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When is an entity not an entity? When it's a pile of dirt!--A. Rand, c. 1969


Roger Bissell

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As defined by Ayn Rand, the fallacy of the frozen abstraction is a fallacy "which consists of substituting some one particular concrete for the wider abstract class to which it belongs." ("Collectivized Ethics," The Virtue of Selfishness, New York: Signet, 1964, p. 81.) In other words, this fallacy entails the refusal to include certain members of a class in the wider class to which they belong, and instead limiting the class to one or a select few of its members.

This fallacy is singularly well-suited for propagating subtle (and not-so-subtle) untruths, particularly in the realm of normative (i.e., value) considerations. In committing the frozen abstraction fallacy, a given speaker substitutes his view of what a given thing ideally should be, for the wider class of what that thing has been, is, and can or should or will be. He then defines his concept of that thing so as to exclude all non-ideal, imperfect, or bad (evil and/or harmful) examples of that thing from the concept.

Perhaps the most fascinating historical example of this fallacy is Plato's theory of the nature of abstract ideas (Forms) themselves. Plato maintained that abstractions, or abstract ideas, actually exist apart from the concrete things in which they appear to be embodied and from the mind which seems to discover them. Abstract ideas, or Forms, exist in another, transcendental realm, separate from the world of our experience. They serve as models or patterns for the actual world and are somehow present in it. The world of our experience is merely the pale, imperfect reflection or "image" of the realities in the realm of the Forms.

Regarding these Forms (abstractions), Plato seemed torn between two quite different views. On the one hand, he felt that there must be Forms for all general terms. There must be Forms to serve as the model for every different kind of thing. There must be a perfect, ideal exemplar for each of the different types of thing existing in this imperfect, actual world.

On the other hand, it was very disturbing to Plato to entertain the possibility that there might very well be Forms for such "vile and paltry" things as hair, mud, dirt, etc. These are undesirable--non-ideal, in an ethical or esthetic sense--as well as being merely imperfect, as are all material existents (non-ideal in a metaphysical sense). From this, Plato concludes (in a non sequitur) that "ideal" models of the undesirable could not possibly exist. This latter view seems to be the one that prevails in Plato's writings. It is the one that exemplifies the fallacy of the frozen abstraction.

It is ironic, in this connection, that Rand, Peikoff, and others selectively deny the label "entity" to things such as clouds, rivers, and piles of dirt. E.g., Rand, in Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology (2nd ed.) said that, whereas a mountain was an entity, a pile of dirt would not be an entity, unless it had glue poured into it so that it was welded together and that there were actions possible to it as a whole. (pp. 268, 273).

But as Rand herself said shortly thereafter (p. 277), materials (including dirt, let it be noted) do not belong to "a separate metaphysical category, because materials cannot exist except in the form of entities of some kind, nor can entities exist without materials. That is, physical entities." Matter is "what all physical entities have in common," and "the things which we call physical entities are all made of some kind of material. But you can't consider one without the other."

Thus, glued-welded or not, a pile of dirt must be an entity. It may not have all of the same actions (as a mountain?!) possible to it, but surely some actions are possible to it.

As Aristotle said--and as Rand, Peikoff, Kelley, and every sane person, Objectivist or otherwise, concurs--there is no such thing as an attribute apart from an entity that has that attribute. There is no cloud that does not have a shape, no river that does not have a length, no pile of sand that does not have a color. Ergo, these are all entities, and Rand et al, in denying that they are, are guilty of the fallacy of the frozen abstraction.

Shades of Socrates!

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Aristotle would agree with you. He recognized a sliding scale of entityhood, depending on the extent to which something (to use a dangerous word) has its own principle of motion. The immovable mover and the heavenly bodies are at the top of the scale and people next, then it moves down through animals and plants to artifacts and finally to heaps, the last being the sort of thing you're talking about. James Lennox, an Objectivist, has written about this.

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