Daily Wire Secures Exclusive Rights to Atlas Shrugged

The conservative internet news site and media company the DailyWire has announced that it has secured the exclusive rights to Ayn Rand's controversial best selling novel Atlas Shrugged. Daily Wire co-CEO Jeremy Boreing indicated plans for creating a series based on Rand's novel that would be streamed on the subscription-based DailyWire+. As Boering explained,

When we [i.e., the DailyWire] decided in 2020 to launch into entertainment, my vision at that time was to bring Ayn Rand’s seminal work on the creative power of economic freedom and the terrible consequences of its loss to the screen as a premium series. The obvious problem, we thought, is that we would never be able to get the rights to such a culturally ubiquitous work. I was wrong.”

I suspect Boering was not alone in believing that he would never get the rights to Atlas. So how did he pull it off? As far as can be made out, a deal was negotiated between Leonard Peikoff's and the DailyWire's lawyers, which strongly suggests that Peikoff himself must have signed off on the deal. As the DailyWire explained:

The deal was negotiated by Sonnier and general counsel Joshua Herr on behalf of DailyWire+, Roger Arar and Kaslow on behalf of Atlas Distribution Company, and Tim Knowlton of Curtis Brown Ltd. on behalf of the Peikoff Family Partnership and the Estate of Ayn Rand.

Some orthodox Objectivists (James Valliant for instance) have declared themselves "terrified" by this news. They fear the DailyWire smuggle "conservative" notions into Atlas, particularly religious tropes. Jeremy Beoring insisted that the DailyWire+' version of Atlas would be true to the book’s message, plot, and character archetypes. I suspect being "true" to Rand's novel was part of the deal with Peikoff, although what exactly that will mean in practice remains to be seen. Bear in mind that those in the Objectivist world who wish to see a well-made version of Atlas don't exactly have a lot of choices when it comes to getting Atlas on screen. Hollywood would never deign to make such a series and the DailyWire is about the only film company in the world with first-rate production values willing to take on such a quixotic venture.

Of course it goes without saying that, even with high production values, Atlas remains essentially an unfilmable novel. It will be interesting to see who Boering enlists as the screenwriter for the project. Will Andrew Klavan be asked to try his hand at the business? And who's going to direct and act in this thing? Most Hollywood actors wouldn't dare involve themselves in a DailyWire+ project—let alone one involving the Ayn Rand. Is everyone ready for Gina Carano as Dagny Taggart and Laurence Fox as Hank Rearden? There's a decent chance both those actors, each of whom has suffered cancellation for their political views, will star in the series. Perhaps they can also find a part for James Woods.

Objectivist Schisms: an Overview by Neil Parille

As observers of Objectivism know, schisms are a perennial part of the world of Objectivism. In particular, the “official Objectivism” going back to Ayn Rand, which has continued into today with the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI), has been particularly prone to dust-ups, breaks, and even excommunications.  I don’t know of any sociological studies of schisms that might shed light on this, but there may be a couple reasons.  First, Objectivism is a relatively small movement, and most people tend to know each other.  This means that disputes will tend to become personal.  Second, many associates of Ayn Rand are still alive.  Hence protecting her legacy in their eyes likely heightens the gravity of any disputes.
 

The biggest schism in the Objectivist movement was Ayn Rand’s break in 1968 with Nathaniel and Barbara Branden.  The Brandens were the chief promoters of Objectivism, particularly through the Nathaniel Branden Institute.  While the details remain somewhat obscure, the rupture began because Nathaniel and Rand had years earlier commenced an affair which eventually grew cold.  When Rand wanted to restart the affair, the much younger Branden balked at this, in large part because he was having an affair with a beautiful young model and actress, which he concealed from Rand for years.  When Rand found out about his affair, she denounced Nathaniel in her own inimitable way.  In her “To Whom It May Concern Statement,” she never mentioned that she and Branden had an affair, nor Branden’s clandestine affair with the model.  She went on to denounce him for failing to devote his efforts to advance Objectivism and she all but accused him of stealing from her. She did hint that Nathaniel had betrayed her in an unspecified way:

This year, in a long series of discussions, held at his request to help him solve what he characterized as his psycho-epistemological problems, I was shocked to discover that he was consistently failing to apply to his own personal life and conduct, not only the fundamental philosophical principles of Objectivism, but also the psychological principles he himself had enunciated and had written and lectured about. For example: he was unable or unwilling to identify the motivation of some of his actions or the nature of his long-range goals; he admitted that in many respects he was acting on the basis of unidentified feelings.

