Ayn Rand & Epistemology 8

Objectivist Theory of Perception. When it comes to the issue of perception, Rand tries to have it both ways. She seeks to be a direct realist while at the same time evading the charge of being naive or overly literal. She developed a theory that came suspiciously close to representationalism, but she fiercely denied being an indirect realist.

Rand left the exposition of her theory of perception to Leonard Peikoff and David Kelley. It is summed up on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy as follows:

Our perceptual faculties place us in direct contact with reality. In this sense Rand's theory of perception is a version of direct realism, holding that the objects of perception are extramental entities (rather than, say, subjective experiences on the basis of which we infer entities as their causes)....  

Rand rejects the view that some perceptions are of the qualities of objects as they are independently of us (primary qualities), whereas others (secondary qualities) are caused by the primary qualities, and are entirely in the mind. Instead, she distinguishes between the content of a perception and its form; when we perceive an object as, e.g., square and red, what we perceive are its intrinsic features in a certain form, a form that is determined by the nature of the object, the nature of our perceptual organs, and the environment. Thus, we perceive the object's shape as square, and the reflectance properties of its surface as red; both are the result of the interaction of our perceptual organs with what is out there. Neither squareness nor redness belong either to the object apart from our mode of perception, or to our mode of perception apart from the object in its environment. Hence, these attributes are neither intrinsic nor subjective but relational and objective.
Thus while Rand is a direct realist in the sense explained above, she is not a naive realist in the sense of regarding all perceived attributes as enjoying equal extramental status. 

The point in dispute involves the term "extramental." As far as I know, that is not a term either Rand or Peikoff have ever used. Its use is required only because Objectivists have never told us whether percepts are mental or not. That is an issue they have artfully dodged, and here is why: if they were to admit that percepts are mental entities (as they admit, for example, that concepts are), they would be confessing that their realism is indirect and perhaps even representational. So when the Stanford Encylopedia decided to do a write-up on Ayn Rand (under the advisement of such Objectivist worthies as David Kelley and Gregory Salmieri), they had no choice but to describe percepts as "extra-mental."

Objectivism & “Metaphysics,” Part 2

Basic presuppositions of realism. Realism is the view that physical objects exist independently of being perceived (that is to say, physical objects exist whether they are perceived or not). What is presupposed in such a view?

1. That physical objects exist.
2. That there exists something that perceives these physical objects.
3. That the independence of physical objects does not imply complete separation from the perceiver, that there exists some kind of connection between the object and the perceiver of the object.

From these three presupposition we can flesh out the realist position. Realism believes in a physical existence and a sentient perceiver, in other words, matter and consciousness. The belief that the universe is made up primarily of matter and consciousness is known as psychophysical dualism. Most Objectivists reject this dualism, identifying it with the mind-body dichotomy of Plato. Only Harry Binswanger has suggested that Objectivism is consistent with psychophysical dualism:

What's called dualism is the bogey of philosophy. Since Descartes is wrong in regard to the primacy of consciousness, people smear him that anything he ever said is wrong. And one thing that he said was there's a mind and a body. Now that's right….

Dualism is a dangerous term because of its being used for a strawman. But if you mean: Do we believe there are really two existents? Yes! The mind exists and the brain exists—and neither is the other. As I said, shape exists and color exists—and neither is the other. There are many cases of two attributes of the same entity, neither of which can be reduced to the other…. So, yes, I'm a dualist. Or as Leonard [Peikoff] says in OPAR, because the term dualism is not one we have to fight to save and it's so associated with Descartes, the proper word for it is: Objectivism, not dualism. We have our own distinct view here. But if you had to put it in the historical classification, yeah, we're not monists. We believe that both consciousness and matter exist and neither is reducible to the other.

Depiste this rather tepid acknowledgement of dualism, some Objectivists were shocked by Binswanger’s allegiance with so “dangerous” a term. Yet realism implies psychophysical dualism, so that if you are a logically consistent realist, you must, ipso facto, be a psychophysical dualist.

Realism also believes that consciousness is capable of perceiving matter. This is a more difficult proposition to elucidate, particularly for foundationalists like Rand, who wish to provide a veneer of logic for their chief assertions. In the main, there are two groups of theories: (1) direct realism, which posits that we perceive physical objects without mediation, so that physical objects exist precisely as we see them; (2) indirect realism, which posits that we perceive all objects through the medium of ideas, that, in effect, there exists a dualism between physical objects and how they are represented in consciousness. Most theories of realism, including Rand’s, are convoluted attempts to combine direct and indirect realism. They are all involved in what the realist philosopher Arthur Lovejoy called “the revolt against dualism.” None of these confused realists are comfortable admitting that reality is perceived through the medium of ideas, because this insight inevitably stresses the provisional, conjectural nature of knowledge.

