My first step into the [...] world of objectivism.

Introductions and Personal Notes
21

Could you explain how Rand’s metaphysics differs from other kinds of metaphysics?

It’s probably simplest to say that it’s nondistinct from Aristotelian metaphysics. Don’t take that to imply that I think I really understand Aristotelian metaphysics. Specifically, Objectivism sets forth the primacy of existence, the law of identity and the corollary law of causality, as well as the axiomaticity of consciousness.

I note your interest in contemporary approaches in philosophy, but don’t see why you think that being contemporary is a virtue. That might be a concrete example of a difference between your beliefs and Objectivism. Objectivism hold existence to be primary, and that which exists has an identity; that identity is in the nature of the existent and not the consciousness that perceives it. In short, opinions about things do not change the identity of the thing. So we are interested in what is – that is, in truth – and therefore consideration of matters of opinion are irrelevant. An interest in modernity is an appeal to opinion, not reality, so we don’t really care what constitutes “modern” philosophy. Perhaps you don’t really care more about modernity than you do about reality, but if you are more interested in what is rather than what people think, you could consider just ignoring the “modern” point of view.

22

Anyway, for as far as I know, we don’t live in Ancient Greece or in the Enlightenment, and their interpretations of rationality are out of date.

In fact, technically speaking -you know, from a modern point of view-, metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, politics and aesthetics are all out of date.

That is the modern consensus, indeed. However, in reality (assuming there is one), philosophic truths are not like fashions that go in and out of style. If something can be proven to correspond to reality (and it is among the primary goals of Objectivist epistemology to demonstrate that this is possible), then it is true once and for all, in all identical contexts, and immutably so. (I’ll have to look up the Greek and Latin root words; someone else might tell you first).

In fact, just as Ayn Rand could (in a certain sense) be viewed as a more extreme or consistent version of Aristotle, all of the moderns can be traced back to similar roots in Ancient Greece. Specifically, Plato and Heraclitus seem to have the modern world under their spell, but in a much more extreme and consistent way than they would have predicted. The very idea of philosophical principles becoming “out of date” reminds me of Heraclitus’ famous statements, “Everything changes; nothing abides,” or, “One may never step in the same river twice, for new waters are always rushing in.” There’s nothing “new” about modern philosophical ideas in terms of fundamentals, though-- it’s just the extremes to which they take some of their conclusions that’s new.

If metaphysics and epistemology are to be the foundation of philosophy, I can’t see how philosophy couldn’t ever not be speculative, and I don’t think that that is what modern philosophy should be. I mean, if we allow philosophy to be speculation, then religion for example, would become perfectly viable philosophy, which I really don’t think it is anymore.

It’s not speculative. But the reason is more involved that I could expound here-- my best suggestion is to read Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, even though you said you don’t want to read. It’s very clearly written, and I think it would end up saving you time in the end.

FeatherFall : I survived all nine works of Terry Goodkind’s Sword of Truth series, does that grant me a chance at ploughing through Rand’s fiction? :confused:

I know this wasn’t directed at me, but I just want to say I think AR is a much more interesting writer than Goodkind (in fact, he plagiarizes her pretty often, in the “loose” sense of the word meaning copying a line written by another author verbatim and treating it as if it were your own). But if you liked Sword of Truth, I think you’ll like Ayn Rand’s fiction even more. There are a lot of Sword of Truth fans at this forum.

Again to Bold Standard : Rand seems to reject all progress made in philosophy since Kant… I was going to ask whether she is like the pinnacle of scholastic philosophy, with man instead of God as knowledge’s point of emanation? :slight_smile:

No, she only rejects the destruction and havoc wrecked since Kant. She makes good use of the progress-- she’s not a reversion to pre-Kantian philosophy; she provides a new, revolutionary basis for rejecting Kant. (Again I can refer you to ITOE for a precise explanation). She is not like scholastic philosophy, with Man in the place of God. That would be what she would call the “primacy of consciousness” fallacy, which holds some consciousness or consciousnesses as having power to control or dictate reality. She upholds “the primacy of existence,” which holds existence as fundamental, and consciousness is then only a perceiver or “spectator” (as moderns would say) of reality. She believes in volition, but she describes it as merely the power to think (exercise the mind’s ability to perceive reality) or not to think. Thinking beings are capable of rearranging (according to laws of nature) reality, but not creating reality.

For as far as I know, saying byebye to metaphysics doesn’t mean saying byebye to philosophy. It ‘just’ means saying byebye to the philosophy of old, but it opens new ways of exciting contemporary philosophy as well - and then I don’t mean logical positivism.

Observe what happens to the fruit of a tree, when you dig up the roots.

