A Beginner Reads Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology

[Salimbene]

Hello everyone,

I want to use this thread to share my questions and comments on Rand's Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology (IOE) as I read it for the first time.

My comments will be sometimes critical and often misguided. I would appreciate the help of those of you who are familiar with Rand's epistemology and her writings in general.

I've listed my comments and questions for the Introduction and first chapter below. Thank you for your patience.

Introduction and Chapter 1:

(1) Rand refers to the "fallacy of the stolen concept" when discussing her reasons for omitting an argument concerning the "validity of the senses". She claims that:

the ar­gu­ments of those who at­tack the sens­es are mere­ly vari­ants of the fal­la­cy of the "stolen con­cept."

i.e. that their arguments are in some sense self-defeating. This claim has highly significant implications. Where does Rand make this argument?

(2) Rand argues that the process of concept formation is like a mathematical process. She describes the process whereby a child learns the natural numbers by counting on his fingers. Does Rand think that all mathematical knowledge is empirical? Mathematicians often think of mathematics as a non-empirical, axiomatic system.

(Edit: This is probably a silly question since Rand thinks that all knowledge is empirical, but it might be interesting to think about the psychology of mathematics.)

Edited September 11, 2011 by Salimbene

[Guyau]

Welcome to OL. I hope you will enjoy again and again your study of Ayn Rand’s Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology.

Sextus Empiricus wrote : “If external things are not apprehended by the senses, neither will thought be able to apprehend them.” Then any thought that the senses do not apprehend external things cuts off its own capability of being correct. To reason to the conclusion that external things are not apprehended by the senses is to think while denying part of what true thought requires.

In his essay “The Stolen Concept” (The Objectivist Newsletter – Jan. 1963), Nathaniel Branden wrote:

When neo-mystics assert that man perceives, not objective reality, but only an illusion or mere appearance—they evade the question of how one acquires such a concept as “illusion” or “appearance” without the existence of that which is not an illusion or mere appearance. If there were no objective perceptions of reality, from which ‘illusions’ and ‘appearances’ are intended to be distinguished, the latter concepts would be unintelligible.

In those days, Branden’s lecture series Basic Principles of Objectivism included an example of the stolen concept fallacy in application to the validity of the senses.

Last week I mentioned the standard example of the mystics’ attack upon the validity of man’s senses, the stick that looks bent when seen in water. I will now give you another, similar example, which you will hear very often. Our senses deceive us, claim the mystics, because we know, in fact, that the rails of a railroad track are parallel, yet when we look off into the distance, the rails seem to converge to a single point. This proves that the senses are not to be trusted, that they give us a distorted and unreliable view of reality.

First, observe that this argument contains the Stolen Concept Fallacy, the use of sensory evidence to demonstrate the invalidity of sensory evidence. By what means did the mystics discover the rails were parallel, after all?

After Rand’s death, David Kelley’s The Evidence of the Senses (1986) included additional instances of this fallacy in connection to thinking about the validity of the senses. Although Kelley did not call the error by the name Stolen Concept, it and its corrective are there on the following pages: 135, 182–83, 218, 232–42.

Leonard Peikoff gives a helpful discussion of Rand’s conception of perception and its place in epistemology on pages 39–54 of Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (1991). He gives references to Rand’s writings (and one oral remark) for his presentation of her view (Notes 1–7). Also.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Transition from perception to your second question regarding empirical bases of mathematics for Rand’s philosophy:

To the consciousness of a baby acquiring his initial sensory perceptions, “the world appears as a blur of motion, without things that move" (AS 1040). And the birth of his mind is the day when he grasps that there are different entities, such as his mother and a mobile, such that “neither can turn into the other, that they are what they are, that they exist” (AS 1041). Later will come “the day when he grasps that the reflection he sees in a mirror is . . . real, but it is not himself . . .” (ibid.).

