Rand and Empirical Responsibility 1

Introduction. What is the biggest problem with Ayn Rand? A fairly convincing argument could be made that Rand’s biggest problem was her lack of empirical responsibility. The ease with which Rand tosses out controversial statements about matters of fact is breathtaking to behold. Although little appreciated by her fans, it’s as much part of her MO as her favorite mantra “A is A” or her insistence on “check your premises” (if only she had followed her own advice!). Rand’s frequent ex cathedra assertions set a bad example for her followers. It has led a contempt for facts among many of her orthodox disciples. Those who emphasize such things as factual evidence and peer reviewed scholarship are derided as “concrete bound” pragmatists and/or Kantian subjectivists.

There are Objectivists who sincerely believe that Rand could not possibly be guilty of empirical irresponsibility, because that would go against her epistemological principles, particularly her insistence that “man’s mind” was in contact with reality. But such objections are nothing to the purpose. Rand can talk about connecting concepts to reality as much as she likes; the question is not what she claims to do, but what she actually does. And too often, she proceeds far too carelessly when making claims about matters of fact. Below is a list of thirty-one assertions made by Rand (and two by Peikoff) which are not supported by sufficient evidence:

1. “Man is a being of self-made soul.”
2. Human beings have no innate tendencies.
3. Emotions are automatized value judgments.
4. “Emotions are not tools of cognition”.
5. The conscious mind “programs” the subconscious mind.
6. “If your subconscious is programmed by chance, its output will have a corresponding character.”
7. A “ruthlessly honest commitment to introspection” yielding a “conceptual identification of your inner states” allows one to discover the sources of one’s emotions.
8. “An emotion that clashes with your reason is only the carcass of that stale thinking which you forbade your mind to revise.”
9. “Man’s values control his subconscious emotional mechanism that functions like a computer adding up his desires, his experiences, his fulfillments and frustrations.”
10. “Reason is man’s only means of grasping reality and of acquiring knowledge.”
11. “Logic is man’s method of cognition” (Peikoff, ITOE)
12. “The alternative to reason is some form of mysticism or skepticism.” (Peikoff, OP)
13. “To live, man must hold three things as the supreme and ruling values of his life: Reason—Purpose—Self-esteem.”
14. “There has never been a philosophy, a theory or a doctrine that attacked (or “limited”) reason, which did not also preach submission to the power of some authority.”
15. None of the traditional theories of concepts regards concepts as objective
16. “Definitions preserve ... the logical order of their hierarchical interdependence.”
17. “Words without definitions are not language but inarticulate sounds.”
18. “The process of forming, integrating and using concepts is not an automatic, but a volitional process.”
19. An animal cannot perform a process of abstraction.
20. “The process of forming a concept is not complete until its constituent units have been integrated into a single mental unit by means of a specific word.”
21. “The battle of human history is fought and determined by those who are predominantly consistent, those who … are committed to and motivated by their chosen psycho-epistemology and its corollary view of existence.”
22. “Only three brief periods of history were culturally dominated by a philosophy of reason: ancient Greece, the Renaissance, the nineteenth century.”
23. The assault on man’s conceptual faculty has been accelerating since Kant, widening the breach between man’s mind and reality.
24. “[Intellectual appeasement] is an attempt to apologize for his intellectual concerns and to escape from the loneliness of a thinker by professing that his thinking is dedicated to some social-altruistic goal.”
25. “Tribalism is … a logical consequence of modern philosophy.”
26. “Self-esteem is reliance on one’s power to think.”
27. “Only a rationally selfish man, a man of self-esteem, is capable of love.”
28. “Humility is not a recognition of one’s failings, but a rejection of morality.”
29. “Man’s survival requires that those who think be free of the interference of those who don’t.”
30. “All the evils, abuses, and iniquities, popularly ascribed to businessmen and to capitalism, were not caused by an unregulated economy or by a free market, but by government intervention into the economy.”
31. “A ‘mixed economy’ is a society in the process of committing suicide.”

Three warnings before we commence. First, many of these statements could be interpreted analytically, so that they become irrefutable. For example, Rand apologists could arbitrarily declare that any human being who is not "a being of self-made soul" is not a man. But while this procedure allows Rand’s statements to evade empirical refutation, they have the disadvantage of rendering those statements into propositions about how Rand uses words, rather than propositions about reality.

All the statements listed above, if they are to be taken seriously as accurate descriptions of reality, must be empirically testable. This consideration leads to my second warning, which has to do with the indistinct terms in which many of Rand’s statements are couched. Despite (or perhaps because) of Rand’s mania for definitions, Rand frequently makes use of vague words and expressions, which leave her ample opportunity to use ambiguity to equivocate to whatever conclusions she wishes. This egregious procedure leads to endless quarrels about Rand’s meaning, with Rand’s apologists constantly complaining that her critics are intentionally distorting her message. Yet all these issues stem from Rand herself. If a philosopher doesn’t wish to be misunderstood, he should stop using vague terms. And nothing could be more to the purpose, if a philosopher wishes to be understood, then carefully framing his contentions in clear, distinct, empirically testable propositions.

One final warning: the primary contention at issue in this series is not whether the thirty-one statements listed above are false (many of them are, but some of them may have an element of truth in them), but that Rand fails to provide sufficient evidence for them. This point is the decisive one, yet it’s entirely lost on far too many Objectivists, as the recent Anthemgate fiasco has illustrated in spades. It’s as if they simply don’t care about empirical responsibility. This is, I suspect, partially a legacy of Rand’s own empirical irresponsibility. It is not always what Rand said, but how she acted, that has proved most influential.

This Will Work!

A Rand fan drives 12,328 miles to declare her awesomeness on the face of the earth.

Intellectual Sources of the Latest Objectischism 2

According to Rand, the Objectivist Ethics "holds that the rational interests of men do not clash—that there is no conflict of interests among men who do not desire the unearned, who do not make sacrifices nor accept them, who deal with one another as traders, giving value for value." Now it seems likely that this principle was devised primarily (and perhaps solely) to convince herself and her followers that it is never in an individual's rational self-interest to violate the rights of another person. Rand never considered the implications of this principle in other venues, such as a voluntary organization such as ARI.

In the latest Objectischism, there exists a conflict of interests between Leonard Peikoff and John McCaskey. The fact that such a conflict exists at all indicates that one (if not both) of the parties are "irrational." Indeed, the fact that conflicts exist within orthodox Objectivism -- conflicts so intense and irresolvable that they can only be ended by one of the parties exiting the scene -- suggests something profoundly amiss. If individuals passionately devoted to Rand's philosophy of "reason" and "reality" are incapable of resolving their differences "rationally," what hope is there for the rest of us?

The philosophical problem at the base of the issue stems from Rand's conception of "reason." I have suggested in previous posts on this blog that "reason" is a mythical faculty. None of its champions have ever provided empirical evidence demonstrating it's reported efficacy. It's merely a term used by those seeking to justify contentions based on insufficient evidence. Human discourse is most efficacious when it is subjected to rigorous testing, whether scientific or practical. The best justification for an idea or theory is that it works in empirical reality. Seeking justification for a theory in "reason" is merely an invitation for rationalization, which is the bane of rational inquiry.


Now if Objectivist "reason" were everything it is cracked up to be, we would expect to find evidence of this in the lives of Objectivists. Nothing could be more to the purpose along these lines then an empirical examination of how reason works to solve disputes within an organization run by leading Objectivists. Rand believed in the existence of an objective reality that could be understood by "reason." Rand insisted that, despite man's fallibility, anyone using "reason" could arrive at true and even "certain" conclusions. As a consequence of this, rational men (i.e., men using "reason"), assuming they had access to the same information, would always arrive at the same conclusions. This, incidentally, provides a rationale for why there are no conflicts among "rational" men. Since reason inevitably leads to the same conclusion, rational men will always find themselves on the same page. Differences of opinion can be settled by "reasoned" discussion.

So how does this theory work in practice? Obviously, if ARI is our test case, it doesn't work at all. Peikoff admits, for example, that "Ultimately, someone has to decide who is qualified to hold such positions [on the ARI board] and where the line is to be drawn." Someone has to decide? Shouldn't "reason" decide? Since reality is objective and "reason" the only "valid" means of knowing reality, what need is there for an individual to decide these things at all? Shouldn't a committee of rational men do just as well? But no, of course not; even Leonard Peikoff understands that a committee of rational men would not do at all. Peikoff is right to insist that someone must decide, that hierarchical leadership is necessary even among Objectivists. This suggests that "reason" is not all it's cracked up to be. Why should this be so? What is wrong with the Objectivist conception of "reason"?

