The Logical Leap: Induction in Physics

[Ellen Stuttle]

No person can claim omniscience or infallibility, so there always is the possibility that later knowledge will require revisions of our current scientific theories. But this doesn't amount to skepticism.

Popper, Miller, Bartley etc hold exactly this view.

They are indeed called skeptics - even absolute skeptics.

We can describe it simply as "We know p, but p may be false."

It seems odd to deny this amounts to skepticism.

Better still: We believe that p but p may turn out to be false.

Ba'al Chatzaf

I agree that "We believe that p but p may turn out to be false" is a better formulation. Sometimes "We have strong, including very strong, reason to believe that p but p may turn out to be false."

I don't like the formulation using "know," which Fred Seddon used and Daniel has adopted as expressing the point. I'd reserve "know" for cases in which we in fact do know, and there are many such cases -- but not ever about ultimate scientific laws. The idea that we could know that we have the correct ultimate scientific laws is contradictory, since we'd have to be here after everything is over to check the final results, and if we were here, everything wouldn't be over. DF argues contradictoriness on the basis of non-omniscience, but I don't think that that argument is as strong, since *of course* we aren't omniscient, omniscience being a nonsensical idea, an invalid concept to begin with.

Ellen

Edited August 12, 2010 by Ellen Stuttle

[Ellen Stuttle]

Question about Peikoff's fall 1965 course at Denver on "Objectivism's Theory of Knowledge": Did he teach Rand's theory of concepts in that course? If so, this was in advance of ITOE, which first appeared in 8 installments, July 1966 - February 1967, in The Objectivist.

Ellen

[merjet]

We can describe it simply as "We know p, but p may be false."

It seems odd to deny this amounts to skepticism.

I think the authors of this page, and more, would deny it. Philosophical skepticism is way more complicated than your simplistic formulation.

Edited August 12, 2010 by Merlin Jetton

[Ellen Stuttle]

You cannot have your cake and eat it too.

You mean like defining wrong definitions as ipso facto *not* definitions?

You keep confusing statements about already defined concepts with statements defining concepts. They may be expressed with exactly the same sentence, but the meaning is quite different. The first can be wrong, but are no definitions, the second can't be wrong, but may be inconvenient because they may deviate from common usage.

To my surprise, you seem not to understand the difference between words and concepts. I'm surprised because you're fluent in at least four languages -- Dutch, German, French, English -- and you know some Latin, too, so surely, I would have thought, you must realize that the same concept can be labeled by different words. If this weren't the case, how would translation between languages be possible?

Your claim that incorrect statements about "already defined concepts" can't be definitions indicates that you don't realize that definitions of a concept -- that is, of the type of something the instances of which are the units of the concept -- aren't definitions of words but of the nature of the units and indeed can be incorrect identifications of characteristics of those units. E.g., if people define the animal meant in English by the word "whale" as a type of Pices (the biological classification) -- and some people did argue that that type of animal should be thus defined -- this is a factually incorrect classification. The animal is not a fish; it's a mammal. That isn't true "by definition" of the word "whale." It's true because of the nature of the animal being labeled by that word.

But although I'm assuming you would agree that classifying the animal labeled by the English word "whale" as Pices instead of Mammalia is a wrong classification, since you insist that a definition cannot be wrong, you'd have to say (if you're to be consistent) that the misclassification was all along merely a non-standard use of a word. Similarly, if the force which tends to keep things from drifting apart has been defined as a force of attraction acting at a distance and it's shown not to be that kind of force, for you the former definition has retroactively become not a definition. I submit, a whole lot of re-writing the history of discovery is required in order to stick to the belief that definitions cannot be wrong. A lot simpler to differentiate concepts and words.

Ellen

Edited August 12, 2010 by Ellen Stuttle

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I just caught this. I have been through the "contextually absolute" thing with Daniel several times in the past. It has always boiled down to the following in the past, so I expect it to eventually end up there once again. Here goes:

Rand uses absolute to mean true in all cases, but contextually absolute to mean true in all known cases. This means at a specific point in time, since we exist in time and knowledge is part of us.

