Objectivist Theory of Truth


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Objectivist Theory of Truth

In Altas Rand wrote: “An atom is itself, and so is the universe; neither can contradict its own identity; nor can a part contradict the whole. No concept man forms is valid unless he integrates it without contradiction into the total sum of his knowledge” (1016).

She continued, “to arrive at a contradiction is to confess an error in one’s thinking." She had already stated “a contradiction cannot exist,” which we may take to mean there are no contradictions in existence, that they do not obtain in reality. That fits with a correspondence view of truth, but maybe with others as well.

In the next paragraph, Rand wrote: “Truth is the recognition of reality; reason, man’s only means of knowledge, is his only standard of truth.” This sounds something like correspondence, but more. By her insistence on integration, wholly rational integration, she seems be fashioning herself a determined variation on the correspondence theory of truth.

A recognition is an identification, and it looks highly likely that Rand took truth to be an identification as of ’57. She fills in that point expressly when she addresses truth again in ’66–’67. The following is her statement, which Merlin Jetton examined in Part 3 of his “Theories of Truth” (1993, 96–99).

Truth is the product of the recognition (i.e., identification) of the facts of reality. Man identifies and integrates the facts of reality by means of concepts. He retains concepts in his mind by means of definitions. He organizes concepts into propositions—and the truth or falsehood of his propositions rests, not only on their relation to the facts he asserts, but also on the truth or falsehood of the definitions of the concepts he uses to assert them, which rests on the truth or falsehood of his designations of essential characteristics. (ITOE 48)

Merlin points out that concepts and universals have a couple of correspondence characters in Rand’s view of them. Moreover, in Rand’s view,

Valid definitions reflect logical, hierarchical interdependencies among our concepts. Definitions must identify essentials in order to be true. Definitions, in Rand’s view, can be true in reality, true in a correspondence way. What is an essential characteristic, though it depends upon the context of one’s knowledge, is an issue of fact. (TT 97)

He argues that Rand’s epistemological views and her metaphysical views “purport some version of the correspondence theory of truth.” He notes that both Kelley (1986, 28) and Peikoff (1991, 165) classified Rand’s conception of truth as “in essence” the traditional correspondence conception. Merlin goes on to argue, however, that Rand’s emphasis on non-contradictory integration, as well as her metaphysics, gives her conception some of the character of the coherence theory of truth. He quotes a passage from Peikoff 1991, 123, (which is straight Rand Atlas and ITOE) and remarks “the similarity to coherentists like Bradley and Blanshard is clear” (98).*

Brand Blanshard’s book Reason and Analysis appeared in 1962. It was reviewed favorably by Nathaniel Branden the following year. Branden understood of course that Blanshard was some sort of absolute idealist, but the book offered access to contemporary positivist and analytic philosophy (including the A-S distinction), and it offered criticisms of them, which Objectivists might join.

Rand had read John Hosper’s book An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis in 1960–61. Rand’s firm anchor of truth in correspondence and the primacy of existence comes through in her marginalia on truth, on propositions, on definitions and tautology, and on logical possibility (Mayhew 1995, 68–70, 75–80).

Rand’s coherence trait of truth is essential for truth. Fact is interconnected and multilayered in Rand's picture. Fact caught in mind will be truth, and truths will not be isolated in their facts nor in their relations to other truths.

In Rand’s metaphysics, every existent stands in relationships to the rest of the universe. Every existent affects and is affected (ITOE 39). Rand does not go so far as the coherence theorist who would hold that relations to other things is what constitutes what something is (TT 2 114).

Concerning the historical roots of the coherence element in Rand’s theory of truth, I think the main root is not the absolute idealists, nor Spinoza before them, but Aristotle. “Truth is the product of the recognition (i.e., identification) of the facts of reality. . . . The truth or falsehood of [man’s] propositions rests, not only on their relation to the facts he asserts, but also on the truth or falsehood of the definitions of the concepts he uses to assert them, which rests on the truth or falsehood of his designations of essential characteristics.” (ITOE 48). Rand’s conception of the connectivity of facts for truth and her requirement of definitions designating essential characteristics for concepts in assertions are the “coherence” element in Rand’s theory. Her theory is revised Aristotle.

Aristotle wrote that "a definition is a phrase signifying a thing's essence" (Top. 101b37). Fundamentally, "the essence of each thing is what it is said to be in virtue of itself. For being you is not being musical; for you are not musical in virtue of yourself. What, then, you are in virtue of yourself is your essence" (Metaph. 1029b14-16). For Aristotle the essential predicates of a thing say what it is, what it is to be it. To say that man is musical does not say what man is. It says something truly of man, but it does not say what is man.

Thus far, Rand concurs. "A definition must identify the nature of the units [subsumed under the concept being defined], i.e., the essential characteristics without which the units would not be the kind of existents they are" (ITOE 42). Moreover, the essential characteristic of a kind under a concept is "the fundamental characteristic without which the others would not be possible. . . . Metaphysically, a fundamental characteristic is that distinctive characteristic which makes the greatest number of others possible; epistemologically, it is the one that explains the greatest number of others" (ITOE 45).

Aristotle held that all natural bodies are a composite of matter and form. He took form, rather than matter, to be what makes a thing the kind of thing it is. Essence is a form.

Rand rejected this component of Aristotle’s metaphysics (ITOE Appendix, 286). "Aristotle held that definitions refer to metaphysical essences, which exist in concretes as a special element or formative power. . . . Aristotle regarded 'essence' as metaphysical; Objectivism regards it as epistemological" (ITOE 52). For Aristotle what makes gold gold or an animal cell an animal cell is a metaphysical essence, a metaphysical form.

In our modern view, the essence of the chemical element gold, that in virtue of which it is gold, is: having such-and-such numbers of protons and neutrons bound in a nucleus and the electrons about it. That is what makes its further distinctive properties possible. The essence of a living animal cell is that it offsets the potentially catastrophic drive of water inward through its wall by pumping sodium ions out through its wall. That is what makes possible its further distinctive properties (distinctive, say, from a living plant cell). These essences are physical. The essence of a human being—rational animality—is physical and mental. These are all essences in Rand's sense. They are physical or mental, but not metaphysical in the form-sense of Aristotle's essences.

For Rand "an essential characteristic is factual, in the sense that it does exist, does determine other characteristics, and does distinguish a group of existents from all others; it is epistemological in the sense that the classification of 'essential characteristic' is a device of man's method of cognition" (ITOE 52). Proper essential characteristics in Rand’s theory of definitions required for truth use factual characteristics about a thing to state what it is. Aristotle, in contrast, did not take the essence of a thing to be one of its characteristics among others. He did not take it to be a characteristic of a thing. The form that is the essence of a thing, the form that makes it what it is, is prior in every way to the individual thing it makes possible (Witt 1989, 123–26).

In Rand’s metaphysics, entity, not substance, is the primary existent. Though characteristics and relationships presuppose entities, an entity is nothing but its characteristics and relationships, for entities, like all existents, are nothing but identity. So Rand’s realism of definition and essence reaches rock bottom of reality, while dropping some Aristotelian doctrines of substance, essence, and form. Without those Aristotelian elements in her theory of definition and essential characteristics, Rand’s theory of truth actually has somewhat less of the coherence element had in Aristotle’s theory of truth. At least that is so provided I am correct in taking Aristotle to hold truth to be not only saying of what is that it is, but saying of what is what it is (Metaph. IX.10).

