Objectivism & “Metaphysics,” Part 11

Logic and reality. Chris Sciabarra sums up the Objectivist position on this issue better than any Objectivist:

Like Aristotle, Rand believes that logic is inseparable from reality and knowledge. She states: “If logic has nothing to do with reality, it means the Law of Identity is inapplicable to reality.” But, as Peikoff explains: “The Law of Contradiction … is a necessary and ontological truth which can be learned empirically.” … [For Rand,] logic is certainly a law of thought, insofar as it is “the art of non-contradictory identification.” But logic is true in thought only because contradictions cannot exist in reality. Rand writes: “An atom is itself, and so is the universe; neither can contradict its own identity; nor can a part contradict the whole.” [Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical, 139-140]

What on earth does it mean to say that contradictions cannot exist in reality? What kind of processes or events is this supposed to rule out? What would a “contradiction in reality” look like? What does it mean, in empirical terms, to say that an atom cannot be a non-atom? Or is it merely that we simply cannot conceive such “contradictions in reality”? But if we cannot conceive what a “contradiction in reality” might be, what is the point of saying such a phenomena cannot exist? If we cannot even imagine its existence, it has no relevance, either as an error or a falsehood. So again, what is this mythical gremlin, the “contradiction in reality,” and why should we bother our heads with it?


Rand’s confusion here runs deep, and stems from confusing different aspects or realms of existence and trying to assume that logic, in order to be cognitively useful, must be valid in every domain or realm of existence. The philosophers George Santayana and Karl Popper, working entirely independent of one another, distinguished at least three realms or “worlds”:

1. Realm of Matter/World 1: the physical world, the world of matter existing in time and space.
2. Realm of Spirit/World 2: consciousness, the world of mental objects and events.
3. Realm of Essence/World 3: the world of ideas, meanings, theories, problems, etc.

While Santayana’s realms of matter and spirit are largely identical to Popper’s worlds 1 and 2, there are important difference between the Santayana’s realm of essence and Popper’s world 3. Santayana’s realm of essence includes all possible meanings, whether anyone has experienced them or not. Popper, on the other hand, tends to confine his world 3 to those ideas or meanings produced by the human mind. These differences are not important for the points I will be trying to make about logic and reality in this post.

Now where does logic actually hold true? Does it hold true in all three realms/worlds? Or in only one or two of them? Or in none of them? Well, let’ s take a look, first, at the realm of matter. Does it hold true for that? No, it doesn’t. This is demonstrated by an experiment proposed by Karl Popper. Popper begins by noting that when a logical statement such as 2+2=4 is applied to reality (as when someone puts 2+2 apples in basket),

it becomes a physical theory, rather than a logical one; and as a consequence, we cannot be sure whether it remains universally true. As a matter of fact, it does not. It may hold for apples, but it hardly holds for rabbits. If you put 2+2 rabbits in a basket, you may soon find 7 or 8 in it. Nor is it applicable to such things as drops. If you put 2+2 drops in a dry flask, you will never get four out of it. If you answer that these examples are not fair because something has happened to the rabbits and the drops, and because the equation ‘2+2=4’ only applies to objects in which nothing happens, then my answer is that, if you interpret it in this way, then it does not hold for ‘reality’ (for in ‘reality’ something happens all the time), but only for an abstract world of distinct objects in which nothing happens. To the extent, it is clear, to which our real world resembles such an abstract world, for example, to the extent to which our apples do not rot, or rot only very slowly, or to which our rabbits or crocodiles do not happen to breed; to the extent, in other words, to which physical conditions resemble pure logical or arithmetical operation of addition, to the same extent does arithmetic remain applicable. But this statement is trivial.” [Conjectures and Refutations, 212]

So logic does not in all respects hold good for the physical world. What about the mental world? Here I draw on Santayana’s testimony:

Now as a matter of fact there is a psychological sphere to which logic and mathematics do not apply. There, the truth is dramatic. That 2+2=4 is not true of ideas. One idea added to another, in actual intuition [i.e., in conscious experience], makes still only one idea, or it makes three: for the combination, with the relations perceived, forms one complex essence, and yet the original essences remain distinct, as elements in this new whole. This holds true of all moral, aesthetic, and historical units: they are merged and reconstituted with every act of apperception. [Realm of Truth, 410]

Where, then, is logic fully applicable? According to Popper, “Logical necessity exists only in world 3. Logical connection, logical relations, logical necessities, logical incompatibility — all that exists only in world 3. So it exists in our theories about nature. In nature this does not exist, there is no such thing.” [Knowledge and the Body-Mind Problem, 41]

Santayana regards logic to be “merely a parabolic excursion in the realm of essence.” If a logical construction is true, this truth derives, not from logic, but from conformity to the order of nature.

The only serious value of … logical explorations would lie in their possible relevance to the accidents of existence. It is only in that relation and in that measure that mathematical science would cease to be mere play with ideas and would become true: that is, in a serious sense, would become knowledge. Now the seriousness of mathematics comes precisely of its remarkable and exact relevance to material facts, both familiar and remote. And this in surprising measure. For when once any essence falls within the sphere of truth, all its essential relations do so too: and the necessity of these relations will, on that hypothesis, form a necessary complement to a proposition that happens to be true. This same necessity, however, would have nothing to do with truth if the terms it connects were not exemplified in existence. In this way mathematical calculations far outrunning experiment often [but not always!] turn out to be true of the physical world, as if, per impossible, they could be true a priori. [ibid, 409]

In other words, when a logical proposition turns out to be true, the truth of that statement arises, not from its logic, but by the fact that it is exemplified by the real world. It is the real world, not logic, which makes a thing true. Facts, nature, reality constitute the standard of truth, not logic. I would also note that, while there exists an infinite number of logical expressions (after all, every mathematic equation is a logical expression, and there are an infinite number of such expressions), only a small fraction of those will find exemplification in existence. Logical validity is therefore no warrant of truth.

If existence were actually logical, as conceived by Objectivists, then reality would have to be a system of ideal relations, like we find imagined in the idealist reveries of Plato and Hegel. In other words, this view only makes sense on idealist assumptions. But on realist assumptions, reality may be anything it pleases. It is not for the mind to determine how reality must be. On the contrary, the mind must accept whatever it finds. And since we have not experienced every possible fact of nature, all theories about facts are ultimately conjectural, and must be revised or overthrown if a fact is discovered that contradicts them. Facts, therefore, for all practical intents, are contingent — which effectively means, alogical and "unnecessary." If a fact contradicts one of our theories about reality, it is the theory that has to go, not the fact.

I suspect there will be Rand apologists who will protest that Objectivism denies no facts. Well, that’s not so clear, as we shall see in my next post.

Did Ayn Rand Understand Objectivism?

Sometimes we wonder...

Objectivists often contend that Ayn Rand's critics do not or cannot grasp her philosophy's fundamental principles like, for example, the 'law of identity'. Thus they are simply unable to comprehend the epochal innovations in the fields of epistemology, ethics, politics, aesthetics and so forth that follow inexorably as a result of Rand's application of these principles. Rand, it is also alleged, wrote clearly and precisely, so if you can't understand them you must be either a)stupid or b)evading or c)both. And perhaps this is the case.

But how good is Rand with these fundamentals herself, even at the level she considers her greatest innovation, in epistemology? Let's take a look. First, we'll invoke her fundamental axiom "Existence exists". We'll call this her Parmenidian axiom, as she derives from it a second postulate which is "Non-existence does not exist", or "there is no such thing as nothing". This seems to leave us with the ancient idea from Parmenides that the existence is "full", with no gaps of "nothing" in its structure. Then we'll take another fundamental axiom: that is, the Law of Identity which can be put as follows: "for a thing to exist, it must have an identity". This we'll call her Aristotelian axiom, as this is to whom it is generally attributed.

We'll then apply these axioms to what Rand considered her most vitally important intellectual work, her theory of Concept Formation in the "Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology".

In Chapter 1, 'Cognition and Measurement', she lays out her theory, starting with the "building block of man's knowledge", the concept "existent". This is what she calls an implicit concept - as opposed to later explicit concepts and which, we presume, are so named because Rand says they require language to be properly formed.

The "implicit" concept "existent" resides even at the level of sensations: for Rand tells us that "A sensation is a sensation of something, as distinguished from the nothing of the preceding and succeeding moments." Of course alert readers will have spotted right away that Rand seems to have blithely violated her Parmenidian axiom, as of course there is no such thing as "nothing" to be 'distinguished' from 'something' in the first place! So her theory is off to a highly questionable start.