(1) Differing "context" of knowledge among men. Within the Objectivist ideology, the idea of context is used as a kind of conceptual escape hatch to explain, for instance, why a moral absolute may not apply in all instances (because moral absolutes are "contextual") or why an individual may be certain yet wrong (because certainty is "contextual"). It could also be used to explain why hierarchical leadership based on "authority" is necessary even for Objectivists. Since individuals have differing "contexts of knowledge," they will not always arrive at the same conclusions. While their conclusions, if backed by all the evidence within the "context of their knowledge," will be "certain," they won't be identical. Those with a wider context of knowledge will (presumably) achieve a higher level of "certainty." They will know more and will hence be in a better position to make rational decisions.

So far so good. But if this line of reasoning is accepted, it creates problems in other areas of Objectivism. If differing contexts of knowledge cause rational men to arrive at different conclusions, then Rand's contention about "no conflicts of interest" among rational men must be dropped. Here is yet another example of Rand and her disciples failing to consider all the implications of a specific doctrine. Since a rational man's interests must, according to Rand, be discovered through "reason," and since knowledge is contextual, the conclusions that a man reaches concerning the interests of himself and others (including organizations like ARI) will depend on the context of his knowledge. Different contexts lead to different assessments of interests, even among rational men; and differing assessment of interests will inevitably lead to conflicts.

2. Interests are fundamentally non-rational. Rand's conviction that there exists such a thing as "rational" interests, discoverable by "reason," is incoherent and poorly thought out. Neither Rand nor any of her disciples have ever provided us with a detailed description of how to distinguish a rational interest from a non-rational interest. If we go by Objectivist writings, a "rational" interest is merely any interest that Rand and her disciples approve of, while a non-rational (or "irrational") interest is an any interest they disapprove of.

The problem here is insoluable on Objectivist premises. That's because interests are fundamentally emotive in nature. While emotions are not the sole arbiters of an individual's interest, they do provide data essential for developing an intelligent appreciation of what these interests might be. An interest must be rooted in some natural need or desire if it is to be an interest at all. An interest that satisfied no need or desire, but was entirely independent of the affective system, would be an imposition rather than an interest. To pursue interests that satisfy no natural need is to act contrary to nature.

Now it just so happens that human nature is not homogeneous. The natural needs of men differ from one individual to another. Worse, some needs (such as the need for status) cannot be harmonized within a social system (i.e., Paul's need for status cannot be completely harmonized with Peter's need for status). Conflict of interests are therefore a built-in feature of the human condition. To deny this is to live in fairy-tale world.

What perhaps shocked rank-and-file Objectivists more than anything else in Peikoff's now infamous email is where he wrote, "I hope you still know who I am and what my intellectual status is in Objectivism." Objectivists are not supposed to be concerned with status. It is a product of that horror or horrors, social metaphysics. It reeks of authoritarianism and the appeal to faith. Yet status can no more be exorcised from man's "emotional mechanism" than sex or hunger can. To deny or evade it merely serves to make it more poisonous, since what is repressed cannot be forthrightly combatted or rechanneled.

Rivalries of status and pre-eminence do exist within the Objectivist community. Of course, no self-respecting Objectivist could ever admit this; so the fact itself must be repressed, which in turn leads to rationalization on an immense scale. When intellectuals rationalize their desires, a duality of meaning develops within their thought. Everything they think or say has a "formal" and a "real" meaning. The "formal" meaning is the literal, conscious meaning; it's the rationalized meaning, meant to persuade and deceive both the rationalizer and his audience. The "real" meaning accords with the unconscious motives that are prompting the whole business.

So if an aspiring Objectivist came out and said, "I'm supporting Peikoff because I think it will further my career as an Objectivist spokeman," he would ruin any chances of achieving the object of his ambition. Hence the need of concealing one's real motives. The trouble here is that human beings are pretty good at detecting this sort of insincerity. It's not enough to conceal one's motives; one must also believe in the "truth" of one's deception. In short, one must accept one's own lies and become, if you will, a sincere hypocrit.

Once this dynamic is in full play, any claims about "reason," logic, or reasoned discourse must be treated with the utmost suspicion. When people are forced to repress and conceal their true motives under a veneer of logic, rationalization becomes the order of the day. Hence the fanaticism and irrationality one detects in so many orthodox Objectivists. Hence their inability to engage in reasoned discourse with those who disagree with them. Hence their inability to even understand, let alone refute, their critics. Hence their inability to use "reason" to resolve differences among themselves.

3. Rand provided no "technology" for "reason." In Nathaniel Branden's essay "The Benefits and Hazards of Ayn Rand," we run across the following observation: "So here in Ayn Rand’s work is an ethical philosophy with a great vision of human possibilities, but no technology to help people get there..." This absence of a "technology" doesn't only afflict Rand's ethics; it is a problem with Rand's epistemology, particularly in relation to her much ballyhooed "reason." Rand actually never bothers to explain, in a clear, detailed, empirically testable fashion, how one goes about using "reason." About as detailed as she gets is the following:

In essence, “follow reason” means: base knowledge on observation; form concepts according to the actual (measurable) relationships among concretes; use concepts according to the rules of logic (ultimately, the Law of Identity). Since each of these elements is based on the facts of reality, the conclusions reached by a process of reason are objective.

I will provide a more detailed explanation of what is wrong with this when I get around to doing my "Objectivism and Epistemology" series. For our present purposes, I will merely note that Rand's inclusion of concept-formation in her conception of reason is deeply problematical. Concept-formation is an extremely complex process involving unconscious process that cannot be directed by the conscious mind. For this reason, no articulable, formalized technique can ever be devised to control or direct, let alone even describe, the process of concept-formation. But without an articulable, formalized technique, reason cannot be "followed." Unconscious processes can at best be "evoked" by the conscious mind; they can't be controlled or directed, since the individual cannot control what is beyond the range of sentience. Rand's "reason" is therefore mythical. No such technique exists or is possible. What is possible, instead, is rational and empirical criticism. While we cannot direct the process by which conclusions are formed, we can test such conclusions, once they become availabe to the conscious mind. Empirical testing and rational criticism therefore constitute the chief ingredients of rationality, not concept-formation or "reason."

"Reason" being mythical, any attempt to resolve differences among men (whether they are "rational" or not) via "reason" must come to grief. Hence the necessity within the Objectivist movement of an authority based on "status" who can settle the conflicts which, in the absence of an objective arbiter, will inevitably arise among Objectivists. If Leonard Peikoff did not exist, Objectivists would be forced to invent him. Without a central authority, Objectivism would splinter into hundreds of fragments, each claiming to follow "reason" and crying anathema on all other fragments. The Objectivist movement, precisely because it follows "reason," which is entirely mythical faculty, must be authoritarian at its core. It cannot exist on any other basis.

David Harriman's Blurb-O-Mat

David Harriman has started a blog around his Objectischism-inspiring book "The Logical Leap: Induction in Physics", which is already promising to be as hapless as the book itself. While the posts so far are basically just blurb, two are of interest. Firstly, the latest one where he claims to "face his critics" (no names mentioned). Harriman actually does nothing of the sort, the post being primarily concerned about how awesome he is at "essentializing" compared to the "contemporary academics"(no names mentioned), and with signaling just how deeply individualistic and unconventional he is by disregarding what other historians might say. Commenters thus far agree that this awesomeness is indeed awesome. If this is "facing his critics" I'd hate to see him "facing his fans".

Secondly, there's a post about the "positive reviews" the book allegedly has had thus far. Harriman claims that there have been "more than a dozen", although he fails to mention actual sources for all but two: a very brief, rather lukewarm online-only review from the National Science Teachers Association, and more importantly, a rave review from the respected Physics Today journal by math professor at Ohio State U, Ulrich Gerlach (no link available, sorry). Gerlach describes Harriman's book as "brilliant" and "destined to be the fountainhead of future studies in the philosophy of science".

Wait a minute...did he just say "fountainhead"? Yep, you guessed it. So we google "Ulrich Gerlach Ayn Rand" and here's what we get: among other things, an example of what appears to be his work from 2005, which sources The Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology in footnotes, and comments on an Amazon review of Tara Smith's Objectivist work "Viable Values" which read like standard Ayn Rand Institute catechism. So it's pretty obvious Gerlach is in fact a True Believer of the same stripe as Harriman, which in turn makes the Physics Today review basically worthless.

Funnily enough, Harriman forgot to mention this.

Intellectual Sources of Latest Objectischism 1

Since the McCaskey schism is (as Daniel Barnes has noted) largely arose from "philosophical" issues, it might be illuminating to go over the sources of this particular intellectual imbroglio. There are, as far I can ascertain, three main sources:

(1) The Objectivist theory of history
(2) The Objectivist concept of "reason"
(3) The Problem of Induction

Since Daniel has already covered No. 3, that leaves us with the first two. In this post I'll cover No. 1.

