A Companion to Ayn Rand


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10 minutes ago, Robert Campbell said:

One wonders whether Leonard Peikoff's first course on Objectivist epistemology is preserved in the Archives...  And, if it is, whether they'll admit to holding it.

Greg Salmieri actually complains (Bibliography Item 51, pp. 468-469) about the provenance of some of the lectures in The Vision of Ayn Rand being unclear.  For him, any such issues are Nathaniel Branden's fault.  People who refused to return tapes of Branden's own lectures to him get a free pass.

Robert Campbell

 

Oh, I'm sure LP's 1967 course is in the Archives, all right. Salmieri indicates he had access to it (chapter 12, note 76):

...the term ["objective"] was sometimes used more broadly by her associates in the 1960s to denote the status of any form of awareness (even those that are not volitional) by contrast to “intrinsic” features of the objects of awareness and “subjective” mental products. Thus in certain lectures, including his 1967 NBI course on Objectivism’s Theory of Knowledge, Peikoff described sensory qualities as “objective.” (The usage is also in the promotional materials for the course...)

However, I'm sure that even admitting to this (supposed) lapse in doctrine was difficult for Peikoff. (He 'fessed up in his 1987 course, Objectivism: The State of the Art. Rand took him to the woodshed after he said one too many times in his history of philosophy courses in the early 1970s that sensory qualities were "objective." I argued in a 2007 essay in The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies that the term applies perfectly well, as a contrast to subjective and intrinsic, to all products of consciousness that result from adherence to reality, whether that adherence is deliberate/volitional or automatic.)

But to actually let this 1967 material be published? When he has thoroughly disavowed his 1964 doctoral dissertation on the Law of Contradiction (which is a marvelous study in history of philosophy)? Not likely!

REB

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I posted a review here: http://www.amazon.com/Companion-Rand-Blackwell-Companions-Philosophy/product-reviews/1405186844/ref=cm_cr_dp_synop?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&sortBy=recent#R11LLMOWBYXZ48

As I think Robert indicated, Salmieri/Gotthelf seemed to require all the contributors to cite at least one non-orthodox source.  I'm sure that had to hurt Harry Binswanger. 

 

-NP

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Roger,

Hmm.  If Greg Salmieri has access to Leonard Peikoff's 1967 course at the Archives, why he hasn't he cited it regarding the supposed lack of a truth value for arbitrary assertions?

In this recent blog post

http://www.checkyourpremises.org/2016/03/15/the-meaninglessness-of-arbitrary-propositions/

Dr. Salmieri tries to extract that conclusion from Nathaniel Branden's 1963 article (where it does not follow).  He avoids the longer discussion in the relevant lecture from The Vision of Ayn Rand, where Nathaniel clearly was not denying that propositions arbitrarily asserted can be true or false.

Robert

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Neil,

Nice review.

I noticed the misleading quotation from Jennifer Burns right away.  Do the contributors to this volume really think that no one who reads their book will ever read the Burns biography?

Greg Salmieri may be mighty upset—in private—with the rewriting that was done on Rand's unpublished material.  But the rewriting was authorized by Leonard Peikoff.  If Dr. Salmieri criticizes it in public, he'll be expelled from ARI.

Robert

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Hi Robert,

This is from OCON 2016: " Dr. Milgram, associate professor of English at Virginia Tech, teaches detective fiction, comparative literature, and film. She has published on figures from Nabokov to Nevil Shute, from Steinbeck to Stephen Sondheim; she is completing the final text of her book-length study of Ayn Rand’s life (to 1957)."

Well, the "intellectual biography" (the former description) has been removed.  Not sure if it will be the first part of a 2 part biography or if the focus still is on the intellectual side of things.

Neil

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Neil,

If it's a book-length "special study," it doesn't have to be authorized.

If it's a "full-length biography," it does (or the author can't see the Ayn Rand Papers).

Confusing, no?