The identifying work of the mind requires correct principles of identification. How does the mind get from perception the principles (logical and mathematical) it requires for correct identifications of the objects given in perception? A developmental and logical account joined to Rand’s epistemology is in order and is work remaining to be done. Initial steps in that work are in Peikoff’s “The Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy” in your text. See also: A, B(b), C.

From “Induction on Identity” (1991)

. . .

Recent experiments, not demanding coordination of means-ends-sequences, indicate that infants as young as six months (Baillargéon 1986), even four months (Baillargéon 1987), understand not only that objects continue to exist when not seen, but that moving objects continue along trajectories when not seen and that those trajectories could not be through other solid objects. Perhaps this is the most primitive form in which we grasp the principle of non-contradiction (see also Peikoff 1985).

. . .

Baillargéon, R. 1986. Representing the Existence and the Location of Hidden Objects: Object Permanence in 6- and 8-Month-Old Infants. Cognition 23:21–41.

——. 1987. Object Permanence in 3.5- and 4.5-Month-Old Infants. Developmental Psychology 23:655–64.

Peikoff, L. 1985. Aristotle’s “Intuitive Induction.” The New Scholasticism 59(2):185–99.

. . .

I mentioned in an earlier section experiments by Renée Baillergéon (1986; 1987) which indicate that by four months, infants apprehend that one solid object cannot pass through another. I suggested that this might be the most primitive form in which one grasps the principle of non-contradiction (see further, Leslie 1989, 194–200). During the last half of the first year, apparently on account of maturation of the frontal cortex, the normal human infant becomes capable of inhibiting prepotent responses: Until about nine months, the infant will reach impulsively for all objects, but by the end of the first year, he can be more selective. He can give a NO command to some otherwise interfering habitual responses in order to execute the reach required for a desired object (Diamond 1989; Edelman 1989, 44–50, 57–63, 120–27, 159–62). This would seem to be an important step along the way to attaining a working principle of non-contradiction. It is plausible that the ability to represent negations and employ a principle of non-contradiction arises from the preverbal child’s perceptual and motor experience of the physical world (Dretske 1988, 62–79, 95–107; see also Peikoff 1985).

. . .

Baillargéon, R. 1986. Representing the Existence and the Location of Hidden Objects: Object Permanence in 6- and 8-Month-Old Infants. Cognition 23:21–41.

——. 1987. Object Permanence in 3.5- and 4.5-Month-Old Infants. Developmental Psychology 23:655–64.

Diamond, A. 1989. Differences Between Adult and Infant Cognition: Is the Crucial Variable Presence or Absence of Language? In Weiskrantz 1989.

Dretske, F. 1988. Explaining Behavior: Reasons in a World of Causes. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Edelman, G. M. 1989. The Remembered Present: A Biological Theory of Consciousness. New York: Basic Books.

Leslie, A. M. 1989. The Necessity of Illusion: Perception and Thought in Infancy. In Weiskrantz 1989.

Peikoff, L. 1985. Aristotle’s “Intuitive Induction.” The New Scholasticism 59(2):185–99.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Edited September 12, 2011 by Stephen Boydstun

[Salimbene]

Thank you for the thorough response.

I haven't been able to find David Kelley's book, so maybe this is premature, but I had some concerns about the Stolen Concept Fallacy (SCF) described above and in the materials you suggested

(1) Brendan, in his lecture series, describes SCF as it applies to a special case. Specifically, he describes SCF as it applies to the skeptic’s attempt to discredit the validity of the senses by demonstrating their inconsistency. The senses are inconsistent because different senses yield evidence for different conclusions about the same object or because the same sense yields evidence for different conclusions at different times. Brendan argues that the skeptic’s reliance on the senses to demonstrate their inconsistency commits the skeptic to the proposition that the senses are or can be accurate.