The Objectivist theory of history. Since the past cannot be changed, factual claims about the motive forces in history cannot be tested experimentally. Without experimental tests, history becomes a breeding ground for dubious theories. Individuals lacking detailed knowledge of history and insight into human nature can make assertions which, however implausible they may appear to the wise, cannot be decisively refuted. One such theory is the Objectivist "philosophy of history," which claims that the course of history is largely governed by broad philosophical abstractions devised by mankind's "greatest" philosophers (namely, Plato, Aristotle, Kant, and Rand). Rand's theory serves two main purposes: (1) to explain why Rand's philosophy (or the equivalent thereof) did not prevail in the past; and (2) to explain why Rand's philosophy will likely prevail (i.e., dominate the culture) in the future. Explaining these things is important for a palpably simple reason. The very fact that Rand's political and ethical preferences have not fared well in the past would seem to constitute evidence that they are not likely to fare well in the future. Throughout human history, selfishness has usually been regarded with suspicion, whereas sacrificing oneself for the good of the community has always received the highest encomiums. Nor have we ever seen, on any significant scale, Rand's "laissez-faire" capitalism. Given these uninspiring facts, what reason could a sane person possibly entertain for believing that "rational" selfishness and laissez-faire capitalism will take hold at any time in the future?


Rand tries to solve these problems by asserting that the failure of self-interest and laissez-faire ultimately stems from a "concerted attack on man's conceptual faculty," itself a product of the failure of modern philosphers to solve the "problem of universals." Now there happens to be virtually no credible reasons (or evidence) for believing any of this to be true. Historically, the problem of universals was a metaphysical rather than an epistemological problem, and most modern (i.e., post-scholastic) philosophers paid little attention to it. Nor is it quite accurate to claim that modern philosophers were engaged in a "concerted attack on man's conceptual faculty." A great deal of fudging, distortion, and outright malicious interpretation were required to make Hume, Hegel, and Kant the great villians of the Objectivist narrative. While such intellectual malfeasance would hardly stir the conscience of the typical diehard orthodox Objectivist (who, after all, was largely ignorant of philosophy and whose concern about matters of fact and fair play had long ago been debauched by his commitment to to the Randian creed), with men of greater knowledge and integrity, things would fare otherwise. The Objectivist caricatures of great philosophers constituted a major intellectual embarrassment which made Rand's philosophy a tough sell, even among those scholars who might otherwise have been inclined to give it a place at the academic trough. Typical, in this regard, is Gary Merrill's take on Rand:

These sorts of things [i.e., examples of Rand's shoddy scholarship] would not be so bad, though they are bad, were it not for the fact that she so frequently gets things wrong. There is the business above concerning Russell [about "kinda" of knowing the concept of number], for example. There is the claim (p. 59) that “modern philosophers declare that axioms are a matter of arbitrary choice.” (no substantiation or reference is provided). There is the claim (p. 52) that “It is Aristotle who identified the fact that only concretes exist”. (Any of you Aristotle scholars want to wade in here with a brief account of particulars vs. concretes?) And none of this comes with even a hint of specific attribution that would allow a reader to evaluate it. The closest she gets is along the lines of (p. 60) “For example, see the works of Kant and Hegel.” Now that really narrows it down.

So what is it that differentiates the writing of Rand from those of classic academics and professional philosophers? It is simply that her work has every appearance of an extended and multi-faceted straw man argument that fails to meet even the minimum standards of scholarship. It has all the marks of what in science would be pseudo-science. If there is such a thing as pseudo-philosophy, this is it.

Now fortunately for orthodox Objectivism, academic philosophers are so busy arguing among themselves that it is still possible for the stray Objectivist to scatch and claw his way into a professorship. But matters fare otherwise within the hard sciences, where experiment and exacting scholarship still hold sway and a consensus based on tried and true methods is still possible. All sorts of eccentricities may be ignored or even tolerated within philosophy and the "philosophy of history," but in physics more exacting standards are applied. Objectivism's shoddy scholarship -- its egregious tendency to make extravagently controversial claims based either on bad evidence or no evidence -- is bound to attract unfavorable attention.

Now one of the principle doctrines of the Objectivist theory of history is that the influence of Kant, as long as it remains unchallenged, must eventually eat away like a cancer nearly everything within the culture, including science. Rand and her disciples, afflicted with the sort of monomaniacal confirmation bias that tends to govern most ideologues, were ever vigilant for even the most negligible "evidence" of Kant's irrationality nibbling away at the host organism. Because 20th century physics didn't exactly line up into neat and tidy categories suggested by common sense and the Objectivist axioms, Rand viewed it with suspicion. Many of the leading theories and concepts in physics were couched in terms calculated to arouse Rand's ire, such as Theory of Relativity, Uncertainty Principle, observer effect, wave-particle duality, etc. Such terms suggested a discipline awash in the horrors of Kantian subjectivity. An exorcism, involving rigorous Objectivist criticism, seemed called for. But there were no Objectivists up to the task, none having the requisite "expertise" in physics -- none, that is, until David Harriman arrived on the scene. Harriman was everything Peikoff, now occupying the Objectivist throne, could have wished for. Harriman (allegedly) had worked as a physicist for the U.S. Department of Defense and taught philosophy at California State University San Bernadino. He was a clever and amusing lecturer. To people ignorant of physics, he seemed to know what he was talking about. And even better, he eagerly embraced Rand's and Peikoff's suspicions about physics and began formulating specious rationalizations for them. It was a match made in Objectivist heaven. It would now be possible to devise an Objectivist philosophy of science to do battle for truth, justice, and the Randian way. The Kantian demons could at last be excorcised from physics. Relativity and quantum mechanics could be made safe for an Objectivist metaphysics, and the Objectivist salvation of the world could proceed without concerns about a rearguard action from academic physicists. But alas, it was not to be. There were vipers in the very bosom of ARI uttering heretical murmurs concerning Harriman's shoddy scholarship. Someone would have to go; and that someone wasn't going to be either Harriman or Peikoff.

At the core of Objectivism there has long been a tension between Rand's pretense to rationality and reason and some of her fundamental beliefs, which are neither rational nor in line with the best scientific evidence. Among the Objectivist faithful, there exists a genuine admiration of hard science, which is regarded as an exemplar of "reason," that holy of holies within the Objectivist ideology. There even existed a few (though not many) Objectivists qualified to pronounce on experimental science, including a member of the ARI board, Dr. John P. McCaskey of Stanford's History and Philosophy of Science Program. McCaskey could not help noticing errors in Harriman's scholarship, and, perhaps fearing the scorn which such errors would evoke among his academic colleagues, he tried to bring them to Harriman's attention. But Harriman, secure in his position with Peikoff, would have none of it. McCaskey's minor grumblings were exaggerated, in the usual molehills-into-mountains Objectivist fashion, into one of the great intellectual crimes of the century.

Now all of this could have been contained within the discreet boundaries of a minor scandal were it not for one extraordinary oversight. As part of McCaskey's agreement to resign, Peikoff consented to release the email containing his infamous "someone has to go" ultimatum to ARI's legal department. Nothing demonstrates more vividly the gargantuan size of Peikoff's hubris then the carelessness by which this incendiary missive was allowed to see the light of public scrutiny. In releasing the email, Peikoff placed ARI and it's band of loyal followers in a terribly awkward position. What makes the email particularly hard to swallow for the Objectivist faithful was its blatantly irrational appeal to naked authority and its contempt for rational discourse. Peikoff expected to be obeyed unconditionally because of his "status" within the Objectivist community. "I hope you still know who I am and what my intellectual status is in Objectivism," he complained in the email. "If only we could forget who Peikoff is!" many an Objectivist undoubtedly sighed on reading that email. Peikoff had become an embarrassment difficult to ignore or evade, like the eccentric relative who comes bolting out of the attic at the most inopportune moments.

Yet although most of the consternation arising among the rank and file is over Peikoff's email, the real problem is more intractable. It is a deep rooted conflict between Objectivism and science. Objectivists have for years been sedulously evading this conflict with one ideological makeshift or another. But as a consequence of the Objectivist mania for infiltrating academia, at some point open conflict was inevitable.

In 1982, Leonard Peikoff, responding to a question about what it would take for Objectivism win, responded: "The teaching of courses on Objectivism at Harvard and Yale. After that, it is just a matter of more courses in other places. But that is the end of the battle. From that point on, it's a process of enjoying the triumph and seeing it take hold in art and in politics." With Rand's death, placing Objectivists in academic positions became Objectivism's grand strategy for taking over the culture. But the problem is that once an Objectivist manages (often against great odds) to secure an academic position, he finds himself beholden to two masters. On the one hand, he must remain ideological pure in the eyes of the Objectivist cognescenti over at ARI, and on the other, he must maintain a facade of professorial respectability among his colleagues within academia. In disciplines where no strict consensus holds sway, this may not be so very difficult; but in the hard sciences, challenging the consensus on the basis of poor or non-existent scholarship is rarely tolerated.

We see this dynamic in full play in Alan Gotthelf's five star review of Harriman's The Logical Leap over at amazon.com. "Though I can't speak personally for the full accuracy of the historical accounts," Gotthelf writes, "they are essentialized with great skill, and lucidly presented." Note how Gotthelf hedges his bets: he refuses to endorse the "full accuracy" of Harriman's historical "evidence." Gotthelf finds himself in the unenviable position of being beholden to two masters with conflicting agendas. How can he serve both without alienating one or the other?

