The Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Daniel,

Nyah!

Michael

[Daniel Barnes]

Rodney:

>I've decided it's an issue of psychoepistemology--the deeply ingrained method of using one's consciousness that is formed early in life (involving the issue of independence). I may write an essay on what I call "verbal metaphysics" one day, which would be the philosophic expression of this flawed method.

Great idea. Here's a title: "Why Those Who Disagree With My Philosophy Are Fundamentally Psychologically Flawed."

Part 137 in the Timorous Ad Hominem Series by Rodney Rawlings.

[BaalChatzaf]

Daniel,

How is describing a mental process an "empty banality"?

Here is the quote once again, but with comments this time (in context). From ITOE, Ch. 2 - "Concept Formation," p. 10.

If a child considers a match, a pencil and a stick, he observes that length is the attribute they have in common, but their specific lengths differ.

Michael

The three items mentioned are made of wood. They are all solid. They are all visible. So the abstract property length is not the only characteristic they have in common. So why should the child zero in on length?

And what makes one common characteristic any more important than another common characteristic. In short what characteristics are essential and which are accidental? Do you have an algorithm for that?

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited June 8, 2007 by BaalChatzaf

[Rodney]

I'm not attempting to counter your arguments by criticizing your psychology. I'm asking myself "How is it that this perfectly intelligent man is unable to see something that is so clear?" So I (tentatively so far, I'll admit) trace it to a certain error made early in life, and the steady building upon that error over the years, until it is almost impossible to reverse.

Thus, if I decide this idea is right I would merely be describing a phenomenon.

I think it's much more of an ad hominem to let fully half of the force of your arguments derive from a patronizing tone and contemptuous mockery. Just a bug in your ear, Daniel. :-)

(The last sentence is to show I can give as good as I get.)

Edited June 8, 2007 by ashleyparkerangel

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

The three items mentioned are made of wood. They are all solid. They are all visible. So the abstract property length is not the only characteristic they have in common. So why should the child zero in on length?

And what makes one common characteristic any more important than another common characteristic. In short what characteristics are essential and which are accidental? Do you have an algorithm for that?

Bob,

Are you yanking my chain? You have haunted Objectivist places for years and can still ask that? The answer is precisely where Rowlands screwed up with his so-called definition of abstraction and concept.

There is a small phrase called "selective focus." Volition. Just because you focus on one thing one moment, this does not obliterate all your other knowledge and items of focu... Dayaamm! Do I really need to write this?

I guess I do. If someone like Rowlands can get it wrong while constructing an entire so-called Objectivist dictionary (with genus and differentia galore), why can't others? See below. Notice the error published on Importance of Philosophy site, then notice Rand's definition of abstraction (which is the method of constructing concepts).

From the Dictionary of The Importance of Philosophy

Abstraction

Genus: Mental process

Differentia: Forms a generalization from particulars

Concept

Genus: Mental Abstraction

Differentia: Integrates two or more particulars into a common mental unit

. . .

Here are Rand's definitions as published in ITOE. . .

(p. 10, par. 2)

The act of isolation involved is a process of abstraction: i.e., a selective mental focus that takes out or separates a certain aspect of reality from all others (e.g., isolates a certain attribute from the entities possessing it, or a certain action from the entities performing it, etc.)

(p. 13, par. 4)

A concept is a mental integration of two or more units possessing the same distinguishing characteristic(s), with their particular measurements omitted.

The pseudo-definition on the erroneous site is like saying that the definition of man is "living being." It's correct as a description, but as a definition, the essential is missing. (Incidentally, the rest of that so-called dictionary is shot full of this kind of... er... let's call it selective focus on the wrong things, i.e., leaving out essentials.)

It's not as if Rand hadn't written a gazillion times that conceptual thought is volitional or anything. How can this be missed in discussing Objectivism? Maybe this guy doesn't see the connection between "to select," "to choose" or volition and "to abstract, or "volitional consciousness" and "conceptual thought."

Those who want to teach Objectivism, even to beginners, should learn it first.

About the algorithm, I don't know enough about algorithms to know if one can be made for volition. I have read that ones exist for randomness.

