Barbara Branden, who always thinks carefully and deeply about issues and whose remarks are always thoughtful, pointed out the difficulty of identifying exactly “what Rand believed” (or did not believe) “to be logically entailed by her outline of essentials.” Barbara opined that Rand “would certainly not agree that the denial of volition is allowable; after all, she wrote that ‘Volition is an axiom of consciousness’ – and, clearly, she meant volition as she had explained it.”

While I’m not sure exactly where Rand said what Barbara quoted her as saying, I do know that she said man's consciousness is volitional in Galt's Speech, "The Objectivist Ethics," etc. I also know that Peikoff in OPAR says in one place that volition is a corollary of consciousness, but in another place that it is an axiom. It's not clear whether he's really talking about axioms (propositions) or axiomatic concepts, but he's clearly confused. (He makes the same error in re causality and validity of the senses, calling them both axioms and corollaries. As he defines "axiom" and "corollary," they cannot be both. Hence, Peikoff has offered up some really confusing verbiage for folks to puzzle over.

I do know this: insofar as it exists, volition is an attribute of human consciousness. We can state this as a proposition, but that does not make it an axiom, as far as I can tell.

Metaphysics identifies what is true of all existence, of Being qua Being, as Aristotle put it. And as Peikoff pointed out in OPAR, existence and identity are everywhere, but consciousness is only here and there. So, neither the fact that man is conscious nor the fact that man has volition can be axioms of metaphysics.

However, insofar as it is unique and essential to human consciousness and the gaining of knowledge, it is a starting point, and thus an axiom, of epistemology. I believe Ron Merrill said this in his Objectivity essay on axioms. He also said that consciousness (i.e., that man is conscious) is an axiom of epistemology, and he included in this that the senses are valid (which I think should be a separate axiom of epistemology).

So, what I want to acknowledge is this: without man's being conscious, there is no knowledge; without man's basic form of awareness, perception, being valid, there is no knowledge; and without the power to regulate his consciousness and check for errors in his conclusion, there is no knowledge. The last of these is my understanding of what volition is; if we want to engage our minds and check our thoughts for error, we are free to do so.

Does that qualify me as an advocate of volition? Even though I also hold that we must (i.e., are determined to) do what we most want to do -- which, on a given occasion, may in fact not be to engage our minds and correct errors, etc.? This is what I get from reading John Locke, who argued that it is absurd to say the will is free, but that human beings are free.

It may just be that I will have to toss the term "Lockean Objectivist" into the ring, as a counter-weight to "Randian Objectivist." His explanation of human freedom to act and think being conditional makes more sense to me than anything I have read by Peikoff or Binswanger or Kelley or NB. And these are bright guys, so it's not like they haven't tried!

Now, I'm not saying Locke agrees with Rand on everything other than free will. Just that several of his ideas make more sense to me than what Rand et al have said, and that his view of freedom to act and think is one of them. And it is consistent with the rest of her philosophy.

An Open System Objectivism would at least entertain these various challenges from Locke, without writing them off as non-Objectivist. Yet, all I hear (if anything) from the main Objectivists about Locke is either that he is so eclectic that he's not worth considering, or they misinterpret him as being a proto-Randian in re volition. He is neither!

Either Rand's say-so forever forecloses what is Objectivist, or there has to be some wiggle room for considering that some of the corollary or derivative ideas could be understood in a way that makes more sense and still agrees with our experience.

Here's a comparison that might be helpful. When I first read Mortimer Adler's works, I viewed him as, like Rand, an Aristotelian who was saying what Aristotle said better and clearer than Aristotle, and correcting his mistakes. They both agreed with Aristotle's foundational ideas, including his view of an independent reality, reason for knowing it, etc., but at certain points they diverged from his line of reasoning.

Does that make Rand and Adler not Aristotelians? Of course not. If he were alive, they would tell him, "I agree with your starting points, your basic premises, so I'm in your camp, but I disagree with this argument and the things that follow from it, so I'm suggesting this correction in your philosophy." If Aristotle didn't see their point, they would argue and probably be kicked out of his school of philosophy over it, even while protesting that they were only trying to make his system of thought more consistent and true to reality.

But since Aristotle's dead, what happens if various of his followers disagree about an implication from his foundations that he did not satisfactorily address himself?

Does one group get to define the other group out of the school of philosophy? That's what ARI and their mentality want to do in re Objectivism.

Or do they schism into rival sub-schools of Aristotelianism? That's what TOC has done in re Objectivism.

Since I don't have a "gang," and I don't have a major reputation, what exactly am I? Do I have to start my own obscure little cult? (a la Bissellianism?) Can I hyphenate my philosophical allegiance? (a la Lockean-Objectivist?)

I'm not asking permission, because I'll do what I think is best. But I'd like some clarification from anyone who can take a fresh, non-dogmatic, non-authoritarian look at all this.

REB

P.S. -- It may amuse or interest readers to know that some people are now referring to me as a "confused volitionist," since I argue that humans are governed by final causation and teleological determinism, and are conditionally free (to act and think) if that's what they most want to do. Would that make me a confused Objectivist? I know that there ~are~ such things, because I've read their writings and heard them speak! :-)