Daniel says that absolute means "true in all cases for all time" and it means

only that

in all cases, in all contexts, for all time. He refuses to accept that the word can be used with a qualifier that limits time to a specific point.

Thus, Rand used the wrong meaning of the word "absolute" because she did not limit it to the timeless meaning like Daniel does and, what's worse, she contradicted that meaning with her qualifier.

Thus Rand was wrong.

Thus Rand does not know what she was talking about.

Ho ho ho.

After doing that a few times, I really hope it goes somewhere else this time...

Michael

[James Heaps-Nelson]

I just caught this. I have been through the "contextually absolute" thing with Daniel several times in the past. It has always boiled down to the following in the past, so I expect it to eventually end up there once again. Here goes:

Rand uses absolute to mean true in all cases, but contextually absolute to mean true in all known cases. This means at a specific point in time, since we exist in time and knowledge is part of us.

Daniel says that absolute means "true in all cases for all time" and it means

only that

in all cases, in all contexts, for all time. He refuses to accept that the word can be used with a qualifier that limits time to a specific point.

Thus, Rand used the wrong meaning of the word "absolute" because she did not limit it to the timeless meaning like Daniel does and, what's worse, she contradicted that meaning with her qualifier.

Thus Rand was wrong.

Thus Rand does not know what she was talking about.

Ho ho ho.

After doing that a few times, I really hope it goes somewhere else this time...

Michael

Michael,

Thanks for this post. Rand talks a lot more about absolutes than she does about certainty (although in the Atlantis chapter of AS certainty comes in). An absolute means without exception. You can have something be absolute and something be contextually absolute. My problem with "contextual certainty" is that it engenders a kind of intellectual laziness where a person becomes convinced that no exceptions could exist to a given statement or proposition. It is not that we are "contextually certain", it is that at some point knowledge acquires a status that shifts the burden to the skeptic to come up with a positive alternative or concede the point.

Jim

[Dragonfly]

Your claim that incorrect statements about "already defined concepts" can't be definitions indicates that you don't realize that definitions of a concept -- that is, of the type of something the instances of which are the units of the concept -- aren't definitions of words but of the nature of the units and indeed can be incorrect identifications of characteristics of those units. E.g., if people define the animal meant in English by the word "whale" as a type of Pices (the biological classification) -- and some people did argue that that type of animal should be thus defined -- this is a factually incorrect classification. The animal is not a fish; it's a mammal. That isn't true "by definition" of the word "whale." It's true because of the nature of the animal being labeled by that word.

If you define a whale as an animal with certain characteristics belonging to the class of Pisces (note the spelling), then this isn't a wrong definition, but a definition that doesn't correspond to a known animal. What is wrong is identifying the thus defined animal with an earlier defined animal (those big animals in the sea with certain characteristics). The error is not in the definition, but in the supposed and described relation between differently defined concepts, in particular in thinking that your definition refers to some real entity or phenomenon. If I want I can define a bat as the animal that you call a whale. It would of course be quite inconvenient, as a commonly understood definition scheme is necessary for effective communication. On the other hand, what is Rand doing when she presents her own idiosyncratic definition of "selfishness", even claiming that it is the only correct definition?

But although I'm assuming you would agree that classifying the animal labeled by the English word "whale" as Pices instead of Mammalia is a wrong classification, since you insist that a definition cannot be wrong, you'd have to say (if you're to be consistent) that the misclassification was all along merely a non-standard use of a word. Similarly, if the force which tends to keep things from drifting apart has been defined as a force of attraction acting at a distance and it's shown not to be that kind of force, for you the former definition has retroactively become not a definition.

No, it remains a definition, only we now know that it doesn't correspond to a real phenomenon. For example the definitions of phlogiston and of polywater remain definitions, but we now know that they don't refer to real entities.

[Dragonfly]

I agree that "We believe that p but p may turn out to be false" is a better formulation. Sometimes "We have strong, including very strong, reason to believe that p but p may turn out to be false."

I don't like the formulation using "know," which Fred Seddon used and Daniel has adopted as expressing the point. I'd reserve "know" for cases in which we in fact do know, and there are many such cases -- but not ever about ultimate scientific laws. The idea that we could know that we have the correct ultimate scientific laws is contradictory, since we'd have to be here after everything is over to check the final results, and if we were here, everything wouldn't be over. DF argues contradictoriness on the basis of non-omniscience, but I don't think that that argument is as strong, since *of course* we aren't omniscient, omniscience being a nonsensical idea, an invalid concept to begin with.