Robert

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13 hours ago, Robert Campbell said:

Roger,

Hmm.  If Greg Salmieri has access to Leonard Peikoff's 1967 course at the Archives, why he hasn't he cited it regarding the supposed lack of a truth value for arbitrary assertions?

In this recent blog post

http://www.checkyourpremises.org/2016/03/15/the-meaninglessness-of-arbitrary-propositions/

Dr. Salmieri tries to extract that conclusion from Nathaniel Branden's 1963 article (where it does not follow).  He avoids the longer discussion in the relevant lecture from The Vision of Ayn Rand, where Nathaniel clearly was not denying that propositions arbitrarily asserted can be true or false.

Robert

Good question, Robert. I do know that Dr. Peikoff discussed the evidential continuum in re the concepts of "impossible," "possible," "probable," and "certain," and if there's one thing we know with certainty, it's that either the moon is made of green cheese, or it's not, and thus that either "the moon is made of green cheese" is true and "the moon is not made of green cheese is false," or vice versa.

Presumably, Leonard would agree that, based on the evidence we have, it is certain that the moon is not made of green cheese, and thus that the proposition "the moon is not made of green cheese" is true. Which means that he is logically bound to agree that it is impossible that the moon is made of green cheese, and thus that the proposition "the moon is made of green cheese" is false.

That's the view of truth values of even arbitrarily asserted propositions that is logically entailed by his theory of certainty. Yet, his theory of the arbitrary (perhaps unwittingly) rejects this logical entailment. Thus, it would seem that his theory of certainty conflicts with his theory of the arbitrary. In the words of the old standard song, "somethin's gotta give"! I would suggest it is his theory of the arbitrary - or at least, the claims about truth values of arbitrary propositions that he attempts to draw from it.

REB

P.S. - To those who have not yet read it, there is a marvelous essay by Robert on "The Peikovian Doctrine of the Arbitrary Assertion" in the Fall 2008 issue (Vol. 10, No. 1) of The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies. Here is a blurb (aka abstract) for the essay:  

Quote

The doctrine of the arbitrary assertion is a key part of Objectivist epistemology as elaborated by Leonard Peikoff. For Peikoff, assertions unsupported by evidence are neither true nor false; they have no context or place in the hierarchy of conceptual knowledge; they are meaningless and paralyze rational cognition; their production is proof of irrationality. A thorough examination of the doctrine reveals worrisomely unclear standards of evidence and a jumble of contradictory claims about which assertions are arbitrary, when they are arbitrary, and what ought to be done about them when they are. A wholesale rejection of the doctrine is recommended.

As the journals website notes: "Archived essays are accessible through JSTOR in arrangement with Pennsylvania State University Press."

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10 hours ago, Roger Bissell said:

Good question, Robert. I do know that Dr. Peikoff discussed the evidential continuum in re the concepts of "impossible," "possible," "probable," and "certain," and if there's one thing we know with certainty, it's that either the moon is made of green cheese, or it's not, and thus that either "the moon is made of green cheese" is true and "the moon is not made of green cheese is false," or vice versa.

Presumably, Leonard would agree that, based on the evidence we have, it is certain that the moon is not made of green cheese, and thus that the proposition "the moon is not made of green cheese" is true. Which means that he is logically bound to agree that it is impossible that the moon is made of green cheese, and thus that the proposition "the moon is made of green cheese" is false.

That's the view of truth values of even arbitrarily asserted propositions that is logically entailed by his theory of certainty. Yet, his theory of the arbitrary (perhaps unwittingly) rejects this logical entailment. Thus, it would seem that his theory of certainty conflicts with his theory of the arbitrary. In the words of the old standard song, "somethin's gotta give"! I would suggest it is his theory of the arbitrary - or at least, the claims about truth values of arbitrary propositions that he attempts to draw from it.

