Hi Frank,
I have pondered this question a lot myself. In my experience, O’ist arguments against the primacy of consciousness can be divided into four classes:
- The ‘Analytic’ Argument
Analytic judgements are allegedly true in virtue of the word’s definition, e.g., ‘all triangles have three sides’. In this example, the arguing party will uncritically assume the following definition of consciousness: ‘being aware of things which are independent of consciousness itself’ - and will provide the ‘analytic’ argument:
Consciousness means being conscious of something; Existence precedes consciousness. Q.E.D
Ironically, arguing from definitions and/or upholding the ‘analytic-synthetic’ dichotomy is an argumentation error which O’ists call rationalism.
2. The Anstoß Argument
Anstoß is a philosophical term introduced by a famous idealist philosopher to designate an obstacle, hindrance, or ‘something that offends freedom’. The Objectivist argument goes like this: I can’t choose to not see the color green; no matter how much I try, I see it all around. I can’t even control my own sense-perception, so the limitation must be rooted in the nature of some physical organ.
However, arguing from common-sense is not an argument at all. For example, because visual perceptions exhibit color, people have long assumed that things ‘out-there’ really are colored. Philosophy and science are supposed to free us from such errors of common-sense, not to defend them. ‘Limitation’ does not logically imply that the limit is caused by something outside of consciousness itself.
3. Argumentum ad Peikoffum
A (mistaken) O’ist characterization of Kant’s philosophy is that Kant declared consciousness to be invalid because it has identity, or because it must process knowledge. In a twist of irony, Objectivists sometimes drop this charge altogheter, and replace it with its opposite: that idealists do not believe that consciousness has identity. Then, they go on to argue that if consciousness has no identity, it does not operate lawfully, and hence A is not A. Oh my Aristotle!
However, a closer examination of Idealism will reveal that, in such systems, consciousness exists, is an instance of identity, knows of itself, has an ‘in-itself’ external to conscious experience (self-in-itself, ParaBrahman), that it operates by necessary laws, and that such facts are true even if consciousness itself denies them. Oh, did I mention that many idealists got into trouble due to charges of atheism, and that, although the charges were false, idealistic atheism is a real thing?
Things like these are not difficult to find if one simply scans the first pages of any important idealist system:
Quote
“The presupposition of idealism will, therefore, be as follows: the intellect acts, but owing to its nature, it can only act in a certain fashion. […] This, then, also renders immediately intelligible the feeling of necessity that accompanies certain presentations: for here the intellect does not register some external impression, but feels in this action the limits of its own being. […] A transcendent idealism would be a system that deduced determinate presentations from the free and totally lawless action of the intellect; a completely contradictory hypothesis, for surely, as has just been remarked, the principle of grounding is inapplicable to such an action.”
- J. G. Fichte, The Science of Knowledge, p. 21-22 (Cambridge University Press)
(This comes from a philosopher that didn’t even believe in Kant’s thing-in-itself, let alone in a mind-independent world.)
4. The ‘System’ Argument
According to some Objectivists, if the mind creates its world, then A is no longer A, capitalism is false, rationality is useless, chickens will take over humans as the master-race, and Kalman’s operettas are pessimistic-propaganda in disguise.
However, most systematic idealist philosophies start with the world and its laws (the same world and laws which are meticulously described by Peikoff in OPAR), then proceed to give a transcendental account of how this world arises from consciousness. This means that, yes, the Objectivist ethics, politics etc, can be 100% true even if they are grounded in the laws of some mind-in-itself.
I actually made a case like this a few months ago when I posted an outline of Schelling’s 1800 System. Schelling takes the cue from Kant’s conception of genius, namely that artists create in a lawful manner, bound by certain strict laws, yet without actually learning those laws beforehand. According to him, this makes art sui-generis, because even the scientific discoveries of geniuses like Newton can still be attributed to methods of investigation which are available to everyone. According to Schelling, the mind-in-itself is precisely such an artist, unwittingly finding itself in the spatio-temporal world of mechanical causation as a result of its striving to represent itself. My point was that this metaphysical view still leads Schelling to OPAR’s familiar features, such as the stress on adjusting nature to man by using reason to penetrate its laws, and many other nice things. The reception was lukewarm; there were some great replies, which addressed the notion of ‘conditions for possibility’. Apart from that, some people got hung up on how I used a certain word, or on whether I’m talking smack about Objectivism’s reception of Kant - completely missing the actual purpose of the thread. Looks like this subject has resurfaced in this thread, with Schelling being replaced by quantum physics.
To conclude, Frank, I noticed that this particular subject is of great interest to you (since many of your threads are dedicated to this aspect of metaphysics). I think that, if OPAR’s arguments did not satisfy you, you’re likely going to find the same unsatisfying arguments on this forum as well. My advice to you is to either study idealism (which will help you identify precisely what is causing your dissatisfaction with OPAR), or to look for articles written by Objectivists who have studied idealism themselves, because not everybody who studied O’ism in depth is automatically able to give you an O’ist critique of every metaphysical view, unless they are acquainted with said theories.