Things get substantially worse however as she moves to describe how this 'building block' develops. She describes 3 distinct stages. Stage 1 is the child's awareness of objects, of things, which "represents the (implicit) concept 'entity'" (ITOE, 6). Stage 2 is the "second, and closely allied stage" which is "awareness of specific, particular things which (the child) can recognise and distinguish from the rest of his perceptual field". This stage, Rand tells us, is the implicit concept "identity". Now, alert readers will no doubt have noticed that once again, Rand has forgotten her own fundamental axiom, this time the Law of Identity. For if this law is correct, and an entity without identity cannot exist, there can be no Stage 1. (1)

Stage 2 is clearly just the Law of Identity all over again, so Rand can hardly take credit for this. Stage 3, the final stage, gives us the concept "unit" and consists apparently of "grasping similarities and differences" between identities. But we seem to have already done this in Stage 2, for we are already recognising and distinguishing "specific" things in our perceptual field - and in order to do this, we will surely have to realise that these things are similar to and different from each other. So we can assume there is no Stage 3 either.

Thus, embarrassingly, the very "building block" of Rand's proudest intellectual achievement kicks off with obvious violations of two of her own cherished fundamental axioms, and a redundant restatement of one of them. All that remains of her theory so far is just the Law of Identity (ie:Stage 2), an already well-known logical rule. And of course if you state that a rule is the basis of your system, and violate it at the same time, it tends to indicate you don't understand it in the first place.


1. I do not think attempts to argue that Rand might perhaps be speaking 'epistemologically' instead of 'metaphysically' (as Objectivists call it) succeed, as of course human knowledge is subject to the LOI just like anything else.

Reason Fluffs Atlas 2

Reason becomes the thinking man's Hello magazine in this new piece devoted to energetically fluffing the Atlas Shrugged 2 movie.

Amusingly, in this puff-tastic item writer Brian Doherty somehow forgets to mention that Pt 1 was one of the most notorious box office bombs of 2011. Instead, he refers to an "official critical reception" that "wasn't that great" - a masterly piece of understatement, given the average review rating of 3.5 out of 10 - and asserts that "normal folk seemed to like it better than credentialed tastemakers" despite the fact that said "normal folk" singularly failed to show up at the box office, and that as usual Randroids block voted on net sites like Rotten Tomatoes to prop up Atlas' user rating. We also hear about "encouraging" dvd and on-demand sales. No figures are mentioned, so here's a couple: it's currently ranked #1,240 in Amazon, and we know they made at least 100,000 copies due to this distinctly un-Galtian screwup.  They need about $18m or more so at $12.99 retail, do the math. Keeping with the Hello-type flavour, we also get gushing descriptions of the set design and acting that would be perhaps more appropriate for Posh'n'Becks' latest nursery interior. Even the old The Fountainhead movie gets a fluffing, with its dud reputation blamed on the studio editing it against Rand's will - despite the fact that Rand demanded, and got, unprecedented artistic control over the movie. 

A few tidbits sneak thru the PR blurbing. We learn that the real reason Part 2's been recast is because they didn't get binding contracts from the actors in Part 1 to do the followup; hence they all appear to have jumped out rather than end up once more in the same train wreck. We also learn that the producers have seemingly learned nothing from the previous debacle. They seem to think "the look" of the film is the magic bullet for success, despite the fact that the basic Randian absurdities highlighted by Greg in his great review below are the fundamental problems with the project - and that they get worse as the book progresses. In fact the producers seem to have doubled down on rather than diluted the Rand factor, with anachronistic phrases like "looters" and "moochers" now featuring prominently in the script.

In other words, no matter how much the Reason blurb-o-mat tries to talk it up, Pt 2 sounds a lot like Pt 1. Only worse.

The Shorter ARCHN: Chapter 2, "Theory of History"

A series of handy short summaries of the main arguments of ARCHN for those unfamiliar with the book. For more detail, you can read ARCHN online by clicking on the sidebar link

A utopian view of human nature such as Rand’s will inevitably lead to a utopian theory of history. Such a theory usually posits that man is inherently good, and that any evil he might have done throughout history is the result of some external factor. For Marx it was an unjust economic system, for Rousseau modernity itself; for Rand, the effect of bad philosophical ideas. If man had only possessed a truly rational philosophy, none of the horrors of the past need have taken place.

According to Objectivism, the most important issue in human existence is how man should use his consciousness. “In the life of man,” writes Leonard Peikoff, “epistemological, metaphysical, and moral ideas – which means: philosophical ideas – are the ruling power.” (OPAR, p451) Ultimately every decision a man makes reflects his fundamental philosophical views, and this naturally this thesis expands to cover all of history. But where do these views come from? Well, Rand believed that only a small part of the population takes the trouble to define their views through conscious deliberation; these are “the intellectuals,…the guides, the trend-setters…”, who are the “transmission belts…between philosophy and culture.” Through their own incompetence in the defense of reason, the intellectuals had lost sight of reason’s prime mover, Aristotle, and had submitted to the evil of Immanuel Kant and his destructive Critique. This resulted, ultimately, in the horrors of the 20th Century such as Soviet Gulags and the Nazi death camps.

How does Rand’s theory stack up against the facts? Since it is beyond the scope of “Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature” to empirically verify the causal factors of every period in history, three specific evidentiary claims made by Rand and her followers are examined.

1) Christianity is responsible for Dark Ages in Europe
2) The growth of statism in America is the byproduct of altruistic morality
3) German philosophy is responsible for the rise of Hitler and the Nazi death camps.

On examining 1), it turns out that as usual Rand and Peikoff provide little or no hard evidence for their contention, only a lot of vague insinuation and oratical exaggeration. It turns out that the Dark Ages are far more likely to have been the result of severe trade contraction due to the Islamic military stranglehold over Europe from 7th to the 9th centuries, combined with the Danish and Norwegian barbarians laying waste to much of the North and West, than the rise of Christian belief. Likewise, contra Peikoff’s claim that it was due to the rediscovery of Aristotle, the subsequent Renaissance can also be readily attributed to the retreat of these influences, and subsequent revival of trade and prosperity. Further, if, as Peikoff contends, the asceticism of Christianity was the decisive influence in society, we would expect to find such societies economically destitute and culturally stagnant. Yet this is quite false, as of course the Renaissance marks the apogee of Catholic Church’s dominance over Europe.

As to 2) we again find that this is undercut by a fundamental fallacy – that institutions such as governments are always the product of conscious moral design. In fact, we find the expansions of state power in America was largely brought about by unintended developments in the institutions of the Federal Government, especially Congress, such as ‘pork-barrelling’ and ‘log-rolling.’ These expansions of state power are arrangements that have little or nothing to do with ‘altruism’ or self-sacrifice, and everything to do with the exercise of politics for self-interest and mutual advantage.

Finally, turning to 3) we note once again that Peikoff offers no concrete evidence for this speculation. He is also simply incorrect in claiming Kant, and Hegel advocated “irrationality.” Some of their ideas may have been irrational, but this is hardly the same thing. Further, as the writings of the aforesaid are extremely vague, they are just as subject to the reverse interpretation – one could easily claim that they were responsible for the liberation of the death camps, so one be so inclined. It also appears that far from preaching abstruse doctrines of irrationalism, altruism and collectivism, much of the Nazi’s actually rather limited success came from standard demagoguery like “Freedom, Work, and Bread”, as well as capitalizing on the substantial underlying anti-Semitism that existed in Germany as it did in much of Europe. Even then this did not capture a majority for the Nazis, and Hitler’s subsequent ascent to Chancellor owed more to standard backstage political manoeuvering than the advocacy of any specific philosophical doctrines.

To conclude, it seems that the Randian historical narrative is merely an exaggerated romantic invention, which on examination turns out to be both shallow and factually inaccurate.

(Summary of "Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature" by Greg Nyquist, Chapter 2)

Hoisted from Comments:Rand's Contradictory Aesthetics

In the "Concepts In a Hat" thread, commenter Jonathan notes that Rand is talking through her hat in some of her pronouncements on aesthetic issues too:

Jonathan:
Objectivist aesthetic concepts "in a hat":

Concept #1:
Rand:"As a re-creation of reality, a work of art has to be representational; its freedom of stylization is limited by the requirement of intelligibility; if it does not present an intelligible subject, it ceases to be art."

Concept #2:
Rand:"Music is art even though it "cannot tell a story, it cannot deal with concretes, it cannot convey a specific existential phenomenon, such as a peaceful countryside or a stormy sea...even concepts which, intellectually, belong to a complex level of abstraction, such as 'peace,' 'revolution,' 'religion,' are too specific, too concrete to be expressed in music."

---

Concept #1:
Rand:"...an objective evaluation requires that one identify the artist's theme, the abstract meaning of his work (exclusively by identifying the evidence contained in the work and allowing no other, outside considerations), then evaluate the means by which he conveys it—i.e., taking his theme as criterion...until a conceptual vocabulary is discovered and defined, no objectively valid criterion of esthetic judgment is possible in the field of music..."

