Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Ayn Rand & Epistemology 27

Definitions: postscript. Many Objectivists and even some non-Objectivists have difficulty understanding what is wrong with Rand's view of definitions. They remain hung up on several myths which Rand uses to give an aura of credence to her view. These myths are:
  1. Precision in words is extremely important
  2. Denials of the importance of word precision are motivated by a dishonest desire to attack human knowledge
  3. Misuse of language (e.g., through equivocation) demonstrates the need of precise definitions 
Let's examine each of these myths:
  
1. This is the myth that people hold on most tenaciously, because it intuitively seems correct and even irrefragible. To deny that word precision is important seems tantamount to an endorsement of imprecision and sloppy thinking. But this misses the whole point of the criticism of definitions. The precision allegedly emerging from definitions is spurious. Words are imprecise not because they are ill-defined, but because speech is representative and symbolic. Language is loose because it is significant. It covers many instances indiscriminately, without necessarily making finer distinctions. In other words, "imprecision" derives from Rand's "unit-economy."
  
Such precision and detail that language is capable of achieving does not derive from definitions, but rather from the more exhaustive use of language. A murder can be described in one sentence or 100 sentences. Assuming that both descriptions are accurate, which is going to be more "precise"? Obviously, the longer, more detailed description! Precision therefore emerges from descriptive detail, not from definitions. Where quantification is possible, precision can be achieved with much greater economy. But since most human judgments are qualitative, rather than quantitative in nature, precision requires large amounts of detail.

If Objectivists were better at recognizing and applying the insight embedded in Rand's "unit-economy," perhaps they wouldn't be so quick to make such a fuss about precision. In practical matters, precision is not always necessary. If a guest in my house is looking for butter and I say "The butter's in the refrigerator," that may not be all that precise (where exactly is the butter?), but it is precise enough for practical purposes. If I am sending someone to the moon, the instructions will have to be much more precise -- so much so that they won't be entirely conveyable by means of language, but will inevitably require exhaustive training and repetition in order to be conveyed.

2. Rand blithely assumes that anyone who challenges her view of definitions and language must be motivated by a desire to attack man's conceptual faculty. Since such individuals are, by definition as it were, evil, there is no point in trying to understand, let alone refute them. Rand and her followers have yet to display any evidence that they understand Wittgenstein or Popper or Pareto or anyone else who might attack the essentialist account of definitions. They are incapable of stating the views of their opponents without grossly distorting them. There are powerful motivations behind this. Rand required a cognitive scapegoat in order to explain why most people refuse to agree with her moral and political philosophy. Rand would not for a moment have even considered the very real possibility that she might be wrong in her ethics and politics or that others may have different preferences which, based on their own unique proclivities, might be "right." Rand wanted to believe, in defiance of Hume's is-ought gap, that her preferences were absolutely "right" and "true." Unfortunately, most arguments on behalf of moral ends, however circuitous they may be, resolve in the final analysis to some form or variety of ad hominem. Rand's attempt to argue morality through epistemology terminates in the same ad hominem conclusions that characterize most, if not all, of Rand's moral arguments.
  
3. As was noted by the sociologist Pareto and empirically corroborated by social psychologists such as Jonathan Haidt, human beings tend to act accept ideologies for largely unconscious reasons and only provide "reasons" and "arguments" to provide an illusion of logical rigor for what actually has a non-rational source. In other words, the conscious mind, as Jonathan Haidt puts it, is often little more than a press secretary engaged in spin. The most common tactic individuals resort to when engaged in spinning is equivocation. The rationalizer leverages the vagueness most words suffer from (because of unit-economy) to attain his end. Rand herself provides an apposite example of the process. Objectivism is largely spin: a rationalization of Rand's personal preferences, formed (unwittingly) largely via unconscious cerebrations. This explains why the logic of Rand's arguments are so poor and unconvincing to those who hold different preferences (or are more fastidious about the logic of their beliefs).

Because so many ideologues are engaged in rationalization via equivocation, it leaves the impression that many individuals don't know the meanings of terms. But this is a false impression. People play fast and loose with the meanings of words not because they don't know the "correct" definitions; rather, they do so because they're more interested in justifying their preferences then discovering mundane, uninspiring truth. It's a problem, not of "improper" definitions or "improper" concept formation, but of a pretence of knowledge combined with a human-all-too-human desire to avoid having our preferences and ideologies subjected to effective criticism.