However, this doesn’t adequately describe how the skeptic’s argument functions in the special case. The skeptic’s argument is parasitic on the empiricist’s beliefs that the senses are accurate, and that the senses are accurate only if they are consistent; but the skeptic’s attempt to demonstrate that the senses are inconsistent doesn’t obviously commit her to the truth of these beliefs. The skeptic could, for example, have no commitment to the senses accuracy. This would not affect the effectiveness of her argument, which relies on the empiricist’s and not her own belief that the senses are accurate.

(2) Brandon addresses SCF more generally in his article. He compares the claims that reality is an illusion and that we cannot distinguish reality from illusion to Proudhon’s claim that “all property is theft.” There are at least two possible translations of Proudhon’s claim.

(a) There is no state of affairs in which property is not theft.

(b)There may be some states of affairs in which at least some property is not theft, but the current state of affairs is not within this set.

Brandon correctly translates Proudhon’s claim as (a), and argues that the claim is self-defeating since the concept of theft “logically and genetically depends on the antecedent concept of ‘rightfully owned property’… If no property is rightfully owned, that is, if nothing is property, there can be no such concept as ‘theft.’”

However, the claim that we cannot distinguish reality from illusion often more closely resembles (b). Unlike the claim that reality is illusion, the claim that we cannot distinguish reality from illusion doesn’t obviously lead to the sort of self-contradiction that Brandon argues Proudhon’s claim does. The skeptic doesn’t claim that knowledge is, by definition, not-knowledge, but rather that our beliefs do not currently satisfy the requirements of knowledge whatever they may be. This claim doesn’t deny the theoretical possibility of our having knowledge in all cases.

(3) Brandon’s and Peikoff’s explanations of SCF create asymmetries between what I can legitimately claim about myself in one case and what I can legitimately claim about myself in all cases and what I can legitimately claim about myself and what I can legitimately claim about others. Consider the following statements:

(a) John cannot distinguish illusion from reality in this case

(b) John cannot distinguish illusion from reality in all cases

(a') I cannot distinguish illusion from reality in this case

(b') I cannot distinguish illusion from reality in all cases

SCF permits me to conclude (a), (b), and (a'), but forbids that I conclude (b'), since I cannot disavow the validity of my own senses in all cases. Similarly, it permits John conclude (a), (a'), and (b'), but not (b). This is bizarre.

Edited September 30, 2011 by Salimbene

[Guyau]

Not only bizarre. It cannot be implicit in the stolen-concept fallacy because the concepts, and their hierarchical dependencies, to which Rand, Branden, and Peikoff apply the fallacy are not ones whose correctness is person-relative. (b’) is excluded whether the I is you or John. (b) is excluded whether a person is named John or your own name. (What is your first name?)

When we say that skeptics think such-and-such or argue such-and-such, we need to name names of specific skeptics and state their exact positions. We should not emulate the pattern one finds in Branden’s early writings and lectures in that regard; aim rather for the more definite pattern of articulation one finds in standard scholarship. (I highly recommend Kelley’s book The Evidence of the Senses, about $30 or library.)

The transcript of Branden’s lecture series The Basic Principles of Objectivism is titled The Vision of Ayn Rand (2010). The stolen-concept fallacy comes up on pages 46, 47, 73, 80, 85–87, 90, and 314. The second block-quotation in #2 of this thread is from page 85. In that quotation, a skeptical argument is presented to the conclusion that “the senses are not to be trusted, that they give us a distorted and unreliable view of reality.” That is a conclusion broad enough to include not only the radical skeptical position of the Pyrrhonians or Montaigne (early), but the moderate skepticisms of sense in Plato or Plotinus.

But what exactly was the argument of the skeptic here being discussed by Branden? (That he refers to the skeptic as a mystic is not without reason, as the cases of Montaigne and Bayle show. I have found a soft rule of thumb in “scratch a skeptic, and you’ll find a mystic.” The senses better be severely wrong or we are going to totally die.) If we look at its exact presentation and conclusion by a specific skeptic, can we compose a formally valid deduction and one in which no informal fallacies are committed save the stolen-concept fallacy? Such a case would show a special and weighty value to awareness of that fallacy in philosophy of perception.