REB

P.S. - To those who have not yet read it, there is a marvelous essay by Robert on "The Peikovian Doctrine of the Arbitrary Assertion" in the Fall 2008 issue (Vol. 10, No. 1) of The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies. Here is a blurb (aka abstract) for the essay:  

As the journals website notes: "Archived essays are accessible through JSTOR in arrangement with Pennsylvania State University Press."

Consider the assertion.  There is a teapot in orbit around the earth at an altitude of 1000 km or there is not a teapot in orbit around the earth at an altitude of 1000 km.   

Assume it is a very small teapot and so small that our radar cannot detect it.

 

Now the disjunction is of the form A or not A  which is guaranteed to be true because it is a  tautology.  Yet we have no evidence for either disjunct.  Are you saying this tautology has not truth value? Is this what The Leonard is saying?

 

Ba'al Chatzaf 

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For those who didn't click on the link to my review, here is the out-of-context quote by Milgram:

Milgram, unfortunately quotes Burns out of context when she reports Burns as saying that Branden’s biography is “marred by serious inaccuracies.” (page 87 in the Wylie edition). Burns, however, goes on to say “too often Branden takes Rand’s stories about herself at face value, reporting as fact information contradicted by the historical record."

It's this kind of scholarship that causes people to paint ARI scholars with a broad brush.

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41 minutes ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Consider the assertion.  There is a teapot in orbit around the earth at an altitude of 1000 km or there is not a teapot in orbit around the earth at an altitude of 1000 km.   

Assume it is a very small teapot and so small that our radar cannot detect it.

Now the disjunction is of the form A or not A  which is guaranteed to be true because it is a tautology.  Yet we have no evidence for either disjunct.  Are you saying this tautology has no truth value? Is this what The Leonard is saying?

 

I'm not saying that, and neither is The Leonard explicitly, but he implies it. He seems not to realize that when he denies truth value to an arbitrary assertion, that assertion is also one disjunct of a tautology, and thus it must be either true or false.

Our being in the position to know that it has some truth value or other, of course, is different from our being in a position to know which truth value it has. The first is, as you say, "guaranteed" by its being the disjunct of a tautology. The second is purely based on evidence, and absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. (E.g.., just because at one point in time, we had no evidence of the Rh factor, that was not evidence that there was no Rh factor.)

That's why the burden of proof is on he who asserts the positive. We don't even consider the possible truth of an assertion unless there is some evidence for it. That's the take-home part of arbitrary assertions - not that they aren't true or false, but we're not in a position to say which they are, so we dismiss them until and unless someone places (purported, at least) evidence on the table.

But yes, in a sense The Leonard is denying the Law of Excluded Middle, when he denies the truth value of one or the other of its disjuncts in a particular case. It is an axiom, which means that it's always true, not just when you feel like affirming it. :excl:

REB

P.S. - I'm wondering if someone is going to bring up B. Russell's "The present king of France is bald" and "The present king of France is not bald" as a counter-example. :cool:

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30 minutes ago, Neil Parille said:

For those who didn't click on the link to my review, here is the out-of-context quote by Milgram:

Milgram, unfortunately quotes Burns out of context when she reports Burns as saying that Branden’s biography is “marred by serious inaccuracies.” (page 87 in the Wylie edition). Burns, however, goes on to say “too often Branden takes Rand’s stories about herself at face value, reporting as fact information contradicted by the historical record."

It's this kind of scholarship that causes people to paint ARI scholars with a broad brush.

Yes, and some of us think that broad brush should be dipped in tar and feathers. :cool:

REB

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21 hours ago, Robert Campbell said:

If it's a book-length "special study," it doesn't have to be authorized.

If it's a "full-length biography," it does (or the author can't see the Ayn Rand Papers).

Confusing, no?

 No more confusing than the official Orthodox position that post-1982 works by, say, The Leonard or The Harry are works by Objectivist philosophers, but are not part of Objectivism. Gaaaaaaaaaah.:P

REB

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On 3/19/2016 at 10:06 AM, Robert Campbell said:

I noticed the misleading quotation from Jennifer Burns right away.  Do the contributors to this volume really think that no one who reads their book will ever read the Burns biography?