23

FeatherFall : I survived all nine works of Terry Goodkind’s Sword of Truth series, does that grant me a chance at ploughing through Rand’s fiction? :slight_smile:

Could you tell me what objectivism’s three basic axioma’s are? Oh, and, are these really self-evident, or just a point you say we shouldn’t want to go beyond? And, could you explain what’s wrong with contradiction? Or is that a question I shouldn’t ask because it’s self-evident?

I don’t doubt that you can handle her fiction. I knew a girl who claimed to have read _Atlas_Shrugged_ in one day. I simply don’t endorse Rand’s novels as useful texts for understanding her philosophy. I endorse her fiction as a means of entertainment for people who identify with her philosophy on an emotional level.

As far as the axioms are concerned, David addressed them:

Specifically, Objectivism sets forth the primacy of existence, the law of identity and the corollary law of causality, as well as the axiomaticity of consciousness.

I’ll offer clarity:

  1. Identity: A thing cannot at once be one thing, and something its not. Existence exists. A is A.

  2. Causality: The law of identity applied to processes. A thing’s actions and effects follow it’s form.

  3. Consciousness: If something is perceived, there must be a consciousness capable of perceiving it.

If you think you can make sense with a claim without employing these three axioms, you’re in for disappointment.

This addresses what is wrong with contradictions - they don’t exist.

24

The law of identity (A is A) is a restatement (from the medieval period) of Aristotle’s law of non-contradiction, which was “A cannot equal non-A at the same time and in the same respect.” (I only mention that because FeatherFall left out the “in the same respect” part).

25

Felix : I’m a little hesitant about further elaborating what my position is, as it still shifts now and then. Besides, I’m here to try to get a basic understanding of objectivism, not to spew my ideas on these things. :slight_smile:

But well, “there’s no truth. Everything is just somebody’s opinion” may suffice as half of a crude description of what my opinions are. I do not think there is a truth the way objectivism seems to define it, but I do have some kind of a conception of truth.

But I would be interested in how objectivism managed to convince you? Perhaps I’m just missing some ‘fundamental’ point.

Well, the reason I want to know a bit more about what you currently think is the fact that I don’t really know what it is you want (or need) to know about Objectivism to understand what it says. I can’t really lead you from A to B if I have no clue where A is.

Therefore it would be good to know what your conception of truth is as well as your idea of what Objectivism’s claim to objectivity means. If you don’t tell me what you think I have to make assumptions. And you might then find me arguing against things you don’t even believe and explaining things you already understand. Or simpler: It will be boring, frustrating and ineffective.

It doesn’t matter if your opinion changes now and then. Actually, it means that you are capable of finding errors in your reasoning and eliminating them. That’s a good sign. :slight_smile:

I’m not an expert on Objectivist epistemology, yet, but I think I have a good grasp of the basics, so I’ll just give it a try [Note to everyone: If what I’m telling is wrong, please correct me!]:

Objectivity means two things:

First it means that there is an external world out there. Something that is real and not only imagined. I’ll assume you agree with that one.

The second part is trickier and this is also where your “It’s all just an opinion”-part comes in. I’ll try to give you a short introduction to what this means:

Man has to grasp this reality somehow. He does so through his senses, first. So the first thing you’d have to understand is that you have to take your sensory input as 100% valid. Now this requires some additional explainations. If you have a pencil and put it into a glass of water, it appears to be bent. Now you might say that this is proof that you can’t assume that your sensory input is 100% valid. But how do you know that? Only through other sensory output. I guess the way to put it is that there’s no reason to fundamentally mistrust your senses. For in this example, you see the pencil as bent. Combined with your prior knowledge (sensory input) you can now learn something about the nature of light. What you can’t deny is that you see it as bent when it’s in the water and as not bent when it’s not. You don’t really have a choice about that.

What made me consider the possibility of objective knowledge was basically reading Atlas Shrugged. I was a full-fledged relativist at that point (Robert Anton Wilson was my favourite author). It’s hard to nail it down to one single reason that convinced me, as it’s hard to untangle that since AS is over 1000 pages and contained a philosophy that was the complete opposite of my own at that time. So it was pretty much a roundhouse kick to my face. :ninja:

But if I had to pick one reason to consider dropping relativism as reasonable it would be the approaching-truck-argument. Imagine there was a giant truck rushing towards you. What would you do? Would you say that it’s only an opinion? That your senses are tricking you? Would you wonder whether you have the right to assume knowledge? Nope. You’d just jump aside as quick as possible to save your life. This is what everyone would do.

The reason I like this argument is because it shows that you can’t stick to relativism consistently, because then you’d have to give up knowledge completely. You basically give up your mind as a tool for survival and die in the end. If “everything is just an opinion” is the fundamental belief then that, too, is just an opinion and you lose yourself in infinite regress.

