"The Arbitrary" in "Basic Principles of Objectivism"


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It seems to me that when Ayn Rand said "Reality is the final arbiter" that that answers the issue. Reality validates whether a claim is a valid (or an intellectual) representation of what it [reality] is.

Not unaided. It takes a live awake observer to check something out and compare it to what is Out There. How many look but do not see? How many see but do not understand? How many hear but do not listen?

Insensate Reality by itself does little. In addition to being in touch with the world we need our wits about us.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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  • 11 months later...

  • 4 weeks later...
Stephen,

...

The doctrine of the arbitrary assertion, as expounded by Leonard Peikoff, is meant to apply to propositions and assertions not involving axioms. What's wrong with arbitrary assertions is supposed to be different from self-referential inconsistency.

And Dr. Peikoff makes a series of strong claims about arbitrary assertions:

--they are neither true nor false

--they have no context, and no place in the hierarchy (of concepts), therefore they "cannot be cognitively processed"

--sentences asserted arbitrarily have no more meaning than sentences mimicked by a parrot

--the same sentence asserted by one person may constitute an arbitrary assertion, whereas when asserted by another person it may convey a proposition that is true or false

--no one is responsible for refuting arbitrary assertions, or everyone is obliged not to try to refute them (Dr. Peikoff never makes up his mind)

--no epistemological progress ever results from refuting arbitrary assertions

--some, but not all, arbitrary assertions can be redeemed, by supplying them with a context and a place in the hierarchy that their proponent failed to supply for them (but no one is obliged to redeem them, or everyone is obliged not to redeem them--same ambiguity)

... -- -- -- -- -- [my emphasis]

Stephen,

...

...

What I'm still trying to work out, historically speaking, is the origin of the more extreme claims made by Dr. Peikoff in the 1976 lectures, and in the book. The 1963 article by Nathaniel Branden does not, for instance, declare that "the arbitrary" is a third truth value. In fact, NB's examples (claims about God) are ones that he says have already been refuted or shown to be self-contradictory, implying, of course, that he believes these assertions to be false.

...

...

The ongoing problem I have with Rand's published uses of "arbitrary" is that none require the full-blown doctrine of the arbitrary assertion, and hardly any of them even seem to allude to it. Meanwhile, her discussion of invalid concepts in ITOE seems to be leading into a direct statement of the doctrine of the arbitrary assertion--but she doesn't make the statement. She says that an invalid concept invalidates any proposition that presupposes its validity--not that that it renders the proposition arbitrary.

...

...

Obviously, you have to be a foundationalist to define "arbitrary" as "devoid of evidence" (that's Peikoff's official definition in OPAR)....

Ed,

...

There's much more to the doctrine of the arbitrary assertion than the onus of proof principle, or the criteria that we all need to rely on in order to judge which assertions are worthy of further inquiry.

According to Leonard Peikoff, arbitrary assertions are neither true nor false; they are contextless, have no place in the conceptual hierarchy, and are, in effect, meaningless; one and the same proposition can be asserted arbitrarily by some people, and non-arbitrarily by others; putting forward an arbitrary assertion makes you dumber than a parrot; uttering an arbitrary assertion is a direct affirmation of The Zero; and making an arbitrary assertion is wronger than wrong and worse than bad.

Dr. Peikoff further claims that uttering an arbitrary assertion will inflict a state of cognitive paralysis on every rational person in the audience. And he regularly issues conflicting injunctions about what to do with an arbitrary assertion—either you are not required to respond to it, or you are required not to respond to it.

I also found it interesting, when I researched the history of the doctrine, that there is virtually no textual support for it in anything that Ayn Rand published during her lifetime. Prior to Leonard Peikoff's 1976 lectures, the only published references to the doctrine (by Nathaniel Branden and Robert Efron) were much milder. For instance, Nathaniel Branden thought that arbitrary assertions were either true or false.

...

... -- -- -- -- -- [my emphasis]

Robert,

I wonder if there is anything in the Objectivist literature (oral and textual) that prescribes the use of humor in dealing with "the arbitrary."