As Nathaniel later wrote in his memoir, Rand’s attack was so “over the top” that people suspected that he was an alcoholic or a child molester.  Both Nathaniel and Barbara responded, countering Rand’s allegations of wrongdoing.  Nathaniel hinted that there had been an affair and conceded that he concealed something important of Rand.  He explicitly denied her allegations of financial wrongdoing.
After the Branden split, there were other schisms during Rand’s life.  After her death, Leonard Peikoff, Rand’s self-proclaimed “intellectual heir,” started the ARI.  Peikoff shortly thereafter split with philosopher David Kelley over Kelley’s contention that Objectivism was an “open system.”  Peikoff’s denunciation, in which he purported to speak for Rand, was vitriolic.  More splits, generally of a lesser significance, have continue until the present.

Taking Ideas Seriously

[Neil Parille continues where he left off in 2009.]

Ayn Rand was quite explicit that ideas are what matter and, in particular, it’s abstract philosophical ideas which guide human history.  Because of this, Objectivists usually blame the sorry state of the world on “intellectuals” and professors of philosophy.  Leonard Peikoff once said that we’d know the world is on the right track when the philosophy department of UC Berkeley was Objectivist.

Objectivists talk about the history of philosophy as a battle between Plato and Aristotle.  According to Objectivists, a society or culture succeeds to the extent it adopts Aristotelian ideas.  For example, they argue that the Renaissance began and flourished because Thomas Aquinas supposedly reintroduced Aristotle’s works to the West.  In the main Objectivist work of historiography, Peikoff’s The Ominous Parallels, he argued that Nazism and the gas chambers were the direct result of the influence of Immanuel Kant on German intellectual life.  Christianity, to them, is as foolish as one can get.

History paints on a large canvas.  One can find examples and counterexamples to prove or disprove any broad historical narrative.  For example, contrary to Rand, many scholars argue that the most important Renaissance thinkers were Platonists.  Germany’s leading Kantian philosopher was Ernst Cassirer.  It’s said that upon hearing a Nazi say “truth is what the Fuhrer says it is,” he responded, “if that’s the case, there is no hope for Germany.”  He promptly left for England.  I recently heard Yaron Brook claim that the Roman Empire fell because it adopted Christianity.  Yet the Eastern half of the Empire - which was more Christian – lasted until 1453.

Objectivism on Christianity and Religion

[Here is another article  by Neil Parille:]

Ayn Rand and her followers have a bee in their bonnet when it comes to religion. In particular, contemporary Objectivists often fret about the influence on the Religious Right on politics. It doesn’t appear, however, that they have spent much time studying the topic of religion because the same old chestnuts keep popping up again and again..

The PARC Wars Revisited

[ARCHNBlog is privileged to have the following contribution by Neil Parille, who discusses some the latest information to surface concerning James Valliant and his book The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics.]

As long-time readers of the Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature blog might remember, one of the strangest incidents in the recent history of the Objectivist movement was the publication in 2005 of The Passion of Ayn Rand’s Critics (PARC) by James Valliant.  This book took aim at Barbara Branden’s 1986 biography of Ayn Rand, The Passion of Ayn Rand and Nathaniel Branden’s two memoirs.  It is also noteworthy for including Rand’s diaries from the time of her break with Nathaniel Branden.  These diaries were provided to Valliant by Rand’s heir, Leonard Peikoff.

How I Became a Critic of Objectivism 2

The issue of philosophical literacy is a troubling one for Objectivism on multiple levels. To begin with, many of Rand’s most ardent followers became Objectivists when they were teenagers or young adults. They discovered The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged knowing little if anything about philosophy (or anything else for that matter). For this reason, they were not equipped with the necessary tools—which is to say, the philosophical literacy—from which to evaluate the contentions that at the bottom of Rand’s Objectivist philosophy. Yaron Brook, in his conversation with Michael Malice, admits as much. Teenagers and twenty-somethings rarely have neither the philosophical literacy nor the worldly knowledge to evaluate Rand’s contentions about human nature, morality, and the role of ideas in history. Swept away by Rand’s charismatic vision of a world populated by individualistic heroes like Howard Road and Hank Rearden, they end up taking everything Rand says on trust, without asking the necessary questions or demanding appropriate evidence.