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*Consider the similarity of Rand’s view, as stated by Branden in the Basic Principles of Objectivism lectures (c. 1968), to coherence theorists. In Rand’s view, he says:

All knowledge is contextual, which means: has to be integrated, has to form a logical, consistent, non-contradictory whole. / “All thinking,” states Galt, “is a process of identification and integration.” All logic, then, is a process of context-keeping. No conclusion of a formal logical argument can be considered true out-of-context. Only a full context can determine its truth or falsehood. (2009, 75)

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References

Aristotle c. 348–322 B.C. The Complete Works of Aristotle. J. Barnes, editor. 1983. Princeton.

Blanshard, B. 1962. Reason and Analysis. Open Court.

Branden, N. 2009. The Vision of Ayn Rand. Cobden.

Hospers, J. 1953. An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis. Prentice-Hall.

Jetton, M. 1992–93. Theories of Truth. Objectivity 1(4):1–30, 1(5):109–49, 1(6):73–106.

Kelley, D. 1986. The Evidence of the Senses. LSU.

Mayhew, R. 1995. Ayn Rand’s Marginalia. ARI.

Peikoff, L. 1991. Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand. Dutton.

Rand, A. 1957. Atlas Shrugged. Random House.

——. 1966–67. Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. Expanded 2nd edition. 1990. Meridian.

Witt, C. 1989. Substance and Essence in Aristotle. Cornell.

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The correspondence theory of truth states that the truth or falsity of a statement is determined only by how it relates to the world and whether it accurately describes (i.e., corresponds with) that world. The theory is opposed to the coherence theory of truth which holds that the truth or falsity of a statement is determined by its relations to other statements rather than its relation to the world. (Wikipedia here.)

That is not what I would have guessed, lexically. I thought that a coherence test meant that the proposition was internally consistent. As stated above, coherence is a poor choice of standard because all manner of statements can be true (or false) depending on which other statements you use to test them. Consider "Marxist theology." Mostly, these are Christians who worry a lot about political economy. Myself, I wonder if angels are exploited and alienated? Does God derive a marginal benefit from the existence of angels in excess of the benefit delivered to us by their existence? If so, how do angels express their alienation? Was that Lucifer's problem? (I could go on all day...) But you see the problem, of course. So, I fail to see how Objectivism could be accused of even passing resemblance to coherence theory.

So Rand’s realism of definition and essence reaches rock bottom of reality, while dropping some Aristotelian doctrines of substance, essence, and form.

That is the problem I have with Early Wittgenstein's Tractacus. Languages are different enough that I find it problematic (if not dangerous) to claim, as you did that "Rand’s realism of definition and essence reaches rock bottom of reality." Why not say that it hits the substantial nail on its essential head, driving its form into the grain of the universe? Does reality have a rock bottom? I once read a science fiction novel that that magma miners in it. Our "rock bottom" would be their ceiling.

I have sat down with Aristotle in the Loeb Classics editions, and with a Lexicon and a grammar. I know what I understand by what he said. I see the translations as guides. We use many words that did not exist. Once, after speaking at a conference, "Coinage and Identities in the Ancient World" (Calgary, 2004), we had a round robin, and I said that the coins of Alexander were intended as Macedonian propaganda and Keith Rutter from Edinburgh said, "You just used a word that would not exist for 2000 years after Alexander." I said, "??????" and he replied "Propaganda." So, when we translate Aristotle, it is important, perhaps, to be cognizant of the lexical problems. In Italian, about Dante, they say, "Traduttore traditore." To translate is to betray.

As Thomas Kuhn pointed out, we still have Aristotlean philosophers adding to the body of Aristotlean thought. We do not have chemists working in Phlogiston Theory. It might be best to leave Aristotle to the classicists and consider whether Objectivism corresponds to reality (the root and rock of reason, I daresay), rather than whether it is coherent with modern English translations of Aristotle.

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The correspondence theory of truth states that the truth or falsity of a statement is determined only by how it relates to the world and whether it accurately describes (i.e., corresponds with) that world. The theory is opposed to the coherence theory of truth which holds that the truth or falsity of a statement is determined by its relations to other statements rather than its relation to the world. (Wikipedia here.)

That is not what I would have guessed, lexically. I thought that a coherence test meant that the proposition was internally consistent. As stated above, coherence is a poor choice of standard because all manner of statements can be true (or false) depending on which other statements you use to test them. Consider "Marxist theology." Mostly, these are Christians who worry a lot about political economy. Myself, I wonder if angels are exploited and alienated? Does God derive a marginal benefit from the existence of angels in excess of the benefit delivered to us by their existence? If so, how do angels express their alienation? Was that Lucifer's problem? (I could go on all day...) But you see the problem, of course. So, I fail to see how Objectivism could be accused of even passing resemblance to coherence theory.

Notwithstanding the Wiki definition, 'coherence' in the Randian model, (as you say "...the proposition was

internally consisitent") is the only one that makes sense to me. I think your first guess was right.

"...to other statements" [Wiki] is ambiguous - does it mean previously-held propositions, by you? or by others?

So I think 'correspondence' and 'coherence' mesh extremely well, and are not opposed:

Do I think x is true in reality, independent of my consciousness?

If yes,

Does it integrate with the sum of my present knowledge, i.e. in accord with my consciousness?

Yes, signifies a truth - no, a contradiction.

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The correspondence theory of truth states that the truth or falsity of a statement is determined only by how it relates to the world and whether it accurately describes (i.e., corresponds with) that world. The theory is opposed to the coherence theory of truth which holds that the truth or falsity of a statement is determined by its relations to other statements rather than its relation to the world. (Wikipedia here.)

How is a pure coherence theory of truh supposed to work? For it does not cover the possibility that those 'other statements' can be false as well?

If, for example, one hundred people are asked to name the exact number of peas in a glass container, but each of them gets it wrong, it is neither possible to determine the truth by relating those statements to each other, nor it is possible to determine the truth by relating those statements to other statements that might have the number correct.

The only way to to find out the truth here is by applying an objective verification process: counting the peas.

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Angela,

Your note reminded me of the film Melancholia, which we watched a couple of nights ago. In the film, Justine says “I know things.” She knows certain special things, and she does not know anything of how she knows them. She knows that the number of beans in a big vase is 678. Earlier in the film, people were guessing the number of beans in the jar at the wedding reception. We have seen that the result of the staff counting the beans was 678 and that no one had guessed the number. We have been prepared to learn that Justine “knows” the number of beans in the vase. Does she really? Does she have the truth about the number of beans in the vase?

To say Yes would seem somewhat like saying that a twelve-hour clock that has stopped has the correct time twice a day. It does not keep time, I would say. Similarly, I’d say Justine (or a lucky guesser) does not have truth and does not know the number of beans. The people who counted the beans have the truth. That required not only correspondence, but the right connections among the parts of the process of counting. Then too, having the elementary truth about what a count number is requires “coherence” connections of some sort.

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How is a pure coherence theory of truh supposed to work? For it does not cover the possibility that thhose 'other statements' can be false as well?

If, for example, one hundred people are asked to name the exact number of peas in a glass container, but each of them gets it wrong, it is neither possible to determine the truth by relating those statements to each other, nor it is possible to determine the truth by relating those statements to other statements that might have the number correct.

The only way to to find out the truth here is by applying an objective verification process: counting the peas.