Concept #2:
Music is a legitimate art form, but abstract visual art is not.

---

Concept #1:
Rand:"Art is a selective re-creation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value-judgments...it serves no practical, material end, but is an end in itself; it serves no purpose other than contemplation... utilitarian objects cannot be classified as works of art."

Concept #2:
Rand: Architecture is an art form that "combines art with a utilitarian purpose and does not re-create reality."

Rand and Empirical Responsibility 3

Human beings have no innate tendencies. Instead of providing evidence for this assertion, Rand and her followers merely provides a couple of arguments. Let's briefly examine the two arguments.

Argument 1:

Do not hide behind the cowardly evasion that man is born with free will, but with a “tendency” to evil. A free will saddled with a tendency is like a game with loaded dice. It forces man to struggle through the effort of playing, to bear responsibility and pay for the game, but the decision is weighted in favor of a tendency that he had no power to escape. If the tendency is of his choice, he cannot possess it at birth; if it is not of his choice, his will is not free.

For nearly two-thousand years, men of thought, under the influence of Plato and Aristotle, attempted to determine matters of fact with rationalistic arguments like the one Rand provides above. It's the method Plato used to assert that the orbits of planets were circular; it was the method Hegel used to assert that the solar system can feature only seven planets; it was the method behind the practice of bleeding people when they were sick; it is the method that Augustine used to deny the existence of antipodes: it is a method that has been thoroughly discredited by modern science. Matters of fact simply cannot be determined in this way. No credible scientist would ever be taken seriously if he tried to establish some controversial matter of fact using the method Rand resorts to above.

Argument 2: I'm not aware that Rand ever made this argument, but it has been made by some of her followers, and it is based on Randian constructs:

• Premise 1: A tendency to behave in a certain way is ultimately an automated value judgment
• Premise 2: Value judgments are ideas
• Premise 3: Innate ideas are impossible
• Premise 4: An innate tendency would be an innate idea
• Conclusion: Innate tendencies are impossible
  

The problem with this argument (besides its excessive rationalism) is that the first three premises involve controversial assertions about matters of fact which can only be settled by a detailed (meaning: scientific) examination of the relevant facts. If Rand and her followers want to be taken seriously on these points, they must (1) provide detailed evidence that there assertions are true; and (2) they must explain why the evidence provided on the opposite side of the issue by geneticists and evolutionary biologists is either irrelevant or false. Until Objectivists get around to doing this, no rational person need take their assertions on these matters seriously.

Rand and Aesthetics 9

"Byronic" Romanticism. With Rand's division of free will into two parts, one pertaining to consciousness and the other to existence, she proceeds to develop a second category of Romanticism:

There are Romanticists whose basic premise, in effect, is that man possesses volition in regard to consciousness, but not to existence, i.e., in regard to his own character and choice of values, but not in regard to the possibility of achieving his goals in the physical world. The distinguishing characteristics of such writers are grand-scale themes and characters, no plots and an overwhelming sense of tragedy, the sense of a “malevolent universe.” The chief exponents of this category were poets. The leading one is Byron, whose name has been attached to this particular, “Byronic,” view of existence: its essence is the belief that man must lead a heroic life and fight for his values even though he is doomed to defeat by a malevolent fate over which he has no control.

The problem with this category is (1) the vagueness of its terms, and (2) lack of specific examples. Because of these two issues, it's difficult to determine where this category is applicable. Keep in mind that, initially, Rand claimed that Romanticism could be distinguished from Naturalism through the literary device of a plot. But here we have a type of Romaticism that is plotless. So how does one distinguish Byronic Romanticism from Naturalism?

The Byronic Romantics, Rand tells us, adopt grand-scale themes and characters. Yet so does Shakespeare in his tragedies. Why is Shakespeare not a Byronic Romantic? Rand's attempt to use the issue of volition-orientation to analyze literature again demonstrates the futility of viewing narrative works through this particular prism. Except in extreme cases (e.g., Zola for instance, who is explicit in his determinism), the issue of volition versus determinism is not applicable to literature. Most serious novelists and dramatists seek to create characters and narratives that are believable. Whether their characters are "grand-scale" or not, they are nonetheless drawn in the hope of being compelling and believable manifestations of human nature. And why should any believable representation of human nature be equated with determinism?

Curiously, Rand's equation of "journalistic" descriptions of human beings with "Naturalism" implies that a scrupulously realistic portrayal of human nature supports determinism. Why should this be so? Most likely, Rand would have tried to circumvent this troublesome implication by drawing on her selectivity principle. Yet this merely demonstrates the poverty of Rand's selectivity principle. If you are determined to over-interpret a work of art, you can read anything into it that you like. But in criticism and aesthetics, the purpose is not to over-interpret works of literature, but to appreciate and enjoy them.

When analyzed carefully, most of Rand's aesthetic categories become entirely unconvincing. Under Rand's conceptual schema, there is (generaly speaking) no way really to distinguish between Romantic and Naturalist literature, beyond recourse to Rand's own statements about a handful of specific authors. We know that Dostoevksy and Conrad are Romantics, because Rand said they are. And we know that Shakespeare and Balzac are Naturalists for the same reason. But if Rand had said nothing about these authors, would we have been able to place them "correctly" in her contrived categories? And what about all those authors Rand never mentions? What of Thomas Hardy, Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, Dickens, Fielding, Richardson, D. H. Lawrence, George Eliot, Henry James, Mark Twain? English literature is particularly difficult to place in Rand's categories, because it tends to be so moralistic, and moralism implies volition. Yet "grand-scale" characters are not especially pentiful within the confines of the English novel.

In discussing Byronism, Rand is able to provide only one example -- that of Byron himself. She notes that "the chief exponents of this category were poets," yet refuses to name any of these poets other than the aforementioned Byron. This is a typical failing throughout Rand's philosophical writings: a failure to provide specific examples so that her readers could better evaluate her contentions. This failure suggests one of three possibilities:

(1) Rand was not familiar enough with those authors to evaluate them (meaning she hadn't read them)
(2) Those authors don't fit into her categories, so she ignored them
(3) Combination of one and two


If (1) is true, then we have to question whether Rand is even qualified to make aesthetic pronouncements on literature; and if (2) is true, then we have to question the utility of her categorizations (since if they are not applicable to most literature, what good are they?). In any case, Rand's attempt to devise aesthetic categories based on volition through which to evaluate literature are so poorly thought out that it raises suspicions of the whole thing being a ruse by which Rand could justify her personal tastes in serious literature. For, as it turns out, Rand's favorite serious authors and serious novels all turn out to be among the most consistent exemplars of Romanticism!

Objectivism & Religion, Part 4

The Role of Myth. In my last post, I briefly analyzed some of the issues dealing with trying to determine how religious beliefs affect individual conduct. There is a common assumption, shared by both pro and anti-religious individuals, that conduct is merely a logical application of doctrine, so that if people hold irrational convictions or pursue imaginary goals, their behavior will be unsuccessful. Since there exist plenty of examples of people holding irrational convictions or pursuing imaginary goals who have not come to grief, theories need to be developed to explain the anomaly.

One possible explanation is that people pursuing irrational and/or imaginary goals are hypocrites. They say one thing and wind up doing something else. This may in fact be true in some instance, or even many instances, but it’s not true in all instances, as a candid examination of history will show. Enlightenment historians, for example, believed that Oliver Cromwell must have been hypocrite. How else could a religious zealot like Cromwell possibly have been so successful as a leader? Yet later historians, after examining the documentary evidence in detail, have found no reason to believe the Cromwell ever was a hypocrite.

Another possible explanation for this anomaly of imaginary goals leading to satisfactory results makes a distinction between motivational rationality and functional rationality. By aiming at an imaginary goal an individual might achieve real utility. Some religions, for example, believe that water can purify the individual from sin. So if, in pursuit of “purificaiton,” the religious enthusiast zealously washes himself, he gains something of real utility: cleanliness. After all, you can’t expect primitive peoples to understand germs. How, then, is the primitive or non-rational, unsophisticated individual to be persuaded to wash? Nothing works better than convince him that washing purifies him from sin or makes him holy in the sight of God. Through an imaginary goal this individual is persuaded to act in his own best interest.

