Critique of Peikoff's interpretation of the 'arbitrary'

Metaphysics and Epistemology
41

Leonid,

The claim “There is no A” is not essentially arbitrary:

“There is no money in my pocket.”

“There is no transport of bodies with non-zero rest mass faster than the velocity of light in vacuum.”

More about the bald King of France:

There is a controversy of logic standing in the relevant external background for Rand, other Objectivists, and thinkers about Objectivism concerning arbitrary assertion and assessability for truth. There is a tradition from Boethius, Abelard, and Buridan that any universal affirmative or particular affirmative statement in which the subject does not truly exist is false; and no such blanket verdict is given for universal negative and particular negative statements. Within this theory, we can argue (an argument of my own construction):

  1. Affirmative statements concerning nonexistent subjects are false.

  2. Assertions of the existence of a subject for which there is no evidence is presumptively false; the existence of such a subject is presumptively false. (Onus of Proof)

  3. Arbitrary assertions are assertions for which there is no evidence (no validation, so no evidence).

____________________________________________________________

Affirmative statements concerning arbitrarily asserted subjects are presumptively false.

It would surely be correct to drop the word presumptively from 2 and from the conclusion when the arbitrary assertion is one that cannot be invalidated in principle. From the Buridan et al. view of truth concerning nonexistent subjects we get presumptive falsity and unqualified falsity for affirmative statements concerning arbitrarily posed subjects. Whether negative statements concerning arbitrarily posed subjects would be meaningless rather than assessable for truth is unsettled on this view, but they are not automatically false.

There is another tradition (P.F. Strawson and H.L.A. Hart) that instead takes existence of the subject to be presupposed in any universal or particular affirmative or negative statement. Under this approach, we get that arbitrary assertions are presumptively (or unqualifiedly) neither true nor false. They are presumptively (or unqualifiedly) meaningless.*

There is a third tradition, the one predominate today, in which any particular affirmative or particular negative statement in which the subject does not truly exist is false; and no such blanket verdict is given for universal affirmative and universal negative statements. **

Determining which of these three approaches fits best with Rand’s epistemology is work remaining to be accomplished. I would examine the first and third as they look when their not-definitely-false pairs on the square of opposition are taken as meaningless.

* Strawson would object to my use of the word meaningless here, which he would reserve for a use more narrow. He would call such statements spurious or failures to refer. All the same, he would agree that his approach casts all such statements, and singular statements such as “The King of Texas has a Cadillac,” as not assessable for truth.

** On these three traditions and a fourth, see Laurence Horn’s A Natural History of Negation (CSLI 2001 [1989]).

42

The problems that Mr. Boydstun raises are real, and one of the proposed solutions is that propositions on the order of “The King of Texas drives a Cadillac” are neither true nor false.

But they don’t much overlap with the problems that Dr. Peikoff has aimed to solve with his doctrine.

Some arbitrary assertions à la Pekoff are of propositions whose subjects fail to refer to anything real; e.g., “Gremlins are holding a conference on Venus.” But none of Peikoff’s treatments of the arbitrary that I have been able to locate ever mention cases like “The King of Texas drives a Cadillac.”

Peikoff does claim, of course, that arbitrary assertions are neither true nor false. But for Peikoff, propositions like “2 + 2 = 4” or “Ayn Rand had an affair with Nathaniel Branden” can be arbitrarily asserted—by people with insufficient knowledge or bad epistemic attitudes.

In his 1974 lectures on Logic, Leonard Peikoff included a short discussion of Bertie Russell’s theory of definite of descriptions. He rejected this in favor of a view rather like Strawson’s, maintaining that “The present king of France is bald” is neither true nor false. He also characterized such propositions as “metaphysically meaningless” (to be differentiated from “epistemologically meaningless” or flat-out unintelligible).

There is no mention of any of this in his 1976 lectures, or in any of his subsequent discussions of “the arbitrary.” I don’t even know whether Leonard Peikoff still subscribes to his 1974 position on “The King of Texas drives a Cadillac.” It is not mentioned in OPAR, or in the latter-day lectures I am familiar with (but I am a long way from knowing all of them).