So to sum up: the hypothesis of realism, when fleshed out, involves belief in two dualisms:

1. Psychophysical dualism (i.e., the belief that matter and consciousness exist).
2. Epistemological dualism (i.e., the belief that mind perceives material objects through the veil of ideas—i.e., representationalism).

Is there any reasons for believing that realism, along with these two dualisms, is true? I will turn to this subject in the next post.

Hoisted from comments: Nyquist on the Dualism(s)

From comments on our "Double Trouble" thread below, Greg Nyquist chips in with his take on dualisms in Objectivism:

The apologist(s) for the Randian position have spread more heat than light on this issue of dualism, which is actually critical since it touches upon an important area of difference between those of us who are critics of Rand and those who defend the author of Atlas Shrugged. So a restatement may be in order.

There are two major forms of dualism related to this issue: epistemological dualism and psycho-physical dualism. Epistemological dualism is the view that an idea is not identical with the thing in reality that it represents. Hence the idea of a cat is different from the cat itself. The idea is a mere representation of the cat. This is a view held most famously (and in a rather crude form) by Locke and Descartes. According to the malicious critics of knowledge (i.e. idealists), this is severely problematic, because it leads to a supposedly unanswerable problem, which the philosopher Santayana introduced as follows: "How is it possible to posit an object [i.e., the existence of external object] which is not a datum [i.e., not an idea], and how without knowing positively what this object is can I make it the criterion of truth in my ideas? ... If I know a man only by reputation, how should I judge if the reputation is deserved? If I know things only by representations, are not the representations the only things I know?"

Now how does Rand answer this question? Well, she doesn't really answer it directly, but through scattered remarks throughout her works, we piece together a rather inadequate reply. She begins by accepting the idealist critique of epistemological dualism, which caricatures this dualism as a complete separation of ideas and their objects. But epistemological dualism doesn't separate objects from ideas, it merely distinguishes them. Then Rand conflates epistemological with psycho-physical dualism and dismisses the former as being tainted with the (alleged) mysticism of the latter. Then having dismissed epistemological dualism, she sets up in its stead a view that is, for all intents and purposes, a version of epistemological dualism. For she accepts nearly all the positions held by epistemological dualists. She agrees with them, for example, that ideas (or, in her terminology, concepts) are not identical with the objects in reality they stand for. She also agrees that the mind does not mirror reality. So where does she differ from epistemological dualism? She differs only in that she wouldn't agree with the inevitable conclusion of epistemological dualism. How in fact is the leap from idea to object justified? Rand actually never addresses this issue specifically. Even in IOTE she ends up, perhaps unwittingly, addressing a separate issue (i.e., the relation between sensation and percepts on the one side, and concepts on the other). She dodges the whole issue of how percipient representations "correspond" with their existential objects. It is fairly obvious why she would do so. The simple fact of the matter, there is no viable solution to the problem that Rand would accept, because Rand believed that you had to prove or validate knowledge in order for knowledge to be useful and trustworthy. This is a false ideal deriving from Rand's theory of history. Those who appreciate and understand the problem of epistemological dualism realize that the only viable solution is one that embraces the conjectural nature of knowledge. The leap from idea to object is, as Santayana put, made under the steam of "animal faith," so that knowledge becomes "faith mediated by symbols." But this is not an arbitrary, groundless faith caricatured by Rand, but a justified faith corroborated by every moment of intelligent wakefulness.

Double Trouble

Here's a quick thought for the weekend:

"A philosophy that rejects the monism of idealism or materialism does not thereby become 'dualist.'"
- Leonard Peikoff, 'Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand' p 35

The trouble is then how, exactly, one can reject monism without accepting some form of dualism or pluralism!

Leonard Peikoff's solution is to make up a new word.

"In this situation, a new term is required..."Objectivism"'" (p 35 ibid)

In the common parlance, this is called a fudge. Chris Sciabarra's solution, on the other hand, is to call it "dialectics".

"Dialectics...is not anti-dualism any more than it is anti-monism. It is pro-context."

I am not sure we are any the wiser after this either.

But does Objectivism really reject both philosophic monism and dualism as aggressively as its rhetoric suggests? Here's Rand herself:

"I want to stress this; it is a very important distinction. A great number of philosophical errors and confusions are created by failing to distinguish between consciousness and existence -- between the process of consciousness and the reality of the world outside, between the perceiver and the perceived." - Ayn Rand, ITOE, "The Role of Words - Words and Concepts"

While this is still vague, it is to all intents and purposes a strongly dualist statement in the entirely ordinary philosophical sense. That is, "a very important distinction" exists between "consciousness" and "existence" ie: the "reality of the world outside." While of course we can then go on to roll up these two elements and call it a "monism" if we want, this would be merely pedantry, as you could equally do this to traditional dualist cosmologies. In short, if walks like a dualism, and quacks like a dualism, it doesn't really matter what you try to dress it up as.