. . . . “Locke was not really of one mind in this. Peikoff lays out an opposite strand also in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding: IV 3.31, 4.6, 4.8, 9.1, 11.13–14. ‘What is Locke doing in such passages as these? He is now contrasting eternal truths and existential truths. The former are to be discovered only by “the examining of our own ideas,” and “concern not existence” . . .’ (222). . . . For an empiricist such as Locke, . . . [one] joining considerable nominalism (the conceptualist wing of nominalism) concerning universal ideas to the empiricism, the divide between matters of fact and the eternal, formal truths can make conventionalism concerning the ground of logic ‘almost inevitable’ (223).” (That is not to say, at least in my view, that it makes almost inevitable a root conventionalism that is arbitrary. It need not make almost inevitable a conventionalism making logical principles entirely independent of constraints from the world and from our physical operations in the world.) I now think, having studied De Pierris 2015, that Locke’s two sorts of distinctions are harmonious. Whether some knowledge is gotten from “examining our own ideas” or from empirical generalization (or from some combination of the two), the knowledge has placement with us as to its certainty or probability. If, as with Descartes before him and Hume after him, degree of certainty is the fundamental index to truth, index to reality won, then Locke was innocent of fundamental severance of formal truths from empirical truths. We of last century and this have been guilty of writing too much of the divides of the logical empiricists back into the distinctions made by Locke and those by Hume. Locke can be wrong or vague about how we derive PNC from sensory experience, yet right in his view that sensory experience is found to always conform to PNC. That PNC and mathematics are found as well and with highest possible certainty in ‘reflection’ (even reflection “concerning not existence”) need not somehow compete with or belie one’s finding PNC to hold in sensory experience, just as Euclidean geometry is conformed to in carpentry or in Newton’s system of the world (see also Franklin 2014, 95–100). Insofar as Locke is presented with high, highest certainty that PNC is true of the real in every nook and cranny, then PNC can serve as a norm to conform to for correct thinking. Even were the incorrect nominalist leanings of Locke and the incorrect voiding of natural necessitation of Hume not yet diagnosed and dispelled, PNC (and other formal relations) with its mark of certainty and generality can be given to, not cast by, the human faculties envisioned by Locke or by Hume. Then it is not those empiricists who are rightly regarded as intellectual tributaries into logical empiricism, notwithstanding the distant lineage claims declared by the latter. (Further on Locke: chapter VI “Ideas and Psychology” in Yolton 1984.) What about kinship of the logical empiricists to the classical British empiricist George Berkeley? Kenneth Pearce 2017 argues that for Berkeley words get to be meaningful by being used in pubic discourse, following conventional rules, but for practical ends. The reason a system of language can be effective practically is because with language we capture the grammar of nature as created by God. There is under this conception, I notice, no severance of our minds, including our mathematical minds, from the world due to conventions in language (Pearce 2017, 45–50, 80–83, 112, 151–52, 158–62, 195, 204). Berkeley’s view is contrary the logical empiricist thesis of arbitrariness of linguistic convention sufficiently deep in any formal truths to decouple them from the world. References De Pierris, G. 2015. Ideas, Evidence, & Method – Hume’s Skepticism & Naturalism Concerning Knowledge & Causation. New York: Oxford University Press. Franklin, J. 2014. An Aristotelian Realist Philosophy of Mathematics – Mathematics as the Science of Quantity and Structure. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Friedman, M. 1999. Reconsidering Logical Positivism. New York: Cambridge University Press. Pearce, K. L. 2017. Language and the Structure of Berkeley’s World. New York: Oxford University Press. Yolton, J. W. 1984. Perceptual Acquaintance from Descartes to Reid. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

The Ayn Rand Lexicon does have an entry titled "Subconscious." So, Ayn Rand did recognize the existence of a subconscious part of the mind in the human mind, and so, in a general sense, did agree with Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung on this point. The decision of an individual or a group of persons to operate only at a rational level, and to recognize as real and important only rational arguments, propositions, facts, and conclusions, seems to me to be arbitrary. I recently watched a lecture by a Harvard professor of psychology who stated that much of the general theory of the subscious as articulated Freud has been verified by repeated scientific experiments. Any Rand and others can dismiss the Freudian or Jungian theory of subconscious as "mysticism," but while the reality of God, gods, angels, and demons, as found in religions, CANNOT be verified by scientific experimentation, the dynamics of the subconscious mind HAVE very definitely BEEN verfied by scientific experimentation. Again, one can decide to ignore or reject that science, if one chooses to. But that decision seems aribitrary. Also, that decision may ultimately lessen one's ability to survive, thrive, and to be an effective leader of others. I can't help but speculate that if Aristotle were alive to today, and if he had a chance to learn all there is know in the modern fields of biology, psychology, sociology, anthropology, physics, and chemistry, he would not stand by his ancient writings on ethics and metaphysics. During World War II the U.S. government hired a psychoanalyst to produce a analysis of the psychology of Adolf Hiter, so that U.S. government leaders could make the best possible predictions about what Hitler might do in various scenarios as the war proceeded. As I see it, this was wise, and shows the value of recognizing that human beings operate at more than a rational level. As I see things, the value and necessity of rational ethics for producing and inspiring good behavior, success, self esteem, personal responsibility, social responsibility, personal produtivity, law-abiding conduct, etc., is not diminished by the recogntion and understanding of powerful irrational dynamics in every human mind (some of these dynamics having their origin in early childhood, when the boy or girl was unable to process events, needs, loves, desires, fears, traumas, relationships, etc., in the manner of Aristotelian logic)

Having spent the day reading and studying, in response to many of LauricAcid's comments on the Perfecting Logic thread, I do not feel that I have a full enough context to completely invalidate predicate logic. My approach to the subject is to understand its history and the result, but I am not yet strong enough in many of the key areas necessary, especially early 20th century philosophy (during which predicate logic arose as a systematic logic). I also have found almost no good information on the problems, true or imagined, with Aristotelian logic that led to the development of alternative logic systems. However, my reading does indicate that the primary reason for predicate logic's development was an attempt to make all argument mathematical. Leinbiz, for instance, thought "that disputes of all kinds, not merely mathematical ones, could be settled if the parties translated their dispute into the characteristica [language] and then simply calculated." (http://www.rbjones.com/rbjpub/logic/jrh0103.htm). Other research indicates that theirs was a division between linguistic and mathematical logic during the early 20th century. Since I cannot give a full argument about the nature and results of predicate logic, I have confined myself to attempting to point out the essential differences. I shall include a "good faith" account of what I learned in my graduate logic class in college, and then contrast it with the primary topics that I focus on in logic (Aristotelian and Ayn Rand). My source for predicate logic is Logics by John Nolt. The most basic non-Aristotelian formal logic is known as Boolean logic. Boolean logic is limited in what it can analyze to the operators "and," "or," "not," and "if." Its only form of analysis consists of converting the terms between these operators into symbols, and then using the rules of logic to check the validity of the form. (The rules for Boolean analysis are in almost all cases identical to those of Aristotelian logic). An example of a Boolean argument would look like this: If Socrates is a man, then he is mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore, Socrates is mortal. If a, then b. a; therefore b. Predicate logic is the next stage of Boolean logic, introducing the concepts of universal and particular propositions. It is therefore, just as in Aristotelian logic, possible to talk about some men, or all men. At this point, predicate logic has achieved a relative parity with the Aristotelian notion of syllogisms. By parity, I mean that both systems achieve relatively the same results from the same argument. However predicate logic has not achieved its goal of being a calculus. Thus, it matures into what it currently is a series of logical systems deducted from mathematical theories: abstract algebra and set theory. Among the problems of predicate logic is its inability to maintain any content from the original argument. (It can only use "and," "or," "not," "if," "all," and "some.") To deal with this problem, new symbols were introducted, such as Leibniz's Alethic and Deontic operators, which represented 'possibility' and 'necessity' respectively (Nolt p308). Another example is Kripke, who added operators for "knowing", "has always been the case that", and "obligation" (Nolt p335). In order to handle these new operators, and to later fully integrate with set theory, predicate (now known as "formal") logicians created a new field called "metalogic". This field was highly axiomatized in place of induction and allowed for the resolution of the problems caused by the new operators with the creation of a series of logical systems. Each system was designed to handle a specific category of problems with a specific set of operators and rules. Examples of such systems are free logics, multivalue logics, supervaluations, infinite values logics, fuzzy logics, and intuitionistic logics (Nolt, chapters 15 and 16). My conclusion from these is that they are all rationalistic and floating. Their intention is to create rules such that their arguments are correct, and they keep the student focused so much on the form that the context is ignored. To date, I have never seen, nor could I imagine any use in, anyone using boolean or predicate logic to analyze Ayn Rand. I offer this: the difference between Rand and Kant is not simply that Kant failed to use logic in the correct formal way. What is the alternative? Aristotelian logic is focused on grammar, not mathematics. Its syllogisms handle all the forms of predicate logic, but can also do things like using different verbs without needing any special symbols. It focuses on the relationship of words to concepts and most importantly, Aristotelian logic integrates all logical fallacies. I mentioned in my original statement that the rules of syllogisms should be automatized. No one can analyze the syllogisms of an argument while at the same time taking in the content. So it is important to learn the rules of distribution so that you can automate your ability to validate the syllogistic aspects of an argument. The best logic book that i have ever seen is An Introduction to Logic by H.W.B. Joseph (http://www.papertig.com/Logic.htm). I will quote a section of the table of contents starting with chapter 2. Of terms, and their principal distinctions Of the categories Of the predicables Of the Rules of Definition and Division: Classification and Dichotomy Of the Intension and Extension of Terms and of their Denotation and Connotation Of the Proposition or Judgment Of the Various Forms of the Judgment Of the Distribution of Term in the Judgment: And of the Opposition of Judgments Of Immediate Inferences Of Syllogisms in General In this dense 600-page book, the topic of syllogisms is not even full discussed until chapter 11 (page 249). Furthermore, the material up to that point directly relates to a student's ability to understand a logical argument and to create one himself. However, the Joseph book is very advanced. Loinel Ruby's Logic: An Introduction (http://www.papertig.com/Logic.htm) is much easier, with lots of good Aristotelian content suitable for more casual students of logic. It, too, helps the reader in learning to apply logic to arguments. In addition to the huge repository of material on logic in the Aristotelian tradition, there are also contributions to logic by Ayn Rand. Concept-formation allows for a more detailed understanding of propositions. Also see the "Objectivity" chapter of OPAR -- for instance, under the heading, "Objectivity as volitional adherence to reality by means of logic". The Ayn Rand Bookstore has a number of further topics, including Peikoff's Introduction to Logic (http://www.aynrandbookstore2.com/store/pro...tem=19&mitem=46). Most exciting to the field of logic are the advancements in induction by Objectivism (http://www.aynrandbookstore2.com/store/pro...tem=34&mitem=46 and http://www.aynrandbookstore2.com/store/pro...tem=44&mitem=46). Induction and deduction are the two methods of integrating your ideas. As one last comment, I want to point out that there is nothing you can study in Boolean logic or predicate logic that does not exist in Aristotelian logic. In most cases, such as verbs, these statements are fully integrated already. I hope that this is helpful in explaining my objections to formal logic as such.