The coherence theory of truth says that truth is primarily a property of a system of statements. Proponents typically deny that a single statement can be known to be true by virtue of the correspondence theory. Indeed, they would claim that any single statement implies others, and we can't know the first is true without knowing the others are also true.

About all the coherence theory would say about the pea situation you describe is that the set of claims about the number of peas regarded as a system fails because it is incoherent. To better grasp how the coherence theory works in practice, consider a detective trying to solve a crime. Suppose the detective accepts Statements #1, #2, and #3 as true. He then hears or hypothesizes Statement #4. He accepts or rejects #4, at least provisionally, based on it being coherent or incoherent with #1, #2, and #3.

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I notice that Rand would definitely object to the idea that truth was “primarily a property of a system of statements.” That is, she would object to the idea that truth was primarily a property of statements or propositions. In her marginalia to Hospers’ book, she objects to shuffling the question “What is truth?” into “What are true propositions?”. She jotted: “Truth cannot be a matter of propositions, because it is a matter of context” (Mayhew 1995, 68).

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Notwithstanding the Wiki definition, 'coherence' in the Randian model, (as you say "...the proposition was

internally consisitent") is the only one that makes sense to me.

I am not sure that we are allowed to redefine common terms to our liking, but you and I agree that internal coherence is an aspect of truth, necessary if not sufficient.

I see that as an indication of the power in Sophistry as it was originally intended. If I may generalize, the Greeks believed that words describe the real world and they accepted the validity of logic. Therefore, the best argument described the truth. Obviously, without referents to empirical reality, eventually, it all went astray, while at the same time reasoned argument devolved to argumentation for its own sake.

We have the same thing in our time, what Feynman called "cargo cult science" going through the motions of empirical research without the critical self-evaluation necessary for an honest effort.

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Notwithstanding the Wiki definition, 'coherence' in the Randian model, (as you say "...the proposition was

internally consisitent") is the only one that makes sense to me.

I am not sure that we are allowed to redefine common terms to our liking, but you and I agree that internal coherence is an aspect of truth, necessary if not sufficient.

I see that as an indication of the power in Sophistry as it was originally intended. If I may generalize, the Greeks believed that words describe the real world and they accepted the validity of logic. Therefore, the best argument described the truth. Obviously, without referents to empirical reality, eventually, it all went astray, while at the same time reasoned argument devolved to argumentation for its own sake.

We have the same thing in our time, what Feynman called "cargo cult science" going through the motions of empirical research without the critical self-evaluation necessary for an honest effort.

Though I might have been playing fast and loose with the accepted definition of the coherence theory - briefly -

it's not like I was trying to pull the wool over anyone's eyes. That was clear enough.

"Sophistry"? nah. That's for win-at-all-costs arguments, which bore me: I'm not devious enough nor

smart enough, anyway.

Self-evidently, internal coherence is more than an aspect of Objectivist epistemology, it is crucial.

Now (for self-referral) I'll have to find my own name for coherence:

The accordance theory of truth? uh-uh.

The accomodation theory of truth? hmm. 'Congruence'? that's more like it.

Ah - what about "the integrational theory of truth" ?? Got it. :smile:

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A

Rand contended that one must never form any convictions “apart from or against the total, integrated sum of one’s knowledge” (OE 26). That integrated sum is one’s entire cognitive context, “the entire field of a mind’s awareness or knowledge” (ITOE 43).

We have noted Rand’s statement “No concept man forms is valid unless he integrates it without contradiction into the sum total of his knowledge” (AS 1016). To the extent that his mind deals with valid concepts, “the content of his concepts is determined and dictated by the cognitive content of his mind, i.e., by his grasp of the facts of reality” (ITOE 43).

It is not the integration that makes the content true, though the integration is necessary to truth, necessary to the grasp of fact. Peikoff writes “If one drops context, one drops the means of distinguishing between truth and fantasy” (OPAR 124). That is partly due to the nature of facts. The context of knowledge is the context of grasped fact, which is a context of fact. Facts have contexts, independently of our grasp of them (cf. OPAR 123).

The contextual character of truth in an Objectivist account should be hands-on-world, rather as Rand’s essential characteristics of concepts are hands-on-world. Recall that in Rand’s theory of definition, the fundamental characteristic serving as the essential characteristic of a concept is both metaphysical and epistemological; it tells relations of dependency in the world and relations of explanation in the mind. The relations of context in the world will naturally include more than relations of dependency, and relations of context in the mind will include more than relations of explanation.

The membership relation is one relation among contents of mind that is not that relation among the mind-independent, concrete objects corresponding to those contents. That is entailed when philosophers say with Aristotle that what-such depends on this-such, but not vice-versa, or when one says with Rand that only concretes exist in reality.

The binding of membership relations to concrete factual relations, though necessarily not by complete identity with the latter relations, is surely a major impetus for integration in abstract knowledge and integration of abstract knowledge with experience. Rand’s cast of concept-class membership relations as analyzable in terms of suspension of particular values in mathematically scaled relations—relations that can express concrete magnitude relations in the world—is a grand structure for integration beyond non-contradiction. It makes the meaning of correspondence in “truth as correspondence with facts” more specific, and it accords with the success of science in improving correspondence by use of mathematics.

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Tony, how about “integrated correspondence theory of truth”? (#10)

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A

Rand contended that one must never form any convictions “apart from or against the total, integrated sum of one’s knowledge” (OE 26). That integrated sum is one’s entire cognitive context, “the entire field of a mind’s awareness or knowledge” (ITOE 43).

We have noted Rand’s statement “No concept man forms is valid unless he integrates it without contradiction into the sum total of his knowledge” (AS 1016). To the extent that his mind deals with valid concepts, “the content of his concepts is determined an The context of knowledge is the context of grasped fact, which is a context of fact. Facts have contexts, independently of our grasp of them (cf. OPAR 123).

The contextual character of truth in an Objectivist account should be hands-on-world, rather as Rand’s essential characteristics of concepts are hand-on-world. Recall that in Rand’s theory of definition, the fundamental characteristic serving as the essential characteristic of a concept is both metaphysical and epistemological; it tells relations of dependency in the world and relations of explanation in the mind. The relations of context in the world will naturally include more than relations of dependency, and relations of context in the mind will include more than relations of explanation.

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Tony, how about “integrated correspondence theory of truth”? (#10)

Of course! Contextualization is a twin - not only in our correspondence with what's 'in here', but with what's 'left behind' - 'out there'!

Crude, but I think I've got it.

"Facts have contexts independently..."

And:

"...is both metaphysical and epistemological; it tells [of?] relationships of dependency in the world, and relations of explanation in the mind."

Thanks for the clarity. I realize I've held this implicitly, and never grasped it explicitly.

I don't recall where, but Rand wrote "There is an enormous breach of continuity between nature and man's consciousness."

I think you (and she) have gone a long way to filling the breach.

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The coherence theory of truth says that truth is primarily a property of a system of statements. Proponents typically deny that a single statement can be known to be true by virtue of the correspondence theory. Indeed, they would claim that any single statement implies others, and we can't know the first is true without knowing the others are also true.

But in order to find out whether all those other statements are true, doesn't it there come the point where one has to do the 'reality test', i. e. identify them as being corresponent to objective facts?

Truth is the product of the recognition (i.e., identification) of the facts of reality.

To better grasp how the coherence theory works in practice, consider a detective trying to solve a crime. Suppose the detective accepts Statements #1, #2, and #3 as true. He then hears or hypothesizes Statement #4. He accepts or rejects #4, at least provisionally, based on it being coherent or incoherent with #1, #2, and #3.