For example, I have noticed, with gleeful satisfaction, MSK's benevolently humorous and witty replies to certain messages on this forum board, which I deem arbitrary in the meaningless/neither-true-false/without-evidence sense. While I would tend to stay silent and only lurk, as may or may not be prescribed by Dr. Peikoff (see bold texts above), I find the head-on approach genuinely courageous, and the satirical messages wonderfully therapeutic. Where I would, were it not the case, angrily or dismissively scroll away from the postings once I made the judgment of their arbitrariness, I now would instead look forward to seeing them, spot their signature, and stay on the same thread, anticipating that a commonsensical but humorour reply would come forth.

Is this not a potent approach to dismissing the arbitrary, not granting it legitimacy, while continuing to be open for dialog with the serious?

I look forward to your JARS article when its embargo expires.

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This looks to me a bit like modern philosophy's standard doctrine of non-denoting singular terms. It's a long story that I'm not qualified to recount in detail, but the upshot of it is that a sentence using a term such as "Santa Claus" or "my wife" (if the speaker is unmarried), which doesn't denote anything, is neither true nor false. Good dissertation topic for somebody.

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This looks to me a bit like modern philosophy's standard doctrine of non-denoting singular terms. It's a long story that I'm not qualified to recount in detail, but the upshot of it is that a sentence using a term such as "Santa Claus" or "my wife" (if the speaker is unmarried), which doesn't denote anything, is neither true nor false. Good dissertation topic for somebody.

Are you saying $arbitrary = no referent?

(NB: The dollar sign prefix indicates an Objectivist locution that differs from common usage).

Can you give us a rough definition of $arbitrary?

Ba'al Chatzaf

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I wonder if there is anything in the Objectivist literature (oral and textual) that prescribes the use of humor in dealing with "the arbitrary."

For example, I have noticed, with gleeful satisfaction, MSK's benevolently humorous and witty replies to certain messages on this forum board, which I deem arbitrary in the meaningless/neither-true-false/without-evidence sense. While I would tend to stay silent and only lurk, as may or may not be prescribed by Dr. Peikoff (see bold texts above), I find the head-on approach genuinely courageous, and the satirical messages wonderfully therapeutic. Where I would, were it not the case, angrily or dismissively scroll away from the postings once I made the judgment of their arbitrariness, I now would instead look forward to seeing them, spot their signature, and stay on the same thread, anticipating that a commonsensical but humorour reply would come forth.

Is this not a potent approach to dismissing the arbitrary, not granting it legitimacy, while continuing to be open for dialog with the serious?

Thom,

Cool. Thank you. :)

I, too, have problems with using "arbitrary" as a metaphysical/epistemological cognitive classification. I only find room for it in normative abstractions and acts based on value judgments. To admit the existence of arbitrary (as a sort of non-existence) is like admitting the existence of nothing.

Epistemologically, arbitrary is to values like nothing is to existence. But values are necessary to the concept of arbitrary. That makes sense to me. Arbitrary pertains to choice.

On a cognitive level, saying that arbitrary is a manner of anti-concept formation is really weird. That means we can speculate without choosing (i.e. without value judgments). I can't make sense of that.

I, as you, find the metaphysical/epistemological theories to which you allude wrong. But I don't find them arbitrary. They were developed on purpose and there is a rationale behind them. I find the need to shock others (by claiming that common sense things do not exist, which seems to be the addiction of modern philosophy) arbitrary. You can be just as wrong with it as without it. So I have some fun with it.

(btw - I am not savagely mocking with my humor. It is more like a gentle poke in the ribs since I respect the intelligence of anyone discussing these issues with goodwill.)

I personally don't need to stun or dazzle anybody with a contradiction that only I can resolve through pretzel-logic to be right. Hell, I can make perfect sense and not even try to be profound.

How's that for an arbitrary shocker?

:)

Michael

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Peter R,

There is some connection between Leonard Peikoff's treatment of "the arbitrary" and the notion of non-denoting singular terms.

