True, Original, Important

[Boydstun]

.

What in Rand's philosophy is all three: true, original, and important?

Edited February 23, 2013 by Boydstun

[Leonid]

In my view-her ethical system

[Boydstun]

One thing in or preliminary to Rand’s ethical theory I think true, original, and important is her idea that value occurs only on account of the existence of life. The concept value presupposes the concept life. And not only is it that where there is value, there is life; it is also that where there is life, there are values. That, all of that, is one conception I would say is true, original, and important in Rand’s philosophy.

Edited February 23, 2013 by Boydstun

[ruveyn1]

.

What in Rand's philosophy is all three: true, original, and important?

As far as I can make out,  every view of Rand that conforms to external reality has also been made by others,  sometimes better than Rand made the point.  Which is not to say that reading Ayn Rand's work is not worthwhile.  She does make her points dramatically with her novels.  Absorbing Franscisco's "money speech" can be a lot more enjoyable than ploughing through von Mises book on money and credit.

 

ruveyn1

[Boydstun]

Ruveyn,

One element in Rand’s metaphysics that is along your lines of affirming a conformance to external reality and having been maintained by others before her would be: “A consciousness conscious of nothing but itself is a contradiction in terms: before it could identify itself as consciousness, it had to be conscious of something” (AS 1015). That thought has some predecessors in Plato, Brentano, Husserl, and Sartre, as I recall.

In Theatetus Plato has Socrates say “I must necessarily become percipient of something when I become percipient; it is impossible to become percipient, yet percipient of nothing” (160b). Plato was there speaking only of the percipient in sensory perception. Rand’s proposition is a generalization of that view to all consciousness (further, AS 1047 and ITOE 30–31). (Rand’s proposition holds true it seems to me not only in our waking conceptual consciousness, but even the consciousness we have in dreams. Consciousness there is of something other than itself, I would say, because I have found Freud’s find of always a day residue in dreams to be correct.) I have some remarks on the similarity and difference between Rand and Sartre on this conception of consciousness here. I expect her difference with Brentano and Husserl is as considerable as her difference with Sartre concerning this character of consciousness. Perhaps only Rand stated this conception with the exact full meaning that was hers. I think the idea true and important, however original with her.

 

There is a conception of Rand’s concerning relation of world and mind, and the conformance of the latter to the former, that so far as I have been able to discover is unprecedented in the history of philosophy. That is her duo: “Existence is Identity, Consciousness is Identification” (AS 1016, also). Something like the first wing of that was realized by Avicenna, as recently noted.* With this insight, Avicenna and Rand (independently of him) were extending Aristotle, but it was a significant extension, and I think, a point true and important. Joined with the second wing, they seems to me a very important innovation in the history of philosophy, and a true one.

Stephen

[Marc K.]

Bodystun:

 

I am no philosophical scholar so I am willing and able to be corrected here, but the following are things I've heard from various sources as originating with Rand -- if not the idea, then the formulation. The formulation holding significant power in the same fashion as what you just posted:  “Existence is Identity, Consciousness is Identification”.

 

First one quibble. Depending on what you mean exactly, I'm not sure this formulation is accurate: "And not only is it that where there is value, there is life; it is also that where there is life, there are values."

 

The second part is clearly true but the way you've phrased the first part makes it sound like life is a consequence of value or that life can arise from value. Life is the primary here and so there is no such thing as "value" apart from life. Life gives rise to the concept "value". Now obviously life could not arise without something being there to support it. But whatever those things are, they cannot be called values until there is life.

 

On with my list:

 

- Yes, clearly Rand connected ethics to reality and discovered and formulated a completely rational, reality based ethics. She, herself, described this as her greatest achievement. Actually I'm not sure she used the word "achievement" because she may reserved that for "Atlas Shrugged" but along those lines. She may have called it her greatest "philosophical achievement" or "innovation". It is more than just one insight, it is an entire ethical system. 