Could you site your references supporting this assertion? There really is no need to capitalize the term, "subjectivism." As I understand it, subjectivism is not so much a formally titled philosophy, but more along the lines of an implied tenet of various schools of thought: that our own mental activity is the only unquestionable fact of our experience. One example of subjectivism is mysticism. Allow me to explain through historical example. While I had originally intended to offer you an extended summation of European history in medieval times, that won't be necessary. Suffice it to say that stagnation and bloody chaos typified the Middle Ages, for roughly a thousand years. It was not until after a century or more of the reintroduction of Aristotelian logic that the West regained preeminence over rival cultures. Roughly beginning 1650, a new school of Aristotelian logic, i.e. objective truth, very gradually emerged, led by the writings of such notables as Isaac Newton, Edmund Halley, Tycho Brahe, Copernicus, Galileo, and many others who either struggled or flourished in the Age of Discovery. We owe a great deal to those who embraced Aristotelian logic, even if they continued to hold religious beliefs. The degree to which they struggled or flourished depended largely on the degree of human freedom they were granted by their governments. Western Europe gradually threw off the oppressive dominance of Catholic dogma, and embraced human ability as the means of solving problems. Unfortunately, the secular philosophy widely embraced was based on the subjectivism of Rene Descartes, Immanuel Kant, and other Idealists, leading to Hegel and Marx. (As I am not a philosophy major, anyone who is may correct me on these matters.) To the point, the outcome of Western Europe's turn toward secular socialism was every bit as disastrous as the centuries of Catholic domination, that outcome being two world wars, followed by the Cold War. In the Muslim East, discoveries in the fields of science and medicine flourished under theocratic rulers more tolerant of Aristotelian logic. Centuries latter, after lagging behind the West, it should be fairly obvious that submission of "a higher power" is resulting in disaster. Whether it is the religious dictatorship or the statist dictatorship exemplified historically, it is only a matter of time before standards gravitate into bloody chaos. However, there is no reason humanity should ever reach that depth again, unless humanity suppresses reason. The collapse of Western Civilization is not inevitable; Ayn Rand often pointed out that she rejected determinism. We may never know how many men of the mind struggled and suffered under the centuries of subjective forms of governance, be they religious or secular forms of governance. We do know that they thrived under freedom within, and modeled after, the American paradigm of governance, i.e. a standard of governance recognizing individual human rights. This paradigm was never before attempted in the entirety of human history. So long as our liberty is secured, no "collapse" need happen. There is strong evidence to suggesting that greater prosperity usually accompanies greater freedom of man's thought. Certainly, men of ability existed in times when it was understood that punishment would follow any dissenting public expressions. But with every new court ruling and law ramming religion and socialism down our throats, how far are we, the United States, from establishing a dictatorship in one form or another? I hold to the notion that Western nations are still free enough to recognize the danger of limiting man's natural rights, and expressing dissent when needed. We have not hit the proverbial bottom, not yet at least, and I believe we are far from it. And until we degenerate to that level, individuals will enjoy the freedom to choose their own personal means of integrating knowledge, whether subjective or objective. To that, we can coexist in a society of diverse schools of thought. Ayn Rand postulated that our survival and revival would depend on how soon and how many of us embrace objective truth over subjective assertions. The popularity of mysticism, collectivism, and altruism has not served society well, as it has not served the individual very well. So, back to you, Dustin86: If the collapse of Western Civilization never happens, what difference does it make? Do you believe that, because X, therefore Y? Because no predicted collapse happens, therefore Ayn Rand was a cracked-pot? Where did you get this idea?

I appreciate the information in this thread. There are a couple of terms “ideal number” and “ideal proposition” in the text below that can be googled or are provided in the SEP article Merlin and GM have mentioned. Otherwise I think the following from Hilbert’s paper “The Foundations of Mathematics” (1927) is pretty self-contained: “If we now begin to construct mathematics, we shall first set our sights upon elementary number theory; we recognize that we can obtain and prove its truths through contentual intuitive considerations. The formulas that we encounter when we take this approach are used only to impart information. Letters stand for numerals, and an equation informs us of the fact that two signs stand for the same thing. “The situation is different in algebra; in algebra we consider the expressionsformed with letters to be independent objects in themselves, and the propositions of number theory, which are included in algebra, are formalized by means of them. Where we had numerals, we now have formulas, which themselves are concrete objects that in their turn are considered by our perceptual intuition, and the derivation of one formula from another in accordance with certain rules takes the place of the number-theoretic proof based on content. “Thus algebra already goes considerably beyond contentual number theory. Even the formula (1 + a) = (a+ 1), for example, in which a is a genuine number-theoretic variable, in algebra no longer merely imparts information about something contentual but is a certain formal object, a provable formula, which in itself means nothing and whose proof cannot be based on content but requires appeal to the induction axiom. . . . “We have an urgent reason for . . . extending the formal point of view of algebra to all of mathematics. For it is the means of relieving us of a fundamental difficulty that already makes itself felt in elementary number theory. Again I take as an example the equation (a + 1) = (1 + a); if we wanted to regard it as imparting the information that (A + 1) = (1 + A), where A stands for any given number, then this communication could not be negated, since the proposition that there exists a number A for which (A + 1) not= (1 + A) holds has no finitary meaning; one cannot, after all, try out all numbers. Thus, if we adopted the finitist attitude, we could not make use of the alternative according to which an equation like the one above, in which an unspecified numeral occurs either is satisfied for every numeral or can be refuted by a counterexample. For, as an application of the ‘principle of excluded middle’, this alternative depends essentially on the assumption that it is possible to negate the assertion that the equation in question always holds. “But we cannot relinquish the use either of the principle of excluded middle or of any other law of Aristotelian logic expressed in our axioms, since the construction of analysis is impossible without them. “Now the fundamental difficulty that we face here can be avoided by the use of ideal propositions. For, if to the real propositions we adjoin the ideal ones, we obtain a system of propositions in which all the simple rules of Aristotelian logic hold and all the usual methods of mathematical inference are valid. Just as, for example, the negative numbers are indispensable in elementary number theory and just as modern number theory and algebra become possible only through the Kummer-Dedekind ideals, so scientific mathematics becomes possible only through the introduction of ideal propositions. “To be sure, one condition, a single but indispensible one, is always attached to the use of the method of ideal elements, and that is the proof of consistency; for, extension by the addition of the ideal elements is legitimate only if no contradiction is thereby brought about in the old, narrower domain, that is, if the relations that result for the old objects whenever the ideal objects are eliminated are valid in the old domain. “In the present situation, however, this problem of consistency is perfectly amenable to treatment. . . . “ The translators are Stefan Bauer-Mengelberg and Dagfinn Follesdal, as reprinted in From Frege to Godel (1967). GM, I think I see some of Hilbert’s motivation for a view of algebraic symbols as free of content here, although one puzzle I have about Hilbert’s remarks here is: An algebraic equation such as y = (Mx+ B) can be, via coordinate geometry, plotted into a particular line when merely the M and B are given definite values, leaving the algebraic variables as algebraic variables. I mean why isn’t analytic geometry yielding facts about synthetic geometry enough to give some meaning to algebraic symbols? Wouldn’t it be sensible to say that algebraic variables mean just any and all magnitude relations (spatial or otherwise) that might be captured in such analytic relations as we have in this case? Do you think Hilbert would object to that sort of picture of algebraic symbols?