Perhaps there is a mixture of hope people will never read Burns's book, hope they will not read it for a long time, and delusion that they have accurately reported on Burns's book so there's nothing to see there whether they read it sooner or later.

I'm reminded by this of two rather disparate things: the Ben Carson/Ted Cruz snafu in Iowa and the long-standing official Orthodox Objectivist position that Kant was the most evil man in philosophy.

By the time the truth got out that Carson was not leaving the GOP Presidential primary race, the damage had been done in regard to the Iowa caucuses. In terms of the glacial processes of academic research, especially reading officially disapproved of sources, some people spend years under the false assumption that Burns said what Ortho's said, rather than what she said.

By the time that many of us got around to reading Kant and seeing what he really said, several decades of mythology about his ideas had infected several generations of young Objectivists. The damage is still being undone. (No, I'm not saying Kant was perfectly correct or rational or objective, but he was a whole lot more like Newton than he was like Hume, for instance.)

REB

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Burns does not discuss the transcripts of the ITOE seminars in her book.  Does Salmieri make any mention of the editing of the transcripts?  I couldn't find anything but I have an annoying e-book edition.

-Neil

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31 minutes ago, Roger Bissell said:

 

P.S. - I'm wondering if someone is going to bring up B. Russell's "The present king of France is bald" and "The present king of France is not bald" as a counter-example. :cool:

You asked so nicely I will generalize this issue.  It has to do with making universal assertions about empty sets.  Example.  Every polka-dot fish squirming on my desk  is  five feet long.   If this is false that  there is a polka-dot fish on my desk they is not five feet long.  But my desk has no fish on it,  so the negation of the universal false,  hence the universal assertion must be true.  Any universal assertion you make about members of the empty set is bound to be true. Every current king of France IS bald.  Equally true ---  Every current king of France has long blond hair. 

What is the view of a true blue Objectivist concerning empty sets?  

Ba'al Chatzaf 

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34 minutes ago, Neil Parille said:

Burns does not discuss the transcripts of the ITOE seminars in her book.  Does Salmieri make any mention of the editing of the transcripts?  I couldn't find anything but I have an annoying e-book edition.

-Neil

Neil,

I don't know whether he comments on the editing of the workshop transcripts—you could read his remarks defending the Peikoff-approved rewrites as not applying to them.

At least once Salmieri quotes the unedited workshop transcripts directly (on the very interesting question, how Rand arrived at her firm conclusions regarding the mental processes of babies and toddlers).

Robert

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1 hour ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Consider the assertion.  There is a teapot in orbit around the earth at an altitude of 1000 km or there is not a teapot in orbit around the earth at an altitude of 1000 km.   

Assume it is a very small teapot and so small that our radar cannot detect it.

Now the disjunction is of the form A or not A  which is guaranteed to be true because it is a  tautology.  Yet we have no evidence for either disjunct.  Are you saying this tautology has not truth value? Is this what The Leonard is saying?

Bob,

As Roger noted, in his discussion of "the arbitrary" Leonard Peikoff frequently seems to be calling for changes to deductive logic, but never quite makes an explicit demand.  For instance, he pulls up short after it looks as though he wants to get rid of modus tollens.

So he implies that your tautology has no truth value, but stops short of declaring that it doesn't.

Robert Campbell

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19 minutes ago, Robert Campbell said:

Bob,

As Roger noted, in his discussion of "the arbitrary" Leonard Peikoff frequently seems to be calling for changes to deductive logic, but never quite makes an explicit demand.  For instance, he pulls up short after it looks as though he wants to get rid of modus tollens.

So he implies that your tautology has no truth value, but stops short of declaring that it doesn't.

Robert Campbell

Talk about not  having any definite truth value.   Thank you for this insight.  

I will be frank (as well as Bob)  to say I never thought that The Leonard was a first line thinker.  You  more or less have confirmed this judgement.

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Bob,

I give several examples in my 2008 article of Leonard Peikoff running smack into the constraints of deductive logic.

I don't know whether he was a first-rate thinker earlier in life.  What is clear is that as he came within reach of being Rand's heir (1968-1982), he started doing some things worse that he had once done better.

Maybe he thawed out for a few minutes in the early 1980s.  But after 1986, when Barbara's book was published—fuhgeddaboudit!

Whatever was once there was now definitely gone.

Robert Campbell

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12 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:
13 hours ago, Roger Bissell said:

 

P.S. - I'm wondering if someone is going to bring up B. Russell's "The present king of France is bald" and "The present king of France is not bald" as a counter-example. :cool:

You asked so nicely I will generalize this issue.  It has to do with making universal assertions about empty sets.  Example.  Every polka-dot fish squirming on my desk  is  five feet long.   If this is false that  there is a polka-dot fish on my desk they is not five feet long.  But my desk has no fish on it,  so the negation of the universal false,  hence the universal assertion must be true.  Any universal assertion you make about members of the empty set is bound to be true. Every current king of France IS bald.  Equally true ---  Every current king of France has long blond hair. 

What is the view of a true blue Objectivist concerning empty sets?  

 

I wouldn't know.   (Actually, I think I do know. I believe that Harry Binswanger discusses it in his recent book How We Know. Or, I may be confusing what little he did say about non-existent subjects with what Leonard Peikoff said in his course Introduction to Logic back in 1974. But I'm going to set all that aside for now and give you my view, which is more of a plausibly true aquamarine Objectivish slant on the subject.)

 First, I disagree with your premise about universal assertions and empty sets. Every universal assertion has at least an implied predication of real being, actual being, however you like to refer to it. If we spell out that reference, it's easy to see that your fish and king examples do not involve actual negations, and thus are not an exception to the Law of Excluded Middle.

The current king of France is bald vs. The current king of France is not bald. I'm sure you think the latter is a negation of the former. But it's not. Spelled out completely: The current king of France is an actually existing man who is bald vs. The current king of France is an actually existing man who is not bald. They are both positive assertions that their subjects refer to actually existing men - and they are both false.

To get actual negations, you need to have assertions like this: The current king of France is an actually existing man who is bald vs. The current king of France IS NOT an actually existing man who is bald. Voila. Now the second one negates the first one. And while the first one is false, the second one is true - just as a proper negation should be, even for assertions about things that do not exist, but which are at least implicitly ASSUMED to exist by the person making the assertion .

To complete the example - we can do the same with not-baldness that we did with baldness: The current king of France is an actually existing man who is not bald vs. The current king of France IS NOT an actually existing man who is not bald. That's two voila's. Again, the second one negates the first one. And while the first one is again false, the second one is again true - just as a proper negation should be.

The mavens of modern logic killed an incredible number of trees and squid to claim that the Law of Excluded Middle and contrariety of truth values do not apply to assertions (and their negations) about the non-existent. This and the whole grotesque tumor of Existential Import are a huge mistake caused by a boneheaded failure (or refusal?) to make the simple kind of modifications that I outlined above. (And in a recent essay in Journal of Ayn Rand Studies.)

I don't know whether you are any more receptive to this idea than you were several years ago, but I know that Peikoff and Binswanger, who are still hung up in discarding such assertions as "arbitrary," are several light-years away from getting this approach.

REB

P.S. - the fish example is handled like this: The polka-dot fish squirming on my desk IS A REAL FISH THAT is five feet long vs. The polka-dot fish squirming on my desk IS NOT A REAL FISH THAT is five feet long. False and true, respectively. And the one you would offer as the negation of the first is actually expressed as: The polka-dot fish squirming on my desk IS A REAL FISH THAT is not five feet long, and is actually negated by: The polka-dot fish squirming on my desk IS NOT A REAL FISH THAT is not five feet long. Again, false and true, respectively. Contrary truth value through negation is preserved throughout.