 

- As a consequence I think we must say that hers is the first and only completely rational, completely integrated philosophical system. I'm sure Aristotle considered his system integrated and rational (and I suppose some will argue that Kant's system was integrated) but we know now that hers really is the only completely rational, completely integrated philosophical system.

 

To continue, and again I'm not absolutely positive of all of these:

- All property is fundamentally intellectual in nature: this sets her apart from Locke and Smith and their labor theory of value and totally destroys the libertarian and utilitarian view of property.

 

- She solved the problem of universals

- Her epistemology is really unique with insights such as that essence is not just metaphysical or epistemological but a marriage of the two. That essence is an aspect of existence as isolated by our minds.

- Measurement omission as the method of concept formation

- She solved the is/ought problem

- The important philosophical difference between the metaphysical and the man-made

- The primary choice as the choice to focus (I'm not sure this is hers)

- Concept as objective (not sure)

- Certainty as contextual (not sure)

- Reason as man's basic means of survival (I heard Peter Schwartz describe this as originating with Rand)

- Values as objective (not sure)

- There is no dichotomy between the moral and the practical

 

And I don't think that list is complete. I think there are many more. How's that?

[SapereAude]

"- There is no dichotomy between the moral and the practical"
This may be a quibble Marc, but several philosophers previous to Rand espoused this notion.
The difference is that they were inaccurate about what was moral and/or practical.

[Nicky]

As far as I can make out,  every view of Rand that conforms to external reality has also been made by others,  sometimes better than Rand made the point.

That's a massive claim. For you to have established that as fact, you would have systematically had to, for every single idea in Rand's works, have read through at least one philosopher who has also said the same thing.

Either that, or you're just repeating something you heard someone else say.

Personally, I hope it's the former, because then I have tons of questions to you. Just to get started with a very popular one, who described measurement omission before Rand?

[Boydstun]

Marc,

Thanks for the list.

Firstly, concerning my expression of Rand’s conception of the relation between life and values, in the phrase “where there is value, there is life,” I meant only that whatever can be pointed to as a value, life will be there with it. That is Rand’s idea that only living things have values, that value is found only in the context of life activities. That is, value enters the inanimate world only with life, a non-living robot has no values (though it has been composed to effect our values), and any talk of value-concepts (e.g. the concepts problem or correct) has its full sensibleness only when it is understood that one is talking about phenomena derivative of and traceable to the phenomenon life. It is only now, after a few minutes, that I am able to make the gestalt shift for the meaning of my phrase coinciding with the meaning you saw there. I see that problem now. Thanks. There has to be elaboration to restrict to my intended meaning.

 

Concerning your idea that Rand’s is the only completely rational and completely integrated philosophical system, I would wonder if that supposes a special meaning of rational. I incline to think a system could be completely rational without being completely true. In looking at the philosophic systems of the past—say Aristotle’s or Spinoza’s or Whitehead’s—I think we would need to sort simple falsehoods from those falsehoods that could not be held for true without slippage in rationality of the person holding them. That is a delicate dissection sometimes. I’m thinking of some errors in Kant. Pretty quickly I would say that his view that absence of an object cannot result in activation of a perception and his use of that as premise in some arguments is just natural simple error. Pretty quickly too, I would say that his view that space is not in the world independently of our minds is not a natural simple mistake, but a fantastical mistake, one for which anyone should know their reasoning must have gone wrong or they have a faulty premise or conception to have arrived at such an outrageous conclusion. But that quick take on the irrationality of Kant’s view of space has to become a long careful take to show that his reasoning to the result has make-shift patches that could have been detected by him were it not for his big plans for his idealism of space. (“Big plans” is an old punch line of Peikoff’s.) I doubt Rand’s is the only completely rational and completely integrated philosophical system. I would not say positively sure either way because there are philosophic systems I don’t know well enough, and others, such as those of Whitehead or Hintikka, of which I know little. Whether Rand’s system is itself completely rational and completely integrated is a question I will carry into my further assessments of her philosophy, and I thank you for bringing this whole consideration to my focus. A milder thesis would be that Rand's is the most rational and most well-integrated philosophic system; I do think hers is high up there in those regards.

