the NIOF principle

[Arkadi]

Stephen--The translation is correct. I used "primary substance" in the sense that came into usage in later interpretations of Aristotle, namely, to indicate that of which a secondary substance (just as any other of the categories) is predicated. E.g., assuming that the proposition "This [individual thing] is a dog" is true, the "individual thing" referred by it does not exist "simply," but only "as something," namely, as a dog. Aristotle did not think otherwise. What he means by "substance" in 1028 is, to use the same illustration, "this individual dog," i.e., what I called primary substance (but you may suggest a more fitting term) already qualified by the secondary substance (in this case, "dogness").

"Why not follow Aristotle’s question “What is being?” and his answer(s) for it with “What is existence?” in Rand?" --I'm all for it! But "following" implies trans-lation (in the sense of transferre) from one paradigm into the other (rather than an existentialist "leap"), doesn't it? This is what I'm looking for. In particular, I'm wondering what might be the best answers to Rand's questions “What is existence?” and "What is an entity?" in Aristotelian terms, and how exactly Rand improves on Aristotelian answers to these questions.

[Arkadi]

p.s. Above all, I am wondering what might be an Aristotelian translation of Rand's notion of "identity."

[Guyau]

Arkadi,

Joseph Owens argued that the traditional translation of Aristotle’s ousia is poorly conveyed by substance and is better expressed by entity. In either translation, Aristotle’s conception of ousia in his mature metaphysics is pretty far from Rand’s conception of entity (Owens 1978, 137–54; see also Gotthelf 2012, 8n11.) What is traditionally translated as being in Aristotle, is sometimes translated as existence (Barnes 1995, 72–77). But here too, we must not let that dull us to the differences between Aristotle and Rand on the concept in play.

I gather that the things in Aristotle’s metaphysics, the things she purges in his notions of essence, substance, matter/form, act/potency, being, and final and formal causality are pretty much what is jettisoned by modern philosophers generally. I’ll know better as I continue. Looking forward to getting deeper into Contemporary Aristotelian Metaphysics (Tahko, editor, 2012).

I think the question “What is existence?” is sensible if we are asking for the most fundamental character and compass of existence in itself or in its relations to us as one of its parts. Answers to the sensible versions of the question would be broad characterizations of existence: the patent everything, everywhen around us and in us as we sense it ordinarily and in science; the most basic thing constituting and provisioning cognition; the most basic thing whose most basic categories are those discerned by Aristotle, Whitehead, Rand, or Lowe; or the universe, spacetime and mass-energy.

I’m still learning about Aristotle’s being and how it relates to Rand’s existence. I’m unsure as you what (what all?) in Aristotle can add up to Rand’s identity in her most comprehensive sense of it. With Kant determination would seem to fit the bill.

This bit I can offer: Rand, like others from at least the time of Leibniz, packed both the self-sameness of a thing and the whatness of a thing into its identity. Aristotle did not connect the law of identity that speaks to the distinctive natures of things—“a thing is what it is”—with a formula such as “A is A” or “A thing is itself.” He would say “A thing is itself” is nearly empty and useless, and he would not connect that proposition to “A thing is what it is” or “A thing is something specifically” or “A thing is some what or has some nature,” which he thought substantive and important (1030a20–24, 1041a10–24). The formula “A is A” latter proved useful for deriving conversions (that he had taken for obvious) from syllogisms; then the necessary truth of all the syllogistic and the conversions can be taken as driving from the obvious necessary truth of first figure syllogisms. And frankly, if we say (having it from Aristotle in first figure) “This rock has the set of properties A, rocks having the set of properties A are granite, therefore this rock is granite,” it’s hard to see how Aristotle could not have the whatness notion of identity on which that inference rests.

 

PS

Delighted to learn a bit about you. I had never known of Vasily Rozanov until I saw just now your mention of him. I see you were born in Leningrad. Have you read Rand's novel We the Living? Deepest sympathy in the loss of your extraordinary son.

 

 

 

[Brant Gaede]

So sorry about your son, Arkadi. So young but so awesome.

--Brant

[Arkadi]

Thanks, Brant. Did you happen to know him?

[Brant Gaede]

Oh, no. I Googled your name after Stephen mentioned your loss. I got my information from his obit. Makes me think of a John Galt before he invented his motor, wondering what might have been going forward, but hard to imagine without creating something on the same scale, and even then, of course, we really can't know--ever.