P.P.S. - next you'll object that I made the subject singular, talking about "the..." instead of "every..." I did it so that the negation would be visible to the reader who might not follow the change in form for universal assertions. But OK, just for you: "Every polka-dot fish squirming on my desk IS A REAL FISH THAT is five feet long vs. (take your pick) "Every polka-dot fish squirming on my desk IS NOT A REAL FISH THAT is five feet long" - or "NOT every polka-dot fish squirming on my desk IS A REAL FISH THAT is five feet long" - or "SOME polka-dot fish squirming on my desk IS A REAL FISH THAT is five feet long." The first is false - and each of the three equivalent negations is true. And "Every polka-dot fish squirming on my desk IS A REAL FISH THAT is not five feet long" etc. etc. etc. 

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20 hours ago, Robert Campbell said:

Bob,

I give several examples in my 2008 article of Leonard Peikoff running smack into the constraints of deductive logic.

I don't know whether he was a first-rate thinker earlier in life.  What is clear is that as he came within reach of being Rand's heir (1968-1982), he started doing some things worse that he had once done better.

Maybe he thawed out for a few minutes in the early 1980s.  But after 1986, when Barbara's book was published—fuhgeddaboudit!

Whatever was once there was now definitely gone.

Robert Campbell

Ayn Rand herself was not a first-rate thinker for the simple reason she created and went into, mostly via Atlas Shrugged, what I think of as the Objectivist matrix--and never came out. Leonard Peikoff followed her in. But if you read what she wrote--not the heavy philosophy--between her two big novels in the mid 1940s, you do get the impression of first-ratedness. Now, mix in her genius and what she came up with--a strangely workable philosophy "for living on earth" logically integrated bottom to top--deductively a complete package--and she's seminal. It's powerful as such and why she did such a bang up job of arguing for her positions. The big problem with it all is the role of empiricism. Leonard keeps (kept?) saying Objectivism is empirical. Yeah, well, right, except empiricism only came up with the four basic principles from which she argued. Then it was goodbye to that save for facts to be grabbed to support a statement. There being innumerable facts it's not hard to find some for your purpose. Everybody does it--good guys and bad guys. Just try arguing with a socialist. Whoever adduces the most facts wins for the socialist is purblind to contrary logic and principles. At least Rand was not. Her problem was more to the facts themselves in the realm of ethics (morality) and politics. With deduction from her basic principles you get perfectionism as an ideal. This worked in her art. It does not work out there in the big, wide world. Human beings and their societies and interactions are much too complex--and imperfect. John Galt is not a workable man. Ayn Rand crashed and burned in her own life thinking he was and she and those about her were, could be and should be.

Perfection is theorectically possible in metaphysics and epistemology. After all, reality itself is perfect for starters. Then there's logic and its fallacies. But what makes the basic principles work is individualism. In ethics and politics individualism isn't enough. Man is a social animal, not merely a thinking one. That's why Objectivism so far hasn't been enough--that and an intellectual mediocrity who decided to get on top of it and sit on it and occupy its space after Rand died. Leonard Peikoff did not let Rand go but retained and maintained the worst of her logically extended into a dead future from others walking out the door or never coming in because of him. The ARI is a contrived and twisted caricature of what the philosophy once was.

Rand and Objectivism were pretty good for addressing the political and intellectual culture of the 1960s. 1968 was the pivotal year and not just because of the Rand-Branden blowup. There was also the Vietnam War, the Tet offensive, the President throwing in the towel and not seeking re-election. The leftists were in the streets protesting, permanently shucking off all pretense of ratiocination and reason preferring the force and violence so markedly started across the Bay from from San Francisco in 1964. How could a philosophy of reason deal with that?

Just as there are no perfect men--that's free will and cognition for you--there are no perfect societies of any significant scale possible. You cannot get there from here but you can go in that direction and as the journey will make you strong so will it make for strong, life-giving societies, which is the psychological gift of freedom.