In any case, you're not going to stop ideologues from rationalizing by insisting that they define their terms "precisely" and "correctly." You'll only make their rationalizations more long-winded and absurd.

20 comments:

ungtss said...

“Such precision and detail that language is capable of achieving does not derive from definitions, but rather from the more exhaustive use of language. A murder can be described in one sentence or 100 sentences. Assuming that both descriptions are accurate, which is going to be more "precise"? Obviously, the longer, more detailed description! Precision therefore emerges from descriptive detail, not from definitions.”

Your fallacy here is conflating quality and quantity. By analogy, it is like saying that 100 pounds of junk is going to be less junky than 1 pound of junk. Which is nonsense of course. 100 pounds of junk is just more junk.

If your definitions are imprecise, adding more imprecise words is not going to make your meaning clearer. It’s going to make it less clear. Because your words were imprecise to begin with. So more imprecise words are just going to be less precise.

This is too transparent an error on your part to be a mistake. What's your deal?

Anonymous said...

What's junk here is your analogy. And your reasoning.

Imprecise does not mean faulty or wrong; therefore, it is possible (in fact, likely) that by continuing to add more information by way of imprecise words, and therefore refining what is meant, one can convey a clearer meaning.

Seeking more precision in definitions does not lead to more efficient communication, largely because our system of language is by its very nature not particularly precise.

If we were to more appropriately refine your analogy, we would have to ask which is more likely: to be able to construct a functioning bicycle out of one pound of junk, or 100 pounds of junk?

The most remarkable thing about your reply though, is the "What's your deal?" comment at the end, as if you are doing just what Nyquist claims Rand did: believe that any challenge to her view is not a real critique, but some sort of subversive attack.

Would you have the readers of this blog believe you are somehow more than yet another unquestioning Objectivist drone? Then perhaps you could clamp down on your paranoia and/or scorn.

ungtss said...

"Imprecise does not mean faulty or wrong; therefore, it is possible (in fact, likely) that by continuing to add more information by way of imprecise words, and therefore refining what is meant, one can convey a clearer meaning."

you form this argument by ignoring that the "more information" you're adding will be "more imprecise, unclear information."

adding more imprecise, unclear information cannot possibly clarify earlier imprecise, unclear information. it can only magnify the lack of clarity geometrically.

"If we were to more appropriately refine your analogy, we would have to ask which is more likely: to be able to construct a functioning bicycle out of one pound of junk, or 100 pounds of junk?"

Extraordinary. in your analogy the meaning is being constructed entirely by the listener, not the speaker. the speaker just provides varying amounts of junk. whatever order emerges is a result solely of the listener picking and choosing whatever he'd like to create.

in psychologically healthy, effective communication, the _speaker_ is the one constructing the meaning. The _listener_ is the one interpretting it. if the speaker does not hand the listener a bicycle to begin with, then the speaker has done nothing.

"you are doing just what Nyquist claims Rand did: believe that any challenge to her view is not a real critique, but some sort of subversive attack."

You might read the sentence in full. I'm not saying "any attack is subversive." i'm saying "this argument is so transparently stupid that i have a difficult time believing a person can honestly believe it."

but maybe the insanity here is authentic. maybe you really think the speaker just provides assorted junk, and the listener constructs all meaning.

ungtss said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
ungtss said...

"Would you have the readers of this blog believe you are somehow more than yet another unquestioning Objectivist drone?"

you must not know much about objectivism if you think i care what its opponents think of me. you must still think social intimidation tactics like this one will strike home. how quaint.

ungtss said...

it's illustrate this concretely. i will insert letter variables to illustrate each vague, unclear, ill-defined word. tell me how much vagueness i need to add before the vagueness becomes clear.

"I met with A the other day. A is the guy B knows from C. You know, the guy who works at D? Cummon, you know him. He was dating E for a while, but then broke up with her. He lives in the city of F, on G road."

At what point does adding additional vagueness increase clarity? Never. No matter how much vagueness you add, it's just more vagueness. And this isn't even an abstract topic. This is just the identity of a person.

Anonymous said...

Well, you certainly share the Objectivist tendency to flare off when someone hits a raw nerve. You had to come back a couple times to get it all out.