When I started work on my article, I thought I would mention the 1974 discussion of meaninglessness, but quickly decided to leave it out, because I saw no indication that Dr. Peikoff considered it relevant to his views on “the arbitrary.”

Robert Campbell

43

Typo in #34: That should have been “B through Z,” not “C through Z.” No change in the point.

Yes, Nicky, on Rand’s definition of knowledge, evidence would be firstly observation. Definitely too, observations can become evidence. Rand’s conception of validity in concepts, definitions, and other propositions, including philosophical axioms, also points to observations as the most basic form of evidence in knowledge. The need for logical integration for knowledge, including integration of mathematics with observations and with conceptual understanding, however, suggests that in Rand’s view of knowledge more can be evidence than observations, at least if it is integral with observations and proper conceptualization from them.

Are you saying that “the basis of evidence is observation, but…”?

If that’s what you’re saying, then my answer is “There’s no but.”. If that’s not what you’re saying, then whatever you’re saying is irrelevant to my point. We know what the basis for evidence is, and therefor we know that when a statement has no basis in observed reality, it is invalid. Naming such a statement (as “arbitrary”, for instance) is a perfectly sensible thing to do, and anyone who writes a 72 page essay on why it’s not is wrong.

44

Are you saying that “the basis of evidence is observation, but…”?

I’m not sure what else can become evidence except for observation at least indirectly, so I need clarification from Boydstun.

Must an invalid statement be arbitrary? If all invalid statements are arbitrary, why have the concept arbitrary? My thinking is that it depends why the statement is invalid. Suppose an alien from Alpha Centauri landed on Earth. The alien knows a lot about Earth, including that there are leaders of high authority, just not a whole lot about the English language. So one day, you ask what other people like you in Texas drive because you want a good car considering the gas prices. Offering a suggestion, the response is “Well, the King of Texas drives a Cadillac, I saw him driving one the other day”. You recognize the error and say “oh, he’s not the King of Texas, he’s the governor.” Or perhaps it’s just an inside joke, making fun of a guy with an absurd cowboy hat that the two of you call the King of Texas.

With the linguistic mistake, that’s an invalid statement because it’s false according to your knowledge of English. There is evidence that what the alien meant to is based on observation, not a hallucination. With the joke, the statement is invalid because the comparison is meant to be absurd, although it’s based on some wordplay. You might say the linguistic error has at least conceptual basis in reality, so we are still using observation. With the wordplay, there is no observation going on there of any actual King of Texas. Would you say either example is arbitrary? Why or why not?

45

Nicky and Eiuol,

As you know, Rand defined knowledge as a mental grasp of reality, reached either (i) by perceptual observation or (ii) by a process of reason based on observation (ITOE 45). An example of (i) would be perceiving a drawn square with a diagonal of it also drawn. An example of (ii) would be a proof demonstrating that the length of the diagonal is incommensurable with the length of the square’s sides. The premises in this proof, such as the premise claiming that every counting number is either even or odd, will be based on yet other perceptual observations or on a process of reason based on observations. The premises of the proof are evidence (in the case at hand, incontrovertible evidence) for the truth of the conclusion. (They are also explanatory of the conclusion.)

It was (ii) I was describing as evidence “integral with observations and proper conceptualization from them.” We are not in any disagreement on this.

Stephen


PS

Eiuol,

I’d say that in the case of the alien, the assertion would not be an arbitrary, and in the joke context, it would also arise from observations, so again would not be arbitrary. So far as I know there is no context in which the statement would be an arbitrary one. If one makes up a story for the children “Once upon a time, the King of Texas got lost in a dust storm. . .” the author knows it is a fiction and only related to observations in the ways that fictions are related to observations.