Aristotelian logic is commonly distinguished as ontologically based. Just being logical has been used with other schools of logic, that are not necessarily ontological. The reference would suggest the difference you brought up in the other thread, if I may be so bold, is more a distinction between Aristotelian Deductive Logic, and his Inductive Logical leads, the strong case being for his deductive with a weak case made for his inductive approach. _____ I don't know how to state the ontological basis between deductive and inductive. It is evidenced, in part, in the genus/differentia element. _____ You stated that Am I to draw from this that the Catholic dogma of Aristotelianism/Thomism embraced only the deductive side of Aristotle's logic, either tossing out or strongly downplaying the inductive elements?

On page 6 you wrote: "To persuade, Rand not only used stories and appeals to emotions, but she also wanted to convince her audience of her truth, thus [attaining] absolute adherence." The immediate question that comes to my mind is her truth? As opposed to what? His truth? Their truth? Black truth? Female truth? Male truth? Consider Peikoff's addressing this issue in logic on lecture 1 of Introduction to Logic. On page 11 you wrote: This major choice by the astronaut is given to Rand’s enemies - “the mystics of spirit” with the belief in God to explain reality. The only other choice would be to accept reality as it is by the axiom of existence. The either-or crossroads is a common thread through Rand’s ideology, and it places Aristotelian logic as the only true way for people to reason. You began your paper placing "cult" in quotation marks. Here "Aristotelian logic as the only true way for people to reason" harkens back to the same principle. The implication is that there is no one way to reason. It is subjective, to be based on the criteria selected and considered for reaching one's conclusion. Yet shortly after you wrote: "Sciences, the products of reason, are not as dependable as the nature of reality because they may also be misused for the sake of a blind and false belief." This presumes a reality and that it has a nature independent of the mind seeking to reason about it, and that the conclusions drawn can be mistaken - the basis for Aristotle's recognition that a method (logic) is needed to avoid such blind and false beliefs. On page 15: Reason is the “basic means of survival,” man’s fundamental attribute, and “necessity of human life” (Rand, 1984, pp. 7f.). Surviving in a hostile world necessarily entails a battle for one’s life, particularly a philosophical battle. Surviving in a hostile world conjures a malevolent universe premise to me. Rand advocated a benevolent universe premise. There has been discussion on OO about morality: is it about survival or flourishing? Albeit, tying it into a philosophical battle does help frame it here. In "What Can One Do", she augments the battle lingo with: Today, most people are acutely aware of our cultural ideological vacuum; they are anxious, confused, and groping for answers. Are you able to enlighten them? Can you answer their questions? Can you offer them a consistent case? Do you know how to correct their errors? Are you immune from the fallout of the constant barrage aimed at the destruction of reason---and can you provide others with the antimissile missiles? A political battle is merely a skirmish fought with muskets; a philosophical battle is a nuclear war. I'll admit, in reading that last paragraph again, I am fairly immune to the barrage, but am not always equipped to rise to the occasion on the other questions. Anyhow, I do have a few more points I'll post later.

At best, those are examples of Ilya's attempt of identifying Objectivist integration. These would parallel your misconceptions with statements akin to the Objectivist position in my terms. 1. Mind and body are an indivisible whole. Emotions are an automatic response to thoughts. Emotions are not tools of cognition. Reason is the tool of cognition. The "sum of the conclusions" accepted as true by the mind, are the "sum of the thoughts" that emotions are automatically responding to. 2. Objectivism rejects the analytic/synthetic dichotomy in favor of integrations properly formed, guided by the method of Aristotelian logic. 3. Existence exists. It is what your consciousness is aware of. The act of wishing gravity were something other than F = Gm1m2/r2 has no impact on gravity. Existence sets the terms. Consciousness abides by the terms existence sets, or it declares an inner war on them, which still has no impact on reality. 4 Objectivism recognizes rationalism as a feeble attempt to reason without a method (Aristotelian logic) to adhere to reality. The data of sense (percepts) are the foundation, the basis, the material from which Aristotelian logic is derived from. (As to Objectivist scientists, have you considered David Harriman (physics), Keith Lockitch (physics), and Leonard Peikoff (philosophy), just to name a few of the more prominent ones?) Edited: Added.

Here I will be posting reviews of various aspect of Game of Thrones web series. Done according to tools learnt from The Romantic Manifesto and Eight Great Plays by Dr. Peikoff. Introduction Game of Thrones is a webseries by HBO. Having run for seven seasons so far, it has now become a cultural phenomenon. In all continents from Pacific to Atlantic to Indian Ocean, it now commands a passionate fan following. Yet, more than just a decade back, there was a series F.R.I.E.N.D.S, that also had massive cultural impact. While having a similar level of impact, the two serials are drastically different. Understanding nature and scope of this webseries can give insights into the world we live in, how it has changed, and where it is going. Most importantly though, I think the insights we gain here, will also help us to define our own sensibilities, motivations, thought process, and decision making. Because how our mind responds to artistic values, is often how our conscious, sub-conscious, and their connection is tuned. Art being the fuel of mind, it’s important it goes through quality check and analysis, to help us move and rise in right direction. So let the dissection begin… ******SPOILER ALERT********* Theme The world this series projects is diverse. Geographically, culturally, even biological elements involved are vast. Yet there is an essence, the skeleton of an art work, which can be seen in every frame, every dialog, and beyond. The actions and reactions of characters, and therefore the storyline has this undercurrent. This essence extracted from more than 60hrs of run time is what we call The Theme. “Primary motivations of humans”, this forms the main clause of theme. Primary motivations of humans, ranging from seeking revenge, to seeking political power, to seeking good of the masses, to seek to serve”. This forms the theme of the web series. I think it underscores the main, secondary, and tertiary aspects of the series. From beheading of Eddard Stark, to rise and rise of Daenerys, to Tyrion, Cersei, all the way down to Arya and Brienne of Tarth. I think this theme can explain the similarities of actions despite wide differences in individual circumstances. Lust for asserting his power moves Joffrey against all reason. Applying principle of Liberty for freeing slaves in Essos, or breaking authoritarian wheel [metaphorically speaking] over masses in Westeros. This is what comes to be motivation of Danaerys. Motivations of Tyrion are little bit more complex, but can be understood as the combination of these elements. Service to those in power, whether it’s Tywin, or Joffery, or Daenerys. Objective being the good of masses, and also to assert his own power despite all odds. Denied to him by the nature of his physical being. Cersei vacillates from revenge based motivations, to power for its own sake. (Though she rationalizes power lust and revenge by saying "its Game of Thrones, you win or you die"). Arya of course is clear case of revenge, though there is a positive variation which I will discuss when we go into the depth of her characterization. And Brianne of Tarth clear case of pursing to serve under oath. One might say that people like Bronn are motivated by money. But means of getting money is force of sword. So ultimately they are also motivated by power to force, in a narrower scope compared to Cersei though. Similarly, I think we can understand the motivations of most of the characters, as well as the movement of various plot lines. Review of Theme Before I go into the analysis of different types of motivations, let’s look into the theme of motivation as such. How valuable is the theme? Is it worth exploring, to the extent that RR Martin has devoted 26 years and counting? The answer is unambiguous Yes. Its motivated people that drive the world. Quest for truth and its tool logic, motivated Aristotle all his life. Most visible products are phone we use, and relative liberty we live in. Newton was motivated enough to apply Aristotelian logic to unleash principles of science. James Watt applied science to unleash technology. Steve Jobs combined key elements of Engineering, Business, and artistic sensibilities to unleash what he called tools for human mind. Passionate, motivated people move us and our world, no doubt about that. Yes, there have been people in history (and also currently), motivated by revenge. World War I was triggered by one such vengeful assassination. Revenge can also have positive references. Its resentment towards the British policies that moved Benjamin Franklin towards warriors for Principles of Liberty. George Washington and other founding fathers of America clearly left a world much better for masses, than the one they entered in. Very similar to what Danaerys intends. Positive instances of quest for power. But lust for power institutionalizing corrupt and irrational like Joffrey, is also littered in history. No need to go till Attila or Aurangzeb or Caeser, when you have recent examples of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Ayotollah Khomeni, and Al Baghdadi backed by ideology of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. While revenge and power lust are visibly lethal motivations. Motivation to serve can also be a double edged sword. Here again there are positive and negative references. One positive instance of service given in ancient world I can think is Chanakya. His service to Chadragupt ultimately brought concept of truth (Satyameva Jayate) to the collective conscious of ancient India. Though there was an element of revenge against Nanda dynasty, also in his motivation. Not very different from what Tyrion is doing with Danaerys. The service derived from faith rather than reason is what’s the prime mover for Brianne of Tarth, and The Hound serving Joffrey earlier in the series. Brianne however escapes negative consequences, because the actions her service involved had relatively rational people. But The Hound serving Joffrey was forced to give disproportional punishment to people. The servitude of Manmohan Singh to Congress party, though different in particulars was similar in essence. Some of the motivations indirectly relate to listed motivations of revenge, power, collective good, or servitude. Tywin Lannister’s(also later Cersei’s) vision of lasting legacy for e.g. is related to maintaining power. Though making world a better place would have formed a better legacy. Also Danaerys is attracted to Jon Snow, and the attraction serves as motivation for some of her actions. But reason behind attraction is similarity in their prime motivations. Thus feeling of love derived from similarities of values and corresponding motivations. So love is a derivative rather than a primary here. Finally I share following clip to highlight a critical hole in the theme. https://youtu.be/UKLNB0FY2e0 This is the video of Hot Pie explaining process of preparing really tasty and high quality pie to Brianne and Podrick. Though it’s just few minutes, it highlights most important motivation, otherwise missing in the series. The motivation to produce values. From harnessing existing fire to creating fire using stones, to cars, skyscrapers, genetic crops, and eCommerce. Businessmen and intellectuals (or the thought process behind their being) producing better and better material and spiritual values is what built modern civilization. If humans were motivated by just revenge, power, servitude, or even collective good without proper comprehension of production. Similar to motivations of all of the characters, then I doubt humanity would have even discovered agriculture. So final take away for me as an audience is to understand the concept motivation, and how it relates to decision and action. But finally integrate the understanding to instances of production of goods, services and intellectual tools like logic. E.g. integration being integrating concept of Liberty by Danaerys, with production as in enlightenment era, through the concept of private contract enforced by government. Then the webseries can act as a genuine fuel for the soul.