Advances in human knowledge and efficacy seem inevitable. For instance, we can imagine AC without Tesla. However, can we imagine AC before him?

--Brant

[Arkadi]

Stephen--Thanks for your kind words (I've just seen your "PS"). I know We the Living? via the movie only. I have to admit, it's only a few months as I've begun getting myself acquainted with Rand. I am coming from a milieu where nobody knew her even by the name. I'm far from having been "converted" to Objectivism (would call myself, rather a Heideggerian, if anything, for now); yet I find the modus operandi of the movement (as well as Rand's personal charisma) extremely congenial. Interestingly, as I came to do my graduate studies to US almost 25 yeas ago I found in my dorm's room's desk's drawer a postal stamp with a stunningly beautiful (I would say even, intellectually-beautiful, as a Platonic idea) female face looking at me from it, and this strange combination of letters above it:  "Ayn Rand." I had no clue then that it was the person's name, but I kept the stamp (and still have it), despite badly needing every cent for my postage even (I had just $30 in my possession when I landed).

[Brant Gaede]

Ayn Rand was born in St. Petersburg in 1905 and witnessed the Russian "Revolution." (The revolution wasn't communist. The dominant communist faction took it over resulting in a true civil war [unlike the American one]. Her novel We the Living was her way of dealing with that past and putting it behind her as well as she could.)

There's a certain above-board in your face blunt Russian personality she had. I've seen it in others. You seem to have it too--no nonsense; get down to business.

--Brant

[Arkadi]

Thanks, Brant. I knew that much about her bio and about the novel, as well as about the Revolution, of course. I lived much of my life under the regime that followed, and was part of Leningrad intellectual "underground." Yes, AR's personality does resonate a lot with me. BTW, my father was born the same as she; more traits in common: I'm also of Jewish descent (and a totally non-religious one at that), and also have been from early on in love with US as the first and only "idealist country" in human history. All this being said, my philosophical background is "continental" through and through; which made me feel rather alienated from American academical philosophy, dominated as it is by the "analytical" tradition and rather stale at that. Engaging Objectivism gives me a feel of connecting, at last, with the living philosophical "pulse" of this land (which pulse I had almost given up the hope to find).

[Arkadi]

Stephen--Returning to our moutons: I am puzzled by the idea of "packing self-sameness of a thing and a the whatnesss of a thing into its identity" for the following reasons.

(1) By identity of a human individual we normally understand her individuality (as indicated by her proper name and verified, inter alia, by her ID), not her,say, humanity.  Why would, then, the "whatness notion of identity" apply to an individual stone (as in your last illustration)?

(2) The same-sameness thesis ("the thing is itself") is absolutely incomprehensible unless one explains what one means by "is" here. Prima facie, a certain non-identity is implied by the very statement of "identity." To be self-related in any way, one is to be, also, self-distant (as the case of self-consciousness illustrates: to be aware of X is to be aware of this awareness of X).  In other words, to be able to claim that A is A, one is first to distinguish somehow between A and A.

As to the notion of "existence," exporting it uncritically (i.e., without questioning examination, as supposedly self-evident and "basic") from the tradition is, after Heidegger, rather problematic. For that matter I would refer to the opening page of SZ, with its citation from The Sophist.

[Guyau]

Both the Thomist and the Kantian pack self-sameness of a thing and the whatness of a thing into its identity by way of analyzing predication concerning the thing. The subject and the predicate are of the self-same object (ontology of object and predicative structure differing between the traditions). It is not puzzling to me, and would not be puzzling in those traditional understandings, at least not more than the comfortable puzzlement over electrons having charge or over occasions of momentum having a certain unavoidable accompaniment of a De Broglie wavelength or over the relation obtaining in the Pythagorean Theorem.

Concerning (1) I’d say it’s just that we have contexts of thought and discourse that are more typical than other such contexts. In a context of various persons trying to join the Army, we would say that one is Jill, not Jack, Jill with her history, her weight, her gender, not his. In a context of seeing her attacked by a dog, our response will run on what sort of animals are before us; her humanity will be part of our response. The dog’s size will be part of how hard we kick it. The whatness identity of the individual granite stone would be natural to look to in a context of determining its kind among kinds of stone. Similarly it would be were we verifying which sort of gasoline is being dispensed through a certain pump.