As long as Objectivism continues to hold to its bosom positions about human nature and history that run foul of experimental psychology and historical scholarship, these rifts will continue to widen. There's no escaping it. Yet there is another problem that may prove, in the end, even more intractable. Objectivism has no way of rationally settling conflicts that arise among its denizens. This subject I will explore in my next post.

Collision Course

It is a great shame that I have had little or no time to write about Objectivism over the past few months, as the ongoing McCaskey Objectischism represents a singularly critical moment in the movement's history - one that has been easily foreseeable for a long time now, and one that is, I think, potentially far more damaging in the long run than the Reisman, Kelley, and even Branden schisms.

Why do I think this? After all, aren't ridiculously overwrought schisms a weirdly normal feature of life in the Objectivist microverse? And why would McCaskey , a relatively low-key figure in the movement compared to the aforementioned, be the flashpoint for a more damaging contretemps than say David Kelley, or even the Brandens?

The reason is simple. With the Brandens, the break was obviously highly personal; a adulterous affair between aging guru and young acolyte that was bound to turn ugly. With Kelley and Reisman it was more political; these breaks were really about power struggles within the Ayn Rand Institute that in the classic Objectivist fashion were merely post-rationalised into pseudo-philosophical disagreements. The McCaskey schism has some features of the latter two in that it ostensibly revolves around the ARI's - and Leonard Peikoff's - penchant for intellectual authoritarianism. But the McCaskey affair is different because this time the source of the conflict really is a philosophical problem, instead of just a political or personal conflict in drag.

The problem in question is the well-known problem of induction. Perhaps the most important problem in epistemology, it is also one that, in her own words, Rand never even began to think about. Thus for once Rand's legion of Little Sir Echoes have little or nothing to dutifully recite; for once, they have to formulate an original response to an important problem working by implication from Rand's work, rather than resorting to the usual pull quotes from Galt's speech. Even worse, the problem of induction is a clearcut logical one, and is thus subject to a set of objective rules, rather like mathematics. This makes it more difficult for Objectivism's usual verbalist legerdemain to function, though of course true believers would - and do - happily accept 1+1=5 if Rand says so in a suitably inspirational way. Further, it is problem that goes to the heart of epistemological certainty, a much touted brand differentiator for Rand's philosophy. It is after all the problem made famous by Objectivist hate-figure David Hume, and which inspired Rand's arch-enemy, Immanuel Kant. Surely Rand's philosophy must contain some kind of riposte. Finally, it has been a massively debated problem for the last 100 years, with almost every conceivable angle covered ad nauseum. If Objectivism is such a strikingly original philosophy in every respect, as its followers insist, then we could reasonably expect a strikingly original answer here.

Sadly, original thinking is basically antithetical to Objectivist culture. This, along with the poverty of Rand's own style of argument meant that Objectivism's long promised answer to this famous philosophical problem would inevitably be an intellectual embarrassment. The signs were obvious for years, as Objectivists talked up Leonard Peikoff's supposedly revolutionary solution whilst Peikoff himself refused to actually publish it, opting instead to bury it somewhere in vast, outrageously expensive audio tape lectures only available from the Ayn Rand Institute. After a while, there was the threatened book; but that too never emerged. Finally Peikoff's solution - and it almost certainly will be Peikoff's handiwork at root - has timidly appeared under the auspices of Peikoff's colleague, David Harriman, in the new The Logical Leap: Induction in Physics.

Yet clearly even after all this time, and his convoluted path to publishing, the only thing that's clear is that Peikoff has almost no confidence in his own solution; The McCaskey Objectischism is all about his hysterical overreaction to a mild-mannered, basically favourable critique on Amazon by long time ARI board member and fundraiser John McCaskey, with Peikoff simply pulling rank to shut down any and all such criticism. Since then it has spiralled out of control, resulting in defections from previously ARI-loyal publications such as the Objective Standard as well as numerous rank and file supporters. Neil Parille will detail when we post his latest update here at the ARCHNblog in a day or two. We here at the ARCHNblog will also review the book at some point, although at first glance it does look really, really terrible - a compendium of the most tired, old hat, long-debunked pro-inductive fallacies with a central argument that appears to be nothing more than "assume induction!", all varnished in leaden Objectivese just to add to its delights. If there's any idea that can't be found in say, Anthony O'Hear from 30 years ago I will be very surprised. In fact if there's anything even as modern as that I will be even more surprised. But that will have to wait for now.

While there are no doubt underlying personality clashes and long standing enmities behind the scenes which will play out over time, for once the primary driver of the schism is a genuine philosophical problem - one that Objectivism has long been on a collision course with. And far from triumphantly flattening the dreaded Hume, this culmination of decades-long endeavour from Rand's vaunted New Intellectuals has crumpled like a wet paper bag on first contact. To make matters worse, Peikoff's telling sense of intellectual insecurity has driven to him to a desperate authoritarianism, which in turn has only maximised the debacle and created deep rifts within the movement. In short, Objectivism seems to have confronted its first real intellectual challenge, only to be immediately holed below the waterline.

Objectivism & “Metaphysics,” Part 19

Alternatives to Foundationalism. Whenever the Objectivist mania for “validating” such things as “reality,” “causality,” “man’s mind,” “the senses,” “reason,” “concepts,” and “morality” is subjected to criticism, sooner or later somebody will come forward and suggest that without such validation, how can we know anything? If the skeptic is not refuted, how can he be prevented from wreaking havoc within society, and sending civilization over the brink?

Ironically, this challenge was laid to rest over two centuries ago by the philosopher often most associated with extreme skepticism, David Hume:

For here is the chief and most confounding objection to excessive scepticism, that no durable good can ever result from it; while it remains in its full force and vigour. We need only ask such a sceptic, What his meaning is? And what he proposes by all these curious researches? He is immediately at a loss, and knows not what to answer. A Copernican or Ptolemaic, who supports each his different system of astronomy, may hope to produce a conviction, which will remain constant and durable, with his audience. A Stoic or Epicurean displays principles, which may not be durable, but which have an effect on conduct and behaviour. But a Pyrrhonian cannot expect, that his philosophy will have any constant influence on the mind: or if it had, that its influence would be beneficial to society. On the contrary, he must acknowledge, if he will acknowledge anything, that all human life must perish, were his principles universally and steadily to prevail. All discourse, all action would immediately cease; and men remain in a total lethargy, till the necessities of nature, unsatisfied, put an end to their miserable existence. It is true; so fatal an event is very little to be dreaded. Nature is always too strong for principle. And though a Pyrrhonian may throw himself or others into a momentary amazement and confusion by his profound reasonings; the first and most trivial event in life will put to flight all his doubts and scruples, and leave him the same, in every point of action and speculation, with the philosophers of every other sect, or with those who never concerned themselves in any philosophical researches. When he awakes from his dream, he will be the first to join in the laugh against himself, and to confess, that all his objections are mere amusement, and can have no other tendency than to show the whimsical condition of mankind, who must act and reason and believe; though they are not able, by their most diligent enquiry, to satisfy themselves concerning the foundation of these operations, or to remove the objections, which may be raised against them.

Santayana expanded on this theme in his Scepticism and Animal Faith, which is one of the most thorough critiques of foundationalism to date. Pursing doubt to its ultimate end, Santayana challenges self-consciousness, discourse, logic, change, memory and time. In doing so, he goes well beyond Descartes’ doubts to discover the ultimate certainty, the perusal of a passing datum, a mere instance of awareness. This “solipsism of the present moment,” Santayana concludes, cannot possibly be a bedrock of certainty, because it does not constitute knowledge. It is the awareness of a given without a basis for belief. Knowledge does not arise until intelligence arrives on the scene and connects these instances of awareness into larger, meaningful wholes, which can then be interpreted as symbols of a posited, external reality existing in time and space. Since this exercise of intelligence is not given, why then should it be trusted? Santayana answers “by animal presumption, positing whatever object instinct is materially predisposed to cope with, as in hunger, love, fighting, or the expectation of the future.” In other words, it is by an instinct, which Santayana calls “animal faith.” But this animal faith is by no means an entirely groundless or “arbitrary” inclination, but one which is tested and corroborated during every moment when intelligence holds dominion over our lives.

Critical to Santayana’s view is the notion that some views are biologically inevitable, so that philosophers who deny them are not being altogether sincere. “I should be ashamed to countenance opinions which, when not arguing, I did not believe,” he insists. Some beliefs are inevitable because they have been bred in us by evolution (or by “nature,” if you prefer). These are beliefs that are associated with successful action, which is often the best test of truth. For Santayana, while the nature of truth is correspondence, the test of truth is pragmatic. This is a different orientation than what is found in Objectivism, which, in relation to these issues, often equivocates between rationalistic speculation (e.g., the Objectivist axioms) and an extreme empiricism (e.g., basing all knowledge on the “evidence” of the senses). But the ultimate raison d’être of knowledge is to cope with animal needs; and so whatever knowledge best satisfies these needs, which leads to successful action and solves the most problems in the real world, is that knowledge which most likely has the stamp of truth about it.