My confusion over your use of 'ontology' was its redundant linkage to 'metaphysics'. Perhaps, then, we can agree with the Great Chalkboard Account of 'ontology' as dealing with the most primary way of ordering reality--ie as a branch of metaphysics--and get on with content. In this regard, linking ontology to 'existential' seems a s bit louche. Whereas the former more or less indicates a rational account of the world, the later term was created to take subjectivity as philosophically meaningful--as an outgrowth of 'Phenomenology', as it were. So yes, then, it's quite evident that 'logic' is seen by you and Rand to be 'primary'. If any particular science doesn't meet your 'logical' standards, then it gets the heave-ho. So all you're doing is re-stating what you've already written--now just tossing in 'ontology' for good measure. Yet your particular ontology seems unique in that its claims do not rest upon demonstrative grounds. By contrast, let's take Searle's wonderful description of computers: while epistemologically objective, are still nevertheless ontologically subjective, as they depend upon humans for their existence. By contrast, your ontology, lacking suitable demonstrative grounds, defaults back to Plato. All you know is what your mind declares as intuitively true--thereby 'axiomatic'. The Athenians, confronting Paul's testament to Jesus as such a Platonic ruse, called him a 'sausage peddler'. A few of my criticisms re your denial of QM as 'illogical' are as follows: * We use QM as a part of our daily lives: transistors and GMR to name two. To say, 'What;s practical is primary' counts as an ontology, too. ** Bell's challenge was met and overcome as to predictive value. In doing science, 'prediction' is prioritized as the best indicator of logicality. *** Newton's F=MA is as illogical as science gets, as Goethe wrote as much. It's a tautology, since it was only in 1900 with Planck that the left side of the equation (F) acquired an independently measurable value. Otherwise, for 200 years all you were saying was that 'M times A equals a given output of unknown content. Ditto, even today when 'gravity' is calculated either by GR or the classical Newtonian. My point here us that since no science ever has nor ever will meet the complete demands of formal logic, to ontologize logic is to reject science. To this end, i'll use another Chalkboard Term that's used to assess ontological claims: coherence. Are we better off tossing science out or not? **** It's been fairly well run into the ground that the advent of Bacon's "New Method" superseded Aristotelian logic as a foundation of doing science. The experimental method questions A-ness (is A really 'A'?) by virtue of rigging up simulacra to test for 'A'. science uses 'hypotheses' to say, "Our conjecture is that A might be 'A'. In other words, we do science because what we want to know isn't self-evident--and because the material word appears to be contradictory. To say it really, really isn't in a metaphysical sort of way because 'I'm an O-ist and that's what we believe' falls miserably short of predicting what, after scientific investigation, we will find this (non-contradictory) reality to be. My suggestion here is that claims of metaphysical consistency, while interesting, have nothing to do with science--ostensibly concerned, qua Aristotle, with how things work and capacities. For example, the Newtonian F=MA is extremely important because, although tautological in structure, nevertheless reveals a lot about 'force', or capacity to do work, 'energy' etc. ***** In any case Aristotle himself devised logic as a process of mental ordering and organizing--a means to an end, as it were. It's the mental glue that holds together his investigation of The Four Causes. Actually, then, it was certain Scholastics who converted logic into the primary standard, or 'ontology'. Therefore, Rand seems to be a modern continuation of the scholastic tradition! Lastly, of course, your comments on 'equations' belabor the point that since much of what we want to know is not available to the senses, we use math. But even if we could see particles of quanta and their waves, we would still want to count them, measure the wave, and do the standard calculus of speed and direction. AH