However, if someone were to sincerely profess “Jesus Christ is the son of God and savior of the world,” I think we have an invalid assertion, one very largely not based on observations, but aspirations contrary basic observations. Some unbelievers would take this statement, particular affirmative, as neither true nor false, others would take it as false. Rand, Branden, Peikoff, . . . and I say one knows it is false. In my own view, such a statement is not only false, but grossly defective in meaning. I gather those Objectivist writers would say any meaningless assertion (authentically asserted) is fouled by its arbitrariness, meaning its freedom from observational constraint. That sounds reasonable. To that I add that the meaningless statement (or statement severely deficient in meaning) is based on error, on falsehoods. And I say the statement known to be meaningless is known to be false. That is contrary the position of many philosophers who say the meaningless is neither true nor false. Further study of them may abate this difference.

–S
46

OK, I have some laymen questions for the panel, and they are likely very laymen since economics, not epistemology, is my strength zone.

  1. I understand the basic definition of an arbitrary assertion as something that is neither true nor false since it is not based on reality. It is worse than false and to be rejected out of hand. So my question is…

Why is this important in the first place? As Rand said often and artistically, life is a series of questions to which the answer is yes of no. Or true or false. Or Good or evil. Vanderbilt built an empire by asking: True or false? As a manager I see something and I want to know if it is true, or not, and act accordingly. The difference between something being false for reason X or not true for fantasy Y is the same result: It is not true. It is wrong since it does not further my life by the criteria of the original question.

What is the purpose of breaking errors into hierarchal arrangements of relevance when the end result is that they are both irrelevant?

  1. Another aspect of the arbitrary assertion is that it is user dependant. If someone repeats the phrase 2+2=4 because they heard it but doesn’t understand it, they are asserting it arbitrarily since they have no reference to it as knowledge outside of an argument from authority (or if I remember correctly, Peikoff said you are making the noise of a parrot). For a practical daily example, I can say (and frequently do) that “You manage assets, you lead people” and explain why this is so through experience and facts. If someone reads it in a book or heard someone say it, and then regurgitates it, this is said to be an arbitrary assertion since he never went through the mental process of identifying the fact and integrating it as proven knowledge. This leads to the conundrum…

How do I know the person is repeating knowledge arbitrarily? People do not come with a virtual index tab that allows you access their intellectual hierarchy of how they arrived at a conclusion. Someone can tell me, well… anything and I have no way of knowing how they arrived at that conclusion. I know if it is true or false, but not how they came to the thought. Since this aspect of the arbitrary assertion is independent of the conclusion, it is about the thought process, I cannot use the actual assertion to determine it. Someone can tell me that Government regulation hinders productivity and I have no way to know how they came to that conclusion. They could have the complete Mises library on their bookshelf or they could have heard their preacher say it. You have no means of identifying how another man integrates his knowledge. This implication makes this use of the arbitrary assertion useless since you cannot identify it when needed.

Wouldn’t this application of the arbitrary assertion itself be an arbitrary assertion?

Thank you for your thoughts.

47

Sprial Architect asks: Why is this important in the first place?

The primary importance is how do you deal with an assertion that is incorrect.

  • Do you inquire as to the basis on which it is presumed to be correct?
  • Do you point out that it is incorrect?
  • Do you simply not honor the assertion with a reply?

The purpose of breaking the error down lay in selecting the proper way with which to deal with it.

An inquiry as to why it is presumed to be as asserted is asking - how did you arrive at this conclusion? Do they have the complete Mises library on their bookshelf, did their preacher say it, or does Polly want a cracker?

If you have no history with the asserter, this should help to establish a basis for determining if you are dealing an honest error, and whether the asserter is aware that the position may even be in error,

If you are already familiar with the asserter’s position (i.e. you’ve discussed it before), you need to assess the situation in which the assertion was made.

  • Are they just re-asserting it knowing your position on the matter privately?
  • Was it pronounced in a group setting where your response could be interpreted as a sanction or not.

If it is stated privately, you could politely remind them that you’ve disagreed with the point previously, or possibly allow the point to pass, uncommented.

If the assertion was made in a group setting, is it just an exchange between you and the asserter or did it come up in the context of a group discussion?