Obviously you haven't even bothered to consider what I said before blurting multiple messages out. People in the real world don't talk precisely most of the time. They start with some information, then add more information when clarity is needed. Individually, no single sentence they say may be precise - at least not to the Objectivist ideal - but in aggregate, the total information provides as much clarity as is required. I said as much - adding information - and you seem to have deliberately ignored that in favor of your own interpretation.

That you try to twist that around to be some kind of compounding multiplication of vagueness only displays a willful ignorance of how language is used.

In fact, it is, as you say, "transparently stupid". It is the stupid kind of thing an Objectivist says when they don't actually wish to engage in a discussion, but instead rant about how stupid/inferior/whatever their object of scorn is.

I had thought, after reading some of your comments on another post, that you were presenting yourself as a different kind of Objectivist, interested in honest discussion and not argument points. But you're quickly proving that you're only the barest shade different, if that.

ungtss said...

"People in the real world don't talk precisely most of the time. They start with some information, then add more information when clarity is needed."

They add more _clarity_ when clarity is needed. the new information must be _clearer_ than the old information. better defined. that's the point.

when you say something vague, you clarify by adding more _specificity_ and _clarity_ in your language. you explain what you meant. you define your terms. _that's_ what clarifies.

you can skip the condescension and manipulation. i'm immune to it. particularly because you're chiding me from "adding more information" in several posts, as i thought of it, while simultaneously defending that as normal. which is it? am i inferior for blurting things out as i think of them, or is that normal? whatever serves your purpose at the moment, i guess.

am i mad here? absolutely. i have always been skeptical about the existence of AR villains. they seem over the top. perhaps the product of a paranoid mind.

but when i hear somebody defend vagueness -- _defend vagueness_ -- and then use blatant manipulative tactics in an effort to put me down, i'm reminded that yes, there are some people who are authentically opposed to Reason. only an AR villain would argue that clarity of definition is unnecessary, because any lack of clarity can be corrected by more of the same lack of clarity. when you read about such people in her essays, you think "no way." but here you are.

Anonymous said...

"am i mad here? absolutely. i have always been skeptical about the existence of AR villains. they seem over the top. perhaps the product of a paranoid mind.

but when i hear somebody defend vagueness -- _defend vagueness_ -- and then use blatant manipulative tactics in an effort to put me down, i'm reminded that yes, there are some people who are authentically opposed to Reason. only an AR villain would argue that clarity of definition is unnecessary, because any lack of clarity can be corrected by more of the same lack of clarity. when you read about such people in her essays, you think "no way." but here you are."

The problem is, that description is only in your own mind. Nobody is opposed to "Reason" with a big capital R, not here at least. But the fact that you claim to be for Reason does not make your reasoning sound or correct. And what any of us oppose is the contention that your version of Reason is the correct one. In fact, from some perspectives, it is the average Objectivist who is opposed to actual Reason in favor of ideological orthodoxy.

Yours is as flawed as any other system or philosophy, despite how much its adherents cling to its precepts with as much fervor as the next religious fanatic. Would that they took Rand's advice and "checked their premises". (Would that she had seriously taken her own advice.)

I'm certain that comment-section-flaming isn't going to get that into your head, but it bears saying. You can't - at least not reasonably - declare your system true and perfect and any who oppose the Objectivist word as villains and not be thought of as, yourself, a cartoonish Randroid, less a servant of reason than of orthodoxy.

As to the original issue, it is simple math. If one vague statement offers a bit of information, and then another vague statement conveys a different, but related bit of information, then one has more information - a degree more clarity - than before, despite the seeming vagueness of either statement.

Everything else is verbal jousting, you "moving the goal posts", as it were. Your histrionics otherwise do not repeal that fact.

Daniel Barnes said...

"Clarity" and "precision" are topics that Objectivists are deeply confused about. And no wonder: Rand herself used her trademark double-talk to confuse the issue.

We see this double-talk in the ITOE, where (for once!) Rand gives us an actually-existing example of what she means by "absolute precision".

Rand:"...you can always be absolutely precise simply by saying, for instance: 'Its length is no less than one millimeter and no more than two millimeters."'

Of course, you say if a something is somewhere between one measurement and another, that's usually called an approximation. You know, I have between $10 and $20 in my bank account, or that town is no less than a mile, but no more than two miles away. Yet Rand calls this "absolute precision". No wonder Objectivists are so confused!

ungtss said...