Michael

[Daniel Barnes]

Rodney:

>I'm not attempting to counter your arguments by criticizing your psychology...

He says, before proceeding, yet again, to do exactly that. How odd.

Rodney, we all realise that you have a vague, speculative theory that people who disagree with your philosophy have some kind of "flawed" consciousness; and further, that these poor unfortunates have now so many errors accumulated in their consciousness that they suffer from a near irreversible "blindness" that affects their ability to think independently. Thus they are simply unable to see the Truth that you, with your own flawless consciousness, see with constant and brilliant clarity.

We all know about your theory now, ok? So, other than this, do you have anything else to contribute to this discussion?

Edited June 8, 2007 by Daniel Barnes

[william.scherk]

NB - my comments are transcribed into speech here

[ . . . ]

I find your comparison to letters of the alphabet a good one. If I were to examine the building blocks of written words from a syntax level only, I would have to start with the alphabet. Without letters there are no words. Letters are facts. They are both tangible and clear.

I too found Daniel's analogy appropriate, but I get stuck on the paragraph above, for to my mind letters are not at all as tangible and clear as we think they are -- as building blocks of written words. As some wag might put it, "Whutchoogaheezuptaenniwhey?" and "Kivessum?" and "Eyedoanhavvakloowutchyergittinat" or even !

If I understand Daniel correctly in this exchange, he is trying to show that we may sometimes reduce an analysis too far, to a level which obscures our mutual goals. Once we reduce discussion of words and their meaning to their indivisible units, we lose the means to understand each other, and discussion stalls and dies. By analogy, he is trying to illuminate the goal, and steer up and back towards it.

'Without letters there are not words'? I don't think it is quite just so. I spoke out loud a moment ago. There were and are no unique and necessary letters to correspond to my utterance, only several score established sets of conventions with which to represent it . . . so how about: 'without phonemes' there are no words? And since we OLers seek broader and deeper understanding, how about striving to consider the mutual aim, rather than striving for rhetorical victory? An infant mind grasps the meaning of utterance through patterns of phonemes which engage a posited 'deep grammar' -- nothing to do with words nor with alphabets. Only later can we teach the child what such tools are for, and which conventions exist to transcribe the underlying utterance for posterity.

Further, we surely have written 'words' without letters as building blocks (as in Chinese and a score of other written languages). But we do not have intelligible speech without the actual smallest meaningful units of language, all language - phonemes.

Letters and alphabets are an invention, a most wonderful invention, an invention that succeeded in approximating and representing the incessant flow of phonemes.

(a minor quibble . . . to illustrate what my quibble means, see the International Phonetic Alphabet, which goal is "to devise a system for transcribing the sounds of speech [ . . . ] independent of any particular language and applicable to all languages."* See (or rather hear) also this MP3 of a string of words from OL. Recall too that it dsoent raelly mettar wihch ltteer in wahetevr lcatooin ltteers are fnoud . . . the meaning is beneath and beyond the representation . . .

* from Omniglot, 'writing systems and alphabets of the world.'

Weeliyum

PS -- Michael, Daniel, a puzzle: what goal do you believe you share with your interlocutors in this thread?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

William,

Thank you for adding technical correctness, and I do stand corrected. I really like it when this kind of knowledge pops up.

Just to be cantankerous, I suppose I could say that without letters, there would be no written English. But then I would step outside of concept formation (which is universal to all languages, i.e., the concept for chair is identical in all languages, but the words in Chinese, English, German, Portuguese, etc. are all different).

PS -- Michael, Daniel, a puzzle: what goal do you believe you share with your interlocutors in this thread?

Free entertainment?

Michael

[Daniel Barnes]

William:

>If I understand Daniel correctly in this exchange, he is trying to show that we may sometimes reduce an analysis too far, to a level which obscures our mutual goals. Once we reduce discussion of words and their meaning to their indivisible units, we lose the means to understand each other, and discussion stalls and dies. By analogy, he is trying to illuminate the goal, and steer up and back towards it.

Beautifully put, William. For some reason, however, this is construed as somehow symbolic of a fundamental evasion or even dire psychological malfunction on my part. It is just bizarre.