That in fact makes my argument very strong. The certainty with which we know that man isn't omniscient is the certainty with which we know that we never can be certain that p, as the existence of a counterexample would lead to a contradiction (reductio ad absurdum).

[Daniel Barnes]

We can describe it simply as "We know p, but p may be false."

It seems odd to deny this amounts to skepticism.

I think the authors of this page, and more, would deny it. Philosophical skepticism is way more complicated than your simplistic formulation.

I for one seriously doubt that the authors of that page would not call Popper, Miller, Bartley etc "skeptics".

As they hold the view "No person can claim omniscience or infallibility, so there always is the possibility that later knowledge will require revisions of our current scientific theories", it seems reasonable therefore to call this a skeptical view.

Of course skepticism comes in many more exotic flavours than my simplistic formulation. But the idea that all knowledge is only ever hypothetical - ie always might turn out to be false - is most assuredly a skeptical one, and is quite clearly expressed by this formulation.

[Daniel Barnes]

I just caught this. I have been through the "contextually absolute" thing with Daniel several times in the past. It has always boiled down to the following in the past, so I expect it to eventually end up there once again. Here goes:

Rand uses absolute to mean true in all cases, but contextually absolute to mean true in all known cases. This means at a specific point in time, since we exist in time and knowledge is part of us.

Daniel says that absolute means "true in all cases for all time" and it means

only that

in all cases, in all contexts, for all time. He refuses to accept that the word can be used with a qualifier that limits time to a specific point.

Thus, Rand used the wrong meaning of the word "absolute" because she did not limit it to the timeless meaning like Daniel does and, what's worse, she contradicted that meaning with her qualifier.

Thus Rand was wrong.

Thus Rand does not know what she was talking about.

Ho ho ho.

Michael has yet to come to grips with a couple of things. Most fundamentally, there is this important distinction:

1) The truth.

and

2)

Our knowledge

of the truth.

That is, the absolute, unvarnished truth

does

exist.

But it is not the same thing as

our knowledge of it

.

Capice?

Now, certain things follow from this. But just getting his head around this would be quite a big step forward, and would help him begin see his misunderstanding above.

Then there lesser is the issue of

words having meanings

. If you take a generally accepted term, but then apply it to a different, and even opposite meaning, to that which it is usually intended, this is generally called

double talk

.

Rand has a pattern of doing this, wittingly or no - it's not just limited to this sole case. (Her "absolute precision" is another one I cite - the single actual example she gives of her "absolute precision" is something most other people would call an

approximation

.)

So with Rand there is a layer of double-talk that creates a great deal of confusion. You can either cling to it, as Michael does, or try to strip it away.

Edited August 12, 2010 by Daniel Barnes

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

(yawn)

Daniel just did it again.

One day he will learn that what he calls "truth" here is called "metaphysical fact" in Objectivism. (Actually "fact" only, but I am including "metaphysical" to stress the meaning.)

He might also learn that "truth" is an epistemological term in Objectivism, and it means correspondence of abstraction to a metaphysical fact.

Or maybe he will never learn that and keep insisting that only his meanings are the valid ones--forever and ever amen--in human intellectual intercourse.

Anyway, according to Daniel, Rand was wrong.

Ho ho ho...

Michael.

[Brant Gaede]

I know something.

I think I know something.

I know there is something to know.

There are levels of certainty.

What's the problem? Did you bump into something? Hurt yourself? What's to be done?

Too much Rand instead of reality referencing.

--Brant

[George H. Smith]

No person can claim omniscience or infallibility, so there always is the possibility that later knowledge will require revisions of our current scientific theories. But this doesn't amount to skepticism.

Popper, Miller, Bartley etc hold exactly this view.

They are indeed called skeptics - even absolute skeptics.

We can describe it simply as "We know p, but p may be false."

It seems odd to deny this amounts to skepticism.