Back in the early 1970s, Dr. Peikoff's logic course included a discussion of "metaphysically meaningless" statements (roughly, statements that presuppose that non-denoting terms denote, such as "Santa Claus is suffering from marital problems.")

But he apparently dropped this notion, and it doesn't appear in any of his accounts of arbitrariness. I had enough to cover in my article, so I left his old discussion of "metaphysically meaningless" statements out of it.

It's further worth noting that Dr. Peikoff often implies that arbitrary assertions are not just "metaphysically meaningless" (in which case, they would be neither true nor false, but a rational person could still understand what the asserter was trying to say). He often alleges that they are what he once called "epistemologically meaningless" (there is no way to understand what they are supposed to mean; they are complete nonsense).

Michael and Thom T G,

I think humor is often an appropriate response to questionable assertions or really bad arguments or attempts at mystification (all of which Peikovians sometimes call "arbitrary").

But you'll never get that from Dr. Peikoff. His recommended response to arbitrariness is either furious disdain or just plain fury :)

Robert Campbell

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Peter R,

...

It's further worth noting that Dr. Peikoff often implies that arbitrary assertions are not just "metaphysically meaningless" (in which case, they would be neither true nor false, but a rational person could still understand what the asserter was trying to say). He often alleges that they are what he once called "epistemologically meaningless" (there is no way to understand what they are supposed to mean; they are complete nonsense).

Michael and Thom T G,

I think humor is often an appropriate response to questionable assertions or really bad arguments or attempts at mystification (all of which Peikovians sometimes call "arbitrary").

But you'll never get that from Dr. Peikoff. His recommended response to arbitrariness is either furious disdain or just plain fury :)

Robert Campbell

Robert,

The distinction of the two meanings reminds me of a claim that perhaps you have heard about good chess players. Some players of chess can look at a snapshot of a chessboard and can immediately project the full strategies being played in the game, deducing the causal sequences the chess pieces had undergone to the present snapshot instance. And if asked to reproduce the chessboard without looking at the snapshot, they can do so competently. But as good as they are, these same chess players are helpless to make heads or tails out of a snapshot of a chessboard randomly assembled. (I wonder if this was a psychological study.)

In any case, would you agree with the following analogical extension? Putting chess pieces on the chessboard, leaving out checkers pieces, makes the chessboard epistemologically meaningful. Arranging the chess pieces so that a good chess player can snapshot it in his mind, makes the board metaphysically meaningful.

Epistemological meaning implies having words and grammatical correctness. Metaphysical meaning implies having an integration given the context of one's present knowledge. One expert with more knowledge may grasp the metaphysical meaning from what is merely epistemologically meaningful to a novice. And perhaps this last, this dependency on one's context, made Dr. Peikoff queasy about using the term "metaphysical meaning" beyond ITL. I would have called it "objective meaning" to account for both the existents being identified and the constraints of consciousness.

---

Are you suggesting that the Peikovian "arbitrary" is a package-deal, of lumping together Jabberwocky-checkers verses, nonobjective assertions, and malicious motives into one unit? If so, what would be the non-essential element uniting them? Their being meaningless, or their being neither true nor false, or their being supplied without evidence?

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  • 4 weeks later...
Self reference is a characteristic of some philosophical axioms. As you point out, existence is one of these. I.E. something exists. To deny the axiom is to assert it. This in turn rests on the most basic assumption of all, to wit, the law of non-contradiction. This is as close to an a priori true and necessary proposition as we will ever get. It is required to establish the axiomatic character of some philosophic assumptions.

Correct.