If you don’t want to read a large book, I’d recommend you at least go to a local video store and borrow “The Edge” with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin.

26

Now you might say that this is proof that you can’t assume that your sensory input is 100% valid. But how do you know that? Only through other sensory output.

No, you know it from abstracting from your sense perceptions. You need a conceptual faculty. The senses give you all the (100% valid) data, which your conceptual faculty integrates into information which, if your methods of induction and deduction are proper and your logic is rigorous, will be 100% valid, in a given context.

Some modern empiricists of the school called “sensualism” (i.e., David Hume) held that sense perceptions are valid, but that they are all we have. They denied the conceptual faculty. Objectivism does not deny the conceptual faculty.

27

Technically speaking, the senses are NOT valid; they are the standard of validity. Or, as Dr. Binswanger said, they are “new and improved valid.”

28

is that your translation of Greek logos, Latin ratio, or German Vernunft? I want to know what we’re talking about.

I’m pretty sure reason = ratio.

Technically speaking, the senses are NOT valid; they are the standard of validity. Or, as Dr. Binswanger said, they are “new and improved valid.”

That’s an interesting idea-- can you give a reference to where he talks about that?

29

No, you know it from abstracting from your sense perceptions. You need a conceptual faculty. The senses give you all the (100% valid) data, which your conceptual faculty integrates into information which, if your methods of induction and deduction are proper and your logic is rigorous, will be 100% valid, in a given context.

Some modern empiricists of the school called “sensualism” (i.e., David Hume) held that sense perceptions are valid, but that they are all we have. They denied the conceptual faculty. Objectivism does not deny the conceptual faculty.

Okay, I didn’t word that one right. Thanks for the clarification. :slight_smile:

30

That’s an interesting idea-- can you give a reference to where he talks about that?

It was in one of the lectures he gave at the last OCON in San Diego, in a “Q and A” period. I forget which lecture it was (he gave three: two on Ayn Rand’s sysem as a whole, and one on a book he’s writing).

31

Philosophy without metaphysics is logical positivism, btw; look it up.

32

Of course even logical positivism rests on metaphysical assumptions. But they are the most explicit end result of the trend of rejecting discussion of metaphysics on principle. At least, there is a relatively high degree of probability that they are. :slight_smile:

33

I’m sorry if I took so much time replying to y’all. I just have been so busy enjoying my first few days of vacation… :wink:

DavidOdden : I would agree with you that opinions don’t change the nature of a thing, but ultimately, I’m going to have to say I don’t know what think of such a claim, as it is a metaphysical one, and metaphysics is always speculative. But more on this later.

Further, I couldn’t possibly believe that identity is in the thing, instead of in what we make of the thing. For your reference, identity as a word has very old etymological roots, most important for this discours being the Latin idem, which today we still know to mean ‘the same’. A possible substitute for ‘identity’ would then be ‘sameness’: A thing’s identity then, is the sum of it’s quantity and quality of being the same (or not) as some other thing. This illuminates the fact a thing could never have an identity in itself, but only in relation to other things. This way however, each thing would still have a great many identities; it’s sameness would quite fully depend on what other thing(s) you compare it to, or, its identity would depend on us, who choose which of it’s identities to adhere to - and thus it follows that I should care a great deal about what other people think. But that’s not the end of it. In the end, ultimately, I end up caring only about the things I think, which, by the way, are the only part of reality I ever perceive. So yes, I care about reality too.

And well, not to DavidOdden in particular, about metaphysics: In my book it is a futile project. If we practice metaphysics, we’re really only trying to ascertain things we can’t be certain about - and then by certain I mean supported and not contradicted by arguments - and the only kinds of viable arguments I know of are logical ones and empirical ones. I think metaphysics is supported by neither, since it seeks to make claims about things that lie beyond the realms of empirism and logic; and here it is where you people and me seem to clash. I will try to clarify my point of view:

I think metaphysics, if it is a search for final grounds, for objectivity, is like trying to go beyond a horizon: Once we’re there, we’ll only find new horizons. I just don’t see a way we could ever take an objective point of view: We can’t escape the totality we’re part of. And if we could, we’d only find ourselves in another totality. That’s an infinite regression there: We can’t take an objective point of view over our subjective ones, because if did, we would need another objective point of view to make sure our first objective point of view really is objective, and so on. We can devise this infinite regression to be like a circle, so it wouldn’t be some infinite regression - but then it obviously would be circular. Not the kind of objectivity objectivism (for as far as my grasp of it goes), or Aristotle, for that matter, promises.

Well so much for my rant. I’m off to bed now. :slight_smile:

Jan.

P.S. Objectivism’s claims don’t yet seem very plausible to me, but I will continue my investigation. Any help still is greatly appreciated! :glare: