Objectivist Theory of Truth


Guyau

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Hi Selene-- thanks for the welcome and the really interesting information on permaculture.

Although I am aware of Bill Mollison, and have read a little of his books, I was totally unaware of this history. I only call myself a permaculuralist because I've been doing it for so many years and I'm planning to make a business out of it soon. Only a few months ago was a formal permaculture society set up in my city. I've travelled to Arizona to meet different permaculturalists but other than that I a bit of a loner and usually don't socialize that much. Frankly, I'm glad Mollison was unable to trademark the term-- there are so many variations of it, I think it would be hard to do. I take permaculture to mean "permanent agriculture," or using long-lived, perennial (or self-seeding) edible plants sustainably to provide food (as and other valuable human needs) to us, so that the landscape can work naturally for our benefit and for the benefit of the larger ecosystem. Most permaculturalists aren't really farmers in the traditonal sense--it is more of a lifestyle and applied mainly to their own backyards. I hope to do a little more than this and create some practical tree "guild" systems of palnts that people can use to replace or add to their lawns. I find it a really fascinating, budding field. Thanks for asking about it-- wish I could give you more info about the controversy-- no permaculturalist I've ever met has brought up the issue to me though. I imagine it will be more of a concern if permaculture ever becomes a major player in our large-scale food production.

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Stephen,

Thanks for the clarification. Maybe Rand, you and I are closer in agreement about the relation of the metaphysical to the epistemological than I originally thought. I haven't read yet what you think of Rand's ethics, politics, and aesthetics, but if you're like me, you disagree with at least some of it. If you think she had an accurate view of truth, epistemologically speaking, how do you think that may have went so wrong for her in some of her other judgments-- just to take one example I think is pretty flawed-- her thinking a woman emotionally uncapable of being President of the United States? I know we can all make mistakes and she had to have been influenced by the cultural climate of the time, but for such an abstract, wide-reachingand independent thinker in the epistemological realm, how did that translate to such narrow-minded thinking in these other realms?

I guess this is why I think her idea of truth equates to soem more limited fundamental proof or certainty that I don't think there. This is why in other threads I've been criticizing some of her axiomatic ideas (though I think they are fundamentally brilliant). When she says "Existence is identity," is she saying that all things are what they are or simply that they are? Because if she is only saying of things that they are, then she doens't need the concept identity in there--existence suffices and identity doesn't seem to add anything new to me. If she is saying that things are what they are, then to me that adds a relational element, and that is the essential element in identity-- scientifically speaking that things equal exactly the things that compose them within certain space-time contexts. Epistemologcally, if she wants to keep concepts open-ended an not tie them down to specific space-time contexts all the time, then it is the relational component identity that she should have picked out as a defining characteric for identity-- that all things essentially relate to their own components. Unfortunately I think she gets locked up in the specificity of identity instead, not fully embracing that they are first rooted in the open-ended nature of axiomatic concepts, e.g. the ultimate "genuses" for all things. This is why I think her ethical views often fail to integrate the values/virtues of (at times) thinking collectively, or on a larger scale than one's own value system, even if it conficts with it, why her political views often fail to acknowledge certain benefits of "socialism" over "capitalism," or why her aestheitc philosophy often fails to embrace other benefical modes of expression than just romanticism. Is there not an epistemolocial root for all of this? Is individualism axiomatic or an absolute? Is capitalism? Is romaticism?

What is it I'm not seeing Stephen-- I know identity is not truth, but why do you think Rand, with her idea on the open-ended nature of concepts, seemed so adamant about having to be right all the time, yet didn't seem to construct her other philosophies to be very inclusive?

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I guess I should clarify that I understand that Rand wouldn't have said individualism, capitalism or romanticism were axiomatic. All I am asking is doens't it seem like Rand's epistemology, if inclusive enough to embodies all truths, somehow didn't translate in wide-enough to her ethics, politcs and aesthetics? Why is that-- is just human error, or is there something too limited about he epistemology itself? To me some of her views, not to mention her adamacy to be right, seem a little too consistently limited to not have a philosophical root of some sort. I'm wondering what that root is.

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Again sorry for my bad grammar

Dude:

Enough already with the apologies.

Your profile mentions educator. Now that certainly does not admit anyone to the grtammar hall of fame.

However, are you foreign born and struggling with English grammar? Or, is there a "disability" that creates the grammar anomalies? Or, some other issue?

I would rather you just said what it is than continually apologize for it.

A...

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Re #27:

Yes, very much Rand was saying things are what they are in the expression “Existence is identity.”

No, I don’t think Rand’s basic epistemology and metaphysics lead to any errors she made in other areas. At least I don’t recall any just now. All those other areas have their own particular natures and dynamics, and she or anyone can get them wrong, even if they have gotten many things right in basic epistemology and metaphysics.

The facts that all intelligent persons are fallible and that one’s own knowledge is incomplete could be facts expressly known to one, yet could be known equally well to people who have different levels of patience, of ability to listen for what others really think, and of attunement to their own pregnant shadows of doubt. That said, if Rand’s levels were beyond the zone of the reasonable on those counts, I’d look for defects in her conception of individual mind for a logical tie, if any, to deeper philosophical views; I wouldn’t look so deep as her most basic metaphysics or epistemology concerning existence, identity, and identification.

I’d question the efficiency, however, of access to truth via psychological analysis of other philosophers. I’d stay locked onto their arguments. Where do they make an error of inference? Where do they neglect something crucial? Where to they get things right? Consideration of their express arguments and premises, and their presuppositions, can help one to one’s own best understanding of what is true, insofar as help from other thinkers is to be had.

The open-ended nature of concepts that Rand endorsed was not anything original with her. I imagine her sense of what is likely in the unknown sector of the open end of most workaday concepts was rather less than you have in mind. Getting that sense right and mustering convincing examples to one side and to the other suggests an ambitious study.

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Hey Stephen,

Thanks. Good suggestion about studying her idea of the individual mind more. You're right that I shouldn't judge the truth of any philosophy based on psychology of the philosopher, just as much as possible on the logic of arguments set forth. Would you say Rand herself, since you may have met her, made such judgments based off people's psychology, in combination with their formal intellect, since she wasn't afraid of issuing moral judgment at least upon groups of people, e.g. the "individualist" vs. the "collectivists?" Is this sometimes useful?

I do think Rand never really developed enough of a logical structure on the nature of axiomatic concepts. You're doing a much better job I think, describing the details and primal levels of Objectivist metaphysics and epistemology. I basically think I differ with most Objectivists in that I believe axiomatic concepts function not only as primary mental (or epistemological) standards, but also primary physical (or metaphysical) standards. For example, I think it is knowledge and not consciousness that is the primary inescapable idea, because I think knowledge could be in its broadest sense a grand-scale kind of "physical information" (as it is proposed in theorectical physics)--some basic active state of any/all things. Consciousness is how we exist with knowledge, but I think stopping at that level cuts off our understandings at a ceratin level. I see identity as "self-knowledge," thus as an active relational process of things to their own components, i.e. that things are what they are, Those components are not just the thing itself but are different things that naturally tie into other things. My idea of self as axiomatic conceps is likely very similar to what Rand would have posited, though Rand may have stopped with saying self was axiomatic only because we are an "I." But I think self can be any/all different things, including our "I." I know our ideas of existence as an axiomatic concept are basically the same. Thus I guess, considering our discussions on her and reading a little of your work, Stephen, I agree with Rand on a basic epistemological level, but I'm attempting to stretch axiomatic concepts outside the human mind, to see if they can't represent something more physically universal.

What do you think about this?

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Selene,

You're right I should stop apologizing. I'm embarassed at how bad a typer and lazy editor I am. I'm American--lol. If I keep writing on here I'll probably start by writing in a word processing program so that can catch my mistakes better.