Investigators engaged in solving a crime would probably use terms like "inconsistent with" or "contradictory".

When it comes to truth, imo coherence (or better: consistency) is a necessary implication of a correspondence to objectve fact. For truth is always contradiction-free. So when investigators come across a contradiction in a suspect's statements, this raises a red flag.

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When it comes to truth, imo coherence (or better: consistency) is a necessary implication of a correspondence to objectve fact. For truth is always contradiction-free. So when investigators come across a contradiction in a suspect's statements, this raises a red flag.

The red flag warns that the suspect is a socialist.

As I agree with your analyis of coherance and conformance - both are necessary for truth; neither alone is sufficient - it is hard for me to understand how someone so intelligent, cultured, and good looking as you are can be so wrong about politics. I lack a coherent theory that explains the facts.

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The coherence theory of truth says that truth is primarily a property of a system of statements. Proponents typically deny that a single statement can be known to be true by virtue of the correspondence theory. Indeed, they would claim that any single statement implies others, and we can't know the first is true without knowing the others are also true.

But in order to find out whether all those other statements are true, doesn't it there come the point where one has to do the 'reality test', i. e. identify them as being corresponent to objective facts?

That is obviously a weakness of the coherence theory, but its defenders do not wish to bow to the correspondence theory.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Correspondence establishes the facts. Coherence produces the "big picture".

Ba'al Chatzaf

Which means coherence and correspondence complement each other in a productive way.

I can't understand why the adherents of each theory seem to think of their own theory as incompatible with the other.

In real life, we apply both correspondence and coherence all the time when it comes fo finding out a truth.

Every criminal case investigation uses both theories as well. If for example eyewitness testimony from several people questioned independently of each other shows the same information, this coherence is an important factor.

If this coherence is then supported by additional evidence corresponding to a fact of reality, it leads even closer to truth.

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I'd think there is a possibility of facts or knowledge that aren't yet to be integrated into what else one knows without contradiction, but instead of throwing out the babies with the bathwater one merely puts them into epistemological purgatory to be dealt with later if possible. Then there is the integrated whole which turns out to be wholly wrong, as in past representations of astronomy. The implicit desire for absolutism in Objectivism easily spills over into moral condemnation for not toeing the line--Peikoff's line--and the philosophical rule of the Big Man or cultism.

--Brant

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Complementing Angela’s #18, I would like to add that there is something like a correspondence versus integration-to-correspondence in kinds of memory. If I’m trying to remember if I took a certain pill already, I might be able to bring to mind some of the earlier haptic and visual experience of taking it. In the same vein, I might be able to remember that it got stuck in my throat and that it was a federal case to get it out. That seems like just plain correspondence. Like the original experience. However, if I can’t bring anything like that to mind, I’ll go about various inferential chains by which I might be able to conclude whether I have already taken the pill. For many years, and in applications that occur every day, I have called the first sort of memory a direct or concrete or actual memory and the second sort of memory an inferential memory. To be sure the direct one has also required integrations by the brain, but in that kind of memory, as with perception, the result is simply given to me, and the underlying integrations are so-to-speak not my problem.

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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I have expanded the root post of this thread into a complete article. I will post it here, and when the series "Truth of Geometry" in my Corner is completed, I'll add this article also to the end of that thread and rename that thread Theory of Truth. Results from the completed "Truth of Geometry" may prompt further changes to the article below, but I think the version below is close to the final.

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Objectivist Theory of Truth

In Altas Rand wrote: “An atom is itself, and so is the universe; neither can contradict its own identity; nor can a part contradict the whole. No concept man forms is valid unless he integrates it without contradiction into the total sum of his knowledge” (1016).

She continued, “to arrive at a contradiction is to confess an error in one’s thinking.” She had already stated “a contradiction cannot exist,” which we may take to mean there are no contradictions in existence, that they do not obtain in reality. That fits with a correspondence view of truth,* but maybe with others as well (Schmitt 1995; Newman 2002; Armstrong 2004; Walker 1989; Thagard 2007).

In the next paragraph, Rand wrote: “Truth is the recognition of reality; reason, man’s only means of knowledge, is his only standard of truth.” This sounds something like correspondence, but more. By her insistence on integration, wholly rational integration, she seems be fashioning herself a determined variation on the correspondence theory of truth.

A recognition is an identification, and it looks highly likely that Rand took truth to be an identification as of ’57. She fills in that point expressly when she addresses truth again in ’66–’67. The following is her statement, which Merlin Jetton examined in Part 3 of his “Theories of Truth” (1993, 96–99).

Truth is the product of the recognition (i.e., identification) of the facts of reality. Man identifies and integrates the facts of reality by means of concepts. He retains concepts in his mind by means of definitions. He organizes concepts into propositions—and the truth or falsehood of his propositions rests, not only on their relation to the facts he asserts, but also on the truth or falsehood of the definitions of the concepts he uses to assert them, which rests on the truth or falsehood of his designations of essential characteristics. (ITOE 48)

Jetton points out that concepts and universals have a couple of correspondence characters in Rand’s view of them.

Concepts, and universals, have a correspondence character: one concept corresponding to some number of particulars. Concepts “represent classification of observed existents according to their relationships to other observed existents” (ITOE 47). . . . That is a second correspondence character of concepts: their conformity with the relationships among existents. (TT 96–97)

Moreover, in Rand’s view,

Valid definitions reflect logical, hierarchical interdependencies among our concepts. Definitions must identify essentials in order to be true. Definitions, in Rand’s view, can be true in reality, true in a correspondence way. What is an essential characteristic, though it depends upon the context of one’s knowledge, is an issue of fact. (TT 97)

Jetton argues that Rand’s epistemological views and her metaphysical views “purport some version of the correspondence theory of truth.” He notes that both David Kelley (1986, 28) and Leonard Peikoff (1991, 165) classified Rand’s conception of truth as “in essence” the traditional correspondence conception. Fred Seddon notes that Rand understood her concept of truth as recogniton of reality to be a correspondence theory of truth (Seddon 2006, 42–43; Rand 1974, 14).

Jetton goes on to argue, however, that Rand’s emphasis on non-contradictory integration, as well as her metaphysics, gives her conception some of the character of the coherence theory of truth.* He quotes a passage from Peikoff (1991, 123, which is straight Atlas and ITOE) and remarks “the similarity to coherentists like Bradley and Blanshard is clear” (98).

Brand Blanshard’s book Reason and Analysis appeared in 1962. It was reviewed favorably by Nathaniel Branden the following year. Branden understood that Blanshard was some sort of absolute idealist, but the book offered access to contemporary positivist and analytic philosophy (including the analytic-synthetic distinction), and it offered criticisms of them, which Objectivists might join.