More on list later.

 

Stephen

 

[ruveyn1]

That's a massive claim. For you to have established that as fact, you would have systematically had to, for every single idea in Rand's works, have read through at least one philosopher who has also said the same thing.

Either that, or you're just repeating something you heard someone else say.

Personally, I hope it's the former, because then I have tons of questions to you. Just to get started with a very popular one, who described measurement omission before Rand?

That is implicit in all numerical measures.  A numerical measure requires a compact ordered fields to associate with measurements.  Or put another way, a measurement associates a real number with that which is measured.  So after all other properties are abstracted what is left is the real number.

 

People have been using measurement omission since the time of Eudoxus who defined ratios for all quantities whether they are rational or not.  So my vote goes to Eudoxus for measurement omission.  The ultimate exercise in measurement omission is point set topology which separates (abstracts) important properties of objects from any metric considerations. This goes back the Euler in the 18 th century.

 

But Eudoxus and Euler did not develop a system which covered politics and ethics.  

 

My point was that each of Rand's empirically true theses were dealt with (singly) by others.  Rand put it all together in a system.  That is her distinction.  She also packaged her ideas in some entertaining novels.  Very few philosophers are good writers.  Besides Rand the philosopher who was an entertaining writer was Plato in his dialogues.  They are jewels either in the original Greek or in translation.  This is especially true of his earlier dialogues and not so true of -The Laws- which was very tedious.

 

ruveyn1

Edited February 24, 2013 by ruveyn1

[Boydstun]

Ruveyn (#10),

No. Rand’s thesis that all well-formed concepts have an implicit (or explicit) measurement-omission structure is a substantial, controversial, and new thesis. It is really two theses, and each is new.

One is a claim of empirical psychology, a claim about the origin of concepts in childhood. Rand’s claim was that they are formed implicitly by a process of measurement omission. I have written on the findings of empirical psychology on that issue here: a, b, c.

The other is a claim presupposed by that empirical claim, and it is interesting in its own right. It too is substantial, controversial, and new. That is the thesis that all concretes can be placed under some concept or other having a measurement-omission structure. Even if one is counting as measurement a scaling having only ordinal structure,* the claim remains substantial, controversial, and new. I have found forerunners of this thesis of Rand’s in James (psychology), Johnson (logic text), Heath (Euclid), Aquinas, Hume, Psuedo-Dionysus, and Scotus. The inklings of Rand’s thesis in these thinkers, or at least the exact citations for the passages in their texts, can be found here: a, b.

 

As true, original, and important, I count Rand’s idea that concepts of any concretes can always be fashioned according to a principle of suspended particular measurement values along certain magnitude dimensions shared by particulars falling under those concepts. If you are correct that people have been implicitly using measurement omission back to Eudoxus to Euler to mathematics today, then making that case adds to Rand’s case for the truth of her thesis. But it is only Rand, so far as I have found, who generalized the principle to concepts in general. This originality stands even without her further integration of her theory of concepts with other parts of philosophy.

 

I appreciate the value of your note about Plato’s dialogues as well as your earlier note about Francisco’s money speech. I had a sister-in-law who was a high school teacher of Speech. She would give the money speech to her students to take to Speech contests in the category of Standard Oratory. In that category of the competitions, you memorize and deliver a speech written by someone else, whereas in Original Oratory, you write your own speech.

Edited February 24, 2013 by Boydstun

[Reidy]

With considerable trepidation I vote for objectivity of essences and of values.

 

Rand did not "solve" Hume's is-ought challenge, because nobody can.  As he states it, it's a tautology: without "ought" in the premises, you can't get "ought" in the conclusion.  If by solving the challenge you mean showing that "ought" statements can be natural truths, she was not the first.  She claimed altogether wrongly in "The Objectivist Ethics" to be the first naturalist in the history of ethics.  Naturalism was the norm until the twentieth century, and the version she uses, deriving it from the nature of life and the beings that possess it, was in Aristotle and Phillippa Foot before it was in Rand.