>PS -- Michael, Daniel, a puzzle: what goal do you believe you share with your interlocutors in this thread?

I believe we are both trying to correct some underlying historical mistakes.

[Brendan Hutching]

[He looks at three things and sees that there is something similar, that all of them have one part of their shape bigger than the other parts when going in a straight line.]

In her claim about the formation of the concept ‘length’, Rand makes a fundamental error which the above ‘explanation’ makes more glaringly obvious.

The error is to claim that ‘similarity’ can literally be observed, ie physically perceived. But ‘similarity’ is not a perceptual quality. Rather, we perceive specific objects, not ‘similarity’.

So when the child observes the three objects he cannot “see that there is something similar”. What he sees are three objects, not three objects plus “something similar”.

Since ‘similarity’ cannot be present in the perception of objects, it must be inferred or thought. In that case, in the above example, the child is not “seeing” something similar, but rather thinking “something similar”. Therefore, ‘similarity’ must already be present in the mind and brought to the experience of observing the three objects.

Exactly how the concept becomes present in the mind is an interesting question, but as the other posters have pointed out, it is abundantly clear that Rand is begging the question, since the attribute the child is supposedly observing is in fact already in mind.

Brendan

[Daniel Barnes]

Brendan quoted Mike:

>MSK: He looks at three things and sees that there is something similar, that all of them have one part of their shape bigger than the other parts when going in a straight line.

The 'problem of universals' can be summarised simply.

It is the question of why different objects are similar.

For example, Plato famously proposed his theory of "forms" as the solution to this question. Resemblances between objects were due to some pre-existing ideal "form" outside of time and space, of which the objects were just poor copies; as if pressed in wax, with the original timeless stamp of the form still roughly visible. This was his explanation for the similarity of, say, different horses, or even different societies. (Aristotle later proposed his theory of essences, with which he unfortunately missed the point). Ayn Rand's solution to the problem was, she thought, her theory of concept formation.

Now, Mike reckons that her theory is that one just "sees that there is something similar." Or as he writes elsewhere:

"The child identifies a similarity and difference by direct observation, just like he does with other attributes."

That's all there is to it, apparently: you just see it. Thus, just looking, or direct observation, is enough to solve the problem of similarity.

If Mike is right, however, one would have to wonder why she bothers with the rest of her theory ie: the later concept formation stages. As a solution to the problem of similarity it seems redundant; similarity is apparently "identified" at the perceptual level ie: by just "looking." One might also add that if this is so, it is not much of a theory.

On the other hand he may have not expressed himself very well. But I have to wonder if he is really understanding the problem in the first place.

[tjohnson]

Since ‘similarity’ cannot be present in the perception of objects, it must be inferred or thought.

Why do you think this? Has it ever occurred to you that 'vision' is an abstraction process in which our nervous system 'gets some characteristics', but not all? If I look at a group of trees do I not see similarities among them? If not, why would I invent or use a word to represent non-existent patterns?

[Daniel Barnes]

Brendan:

>it is abundantly clear that Rand is begging the question, since the attribute the child is supposedly observing is in fact already in mind.

Well you may think this Brendan, but this is only because somewhere back in your deep, dark past - possibly even in your cradle, playing with your rattle - your consciousness made an error. This error was, sadly, never corrected, and led to another error, and another, and another, each flaw going forth and multiplying until your vision of the world was like an infinitely cracked mirror. Thus the brilliant light that shines forth from Rand's epistemology you can only catch the faintest glimpse of; and even that dim light is twisted and misshapen by your crippled consciousness, making it literally impossible for you to comprehend her simplest, clearest, most unquestionable truths, and placing anything like an independent thought forever outside of your reach. Sadly for you, this process is almost certainly irreversible.

But don't take this personally; I am merely describing a phenomenon, one that seems to be horrendously widespread, and sparing only the select and worthy few. For I realise now that I too am one of the broken. I have come to this realisation by catching but a brief glimpse of the blinding light as it flashed through one of those all-too-rare, pristine consciousnesses, to whom such a profound and fundamental error is completely alien, when he broke for a moment from his inner contemplations to address A Certain Internet Forum. He spoke only a few, perfectly chosen words; yet I felt as if he knew me, in all my dark despair; he looked right through me, as if I wasn't there. And he just kept right on, strumming my pain with his fingers, singing my life with his words. Then his light vanished; and at the same moment, I realised that worst of all, my irreversible condition means I will only ever see the light of Truth second-hand; that my only hope is for one of those sacred entities to choose once again to reflect some of that original light upon the darkness of my shattered soul. That is, I knew for a moment, what it is to know; I saw what it was to see.