--Brant

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8 hours ago, Roger Bissell said:

I wouldn't know.   (Actually, I think I do know. I believe that Harry Binswanger discusses it in his recent book How We Know. Or, I may be confusing what little he did say about non-existent subjects with what Leonard Peikoff said in his course Introduction to Logic back in 1974. But I'm going to set all that aside for now and give you my view, which is more of a plausibly true aquamarine Objectivish slant on the subject.)

 First, I disagree with your premise about universal assertions and empty sets. Every universal assertion has at least an implied predication of real being, actual being, however you like to refer to it. If we spell out that reference, it's easy to see that your fish and king examples do not involve actual negations, and thus are not an exception to the Law of Excluded Middle.

The current king of France is bald vs. The current king of France is not bald. I'm sure you think the latter is a negation of the former. But it's not. Spelled out completely: The current king of France is an actually existing man who is bald vs. The current king of France is an actually existing man who is not bald. They are both positive assertions that their subjects refer to actually existing men - and they are both false.

To get actual negations, you need to have assertions like this: The current king of France is an actually existing man who is bald vs. The current king of France IS NOT an actually existing man who is bald. Voila. Now the second one negates the first one. And while the first one is false, the second one is true - just as a proper negation should be, even for assertions about things that do not exist, but which are at least implicitly ASSUMED to exist by the person making the assertion .

To complete the example - we can do the same with not-baldness that we did with baldness: The current king of France is an actually existing man who is not bald vs. The current king of France IS NOT an actually existing man who is not bald. That's two voila's. Again, the second one negates the first one. And while the first one is again false, the second one is again true - just as a proper negation should be.

The mavens of modern logic killed an incredible number of trees and squid to claim that the Law of Excluded Middle and contrariety of truth values do not apply to assertions (and their negations) about the non-existent. This and the whole grotesque tumor of Existential Import are a huge mistake caused by a boneheaded failure (or refusal?) to make the simple kind of modifications that I outlined above. (And in a recent essay in Journal of Ayn Rand Studies.)

I don't know whether you are any more receptive to this idea than you were several years ago, but I know that Peikoff and Binswanger, who are still hung up in discarding such assertions as "arbitrary," are several light-years away from getting this approach.

REB

P.S. - the fish example is handled like this: The polka-dot fish squirming on my desk IS A REAL FISH THAT is five feet long vs. The polka-dot fish squirming on my desk IS NOT A REAL FISH THAT is five feet long. False and true, respectively. And the one you would offer as the negation of the first is actually expressed as: The polka-dot fish squirming on my desk IS A REAL FISH THAT is not five feet long, and is actually negated by: The polka-dot fish squirming on my desk IS NOT A REAL FISH THAT is not five feet long. Again, false and true, respectively. Contrary truth value through negation is preserved throughout.

P.P.S. - next you'll object that I made the subject singular, talking about "the..." instead of "every..." I did it so that the negation would be visible to the reader who might not follow the change in form for universal assertions. But OK, just for you: "Every polka-dot fish squirming on my desk IS A REAL FISH THAT is five feet long vs. (take your pick) "Every polka-dot fish squirming on my desk IS NOT A REAL FISH THAT is five feet long" - or "NOT every polka-dot fish squirming on my desk IS A REAL FISH THAT is five feet long" - or "SOME polka-dot fish squirming on my desk IS A REAL FISH THAT is five feet long." The first is false - and each of the three equivalent negations is true. And "Every polka-dot fish squirming on my desk IS A REAL FISH THAT is not five feet long" etc. etc. etc. 

All X are Y in the modern Boolean interpretation does NOT imply there is something in X.   In the traditional Aristotelian  interpretation All X are Y  is taken to imply there is an X.  As a result the square of opposition comes in two flavors:  the traditional   where All S is P  implies  Some S is P   and the modern  which does not assume the existence of S.   It turns out the Boolean Interpretation is more suited for formal or algebraic   presentation of logic.

 

Ba'al Chatzaf 

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