Rand maintained that certainty in science, as in other fields of knowledge, is attainable. To call this approach "skepticism" is more than odd; it is downright perverse.

Rand's approach to science is simply an application of her general theory of knowledge. Thus, if she was a "skeptic" in science, she was also a "skeptic" in regard to knowledge in general. You could call her a "Christian" with equal accuracy.

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

Michael has yet to come to grips with a couple of things. Most fundamentally, there is this important distinction:

1) The truth.

and

2) Our knowledge of the truth.

That is, the absolute, unvarnished truth does exist.

But it is not the same thing as our knowledge of it.

Capice?

Now, certain things follow from this. But just getting his head around this would be quite a big step forward, and would help him begin see his misunderstanding above.

Then there lesser is the issue of words having meanings. If you take a generally accepted term, but then apply it to a different, and even opposite meaning, to that which it is usually intended, this is generally called double talk.

The distinction between "fact" and "truth" is fundamental to Rand's epistemology. And this distinction is by no means peculiar to Rand. On the contrary, it is a fairly common one throughout the history of philosophy, especially among proponents of the "correspondence" theory of knowledge, according to which a proposition is true when it corresponds to a fact. (In Randian terms, "truth" is epistemological, whereas "fact" is metaphysical. Truth is the identification of a fact.}

To criticize a philosopher with no basic understanding of her philosophy is generally called "not knowing what the fuck you are talking about."

Ghs

[Daniel Barnes]

To criticize a philosopher with no basic understanding of her philosophy is generally called "not knowing what the fuck you are talking about."

Well, if Ellen agrees with me that Rand is an "Accidental Skeptic" (or "Accidental Scientific Skeptic") then she clearly doesn't know the fuck what she is talking about either.

Actually, I think Rand didn't know what the fuck she was talking about. Her skepticism, if it exists, is almost certainly accidental. And that's the confusion you're seeing.

Edited August 12, 2010 by Daniel Barnes

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Once again,

Rand is wrong.

Ho ho ho.

It never goes anywhere else with Daniel. That's always the final destination.

Michael

[Daniel Barnes]

Rand's approach to science is simply an application of her general theory of knowledge. Thus, if she was a "skeptic" in science, she was also a "skeptic" in regard to knowledge in general.

I tend to agree with this, while Ellen makes the "scientific skepticism" distinction. But it's not a detail I care to quibble over for now.

And if it turned out that her ethics were, beneath a layer of double-talk, fundamentally indistinguishable from Christian ethics despite her pronouncements to the contrary, then she'd be an Accidental Christian too.

[George H. Smith]

To criticize a philosopher with no basic understanding of her philosophy is generally called "not knowing what the fuck you are talking about."

Well, if Ellen agrees with me that Rand is an "Accidental Skeptic" (or "Accidental Scientific Skeptic") then she clearly doesn't know the fuck what she is talking about either.

Actually, I think Rand didn't know what the fuck she was talking about. And that's the confusion you're seeing.

I suspect Ellen was using "skeptic" with a different meaning than you were. According to the link about Popper that you posted earlier:

Skepticism in its simplest form denies only that we ever know, in the sense of know for certain, whether a statement that we make is absolutely true or false. We know nothing for certain, the ancient skeptics argued, because the grounds for what is known themselves need grounds, and we embark on an infinite regress of justification....

This obviously does not describe Rand's position, so, by your own standard, Rand was not an epistemological skeptic, whether in science or in any other field.

Try to get your facts straight next time. I know that that requires considerable effort on your part in anything to do with Rand, but you might at least make an effort.

Ghs

[Daniel Barnes]

Rand maintained that certainty in science, as in other fields of knowledge, is attainable. To call this approach "skepticism" is more than odd; it is downright perverse.

What's downright perverse is to claim that the statement:

"No person can claim omniscience or infallibility, so there always (my emphasis) is the possibility that later knowledge will require revisions of our current scientific theories"

...isn't a skeptical position. It means all of our knowledge might possibly be found to be false - ergo it is hypothetical, ergo it has no final justification.

If this is what Rand believed, then she's a skeptic. A certain flavour of skeptic, but a skeptic nonetheless. To demonstrate this, the same statement can be put into the mouths of the skeptics I have already mentioned with no problem whatsoever. There is a problem for Rand, as this clashes with her rhetorical position. But I have already said this repeatedly.