The idea that imaginary goals can be used to motivate individuals to attain individual and social utility was developed into a sophisticated sociological theory by French syndicalist Georges Sorel and Italian sociologist Vilfredo Pareto as the theory of myths. As Pareto explained:

[It] is commonly recognized ... that enthusiastic derivations are better calculated than cold reasoning to influence human conduct…. The capacity for influencing human conduct [by] derivations that overstep experience and reality throws light upon a phenomenon that has been well observed and analyzed by Georges Sorel, the fact, namely that if a social doctrine (it would be more exact to say the sentiments manifested by a social doctrine) is to have any influence, it has to take the form of a “myth.” To restate in that language an observation that we have many times made, we may say that the social value of a doctrine, or of the sentiments which it expresses, is not to be judged extrinsically by the mythical form that it assumes (they assume), which is only its means (their means) of action, but intrinsically by the results that it achieves (they achieve)….

In other words, it is not what people say or believe that is of the most importance, it is what they do, how they act, what they accomplish. If they can accomplish useful ends through irrational means, this refutes the Randian prejudice against non-logical action. Pareto continues:

If we consider history as a whole it is at once apparent that … acts which have ideal goals, T, or are performed as if they had, must also in many cases achieve results that show a gain in individual and social utility… In point of fact, non-logical actions are still very numerous and still very important in our time; and they were far more so in times past. The impellent of many such actions, the ideal, T, at which they aim, is stated in theological, metaphysical, and like derivations; while the practical purpose of human beings is the welfare and prosperity of themselves and their societies. If the two goals were antithetical, if the person aiming at the ideal, T, never attained practical benefits, it would never have been possible for societies that have made such great efforts to attain T to subsist and prosper…. If, in almost all cases, things had gone [badly], if, that is, in striving for T people had always reached [a worse position], human societies would have to show a continuous decline. That has not been the case, and the hypothesis must therefore be abandoned. [∞1868, ∞1874]

In other words, people aiming at imaginary goals have frequently attained real advantages. If this were not so, it would be impossible for any society holding imaginary goals to have advanced. And, as future posts will demonstrate, that clearly has not been the case. Societies have advanced despite holding imaginary goals—sometimes, even, because of those imaginary goals.

Now the Objectivist argument against religion, if reduced to the broadest essentials, goes something like the following:

(1) A man’s convictions determine his behavior.
(2) Irrational convictions inevitably lead to harmful behavior.
(3) Religious convictions are irrational.
(4) Therefore religious convictions lead to harmful behavior.

Even if 3 is correct, the conclusion doesn’t follow, because 1 and 2 are false. If, instead of worrying about whether our views accord with those of Rand and her orthodox followers, we concentrate on the evidence of history, the above argument should be reformulated as follows:

(1) There exists no necessary logical connection between a man’s convictions and his behavior.
(2) Non-rational action sometimes lead to beneficial consequences.
(3) Religious convictions that are non-rational sometimes (though not always!) lead to functionally rational (i.e. beneficial) ends.
(4) Therefore religious convictions don’t always lead to harmful behavior.

The key notion behind this analysis is the idea of the importance of non-logical action. I have often contended that Rand’s view of human nature constitutes her greatest error. An important component to Rand’s view is her simple-minded notion that, since reason is man’s only means of survival, non-logical action (that is, conduct based on non-rational convictions) will generally be harmful to individuals and society. This Objectivist view, however, does not accord with the facts as they have been gathered by anthropologists, sociologists, and historians. The majority of human beings are not, nor can they be, fully rational. Nor is a man’s conduct a logical extension of his ideas. Christian conduct is not a logical extension of Christian doctrine. Why should anyone assume such a thing? The very fact that an individual would choose non-rational doctrines should put us on guard against assuming that he’s going to guide his conduct from logical inferences from those non-rational premises. Hence the need for a new way of explaining the relationship between doctrine and conduct: a way that accords with what we actually find in reality, rather than in the assumptions of speculative philosophy. The theory of myth recognizes that human beings are not, in the main “logical,” and that to motivate them to engage in the action necessary for their own and their society's survival and well-being one must sometimes appeal, not to their reason, which is weak and unreliable, but to their sentiments, their emotions, their psychological states. Hence the utility of myth.

The Cognitive Revolution & Objectivism, Part 10

Intuition and tacit knowledge, part 2. In the last Cognitive Revolution post, I introduced Oakeshott's two forms of knowledge, the technical and the practical. Technical knowledge is consciously formalized rationalistic knowledge, while practical knowledge is largely unconscious, inarticulable, and not easily amenable to "reason." Oakeshott's theory about practical knowledge, if true, creates problems for Rand, whose foundationalism requires that all knowledge claims be explicitly justified in terms of articulable, reason-based arguments. Now we shall examine the evidence that can be brought forth to defend Oakeshott's claim. The evidence can be divided into two parts: (1) Evidence from everyday life; (2) Evidence from cognitive science.

(1) Evidence from everyday life. Such evidence is abundant and overwhelming—assuming one has enough wit to notice it. Oakeshott himself gives the example of the master chef and the cookbook. Let us assume that a master chef has made recipes of all his best dishes and put them in a cookbook. Would it be possible to duplicate the results of the master chef simply by following the recipes in the cookbook? No, of course not. If that were true, anyone could become a master chef merely by following the recipes of a master chef. It is widely recognized that in cookery, along with other complex endeavors, expertise is necessary. What qualifies one as an expert? Beyond a simple competence/intelligence, what is required is long experience within the given domain of experience in which one is an expert.

Another compelling example of practical knowledge is grammar. Consider what the sociologist Vilfredo Pareto has to contribute on the subject:

It would be absurd to claim that the theory of grammar preceded the practice of speech. It certainly followed, and human beings have created the most subtle grammatical structures without any [conscious, technical] knowledge of it. Take the Greek language as an example. We cannot imagine that the Greeks one day got together and decided what their system of conjugation was to be. Usage alone made such a masterpiece of the Greek verb. In Attic Greek there is the augment, which is the sign of the past in historical tenses; and, for a very subtle nuance, beside the syllabic augment, there is the temporal augment, which consists in a lengthening of the initial vowel. The conception of aorist, and its functions in syntax, are inventions that would do credit to the most expert logician. The large number of verbal forms and the exactness of their functions in syntax constitute a marvelous whole. [Mind and Society, §158]

Grammatical knowledge is interesting precisely because it is developed in young children who could never have grasped it explicitly, through the means of articulated, formalized rules. The practical knowledge of grammar thus precedes the technical knowledge of this domain, which flies in the face of Rand's view of automatized knowledge, with its orientation toward the primacy of technical knowledge view.

(2) Evidence from Cognitive Science. but if the evidence from common experience is not sufficient to convince the incorrigible skeptic-rationalist, then we have evidence from cognitive science as well. Robin Hogarth has a very interesting article on intuition which draws heavily on cogsci research. Hogarth distinguishes two modes of judgment, the tacit (or intuitive) and the deliberative (analytical). These two modes are analogous, though not identical, to Oakeshott's practical and technical knowledge. (The main difference is that Hogarth's tacit knowledge is a wider conception that Oakeshott's practical knowledge—i.e., practical knowledge is a kind of tacit knowledge.)

Oakeshott claims that "practical knowledge can neither be taught nor learned, but only imparted and acquired." This suggests that practical knowledge is learned without us realizing how we learn it, that it is learned unconsciously. Hogarth's tacit knowledge is learned (in part) in a similar manner (i.e., unconsciously). According to Hogarth, "information about stimuli are recorded without conscious awareness and stored for possible future use. This very basic process is at the heart of tacit learning and the accumulation of facts and frequencies that has now been so well documented in the literature. It requires neither effort nor intention and, yet, the information stored can be subsequently recalled when needed, even for tasks we would have never imagined."

Oakeshott also insists that practical and technical knowledge work hand in hand. Hogarth buttresses this view by noting that "it is important to emphasize that in many cases the deliberate response will be influenced by the tacit response and all that precedes it. In other words, people will always have some tacit response (however minimal) to any triggering event."

Oakeshott also emphasizes the importance "connoisseurship" and mastership through experience—in other words, what cognitive scientists call "expertise." Here's what Hogarth has to contribute about expertise:

There have been many studies of expertise. From our perspective, there are several key findings. First, expertise is limited to domains and is only acquired through exposure to and activity within specific domains. Thus, because someone is an expert in one domain (e.g., chess) does not mean that she will be an expert in another domain (e.g., medicine) unless she has also had considerable experience in the latter. Second, outstanding performance in any domain takes years of dedication. Moreover, high performers have typically followed demanding regimes of deliberate practice and benefited from good teachers. Third, there is – curiously – less relation between expertise and predictive ability in many areas of activity than one might imagine. However, this finding may be more indicative of the nature of the uncertain environments in which experts operate than due to a lack of “expertise” per se. Consider, for example, the random nature of movements of the stock market. Fourth, experts and novices process information in different ways. Experts acquire habits that allow them to process more information than novices. They learn, for example, how to counteract limitations in short-term memory and to “chunk” information more effectively. They also use different problem-solving strategies. Novices tend first to identify a specific goal and then work backward through the details to determine a solution – making much use of deliberate thinking. Experts, on the other hand, rely more on tacit processes. They tend first to take in the details of the problems they face, and then determine (by recognizing patterns and similarities) a general framework that allows them to explore possible solutions. Not surprisingly, experts solve problems faster than novices.