This matter is further complicated by Rand’s own philosophical shortcomings. Rand had her own issues with philosophical illiteracy—although for very different reasons than we find among her youngest admirers. Rand’s philosophical illiteracy stemmed from her innate dogmatism and her intractable hubris about her own mind which made it very difficult for her to accept criticism and learn from those whom she disagreed with. Rand  rarely if ever entertained the possibility that she might be wrong. In any dispute with an individual who held rival views, she was right and they were wrong—end of issue. This attitude rendered it inconceivable for her to appreciate the possible merits of viewpoints and philosophies that conflicted with her own. 

There is also the issue of Rand’s education to consider. We know little, for example, about what Rand imbibed during her years attending Petrograd State University in the Soviet Union. According to biographical data accumulated about Rand, the most formative philosophical influence on her thinking was Isabel Paterson. From Paterson Rand developed her obsession for “reason,” her over-fondness for the phrase “A is A,”  her admiration of Aristotle, and her enmity to Kant and Hegel. Paterson, who was widely read, presumably had acquired at least some of her views through first-hand sources. She wasn’t merely repeating what had been told to her by another person. She had done the hard work for herself, coming to an understanding of philosophy through her extensive reading. Rand, on the other hand, seems to have relied far too much on brief abstracts provided her by Paterson, the Branden’s, Peikoff, and others. Rand was hardly a voluminous reader. She was impatient with detail and nuance. She did not read to understand; she read to demolish. When confronted with texts she disagreed with, she would begin with what she called the art of “philosophical detection,” which in practice meant putting the worst possible interpretation on anything she ran across that inspired her loathing.

Slouching Toward the Next Schism

There are the makings of a potential schism at ARI. Since 1985, Carl Barney, whose made millions in the education industry, was ARI's largest donor. In 2019, Barney left ARI's board and devoted his resources to Craig Biddle's The Objective Standard periodical and to Barney's own Prometheus Foundation. Then, on May 1, 2020, Barney made the following announcement:

“Dr. Peikoff has given me (Prometheus Foundation ...) permission to publicize and deliver worldwide his courses and lectures.”
...
“He has also granted me permission to use his trademark, “Ayn Rand,” as well as excerpts from his and Ayn Rand’s works, which will aid me in marketing. With these assets and my considerable resources, I am eager and ready to ensure that Dr. Peikoff’s courses and lectures reach and continue to reach minds throughout the world. ... 

“I do not intend to start another ARI or to compete with ARI. I don’t intend to establish a new organization of any kind. I intend only to support and fund other organizations and individuals who promote Ayn Rand and advance Objectivism.”

Of course, Barney has to insist he is not competing with ARI; and perhaps his insistence is sincere. But this clearly lays the foundation for trouble in the future. What has happened in the world of orthodox Objectivism is that, with the retirement of Peikoff, there exists no authority figure to adjudicate the inevitable disputes that arise among the Objectivist faithful, particularly among ambitious types jostling for status and influence in the movement itself. Theoretically, these disputes should be adjudicated by "reason." But what goes by "reason" in Objectivism is largely imaginary; and many of the issues which divide people in real life are too complex to be resolved by some "objective" standard of rationality in any case.

Objectivism: An Autopsy, Part 3

In some respects, Rand's ideology of Objectivism can be seen as an over-reaction to the Marxist left. Rand lived through the Russian Revolution and experienced communism first hand. She despised the Marxian creed with every fiber of her being, and in her philosophy of Objectivism she sought to fashion a doctrine diametrically opposed to the collectivist and anti-capitalist dogmas of Soviet communism. Thus Rand wound up advocating a pure (some might say "extreme") form of individualism and capitalism as a way to oppose the murderous collectivism of Marxist-Leninism.

Rand began formulating these doctrines more than seventy years ago. The ideological landscape has undergone significant changes during this time. After the publication of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archepelago, the Soviet version of Marxism became thoroughly discredited in the West, even among radical leftists. But the pathological urge to impose equity fairness on modern society has persisted among our civilizations' left-leaning discontents. To scratch the equity fairness itch, a new type of Marxism needed to be formulated. Thus was born Post-Modernism and Identity Politics, which replaced the class conflict paradigm of the old Marxism with a new paradigm based on race, gender, and sexual orientation. This constituted a real improvement over traditional Marxism in that it justified and nurtured a powerful political coalition between white progressives and non-whites. Demographic changes caused by declining birth rates among whites and increased immigration of non-whites will increase the chances that the left, and quite possibly the radical left, enjoys a permanent electoral majority in the United States in future decades.