I'M OFFERING MY ENTIRE OBJECTIVIST LIBRARY FOR SALE ON EBAY WITH AN OPENING BID OF $400. THAT'S LESS THAT THE COST OF A SINGLE COURSE. THE EBAY LINK IS HERE AND THE COURSES OFFERED ARE BELOW: THE ART OF THINKING: This is a course on what to do with your mind during the act of thought, when to do it and how to do it. Dr. Peikoff teaches you how to make the principles of Objectivist epistemology the guide of your own daily thought processes. These lectures are part new theory and part exercises. 1. Volition as a means of Clarity
The problem of clashing contexts; why some students are unable to fully accept what they know to be the truth. The perpetual "clarity-seeker." Why the only solution in such cases is will (not more arguments).
 2. Hierarchy
Thought as integration. Hierarchy as an indispensable form of integration. Reducing advanced ideas to perceptual data.
 3. Thinking in Essentials
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Principles as fundamental integrations reached by induction. Principles and essentials. Are principles inescapable or not?
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Can one be certain about the future? Can one base predictions on statistics? If knowledge is contextual, must one say: "The senses are valid, or Atlas Shrugged is a great novel, in the present context of knowledge"? Can one properly specify one's context, yet still be guilty of an error?
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Dealing with immoral people. Why academic philosophers reject Objectivism. The difference between truth and certainty. The epistemological status of statistics. 
(Audio 14 hrs., 31 min.)
 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY by Leonard Peikoff 1. The First Problem: Are There Any Absolutes? The father of philosophy: Thales. The philosophy of flux: Heraclitus—"You cannot step into the same river twice"—change as the only absolute. The mind-body opposition begins: the mathematical mysticism of the Pythagoreans. 2. The Triumph of the Metaphysics of Two Worlds. The birth of determinism: the materialism of Democritus. The birth of "It seems to me": the skepticism of the Sophists— "Might makes right." Socrates. The first complete philosophy: Plato. Plato's metaphysical dualism. 3. The Results in This World. Plato's epistemology—the myth of the cave. Plato's ethics/politics: reason vs. emotion—Platonic love—the Philosopher-King—communism as the political ideal. 4-5. A Revolution: The Birth of Reason. Aristotle. Epistemology: sensory evidence as the base of knowledge—the laws of logic—the nature of truth. Ethics/politics: happiness as the moral goal—reason and the good life—the Great-Souled Man—the ideal society. 6. Philosophy Loses Confidence. The philosophy of pleasure: the hedonism of Epicurus. The philosophy of duty: Stoicism. The new Skepticism: Pyrrho of Elis. Neo-Platonism: Plotinus. 7-8. Philosophy Becomes Religious—and Recovers. The rejection of reason and happiness: Christianity. The first major Christian philosopher: Augustine—faith as the basis of reason—the ethics of self-sacrificial love—man as a corrupt creature. The Dark Ages. The rediscovery of Aristotle. Thomas Aquinas: the union of Aristotelianism and Christianity—the absolutism of reason and the new role of faith. The aftermath: the Renaissance. 9. The New Breach Between the Mind and Reality. Materialism and determinism in the name of science, dictatorship in the name of harmony: Thomas Hobbes. The father of modern philosophy and the first famous Continental Rationalist: René Descartes— the method of universal doubt—"I think, therefore I am"—the theory of innate ideas. 10. The Breach Deepens . . . The second famous Rationalist: Spinoza—pantheism—determinism. The third famous Rationalist: Leibnitz—the unreality of matter—the "windowless monads." British empiricism: John Locke. 11. . . . and the Attempt Collapses. Empiricism becomes subjectivist: Bishop Berkeley—"To be is to be perceived." Empiricism becomes bankrupt: the skepticism of David Hume—the attack on the external world and on causality—the breach between logic and fact. 12. Conclusion. The Objectivist answer to key problems posed by Ancient and Modern Philosophy. Detailed Description INTRODUCTION TO LOGIC by Leonard Peikoff This course (with exercises) covers the standard topics taught in introductory courses in Aristotelian logic. It defines the principles of valid reasoning, and discusses prevalent logical fallacies. It formalizes the steps by which one derives conclusions from premises, and it provides a methodology by which to evaluate one's own thinking processes. (Each lecture includes a question period.) 1. Basic Logical Theory
The cognitive role of logic. The laws of logic and their validation. Logic vs. mysticism and subjectivism. Logic and reality.
 2-3. Informal Fallacies
Twenty-two common fallacies, including: the appeal to authority, ad hominem, ad populum, ad ignorantiam, begging the question, equivocation, composition, division, misuse of the mean and false alternative.
 4. Introduction to Deductive Reasoning
The nature of deductive argument. Validity and truth. Mixed and pure hypothetical arguments. Alternative arguments.
 5.-6. The Aristotelian Syllogism
Categorical propositions. Immediate inference. Rules of syllogistic validity. Analyzing arguments in ordinary language.
 7-8. Definition
The cognitive role of definitions. Genus and differentia. The method of formulating valid definitions: five Aristotelian rules of definition. Definitional fallacies.
 9-10. Inductive Generalization
Induction vs. deduction. Induction by simple enumeration. Experimental induction: Mill's methods of discovering causal connections. Major inductive fallacies, including: hasty generalization, oversimplified generalization, post hoc. The justification of induction. The argument from analogy.
(Audio 27 hrs., 1 min.) OBJECTIVE COMMUNICATION by Leonard Peikoff This course teaches you how to present ideas effectively. It identifies certain principles of intellectual communication, and applies them to three areas: writing, speaking and arguing. It is concerned, not with style, but with substance, i.e., with the basic methods necessary to achieve a clear, absorbing presentation of your viewpoint. Dr. Peikoff draws on principles from such diverse fields as epistemology, drama, education and polemics. If you want to be able to convey your thoughts objectively whether you are preparing a report for work, a paper for school or a book for a publisher this course will dramatically enhance your skills. Throughout the sessions, volunteers were given an opportunity to make brief presentations. Since the subjects of these exercises (included as a booklet with the taped course) are limited to aspects of Objectivism, the exercises may also expand or refresh your knowledge of this philosophy. The ten sessions, which are themselves masterful examples of objective communication, consist of the following: Basic Principles and Methods (opening lecture)
The nature and problems of intellectual communication. The role of epistemology: the "crow epistemology" and the Law of Identity; knowledge as contextual. Motivating the audience. Delimiting the subject. Logical organization of material. Balancing abstractions and concretes. Writing (4 lectures)
Written presentation. Similarities and differences between writing and speaking. Making a piece of writing self-contained. How to judge a formulation's objectivity. Exercises in editing philosophic statements to achieve precision of thought. Analysis of samples of student writing. Speaking (3 lectures)
Oral presentation. The nature and problems of extemporaneous delivery. The problem of overloading the listener's mind. Transitions, pace and emphasis. Monitoring the audience's response. How not to bore the listener. Analysis of short talks by students. Arguing (2 lectures)
When and when not to argue. The art of philosophical detection. Selecting the essential points to answer in a discussion. The major pitfall of polemics: conceding the opponent's premises. Arguing politics, and how to deal with spurious "facts." Training oneself in philosophic argumentation. Analysis of mock arguments, with students (or the instructor) serving as "devil's advocate." Ayn Rand answers questions from the audience at the end of Lecture 1, ranging from esthetics to politics. Of particular value is her discussion of the fiction writers whose works best illustrate the craft of writing. (Audio 25 hrs.) WRITING: A MINI COURSE by Leonard Peikoff Learning to write, Dr. Peikoff explains, requires not only an understanding of the proper principles, but also the ability to apply those principles to one's actual writing. These lectures feature exercises on six different aspects of good writing. The topics are:
1. Selectivity: How to determine what is essential.
2. Structure: How to organize your material hierarchically.
3. Emotional vs. Factual Tone: How the same idea can be conveyed in dry, factual terms—or in colorful, emotionally evocative language.
4. Context: How to compose an introductory sentence that sets the context and makes a complex subject fully intelligible.
5. Motivation: How to prepare a brief, motivational opening for a talk.
6. Condensation: How to write in concise English. (Audio 3 hrs., 45 min.) ARISTOTLE AND THE RENAISSANCE by Robert Mayhew Ayn Rand wrote: "The Aristotelian revival in the thirteenth century brought men to the Renaissance." These lectures—which cover 500 years, from the rediscovery of Aristotle, to the end of the Renaissance—demonstrate the truth of this statement. Questions to be answered include: How could Aristotle's ideas take hold in a hostile culture? Did they take hold fully? What was Aquinas' contribution? What effect did Aristotle's ideas have on Renaissance philosophy? Who were the major Renaissance Aristotelians? Dr. Mayhew concludes with a consideration of the lessons Aristotle's influence on the Renaissance has for modern Aristotelians fighting, in a hostile culture, for Objectivism. (Audio; 3 hrs.) FREE WILL by Harry Binswanger Ayn Rand is the first philosopher to recognize that the free will is at the root of not only ethics but also epistemology. By identifying that "Man is a being of volitional consciousness," that one's choice to think or not is an act of free will, she revolutionized our understanding of the relationship of consciousness to existence. In these lectures, given at 1999 Lyceum Conference, Dr. Binswanger presents and validates the Objectivist theory of free will, with emphasis on the relationship between volition and the reality-orientation. Topics include: mental focus: what exactly is "focus"? how do we know focus is volitional? focus vs concentration; drift, evasion, "meta-evasion" and self-monitoring"; the error in asking "what makes one man focus and another not?"; free will as the base of objectivity, and determinism as the premise of mysticism. (Audio 3 hrs.) SELECTED TOPICS IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE by Harry Binswanger Speaking as both professional philosopher and amateur scientist, Dr. Binswanger presents original and challenging solutions to a number of problems that have fascinated, tantalized and perplexed students of philosophy and science. 1. Mathematics
Geometry: Euclidean vs. non-Euclidean geometry; reconceiving the hierarchical order of the basic concepts of geometry; a proper definition of "straight line"; a proper definition of "parallel lines" and its role. Numbers: reducing the concept of "number" to perceptual reality—or, "where is fiveness?"; negative numbers, irrational numbers and imaginary numbers; infinity and "ultrafinitism." 2. Physics and Biology
Physics: the finite universe; "place" vs. "space" in conceptualizing the universe; why there can be no real voids. Biology: mechanism vs. vitalism; the theory of natural selection and its epistemological status; the goal-directedness of living action. (Audio; 3 hrs.) RELIGION VS MAN by John Ridpath
Dr. Ridpath examines religion as the most significant example of the destructiveness of false philosophic ideas. In these two lectures he presents a detailed history of religion, including its origins in primitive myths. He uncovers the metaphysical, epistemological and ethical doctrines of the world's major religious systems: Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Dr. Ridpath demonstrates why the essence of religion stands in fundamental opposition to the requirements of human life. The talks include a moral comparison between Eastern and Western religions, and conclude with a warning on the present-day dangers posed by religion. (Audio; 3 hrs.) THE GREATNES OF THE 18TH-CENTURY ENLIGHTENMENT by John Ridpath The 18th-century Enlightenment is one of history's most vivid demonstrations, on a vast scale, of human potential. It reveals the heroic ability of man to command the world. It gives us factual proof that men can live in freedom, prosperity, benevolence and happiness. These two lectures present the context for appreciating the greatness of the 18th century, by contrasting it with the mysticism and the misery that came before. Dr. Ridpath examines the Enlightenment in detail—both its intellectual essence and its existential accomplishments. He also identifies the ambiguities and even contradictions present within the Enlightenment—thus allowing us to assess fully the nature of this heroic epoch in human history. These lectures are a demonstration of the enormous power of reason and freedom in human life. (Audio; 3 hrs.) SETTING GOALS TO IMPROVE YOUR LIFE AND HAPPINESS by Edwin A. Locke Part 1 is one 90 min. lecture (search item IL02C) This course is a major expansion of a talk by the same title given in 1985, focusing in depth on the topics of work and love. The work section discusses such issues as discovering what career you would like; healthy and unhealthy ambition; self-marketing; work vs. family; and money. The section of love contrasts the Objectivist view of love as egoistic to altruism and narcissism, and then presents numerous examples of what it would mean specifically to love someone egoistically, including the important role of the conscious mind in sustaining a romantic relationship. (Audio; 4 hrs) THE PHILOSOPHIC CORRUPTION OF PHYSICS by David Harriman 1. Newton to Kant:
Newton's physics and his philosophic legacy. The attack on the rational foundations of physics by 18th century philosophy. Hume's rejection of entities, identity and causality. Kant's "anti-Copernican" revolution. The primacy of consciousness. Kant's view of space and time. 2. Kant's Physics & the Early 19th Century:
Kant deduces the principles of physics from his "categories." The primacy of action over entities. The acausal idea of "action—at—a—distance." Kant's influence on English physics. Faraday's view of force and matter. 3. The Death of Classical Physics:
The transition to Kantian empiricism. Physics as the "mathematical description of appearances." Mach's positivism and its later influence. The rejection of atoms—after their existence was proven. Boltzman's tragic fight for classical physics. 4. Relativity: The Physics of Appearances
Einstein's subjectivism and rationalism. The rejection of induction. The constant speed of light and two possible approaches toward an objective theory. Einstein's "length contraction," "time dilation" and "relativistic mass." "The curvature of space." 5. Quantum Theory: The Physics of Nihilism
Kantian nihilism takes over in Germany. Physicists are "emancipated" from the constraints of identity, causality and logic. The development of quantum theory. Schrodinger's cat paradox. Prospects for the future. "Mr. Harriman's understanding of the integration of physics and philosophy is unique and his presentation is clear, logical, well-illustrated and even emotionally powerful...It is a brilliant case study of the role of philosophy in perverting a science across centuries—and at the same time a revolutionary indication of how to untangle and reconstruct this science within a rational (Objectivist) framework." Dr. Leonard Peikoff (Audio; 6 hrs. 30 min.) PSYCHOLOGICAL SELF DEFENSE by Dr. Ellen Kenner Whether dealing with a deviously critical mother, a deliberately incomprehensible professor or an envious co-worker, how do you resist the tendency to "keep the peace," to forgive and make excuses for them—to apologize for the good within you? How do you remain morally true to yourself? How do you avoid granting them the "sanction of the victim"? In this course Dr. Kenner provides how-to advice on detecting and counteracting intentionally manipulative people. With an abundance of examples—drawn from both real life and fiction—she explains the subtle methods by which manipulative people gain psychological footholds. Rather than being formal lectures, these six sessions include frequent questions from the students as well as staged confrontations in which Dr. Kenner plays the role of a manipulator. Though she sketches out some of the psychological principles involved, her central purpose is to teach practical skills that can help you maintain your integrity, pursue your happiness and navigate safely through the traps of would-be manipulators. [Audio; 6 hrs.] JUDGING, FEELING, AND NOT BEING MORALISTIC by Leonard Peikoff These lectures offer an intensive analysis of the process of evaluative judgement. They apply the enormously abstract subject of morality to difficult cases. These lectures are invaluable guidelines for making moral decisions. (Audio 3 hrs., 59 min.)