Notice the similarity of Rand’s view, as stated by Nathaniel Branden in the Basic Principles of Objectivism lectures (c. 1968), to that of coherence theorists. In Rand’s view, he says:

All knowledge is contextual, which means: has to be integrated, has to form a logical, consistent, non-contradictory whole. / “All thinking,” states Galt, “is a process of identification and integration.” All logic, then, is a process of context-keeping. No conclusion of a formal logical argument can be considered true out-of-context. Only a full context can determine its truth or falsehood. (Branden 2009, 75)

Peikoff writes “Logical processing of an idea within a specific context of knowledge is necessary and sufficient to establish the idea’s truth” (OPAR 171). Of that statement, Jetton writes:

This is another appeal to coherence (and a bar to skepticism of the deceitful-genie sort). . . . [it] seems in effect to say that coherence establishes truth (a far stronger claim than the that coherence is a sign, or criterion of truth. Perhaps by “establish” Peikoff means only verify or confirm, rather than constitute. (TT 99)

Peikoff maintained that unless his proposition is true, the fact that we don’t know everything can be turned into the skeptical result that we don’t know anything. If we have no means of possessing any limited knowledge not susceptible to being shown false in the future, no means of knowledge sufficient for truth, then the skeptic can say “for all we know, all of our limited knowledge is false.”

“Logical processing” in Rand’s philosophy, as is well known, includes a lot and is essential to truth and objectivity. To know the number of oval-head #4 five-eighths-inch brass screws I have remaining in their box, I need to count them. That process and result will require not only correspondence, but the right connections among the parts of the process of counting. Moreover, the process of counting is not only necessary; counting, with all my counting crosschecks, is sufficient for truth about the number of screws.

Truth at a conceptual level of cognition is necessarily an integration, and if it were entirely free of any misidentifications in all its network, it would necessarily be true. That is, in this limit of cognitive performance, the cognitive conditions are sufficient for truth. That is Rand's picture. I say Peikoff's establish should stand between verify or confirm, on the one hand, and constitute, on the other; therewith he was not saying something beyond Rand’s picture of ’57 and ’66–’67.

I take issue with Rand’s philosophy on the issue neatly captured in Peikoff’s statement. (See also Khawaja 2011, 64.) To start, the “an idea” and the “the idea” will usually have evolved with the advance of knowledge. That all animals are mortal was a truth with the Greeks as with us, but what we mean by animal and mortal have been considerably revised and improved over what it meant to them. The reference class of what is meant by animal has broadened and understanding of what is living process and its cessation has expanded tremendously. But Peikoff’s statement can likely be elaborated so as to take all that into account without substantive retreat.

I attended Lecture 6 in Peikoff’s 1992 series The Art of Thinking.* Peikoff remarked there, allowing for inaccuracy in my notes, that he does not see the preface “in the present context of knowledge” as sensible for: (i) perceptions or memory, (ii) automated conceptual identifications (table in contrast with hostility or pneumonia), and (iii) axioms (philosophical [very delimited; widest framework] and mathematical [very delimited subjects]). Saying “in the present context” in the cases where it is sensible is not proof against error. One can have been fully rational to have held views based on errors one later sees. However, error is not inevitable for the methodologically conscious adult. That is what I have in my notes.

Suppose one’s knowledge were based on perceptual observation and correct reasoning upon them, including correct use of mathematics in application to them. Then it would seem fair to say that “Logical processing of an idea within a specific context of knowledge is necessary and sufficient to establish the idea’s truth” (OPAR 171). Perfect conceptual identifications, even though not all the identity of their referents are known, if perfect in all presently known connections with observations and with all other perfect conceptual identifications, are sufficient to establish the conceptual identification’s truth.[1]

Leaving aside the three categories of knowledge set aside in Lecture 6, there remains much in our knowledge that is also virtually perfect knowledge, because it has been so thoroughly tested for contradiction in its many connections, and because these durable propositions have been given ever more exact delimitation with the advance of science. “All animals are mortal” or “I must breathe to live” are examples.

Even for a given context of knowledge, our integration and checking for contradictions is an incomplete work in progress. Meanwhile, we are adding new information, more context for knowledge, and beginning its integration and checking for contradiction. For all conceptual identifications in a condition of significantly incomplete integration and checking, correct logical processing (so far with go-ahead) is insufficient to establish truth (cf. Peikoff in Berliner 2012, 303–4). At first blush, this is no problem for the Rand-Peikoff view, for that just means that the knowledge is not to be rightly taken as certain knowledge.

It has seemed to me for some decades, however, that the history of science as we come to Galileo and Descartes showed that sometimes one’s experience leads one to an extremely well justified proposition in which it would have been very hard to realize that one was overstepping the evidence and that the proposition should not have been taken as certain knowledge, only as likely knowledge. Such would be the old, mistaken propositions that every moving body requires a mover* and that heavier bodies fall faster. This is a danger zone (this-worldly and rational) for the precept “Logical processing of an idea within a specific context of knowledge is necessary and sufficient to establish the idea’s truth.”

In the contexts of ancient or medieval knowledge, one could have checked the idea that heavier bodies fall faster than lighter ones by doing Galileo’s thought experiment. Their integrations and checking for contradictions of the idea was not complete, not perfect, even within their own contexts of knowledge. Granted these cases are unusual, nevertheless, this danger zone is there. The earlier men could have made the reasoning check made by Galileo: In imagination drop two identical bricks, of identical weight, from the same height. You know they must reach the ground at the same time. Now consider the two bricks joined, making a combined brick weighing twice as much as the two individuals. Drop that joined brick from the same height as before. The time of fall cannot be different than when the halves were individuals falling side by side. Therefore, bodies of different weights fall at the same rate. (And observations in contradiction with that result must have specific causes of their nonconformity, which need to be found.) The earlier men’s checking was incomplete without this creative check, and one would have had no inkling of that until the wise guy came along.

Rand’s picture in Peikoff’s bold statement is significantly incorrect in my view because as one’s (scientific) knowledge grows one’s knowledge of what was one’s previous context of knowledge also grows (cf.). One continues to learn what were the ways in which one's previous generalizations were over-generalizations (and in what ways they were inexplicit, indefinite, or vague). There was no reason to suppose that the Galilean rule for addition of velocities was only a close approximation to the low-velocity portion of a different rule for addition of velocities more generally, no reason until the electrodynamical results in the nineteenth century. There was no reason to post a specific caveat before then, along the lines of "for all velocities we've experienced so far." It remains that in present truth there is past truth and so forth to the future. We cannot know entirely which elements of scientific truth today will stand in a hundred more years of advance nor how those elements will have been transformed and connected with new concepts. Our repeatable experiments will still be repeatable (notwithstanding the unfounded imaginings of the Hume set), whatever new understanding we bring to them.

Peikoff is correct when he writes “No matter what the study of optics discovers, it will never affect the distinction between red and green. The same applies to all observed facts, including the fact of life” (1991, 192).

Peikoff’s sufficiency clause—its application to all cases for which the proviso of delimited truth-context pertains—is not necessary to foil skeptical maneuver. That rational thinkers sometimes have very reasonably taken something for true that is later shown to be false does not justify skepticism. Every such showing of falsehood is a showing of truth and a showing that skepticism concerning the type of knowledge at hand is false. Neither does the skeptic, nor the relativist, have justification for skipping to the contradictions of earlier science with later science, skipping, that is, the context of non-contradiction as a norm, the everywhere-context of things as they are and our ability to know them.

Rand read John Hosper’s book An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis in 1960–61. Rand’s firm anchor of truth in correspondence and the primacy of existence comes through in her marginalia on truth, on propositions, on definitions and tautology, and on logical possibility (Mayhew 1995, 68–70, 75–80). Rand objected to shuffling the question “What is truth?” into “What are true propositions?”. She jotted: “Truth cannot be a matter of propositions, because it is a matter of context” (Mayhew 1995, 68).