If that wasn't what Rand believed, then the statement might be more like:

"No person can claim omniscience or infallibility, so there is the possibility that later knowledge will require revisions of some of our current scientific theories. Others of them are indubitably true and can never be revised."

Then the issue becomes one of how the second type of theory's eternal truth is established...but hey, let's let that slide for now.

PS: The descriptor "Accidental Skeptic" obviously entails confusion on Rand's part between what she thought she'd achieved, and what she actually achieved. Once again, I think this is the confusion you're seeing.

Edited August 13, 2010 by Daniel Barnes

[Daniel Barnes]

I suspect Ellen was using "skeptic" with a different meaning than you were. According to the link about Popper that you posted earlier:

Skepticism in its simplest form denies only that we ever know, in the sense of know for certain, whether a statement that we make is absolutely true or false. We know nothing for certain, the ancient skeptics argued, because the grounds for what is known themselves need grounds, and we embark on an infinite regress of justification....

This obviously does not describe Rand's position, so, by your own standard, Rand was not an epistemological skeptic, whether in science or in any other field.

Well, you suspect wrong. Clearly you missed this:

Ellen: "As to the identity or non between Rand's and Popper's epistemology -- see point #3 of your post #477 -- I think they are quite close. I've said so a number of times before. "

She doesn't think they're identical. But obviously close enough for rock and roll. Please keep up.

Try to get your facts straight next time. I know that that requires considerable effort on your part in anything to do with Rand, but you might at least make an effort.

If you don't think Rand is an epistemological skeptic, then I think you need to be a little more careful in the way you describe her theory, as I point out in my prior post. The problem seems to be with your standard, not mine.

Edited August 13, 2010 by Daniel Barnes

[Daniel Barnes]

Ba'al Chatzaf wrote:

Better still: We believe that p but p may turn out to be false.

I agree that "We believe that p but p may turn out to be false" is a better formulation. Sometimes "We have strong, including very strong, reason to believe that p but p may turn out to be false."

I don't like the formulation using "know," which Fred Seddon used and Daniel has adopted as expressing the point. I'd reserve "know" for cases in which we in fact do know, and there are many such cases -- but not ever about ultimate scientific laws. The idea that we could know that we have the correct ultimate scientific laws is contradictory, since we'd have to be here after everything is over to check the final results, and if we were here, everything wouldn't be over. DF argues contradictoriness on the basis of non-omniscience, but I don't think that that argument is as strong, since *of course* we aren't omniscient, omniscience being a nonsensical idea, an invalid concept to begin with.

Ellen

I'm happy to roll with Ba'al's formulation. I'd have a few cavils but seeing as we're on the verge of singing Kumbaya down the back of the bus I'm hardly about to play the buzzkill...;-)

[George H. Smith]

I suspect Ellen was using "skeptic" with a different meaning than you were. According to the link about Popper that you posted earlier:

Skepticism in its simplest form denies only that we ever know, in the sense of know for certain, whether a statement that we make is absolutely true or false. We know nothing for certain, the ancient skeptics argued, because the grounds for what is known themselves need grounds, and we embark on an infinite regress of justification....

This obviously does not describe Rand's position, so, by your own standard, Rand was not an epistemological skeptic, whether in science or in any other field.

Well, you suspect wrong. Clearly you missed this:

Ellen: "As to the identity or non between Rand's and Popper's epistemology -- see point #3 of your post #477 -- I think they are quite close. I've said so a number of times before. "

She doesn't think they're identical. But obviously close enough for rock and roll. Please keep up.

Ellen's opinions about similarities between Rand and Popper have nothing to do with whether or not Rand was a skeptic. She was not; the claim is absurd on its face. If Ellen agrees with your position, then Ellen is wrong as well.

If you don't think Rand is an epistemological skeptic, then I think you need to be a little more careful in the way you describe her theory, as I point out in my prior post. The problem seems to be with your standard, not mine.

Okay, big shot: Quote a passage or two from Rand where she defends epistemological skepticism. Time to put up or shut up.

I look forward to reading your excuse when you fail to quote even one such passage.