They must have changed the course from when I acquired it. (Actually, I know better than that.) Rand identifies logic as the fundamental concept of method. She also indicates that it has to be volitionally adhered to. It is also self-evident, implicit in every percept, to be abstracted from the evidence of the senses. It even has to be used in any attempt to deny it. These four points were quite adequately dealt with in the first lecture. Also pointed out, was the fact that this is a standard introductory course on logic. With the exception of two logical fallacies, the section on definitions, and part of the portion dealing with induction, - it is what would be taught in any introductory course on Aristotelian logic. While Objectivism agrees with the material presented, so do most other philosophies that adhere to ontological logic. As I indicated earlier, logic is not my forté. I know, if knowledge is my goal, it must be used to the best of my ability. The act of intentionally trying to undermine that process would be an anathema to me. I find it incomprehensible why anyone would willingly do so. It would have to be akin to administering on one's self an intellectual frontal lobotomy. Like any frontal lobotomy the procedure is, by all practical means, irreversible.

OK, premises. If all existents are either a sum of existents or are some existent, as you imply in interpreting my Premise 1, then, by restricting "all" to a "sum," not "any," we can get Premise 2: An orange is an example of existent (as in "an orange is an example of something," but "something is not an orange"). Would conclusion then be: An orange is an example of existence? Bah, all of this is ridiculous, since you avoid any logic whatsoever with all of your neither-true-nor-false (but both) premises. Aristotle never intended his logic to become a (neo)religious faith, like in your case. Nah, Peikoff said that symbolic logic is corrupt and does not reflect reality, not realizing that by that statement he flouted Aristotelian logic as well. Your premises are not logical, they are arbitrary. Your position is to avoid logic, to retain the state of meaninglessness of your premises that you reify into something, which it's not.