This pretty much matches Oakeshott's view, particularly the assertion that "experts acquire habits that allow them to process more information than novices." Such habits are precisely what Oakeshott is referring to when he talks about practical knowledge.

Hogarth has another interesting comment to make on tacit knowledge which could help explain its importance in human cognition. He notes that

Attention in consciousness is limited and therefore costly. In the framework, I assume a scarce resource principle. The key idea is that because the deliberate system consumes limited resources, it is used sparingly. It is allocated to tasks that are deemed important at given moments but can be switched to other tasks as the situation demands. It is rarely “shut down” completely and often has a monitoring function. In most cases, the tacit system is our “default” and the deliberate system is invoked when either the tacit system cannot solve the problem at hand or the organism is making some conscious decision (for example, planning what to do).

I would also note, in conclusion, what we have discovered in previous Cognitive Revolution posts: namely, that "unconscious thought is 95 percent of all thought" and that "nearly all important thinking takes place outside of consciousness and is not available on introspection." Hogarth's scarce resource principle helps explain this fact about the dominance of the unconscious in thought. Yet there is another principle which can be added to this that is part of my own theory. It is well known (even Rand admits) that conscious attention is limited: only so much can be attained in consciousness at any one given moment. The practical effect of this is that consciousness is not very well equipped to handle complexity. Since it is very difficult to hold in memory all the factors in a complex situation, the attempt to understand complexity through deliberate conscious reasoning easily breaks down. Hence I conjecture that unconscious thinking is required for human beings to grasp complexity and nuance. Since the unconscious has access to everything in the brain, included all memories, whether received consciously or not, it can form intuitive inferences that are cognitively far more powerful than what the mere conscious can do.

Any philosophy which, like Rand, glorifies and accentuates conscious deliberate thinking at the expense of originative unconscious intuition, vastly underestimates the cognitive capabilities of man's mind.

Objectivism & History, Part 2

Metaphysical presuppositions 1. In the Epilgue to Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, we find the following curious assertion:

Philosophy is not the only cause of the course of the centuries. It is the ultimate cause, the cause of all the other causes. If there is to be an explanation of so vast a sum as human history, which involves all men in all fields, only the science dealing with the widest abstractions can provide it. The reason is that only the widest abstractions can integrate all those fields.

One of goals of philosophical criticism is to investigate the various implications of a given theory. Often the deviser of the theory is not aware of these implications and may not even endorse them. But they are there nonetheless. Now this passage contains one very odd metaphysical implications which, to further complicate matters, is expressed as a conditional. Peikoff writes “If there is to be an explanation of so vast a sum…” This suggests the possibility that there may not be an explanation. It also produces a dichotomy which gives but two choices: (1) Philosophy is the “ultimate” explanation of history; (2) or there is no explanation of history. Since most people (and all Objectivists) would be loathe to accept (2), the first solution wins by default.

There is another way of approaching this subject that allows us to escape the false dichotomy introduced, via implication, by Peikoff. Consider, as a point of contrast, what Herr Nietzsche has to say on the subject of “wide abstractions”:

The other idiosyncrasy of the philosophers is no less dangerous; it consists in confusing the last and the first. They place that which comes at the end—unfortunately! for it ought not to come at all!—namely, the “highest concepts,” which means the most general, the emptiest concepts, the last smoke of evaporating reality, in the beginning, as the beginning…. Moral: whatever is of the first rank must be causa sui… That which is last, thinnest, emptiest is put first, as the cause...

Now Nietzche’s target in this passage is, of course, the wretched ontological argument for God (with a few digs at the cosmological argument thrown in for good measure); yet the extent to which it can be applied to the Objectivist philosophy of history is quite extraordinary—a demonstration of the close kinship between theology and metaphysics. Philosophy, asserts Peikoff, because it deals with the widest abstractions, must be the “ultimate” cause (where ultimate cause = causa sui). Yet is this really true? Do wider concepts really have more explanatory power? Do they really tell us more about reality? Existence is one of the widest concepts of all. What does it explain? Nothing. It is merely descriptive of some entity, object or quality.

The main problem with wide abstractions is that they miss details that are often of great importance to understanding something as complex as history. This is why Nietzsche ridicules “high” or “general” concepts for being “empty” and “the last smoke of evaporating reality.” By including everything, a wide abstraction ends up including nothing. This provides ample room for equivocation, so that the resourceful metaphysician may deduce anything he damn pleases from his general concepts.

Note the equivocation in the Peikoff’s argument. Peikoff does not deny that there are other causes to history: economic, political, sociological, what have you. He merely denies that they are “primaries.” Philosophy, by virtue of the fact that it deals with “wider” abstractions than politics, economics, subsumes (or, if you prefer, “integrates”) these narrower fields, and is therefore the “ultimate” cause of history.

It is wonderful what can be done, polemically, with this equivocation. If the critic complains that Peikoff denies the role that economics or politics or sociology play in history, the Objectivist apologist can claim: “No, Peikoff does not deny a role to these other things.” But when the critic attempts to find out what the role of these other elements actually is, he finds them conveniently subsumed under philosophy as the “ultimate” cause. With the right hand Peikoff giveth; with the left he taketh back.

Objectivism & Politics, Part 43

Individual Rights 2: Rand’s theory examined. Rand introduces her theory of individual rights as follows:

The source of man’s rights is not divine law or congressional law, but the law of identity. A is A—and Man is Man. Rights are conditions of existence required by man’s nature for his proper survival. If man is to live on earth, it is right for him to use his mind, it is right to act on his own free judgment, it is right to work for his values and to keep the product of his work. If life on earth is his purpose, he has a right to live as a rational being: nature forbids him the irrational. Any group, any gang, any nation that attempts to negate man’s rights, is wrong, which means: is evil, which means: is anti-life.

Rand gets off to rather poor start in her argument. She claims that the source of rights is “the law of identity.” “A is A—and Man is Man.” She might as well have just said The source of rights is the way things are, for that’s what all this pretentious talk about rights stemming from the law of identity amounts to in the end. Rand here commits the error of begging the question. What we need is compelling evidence that man’s rights do in fact stem from the way things are, not merely the assertion that this is so!

Next we are confronted with an even more mystifying assertion: “Rights are conditions of existence required by man’s nature for his proper survival.” Now what could Rand possibly mean by this? She comes perilously close to suggesting that rights are requisites of man’s survival, but she evades this palpably absurd conclusion by specifying merely that rights are necessary for a “proper” survival. Now what is this “proper” survival, and how is it distinguished from an improper survival? She intentionally says nothing about this, leaving plenty of wiggle room so that she can easily use the ambiguity to equivocate to any conclusion she pleases.

In the next sentence, Rand merely repeats what she said before, except now she has placed it in a conditional: if man is to live on earth, then, she claims, it is right for him to use his mind, act on his free judgment, work for his values, and keep the product of his work. Yet again, this is not an argument, it’s a merely a vague assertion. Even worse, Rand is once again implying the absurd conclusion that rights are necessary to life.

She offers a second conditional which again implies an absurdity: “if life is man’s purpose,” she argues, “he has a right to live as rational being.” The argument, among other things, seems (perhaps unwittingly) to suggest that a purpose bestows a right. It is not clear at all how this can be so. The fact that I have a purpose in no way grants me a right. Not in the least; I only have those rights which have arisen in the society I live in, regardless of what I might wish or purpose. Most individuals, taken on their own resources alone, have no control over the legal structures that exist where they are born. If you are born in North Korea, you have no rights, regardless of what purposes you might have.

Although Rand’s rhetoric is confusing, what she seems to be attempting to argue is something along the following lines: (1) that in order to live, men must be “rational”; (2) that rights are necessary in order to be rational; (3) that, therefore, rights are necessary in order to live.

If by rationality we mean deliberate, conscious thinking guided by “logic,” premise (1) is almost certainly false. Human beings, as cognitive science has shown, are governed to a considerable extent by the cognitive unconscious, which can hardly be described as “rational.” Premise (2) is deeply problematic. The rationale behind it is the idea that, unless an individual is free, he cannot follow the dictates of his mind. But this assumes that the political alternatives facing mankind are either a complete and total subjugation of the individual on the one side or a complete freedom on the other side. In the real world, it doesn’t work like that. Even a slave has some room for initiative and rationality, and a citizen in a welfare state has a great deal more. So Rand’s argument breaks down completely, which is just as well, because the conclusion is, as I have already noted, absurd. Sorry, but rights are not necessary for life. If men could not survive without rights, the human race would have disappeared long ago.