Ghs

[Daniel Barnes]

Ellen's opinions about similarities between Rand and Popper have nothing to do with whether or not Rand was a skeptic. She was not; the claim is absurd on its face. If Ellen agrees with your position, then Ellen is wrong as well.

Well, that's as well as may be, but at least you can't accuse Ellen of coming up with such a theory purely as a result of her ignorance of, and bias against, Objectivism.

Even more horrendously, she also inhabits the "alternate universe" where Rand is an essentialist! (I would stress that Ellen and I also have our differences, btw)

This may perhaps give you pause in your increasingly brittle comments. Or perhaps not.

Okay, big shot: Quote a passage or two from Rand where she defends epistemological skepticism. Time to put up or shut up.

I look forward to reading your excuse when you fail to quote even one such passage.

George, have you even vaguely been paying attention to this thread? If so, what part of "Accidental Skeptic" don't you understand?

Edited August 13, 2010 by Daniel Barnes

[Xray]

Rand uses absolute to mean true in all cases, but contextually absolute to mean true in all known cases. This means at a specific point in time, since we exist in time and knowledge is part of us.

Michael,

Imo when Rand spoke of definitions being contexually absolute, she used "absolute" in a rhetorical sense: as a strong emphasis, ("The defense lawyer's tactic at trial was an absolute success" is an example of "absolute" used as emphasis), and that by her statement about definitions being "contextually absolute", she actually meant to say that they are "absolutely contextual", in that they are contextual without exception, i.e always contextual.

As for "absolute" meaning 'true in all cases', I would like to see material from Rand's text corpus where she says that.

Looking up "absolute" in the AR lexicon, it quotes from Galt's speech:

"Reality is an absolute, existence is an absolute, a speck of dust is an absolute and so is a human life. Whether you live or die is an absolute. Whether you have a piece of bread or not, is an absolute. Whether you eat your bread or see it vanish into a looter’s stomach, is an absolute.

http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/absolutes.html

"Absolute" meaning 'true in all cases' does not fit here.

For one would get "a speck of dust is a true in all cases". Does not make sense.

I have no idea what Rand means by calling a speck of dust "an absolute". (?)

"Whether you have piece of of bread or not is an absolute". Again, what does she mean by absolute in this other context?

I suppose she meant something like "of crucial importance for existence". (It is of crucial importance for existence whether you have to eat or not).

To conclude that a "definition" of this or that automatically implies the possibility of this or that 'existing' in reality would be a non-sequitur.

Santa Claus for example can be defined pretty precisely as well.

Xray,

Or, say, a unicorn?

Talk to Dragonfly about it.

This is his idea of definition, not mine.

I was merely extending his notion by way of example.

Michael

Imo you misinterpreted DF when inferring from his posts that something "exists" by definition".

You had asked DF:

"According to you, God exists by definition. Correct?"

An existing concept of X is not the same as X existing in reality. I think we can agree on that as a common denominator for the discussion.

Actually it is an incorrect definition and you make it a straw man.

No, there is nothing incorrect in that definition.

Dragonfly,.

There certainly is according to the Objectiviest method of definition.

But let's take your standard at face value. According to you, God exists by definition. Correct?

Here is the same methodology.

"A unicorn is a horse with a horn on its forehead."

"God is the spirit that created the universe."

Since you are positing that observed existence is not fundamental to a definition, I have no idea how you intend to distinguish between real and unreal.

Michael

Could it be that you have Rand's idea of "invalid concept" in the back of your mind?

I have the impression that she calls concepts "invalid" if they don't refer to anything 'real'. Then a unicorn would be an invalid concept as well.

But concepts not rooted in observed reality do have an existence qua concepts, and therefore can be the object of empirical study. One can study the various concepts of a supernatural being in various religions, just as one can collect lists clases of mythical animals and study them.

The idea of invalid concepts only confuses matters.

If invalid concepts are "words that represent attempts to integrate errors", then one call Rand's "laissez-faire capitalism" an invalid concept as well, since there is substantial evidence which indicates that the belief of laissez-faire capitalism working is based on error.