[Previous Post in this series: "Induction of 'The Arbitrary as Neither True Nor False'" ] In this essay, we’ll cover the inductions needed to reach the Objectivist principle that “reason is man’s only means of gaining knowledge.” Here’s the outline of the essay, consisting of three inductions, and a formal, deductive conclusion: (1) Reason is a means of gaining knowledge. (2) Non-rational processes to knowledge reduce to feelings or emotions. (3) Emotions are products of ideas. (4) Reason is the only means of gaining knowledge. Reason is a Means of Gaining Knowledge “Knowledge” is a well-known concept, known to many cultures, and for many centuries. One dictionary defines it as “the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject.” Most people take it to mean some familiarity or acquaintance with certain facts and information in any field that one can learn about. “Knowledge” ranges from daily facts about life that most people take for granted (like washing and drying one’s clothes), to the most complicated, extraordinary theories of science and their applications to technology and human life. One of the most common things known about knowledge is that it is constitutive of power, or as Francis Bacon is claimed to have made the point: “knowledge is power”; the more you know, the more things that you can do, like archery, skiing, and becoming a pro basketball champion. (Bacon had a more complicated meaning behind that phrase, but I won’t explore that thought here. If you would like to know more about his view of knowledge, see my essays: “Bacon's Theory of Induction as Presented in his Novum Organum,” parts 1 and 2.) Given all of this, what is a process by which we gain knowledge? This is one of the essential questions posed by the science of Epistemology, and we’ve covered a great deal of the answer to that question in the previous inductions we’ve gone through. In the induction that “reason is man’s means of survival,” we saw that reason is a mental power that allows us to notice cause-and-effect relationships, plan long-range, abstract, draw inferences, generalize, and make judgments. We learned from the essay on inducing Aristotle’s understanding of “objectivity” that reason is the faculty that operates by concepts, ideas; that ideas come from perceptual observations by means of abstraction and generalization; that logic is a method for proving one’s ideas by checking them against laws applying to all thoughts, and reducing them to perceptual observations while checking for contradictions. And we learned from the essay on Rand’s view of “objectivity” that knowledge involves integrating all of its elements and it involves understanding a series of increasingly complex, high-level concepts; that the process of measurement-omission explains the nature of abstraction; that consciousness has an identity, it has specific characteristics; and proving ideas requires not just Aristotle’s theory of logic, but Rand’s additions as well, that every concept in an argument has to be validated, that the conclusion has to be related to the evidence of the senses, and that the conclusion must be integrated with everything else that one knows. So we have a wealth of information that gives us a way to know the induction that “reason is a means of gaining knowledge.” We know that reason starts with evidence, information of the senses, observations, etc. We know that the form or manifestation of reason is a concept, which is a cognitive unit that integrates endless amounts of perceptual information which, in turn, expands our consciousness beyond the perceptual level. And we know that the method that reason uses to check if its concepts truly correspond to reality (are knowledge, and not some fantasy) is the science of logic, the goal of which is non-contradictory identifications and conclusions. Non-rational Processes to Knowledge Reduce to Feelings or Emotions This is an induction that was known long before Objectivism in some form or another, and I reached it between the ages of 12 and 14, around the time that I became an atheist in all but name, and became more interested in science and critical thinking. In our modern civilization, there are many alleged approaches to knowledge: faith, revelation, intuition, instinct, ESP, and more. Once you know some of the rudiments of the faculty of reason, such as that it uses the senses, evidence, ideas, and some of its operations, like thinking with logic and reaching definite conclusions by integrating it with what you already know, you can begin to contrast that with the above-mentioned processes. Faith: the sheer belief that something is true or real. Many religious groups profess that faith is their means to knowledge, but they have no explanation for why the other groups have different, even contradictory, faiths. (Historically, each faith has simply claimed that the other faiths have misinterpreted, or altered the “true faith.”) They also can’t coherently explain how it is that just by having “faith” in their God (or other deity or dimension), just by taking Him at His Word, they receive some gift of knowledge. The mechanism by which faith bestows knowledge has remained inexplicable for centuries, and rational people have defined faith accordingly as believing in something without (or in contradiction to) evidence. No evidence; no need to investigate facts; no context; no need for concepts; and no method to correct or check your conclusions. Just have faith, and knowledge is yours. Revelation: the communication of knowledge to a person by a supernatural agent. The means by which a deity or its servant (like an angel) discloses information to a person has been explained just as well as faith has been—which is to say, not very well at all. Revealed knowledge is somehow higher and better than reasoned knowledge, but how this can be has never been pointed out. Knowledge gained by reason takes mental effort, study, bringing things to your context of knowledge; revelation is dropping effort, merely meditating, dropping your context, and supposedly letting the deity’s words reach your spirit. Just open your soul, and knowledge will be disclosed to you effortlessly. Intuition: the capacity to immediately know something without observation or reason. This is a well-known term in our age, and it normally means one of two things. It either means our rapid-fast subconscious decisions and conclusions, due to our prior knowledge and the automatization of that knowledge, or some indefinable process that allows us to instantly know something that we shouldn’t, in fact, know. Like faith and revelation, no one can explain how they reached their intuitions about anything, not even when the intuitions of other people disagree—there’s no standard on which one could decide the legitimacy of one intuition over the other. Rational knowledge is knowledge gained step by step, taking a certain length of time, and definite cognitive steps, not a sudden flash of insight. (Though such an insight could be the legitimate result of subconscious processing of knowledge one already has.) In reality, there’s no such “intuitive” faculty, and no means to explain or justify the “just knowing” quality of anyone’s intuitions. This is another case where knowledge is mysteriously granted, but the process or mechanism that allows for this can’t be explained. Extra-sensory Perception: “Perception that involves awareness of information about something (such as a person or event) not gained through the senses and not deducible from previous experience.” [http://www.yourghoststories.com/glossary.php] ESP comes in three main forms: telepathy, knowing someone else’s thoughts without sensory communication; clairvoyance, knowing an object or event without the use of the senses; and precognition, the ability to know another’s thoughts or about events before they have occurred. As you could imagine, no one can really explain these processes or how they can qualify as knowledge. What happens when an alleged person with ESP fails in predicting an event, or in explaining the thinking of another person whom he hasn’t interacted with, or is revealed to have been committing fraud or trickery? It’s swept under the rug, and is explained away by the person’s psychic abilities being “inhibited” by something. As we know, reason forms its concepts and knowledge from the evidence of the senses, and proposes causes of future events based on what the person knows about the past and present. ESP asserts some unnatural, mystical faculty that bypasses, and is superior to, rational knowledge, and basically claims that all knowledge is essentially in your head already, without effort; find a way to raise your ESP level, and you can unlock the secrets of the universe and of men’s minds. Instinct: “An inborn pattern of behavior that is characteristic of a species and is often a response to specific environmental stimuli.” [http://www.answers.com/topic/instinct#ixzz1LdyB5Wo6] Instincts are supposed to be automatic, unlearned types of knowledge and action that all members of a species perform due to some signal given by the living thing’s environment. By itself, calling something an “instinct” explains nothing, and doesn’t progress your knowledge in how a given pattern of behavior happens, or why. Advocates of instinct theory believe that people have all kinds of innate knowledge, stored in the brain and nervous system; as Nathaniel Branden mentioned in an article about instincts (while he was still an Objectivist), however, alleged instinctual behavior are usually (1) not universal to the species but depend on particular beliefs or attitudes, (2) simple reflexes, and/or (3) a product of learned behavior. Essentially, instincts are no different from faith, revelation, and the rest: an inexplicable, effortless means of knowledge that bypasses the path to knowledge through reason. What are all these claims about faith and revelation and ESP, when really analyzed? From introspecting, and asking people about issues like these for years, I came to an inductive conclusion that Objectivism adopts as well, and that many secular people endorse: mystical, non-rational processes of gaining knowledge amount to: feelings. I used to ask people about why they believed in God, and they told me that they have “faith,” that they feel that He exists. Why do they have faith? No real answer: they just feel it. Why do they believe that some knowledge they have is revealed to them? Because they feel that it is. Why does someone believe in ESP? Because one day they felt like something bad was going to happen, a bad premonition, and it happened, so they were convinced that they had predictive, psychic powers. A well-known group who easily understood this induction was the Nazis. Hitler once said, “[t]rust your instincts, your feelings, or whatever you like to call them,” and the Nazis were allowed to publicly advocate any nonrational source of knowledge, whether it be intuition, faith, revelation, trances, magic, or even astrology. What wasn’t permitted to them was reasoning, thinking, Aristotelian logic. They could only uphold their feelings, or more precisely, only the feelings of Hitler, the Führer. As Hermann Goering (who was, at his peak, second-in-command only to Hitler) makes the point, “I tell you, if the Führer wishes it then two times two are five.” The “truth” is then whatever Hitler’s “Aryan instincts” or “Aryan logic” or feelings told him was the truth, and the Nazis dutifully obeyed. (For more about this, consult Leonard Peikoff’s Ominous Parallels.) Analyze the supporters of non-rational, non-sensory processes to knowledge, and you’ll discover that their allegiances to various doctrines are backed by nothing but their hopes, dreams, wishes, and fears—what they feel is right or wrong, good or bad. Emotions are Products of Ideas This is a somewhat difficult induction to reach, because it involves analyzing feelings and emotions, and most people simply live and act by their emotions, taking them uncritically as the given. Where would we begin? I think that the best place to start is comparing and contrasting emotions with sensations, since our everyday lives consist mostly of experiencing one or the other. As far as comparing them, the easiest thing to notice about sensations and emotions is that they’re both bodily reactions to something. Someone hits you with a rock, and you feel the sensation of pain, because your body, brain, and nervous system are reacting to the physical stimulus. After being hit, you initially experience the emotion of bewilderment: you tense up, raise an eyebrow, look rapidly around your environment trying to figure out what just happened. When you determine that someone hit you with that rock lying nearby, your emotion turns to anger, and your eyes grow menacing and stare in the attacker’s direction, you clench your fits, and grind your teeth. Let’s presuppose that we know enough science to understand sensations and their causes. What then caused the emotions in the above-mentioned case? You were bewildered at first because you didn’t know what happened you: you knew that you were hit with something, but what it was, how it reached you, and why it hit you are things that you’re confused about and don’t know yet. When you see a person and a rock nearby, you infer that he threw a rock, thus answering all your perplexities, and now you think that what he wronged you in some way. In both emotions, you saw or experienced something, reached definite conclusions in regard to what you perceived or experienced, and evaluated your conclusions and the result of all of this was the emotion being expressed. Sensations occur through purely physical means, but emotions do not. Something else is involved in emotions, but what is it? Consider a basketball game: why do the fans of the home team show enthusiasm and cheerfulness for their team, but contempt and aversion towards the opposing team? Why do you feel happy in the presence of your friends, but sad or angry in the presence of those you detest? Why would a woman feel elation at the man of her dreams asking her to marry him, but utter revulsion at even the thought of some man asking her whom she hated with a passion? What is missing here are the intellectual causes of emotions and feelings. 1. Let’s say that your home team wins a football game, and you’re happy, ecstatic even. Why would you be happy? Because the team is one of your values, or perhaps you have a favorite player or set of players whom you value, or perhaps you value the coach. You want them to succeed, to go on and win the championship, to keep building a better and better team for the future, etc. 2. You don’t feel the same way around your friends as you do when you’re around your enemies, people whom you hate. With your friends, you feel relieved, comfortable, and a sense of excitement; with your enemies, you feel apprehensive, tense, not like yourself. Why this is that your friends respect you as a person, and have or share the same values that you do in some respects, so you feel like your values can be achieved with them, whether now or in the future. But your enemies oppose or are indifferent to your values, and are antagonistic towards you as a person, so you feel that they will prevent you from accomplishing your values, or will outright destroy them, like the bully who takes your money for lunch (the value). 3. Why experience elation at the ideal man asking you to marry him, and the deepest revulsion and disgust at the most anti-ideal man doing the same thing? By feeling happy about the ideal man, you’re responding to your highest values, what you think is right and great about the whole situation. The exact opposite is happening in the case of the man you passionately hate. He’s the opposite of you, and can’t even respond to you because you both are in two different worlds, value-wise, and so his proposal is ludicrous and you think of it as a sick joke. It isn’t just whether they are attractive, or what physical things they do, or even your own physical body, but what you think about them, and your evaluation of your thinking. What inductions can we gleam from examples like this? One of them is an induction we covered in the essays on “the initiation of physical force” and “the objectivity of values”: values are generated in part by the thinking we’ve done, the ideas we have, and the conclusions we’ve reached. Value-judgments are conclusions reached by a process of reason, by thinking, inference. Another induction, one that is necessary to complete the induction “emotions are products of ideas,” is the principle that (in Rand’s words) “[e]motions are the automatic results of man’s value judgments integrated by his subconscious.” That last induction is perhaps the most difficult of all to understand (as far as the principles I’m covering in this essay), because most people learn a lot about their own emotions, and the concepts for emotions (“happy,” “sad,” “relieved,” etc.), before they ever learn about the “subconscious,” not to mention the connection between the subconscious and the emotional faculty. Nevertheless, in order to know this, a person would have to seriously analyze their own thoughts and emotions, and note the connection, the causal chain. First, the person has to recognize things, form some ideas about those things, and then internalize that thinking, which means to have it processed by their subconscious. As time goes on, the person has to evaluate these things in one way or another; he needs value judgments (e.g. food is good), and he needs these to be internalized, as well. Once the subconscious has stored and organized these ideas and value-judgments, when a concrete arises that you already have ideas and values pertaining to, you’ll instantly respond in an emotional way to that concrete, and whether the emotion expressed is positive or not depends on your previous thinking and your standard for evaluation, on what you think furthers or detracts from your values. Emotions are products of your ideas because they are the result of your subconscious processing of your previously conscious thoughts and value-judgments. If you had no values, you would be completely indifferent to everything, and the same would result if you had no ideas about anything, or if your subconscious had no information within it. Reason is the Only Means of Gaining Knowledge The first induction was that reason is a means of gaining knowledge, that the process involves combining perceptions into conceptions through the process of abstraction, and reaching conceptual conclusions by the method of logic. The second induction was that non-rational processes to knowledge are really just the assertions of the person’s feelings. The third induction clarified that feelings or emotions actually originate from one’s ideas, one’s concepts and conclusions; they are a reaction or response to one’s prior thinking and value-judgments. The next step is to put everything together. Reason is a faculty of awareness. The process by which it is aware of reality is the organization of perceptual observations. Reason works with the senses, and puts the perceptual information together to form concepts. And reason works by choice: reason is the faculty that can direct itself, check its own conclusions, and maintain its connection to reality using the method of logic. There is no faculty that corresponds to the processes of intuition, instinct, ESP, revelations, or faith. They all seemingly transcend or supersede reason, but there are no known elements to these processes: no senses, no concepts, no ideas, no process of reaching conclusions, no independent means to check if they lead to true conclusions or not. Since there’s no identifiable process to refer to for these candidates of gaining knowledge, we concluded that they are simply the feelings and emotions of the advocates of intuition, ESP, etc. The point we’ve reached is that the only real candidates for the generation of knowledge are either reason or emotion. The question then becomes, “can emotions be a means of gaining knowledge?” Given that reason is certainly a means of gaining knowledge, is it possible that emotions can supplement reason or even substitute for it? Unlike reason, emotions are not a faculty of awareness, but of reaction or response to one’s perceptions (or imaginations). Emotions have no power of volition or choice; they has no independent means to access reality, unlike reason; an emotion has no process for guiding its course, and no ability to keep track of its relationship to reality. By themselves, emotions only tell you that something makes you feel something. Even this isn’t knowledge without a process of reason, specifically introspection: a painstaking process of using one’s concepts to identify each and every emotion you have, to figure out what brought the feeling up or aroused it, and whether or not it’s an appropriate response to the facts of a situation. Emotions have no play in the course of logic, or establishing the evidence for a conclusion. A man may hate someone, but that is no logical proof that he has done any wrongdoing, and it would be inappropriate to cite his emotions as knowledge of wrongful acts. The emotion simply means that the man reached a certain idea in the past, and now it’s in his subconscious: it’s an open issue whether that idea is rationally proved or not, and the only way to know is to use one’s reasoning, not one’s emotions. All of these considerations lead to a formal, deductive principle, which Rand states as: “emotions are not tools of cognition.” What this means is that emotions are not a means of gaining knowledge, and that following emotions is not the means to knowledge. It can neither supplement reason nor substitute for its role in the acquisition of knowledge. That deduction leads to one final, deductive conclusion: reason is man’s only means of gaining knowledge. All other purported processes for gaining knowledge reduce to the person’s emotional responses, and emotions are inexplicable without the process of reason—this means that you need reason to acquire knowledge even about emotions. Knowledge is gained by one’s tools of cognition, and one’s tools of cognition are: one’s concepts. If reason is the only means of gaining knowledge, then we can now modify the definition I initially gave. Knowledge is “the identification of a fact of reality, reached by perceptual observation, or a process of reason based on perceptual observation.” The “process of reason” could be abstraction in the case of forming concepts, or it could be the processes of induction and deduction for forming conclusions. Meta-blog, automatic cross-post