We next find Rand repeating her oft-stated maxim that “nature forbids [man] the irrational.” What does Rand mean by the “irrational.” Can any Objectivist describe what she means without begging the question? For it clearly won’t do to say: “the irrational is anything contrary reason,” because that just leaves us with the difficulty of describing what “reason” is. To the extent that any empirical meaning can be drawn from this statement at all, it appears to be, at the very best, an exaggeration. If by “irrational” we include “non-logical conduct,” the statement is clearly false, as human beings have been practicing non-logical conduct for centuries without Dame Nature once stepping in to forbid it. Indeed, it would be impossible to bring every aspect of human existence under the exclusive domain of logical conduct, since logic breaks down whenever faced with any great complexity or uncertainty. In a pinch, intuition or trial and error or following an established usage may prove more useful than “reason.”

Rand concludes by asserting, again without offering a shred of evidence or proof, that any group that denies man’s rights “is wrong, which means: is evil, which means: is anti-life.” Once more, we are confronted with a frustrating vagueness in which Rand seems to equivocate between saying something that is clearly contrary to the facts or that is banal. Does she really want us to believe that a denial of “man’s rights” leads to death? Throughout most of human history, most human beings have had virtually no rights at all. Many have been little better than slaves or peasants. Yet somehow the human race has managed to survive, in the very teeth of Rand’s anathema. So what does Rand mean by claiming that a denial of rights is anti-life? She means only this: that she doesn’t like it! Sorry, but that’s not a good argument. Even if you could (per impossible) change society through argumentation, you would never get anywhere with arguments as bad as these!

Saving The Appearances 2: Notes on Cultism in "The Logical Leap"

If "The Logical Leap" is a Rand-cult book, we should expect it to conform strictly to the Prime Directive of cultism: that the Ayn Rand is the greatest individual that ever lived. Rand-cult books like James Valliant's "The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics" are written to promote the moral supremacy of Ayn Rand; "The Logical Leap" to promote her intellectual and philosophical supremacy.

However just as the insurmountable conflicts between the Prime Directive and reality forced Valliant's book into sycophantic absurdity, this case presents enormous problems for the true believer. For unlike the problem of universals, or the "is/ought" problem, which Rand claimed to have solved (even though it seems that she neither solved, nor even understood them), with the problem of induction she is on record as stating she had not solved it, and had not even begun to do so.

Ayn Rand & Human Nature 23

Rand's arguments against innate predispositions. As far as I can make out, Rand made two arguments against innate predispositions: (1) argument from free will; and (2) the argument from innate ideas. Each argument is forced and will only convince die hard Objectivists. The sort of "reasoning" Rand employs is precisely of the sort employed in rationalization: which is to say, the conclusion of the argument has been determined ahead of time; there was never any chance of Rand concluding, from the weakness of her arguments or the absence of evidence, that she was wrong.

(1) Argument from free will. The argument appears in Galt's Speech:

Do not hide behind the cowardly evasion that man is born with free will, but with a “tendency” to evil. A free will saddled with a tendency is like a game with loaded dice. It forces man to struggle through the effort of playing, to bear responsibility and pay for the game, but the decision is weighted in favor of a tendency that he had no power to escape. If the tendency is of his choice, he cannot possess it at birth; if it is not of his choice, his will is not free. 

While this is directed against a specific set of tendencies (i.e., "tendency" to evil), it (presumably) is meant to apply to all tendencies. Like so many arguments in Objectivism, it tacitly assumes premises which are either contrary to experience or inconsistent with Objectivism's general outlook. The argument equates free will with the ability to choose. If something cannot be chosen, the will can't be regarded as free. Since an innate proclivity cannot be chosen, Rand's argument, if it were consisently applied, would over-rule all such proclivities. Human beings, for example, will experience hunger if they have not eaten in a long time. This tendency is almost certainly innate: so why doesn't it abrogate free will? A man does not choose to be hungry; it is a hardwired feature which he is born with. Nonetheless, no Objectivist would argue that hunger for food is contrary to free will. Yet if a man experienced a hunger for status and if this hunger was assumed to be innate, this would be considered contrary to free will!

Future of Objectivism 1

Intro. Having gone through most of the official philosophy of Objectivism, we can now turn our attention to some of the cultural and sociological aspects of the Objectivism movements. There are two major challenges to making prognostications about the future of Objectivism: (1) the future is inherently unpredictable; and (2) lack of sociological data about Objectivism. For these two reasons what is put forth in this series will be highly conjectural. We'll be dealing with possibilities, not facts, questions, not answers.

Throughout I will be operating on several assumptions:

(1) That Objectivism does not exist in a vacuum. What goes on in society and the world will affect the future course of Objectivism. We saw this on a small scale in 2008, with the financial meltdown followed by Obama's election. These events caused sales of Atlas Shrugged to increase. One can imagine scenarios which could potentially decrease interest in Ayn Rand: for example, major attacks on USA involving weapons of mass destruction, catastrophic climate change, collapse of democratic government in America.

(2) That the political allegiances are rarely made based on purely "rational" reasons. Nearly everyone has ingrained biases, some of them rooted in genetics, others in life experiences, which influences political beliefs. Consequently, it is very difficult to get people to change their political beliefs via argumentation. It rarely happens.

(3) That factionalism is a built-in feature of society. The elites of society are involved in a battle for status and pre-eminence. Non-elites will tend to attach themselves to whichever party of elites best furthers their interests and satisfies their sentiments. The competitive nature of society means that people have no choice but to join forces with like-minded individuals. The few mavericks who refuse join one of the major factions remain isolated and powerless, without a voice within the governing factions.

(4) That the Objectivist movement requires an authority figure to settle inevitable disputes. Since Ayn Rand's "reason" is a myth (there's no such method), and since the Objectivist ethics is a bit vague (lacking, as Nathanial Branden has noted, a "technology"), there exists no sure-fire way of settling the inevitable disputes that arise among various Objectivists in a rational, "objective" manner. Only by having an authority respected by all members of the group can meddlesome issues be arbitrated.

Objectivism & Politics, Part 10

Philosophy as derivation 1: Kant’s Ethics. In my last “Objectivism and Politics” post, I introduced Pareto’s theory of residues and derivations as an explanation for non-empirical theories. When an individual, either out of ignorance or arrogance, refuses to keep in touch with reality, his thoughts have no other guide than his own emotions, sentiments, inclinations, etc. Since the emotional element is the prime determinant in all non-empirical thinking, Pareto called this element the residues. The less important element, the resulting theory, Pareto called derivations.

Now since most of what passes for philosophy is built largely on non-empirical speculation, this means that most philosophy must be regarded as a mere derivation. If this is true, then the Objectivist contention that “Philosophy shapes a nation’s political system” must be inaccurate. How can philosophy, which, as a mere derivation, is a secondary phenomenon, shape a nation’s political system? Obviously, if Pareto is correct, the role of philosophy in shaping a nation’s politics must take a backseat to other elements, such as the congenital sentiments and interests of human beings.

What reasons do we have for thinking that Pareto is correct and Rand and her disciples wrong on this issue? There are any number of reasons for siding with Pareto on this issue, not the least of which is the empirically irresponsible nature of much that passes for philosophy. Remember, if our thoughts are not guided by facts and experience, then they almost certainly will be guided by our sentiments. And when our sentiments bring forth our thoughts, we are rationalizing.

Pareto, in his massive Mind and Society, analyzed one theory after another, demonstrating how most non-empirical theories can only be accounted for as derivations from sentiment. At one point, he discusses the ethical theories of the philosopher Rand held responsible for the worst evils of the modern age, Immanual Kant. Pareto demonstrates clearly the rationalistic, even childish character of Kant’s principle ethical theory:

Famous is the metaphysical entity imagined by Kant and still admired by many good souls. It is called the categorical imperative, and there are plenty of people who pretend to know what it is, though they can never make it clear to anyone who insists on remaining in touch with reality. Kant’s formula reconciles, as usual, the egoistic with the altruistic principle, which is here represented by “universal law,” a notion pleasantly coddling to sentiments of equality, sociality, and democracy. Many people have accepted Kant’s formula in order to retain their customary morality and yet be free of the necessity of having it dependent upon a personified deity. Of course, morality may be made to depend upon Jupiter, upon the God of the Christians, upon the God of Mohammed, upon the will of that most estimable demoiselle Milady Nature, or upon Seine Hoheit the Categorical Imperative of Kant. Whatever it is, it is all the same thing. Kant gives still another form to his phrase, to wit: “Act as if the maxim of your conduct were to become, by your will, a universal law of nature.” A customary trait in all such formulae is that they are so vague in meaning that one can get out of them anything one chooses. And for that reason it would have been a great saving of breath to say, “Act in a way pleasing to Kant or his disciples,” for “universal law” will in the end be dispensed with anyhow.