Orthodox Objectivism: An Autopsy, Part 2

Orthodox Objectivism may have been doomed from the start, simply because it was a dogmatic philosophy that prided itself on rationality and self-interest yet which, in its specific doctrines and in the behavior of its adherents, often betrayed these stated objectives. Rand's contention that human beings are born "blank slates" is about as rational as the belief that the earth is flat. And as for self-interest: is it really in anyone's self-interest to embrace orthodox Objectivism? Doubts persist on this score. Some years ago Barbara Branden noted that far too many Objectivists came off as bitter and angry. Is it really in your self-interest to be angry all the time? Is it really in your self-interest to continually distort and/or misunderstand the views of people you disagree with, while at the same time being hyper-sensitive to alleged distortions of your own views? Is it really in your self-interest to remain an adherent of a philosophy which has no viable track record of making its adherents smarter, wiser, happier, or more fulfilled? Orthodox Objectivism had so much going against it right from the start. But the dim prospects of the philosophy were made many times worse by Rand's choice for the heir to her literary estate, namely, Dr. Leonard Peikoff.

Surprise Defection from the Peikoff and ARI

This is actually somewhat old news (several months old), but apparently there's been a rather startling defection from the ARI/Peikoff/Orthodox wing of Objectivism. This isn't so much as an excommunication as a pure defection, and from an entirely unexpected source. Dave Harriman, Peikoff's most prominent philosophical protege and virtual co-author of The Logical Leap, has defected from the ARI to TAS, from Peikoff to David Kelley. I have no idea why Harriman defected. Usually, there are personal reasons for splits of this sort, which are masked with philosophical ones. Apparantly, Harriman and Peikoff have not been on speaking terms for last year or so. Beyond that we know nothing and are not likely ever knowing much more than that, as it looks Peikoff and ARI are going to be silent on this one, since it's obviously a defection that places them in a very awkward position. They cannot, after all, turn Harriman into a complete non-person, since Harriman, rather than Peikoff himself, wrote the book which introduced Peikoff's theory of induction to the world. That book won't be disappearing from ARI book shelves any time soon, regardless of what Peikoff may privately think of Harriman. My guess is that this weakens the orthodox faction over at ARI, and makes Peikoff and the old guard look out of touch and even irrelevant to many within the Objectivist movement.

Those of us who are outsiders and critics of Objectivism have always regarded Harriman some suspicion, not only for his close ties with Peikoffian orthodoxy, but for his rather eccentric views on physics. Kelley's version of Objectivism has always sought to make Rand's ideas as intellectual respectable as possible. Will Harriman's views on modern physics soften now that he has thrown over the incubus of Peikofian orthodoxy? Hard to say. But his first scheduled talks for the Atlas Society have nothing to do with physics.

Future of Objectivism 8

Peikoff's Legacy. How will Leonard Peikoff be remembered by future Objectivists? Will even the orthodox remember him all that fondly? Will he continue to be influential? Rand's most steadfast and controversial protoge casts a long shadow over orthodox followers of Ayn Rand. His legacy is definitely of the questionable, perhaps even dubious, variety. While he exhibited some skills as a teacher, lecturer, and expositor of Objectivist orthodoxy, whenever he attempted to stray from the Randian straight and narrow, and take flight on his own intellectual steam, the consequences were often deeply embarrasing. The man simply has very little in the way of independent judgment. Couple this with an over-sensitivity to criticism and a deep-seated distrust of anyone who refuses to defer to even his most outlandish ideas, and you have the perfect recipe for the paranoid idealogue, seperated from the world by his own political and moral delusions. His apologists describe him as a man who does not well suffer fools; which is an overly kind way of saying that Peikoff is not a nice man.

Peikoff's legacy consists of four parts: the intellectual, the institutional, the personal, and the cultural. Let's examine each in turn.