Like Aristotle’s, Rand’s is a substantial theory of truth. It pertains to the real, the cognitive agent, and the right relation between them. It declines linguistic stances as well as deconstructionist and relativistic stances towards truth. Aristotle’s writings “present truth in the context of a multifaceted account of knowledge that includes epistemological and psychological dimensions and in which truth directly pertains to issues of meaning, reference, intentionality, justification, and evidence . . .” (Pritzl 2010, 17). Rand can agree with Aristotle that being is the single constant context of truth. She can agree with Aristotle in holding truth to be not only saying of what is that it is, but saying of what is what it is (Metaphysics IX.10). However, she should deny Aristotle’s views that intellectual truth is an irreducible type of being and that “cognition is an identity of knower and known” (Pritzl 2010, 17).

I shall refer to the “coherence” strain in Rand’s theory of truth as the integration element in her correspondence theory of truth (cf. TT 2 114–17; Peikoff 2012, 12–15). Integration is essential for truth in Rand’s theory. Fact is interconnected and multilayered in Rand's picture. Fact caught in mind will be truth, and truths will not be isolated in their facts nor in their relations to other truths.

In Rand’s metaphysics, every existent stands in relationships to the rest of the universe. Every existent affects and is affected (ITOE 39). Rand does not go so far as the coherence theorist who would hold that relations to other things is what constitutes what something is (TT 2, 114).

Concerning the historical roots of the integration element in Rand’s theory of truth, I think the main root is not the coherence views of absolute idealists, nor of Spinoza before them, but the views of Aristotle.

Truth is the product of the recognition (i.e., identification) of the facts of reality. . . . The truth or falsehood of [man’s] propositions rests, not only on their relation to the facts he asserts, but also on the truth or falsehood of the definitions of the concepts he uses to assert them, which rests on the truth or falsehood of his designations of essential characteristics. (ITOE 48)

Rand’s conception of the connectivity of facts for truth and her requirement of definitions designating essential characteristics for concepts in assertions are among the integration elements in Rand’s theory. Her theory is revised Aristotle.[2]

Aristotle wrote that "a definition is a phrase signifying a thing's essence" (Topics 101b37). Fundamentally, "the essence of each thing is what it is said to be in virtue of itself. For being you is not being musical; for you are not musical in virtue of yourself. What, then, you are in virtue of yourself is your essence" (Metaph. 1029b14-16). For Aristotle the essential predicates of a thing say what it is, what it is to be it. To say that man is musical does not say what man is. It says something truly of man, but it does not say what is man.

Thus far, Rand concurs. "A definition must identify the nature of the units [subsumed under the concept being defined], i.e., the essential characteristics without which the units would not be the kind of existents they are" (ITOE 42). Moreover, the essential characteristic of a kind under a concept is "the fundamental characteristic without which the others would not be possible. . . . Metaphysically, a fundamental characteristic is that distinctive characteristic which makes the greatest number of others possible; epistemologically, it is the one that explains the greatest number of others" (ITOE 45).

Aristotle held that all natural bodies are a composite of matter and form. He took form, rather than matter, to be what makes a thing the kind of thing it is. Essence is a form (Gill 2010, 120; Peikoff 1985; Witt 1989, 116–19; Bolton 2010, 40–46).

Rand rejected this component of Aristotle’s metaphysics (ITOE Appendix, 286). "Aristotle held that definitions refer to metaphysical essences, which exist in concretes as a special element or formative power. . . . Aristotle regarded 'essence' as metaphysical; Objectivism regards it as epistemological" (ITOE 52). For Aristotle what makes gold gold or an animal cell an animal cell is a metaphysical essence, a metaphysical form. Metaphysical essential forms in Aristotle’s account are traditionally seen as universals; Charlotte Witt argues they are particulars (1989, chap. 5).

In our modern view, the essence of the chemical element gold, that in virtue of which it is gold, is: having such-and-such numbers of protons and neutrons bound in a nucleus and the electrons about it. That is what makes its further distinctive properties possible. The essence of a living animal cell is that it offsets the potentially catastrophic drive of water inward through its wall by pumping sodium ions out through its wall. That is what makes possible its further distinctive properties (distinctive, say, from a living plant cell). These essences are physical. The essence of a human being—rational animality—is physical and mental. These are all essences in Rand's sense. They are physical or mental, but not metaphysical in the form-sense of Aristotle's essences.

For Rand "an essential characteristic is factual, in the sense that it does exist, does determine other characteristics, and does distinguish a group of existents from all others; it is epistemological in the sense that the classification of 'essential characteristic' is a device of man's method of cognition" (ITOE 52). Proper essential characteristics in Rand’s theory of definitions required for truth use factual characteristics about a thing to state what it is. Aristotle, in contrast, did not take the essence of a thing to be one of its characteristics among others. He did not take it to be a characteristic of a thing. The form that is the essence of a thing, the form that makes it what it is, is prior in every way to the individual thing it makes possible (Witt 1989, 123–26).

In Rand’s metaphysics, entity, not substance, is the primary existent. Though characteristics and relationships presuppose entities, an entity is nothing but its characteristics and relationships, for entities, like all existents, are nothing but identity. Rand’s realism of definition and essence reaches rock bottom of reality, while dropping some Aristotelian doctrines of substance, essence, and form.

Rand contended that one must never form any convictions “apart from or against the total, integrated sum of one’s knowledge” (1961, 26). That integrated sum is one’s entire cognitive context, “the entire field of a mind’s awareness or knowledge” (ITOE 43).

We have noted Rand’s statement “No concept man forms is valid unless he integrates it without contradiction into the sum total of his knowledge” (AS 1016). To the extent that his mind deals with valid concepts, “the content of his concepts is determined and dictated by the cognitive content of his mind, i.e., by his grasp of the facts of reality” (ITOE 43).

It is not the integration that makes the content true, though the integration is necessary to truth, necessary to the grasp of fact. Peikoff writes “If one drops context, one drops the means of distinguishing between truth and fantasy” (OPAR 124). That is partly due to the nature of facts. The context of knowledge is the context of grasped fact, which is a context of fact. Facts have contexts, independently of our grasp of them (cf. OPAR 123).

The contextual character of truth in an Objectivist account should be hands-on-world, rather as Rand’s essential characteristics of concepts are hand-on-world. Recall that in Rand’s theory of definition, the fundamental characteristic serving as the essential characteristic of a concept is both metaphysical and epistemological; it tells relations of dependency in the world and relations of explanation in the mind. The relations of context in the world will naturally include more than relations of dependency, and relations of context in the mind will include more than relations of explanation.

My contention that the essential characteristic(s) of a concept, in Rand’s epistemology, is not only epistemological, but metaphysical, is consistent with Rand’s text saying that an essential characteristic is factual and does determine other characteristics, its being fundamental being a metaphysical fact. However, on the face of it, my contention contradicts Rand’s statement “Aristotle regarded ‘essence’ as metaphysical; Objectivism regards it as epistemological” (ITOE 52).

In Rand’s view, “the metaphysical referent of man’s concepts is not a special, separate metaphysical essence, but the total of the facts of reality he has observed, and this total determines which characteristics of a given group of existents he designates as essential” (ITOE 52). She goes on immediately to say in what sense an essential characteristic is factual and in what sense it is epistemological. Rand is excluding from her concept of an essential characteristic the overblown sort of metaphysics Aristotle gives to essence, and she is introducing epistemological factors that bear on correct identification of an essential characteristic. She is not excluding metaphysics as a crucial, determining factor in the identification of essential characteristic(s).