There are other assumptions we make that do not have this character. For example, the laws of thermodynamics. Denying a law of thermodynamics does not automatically produce a logical contradiction, yet all our our observations (so far) support the laws of thermodynamics. To put it another way, the laws of thermodynamics are NOT self evident. They are true a posteriori based on observations and have not yet been empirically falsified. A similar remark holds for the well known conservation laws of physics.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Correct. Doing so would actually commit the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent, but I think there exists valid arguments via Bayesian probability that increase the likelihood of correspondence for these theorems, sometimes to absurd heights. B)

Of course, you can have scientific theorems which are logically provable - if I recall correctly, Newton mathematically proved that an object (of mass) experiences gravity toward another mass then it is affected by an inverse-square force - and that if an object (of mass) experiences an inverse-square proportional force in relation to another mass, then such an object must be experiencing gravity. Whatever gravity is at its core, the effects at the level of science corresponding to what could be known during Newton's time are 100% airtight.

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Aren't discussions of the "arbitrary" arbitrary? If not, then please integrate them with scientific metodology.

--Brant

This is a category error. If you think scientific methodology comprises the whole of epistemology, though, have fun with your logical positivism :P

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I, too, have problems with using "arbitrary" as a metaphysical/epistemological cognitive classification. I only find room for it in normative abstractions and acts based on value judgments. To admit the existence of arbitrary (as a sort of non-existence) is like admitting the existence of nothing.

"Arbitrary" is fine as a metaphysical/epistemological statement IMO. In practice (and I think LP himself said this recently, oddly enough) I take it to mean a statement about a truth in reality for which there is no evidence provided at all either for or against its existence, whether in the sense of being testable via science or being inferred by the logic which presupposes the SM.

Oddly enough, I had the fortune to talk to the (Objectivist-friendly!) atheist Dr. Richard Carrier before his debate with my friend Dr. William Lane Craig on the Resurrection, and we talked about this very notion. He stated that when one makes such an assertion one assumes a 50/50 probability without evidence for or against, and then adjusts accordingly to validity (or likely validity) of arguments for the notion's veracity/falsehood. For instance, with the Resurrection, the fact that the Sanhedrin had a tradition to bury the crucified to avoid defiling the land coupled with the tradition of burying blasphemers in common graves makes the probability of Jesus being buried in a fresh tomb of the high-ranking Josephus historically less than fifty percent.

However, the proposition "Christ rose from the dead" is not arbitrary, since Christian apologists present evidence that would support such an assertion and render any contrary explanation less probable. Likewise, the assertion "there exists a planet between Earth and Mars the size and weight of Jupiter" can be rendered either highly improbable or, if gravitational pulls are properly calculated, absolutely disprovable, since such a proposed entity is scientifically testable.

However, the oft-misused atheistic assertion that "a flying plate of spaghetti in deep space is responsible for all of existence" is arbitrary, and cannot be granted a 50/50 probability - at least even the Christian god can be logically analyzed since His supposed word is available, making a even just a fuzzy notion of probability applicable, but for the spaghetti that has no means of supposed independent revelation and is ill-defined inherently, the statement cannot even be placed on the probability scale. If it could, then I could generate propositions ad infinitum just by changing the content of food on the plate, until it is very likely one of them exists!

This is what I mean by "arbitrary," at least. It steals an already-known concept and misuses it in a way where it can't be tested scientifically or logically. It's the adult equivalent of how my old friend Eric who lived around the block always claimed he had the newest Nintendo game that I wanted to play, but that his mother kept it "hidden under his bed" because he always happened to get in trouble at all the right moments.

Epistemologically, arbitrary is to values like nothing is to existence. But values are necessary to the concept of arbitrary. That makes sense to me. Arbitrary pertains to choice.

True.

On a cognitive level, saying that arbitrary is a manner of anti-concept formation is really weird. That means we can speculate without choosing (i.e. without value judgments). I can't make sense of that.

It seems more of a stolen concept than an anti-concept.

I, as you, find the metaphysical/epistemological theories to which you allude wrong. But I don't find them arbitrary. They were developed on purpose and there is a rationale behind them. I find the need to shock others (by claiming that common sense things do not exist, which seems to be the addiction of modern philosophy) arbitrary. You can be just as wrong with it as without it. So I have some fun with it.

"Common sense things"? Do you mean claiming such things like "the external world doesn't exist"? I actually developed an absolute proof that it does, and I've been waiting for a Calvinist to ask me to do so - but no luck so far! I'd love to have an Objectivist take a look at it.