So I can say I was - for an instant - almost human. So don't despair. Perhaps, Brendan, one day you too might be as fortunate as me.

Edited June 8, 2007 by Daniel Barnes

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Brendan,

You made an interesting argument and this touches on one thing I have observed that Rand did not cover: growth of the concept-forming capacity itself.

Our conceptual faculty will develop with growth whether we want it to or not, just like our eyesight will. One cannot choose not to see as a baby. That choice comes only after a level of maturity has been attained, and even then, if the eyes are open they will see regardless of what we will them to do. The same goes for the development conceptual faculty. If you want a real error Rand made, this would be it (I call it an error of scope). She claimed that ALL conceptual thought was volitional. The fact is that some of it on a basic level is automatic. (If logic is to be employed, then volition is essential for concepts to be formed correctly. Babies don't use logic, though. This only comes later like speech does.)

The capacity to selectively focus on relationships from different referents, i.e., isolate one part and ignore the rest, so to speak, is what is already in the mind, and it is grows like a seed grows in a baby. The relationship itself is not already in the mind and it can't be without sensory input. If it were, that would mean previous awareness of the entities. This is why I wouldn't call what Rand stated an error in the manner you are claiming. Relationships exist. They merely do not exist as entities, but instead as aspects of them when two or more entities are compared. (Obviously, only a mind has the capacity to compare.) But both the entity and its features exist irrespective of being perceived. There is even a Rand quote about this (ITOE, "Chapter 2 - Concept-Formation," p. 14):

The first concepts man forms are concepts of entities—since entities are the only primary existents. (Attributes cannot exist by themselves, they are merely the characteristics of entities; motions are motions of entities; relationships are relationships among entities.)

Another point gets outside the topic, but David Kelley made the extremely important observation about the primary difference ascertained on a perceptual level: the entity and its background. This is the first similarity/difference judgment made by the brain.

Michael

[Brendan Hutching]

Daniel: “It is the question of why different objects are similar.”

Yes, or from the other side: why do we call some objects by the same name?

“Thus, just looking, or direct observation, is enough to solve the problem of similarity.”

Although Plato and Aristotle had somewhat different views about the nature of universals, they claimed that universals were somehow directly apprehended or ‘intuited’ by the mind. Rand seems to have just more or less transferred that understanding, so that direct apprehension becomes direct observation.

No doubt, she doesn’t intend to be incoherent, but she’s trying to square a circle: she wants to tie her concepts as directly as possible to their objects, but she also wants her concepts to be revolutionary, paradigm-busting creations. You can’t have it both ways.

Brendan

[Brendan Hutching]

General semanticist: “If I look at a group of trees do I not see similarities among them? If not, why would I invent or use a word to represent non-existent patterns?”

When you look at a group of trees, what you see is a group of trees. You don’t see “similarities”. The similarities occur because you compare one set of perceptions with another, and decide that they are similar in some way. The act of comparison occurs in the mind, not the senses.

But on re-reading my post, you will notice that I speak of ‘similarity’, ie the concept. It’s a concept because it’s created by the mind. Like many things we create in our minds, there is a strong temptation to have them ‘migrate’ to the world external to the mind.

Rand fails to resist this temptation, hence her talk about the child observing ‘length’. (Of course, colloquially, we may talk about ‘observing’ when we mean something like ‘expressing a point of view’. But that simply highlights Rand’s own confusion, or possibly carelessness or calculation in the way she does philosophy.)

Getting back to ‘similarity’, if it were the case that similarity can be perceived, not only could we describe the perceptual qualities of similarity, but the similarity between, say, a group of trees would be the same similarity as between a group of electric pylons.

This is clearly not the case, unless you’re going to argue that ‘similarity’ subsumes things that are dissimilar, and I don’t think you would want to do that.