I think you are correct to draw attention to the traditions of mitigated skepticism, which need to have their arguments addressed in addition to radical skepticism. I have thought for some decades, as you evidently concur, that skeptical arguments have been valuable insofar as they exposed defects in particular theories of how knowledge comes about. On the negative side, a completeness theorem for skepticism, along the lines of proving that every possible theory of how knowledge comes about is false would face a lot daunting challenges (e.g. self-exclusion and knowing all the theories that are possible), as you evidently also realize.

Branden’s discussion of the straight stick looking bent in water is on page 47. The presentation of “the” skeptic’s argument shown there is just as vague as the one shown on page 85, and the purported conclusion is just as ambiguous between radical or mitigated skepticism.

Whose is the skeptical argument about the stick in and out of water that you describe as posing contradiction? That argument too, needs to be more specific. Otherwise, it just sounds like a misunderstanding of contradiction. On other, very specific arguments—arising from the stick-media refraction variance, as well as from other phenomena—systematically undercutting the validity of the senses, I recommend above all others The Problem of Perception by A. D. Smith (2002). He gets to the exact arguments against truth in the senses and to their refutation. I have not read Michael Huemer’s book (2001), but I expect it is excellent.

In his lecture-book, Branden begins to introduce the stolen-concept fallacy with a very nice general point about sense perception and epistemology. “It is rational to ask: ‘How do the senses enable man to perceive reality?’ It is not rational to ask: ‘Do the senses enable man to perceive reality?’ because if they do not, by what means did the speaker acquire his knowledge of the senses, of perception, of man, and of reality?” (46). This incongruity is very much in evidence in my own current area of research, which is the nature of intellect in the lineage from Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Avicenna, and Roger Bacon. There is friction to the point of melting in the latter three when it comes to joining their conceptions of the dependence of knowledge on the senses to their conceptions of immaterial intellect (immortal, you know).

By the way, at the time(s) of these Branden lectures, Rand would have concurred with them in every detail. Realize too that by then Rand, and Branden jointly with her, was in a position to publish anything she wanted to publish. That they did not publish these lectures in those days suggests there may have been some unsettledness on some of their content. Concerning the stolen-concept fallacy, however, they had sufficient sureness to publish, as you know.

Historical tidbit here, from Rand’s personal notes (nachlass) of 15 December 1960:

The two most important fallacies which I must define thoroughly are, in effect, extensions of two of the fallacies defined by Aristotle: “context-dropping” is really the wider (and more modern name) for Aristotle’s “ignoratio elenchi”; and “the stolen concept” is the other side, the reverse, of “petitio principii.” If this last is “begging the question” or “assuming that which you are attempting to prove,” then “the stolen concept” is “begging the answer” or “assuming that which you are attempting to disprove.”

[Xray]

Hello everyone,

I want to use this thread to share my questions and comments on Rand's Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology (IOE) as I read it for the first time.

My comments will be sometimes critical and often misguided. I would appreciate the help of those of you who are familiar with Rand's epistemology and her writings in general.

I've listed my comments and questions for the Introduction and first chapter below. Thank you for your patience.

Introduction and Chapter 1:

(1) Rand refers to the "fallacy of the stolen concept" when discussing her reasons for omitting an argument concerning the "validity of the senses". She claims that:

the ar­gu­ments of those who at­tack the sens­es are mere­ly vari­ants of the fal­la­cy of the "stolen con­cept."

i.e. that their arguments are in some sense self-defeating. This claim has highly significant implications. Where does Rand make this argument?

ITOE lists in its index (see "Stolen concept, fallacy of the") several passages where Rand elaborates further on it.

Suppose John makes the statement "The truth is that there is no truth".