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  • 4 months later...
"Arbitrary"

It is not your responsibility to refute someone's arbitrary assertion — to try to find or imagine arguments that will show that his assertion is false. It is a fundamental error on your part even to try to do this. The rational procedure in regard to an arbitrary assertion is to dismiss it out of hand, merely identifying it as arbitrary, and as such inadmissible and undiscussable." (Rand)

A sequence of words that explicitly or implicitly alleges something to be a fact is either true or false. The alleged fact either conforms to reality, or it does not conform to reality. To refute the alleged fact, one must necessarily counter with a fact or facts that contradictand refute the original claim of fact. Yet, according to Rand, this is notnecessary. All that is needed is to simply declare the alleged fact to be arbitrary and that's the end of it.

Edited by Xray
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"Arbitrary"

It is not your responsibility to refute someone's arbitrary assertion — to try to find or imagine arguments that will show that his assertion is false. It is a fundamental error on your part even to try to do this. The rational procedure in regard to an arbitrary assertion is to dismiss it out of hand, merely identifying it as arbitrary, and as such inadmissible and undiscussable." (Rand)

Xray,

The statement you quoted was not made by Ayn Rand. It was made by Leonard Peikoff in one of his 1976 lectures on Objectivism. Inclusion in the Ayn Rand Lexicon does not necessarily indicate authorship by Ayn Rand.

One interesting feature of the doctrine of the arbitrary assertion is that Ayn Rand never stated or alluded to it in anything that she published during her lifetime.

Robert Campbell

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Stephen B,

Your blog entry on SOLOP appears not to accept Leonard Peikoff's claim that "arbitrary" is a third truth value.

Another obvious difficulty with the Peikovian doctrine is his complete lack of clarity as to whether

( a ) You can't respond to an arbitrary assertion, because it's meaningless and any effort to understand it will inflict cognitive "paralysis" on you,

( b ) You needn't respond to an arbitrary assertion, because you would first need to redeem it from arbitrariness by providing it with a context and a place in the cognitive hierarchy, and you are never obliged to do any of these things and there is little benefit to be obtained from doing them.

( c ) You mustn't respond to an arbitrary assertion, because the mere production of an arbitrary assertion is a primal act of irrationality, which you would be sanctioning with your response.

At times, he appears to be saying Needn't, Can't, and Mustn't—all at once.

Robert C

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Thom asked, in a post that I missed back in March:

Are you suggesting that the Peikovian "arbitrary" is a package-deal, of lumping together Jabberwocky-checkers verses, nonobjective assertions, and malicious motives into one unit? If so, what would be the non-essential element uniting them? Their being meaningless, or their being neither true nor false, or their being supplied without evidence?

The non-essential element uniting them is Leonard Peikoff's unusually strong disapproval of them—his conviction that they are wronger than wrong, and worse than bad. As MSK would say, his normative abtractions running roughshod over his cognitive abstractions.

Really... by the time that Dr. Peikoff fully elaborated the doctrine (in the mid-1970s) he was lumping together some logical fallacies, some dialogical improprieties, some highly speculative claims, some hypotheses too off-the-wall to spend time investigating, and some obviously false assertions. They did not, in fact, all qualify as meaningless, or as lacking a truth value. They did not all even qualify as being put forward without evidence.

In the mid-1980s, he tossed into the farrago displeasing statements about Ayn Rand made by persons who had been expelled from her presence. For instance, he wrote off virtually the entire contents of Barbara Branden's biography and Nathaniel Branden's memoirs as arbitrary assertions.

I think this mid-80s addition helps to explain some of the weird and extreme statements that Dr. Peikoff made about "the arbitrary" in his latter-day lectures. But it can't explain the original lumping together, which took place well before he learned that Barbara Branden was writing an unauthorized biography.

Robert Campbell

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Xray,

The statement you quoted was not made by Ayn Rand. It was made by Leonard Peikoff in one of his 1976 lectures on Objectivism. Inclusion in the Ayn Rand Lexicon does not necessarily indicate authorship by Ayn Rand.