[ruveyn1]

With considerable trepidation I vote for objectivity of essences and of values.

 

Rand did not "solve" Hume's is-ought challenge, because nobody can.  As he states it, it's a tautology: without "ought" in the premises, you can't get "ought" in the conclusion.  If by solving the challenge you mean showing that "ought" statements can be natural truths, she was not the first.  She claimed altogether wrongly in "The Objectivist Ethics" to be the first naturalist in the history of ethics.  Naturalism was the norm until the twentieth century, and the version she uses, deriving it from the nature of life and the beings that possess it, was in Aristotle and Phillippa Foot before it was in Rand.

And Sam Harris -after- Rand with no basis in Rand's philosophy. See -The Moral Landscape- by Sam Harris

 

Ayn Rand was gifted but her work, like the work of many others was incomplete in some respects and in error in other respects.  For example her definition of logic  misses the distinction between soundness and validity.

 

ruveyn1

[Reidy]

Another precursor of Rand's measurement-omission thesis was Aristotle, in Metaphysics Iota and in the discussion of classification by greater and lesser in Parts of Animals.
 

Edited February 24, 2013 by Reidy

[Marc K.]

Concerning your idea that Rand’s is the only completely rational and completely integrated philosophical system, I would wonder if that supposes a special meaning of rational. I incline to think a system could be completely rational without being completely true.

Yes, I misspoke, and I was allowing for it by mentioning Aristotle, but didn't make it explicit. Clearly one can be rational and be wrong. So my revised statement would be that Ayn Rand's was the first and only completely rational, completely integrated, true philosophic system.

Now, I don't know what was in Aristotle's mind but I do wonder if he was completely satisfied with his system. Because while it is possible to be rational and wrong on one or several issues, it must be much harder to integrate ALL of one's knowledge under one system while that system contains errors which redound throughout that entire system.

I do think that Aristotle should be given wide latitude though since he did not have the benefit of the knowledge illustrated by the industrial revolution which Ayn Rand said was crucial to her understanding of reason as man's basic means of survival.

I don't think that same latitude should be given to Kant and no matter how many mental contortions one allows Kant I think it is impossible to be rational and arrive at his system.

[Marc K.]

Ayn Rand was gifted but her work, like the work of many others was incomplete in some respects and in error in other respects.  For example her definition of logic  misses the distinction between soundness and validity.

It is sometimes hard to decipher what you are saying because, in my opinion, you aren't being explicit enough.

Are you saying that her definition of logic is incomplete or wrong? If you think it is incomplete that doesn't necessarily mean it is wrong. Have you considered that hers is a philosophic definition and thus may be broader than what you are thinking of? Why don't you provide a definition of logic so that we can compare.

What things specifically do you think she was wrong about?

[Reidy]

I doubt that Aristotle was ever fully satisfied with his system, because he changed his mind about some major topics.  He was a platonist in his youth, for example.  Scholars wrangle over what was the sequence of changes, but nobody doubts that they are real.

 

Rand's observations about Aristotle and the industrial revolution are interesting in light of her insistence that history proceeds top-down from philosophy.  This would seem to be an exception to her usual line and not easy to reconcile with it. 

[Marc K.]

Rand's observations about Aristotle and the industrial revolution are interesting in light of her insistence that history proceeds top-down from philosophy.  This would seem to be an exception to her usual line and not easy to reconcile with it.

I don't understand exactly what you mean by your last sentence. Aren't these two different subjects, or at least two different aspects or contexts you are talking about?

Yes history (and most other things) flow from the ideas people hold. But I don't see how that bumps up against observations of the industrial revolution. The way I think of rational thought in this context is that it is constantly feeding back on itself (if properly done). Meaning, you observe the world and try to figure it out by organizing and categorizing it and then you check to see if you have done a good job. If so you can form principles and continue to check their validity against reality.