Santayana concludes as follows:

Living when human faith is again in a state of dissolution, I have imitated the Greek sceptics in calling doubtful everything that, in spite of common sense, any one can possibly doubt. But since life and even discussion forces me to break away from a complete scepticism, I have determined not to do so surreptitiously nor at random, ignominiously taking cover now behind one prejudice and now behind another. Instead, I have frankly taken nature by the hand, accepting as a rule in my farthest speculations the animal faith I live by from day to day. There are many opinions which, though questionable, are inevitable to a thought attentive to appearance, and honestly expressive of action. These natural opinions are not miscellaneous, such as those which the Sophists embraced in disputation. They are superposed in a biological order, the stratification of the life of reason. In rising out of passive intuition, I pass, by a vital constitutional necessity, to belief in discourse, in experience, in substance, in truth, and in spirit. All these objects may conceivably be illusory. Belief in them, however, is not grounded on a prior probability, but all judgements of probability are grounded on them. They express a rational instinct or instinctive reason, the waxing faith of an animal living in a world which he can observe and sometimes remodel.

Objectivism & “Metaphysics,” Part 18

Foundationalism 101. Foundationalism, in the words of philosopher Rob Bass, is “one of a number of views that holds that knowledge has foundations, that there are privileged starting points for knowledge, that justification runs uni-directionally from foundations to superstructure, that nothing is justified unless it is connected in the right way to the foundations…. I consider [foundationalism] deeply confused and, though most foundationalists did not so intend, an invitation to skepticism.”

Rand’s version of foundationalism is particularly virulent, because of her obsession with “validating” knowledge. She even went so far as to suggest, at least implicitly, that the fate of civilization itself rested on “validating” knowledge. As Peikoff, speaking for Rand, put it:

As long as men remain ignorant of their basic mental process, they have no answer to the charge, leveled by mysticism and skepticism alike, that their mental content is some form of revelation or invention detached from reality. This kind of viewpoint can go into remission for a while,…however if it is not burned out of men’s souls completely by an explicit philosophical theory, it becomes the most virulent of cancers; it metastatizes to every branch of philosophy and every department of culture, as is now evident throughout the world. Then the best among men become paralyzed by doubt; while the others turn into mindless hordes that march in any irrationalist era looking for someone to rule them. [OPAR, 88]

Is there any evidence to back up these extraordinary assertions? Peikoff contends that his claims are “now evident throughout the world.” Really? If so, why doesn’t he give any specific examples? How many people, in point of fact, are bothered one jot by their inability to answer the charge that their mental content is “detached from reality”? Has Peikoff or any of his Objectivist cohorts ever thought to put this contention to the test? Where, exactly, are all these people “paralyzed by doubt”? While occasionally one comes across a genuine doubt-engorged skeptic (and, a little more often, people who pretend to be skeptics), the default position for most people inclines more toward a dogmatism of one kind or another, often veering toward intransigence. Skepticism, when one does stumble across it, is more often a pose, a debating trick used to attack rival dogmatisms. It is simply in the nature of most human beings to believe. As Santayana noted, the problem with skepticism is not that it is illogical or inconsistent, but that its difficult to maintain in the face of the natural demands of the psyche. Hunger, thirst, fear, love, vanity all conspire against maintaining an unbreached skepticism (and remaining "paralyzed by doubt"). Therefore, to inveigh against it in the manner of Rand and Peikoff is to tilt against imaginary windmills.




If (per impossible) the Rand/Peikoff paranoia against skepticism were justified, foundationalism would still be wrong. Foundationalism rests on the assumption that knowledge can ultimately be justified based on certain “self-evident” beliefs (e.g., like the Objectivist axioms). But, as I have explained in an earlier post in this series, “nothing is self-evident,” not even the Objectivist axioms.

Some thirty years before Rand formulated her axiom of existence, Santayana had refuted the idea that existence can be taken as a self-evident given.

Assurance of existence expresses animal watchfulness : it posits, within me and round me, hidden and imminent events. The sceptic can easily cast a doubt on the remoter objects of this belief ; and nothing but a certain obduracy and want of agility prevents him from doubting present existence itself. For what could present existence mean, if the imminent events for which animal sense is watching failed altogether, failed at the very roots, so to speak, of the tree of intuition, and left nothing but its branches flowering in vacuo? Expectation is admittedly the most hazardous of beliefs : yet what is watchfulness but expectation? Memory is notoriously full of illusion ; yet what would experience of the present be if the veracity of primary memory were denied, and if I no longer believed that anything had just happened, or that I had ever been in the state from which I suppose myself to have passed into this my present condition?

The point Santayana is make here is subtle but important. The notion of existence only becomes coherent and meaningful within the context of animal sense and memory, neither of which are self-evident or given. You cast doubt on those, and the axiom “existence exists” becomes a meaningless, raving tautology.

Santayana, however, has more arguments against the self-evidence of existence:

Existence…, not being included in any immediate datum, is a fact always open to doubt. I call it a fact notwithstanding, because in talking about the sceptic I am positing his existence. If he has any intuition, however little the theme of that intuition may have to do with any actual world, certainly I who think of his intuition, or he himself thinking of it afterwards, see that this intuition of his must have been an event, and his existence at that time a fact ; but like all facts and events, this one can be known only by an affirmation which posits it, which may be suspended or reversed, and which is subject to error. Hence all this business of intuition may perfectly well be doubted by the sceptic : the existence of his own doubt (however confidently I may assert it for him) is not given to him then : all that is given is some ambiguity or contradiction in images ; and if afterwards he is sure that he has doubted, the sole cogent evidence which that fact can claim lies in the psychological impossibility that, so long as he believes he has doubted, he should not believe it. But he may be wrong in harbouring this belief, and he may rescind it. For all an ultimate scepticism can see, therefore, there may be no facts at all, and perhaps nothing has ever existed.

Scepticism may thus be carried to the point of denying change and memory, and the reality of all facts. Such a sceptical dogma would certainly be false, because this dogma itself would have to be entertained, and that event would be a fact and the sceptic in framing that dogma discourses, vacillates, and lives in the act of contrasting one assertion with another all of which is to exist with a vengeance. Yet this false dogma that nothing exists is tenable intuitively and, while it prevails, is irrefutable….

For the wayward sceptic, who regards it as no truer than any other view, it also has some utility : it accustoms him to discard the dogma which an introspective critic might be tempted to think self-evident, namely, that he himself lives and thinks. That he does so is true ; but to establish that truth he must appeal to animal faith. If he is too proud for that, and simply stares at the datum, the last thing he will see is himself.

Two main points in all of this. The first involves Rand’s contention that everything has an identity. In the sense of self-evidence, of what is given in consciousness, identity holds no warrant of truth and therefore is irrelevant. What has identity is merely some datum. And the experience of a mere datum tells us nothing about the world or existence. It is not until we assume that we live in a world existing in time and space and that we have minds that can think, remember, and conclude that the Objectivist axioms can make any sense at all. Yet none of these assumptions about the world—these foundational assumptions upon which even Rand’s self-evident axioms ultimately rest—are themselves self-evident.

The second point Santayana makes is easily misunderstood. The skeptic, Santayana contends, is false to assert that nothing exists, since the very act of asserting suggests that the skeptic exists. But the skeptic’s position is nevertheless “tenable intuitively” and irrefutable. What does this mean? “Tenable intuitively” means within the context of an ulimate skepticism, wherein no gratuitous (i.e., non self-evident) assumptions are allowed. If you take aways time, change, memory, discourse, thought, logic, intelligence, etc. and you simply try to found knowledge on the most basic experiences, an ultimate skepticism becomes tenable. What in fact is “given” to consciousness? Merely some passing datum, “blank and staring”—in short, the solipsism of the present moment. From such a solipsism, no knowledge, no axioms, no first principles can emerge. Skepticism would become entirely tenable and irrefutable if we attempted to found knowledge on the given.

Neither the world nor our knowledge of it has logical foundations in self-evident or "given" experiences. Those looking for a justification of knowledge in the given are looking in the wrong place. Where, then, should they be looking? That will be the subject of my final post in the “Objectivism and Metaphysics” series.

Objectivism & “Metaphysics,” Part 17

Primacy of existence versus primacy of consciousness. Rand’s explicates her views on this issue as follows:

The primacy of existence (of reality) is the axiom that existence exists, i.e., that the universe exists independent of consciousness (of any consciousness), that things are what they are, that they possess a specific nature, an identity. The epistemological corollary is the axiom that consciousness is the faculty of perceiving that which exists—and that man gains knowledge of reality by looking outward. The rejection of these axioms represents a reversal: the primacy of consciousness—the notion that the universe has no independent existence, that it is the product of a consciousness (either human or divine or both). The epistemological corollary is the notion that man gains knowledge of reality by looking inward (either at his own consciousness or at the revelations it receives from another, superior consciousness).