Robert,

You're right. It is a Peikoff quote. My mistake.

"One interesting feature of the doctrine of the arbitrary assertion is that Ayn Rand never stated or alluded to it in anything that she published during her lifetime."

Oh, but she did. The issue of arbitrary as being neither true nor false was addressed a 1976 course on Objectivism given by Dr. Peikoff. In regard to this course, Ayn Rand said: "Dr. Peikoff's course is the only authorized presentation of the entire theoretical structure of Objectivism, i.e., the only one that I know of my own knowledge to be fully accurate."

Either Rand was familiar with the course, or pretended. The fact remains in endorsing Peikoff's course, she endorsed the arbitrary as neither true nor false.

One can accuse Peikoff of misrepresentation, or Rand of blind endorsement, but without either proven, Rand's position as set out by Peikoff stands.

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Xray,

I have no reason to doubt that Ayn Rand was familiar with the content of Leonard Peikoff's 1976 lectures. Especially not, considering that she participated in the question and answer periods after some of them.

However, her endorsement of a position is not the same as her authorship of that position. Unless you accept the Peikovian myth of origin, according to which he asked questions, she delivered answers, and he tried to remember them without distorting them.

It remains a fact that every statement of the doctrine during her lifetime, either published or in lecture series that she authorized, was made by someone else.

Nearly every other Objectivist principle was at least alluded to in her own writings.

Robert Campbell

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  • 2 years later...

. . .



I can be a little more specific now on where to look for the external influences. Take a look at Chapter 5, "The Theory of Meaning," in Blanshard's Reason and Analysis (1962). See especially his discussion of Peirce (5.5–5.6) and Schlick (5.20) and Ayer (5.36–5.37). Compare Blanshard's treatment of verificationist theories of meaning with Peikoff's treatment of them in his history of philosophy lectures (in the second series, modern philosophy).*



Rand and Peikoff opposed verificationism and replaced it with validationism. An idea whose relationship to reality is established by perceptual evidence or by induction or deduction upon such evidence, they called validated. Naturally, validations of ideas can have various degrees of quality. Moreover, validationism can be posed in varieties of strength parallel its verificationist cousins. The variety validation-in-principle entails: an idea that in principle cannot have its relationship to reality established by perceptual evidence and logical inference is meaningless.

. . .


. . .


The parallel of the Rand-Peikoff validationism to verificationism holds only so far. There is no counterpart to the verificationist view that truth should be defined in terms of the verifiable. Truth is more primitive than validation for Rand and for Peikoff.
. . .

In the course of writing a paper on the analytic-synthetic distinction, I came across the following remarks by Nelson Goodman from his 1953 lecture “The Passing of the Possible,” which is in Fact, Fiction, and Forecast.

Surely I need not in this place and before this audience recount the tragic history of the verification theory of meaning.* . . .

* I allude here, of course, to A. J. Ayer’s diligent but unsuccessful attempts to formulate the theory. . . . A verification criterion of meaningfulness was earnestly sought as a definitive basis for ruling out of court an immense amount of philosophical rubbish. But to find a formula that will do that without ruling out at the same time a good deal of perfectly respectable scientific theory has proved embarrassingly difficult. The disproportionate emphasis put on the problem has resulted in gross exaggeration of the consequences of the failure to solve it. Lack of a general theory of goodness does not turn vice into virtue; and lack of a general theory of significance does not turn empty verbiage into illuminating discourse. (31–32)

Goodman undertakes clarification, philosophic explanation, and deflation of various philosophical concepts, distinctions, and problems, but he does not attempt formulating a general theory of meaningfulness. The Objectivists evidently attempt to craft such a theory with the validation requirement, aware of earlier positivist theory with a verification requirement and aware of the criticisms of it.