  • You could publicly explore why it is presumed correct, dissecting it along the way.
  • You could point out that you disagree but that this may not be the time or place to lay out all the cards on the table.

This should also address what you ask later on in your question, How do I know the person is repeating knowledge arbitrarily?, as well.

48

However, if someone were to sincerely profess “Jesus Christ is the son of God and savior of the world,” I think we have an invalid assertion, one very largely not based on observations, but aspirations contrary [to] basic observations. Some unbelievers would take this statement, particular affirmative, as neither true nor false, others would take it as false. Rand, Branden, Peikoff, . . . and I say one knows it is false.

So far as I know, Ayn Rand considered “Jesus Christ is the son of God and savior of the world” to be a false statement. Whether she considered it an arbitrary assertion in Leonard Peikoff’s sense, I have no idea.

Nathaniel Branden was on record, in lectures and in his 1963 article, to the effect that this statement is false, and is asserted arbitrarily.

With Leonard Peikoff, take your pick. If you follow the reasoning presented in Chapter 1 of OPAR, you will conclude that the statement is false because it contradicts metaphysical axioms.

If you accept the positions taken in Chapter 5 of OPAR, you will conclude that it is always asserted arbitrarily, and can therefore neither be true nor false.

As has been the case throughout the discussion, Mr. Boydstun writes as though Dr. Peikoff was trying to solve problems formulated by Mr. Boydstun. The problems that Dr. Peikoff was actually trying to solve don’t count.

In my article, I pointed out a salient parallel in OPAR, between making an arbitrary assertion and choosing not to live. Both are wronger than wrong: one is falser than false and the other is worse than bad. If I am right about this, there are significant implications as to what problems Dr. Peikoff was trying to solve.

For Mr. Boydstun, this is all belittlement of Leonard Peikoff; why else would anyone bring it up?

I consider it fortunate that on OO Mr. Boydstun can’t delete a thread during which I have commented on his position.

Robert Campbell

49

How do I know the person is repeating knowledge arbitrarily? People do not come with a virtual index tab that allows you access their intellectual hierarchy of how they arrived at a conclusion. Someone can tell me, well… anything and I have no way of knowing how they arrived at that conclusion. I know if it is true or false, but not how they came to the thought. Since this aspect of the arbitrary assertion is independent of the conclusion, it is about the thought process, I cannot use the actual assertion to determine it. Someone can tell me that Government regulation hinders productivity and I have no way to know how they came to that conclusion. They could have the complete Mises library on their bookshelf or they could have heard their preacher say it. You have no means of identifying how another man integrates his knowledge. This implication makes this use of the arbitrary assertion useless since you cannot identify it when needed.

Bingo.

In fact, those who adhere to Ayn Rand’s prohibition on psychologizing should, if they are consistent, refrain from identifying any assertion as arbitrary, if their basis for so identifying it is any purported diagnosis of the asserter’s thought processes.

Although I questioned in my article how Leonard Peikoff could know that every arbitrary assertion is “brazen” and so forth, and I asked whether he would be guilty, by his own lights, of gross “psychologizing” (see p. 130), I didn’t take it further because the notion of psychologizing raises its own difficulties—and I plan to write about them in a future article.

By the way, when I asked about the status of any assertions that Leonard Peikoff has made or will make about Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem (pp. 111-112), I was pointing to some of the problems posed by the speaker-dependence of arbitrariness. What Dr. Peikoff has written (in The Ominous Parallels) or said (in his DIM lectures) about the Incompleteness Theorem appears to be the product of utter ignorance of the subject. But, of course, I don’t know what Dr. Peikoff has studied or read, or failed to study or read, on this subject, nor am I familiar with his step-by-step process of arriving at his conclusions about it. Even less do I know whether Dr. Peikoff’s apparent ignorance has been willful, reckless, or brazen. Am I entitled to conclude that Dr. Peikoff has asserted his statements arbitrarily?

Wouldn’t this application of the arbitrary assertion itself be an arbitrary assertion?