I concur with Rand. Essence as in her conception of an essential characteristic is not metaphysical in the full sense of the metaphysical that Aristotle gives to essence. However, in a less ponderous sense of the metaphysical, Randian essential characteristics are both metaphysical and epistemological. Rand requires a metaphysical basis for the designation of essential characteristics for our concepts of things. Furthermore, an essential characteristic should be not only a fact distinguishing a group of existents from all others within the present context of human knowledge; the essential characteristic of items under a concept should be additionally a fundamental one, the fundamental one on which the greatest number of the items’ other species-differentiating characteristics depend. This is metaphysical structure.

Rand should agree with Aristotle that capability for learning grammar would be an improper distinction among animals for capturing the essence of that which is man (Top. 102a18–30; ITOE 49). This is due to facts of dependency. This is metaphysical structure.

It would not do in Rand’s epistemology to follow Descartes in his idea that the primitive essence of matter is extension. That is a good distinguishing and logically necessary characteristic of matter (provided we take extension to stand for all aspects of spatiality). But it ignores the ontological primacy of entities among existents. And space is an existent. Concrete relationships are existents. A proper definition of matter must set it correctly in its relation of non-containment to consciousness (ITOE Appendix 247–50), and it must situate matter in relation to entities. Matter can be rightly defined in that second aspect partly by finding a fundamental distinctive commonality—say mass-energy—for all materials, but the standing of materials in relation to entities must also be captured in a proper definition of matter. There is much metaphysical structure in Randian definition according to essentials.

Consider too a definition of solidity. I like to define it as a state of matter in which there is resistance to shearing stresses, or more exactly, in which there is an elastic zone of resistance to shearing stresses. This definition states physical relationships. It reflects metaphysical structure and physical structure within that metaphysical frame (assuming a proper concept matter). It reflects also context of cognition (and of potential vital action). That is to say, it reflects also the present state of knowledge of matter, an epistemological circumstance.

Rand allows that with further understanding of matter I may have to expand my definition of solidity. Expanding “does not mean negating, abrogating or contradicting; it means demonstrating that some other characteristics are more distinctive” of solidity (ITOE 47). The qualification of a characteristic to be taken for essential continues to rest on the identities given to our consciousness so far—including relations of difference, similarity, and dependency—identities basing the economical scope of cognition and effective action we attain by rightly recognizing them.

I have spoken of relations of context in the world and relations of context in the mind. The membership relation is one relation among contents of mind that is not that relation among the mind-independent, concrete objects corresponding to those contents. That is entailed when philosophers say with Aristotle that what-such depends on this-such, but not vice-versa, or when one says with Rand that only concretes exist in reality.

The binding of membership relations to concrete factual relations, though necessarily not by complete identity with the latter relations, is surely a major impetus for integration in abstract knowledge and integration of abstract knowledge with experience. Rand’s cast of concept-class membership relations as analyzable in terms of suspension of particular values in mathematically scaled relations—relations that can express concrete magnitude relations in the world—is a grand structure for integration beyond non-contradiction. It makes the meaning of correspondence in “truth as correspondence with facts” more specific, and it accords with the success of science in improving correspondence by use of mathematics.[3]

Notes

1. A good study might be to contrast and compare the Objectivist view with the very local sufficiency condition of Descartes: When we have clearly and distinctly understood a proposition, we can infallibly assign a truth value to it. Then too, an interesting comparison on this point could be made between Objectivism and Stoicism (see Potts 1996, 12–13, 37–39* and Peikoff 2012, 48).

2. The history of the coherence factor in truth theories is set out well in Jetton’s “Theories of Truth.” The essay appeared in three installments in the first volume of Objectivity, in Numbers 4, 5, 6. The senses and roles of coherence for truth according to Locke, Leibniz, Spinoza, and Kant are set out in V1N4. Hegel’s tendency towards a coherence account of truth is treated in V1N5, and there too, Jetton details the fully developed account of truth as coherence. The latter includes exposition of the coherence theory by its principal proponents, Bradley, Joachim, and Blanshard.

3. In preparing this paper, I have benefitted from comments at Objectivist Living and Objectivism Online.

References

Aristotle c. 348–322 B.C. The Complete Works of Aristotle. J. Barnes, editor. 1983. Princeton.

Armstrong, D. 2004. Truth and Truthmakers. Cambridge.

Berliner, M., editor, 2012. Understanding Objectivism, Leonard Peikoff’s Lectures. NAL.

Blanshard, B. 1962. Reason and Analysis. Open Court.

Bolton, R. 2010. Biology and Metaphysics in Aristotle. In Lennox and Bolton 2010.

Branden, N. 2009. The Vision of Ayn Rand. Cobden.

Gill, M. L. 2010. Unity of Definition in Metaphysics H.6 and Z.12. In Lennox and Bolton 2010.

Hospers, J. 1953. An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis. Prentice-Hall.

Jetton, M. 1992–93. Theories of Truth. Objectivity 1(4):1–30, 1(5):109–49, 1(6):73–106.

Khawaja, I. The Foundations of Ethics – Objectivism and Analytic Philosophy. In Metaethics, Egoism, and Virtue. A. Gotthelf and J. Lennox, editors. Pittsburgh.

Kelley, D. 1986. The Evidence of the Senses. LSU.

Lennox, J. G., and R. Bolton, editors, 2010. Being, Nature, and Life in Aristotle. Cambridge.

Mayhew, R. 1995. Ayn Rand’s Marginalia. ARI.

Newman, A. 2002. The Correspondence Theory of Truth. Cambridge.

Peikoff, L. 1985. Aristotle’s “Intuitive Induction.” The New Scholasticism 59(2):185–99.

——. 1991. Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand. Dutton.

——. 1992. The Art of Thinking. Lectures, audio.*

——. 2012. The DIM Hypothesis. NAL.

Potts, D. 1996. Rationalism, Skepticism, and Anti-Rationalism in Greek Philosophy after Aristotle. Objectivity 2(4):1–76.

Pritzl, K. 2010. Aristotle’s Door. In Truth – Studies of a Robust Presence. Catholic University of America.

Rand, A. 1957. Atlas Shrugged. Random House.

——. 1961. The Objectivist Ethics. In The Virtue of Selfishness. 1964. Signet.

——. 1966–67. Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. Expanded 2nd edition. 1990. Meridian.

——. 1974. Philosophical Detection. In Philosophy: Who Needs It. 1982. Signet.

Schmitt, F. 1995. Truth: A Primer. Westview.

Seddon, F. 2006. Rand and Rescher on Truth. The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies 8(1):41–48.

Thagard, P. 2007. Coherence, Truth, and the Development of Scientific Knowledge. Philosophy of Science 74(1):28–47.

Walker, R. 1989. The Coherence Theory of Truth. Routledge.

Witt, C. 1989. Substance and Essence in Aristotle. Cornell.

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  • 10 months later...

Great disscussion.

Concerning Stephen's original post:

________________________________

"Aristotle held that all natural bodies are a composite of matter and form. He took form, rather than matter, to be what makes a thing the kind of thing it is. Essence is a form.

Rand rejected this component of Aristotle’s metaphysics (ITOE Appendix, 286). "Aristotle held that definitions refer to metaphysical essences, which exist in concretes as a special element or formative power. . . . Aristotle regarded 'essence' as metaphysical; Objectivism regards it as epistemological" (ITOE 52). For Aristotle what makes gold gold or an animal cell an animal cell is a metaphysical essence, a metaphysical form.