Future of Objectivism 2

Authority in Objectivism. One of the challenges for ARI moving forward is to deal with the problem of authority. In any organization there are bound to be conflicts between various individuals. Many, if not most, of these conflicts cannot be resolved by "reason" (i.e., rational argumentation). Rational thinking, at best, can only resolve differences about matters of fact. It cannot resolve differences arising from moral preferences (and all moral ends are preferences). Consequently, conflict is inevitable, even between people pretending to be "rational." Inevitably, Objectivists will disagree with one another. If the disagreements involve competition for resources and/or status, they may become quite heated. How are these conflicts to be resolved?

In the past, routine conflicts could be resolved via ARI's board. But when major conflicts have broken out among board members, only one source of authority could be relied upon: Leonard Peikoff. Peikoff himself, in his apologia for having McCaskey removed from the ARI board, explained how this all works:

An organization devoted to spreading an ideology is not compatible with “freedom” for its leadership to contradict or undermine that ideology. In theory. the best judge of such contradiction would be the person(s) , if he exists, who best understands and upholds the ideology, as evidenced objectively by his lifelong intellectual consistency, philosophic attainments, and practical results. In practice, the best judge would be the person, if he is still alive, who founded the organization and defined its purpose, in this case as a step in carrying out a mandate given him by Ayn Rand. On both counts, only one individual qualifies: me.

The logic of this argument could be extended to cover any conflict, not just ones arising from intellectual criticism of one of Peikoff's pet projects. Because of Peikoff's unique position as the heir of Rand's estate and the individual who, among the living, "best understands" Rand's ideology, he was the obvious choice to occupy the role of Objectivist pope. Peikoff, however, will not be around forever. After Peikoff leaves the scene, who will be "best qualified" to fill the necessary role of authority at ARI (and, by implication at least, of the orthodox Objectivist movement)?

Ayn Rand & Epistemology 49

Conclusion. Many years ago someone handed me a copy of Rand's Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology and said, "This will help you think better." That sounded kind of intriguing, so I gave it a try. The experiment proved a failure. ITOE did not improve my thinking; nor have I run across any evidence that ITOE has improved anyone else's thinking. Leonard Peikoff, for example, probably knows ITOE better than any person living. Has it improved his thinking? This is a man who, in 2006, wrote:

Socialism–a fad of the last few centuries–has had its day; it has been almost universally rejected for decades. Leftists are no longer the passionate collectivists of the 30s, but usually avowed anti-ideologists, who bewail the futility of all systems. Religion, by contrast–the destroyer of man since time immemorial–is not fading; on the contrary, it is now the only philosophic movement rapidly and righteously rising to take over the government.

Six years later, Peikoff entirely changed his tune:

As I have explained in The DIM Hypothesis, Obama is in essence a destroyer for the sake of destruction, a nihilist, the first such to become President. The object to be destroyed is America....

Many evils are in store for us if Obama wins a second term, ranging from crippling taxation and Obamacare to the war on energy and the imminence of economic collapse....

I intend to vote for whatever Republicans in my district are running for the House and the Senate. Republican control of at least one of these bodies, however weakened they have become, is still some restraint on Obama if he wins.

How did the Democrats go so quickly from being "avowed anti-ideologists" to supporters of "a destroyer for the sake of destruction"? How have the Republicans been transformed from a "philosophic movement rapidly and righteously rising to take over the government" to the only force capable of exercising "some restraint" on Obama and the Left?

Ayn Rand & Epistemology 48

The rationalist core of the Objectivist Epistemology. Ayn Rand defined rationalists as "those who claimed that man obtains his knowledge of the world by deducing it exclusively from concepts, which come from inside his head and are not derived from the perception of physical facts." Since Objectivist theory rejects this approach, Objectivists have always believed that they were free from the rationalist taint. However, there is a problem with the Objectivist approach to this issue. If we go by the Objectivist definition, who actually qualifies as a rationalist? Which philosopher, thinker, ideologue obtains all his knowledge of the world exclusively via deduction from concepts, entirely free from the perception of physical facts? In practice, no one does this. It would be impossible. So, practically speaking, who is in fact guilty of rationalism? What, specifically, do those of us who dislike rationalism and criticize it at every opportunity object to?