Of note for future research:


. . .
It is a short skip and a hop from verificationist theory of meaning to validationist theory of meaning and from the meaningless to the arbitrary (in the counter-objective sense of arbitrary). In The Rise of Scientific Philosophy (1951), Reichenbach writes:

The verifiability theory of meaning is the logical tool by means of which empiricism overcomes the dichotomy into a world of things of appearance and things-in-themselves. It eliminates the things-in-themselves because it makes it meaningless to speak about things which are unknowable in principle. Instead of unknowable things, the empiricist speaks of unobservable things; but such things are accessible to knowledge and can be talked about in a meaningful way. Statements about unobservable things have meaning inasmuch as they are derived from observations; they acquire meaning by transfer, that is, by their relation to observable things. (259)

In My Years with Ayn Rand, Branden writes of an exchange with Rand during his first year at UCLA:

One of our most memorable visits during this period was an evening when Barbara brought along The Rise of Scientific Philosophy, a textbook from one of the classes we were taking together. The course was taught by the author, Hans Reichenbach, a famous exponent of logical positivism. This philosophy held that the laws of logic are ultimately arbitrary, . . . that any statement made about the nature of reality is meaningless. (49)

The partial coincidence of Rand’s* and Reichenbach’s view of knowledge is obvious from the above quote from his book. Branden’s representation of Reichenbach certainly appears dubious, but notice Branden's collusion of arbitrary and meaningless.


. . .


. . .

. . . A. J. Ayers’ Language, Truth, and Logic (1952; quoted in Peikoff 1967, 94) and the writings on philosophy of science by Hans Reichenbach and Philipp Frank (who was quoted in Basic Principles of Objectivism lectures in the nineteen-sixties; Branden 2009, 22–23) . . .

* Rand’s concept of knowledge: “A mental grasp of a fact(s) of reality reached either by perceptual observation or by a process of reason based on perceptual observation” (ITOE 35). On the role and development of observation in empirical science: A, B, C

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  • 8 months later...

This is a note for further research, additional to the notes of #46, this one from Nathaniel Branden’s The Basic Principles of Objectivism from the 1960’s (transcribed in The Vision of Ayn Rand [2009]).

If man chooses to claim, as an axiom, that the universe was created by green gremlins, one can refute him without using the concept of green gremlins and without having to accept their existence implicitly in one’s argument. But if a man claims that he does not choose to accept the Law of Identity, he has already accepted it implicitly in the fact that he has uttered a specific sentence of a specific meaning, that he intends his sentence to be what it is and to mean what it means, and not the opposite.

. . .

Today it is fashionable among philosophers to assert that the axioms of logic are arbitrary, but this is to confess that one has forgotten how the concept of arbitrary was originated. An arbitrary idea is one accepted by chance, caprice, or whim. It stands in contradistinction to an idea accepted for logical reasons, from which it is intended to be distinguished. The existence of such a concept as an arbitrary idea is made possible only by the existence of logically necessary ideas. (72–73)


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  • 8 months later...

Another note for future research, this from Kant’s logic lectures as set down in the authorized text by Jäsche (1800; translation of J. M. Young, 1992):


A hypothesis is a holding-to-be-true of the judgment of the truth of a ground for the sake of its sufficiency for given consequences, or more briefly, the holding-to-be-true of a presupposition as a ground.

All holding-to-be-true in hypotheses is thus grounded on the fact that the presupposition, as ground, is sufficient to explain other cognitions as consequences. For we infer here from the truth of the consequences to the truth of the ground. But since this mode of inference, as already observed above, yields a sufficient criterion of truth and can lead to apodeictic certainty only when all possible consequences of an assumed ground are true, it is clear from this that since we can never determine all possible consequences, hypotheses always remain hypotheses, that is, presuppositions, whose complete certainty we can never attain. In spite of this, the probability of a hypothesis can grow and rise to an analogue of certainty, namely, when all the consequences that have as yet occurred to us can be explained from the presupposed ground. For in such a case there is no reason why we should not assume that we will be able to explain all possible consequences thereby. Hence in this case we give ourselves over to the hypothesis as if it were fully certain, although it is so only through induction.