This is one of those doctrines within Objectivism that is so enmeshed in its own confusions and inconsistencies that the critic hardly knows how to entangle its web of errors. But let’s take a stab at it.


1. To begin with, how meaningful is it to declare the “primacy of existence” against the “primacy of consciousness,” given that consciousness is itself a part of existence? Since consciousness exists, blanket statements such as “existence has primacy over consciousness” are confusing. If existence is primary and consciousness is part of existence, then consciousness is "primary" along with everything else that exists. Of course, apologists for Rand will declare that the primacy of existence simply means that consciousness does not create reality, as various forms of idealism imply. But if so, why didn’t Rand just say that consciousness doesn’t create “existence” and be done with it?

2. Rand’s primacy of existence construct is a rather confusing way of stating realism. However, Rand’s equation of the primacy of existence (i.e., realism) with the axiom existence exists leads to a palpable contradiction. According to Objectivism, the axiom existence exists does not specify what exists. As David Kelley notes, “the axiom of existence does not assert the existence of a physical or material world as opposed to a mental one.” So how can Rand suddenly equate “existence exists” with realism? How can such a leap be justified? Well, as a matter of fact, it cannot be justifed. As usual with Rand, her argument is based on leveraging the scandalous vagueness of words to equivocate her way to a predetermined conclusion. The term existence, when Rand first introduces it, is equated with the content of consciousness. Consider the following statement of Rand about consciousness: “If that which you claim to perceive does not exist, what you possess is not consciousness.” This implies that everything one perceives exists, which would only be true if existence is confined to mental content (i.e., the content of consciousness). Both the elephant at the zoo perceived by onlookers and the pink elephant perceived by the drunken sot “exist” according to the logic of Rand’s statement. The only way to escape this conclusion is through equivocation, i.e., by claiming that the drunk does not in fact “perceive” the pink elephant, but merely hallucinates it. However, this would involve an assumption which Rand’s axioms, as they are initially introduced and defended, are unable to support. Rand’s axioms make no such distinction concerning what passes or does not pass for perception. She simply states that something exists, and that consciousness is the faculty that perceives this something. From such a trivial beginning, nothing so specific and meaningful as a distinction between “valid” and “invalid” perception can logically follow.

To sum up: it is illogical, even on Rand’s premises, to deduce or infer realism (i.e., the primacy of existence) from the axiom existence exists.

3. Rand’s “primacy of existence” and it’s opposition to the “primacy of consciousness” implies materialism, which contradicts the predominant anti-materialistic tone of Objectivism. Rand defines the “primacy of consciousness as “the notion that the universe has no independent existence, that it is the product of a consciousness (either human or divine or both).” However, if the primacy of consciousness is equated with the belief that existence is the product of consciousness, doesn’t this imply that the primacy of existence should be equated with the belief that consciousness is the product of existence? Now what exactly is this “existence” that Rand declares as “primary”? Rand’s equation of the term existence with the term reality hardly improves matters, since Rand does not go on to define very clearly what she means by the term “reality." By the implications of her confusions, Rand’s reality might be equated with the non-conscious; and once consciousness is divested from reality, materialism easily follows.

The real problem here is not that Rand is an unwitting materialist, but that her metaphysical speculations are so loose that one can draw whatever conclusion one likes from them. Rand is pursuing the false ideal of trying to logically justify some of her most basic beliefs, rather than just accepting them as necessary presuppositions of practical existence, as a sort of animal faith justified over the course of one’s life. Since the type of metaphysical speculation Rand favors is so loose and vague, based, as it is, largely on trivial truisms and empty tautologies, one can draw whatever conclusions one likes from them, whether those conclusions be materialism, idealism, or Objectivism — it’s all equally “valid.”

Objectivism & “Metaphysics,” Part 16

Seddon’s defense of Rand’s free will. In Fred Seddon’s review of my book Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature, we find the following curious assertion: “I would point out that the Objectivist position is very close to that of Karl Popper.” While superficially there are points in common between Popper’s criticism of determinism and Rand’s, the differences are more telling.

1. First and perhaps most important of all, Popper doesn’t support free will and oppose determinism in order to support a view of human nature that goes against the wisdom of human experience and the evidence of experimental and evolutionary psychology. If Rand’s view of free will were correct, predictions based on human nature would be untenable, since such predictions are generally based on the idea that there exist innate tendencies which will favor certain results over others. Hence, if I claim that great wealth tends over time to soften a nation, making it ripe for destruction, I’m making an inference from human nature. This is an inference which Rand would have rejected on the grounds that people have free will and can choose not to be “softened” by wealth. By claiming that innate tendencies don’t exist, Rand undermines the ability to understand human motivation and the evolution of the social order.

Leonard Peikoff, in his short memoir “My Thirty Years with Ayn Rand,” unintentionally demonstrates how Rand’s views on these issues caused havoc in her personal life. “Ayn Rand refused to make collective judgments [about the individuals in her circle]. Each time she unmasked one of these individuals [i.e., broke from them] she struggled to learn from her mistake. But then she would be deceived again by some new variant.” [VOR, 350] Rand’s failure to make “collective judgments” is another way of saying that she failed to respect the home truths of human nature. She expected her acolytes to think, feel and behave like the heroes of Atlas Shrugged, rather than as human beings. She failed to recognize that many of the weaknesses which plague the human animal are congenital, rooted in biology and the human condition, and that they can never be overcome (assuming they can be overcome at all) if they are not first recognized and dealt with in the open.

Although Popper was every bit as much an opponent of determinism as was Rand, this did not lead him to adopt a view of free will that, at least by implication, denies that human behavior is explicable. Popper does not claim, as Peikoff once did, that what makes a person “think or evade” “cannot be further explained.” No, on the contrary, Popper admits that human behavior is at least somewhat predictable:



It is undeniable that we often predict the behavior of animals, and also of men, very successfully. Moreover, these predictions tend to become better and better as we learn more and more about the man or the animal; and they may be still further improved by a systematic study of their behavior. There is no reason why this process of learning more and more about behavior should ever come to an end. [The Open Universe, 15]

2. Popper’s arguments against determinism are far more complex and sophisticated than Rand’s. In fact, they are too complicated to be reproduced here. Moreover, Popper does not claim that his arguments decisively refute metaphysical determinism or achieve the status of self-evident axioms. He recognizes that “metaphysical” determinism, because it is “metaphysical,” is irrefutable (i.e., untestable). Popper merely seeks to refute a specific type of determinism, namely, what he calls “scientific” determinism.

3. In his book on determinism, Popper mentions an argument issued by the geneticist J.B.S. Haldane. This argument, first introduced by Haldane in 1898, is so similar to Rand’s that one wonders if there isn’t a connection between the two. Popper quotes Haldane as follows: “I am not myself a materialist [Haldane wrote,] because if materialism is true, it seems to me that we cannot know that it is true. If my opinions are the result of the chemical processes going on in my brain, they are determined by the laws of chemistry, not those of logic.” Although Popper sympathizes with the intent of Haldene’s argument, he understands its weaknesses. “This somewhat strange argument does not, of course, refute the doctrine of “scientific” determinism,” Popper acknowledges.

In conclusion: Seddon's claim that Objectivism's position on free will and determinism is "very close" to that of Karl Popper is a palpable exaggeration.

Objectivism & “Metaphysics,” Part 15

Objectivist argument for free will. According to Objectivism, free will is “axiomatic,” which means (1) it’s “self-evident,” “fundamentally given and directly perceived”; and (2) the denial of free will is self-refuting. Let’s examine each of these claims.

(1) free will is self-evident. Here’s the “argument,” compliments of Leonard Peikoff:

How, then, do we know that man has volition? It is a self-evident fact, available to any act of introspection.

You the reader can perceive every potentiality I have been discussing simply by observing your own consciousness. The extent of your knowledge or intelligence is not relevant here, because the issue is whether you use whatever knowledge and intelligence you do possess. At this moment, for example, you can decide to read attentively and struggle to understand, judge, apply the material — or you can let your attention wander and the words wash over you, half-getting some points, then coming to for a few sentences, then lapsing again into partial focus. If something you read makes you feel fearful or uneasy, you can decide to follow the point anyway and consider it on its merits — or you can brush it aside by an act of evasion, while mumbling some rationalization to still any pangs of guilt. At each moment, you are deciding to think or not to think. The fact that you regularly make these kinds of choices is directly accessible to you, as it is to any volitional consciousness.

The principle of volition is a philosophic axiom, with all the features this involves….

Behind Peikoff’s argument is an important but unstated assumption. Peikoff is assuming that acts of introspection yield self-evident truth. Whatever a man observes through introspection is “fundamentally given and directly perceived” and, by implication, axiomatic. So if a man observed himself being controlled by forces not of his making, this would make the principle of determinism a self-evident fact worthy of being embalmed as an axiomatic truth.

