Peikoff's UNDERSTANDING OBJECTIVISM - in print!


Jerry Biggers

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The second read through did not produce any new insights. Over on RoR, we had a brief discussion that went nowhere on whether philosophy is organized hierarchically. Luke Setzer quoted from Understanding Objectivism:

So the best way to think about philosophy is like an X, with five points on the crossbars and in the center. The two branches at the top are metaphysics and epistemology; they're on the same level, and they both point into the center, which is ethics. And then from there, you can go down either leg to politics or esthetics. Normally we could do politics first, simply because people are less interested in esthetics. But if we did politics, you’re right, "The validation of individual rights" would come next. And what would come after that? -- Peikoff, Leonard; Berliner, Michael S. (2012-03-06). Understanding Objectivism: A Guide to Learning Ayn Rand's Philosophy (p. 161). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition

Peikoff says (page 146 ppb): "First of all, in reality, all philosophic truths are simultaneous. There is no hierachy in reality. Hierarchy is an epistemological issue, not a metaphysical one." Ahead of that (p. 145) he says that the hierarchy of an idea is its cognitive pedigree, that hierarchy is "the anatomy of how you acquired the idea."

That being so, page 23: "Philosophy, you know, is hierarchical; it's a whole structure, with one idea resting on another, and so on.: And on page 42: "Philosophy is a hierarchical structure. Each step is built on the preceding step." On page 52: "Philosophy is a hierarchical structure." Page 145; "All knowledge is built on a hierarchical model. We acquire knowledge in a certain order, certain steps being the basis for the next steps, and new knowledge at each stage of our development is made possible only by the earlier knowledge." Indeed, Lecture Five is titled, "The Hierarchy of Objectivism."

From my comments on RoR:

Peikoff's positives come in Lecture 11 "Intellectual Honesty." There, he really gives good advice on what Objectivism should be in practice in the narrow events of discussing ideas with other people. (Again, the book not written would show Objectivism's value in at least a few other social situations, such as inventing a new product and marketing it.) As we all know, Objectivists suffer a lot of social angst. The book opens up with a promise to address that. Chapter 11 delivers on that promise, but it is not payment in full. The valuable advice involves judging the intellectual honesty of other people. Regarding the personal in philosophy he says, only: "Assuming that your self is not identified with irrational principles, there is no reason whatever to have a conflict between philosophy and your self." (p. 371). With other people, though, as we know, it is different.

Depending on your social context, other people may not be "formalizers" who actively build and maintain an explicit understanding of the world. So, when someone makes a statement you disagree with, realize that for them, this may have no wider philosophical implications, and not much emotional investment, either. You can let it go without comment.

According to Peikoff, (pp 350 et seq) you do not need to engage anyone who is intellectually dishonest. Ignore anyone who explicitly repudiates reason or facts. Ignore anyone who explicitly attacks values as such. Ignore anyone who advocates political totalitarianism. Again, context is important. You will not change their mind. They will never accept your facts or your logic. You may have an audience - as at a party - but, again, you can say "I disagree with you, but this is not the place to discuss it" and drop it.

Teenagers can be forgiven a lot, says Peikoff. (page 355) because they do not have a lifetime of experience for their knowledge base.

I think that the best advice is to remember that you are not the standard for the expected intellectual development of others. "And this is one of the tests of a good teacher or communicator -- to be able not to take your own knowledge as the sole standard , to realize tht honest confusion can exist, even though to the speaker himself perhaps the issue was always clear." (page 357)

In Lectures Six through Nine, as throughout the book, Peikoff warns against rationalism, a tendency common among Objectivists, who want deductions from first principles. Peikoff himself has been given to this, he admits, and I agree that I find it easy, and I find it easily here and on other Objectivist boards. But "... the essential process of knowledge is not from principles but to principles." (page 276)

And so, much of his good advice in Lecture 11 is contextual. He does not provide Easy Rules to Remember. If you are discussing politics or whatever with someone who resorts to ad hominem arguments, name dropping and name calling, you can ignore them. If someone is reasonable and responsive while discussing ideas, you can engage them. However, many college professors have long experience talking reasonably only as intellectual entertainment for themselves. They sound honest, but are not. Similarly, when confronted with a surprising opinion on global warming or child labor, an ordinary person can become emotional because they feel threatened. If they recover the next day and reconcile with you socially, that can show intellectual honesty.

Overall, when I started the book, I was less than sanguine about its prospects. On the second read, despite the long detours of denunciation against Kant and Leibnitz, the book is a good read for anyone who already knows Objectivism, but wants to understand more.

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As Michael observed (#26), on page 146 of Understanding Objectivism, Peikoff claims: “Hierarchy is an epistemological issue, not a metaphysical one.” Peikoff then gives an example for which that is the case. But he does not broach the examples of metaphysical hierarchies I give below for Rand’s metaphysics.

In his article “Knowledge as Hierarchical” in The Objectivist Forum (Dec 1986), Peikoff writes: “The concept of ‘hierarchy’ in this sense is epistemological, not metaphysical” (3). Notice the qualification “in this sense” (likewise in OPAR 131).

There are hierarchies in the physical world independently of our cognizance of them. A good book on them is Evolving Hierarchical Systems by Stanley Salthe (Columbia 1985).*

Moreover, the following two reflect metaphysical hierarchies in Rand’s metaphysics:

1. All things except existence as a whole are proper parts of that whole.

2. Entities are the primary form of existents, on which attributes, actions, and relationships depend (depend by metaphysical necessity).

Would Rand say that the following is a metaphysical hierarchy? All items are simples or composites composed of or constituted by simples.

She remarked on one occasion: “If by simple you mean metaphysically primary, then only entities are metaphysically primary” (ITOE Appendix 244). She is silent in this stretch of the conversation as to whether simple and composite are ever the nature of reality independently of our cognizance.

In Atlas she wrote: “An atom is itself, and so is the universe; neither can contradict its own identity; nor can a part contradict the whole” (1016). Let’s spell out that clause after the semicolon. It means “nor can the identity of a part contradict the identity of the whole,” and that seems to entail a compositionality of identities in the world independently of our cognizance.

Going downward from parts to subparts, it would seem that Rand’s metaphysics entails there are actual ultimate parts having no further subparts. For she thought infinities—infinite subparts in this case—could not be actual. Then there are most-simple identities of finest parts, which form part of the identities of the wholes those parts belong too. However, that does not entail what number of irreducible attributes such finest parts must have, and this result is a virtue of Rand’s minimal metaphysics. (I don’t mean to endorse Objectivist views on actual infinities.*)

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