"As to the original issue, it is simple math. If one vague statement offers a bit of information, and then another vague statement conveys a different, but related bit of information, then one has more information - a degree more clarity - than before, despite the seeming vagueness of either statement."

It's simple math where the variables are undefined. A+B= what? Don't know. Haven't defined the variables. Okay, add another undefined variable. A+B+C=what? Don't know. Haven't defined the variables. If you add information defining the variables, then you have increased clarity. But if you do not add information defining things, then you've just added more undefined variables, making the problem even less soluble.

"Of course, you say if a something is somewhere between one measurement and another, that's usually called an approximation."

It's an approximation that has been precisely defined. there is no vagueness in the communication or definition, only in the actual measurement.

this blog is helping me to see exactly how important objectivist ideas are by helping me see how a human mind operates without them.

Anonymous said...

"It's simple math where the variables are undefined. A+B= what? Don't know. Haven't defined the variables. Okay, add another undefined variable. A+B+C=what? Don't know. Haven't defined the variables. If you add information defining the variables, then you have increased clarity. But if you do not add information defining things, then you've just added more undefined variables, making the problem even less soluble."

But WHY ASSUME NO INFORMATION IS ADDED?

Being vague does not mean a complete lack of information. Your arguments rest on these all-or-nothing assumptions, that if something is "vague" it must be without any useful information whatsoever. Perhaps that's how an Objectivist parses the word, but just because you use your own special definition doesn't mean you've actually proved anything.

The only question is whether this is deliberate obtuseness on your part or an honest knee-jerk inability to see any logic beyond the Rand gospel.

ungtss said...

"But WHY ASSUME NO INFORMATION IS ADDED?"

Because information can only be conveyed by means of defined expression. If you communicate words with zero definition, then zero information is conveyed. If you communicate words with 2 possible alternate definitions, then you have communicated two possible alternate messages, and given no way for the recipient to know which information you are conveying.

"Being vague does not mean a complete lack of information."

No, it means that you have given your audience no way to know what you're saying.

"Your arguments rest on these all-or-nothing assumptions, that if something is "vague" it must be without any useful information whatsoever."

That's not what i'm saying at all. drawing things into stark contrast illustrates the point clearly. you can then add shades of grey. if i give you an ambiguous sentence which can mean two things, and haven't told you which thing i mean, then you don't know what information i'm giving you.

ungtss said...

it occurs to me that our disagreement stems from vagueness about vagueness. what do we mean by vagueness? we never defined it. therefore we can't communicate meaningfully about the topic.

QED.

Anonymous said...

"it occurs to me that our disagreement stems from vagueness about vagueness. what do we mean by vagueness? we never defined it. therefore we can't communicate meaningfully about the topic.

QED."

"Vagueness" should not need to be "defined" - its common usage is enough for most people to have understood what I was saying. It's only the Objectivist insistence on re-defining commonly-used language to prop up its own arguments that prevents clear communication.

Well, that and the fact that you're more interested in side-stepping than understanding.

ungtss said...

""Vagueness" should not need to be "defined" - its common usage is enough for most people to have understood what I was saying."

I love it. your standard for meaning is whether "most people" would have understood you, not whether our shared understanding is clear enough to allow meaningful substantive conversation between us.

All you have to do is google "vagueness," and you'll see it's an object of intensive philosophical study. it's a concept for which a lot of definition is not only possible, but necessary, if one wishes to discuss it.

but no. you think "most people" would understand you. and that's enough.

this is so great:). i can't stop smiling:).

Anonymous said...

"I love it. your standard for meaning is whether "most people" would have understood you, not whether our shared understanding is clear enough to allow meaningful substantive conversation between us."

The only reason our "shared understanding" is ever unclear is entirely due to your (probably willful) obfuscation.

ungtss said...

"The only reason our "shared understanding" is ever unclear is entirely due to your (probably willful) obfuscation."

Haha, so my observation that the definition, meaning, and implication of the word "vagueness" is a subject of philosophical study and varying opinions, models, and theories -- and my observation that a lack of clarity on those opinions, models, and theories is likely to make communication difficult -- is just me obfuscating things:). got it:).

Anonymous said...

You pretty much just proved my point.

ungtss said...

Well, so long as you think your point can be made without defining the words you're using, pretty much anything will make your point.

"Colorless green ideas sleep furiously!"

Anon wins again. Why? Because he says so.