Ayn Rand & Epistemology 19

Definitions 4: Doctrine of Definitions as Platonic Ideas. While Rand did not explicitly believe that definitions were analogous to platonic Ideas, her contention that definitions can be true or false implies that definitions are thoroughly platonic and exist as a kind of disembodied reality.

Definitions can either be regarded as defining the "true" meaning of words (as Rand regards them) or as defining what people mean by the words they use (which is how dictionaries regard them). Now for Rand's view of definitions to be true, words must have meanings independent of the meanings people intend to convey when using them. An individual may be trying to convey meaning X by using word A. But if the "true" definition of X is B rather than A, then the individual actually means B rather than A, irrespective of his intentions. This doctrine is, of course, absurd, yet it is one that Rand appears to have embraced. Consider the most notorious example, from the introduction to The Virtue of Selfishness:

The meaning ascribed in popular usage to the word “selfishness” is not merely wrong: it represents a devastating intellectual “package-deal,” which is responsible, more than any other single factor, for the arrested moral development of mankind.

In popular usage, the word “selfishness” is a synonym of evil; the image it conjures is of a murderous brute who tramples over piles of corpses to achieve his own ends, who cares for no living being and pursues nothing but the gratification of the mindless whims of any immediate moment.

Yet the exact meaning and dictionary definition of the word “selfishness” is: concern with one’s own interests.

This concept does not include a moral evaluation; it does not tell us whether concern with one’s own interests is good or evil; nor does it tell us what constitutes man’s actual interests. It is the task of ethics to answer such questions.

How can the "popular meaning" of a word be "wrong"? Don't people mean what they mean? (Rand's implicit answer is: no, they don't.) Rand's contention that the exact meaning of the dictionary meaning of selfishness is "concern with one's own interests" is misleading. That may be one of the definitions of selfishness. But there are multiple definitions of the word. Merriam Websters provides three:

1. concerned excessively or exclusively with oneself : seeking or concentrating on one's own advantage, pleasure, or well-being without regard for others
2. arising from concern with one's own welfare or advantage in disregard of others
3. being an actively replicating repetitive sequence of nucleic acid that serves no known function ; also : being genetic material solely concerned with its own replication

  

If definitions can be true or false, how can we explain the fact that most words have multiple definitions? The only way Rand could explain this is either (1) only one of a word's definitions is "true"; (2) definitions apply only to concepts rather than words, so that a word with multiple definitions actually applies to several concepts. I would venture to guess that Rand would rely upon the second explanation.

Are definitions applicable to concepts rather than words? No, they are not. Dictionaries define words, not concepts. But even if definitions did apply to concepts, this would not justify Rand's doctrine of definitions. Let's go back to the Rand's claims about the word selfishness. Rand insists that the "the exact meaning and dictionary definition of the word" is: concern with one's own interests. By Rand's own epistemological theory, her contention here is inaccurate. If we take Rand's view about definitions applying to concepts at face value, then we must assume that she is not talking about the "word" selfishness, but about one of the concepts symbolized by the word. If so, then we must assume as well that other concepts may also be symbolized by the same term; and that these concepts may be defined just as truly as Rand's own special version. However, if words can correspond to multiple concepts, then Rand's contention that any term has a "true" meaning is wrong even on her own premises. Since a term can symbolize many meanings, no term can have a single "true" meaning.

To be sure, Rand's assertion that definitions apply to concepts, not words is mere window dressing. It is one of those doctrines that is more honored in the breach than in the observance. In practice, the distinction between concepts and words will be forgotten, and the belief that every concept has a true definition will metamorphise itself into the doctrine that every word has a true definition. We see this plainly in Rand's discussion of selfishness. When she writes about the definition of selfishness, she uses the phrase "definition of word," not "definition of concept." Definitions define what people mean by the words they use. Definitions merely connect words to meanings. Even Rand understood this, although she contradicts it in her epistemology.

If a word could have a "true" definition, then the "true" meaning and intended meaning of the words people use would not diverge. But they obviously do. This is no where better illustrated than when people misuse terms: that is to say, when individuals use words that, in common usage, diverge from the meanings they are trying to express. What is interesting about these situations is that it is possible to understand what these people mean, even though they are using the wrong terms to express that meaning. The following are a couple of quotes from Dogberry in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing:

One word, sir: our watch, sir, have indeed comprehended two aspicious persons, and we would have them this morning examined before your worship.

Is our whole dissembly appeared?

Dogberry is an example of someone using the wrong words to express what he means. That's the humor of it. But to get the joke, the audience must understand what Dogberry really means. When Dogberry says that his watch has "comprehended to aspicious persons," we know he really means "we apprehended two suspicious persons." When he says "our whole dissembly," we know he really means "our whole assembly." Now if words can have meanings independent of what people mean by them, how could we explain (1) the divergence between "real" meaning and intended meaning; and (2) the fact that we can sometimes understand what a person really means, even when they use the wrong words. The humor arising from verbal gaffes is only explicable on the view that definitions define word usage, rather than the "true" meanings of words (or the concepts the words symbolize). Words do not have "true" meanings; they are merely vehicles to convey the intended meaning of those using the words. It's the intended meaning, not the "true" meaning, that counts.

Because Rand assumed that words had a true meaning independent of what people intended when using them, she often struggled to understand other point of views. She would read her own meanings into the words other people used and wind up distorting what others meant. There's ample evidence of this in her marginalia, and in her treatment of rival points of view. At times, it is as if Rand assumes that people say what they don't mean, that their words have a reality independent of their intent. Words, Rand suggested, when strung together into premises, could actually change an individual's personality. Ideas could become integrated into the subconscious, and from that vantage point work all kinds of mischief.

Rand's views on these issues would be bad enough even if they were mere speculative theories serving no other purpose than to rationalize an ideological agenda. But when taken seriously and applied in practice, these views can easily take a malicious turn. It's bad enough to put words in people's mouth; but even worse is putting meanings into their thoughts. The belief that concepts have true meanings, in practice, leads to the belief that words have true meanings; and that belief in turn leads not merely to senseless arguments about the meaning of words, but to the denial and/or evasion of what people mean by the words they use. To repeat again what I have said: It's the intended meaning, not the "true" meaning, that counts. To insist on a separation between intended and true meaning can only lead to misinterpretation and misunderstanding of what other people mean by the words they use. At it's very best, its bad manners to insist that people don't mean what they do in fact mean; at its worst, it's downright malicious.