The first question that comes into one’s mind as one tries to get some definite meaning into the terms of Kant’s formula is whether (1) the “universal law” is dependent upon some condition; or (2) whether it is unrestricted by any condition of any kind. In other words, can the law be stated in either of the follow ways? 1. Every individual who has the traits M ought to act in a certain manner. 2. Every individual, regardless of his traits, ought to act in a certain matter.

If the first form of the statement be adopted, the law itself means nothing, and the problem then is to determine which traits M it is permissible to consider; for if the choice of traits is left to the person who is to observe the law, he will always find a way to select traits to allow him to do exactly as he chooses without violating the law. If he wants to justify slavery, he will say with Aristotle that some men are born to command (among them, of course, the gentlemen who is interpreting the law) and other men are born to obey. If he wants to steal, he will say that it may very well be a universal law that he who has less should take from him who has more. If he wants to kill an enemy he will say revenge can easily be a universal law; and so on.

To judge by the first application that Kant makes of his principle, he would seem to reject that interpretation. Making no distinctions between individuals, he concludes that suicide could not be a universal law of nature.

So let us look at the second interpretation (where no distinctions or limitations in individuals are recognized). Kant’s reasoning might seem able to stand after a fashion. But there is another trouble with it. Before it could stand, the whole human race would have to constitute one homogeneous mass, without the least differentiation in the functions of individuals. If distinctions are admitted, it is possible for some men to command and others to obey; but not if distinctions are not admitted, for there can be no universal law that all men should command and no one obey. A man wants to spend his life studying mathematics. If distinctions are in order, he may do so without violating the Kantian law, since it may well be a universal law that a person possessing certain traits M should spend his life studying mathematics, and that a person not possessing those traits should till the soil or otherwise employee himself. But if distinctions are not allowed, if, as in the case of the suicide, one refuses to divide individuals into classes, there can be no universal law that all men should spend their lives studying mathematics, if for no other reason, for the very good reason that they would starve… Such implications are not noticed, because people reason on sentiments and not with the facts before their eyes.

As metaphysicists habitually do, after giving what he says is to be a single principle, Kant begins filling out with other principles, which come bobbing up no one knows from where. In a third case that he considers, still another individual “finds himself possessed of certain powers of mind [Those are qualifications, conditions. Why were they not mentioned in the case of the presumptive suicide? Why was it not said in his case, “A person finds himself possessed of a certain nature whereby life for him is a painful burden and not a pleasure”?] which, with some slight culture, might render him a highly useful member of society; but he is in easy circumstances and prefers amusement to the thankless toil of cultivating his understanding and perfecting his nature.” Kant wants to know whether the latter can be a universal law. The answer is in the affirmative: … “It is impossible for any one to will that such should become a universal law of nature, or were by an instinct implanted in his system [The formula does not mention any such “instinct.”]; for he, as [an] Intelligent [being], of necessity wills all his faculties to become developed, such being given him in order that they may subserve his various and manifold ends and purposes.” Here we have a principle altogether new: that certain things are given us (no one knows by whom) for certain ends and purposes.

In order to reason in that fashion one would have to modify the terms in Kant’s formula and say: “Act only on a maxim that it would be your will at the same time to have become a universal law. However, do not let yourself be deceived by the possessive ‘your.’ To say ‘your will’ is just my way of saying. In reality it is something that must necessarily exist in a man, full account being taken of the capacities with which he is endowed, of his designs and purposes, and of many other fine things that will be explained to you at the proper time and place.” That much granted, one might just as well, from the logico-experimental standpoint, do away with “will” altogether, for it is thrown overboard in any event. But not so from the standpoint of sentiment. The appeal to “will” serves the purpose of flattering egoistic sentiments and giving the hearer or reader the satisfaction of having it reconciled with his sentiments of altruism. And other sentiments are also stirred by the maxim of “universal law”: first, a feeling of satisfaction that there should be be an absolute norm which is superior to captious wranglings and petty human altercations—something established by Nature; and then that sum of sentiments whereby we vaguely sense the utility of the principle that the decisions of judges should be made with reference to such rules and not against or in favor of any given individual…

Theologians scan the heavens for the will of God, and Kant for the will of Nature. There is no escaping such speculations, which are as alluring as they are difficult and imaginary. “As regards the natural constitution of an organized being,” says Kant, “a being, that is, that has been constituted with the view to living, it is a fundamental position in all philosophy that no means are employed except those only that are most appropriate and conducive to the end and aim proposed. [A reminiscence of the time-honored theory of final causes.] If then the final aim of nature [What on earth can that be?] in the constitution of man (i.e., a being endowed with intelligence and will) had been merely his general welfare and felicity [These are arbitrary assertions about arbitrary purposes and intentions of an arbitrary entity.], then we must hold her to have taken very bad steps indeed in selecting reason for the conduct of life.”

This whole argument develops by arbitrary assertions relating to altogether fantastic things. The only word to describe it is childish; and yet many people have accepted it and many still do, and it is therefore evident that with them it can only be a matter of sentiments that are agreeably stimulated by that sort of metaphysical poetry. [§1514-1521]

Pareto raises several important points to consider in relation to Objectivism and their view of Kant’s influence: 



1. How can something so vague and childish lead to the totalitarian mass murder of the 20th century? Since one can read into Kant’s ethical theories anything one wants, how can it lead to anything specific?
2. Pareto notes how Kant ethics reconcile altruistic and egoistic sentiments. Kant, therefore, is not exactly the great prophet of altruism and self-sacrifice that Objectivists make him out to be. There is an egoistic side to Kant which Rand and her disciples conveniently ignore.
   
3. The absurdities in Kant's theory are so glaring that it becomes fairly obvious that its appeal must be to sentiments and not to any kind of logic or practical good sense. The acceptance, of it, therefore, assumes a previous sentiment (or collection of sentiments), in the absence of which the theory would never have been accepted. Therefore, the sentiments, the residues, are what causes people to accept Kant, rather than it being the other way around (as implied by Objectivism). 

The attempt by Rand to turn Kant into a scapegoat for most of the evil’s of the world becomes increasingly implausible once we understand that much of Kant’s philosophy (particularly his ethics) is a mere derivation which can lead to no specific conduct. Contrary to what Rand and her disciples claim, refuting Kant will not change the political order: it will have no change at all. Kant's ethics have been effectively criticized repeatedly without having the slightest impact on the course of history.

Objectivism & Politics, Part 56

Ayn Rand contra Libertarianism 1. Rand’s view of libertarianism speaks volumes about the Objectivist politics. When asked, “Why don’t you approve of the Libertarians, thousands of whom are loyal readers of your works?” Rand responded:

Because Libertarians are a monstrous, disgusting bunch of people: they plagiarize my ideas when that fits their purpose, and they denounce me in a more vicious manner than any communist publication, when that fits their purpose. They are lower than any pragmatists, and what they hold against Objectivism is morality. They’d like to have an amoral political program.

Here’s some of Rand’s other choice remarks about Libertarians:

All kinds of people today call themselves “libertarians,” especially something calling itself the New Right, which consists of hippies, except that they’re anarchists instead of collectivists. But of course, anarchists are collectivists.... [Libertarians] sling slogans and try to ride on two bandwagons. They want to be hippies, but don’t want to preach collectivism, because those jobs are already taken. But anarchism is a logical outgrowth of the anti-intellectual side of collectivism. I could deal with a Marxist with a greater chance of reaching some kind of understanding, and with much greater respect. The anarchist is the scum of the intellectual world of the left, which has given them up. So the right picks up another leftist discard. That’s the Libertarian movement.

[The Libertarian Party is] a cheap attempt at publicity, which Libertarians won’t get...

Further, [the Libertarian’s] leadership consists of men of every of persuasion, from religious conservatives to anarchists. Moreover, most of them are my enemies: they spend their time denouncing me, while plagiarizing my ideas. Now, I think it’s a bad beginning for an allegedly pro-capitalist party to start by stealing ideas.

Now here is a party that plagiarizes some of my ideas, mixes it with the exact opposite—with religionists, anarchists, and just about every intellectual misfit and scum they can find—and they call themselves Libertarians, and run for office.

...to form a new party based in part on half-baked ideas, and in part on borrowed ideas—I won’t say from whom—is irresponsible, and in today’s context, nearly immoral.