The critics of rationalism object to the practice of determing complex matters of fact through "logical" deductions from over-generalized descriptions of facts. Use of over-generalized facts is often a symptom of insufficient knowledge. People who lack mastery (i.e., relevant factual knowledge) of a given subject don't realize the extent of their ignorance. They are therefore incapable of appreciating why their conclusions are false. The problem with rationalism, therefore, is not that the rationalist derives conclusions without factual evidence, but that he derives conclusions without sufficient evidence. The rationalist suffers from empirical irresponsibility.

Ayn Rand & Epistemology 43

Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy 16: Falsifibility. Toward the end of his essay on the Anayltic-Synthetic Dichotomy, Peikoff tackles falsifiability:

Those who claim to distinguish a posteriori and a priori propositions commonly maintain that certain truths (the synthetic, factual ones) are "empirically falsifiable," whereas others (the analytic, logical ones) are not. In the former case, it is said, once can specify experiences which, if they occurred, would invalidate the proposition; in the latter, one cannot. For instance, the proposition "Cats give birth only to kittens" is empirically falsifiable" because one can invent experiences that would refute it such as the spectacle of tiny elephants emerging from a cat's womb. But the proposition "Cats are animals" is not "empirically falsifiable" because "cat" is defined as a species of animal....

Observe the inversion propounded by this argument: a proposition can qualify as a factual, empirical truth only if man is able to evade the facts of experience and arbitrarily ... invent a set of impossible circumstances that contradict these facts; but a truth whose opposite is beyond man's power of invention, is regarded as independent of and irrelevant to the nature of reality, i.e., as an arbitrary product of human "convention." [IOTE, 117-118]

Ayn Rand & Epistemology 42

Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy 15: Concepts as Theories. In a previous post, I criticized the Objectivist view that concepts constitute the principle unit of knowledge. Although Rand argued that concepts contain an "implicit" proposition indicating that the referents of the concept exist, she is not on record as endorsing the view that there may be many implicit propositions lurking inside concepts. Yet the doctrine that concepts contain many propositions is strongly implied by what Peikoff writes in his essay on the Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy:

The epistemological basis of [the logical-factual dichotomy] is the view that a concept consists only of its definition. According to the dichotomy, it is logically impermissible to contradict the definition of a concept; what one asserts by this means is "logically" impossible. But to contradict any of the non-defining characteristics of a concept's referents, is regarded as logically permissible; what one asserts in such a case is merely "empirically" impossible.

Thus, a "married bachelor" contradicts the definition of "bachelor" and hence is regarded as "logically" impossible. But a "bachelor who can fly to the moon by means of flapping his arms" is regarded a "logically" possible, because the definition of "bachelor" ("an unmarried man") does not specify his means of locomotion. [IOTE, 115]

Implicit in this criticism is the view that concepts include all the characteristics of a concept's referent. In practical terms, that means all proposotions about a concept, including theories, would presumably be included in the concept. For Objectivism, a concept is not a symbolic meaning used to represent something outside itself; it is, rather, a container which includes everything known (or potentially knowable) about the concept's referent. As Peikoff puts it, "the concept 'man' ... includes all the characteristics of the 'man.'" [115]

Objectivism & Epistemology, 41

Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy 14: Peikoff on Logic and Experience. After discussing contigency and necessity, Peikoff moves on the logic and experience. He repeats his favorite charge against the analytic-sythetic dichotomy:

Any theory that propounds an opposition between the logical and empirical, represents a failure to grasp the nature of logic and its role in human cognition. [IOTE, 112]

Do advocates of the ASD really propound an "opposition" between logic and experience? Perhaps some do; but without giving examples, Peikoff is merely issuing an unsubstantiated assertion. The ASD grew out of distinctions generated by Hume and Kant. These philosophers were attacking rationalistic speculation (what Kant called "pure" reason). They were not, however, banishing logic from human cognition.

Peikoff goes on the present a brief one-paragraph digest of the Objectivist theory of knowledge:

Man is born tabula rasa; all his knowledge is based on and derived from the evidence of the senses. To reach the distinctively human level of cognition, man must conceptualize his perceptual data --- and conceptualization is a process which is neither automatic nor infallible. Man needs to discover a method to guide this process, if it is to yield conclusions which correspond to the facts of reality --- i.e., which represent knowledge. The principle at the base of the proper method is the fundamental principle of metaphysics: the Law of Identity. In reality, contradiction is the proof of an error. Hence the method man must follow: to identify the facts he observes, in a non-contradictory manner. This method is logic --- "the art of non-contradictory identification." Logic must be employed at every step of a man's conceptual development, from the formulation of his first concepts to the discovery of the most complex scientific laws and theories. Only when a conclusion is based on a noncontradictory identification and integration of all the evidence at a given time, can it qualify as knowledge. [IOTE, 112-113]

Let's examine this paragraph sentence by sentence.