Sure looks like it.

Robert Campbell

50

If that’s what you’re saying, then my answer is “There’s no but.”. If that’s not what you’re saying, then whatever you’re saying is irrelevant to my point. We know what the basis for evidence is, and therefor[e] we know that when a statement has no basis in observed reality, it is invalid. Naming such a statement (as “arbitrary”, for instance) is a perfectly sensible thing to do, and anyone who writes a 72 page essay on why it’s not is wrong.

See my two previous comments, Nicky.

Meanwhile, you have yet to bring anything to this discussion except arguments from intimidation.

Robert Campbell

51

Robert said :

Although I questioned in my article how Leonard Peikoff could know that every arbitrary assertion is “brazen” and so forth, and I asked whether he would be guilty, by his own lights, of gross “psychologizing” (see p. 130), I didn’t take it further because the notion of psychologizing raises its own difficulties—and I plan to write about them in a future article

On this particular point of brazen. Im still dissecting context but in the paragraph of the brazen comment Dr. Peikoff does provide a specific context for his use. About the venusian session on Hegel"s logic, soul, etc the asserter says :

“I can’t prove any of these statements,” he

admits—“but you can’t disprove them either.”

Here we are not inferring the process of the asserter but he has asserted brazenly…

Im only commenting on this instance and havent extended this to anything else yet…

Edit: Peikoff again qualifies on OPAR 167:

.

No identification of error will affect the determined exponent

of the arbitrary

italics mine.

He then has the determined fellow assert:

“The meaning of ‘God’ is beyond the

power of language to specify,” they say. “God in this sense

does not involve any contradictions of man’s knowledge, as

we would see clearly if only we could know Him—which we

cannot, not in this life. Prove that this God does not exist.”

52

Leonard Peikoff does occasionally refer to a person who says “you can’t disprove it” or “it’s beyond mere human comprehension.”

In my article I call this procedure mystification (see pp. 118-119).

I think we can see why mystification is objectionable without needing to bring in the rest of Dr. Peikoff’s apparatus.

And in calling arbitrary assertions “brazen,” he is implying that every arbitrary assertion is produced deliberately, whether it is accompanied by mystifying commentary or not.

Robert Campbell

53

In a broad sense, every assertion is produced deliberately, whether arbitrarily or as the product of a chain of reasoning leading to the assertion. Does whether it is accompanied by a mystifying commentary or the mystifying commentary is derived from a line of inquiry thus identify it as brazenly arbitrary?

54

Weaver, I’m leaning in that direction. Dr Peikoff seems to be differentiating an honest arbitrary error,“as against deliberately arbitrary”. Those who are the latter seem to be the “brazen,“passionate”, " apostles of the arbitrary”,who “insulate” etc. In each of those cases he uses language that leans to “mustn’t” following an explicit assertion of said asserter of what Robert calls mystification.

55

So far as I know, Ayn Rand considered “Jesus Christ is the son of God and savior of the world” to be a false statement. Whether she considered it an arbitrary assertion in Leonard Peikoff’s sense, I have no idea.

Nathaniel Branden was on record, in lectures and in his 1963 article, to the effect that this statement is false, and is asserted arbitrarily.

With Leonard Peikoff, take your pick.

  1. Another aspect of the arbitrary assertion is that it is user dependant.

Would the statement “Jesus Christ is my personal savior” be false or arbitrary?

At first glance, I would think it’s ‘user dependent’ (ie: if the person really believes that statement is true (for himself), then the statement is true. But if I said it, it would be false.) Is that right? :confused:

56

Just as the context, such as Dr.Peikoff supplied, allows the hearer of the assertion know the asserter is brazen.

57

Robert:

“And in calling arbitrary assertions “brazen,” he is implying that every arbitrary assertion is produced deliberately, whether it is accompanied by mystifying commentary or not.”

This is what I’m challenging. Implicitly, it seems that he was dealing with two types of approaches to the arbitrary.