These remarks are so intemperate and over-the-top that it is hard not to suspect that Rand is merely looking for a pretext to despise and hate Libertarians. Summed up, here are what her allegations against Libertarianism amount to:

Libertarians are bad and evil because:

1. Libertarians are a “monstrous, disgusting bunch of people.”
2. Libertarians are “plagiarists” who stole Rand’s ideas without giving credit.
3. Libertarians are anarchists.
4. Libertarians are anti-intellectual collectivists, worse than Marxists.
5. Libertarians are hippies and scum and intellectual cranks.
6. Libertarians are worse than the New Left, because they want to combine anarchism with capitalism.
7. Libertarians are led by men of various persuasions, including “religious conservatives and anarchists.”
8. Libertarianism is based, in part, on “borrowed ideas.”
9. Libertarians denounce Rand when it fits their purpose.
10. Libertarians would like to have an amoral politics.
11. Libertarianism is a cheap attempt at publicity.

Let’s examine each of these charges one by one:

1. Libertarians are a “monstrous, disgusting bunch of people.” This is merely an ad hominem slur with no logical or objective value whatsoever: simply Rand letting off emotional steam. But for someone who prides herself on rationality and objectivity, this sort of display hardly inspires trust or admiration. It makes one, rather, suspect that Rand’s hostility to Libertarianism has its root in irrational passion.

2. Libertarians are “plagiarists” who stole Rand’s ideas without giving credit. This is a deeply problematic charge against Libertarianism, especially considering the goal of Objectivism to spread Rand’s philosophy as far as possible. If Rand were merely complaining that Libertarians misrepresented her, that would be one thing, but the fact that she actually uses the word plagiarism raises questions as to Rand’s ultimate commitments. If Rand had to choose between (1) achieving widespread influence for her ideas but not being given credit for them, or (2) never suffering plagiarism but never achieving widespread influence, which would she choose? Her bitter complaints about plagiarism suggest that she would prefer the latter, that, in other words, unless she were given credit for her ideas, she would rather her ideas had no influence at all.

There is another side to this question as well. By complaining about plagiarism, Rand is implying that ideas are the exclusive property of their originators, but this is not the case at all. In the first place, there are very few new and original ideas out there: most ideas are simply the elaborations of other ideas. There is very little in Rand’s political thinking that is altogether new. Moreover, Rand seemed to have gotten many of her ideas, both political and otherwise, from Isabel Paterson. Rand’s entire theory of history (which is very important aspect of her politics) is merely an elaboration of what she learned from Paterson. [See Goddess of the Market, 112]

3. Libertarians are anarchists. This is merely guilt by association. Some libertarians are anarchists, therefore Rand implies that all Libertarians are anarchists. Basic intellectual honesty necessitates making this obvious distinction.

4. Libertarians are anti-intellectual collectivists, worse than Marxists. Really? While it is not entirely impossible that at least a few Libertarians are anti-intellectual, the notion that Libertarians are collectivists is simply absurd. Are the Cato institute, the Reason Foundation champions of collectivsm? Are Charles Murray, Milton Friedman, Ludwig Von Mises, Friedrich von Hayek, and Robert Nozick collectivists? Rand made a number of questionable assertions during her career as a polemicist. I can’t recall anything more dubious and irresponsible than this assertion.

5. Libertarians are hippies and scum and intellectual cranks. More ad hominem chatter which reveals more about Rand than it does about Libertarianism. That she must resort to name calling reveals the poverty of her claim to be a champion of reason and rationality.

I’ll cover 6-11 in my next post.

Rand's Morality: A Brief Autopsy 2

In an earlier post, Rand's argument for why man needs an "objective" and "rational" code of values was examined. We turn to the next argument in Rand, the argument for why life is the "ultimate" value and the standard by which goals are evaluated, and we immediately find ourselves in great difficulty. In a strict sense, Rand presented no argument -- or at least no strictly logically argument that could be evaulated. Instead, we get a series of disparate, elliptical suggestions:

(1) "The fact that living entitities exist and function necessitates the existence of values and of an ultimate value."
(2) "Only an ultimate goal, an end in itself, makes the existence of values possible."
(3) "Metaphysically, life is the only phenomenon that is an end in itself."
(4) "Epistemologically, the concept of value is genetically dependent on the concept of life."

Out of these statements, or the handful of others associated with this argument, you will never logically derive the conclusion that life is the ultimate value. If, however, you can accept proposition 3, you should have little trouble accepting Rand's conclusion, because proposition 3 merely restates Rand's conclusion in other terms. Let's examine it a little more closely: "Metaphysically, life is the only phenomenon that is an end of itself." Now in proposition 2, Rand equates the phrase "end in life" with "ultimate value." And since "metaphysics," for Rand, is simply that which pertains to reality or existence, we can translate proposition 3 as follows: "In reality, life is the only phenomenon that is an end in itself." But that's her conclusion! Nor does bringing in the epistemologically angle help Rand extricate herself from her difficulties. So what if the concept of value is genetically dependent on the concept of life? In the first place, if by "genetically" Rand means you can't form the concept of value without first forming the concept of life, it's not clear this is true. But even if, per impossible, it were true, it certainly doesn't establish that life is the ultimate value. How a person arrives at a concept cannot prove any matter of fact beyond some fact about how people arrive at concepts.

To sum up: Rand's "arguments," so-called, on behalf of her contention that life is the ultimate value remain a hopeless muddle.

Election 08: Who would Rand vote for?

Since Rand is no longer with us, we can only guess what she might have done. Here I offer merely two possible conjectures: (1) Either she would not have voted for either candidate; or (2) She would have voted for McCain. Let's examine both possibilities.

(1) The evidence supporting the conjecture that she would have refused to vote for either candidate comes largely from her refusal to vote for Ronald Reagan in 1980 and the fact that her intellectual heir, Leonard Peikoff, has stated quite clearly he believes that the Republican Party should either be wiped out or "severly punished." Peikoff's reason are stated in a recent podcast:



Peikoff's views are clearly influenced by Rand's disgust at Reagan's alliance with the religious right. The fact that the Reagan needed this alliance in order to have a chance at winning is of no concern either to Rand or Peikoff. In Peikoff's case, this militant animus against religion is taken to the length of insane paranoia. Peikoff mocks Palin for some of her odd religious beliefs, yet he fails to cite any instance in which her personal religious convictions have affected her political decisions as governor of Alaska. Yet Peikoff's paranoid horror of religion has its source in Rand, so it is quite possible that Rand would agreed with Peikoff and would therefore sit out the '08 election.

2. The evidence suggesting the possibility that Rand might have voted for McCain largely comes from her fear of George McGovern in 1972. Obama is the most left-wing candidate since McGovern: indeed, he might even be further to the left. Like McGovern, Obama is an anti-war leftist who supports a very strong redistributionist agenda, including giving so-called "tax credits" to people who don't pay any federal income tax. Would Obama scare Rand enough to make her vote for McCain? After all, even Peikoff admits that Obama is the first major Presidential candidate to have anti-American views. If McGovern was scary enough to cause Rand to vote for a President who extended the Great Society and implemented price controls, why wouldn't Obama be scary enough to convince her to vote for McCain?

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.”

Objectivist Round-up, mid-January 2026

1. The Ayn Rand Fan Club interviewed David Harriman.  As long-time readers may recall, Harriman “edited” The Journals of Ayn Rand to such an extent that her journals (as printed)  reflect Randian-Objectivism circa 1960 more than what Rand wrote at the time of her entries.  Unfortunately, that topic didn’t come up during the interview.  (Harriman said a while ago that it was Peikoff who directed the editing.)  Speaking of editing, Harriman confirms that Rand’s editing of Peikoff’s The Ominous Parallels was rather substantial. Rand would return entire chapters to Peikoff, telling him in effect that he had to start over again.

Harriman discusses contemporary physics and cosmology.  Granted, I’m no expert on these things, but his approach seems a bit one-sided.  He attacks the Big Bang Theory as a “creation myth,” duly noting that it was developed by a Catholic priest who was also a physicist.  It’s been a while since I looked into the topic, but my recollection was that the BBT is supported by multiple lines of evidence.  One might think that the “objective” approach to the question would be, in effect, “if it has theistic implications, then so be it.”  Even Harriman concedes that most cosmologists support the BBT and I doubt most would describe themselves as religious, much less creationists.

Harriman also discusses his book The Logical Leap: Induction in Physics which he collaborated on with Peikoff (although Harriman is listed as sole author).  Strangely, he says that the Ayn Rand Institute attacked the book (which he says was otherwise well received).  In fact, two physicists associated with the ARI (John McCaskey and Travis Norsen) criticized the book.  Upon learning of this, the ARI (at Peikoff’s urging) booted McCaskey out (I think Norsen might still be associated with it).