And in every hypothesis something must be apodeictically certain, too, namely,

1. the possibility of the presupposition itself. If, for example, to explain earthquakes and volcanoes we assume a subterranean fire, then such a fire must be possible, if not as a flaming body, yet as a hot one. For the sake of certain other appearances, however, to make the earth out to be an animal, in which the circulation of the inner fluids produces warmth, is to put forth a mere invention and not a hypothesis. For realities may be made up, but not possibilities; these must be certain.

2. the consequentia. From the assumed ground the consequences must flow correctly; otherwise the hypothesis becomes a mere chimera.

3. The unity. It is an essential requirement of a hypothesis that it be only one and that it not need any subsidiary hypotheses for its support. If, in the case of a hypothesis, we have to have several others to help, then it thereby loses very much of its probability. For the more consequences that may be derived from a hypothesis, the more probable it is, the fewer, the more improbable. (85)

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  • 6 months later...

Note to append to #46, from Letters of Ayn Rand, letter to John Hospers (1/3/61), replying to Hospers’ remarks (by letter to Rand) on Lecture 1 of Branden’s Basic Principles of Objectivism:

You ask: “Now why this diatribe against logical positivism as a new form of mysticism”—and then you list three points which you regard as the main contentions of this group. . . . 3. It is in their concept of what constitutes “verifiability,” in their basic premise and approach (which is implicit in their specific, individual theories) that logical positivists become most mystical. You say: “One must be careful not to condemn it (the Verifiability Principle), en masse in all its forms”—because there have been many different formulations of it. Your statement implies that the Verifiability Principle is sound in essence, qua principle, and that it is only with its various formulations that one can legitimately quarrel. But what I challenge, oppose and condemn is the essence of that principle and of the method it proposes, in all and any of its variations. (I do not believe that “propositions” have to be “verified”; I believe that they have to be “validated”—it is a night-and-day difference.) (520)

Note to append to #47, from Ayn Rand’s Marginalia, in a margin of von Mises Human Action, where Rand writes “Green-gremlin premise!” across from the first of the sentences she underlines in this paragraph of HA:

It does not matter for man whether or not beyond the sphere accessible to the human mind there are other spheres in which there is something categorically different from human thinking and acting. No knowledge from such spheres penetrates to the human mind. It is idle to ask whether things-in-themselves are different from what they appear to us, and whether there are worlds which we cannot divine and ideas which we cannot comprehend. These are problems beyond the scope of human cognition. Human knowledge is conditioned by the structure of the human mind. (115)
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Self reference is a characteristic of some philosophical axioms. As you point out, existence is one of these. I.E. something exists. To deny the axiom is to assert it. This in turn rests on the most basic assumption of all, to wit, the law of non-contradiction. This is as close to an a priori true and necessary proposition as we will ever get. It is required to establish the axiomatic character of some philosophic assumptions.

Correct.

There are other assumptions we make that do not have this character. For example, the laws of thermodynamics. Denying a law of thermodynamics does not automatically produce a logical contradiction, yet all our our observations (so far) support the laws of thermodynamics. To put it another way, the laws of thermodynamics are NOT self evident. They are true a posteriori based on observations and have not yet been empirically falsified. A similar remark holds for the well known conservation laws of physics.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Correct. Doing so would actually commit the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent, but I think there exists valid arguments via Bayesian probability that increase the likelihood of correspondence for these theorems, sometimes to absurd heights. cool.gif

Of course, you can have scientific theorems which are logically provable - if I recall correctly, Newton mathematically proved that an object (of mass) experiences gravity toward another mass then it is affected by an inverse-square force - and that if an object (of mass) experiences an inverse-square proportional force in relation to another mass, then such an object must be experiencing gravity. Whatever gravity is at its core, the effects at the level of science corresponding to what could be known during Newton's time are 100% airtight.

The inverse square law is based on the spherical symmetry of the gravitational field. Newton assumed (reasonably) that gravitation qua force acted the same in all directions. Given the spherical symmetry the inverse square part follows mathematically.

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