Does introspection really yield self-evident facts? No, of course not. Nor is it an assumption that any Objectivist, from Rand down, would ever consistently adhere to. People observe through introspection, for example, unbidden emotions which they cannot control. They feel angry, sad, fretful, anxious, regardless of whether they wish to feel these things. As even Objectivism concedes, human beings do not have direct control over emotions. They experience, introspectively, emotions rising up within them, irrespective of any volition. So does this not mean that feelings are determined? Isn’t that the “self-evident” fact directly observed through introspection? But no, not at all. When it comes to emotions, Rand took an entirely different approach: “In the field of introspection,” she declared, “the two guiding questions are: ‘What do I feel?’ and ‘Why do I feel it?’” But wait a minute! Whatever happened to direct contact with the facts assumed by Peikoff in his argument about volition? By implication, Objectivism rejects the notion that emotions are beyond volitional control, even though this is how we experience them in introspection. So if our experience can mislead us in the case of emotions, why can’t it mislead us in reference to attention, focus, and thought? How can introspective observation be “self-evident” in one instance and not the other? This is left unexplained in Objectivism because neither Rand nor any of her disciples ever noticed the inconsistency.


(2) Determinism is self-refuting. Again Peikoff provides the argument:

When the determinist claims that man is determined, this applies to all of man’s ideas also, including his own advocacy of determinism. Given the factors operating on him, he believes, he had to become a determinist, just as his opponents had no alternative but to oppose him. How then can he know that his viewpoint is true? Are the factors that shape his brain infallible? Does he automatically follow reason and logic? Clearly not; if he did, error would be impossible to him….

If a determinist tried to assess his viewpoint as knowledge, he would have to say, in effect: “I am in control of my mind. I do have the power to decide to focus on reality. I do not merely submit spinelessly to whatever distortions happen to be decreed by some chain of forces stretching back to infinity. I am free, free to be objective, free to conclude — that I am not free.

Like any rejection of a philosophic axiom, determinism is self-refuting.

This argument gratuitously assumes that the individual must be able to control his own mind in order to know anything. Yet what is the rationale for such an assumption? Why can’t the mind, operating on its own principles, gather in data from external existence, analyze it, and reach conclusions? There is nothing logically inconsistent in such a notion. That it seems a trifle strange does not constitute a self-refutation. It won’t do to confuse the strange or the paradoxical with the illogical. Computers, which are deterministic systems through and through, with no volition of their own, can reach conclusions from data fed to them. Why couldn’t the mind of the determinist behave in a similar fashion?

Even more objectionable, however, is the caricature of determinism in Peikoff’s argument. Determinism may be as implausible as you like, but it’s hardly the thin gruel of a doctrine presented by Peikoff. It comes in many different versions and brands, many of which are quite sophisticated and not so easily refuted. One could believe, for example, that while the intellect may be volitional, the will (i.e., Rand’s emotional mechanism) is determined, so that a man may control his mind but not his temper. All kinds of variants and mixtures are possible, most of which are not even broached by Peikoff’s argument.

The bottom line is this: the arguments essayed by Peikoff for free will and against determinism are both grossly inadequate and hardly rise to the level required by “self-evidence.”

Objectivism & “Metaphysics,” Part 14

Objectivist theory of free will vs. the facts of reality. In the last two posts I have documented how the Objectivist metaphysics has helped rationalize the eccentricities of David Harriman and closed the Objectivist mind to scientific research into the paranormal. In the larger scheme of things, these are relatively minor faults. Where the Objectivist metaphysics seriously leads its partisans astray is on the issue of free will and human nature. For Rand, free will is axiomatic, which means, “self-evident” and “fundamentally given and directly perceived.” Now whether free will is self-evident I will leave for another post. Here I’m only interested in specific facts that are sacrificed on the alter of Rand’s free will.

Exhibit 1:

I was astonished at how closed she typically was to any new knowledge [testifies Nathaniel Branden] .…When I tried to tell her of some new research that suggested that certain kinds of depression have a biological basis, she answered angrily, ‘I can tell you what causes depression; I can tell you about rational depression and I can tell you about irrational depression—the second is mostly self-pity—and in neither case does biology enter into it.’ I asked her how she could make a scientific statement with such certainty, since she had never studied the field; she shrugged bitterly and snapped, ‘Because I know how to think.’” (Judgement Day, 1989, 347)

We all know the rationale behind this particular evasion of the facts. Rand is claiming because people have free will, they cannot possibly be influenced by biological factors. But this is merely an a priori rationalization of the worst sort. Claims about the biological basis of an emotion can only be settled experimentally, through empirical testing. The evidence for the hypothesis that biological factors can influence emotions is overwhelming and not in dispute among psychiatrists familiar with the relevant research. If anyone has any doubt on the score, just consider how diseases of the brain can affect emotion and personality.



Exhibit 2:

So how exactly does evolutionary psychology explain the misery, the jealousy, the lying [that occurred as a result of Rand’s affair with Nathaniel Branden]? When Rand and her followers tried to wish away obvious facts about humans' emotional constitution, their feelings didn't change. But they made each other miserable pretending that they felt the way they were supposed to feel. Rand and Nathaniel had to pretend that Nathaniel was attracted to Rand. Their spouses had to pretend that they weren't jealous. Rand and Nathaniel had to pretend that they believed that their spouses weren't jealous. The more they tried to talk themselves into having feelings contrary to human nature, the worse they felt. Nathaniel coped not by admitting error, but by finding a mistress and lying to cover it up. Since Rand had already ruled out the obvious explanation for Nathaniel's behavior, she went on a wild goose chase to find the "real" explanation. Etc...

As Rand says, "[F]acts cannot be altered by a wish, but they can destroy the wisher." I give her a lot of credit for emphasizing that human beings are potentially rational animals. But she evaded (yes, evaded!) the fact that human beings are invariably animals - and paid the price. [Byran Caplan, "Rand vs. Evolutionary Psychology: Part 1"]

Exhibit 3:

OK, so Ayn Rand created a cult. What does this have to do with evolutionary psychology [and human nature]? Simple: Contrary to Rand, the fact that human beings care about the opinions of the people around them doesn't stem from philosophical error. It stems from evolution [or human nature]. Human beings evolved in small groups where good relations were vital for survival. People who weren't interested in other people's opinions had trouble staying alive and reproducing. Caring about the opinions of others isn't as immutable as our sexual preferences, but it's very deeply rooted. Consider: How much would I have to pay you to walk in front of an audience of a hundred strangers and make a fool of yourself?

Rand was no exception. She thought that her affair with Branden was morally above reproach, but made every effort to keep it secret. Why? Because unlike John Galt, she shared our normal human concern about the opinions of other people - including complete strangers:

[A]nother thought struck her and put her in a panic. If he had been underhanded enough to deceive her about his feelings toward her for months or years on end, what else might he be capable of? Would he do something terrible to embarrass her in public or discredit her ideas...? "I can't predict what he'll do, and I'm terrified of what may happen to my name and reputation!" she cried in despair. Growing tired and tearful as the night wore on, she murmured, "My life is over. He took away this earth." [Anne Heller, Ayn Rand and the World She Made]

If people really could stop caring about other people's opinions, Rand's counter-culture never would have gotten off the ground. Within five minutes, prospective members would have adamantly disagreed with Rand about something or other, and she would have purged them. Her counter-culture took root precisely because even avowed individualists will feign agreement in order to fit in. [Byran Caplan, "Rand vs. Evolutionary Psychology: Part 2"]

Now it’s important here not to get caught up on the merits of evolutionary psychology. The important question here is whether sexual jealousy, age differences, attraction to younger women, concern with what other people think are all built-in features, rather than just premises accepted by “free will.” The evidence over-whelmingly supports the view that some sexual feelings, including jealousy, are hardwired. Nor is it in the least plausible to assume that concern with what other people think is a mere premise which can be "deprogrammed" from the mind through psychotherapy. To deny a human nature consisting of innate propensities is a far more serious matter than denying facts about quantum mechanics or Einstienian relativity. Advanced experimental physics may be important in certain technical fields; but in ordinary life, it hardly matters. You don’t need knowledge of such arcana to get a job and raise a family. But if you don’t understand human nature, you’re probably going to have a much harder time of it navigating one’s way through life. Interacting with other people is what everyone must do. The notion of the man who lives entirely by himself, like Robinson Crusoe, is a myth. To get on in this world, it helps to understand what motivates and drives the people around us. Incorrect assumptions about human nature only leads to just the sort of personal dysfunction as is limned in Anne Heller’s biography of Rand.

What makes all of this so much the worse is the intellectual feebleness of Rand’s rationale for evading human nature. But this is a topic which must be reserved for my next post.