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Dan (re #32),

No, I never met Rand or ever saw her in person. I don't expect to have any special insights into her psychology or bother about it. Same with any other philosopher. Look at all I have written about Nietzsche and about Kant. Did I ever slide off into their psychologies in those philosophical investigations? (Such sliding by Nietzsche and by Rand is error and waste to be avoided.) Are not the ideas of Kant, are not what I have said of his ideas---ideas of world, mind, or value---what is of significance about him for our own gain of truth? It's certainly where I'll invest my days. It has paid.

On your ideas about information and knowledge, you might have some precursors in the monists or metaphysical idealists. Not sure. Your layout, if it is to speak on what is physically so, requires integration with modern science. That is where to get information about the deeper workings of the physical world, including information about information in thermodynamics and in organisms and our neuronal processes. There alone.

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Dan (re #32),

No, I never met Rand or ever saw her in person. I don't expect to have any special insights into her psychology or bother about it. Same with any other philosopher. Look at all I have written about Nietzsche and about Kant. Did I ever slide off into their psychologies in those philosophical investigations? (Such sliding by Nietzsche and by Rand is error and waste to be avoided.) Are not the ideas of Kant, are not what I have said of his ideas---ideas of world, mind, or value---what is of significance about him for our own gain of truth? It's certainly where I'll invest my days. It has paid.

There's nothing wrong with concentrating on the philosophy this way. I'm down another path for my own reasons. Your time frame is the indefinite future which was also that of the great philosophers of antiquity. You might be seriously read a thousand years from now. My grandfather's biography of James Madison falls into the same category. 23 years of research and writing resulting in six volumes with one condensation into one. He never met Madison either. I'm not evaluating your content quality*, however, just the orientation.

--Brant

*not qualified

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Selene,

You're right I should stop apologizing. I'm embarassed at how bad a typer and lazy editor I am. I'm American--lol. If I keep writing on here I'll probably start by writing in a word processing program so that can catch my mistakes better.

No problem, it was a positive suggestion.

Secondly, by effecting your decision to a word processing program, you would be learning to become a better speller which would reduce that internal stress that you describe.

My feeling is that you will find it quite liberating.

A...

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Thanks Stephen and Selene,

Stephen, in regards to your response in #34: I would probably call myself a monist in the sense that I believe everything ties back into the idea of existence (of anything/everything)-- on a physical (vs. metaphysical) level I believe there in an infinite outward stretch to space as a primal substance and that time also has infinity as a universal "arrow" or "matrix" of moving substance that has no definite begining or end.

You comparing my thinking to metaphysical idealism may come about from me trying to define the physical more abstractly, even sometimes infinitely (i.e. in "metaphysical" ways) on different holarachic levels, and believeing in unity of essential structure starting with axiomatic concepts, and/or maybe focusing on the deductive side of thinking versus a more empirical approach, but I don't believe that things are primarily "mental" or that some "mind" or "God" is controlling things out there-- I do believe in evolutionary purpose within nature in general because I think it to be a self-generataive mechanism. But I think nature can be explored from a variety of angles and I wouldn't categorize an "ideal" as some deeper or higher level of truth than something "real."

I wholeheartedly agree with you that I have to fuse my philosophy with modern science. Most of the last two years of my research has been trying to wrap my head around quantum mechanics, and better understand general relativity. The second and third chapters of my book are devoted to the general laws, processes, properties and particle/wave structures being explored in physics (and general chemistry). To research science actually was the same advice you gave me approximately ten years ago when you first read my article (what essentially became my first chapter), and I took that advice strongly to heart. I believe everything is wrapped-up in nature-- I don't believe in the supernatural, or something outside of nature.

I will extrapolate more on this as I post on here more, but I have to start up a business soon, so my visits on here may be sporadic and/or infrequent for a few months anyway. Thank you for introducing me back into an Objectivist community. It's nice to meet people excited about ideas.

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