Concerning (2) I don’t have anything quick and helpful to add, although there is something related in a journal I edited in the ’90’s you may find of interest concerning Rand’s scheme. The journal was titled Objectivity, and the author of this paper is Tibor Machan. The pertinent pages are 40–43, 49. Should you have time for that, please note a typo in a sentence on 49. It should read “The affirmation of identity and difference takes place in speech.”

Concerning your last paragraph, quite so. Good advice for me in my own philosophical developments. So far I do aim for univocal sense in existence (though with is in predication performing multiple functions in a given assertion; 1991). In my scheme, the predicate in Existence exists is univocal with our mundane sense of saying the reach of my arm exists or saying a certain book and its location exists here in the library. My distinctions of existence would not arise between (i) existence of entity and (ii) existence of the dependents of entity (unlike Aristotle and more like Rand in this, I think). But I do think of nested sorts of existence: living existence nested in and composed of non-living existence; the existence in self-consciousness, an existence nested in and a form of living existence. (It’s more than OK with me for the scientific tail to wag the metaphysical dog.)

(It probably goes without saying, but in mentioning in an earlier post certain responses to the question “What is existence?” and calling them sensible, I’m leaving aside any sort of mysterian direction of the question. The question is not sensible, that is, if by it one were seeking to penetrate deeper than existence, go behind or beyond existence, or to pretend something supernatural “in, with, and under” existence.)

Below is a bit I have written concerning Heidegger in my long-term book underway. I’ll just share that here without additional comment, but to say I’ll be returning to him as I work my way on existence and time. And of course, I’d be more than pleased, Arkadi, with any responses, however devastating, you might have on this excerpt.

Quote

Martin Heidegger’s “Dasein exists, and it alone” coupled with “Dasein is its own disclosedness” resembles somewhat Rand’s couple “Existence exists” with “Existence is identity” (SZ 133). Heidegger, however, was working with a more restricted notion of existence than Rand’s. He crafted Dasein with truncated features distinctive of living existence, even of consciousness and social institution (SZ 11–15, 41–45). And he would not follow Rand in the restriction of being to existence (actual and potential) even though her existence was broader than his. Then too, he hung what she would later call identity, as in Existence is identity, radically from disclosedness and susceptibility to identification, rather than from existence or being. He erred also by disallowing either identity or susceptibility to identification to all being. Lastly, he imported some dynamics into being and truth, a wrong maneuver.

I have proposed we should replace Bolzano’s theme of truths in themselves with corporate facts. It seems natural then to likewise replace Heidegger’s notion of ontological truth with corporate facts and keep the notion of truth tethered to knowing subject. Right, but Heidegger had really not done entirely away with that tether due to his tie of truth to Dasein, which is, among other things, existent that is disclosedness and understanding of being (SZ 214–30). There is furthermore something Heidegger, with Aristotle, had gotten quite right in his “ontological” notion of truth, which should not be thrown out with the bathwater. Heidegger’s conception of demonstration of truth by identity of (i) the object thought with (ii) the object is correct and is a portion of Rand’s conception of truth as identification of facts of reality (SZ 217–19; ITOE 48).

 

[Arkadi]

Stephen-- Re: "the Kantian pack self-sameness of a thing and the whatness of a thing into its identity," would you be so kind as to remind where exactly does Kant speak of "identity" in connection with the "whatness of a thing"? Thanks. Will get back to you regarding the rest of your post a bit later.

[Arkadi]

Stephen--Regardging your Heidegger excerpt (I noticed it right away as I was reading the thread a link to which you posted few days ago, yet was not sure then  whether you would be willing to know my thoughts about it):

"Heidegger, however, was working with a more restricted notion of existence than Rand’s. He crafted Dasein with truncated features distinctive of living existence" --this is not fair, as "existence" in Hd is only one of several meanings of "being"  (alongside with ready-to-hand, present-at-hand, etc), whereas in Rand, as far as I understand,  "existence" covers all senses of "being" (except that of the copula).  It would be more fair to say that in Hd "being" is not univocal, and that he is more Aristotelian than Rand in this regard.

BTW (this is an aside, and I have to yet read Tibor Machan's paper, perchance he addresses this issue), Rand's thesis "Existence exists" contains, form my Heideggerian perspective, a category mistake. Existence is always an existence of something, of that which exists, of an existent, or entity (say, a table). To say "existence exists" is to construe existence itself as an entity. But if, say, the existence of a table were itself an entity, it would be possible to speak of that entity's existence (for an entity is, by definition, that which exists), so one could speak of the existence of the existence of a table etc., ad infinitum.