Suicide Note

In a new, special edition of his Intellectual Activist newsletter, former Orthodox Objectivist and Ayn Rand Institute member Robert Tracinski claims the official movement is committing "suicide" with what he is calling "Anthemgate", and predicts a "long, ugly period of crisis". We've already touched on this burgeoning schism - see Neil Parille's excellent coverage here - and it looks to be gaining a real head of steam now.

However, rather than being much focussed on the recent controversy over Objectivism's bogus theory of induction, Tracinski's essay turns out to be a rather rambling grab bag of complaints aimed at the increasing authoritarianism of ARI founder Leonard Peikoff. The most interesting point is where Tracinski actually begins to sheet the blame for this authoritarian tendency to Rand herself, specifically her claims that the philosopher is "commander in chief" of all other intellectual disciplines. (We here at the ARCHblog could have told him years ago that this Plato-lite philosophical authoritarianism was central to her system, but I suppose better late than never!) Having discovered this, he then commits a kind of "blank out". Finding himself unable to reconcile this position with Randian characters like Howard Roark, he then decides that while Rand's intellectual authoritarianism is explicit in passages like the "commander in chief" cited from "The New Intellectual", her work is still nonetheless "implicitly" anti-authoritarian. Actually, what this suggests is at the very least that her thinking is obviously inconsistent and even confused, but even this is a heresy even Tracinski cannot quite bring himself to utter; hence he tries to fob it all off on Peikoff's personal tendencies. Perhaps one day he will realise that acorn doesn't fall far from the tree; and that the problem is much deeper, and much, much older.

Objectivism & “Metaphysics,” Part 13

Objectivism & the paranormal. The assumption that “paranormal” events are unreal or impossible may be convenient and prudent in daily life; but it is, after all, only an assumption. To deduce such an assumption from “self-evident” axioms in the manner of Objectivism goes very much against the grain of empirical responsibility. The evidence of experience is far from supporting the Objectivist position, and logically, this position is untenable. As Santayana would remind us, “Logically, everything is possible; and if a certain sequence of events happens not to be found in our experience, nothing proves that it may not occur beyond.” [The Idea of Christ in the Gospels, 79]

The general view prevailing among Objectivist is that not only are paranormal occurrences unreal, but it is a waste of time to investigate such phenomenon. Yet given the millions of evidentiary claims that have been made on behalf of paranormal events, it would seem a subject ripe for investigation. If, as is eminently plausible, the Objectivists are right about the unreality of the paranormal, then an empirical investigation will merely serve to corroborate this hypothesis. If, on the other hand, there is discovered some residuum of truth in them, we will have learned more about this strange world that we find ourselves knocking about in.

To understand what is wrong with the Objectivist approach to the issue, it is instructive to compare it with Hume's take on a related issue. In his essay “On Miracles,” Hume set down a general rule for evaluating claims regarding miracles (which can be seen as a type of paranormal phenomenon):

A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined. Why is it more than probable, that all men must die; that lead cannot, of itself, remain suspended in the air; that fire consumes wood, and is extinguished by water; unless it be, that these events are found agreeable to the laws of nature, and there is required a violation of these laws, or in other words, a miracle to prevent them? Nothing is esteemed a miracle, if it ever happens in the common course of nature. It is no miracle that a man, seemingly in good health, should die on a sudden: Because such a kind of death, though more unusual than any other, has yet been frequently observed to happen. But it is a miracle that a dead man should come to life; because that has never been observed in any age or country. There must, therefore, be a uniform experience against every miraculous event, otherwise the event would not merit that appellation. And as a uniform experience amounts to a proof, there is here a direct and full proof, from the nature of the fact, against the existence of any miracle; nor can such a proof be destroyed, or the miracle rendered credible, but by an opposite proof, which is superior.

The plain consequence is (and it is a general maxim worthy of our attention), "that no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavors to establish; and even in that case there is a mutual destruction of arguments, and the superior only gives us an assurance suitable to that degree of force, which remains, after deducting the inferior." When anyone tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should really have happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other; and according to the superiority, which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle. If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous, than the event which he relates; then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion.

The advantage of Hume’s approach is that it is rigorously empirical. Hume makes no assumptions based on logical, rhetorical, or moral principles but attempts to settle the issue in relation to experience interpreted via human intelligence. Science can extend Hume’s approach by integrating it with a detailed experimental methodology. Hypotheses can then be formed and tested. Results of tests can be subjected to rigorous peer review. Hence all strange phenomenon, whether deemed as miracles or merely as the paranormal, can be made the objects of scientific investigation. Only then can we hope to have any real understanding of why so many people claim to have these experiences.

The American philosopher C. S. Peirce implored us to “Never block the path of inquiry.” Yet this is precisely the consequences of those metaphysical systems which pretend they can determine matters of fact on the basis of “self-evident” axioms. But no principle concerning matters of fact can ever be self-evident. Knowledge is fundamentally transitive and indirect. It involves becoming cognizant of something outside of consciousness, that exists on a different scale from the human mind within a different realm of existence. To arrive at true knowledge of facts requires a great deal of hard work and care. Progress in knowledge requires frequent contact with the relevant facts. When this contact becomes tenuous or is lost altogether, the intellect soon becomes lost in a thicket of arid speculations.

Objectivism & “Metaphysics,” Part 12

Objectivism & Physics. David Hume once remarked that, while errors in religion might be dangerous, those in philosophy are “only ridiculous.” Metaphysical errors are also, in the main, "only ridiculous." They are ridiculous rather than dangerous because they have no effect on conduct. A philosopher may have the most extravagant notions of reality, yet after he’s finished propagating his peculiar species of balderdash, he goes about his business like everyone else and, despite his absurd doctrines, has no difficulty finding his way home. “Nature is always too strong for principle,” is how Hume described the phenomenon.

There are many far worse systems of metaphysics than Rand’s. Yet the very badness of these systems renders them entirely impotent. They are so bad that no one could ever make practical use of them. They are merely a kind of poetry that tender minded people lisp to themselves. Since much of Rand’s metaphysics supports notions allied to common sense, it has more potential to, by leading people astray, exercise a baleful effect. These bad effects stem from three aspects of the Objectivist metaphysics: (1) its attempt to determine matters of fact through logical and rhetorical constructions; (2) its conviction that reality is “logical” (i.e., “contradictions cannot exist in reality”); and (3) its belief that philosophy has a “veto power” over science.



Consider some consequences of these three principles, starting with Peikoff’s assertions about philosophy’s veto power:

Philosophy certainly has a veto power over any subject if it violates principles established philosophically. So, if Heisenberg says for instance in the principle of uncertainty that causality is a myth or has been overturned on the subatomic level, you can throw out Heisenberg's theory on that grounds alone. And the same is true for the idea of something proceeding out of nothing. In other words, that is something proceeding causelessly, because there was nothing before it and it violates the very meaning of nothing….

Now, if you consult Dave Harriman's course, you will see that quantum mechanics, the theory of everything, string theory, is riddled with contradictions and is arbitrary, 'cause it reflects the corrupt epistemology dominant in the intellectual world.

This Dave Harriman, mentioned by Peikoff, is an amusing enough fellow. His attacks on relativity, quantum mechanics, big bang theory, etc. are filled with clever quips and amusing juxtapositions. Consider what he has to say of space:

I want to start by stating unequivocally, there is no such thing as “space,” whether viewed as the infinite void of the Greek atomists, or the receptacle of Plato, or the absolute cosmic reference plane of Newton, or the acrobatic and curving frame of Einstein, or the final frontier of James P. Kirk. There is no such entity.

These little sallies are accompanied by Harriman’s protestations that he accepts all the facts brought forth to support Einstienian relativity and quantum mechanics, he just questions the "interpretations." However, given how entangled the interpretations are with the facts, this just won’t do. The interpretations of relativity and quantum mechanics are strange because the facts themselves are strange. Consider the famous double-slit experiment:



Let us assume, for argument's sake, that the interpretation offered in this video is wrong. If so, then what would Peikoff or Harriman put in its place? What would constitute a "logical" interpretation of this bizarre phenomenon? Objectivists seem to believe that ordinary perception provides us with a “logical” world, and therefore that all of reality should behave as grosser objects do in perception. Since tennis balls don’t divide in two and reunite when shot through double slits, it is assumed that photons can’t do likewise. But who decided that human perception, interpreted via common sense, is the final arbiter of what’s possible in reality, particularly at the quantum level? Where’s the justification for that? Nature, not the human mind, is the standard of what is possible in nature. The reason quantum reality seems so strange is that our minds have not evolved to understand it. Our ancestors had no experience of it; knowledge of it was not necessary for their survival and reproductive capabilities; so the mind, being innocent of its oddities, is perplexed by them. But nothing is truly perplexing to a mind willing to accept nature on nature’s terms, rather than the mind's terms. Peikoff and Harriman, by allowing the Objectivist metaphysics to lead them astray, are no different than earlier metaphysicians who attempted to impose their sense of things on reality. Plato thought that the orbits of the planets had to be circular because the circle was a "divine" form. Peikoff's conviction that reality must be "logical" is no more credible.