As for definitions: every definiton is a selection. I can define character X as the female companion of the Seven Dwarfs and you will know who is meant because we live in the same cultural context, and therefore have knowledge of Grimm's Fairy Tales. The bit of info given already serves to identify the person as Snow White.

Dragonfly's definition of a unicorn also served its purpose since the cultural context is clear as well.

Just try it out in reverse and imagine DF had asked the quiz question: "What do you call a horse with a horn on its forehead?" - everyone here would have given the correct answer.

As for a definition having to contain essential characteristics, even if one gave a more detailed info on e. g. Snow White for a person not familiar with Grimm's Fairy Tales, calling her a fairy tale figure in one of their tales, still it would give this person no idea of Snow White's essential characteristics. In fact one would almost have to tell the whole story to give an idea of that.

One day he will learn that what he calls "truth" here is called "metaphysical fact" in Objectivism. (Actually "fact" only, but I am including "metaphysical" to stress the meaning.)

So there is no difference between a fact and a "metaphysical" fact. For Rand calls 'metaphysical' "that which pertains to reality, to the nature of things to existence, ". TVOS, p. 14.

So say "It is metaphysical fact that I'm typing this post right now" sounds strange.

I have heard 'metaphysical' being used in the exact opposite sense as well, referring to transcendence.

I find 'metaphysical' to be a very confusing term and therefore avoid using it myself in a discussion.

Edited August 13, 2010 by Xray

[Xray]

Replying to Dragonfly:

To my surprise, you seem not to understand the difference between words and concepts. I'm surprised because you're fluent in at least four languages -- Dutch, German, French, English -- and you know some Latin, too, so surely, I would have thought, you must realize that the same concept can be labeled by different words. If this weren't the case, how would translation between languages be possible?

I think DF is fluent in Old Greek as well, and that you can trust him to know the difference between the audiovisual symbol (the 'word'), and the 'concept' it refers to.

Imo it was Rand who created so much confusion since she herself was not consistent in her use of word and concept.

Example: "There are such things as invalid concepts, i. e. words that represent attempts to integrate errors," (ITOE, p. 49).

Notice that "concepts" are called "words" by Rand here?

(The example Xray gave of two different meanings of "gravity" isn't pertinent to Rand's "contextually absolute.")

Why do you think it isn't? I asked you this question in a past post but got not reply, so I'll try again.

In ITOE, p. 85, Rand wrote: "Definitions are "not changelessly absolute, but contextually absolute" (ITOE, p. 85)

The contextuality of a term's usage (and hence its varying definitions depending on the context) rarely poses a problem in communication. Every competent speaker of the English language will know e. g. what is meant when the word gravity is used in the context of speaking about an object falling to ground, and what is meant by gravity when speaking about the 'gravity' of a crime.

So when speaking of the "gravity" of a crime, the context in which the audiovisual symbol is used leaves no doubt as to what is meant.

So as for my example where I used the audiovisual symbol, the word "gravity" as in gravity of a crime - if you would please provide a definition of the 'concept' which the audiovisualy symbol "gravity" refers to here, and explain what exactly Rand would consider as "contextually absolute" in your definition.

Rand also uses "contextually" in regard to essential characteristics: "Essential characteristics are determined contextually (p. 102)."

Could you illustrate with an example of essential characteristics being determined contextually?

I disagree that Rand's theory of contextual certainty amounts to "scientific skepticism." She uses her theory of knowledge to argue that science is open-ended and "progressive." No person can claim omniscience or infallibility, so there always is the possibility that later knowledge will require revisions of our current scientific theories. But this doesn't amount to skepticism.

In Why Atheism, p. 72, you did speak of "a latent tendency toward epistemological relativism" though when you commented on Rand's idea of truth being "contextual"; you also said that this latent tendency toward epistemological relativism "sharply conflicts with Rand's spirited insistence that truth is objective". (Ghs)

Like here:

"Truth is the product of the recognition (i.e. identification) of the facts of reality" she states in ITOE, p. 48.

I've always found the "contextual certainty" formulation to be strange. Why not simply say: with the available data, conclusion X follows.

Imo saying it like that is far clearer and would avoid the misunderstandings created by a term like "contextual certainty".

Edited August 13, 2010 by Xray