I'm sure there were many observations that people in ancient Greece could make to confirm that reason is man's basic means of survival but after the industrial revolution it is an inescapable conclusion.

This "top-down" procedure that you are talking about sounds like rationalism. I mean "history" is just an aggregation of individual actions which is what actually exists. Please explain what you mean by "top-down"

[New Buddha]

I would vote for her idea that each object, whether animate or inanimate, is an end within itself.  And that nothing can cause something to behave in a manner not in accordance with it's nature.  So much of her philosophy rests upon this premise.  I see this as a reversal of Aristotle's idea of the "Prime Mover".  There is no one Prime Mover -- each thing is it's own Prime Mover. 

[ruveyn1]

I would vote for her idea that each object, whether animate or inanimate, is an end within itself.  And that nothing can cause something to behave in a manner not in accordance with it's nature.  So much of her philosophy rests upon this premise.  I see this as a reversal of Aristotle's idea of the "Prime Mover".  There is no one Prime Mover -- each thing is it's own Prime Mover. 

How do you reconcile this with the physics of interactions.  How do you work this in with the conservations laws for systems of particles

 

ruveyn1

[Reidy]

#18: In calling Rand a "top-down" thinker I mean that most of the time she talks of philosophy (plus people's decision to accept it) as sufficient to determine historical events.  The lead essay in For the New Intellectual is the classic statement of this.  I fully agree that it's a rationalistic way of thinking.  In this case, uncharacteristically, she says that history influenced philosophy.

 

#19: When you say that each thing is an end in itself, I think you mean that each thing is an entity with its own nature.  This is elementary Aristotle and not Rand's discovery.

[Grames]

... For example her definition of logic  misses the distinction between soundness and validity.

 

ruveyn1

The distinction between soundness and validity does not belong in a definition of logic.   Just so we are on the same definition, the genus-differentia definition Rand gives from the Lexicon is:

 

 Logic is the art or skill of non-contradictory identification.

[ruveyn1]

The distinction between soundness and validity does not belong in a definition of logic.   Just so we are on the same definition, the genus-differentia definition Rand gives from the Lexicon is:

 

 Logic is the art or skill of non-contradictory identification.

That is not the definition that people who do logic for money  use.  

 

Every professional logician alive will tell you logic is the art/discipline  of valid inference.

 

If you wanted to know what scientific medicine was who would you ask:  1. a novelist  or 2. a licensed medical practicer or a medical researcher with degree,  publications and other  certifications? 

 

ruveyn1

[Boydstun]

Ruveyn,

 

Edward Zalta takes the discipline of logic to be “the study of the forms and consequences of predication” (2004, ch. 23). That conception of logic fits well with Rand’s conception of logic as “the art of non-contradictory identification.” Valid inference is a subsidiary division of what is modern logic, as expressed by Zalta. Rand's definition is an instance of her general proposition "Consciousness is identification." Her definition of logic locates its place within that general conception of consciousness and dovetails fine with logic from Aristotle to Quine (through first-order predicate calculus with quantification and identity* and through some of modal logic [s5 is fine in Rand's metaphysics], though possibly with some embrace of relevance logic displacing standard material implication). I count Rand's definition of logic as true, original, and important.

 

* As in "the morning star is the evening star" or "ruveyn is Bob Kolker."

Edited February 25, 2013 by Boydstun

[dream_weaver]

Logic, as posited by Aristotle comes across as the valid form of deduction from premises. Premise A, premise B, C follows. Reducing the premises ultimately lead to the "problem of induction." One's premises ultimately have to be derived from observation. How many men have to die before it can be concluded that "All men are mortal."? Logic as the art or skill of non-contradictory identification at some point must subsume this as well, and may well explicitly state what was subsumed in Aristotle implicitly over the eons.