"And he would not follow Rand in the restriction of being to existence ...  even though her existence was broader than his. "--this sounds extremely confused to me. True, Rand's existence is broader than Hd's but only because what she calls "existence" Hd calls "being" (cf. above). 

And BTW, in what sense is "being restricted to existence" in Rand? Do you mean that Rand's notion of "being" is narrower that it could possibly be? What is the difference in meaning, according to Rand, between "being" and "existence" anyway?

"Then too, he hung what she would later call identity, as in Existence is identity, radically from disclosedness and susceptibility to identification, rather than from existence or being." --what particular work (0r, better, passage) in Hd are you referring to? And what, in your view, is his exact term for "what [Rand] would later call identity"?

"He erred also ...."--hmm... This "also" implies that some error of Hd has been already demonstrated by you above. But you have not referred to anything as his error yet. Or does, in your view, disagreement with Rand of itself constitutes an error?

".... by disallowing either identity or susceptibility to identification to all being"--again, without a reference to a particular passage I have no clue what you mean here by "disallowing susceptibility to identification," let alone why exactly such "disallowing" is an "error." Does not Hd argue somehow for what he claims? And does not exposing an error require showing the falsity of assumptions and/or reasoning behind it? 

 "he imported some dynamics into being and truth, a wrong maneuver"--again, in what sense is it "wrong"?  I would expect you first to show your understanding of his rationale for this "importing,"  and then addressing that rationale, not just the conclusions.

"Heidegger’s conception of demonstration of truth by identity of (i) the object thought with (ii) the object is correct " --well, thank you for your approval, except that this is still plain Husserl (if not, in the final analysis, Aristotle), so why give Hd a credit? Especially, as his own notion of truth as un-hiddenness (taking its inspiration from the Greek ἀλήθεια) is original indeed.  

[Arkadi]

Stephen--Reading Tibor Machan's paper:

On p. 43 the author suggests that  "existence exists" is equivalent to Hd's "the world worlds," "the nothing nihilates" ets. This is unfortunate, as Hd's rationale for resorting to such locutions is precisely the need to avoid the use of  the verbs of being: "is" or "exists,"  as the use of them in such cases would yield nonsense: what exists is an entity, yet the world is not an entity but rather that-in-which any entity is ( the world itself is not in the world); likewise "the nothing exists" makes no sense, being an oxymoron. But the same, mutatis mutandis, applies, for the reason that I indicated in my previous post, to "existence exists." Hd would rather say: es gibt Existenz, es gibt Sein (which one might roughly translate as "exisence/being is given").

BTW, re p.36: "Whatever in fact we happen to experience, it will exist, that its, will be other than the conscious act which is our experience of it." This sounds like a direct citation from Husserl or Sartre (who're not even mentioned in the paper)!

[Guyau]

Arkadi,

Thank you for all the feedback concerning Heidegger. When I return to him, I’ll have your comments as a help.

“Or does, in your view, disagreement with Rand of itself constitute an error?” No. In the second place, I’m not an Objectivist. And in the first, that is an insult.

[Arkadi]

Stephen--I apologize, certainly did not mean to insult you. I just fail to see what else could the word "error" in this context possibly mean. I cannot recall, since I left Russia, encountering anywhere a reference to a great philosopher's view as "erroneous" (in USSR, of course, everyone was "erroneous" except Marx, Engels, and Lenin). Also, I saw you referring more than once to "my and Rand's metaphysics." Last but not least, the issue of the "Objectivity" that I was browsing through had, as far as I could see, a strong Rand-apologetic element. These factors prompted my question that you found insulting. Again, my sincere apologies for putting it.

[Brant Gaede]

If you don't deal with "existence exists" explicitly as an axiomatic statement as Rand did, you'll continually spin your wheels trying to understand her and that. Also, since it's an axiomatic statement it's impossible to make it more restrictive--or broader. It's both all (everything) and nothing. And "nothing" being a negative statement has no reality except as an abstraction. Existence has always existed. It cannot not exist. Whether that is only the universe as we understand it and perceived reality or something else is unknown if not ultimately unknowable. Thus we can also say existence is infinite, but we can't show it or demonstrate it. It's quite beyond science although some scientists keep speculating--for instance, multiple universes. That's cud chewing with no real data resulting, even out the rear end. (Well, maybe as gas.)

--Brant

I may not know what I'm talking about, but I do like to talk