Ah, got ya. Fair enough. Again, fair enough. Frege introduced the predicate calculus (actually, not just first order, which I should have said); then used his higher order calculus to derive mathematics. Too bad his higher order system was inconsistent (the first order portion is okay, I think). Then Whitehead and Russell proposed instead a theory of types from which to derive mathematics. (By common account) they failed to the extent that they desired to derive mathematics purely from logic (since infinity, choice, and reduciblity are not logical axioms). Of course, first order set theory also provided a foundation for mathematics, and it seems to have won out as the most commonly accepted foundation even until now. And there have been other alternatives proposed along with other advances in our knowledge on the subject. / As to the first post in this thread, was Russell actually disdainful? Maybe he was (?), but one isn't disdainful for merely pointing out that Aristotelian logic is not adequate for even the quite modest logic that goes into ordinary mathematical reasoning, while Aristotelian logic is subsumed by ordinary logic systems such as first order logic. By the same token, we recognize forms of reasoning (modal, relevance, etc.) for which plain first order predicate logic may not be enough.

Catholic dogma WAS Aristotelianism/Thomism. It wasn't until this Scholastic, deductive-logic approach to science was "thrown-off" [largely by the British Protestants/Puritans associated with the Royal Society, and the School known as Empiricism (Bacon, Hooke, Boyle, Newton, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, etc.)] that major strides in science were even possible. There is a difference between "Aristotelian Logic" and being "logical".

I’m so confused. On the one hand, we’re supposed to believe that the Dallas shooting happened because of “institutional racism” of whites against blacks. Yet we were also told, in 2008 and 2012, that electing Barack Obama would eliminate, or at least reduce, institutional racism. So which is it? By the standard set forth by Obama’s supporters, we should expect less racial strife in America than ever before. Instead, we now have more than many of us have seen in our adult lifetimes. I don’t remember it ever being this bad, although I have read it was this bad in the 1960s, when I was alive, but not very old. If you didn’t vote for Obama in 2008 or 2012, progressives called you a racist. If you didn’t support Obama’s policies on socialized medicine, tax increases, increases in non-defense spending and unlimited borrowing, and cuts in the military, you were likewise called a racist. Now, if you don’t agree with Obama when he says America’s police forces suffer from “institutional racism,” you’re told you’re a racist. But if, after 8 years of Obama as president, institutional racism is still rampant, then what does this say about Obama? Why should we even listen to him? I read that the chief of police in Dallas is a black man. If we’re supposed to believe that the Dallas cop-killer was understandably angry at all the anti-black racism in the Dallas police force, then how do we explain that police force is run by a black man? It’s not Selma, Alabama. It’s not 1963. Didn’t this killer say he executed innocent police officers because he wanted to kill white people, not black people? I know I’m using Aristotelian logic here. Using logic, reason and facts never works when attempting to understand progressive, leftist assertions or conclusions. But the contradictions, evasions and absurdities are becoming so spectacular, many of us hardly know what to say any longer. I’m not even sure what “institutional racism” is supposed to mean. From what I can tell, it means that whites as a group all think alike, and blacks as a group all think alike. Unless you think like progressives say all blacks think, you’re wrong. If you’re white and wrong, you’re racist; if you’re black and wrong … well, that’s presumably not possible. (Heaven help you if you’re black and not a progressive.) I don’t know how to articulate or reason out the progressive premises and conclusions, even on their own terms. That tells you how incredibly irrational and wrong that point-of-view is. Yet it’s the point-of-view now almost completely running the country. How did a once reasonable and free country like the United States reach such a low point? The strife and bloodshed in the streets illustrates the problems in people’s thinking. We have permitted smug, wrong and irrational fools to rule us; and this is the outcome. Follow Dr. Hurd on Facebook. Search under “Michael Hurd” (Rehoboth Beach DE). Get up-to-the-minute postings, recommended articles and links, and engage in back-and-forth discussion with Dr. Hurd on topics of interest. Also follow Dr. Hurd on Twitter at @MichaelJHurd1 Check out Dr. Hurd’s latest Newsmax Insider column here! The post What in the Heck is “Institutional Racism” Anyway? appeared first on Michael J. Hurd, Ph.D. | Living Resources Center. View the full article @ www.DrHurd.com

Before we integrate Marxism and National Socialism, there needs to be other integration done. Races are a lot more complex than societies, since they may cover more than one society at a time. Hitler did not understand the nature of society, so he corrupted the racial view with racism. Lenin, on the other hand, did not understand the nature of individual, so he corrupted the social view with dictatorship. As for Newtonian and Aristotelian physics, I hope you know that Aristotle thought that when you throw a rock, it stops in mid-air and suddenly falls straight down. Newton corrected it, by showing extensive evidence to the contrary and explaining it with an elegant theory, which yet employed Aristotelian logic.

Ilya, I was using ontological in the context of how logic is based. Aristotelian logic, is usually described having an ontological basis for it, in the philosophic sense of pertaining to reality. Aristotle was looking for a principle to guide thought by seeking something that was true about everything, the fact of its being, or the fact of everything as being, as in being qua being. Your explanation goes into physics, biology and chemistry. As logic is a method to guide ones thinking in the sciences and every other field of endeavor, it would be a subset of epistemology. You stated "There are many ontological models out there that show what kinds of existences there are and how they are related." Since existence refers to everything which exists, the singular tense is quite adequate to refer to everything which exists, and the relationships are then drawn from the existents.