Since he bases his own argumentation on that which he wants to deny ("truth"), the argument collapses because of the stolen concept fallacy. For he has "smuggled" (or "stolen") for his own epistemological position the very concept which he wanted to refute.

(I personally would prefer to call it the "sticky" concept fallacy because the speaker has been unable to 'rid' his mind of a concept, he has been unable do conduct his argumentation without it; but then terminology issues are not really a problem as long as it is unambiguously clear what is meant.)

[BaalChatzaf]

.

(I personally would prefer to call it the "sticky" concept fallacy because the speaker has been unable to 'rid' his mind of a concept, he has been unable do conduct his argumentation without it; but then terminology issues are not really a problem as long as it is unambiguously clear what is meant.)

This could be expressed consistently as follows: the truth at discourse level 1 is that there is no truth at discourse level 2.

For example a meta-statement that there are no true statements in a logically inconsistent corpus can be true.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Xray]

.

(I personally would prefer to call it the "sticky" concept fallacy because the speaker has been unable to 'rid' his mind of a concept, he has been unable do conduct his argumentation without it; but then terminology issues are not really a problem as long as it is unambiguously clear what is meant.)

This could be expressed consistently as follows: the truth at discourse level 1 is that there is no truth at discourse level 2.

For example a meta-statement that there are no true statements in a logically inconsistent corpus can be true.

Ba'al Chatzaf

In that case, the term "truth" refers to two distinct issues, and this applies not only to logically inconsistet corpora, but also to assertions containing claims of fact that are false, i. e. not true.

If for example, it is stated: "US Presdident Barack Obama is a Frenchman",

one could say

[Discouse level 1] It is not true that the statement [Discourse level 2] "The US Presdident Barack Obama is a Frenchman" is true.

The claim of truth refers to the complete statement in italics; the truth of that statement is not denied.

In normal language usage, one would shorten the whole thing to simply pointing out that the statement "US Presdident Barack Obama is a Frenchman" is false.

Whereas to simply state "The truth is that there is no truth" is self-defeating because it contains a contradiction.

[Xray]

In ITOE, p. 16, it is claimed that materials always exist in the form of specific entities "such as a nugget of gold, a plank of wood, a drop or an ocean of water".

The reason why Rand insists on the "entity" idea here is easy to see (she needs it to make her theory of concepts work with uncountable materials as well), but does it apply in all cases? What about materials like haze, fog, steam, etc?

[Guyau]

To #2 and #4, I would like to note a further historical point. The notion and name “stolen concept” is in Rand 1957.

As they feed on stolen wealth in body, so they feed on stolen concepts in mind, and proclaim that honesty consists of refusing to know that one is stealing. As they use effects while denying causes, so they use our concepts while denying the roots and the existence of the concepts they are using. (1039)

Her examples in this text are:

“nothing exists but motion” (steals motion, denying entity)

“nothing exists but change” (steals change, denying identity)

“we know nothing” (steals know, by affirmative statement, denying know)

“there are no absolutes” (steals absolute, by absolute statement, denying absolute)

“cannot prove existence or consciousness” (steals proof, which presupposes existence and consciousness)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

PS

Some history of credit: a, b, c, d

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I haven't been able to find David Kelley's book...

Salimbene,

Welcome to OL.

You can get online versions from OL here for about 10 bucks or here for free (depending on your relationship with Scribd--but at least you can read it online for free just as a visitor).

Michael

[PDS]

I haven't been able to find David Kelley's book...

Salimbene,

Welcome to OL.

You can get online versions from OL here for about 10 bucks or here for free (depending on your relationship with Scribd--but at least you can read it online for free just as a visitor).

Michael

I was just getting ready to be impressed that a newcomer with brains and staying power might be among us, and then I noticed that the post in question is over a year old.

Is there a lesson that can be drawn from the 1-Hit-Wonder Syndrome we see among new posters?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

David,

There's certainly a lesson for me to be more attentive to the date on posts and threads.

Michael