In our modern view, the essence of the chemical element gold, that in virtue of which it is gold, is: having such-and-such numbers of protons and neutrons bound in a nucleus and the electrons about it. That is what makes its further distinctive properties possible. The essence of a living animal cell is that it offsets the potentially catastrophic drive of water inward through its wall by pumping sodium ions out through its wall. That is what makes possible its further distinctive properties (distinctive, say, from a living plant cell). These essences are physical. The essence of a human being—rational animality—is physical and mental. These are all essences in Rand's sense. They are physical or mental, but not metaphysical in the form-sense of Aristotle's essences.

For Rand "an essential characteristic is factual, in the sense that it does exist, does determine other characteristics, and does distinguish a group of existents from all others; it is epistemological in the sense that the classification of 'essential characteristic' is a device of man's method of cognition" (ITOE 52). Proper essential characteristics in Rand’s theory of definitions required for truth use factual characteristics about a thing to state what it is. Aristotle, in contrast, did not take the essence of a thing to be one of its characteristics among others. He did not take it to be a characteristic of a thing. The form that is the essence of a thing, the form that makes it what it is, is prior in every way to the individual thing it makes possible (Witt 1989, 123–26).

In Rand’s metaphysics, entity, not substance, is the primary existent. Though characteristics and relationships presuppose entities, an entity is nothing but its characteristics and relationships, for entities, like all existents, are nothing but identity. So Rand’s realism of definition and essence reaches rock bottom of reality, while dropping some Aristotelian doctrines of substance, essence, and form. Without those Aristotelian elements in her theory of definition and essential characteristics, Rand’s theory of truth actually has somewhat less of the coherence element had in Aristotle’s theory of truth. At least that is so provided I am correct in taking Aristotle to hold truth to be not only saying of what is that it is, but saying of what is what it is (Metaph. IX.10)."

________________________________________

First just out of curiosity Stephen, are you saying you agree more with Aristotle's view or Rand's-- it seems actually seems like you may be inclining toward Aristotle, because he is making a potentially more inclusive argument by linking mind to substance both contextully "what is that it is" (both its "essence" and any contextual "non-essence" [both physical]) and "what is what it is" (or reduced to some essential physcial form [or context , i.e. only its "essence"). The article is written so objectively its hard to know :) (its a very thoughtful artcile btw!).

As the discussion by various people on this topic before indicates, the underlying idea of some "context" has been highlighted as key to getting at what truth may be. I think when you state Stephen: "For Rand "an essential characteristic is factual, in the sense that it does exist, does determine other characteristics, and does distinguish a group of existents from all others; it is epistemological in the sense that the classification of 'essential characteristic' is a device of man's method of cognition" (ITOE 52)", this is key to the difference between between Aristotle and Rand, and where I think Rand falters a bit, even though I think Aristotle isn't quite right with his thinking the essence exists only in some thing itself and just transfers within or to our minds. I think Rand is right to think the "essential characteristic" is dervied from a process, one that links object with subject (i.e. existent to mind) through sensory-perception/induction, and not simply some direct physical transfer of that essence from the object to subject like Aristotle.

Where I think Rand goes wrong (and perhaps Aristotle has the upper-hand) is when she limits this process to "a device of man's method of cognition." By adhering to this I think she inadvertently continues to lock knowledge, the mind, consciousness into unnecessary conflict with existence. Why can't the concept or context within our minds echo some actual, physical pattern, context or character of, within or or between the existents themselves, in turn giving us the ability to form an essential identity of those things and thus actually, physically link with them better, allowing for more truth. I don't think this physicality is restricted to only the thing/existent being identifed as Aristotle claims-- it is shaped both through those things and the things processing them. Thus it is some process like our sensory-perceptions/ conceptualizations that helps to shape identities by both limiting and integrating data into differnet referenial frames as data is processed to and within our minds. However, these frames/contexts can still be phyiscally self-similar, i.e. "identical," to the physical things, patterns, contexts of, within or between those existents themselves.

For example perhaps the most general concept possible, Rand's concept of "existence," would probably be self-described by her as one of omiting any specific measurements from things but open-endedly integrating that idea, so that existence does not refer to nothing, but to anything and/or everything. This doesn't negate the physical self-similarity of that concept in our minds with what lies outside our minds, since it includes any/all contexts of anything. A more limited but still very abstract idea like "love" could still embody some self-similar physical pattern in the intellectual-emotional contexts or neural-hormonal requirements experienced by individuals that result in love, and doesn't have to limit ithe concept's physical realty only some pattern in our minds or processes of cognition.

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Dan, although Rand did not think essential characteristics were such without their standing as concepts, she thought their warrant for being selected to be the essential (though conceptualized) characteristic was by reflection of objective dependency relations in the concrete world.

No, I was not inclining towards Aristotle away from Rand on the point of truth including the saying of a thing what it is. That Rand held that as part of what truth is was in no doubt, and I concur with her. What was apparently in some doubt with me, in that iteration of the essay (#1 in this thread), was whether I was correct in taking Aristotle to include within truth saying of a thing what it is. If I were correct in that interpretation of Aristotle, then it seemed that because essence for him was more like a single, recurring Platonic form that could make things in the world of concretes to be what they are, it might put more unity among concrete things than would be proclaimed in a Randian essential characteristic. Rand, like other moderns, rejected the idea that there are any such forms making or moving anything in the (metaphysically given) world. Explanatory power of essential characteristics under Rand’s conception derives ultimately from what causally makes what other things possible in the concrete world. The concrete world and what makes and moves it consists entirely of concrete identities at play on their own without supervision of mental forms.

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Sorry for all my typos and misspellings by the way-- it takes me too long to write these posts anyway, let alone edit them very well.

I do not believe that I welcomed you to OL. Welcome.

Trademark and copyright issues

There has been contention over who if anyone controls the legal rights to the word permaculture, meaning is it trademarked or copyrighted, and if so, who holds the legal rights to the use of the word. For a long time Bill Mollison claimed to have copyrighted the word, and his books said on the copyright page, "The contents of this book and the word PERMACULTURE are copyright." These statements were largely accepted at face-value within the permaculture community. However, copyright law does not protect names, ideas, concepts, systems, or methods of doing something; it only protects the expression or the description of an idea, not the idea itself. Eventually Mollison acknowledged that he was mistaken and that no copyright protection existed for the word permaculture.[44]

In 2000 Mollison's US based Permaculture Institute sought a service mark (a form of trademark) for the word permaculture when used in educational services such as conducting classes, seminars, or workshops.[45] The service mark would have allowed Mollison and his two Permaculture Institutes (one in the US and one in Australia) to set enforceable guidelines as to how permaculture could be taught and who could teach it, particularly with relation to the PDC, despite the fact that he had instituted a system of certification of teachers to teach the PDC in 1993.This certification was granted to teachers like April Sampson-kelly and others in 1993. The service mark failed and was abandoned in 2001. Also in 2001 Mollison applied for trademarks in Australia for the terms "Permaculture Design Course"[46] and "Permaculture Design".[47] These applications were both withdrawn in 2003. In 2009 he sought a trademark for "Permaculture: A Designers' Manual"[48] and "Introduction to Permaculture",[49] the names of two of his books. These applications were withdrawn in 2011. There has never been a trademark for the word permaculture in Australia.[50]

Has this been resolved, or, is it still a difficult issue within your community?

A...

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