58

Would the statement “Jesus Christ is my personal savior” be false or arbitrary?

At first glance, I would think it’s ‘user dependent’ (ie: if the person really believes that statement is true (for himself), then the statement is true. But if I said it, it would be false.) Is that right? :confused:

This equates that truth is a product of the consciousness deciding it, or a primacy of consciousness premise. When I believed that Jesus Christ was my personal savior, it was true to me because I was not cognizant of the criteria required to ascertain something as true or false. It was an error that was derived from ignorance, perceived as correct to myself and other who shared the same framework of reference. Reality and the relationship of consciousness as a process of identification to reality was not the standard of truth, thus the product (knowledge) was not measured in such a way to be able to determine if it was actually in within tolerance or not. Without an objective standard of truth, truth becomes whatever meets the standard by which the product is gaged and measured according to.

Italics added.

1 Like
59

In a broad sense, every assertion is produced deliberately, whether arbitrarily or as the product of a chain of reasoning leading to the assertion.

I took Leonard Peikoff not to be saying not just that the assertion is deliberate, but that its arbitrariness is deliberate.

In other words, that in every case the asserter either knows that the assertion is arbitrary—or is acting in reckless disregard of such knowledge.

Robert Campbell

60

Sprial Architect asks: Why is this important in the first place?

The primary importance is how do you deal with an assertion that is incorrect.

  • Do you inquire as to the basis on which it is presumed to be correct?
  • Do you point out that it is incorrect?
  • Do you simply not honor the assertion with a reply?

The purpose of breaking the error down lay in selecting the proper way with which to deal with it.

An inquiry as to why it is presumed to be as asserted is asking - how did you arrive at this conclusion? Do they have the complete Mises library on their bookshelf, did their preacher say it, or does Polly want a cracker?

If you have no history with the asserter, this should help to establish a basis for determining if you are dealing an honest error, and whether the asserter is aware that the position may even be in error,

If you are already familiar with the asserter’s position (i.e. you’ve discussed it before), you need to assess the situation in which the assertion was made.

  • Are they just re-asserting it knowing your position on the matter privately?
  • Was it pronounced in a group setting where your response could be interpreted as a sanction or not.

If it is stated privately, you could politely remind them that you’ve disagreed with the point previously, or possibly allow the point to pass, uncommented.

If the assertion was made in a group setting, is it just an exchange between you and the asserter or did it come up in the context of a group discussion?

  • You could publicly explore why it is presumed correct, dissecting it along the way.
  • You could point out that you disagree but that this may not be the time or place to lay out all the cards on the table.

This should also address what you ask later on in your question, How do I know the person is repeating knowledge arbitrarily?, as well.

So the purpose of identifying an arbitrary assertion is that is part of how to respond to an assertion? In false assertions you can identify the part that is false but for an arbitrary assertion there is nothing to prove so you need to determine with whom or what you are dealing?

I’m honestly not sure of the need for the distinction on a practical level, since if something is false or not and whether I want to pursue the person’s opinion is usually an issue of time or interest on my part, not the status of the assertion itself. I can see how it can serve as a good way to determine if a subject is worth my time but then again, given the context of a situation, I’d likely dissect an economic or business arbitrary assertion verses an artistic falsehood since those things are of greater interest to me.

If anything, this looks more like a good method of critically reviewing information for personal use (i.e. an epistemological tool for evaluating reality). If I am presented with subject X when I read a book I might ask myself “Should I integrate ‘X’ into my hierarchy of knowledge?” If I can spot an arbitrary assertion I can dismiss the subject out of hand with little thought since there is no hope of integrating the assertion. If it is not arbitrary, then it would require critical review to see if it is true or false. An arbitrary assertion in this case is simply a sign post that tells you not to waste serious time l thinking about the statement.

That would also be more in tune with epistemology and philosophy being driven by the value of egoism versus focusing on the source of the assertion.

Now whether this is true or not, and whether this is covered I’ll have to go back and review it. I’m just thinking out loud here based on some quick deductive thinking while typing.