Ayn Rand & Epistemology 39

Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy 12: Necessity and Rationalistic Speculation. In my last post, I introduced some of Peikoff's objections to the view that all facts are contingent. Peikoff described this view as "secularized mysticism," suggesting that belief in the contingency of facts is motivated by a desire to evade reality. However, as with Peikoff's attacks on the analytic-synthetic dichotomy, we find LP once again missing the point. Historically, the contingency of facts doctrine has tended to be most popular among empiricists, not because they were fact-evaders, but because they despised rationalistic speculation. Rationalists and Idealists often use necessity to justify reasoning about matters of fact. If all you wish to achieve is to note that all bachelors are unmarried, or that all the characters of thought have identity, or that up is opposite from down, then there is no real great objection to philosophical speculation. If it is merely an explication of meanings, speculate to your hearts content. But philosophers and ideologues wish to go further. They wish to use philosophical speculation to determine matters of fact. And I'm not talking about trivial facts such as "The sun rises in the east," or "water flows downhill." No, they wish to use speculation to determine facts about the "nature of man," "necessities in nature," the usefulness and/or "validation" of inductive reasoning, and the workings of their favorite moral and  political systems. In short, they wish to determine matters of fact which, even under the most rigorous scientific standards of peer review and criticism, are not easily ascertainable, by doing little more than spinning rationalistic webs. Such a method does not provide reliable knowledge of difficult-to-know matters of fact.

Ayn Rand & Epistemology 38

Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy 11: Necessity and Contingency. After flogging the analytical synthetic dichotomy for several pages, Peikoff focuses on a new target: "the dichotomy between necessary and contingent facts." Per usual with Peikoff, he labors under the presumption that there is a kind of consensus governing contemporary philosophy on this issue:

[The necessary-contingent dichotomy] was interpreted in the twentieth century as follows: since facts are learned by experience, and experience does not reveal necessity, the concept "necessary facts" must be abandoned. Facts, it is now held, are one and all contingent --- and the propositions describing them are "contingent truths." As for necessary truths, they are merely the products of man's linguistic or conceptual conventions. They do not refer to facts, they are empty, "analytic," "tautological." [107]

Although not all or even most contemporary philosopher accept the necessary-contingent dichotomy, those that do advocate it believe in something close to what Peikoff describes. In other words, Peikoff has not grossly misstated this particular view, which is unusual for him. What, then, is his objection to this dichotomy? His main objection is the view, supposedly entailed by the dichotomy, that facts are contingent. Such a view, contends Peikoff,

represents a failure to grasp the Law of Identity. Since things are what they are, since everything that exists possesses a specific identity, nothing in reality can occur by chance. The nature of an entity determines what it can do and, in any given set of circumstances, dictates what it will do. The Law of Causality is entailed by the Law of Identity. Entities follow certain laws of action in consequence of their identity, and have no alternative to doing so. [108-109]

Ayn Rand & Epistemology 37

Analytical-Synthetic Dichotomy 10: Peikoff's Argument. In a previous post, I criticized Peikoff's theory of meaning, which asserts that "the meaning of a concept consists of the units ... it integrates." This Objectivist theory of meaning, as I noted in that post, contains both platonist and positivistic aspects. It separates meaning from individual intent and turns concepts into quasi-platonist entities that literally transcribe the world. As a theory of meaning, it is not merely absurd according to the the standards of good sense, but even in terms of Rand's own philosophy. To be sure, Objectivism contains its fair share of absurdities. However, many of Rand's metaphysical and epistemological doctrines, if interpreted generously, have at least an aura of plausibility about them. They at least attempt to pay lip service to common sense and practical efficacy. But the Objectivist theory of meaning seems bad all the way through. It's not only bad philosophy, it's bad Objectivism as well. It is not consistent with Rand's own theory of "unit economy," or with Rand's career as a writer of fiction. Meaning cannot be confined to the literally true, as Rand's theory of meaning, if it were consistently applied, would demand.