Brendan

[tjohnson]

Our conceptual faculty will develop with growth whether we want it to or not, just like our eyesight will.

This 'conceptual faculty' , which I call abstraction process, continues with linguistic abstraction which in turn influences, or sharpens, conceptual abstraction. It is much easier to 'see' something when someone 'tells' us what to look for.

Language can be thought of as an extension of the nervous system which enables similar processes to be shared with others possessing the same faculty.

Edited June 8, 2007 by general semanticist

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

If I understand Daniel correctly in this exchange, he is trying to show that we may sometimes reduce an analysis too far, to a level which obscures our mutual goals. Once we reduce discussion of words and their meaning to their indivisible units, we lose the means to understand each other, and discussion stalls and dies. By analogy, he is trying to illuminate the goal, and steer up and back towards it.

William,

I want to clarify this. Since we are dealing with abstractions, a concrete analogy will help.

Consider a lump of knowledge as given by Daniel (theory, etc.) a house. The building materials of that house are bricks, mortar, wood beams and panels, iron bars, etc.

I agree that trying to build the house out of atoms and molecules would be ludicrous. But what do you say to a person who says bricks and mortar and beams and panels and bars are meaningless to a house—you can only build a house with walls and floors and ceilings? Or that the materials of the house are determined by convention? Or that it is meaningless to talk about building a house because a brick is not a house?

This is the nature of the disagreement between Daniel and me. Going too far is meaningless, but not going far enough has its own problems. Houses don't just spring up spontaneously. Neither does knowledge. It is built.

Michael

[Brendan Hutching]

Michael: “You made an interesting argument and this touches on one thing I have observed that Rand did not cover: growth of the concept-forming capacity itself.”

Thanks for the compliment, Michael, but my “interesting argument” had nothing to do with any growth in the capacity to form concepts.

“Relationships exist. They merely do not exist as entities, but instead as aspects of them when two or more entities are compared. (Obviously, only a mind has the capacity to compare.)”

I wasn’t talking about relationships between objects. I was talking about the relationship between concepts and objects. (And by extension, ‘universals’, since the problem of universals includes positions that regard universals as real features of the external world/and positions that regard universals as concepts.)

But since you’ve raised this subject, Michael, I hope I can speak frankly, given our past discussions. Unfortunately, you have simply repeated the original confusion about universals.

On the one hand you claim that relationships exist as aspects of entities; on the other you claim that relationships exist only when two or more entities are compared, ie by a mind.

In other words, you are claiming that relationships are both dependent on, and independent of, consciousness. You can’t have it both ways. It’s got to be one or the other.

Brendan

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

In other words, you are claiming that relationships are both dependent on, and independent of, consciousness. You can’t have it both ways. It’s got to be one or the other.

Brendan,

Are you using the term "relationship" only epistemologically, then claiming that this is poor metaphysics? We can come up with another word for the metaphysical existents, if you like. Parts exist as well as wholes.

I have not stated that the relationship is dependent on consciousness. Perceiving the relationship (making a comparison) is dependent on consciousness. The elements needed to perceive the relationship most definitely exist. If there were no similarities between entities, no similarity could be perceived.

As an example, for living creatures, individual creatures exist as members of a species. Maybe you want to call "species" something else for a metaphysical term, but species does exist. It determines a hell of a lot on reproduction. This is not something coincidental or based on prior knowledge of the observer.

I think you are confusing an aspect with the whole. The aspect exists. It's a part of a whole. But it isn't a whole. That's obvious, isn't it?

(PS - I formally eschewed the aggressive manner of posting. I don't remember if I insulted you back on SoloHQ when I allowed myself to get caught up in Perigo's emotional appeals to tribalism, but if I did, I apologize. Point me to a case and I will retract it.)

Michael

[merjet]

Since ‘similarity’ cannot be present in the perception of objects, it must be inferred or thought. In that case, in the above example, the child is not “seeing” something similar, but rather thinking “something similar”. Therefore, ‘similarity’ must already be present in the mind and brought to the experience of observing the three objects.

This is the the trite argument of Bertrand Russell. It fails to distinguish between an instance of similarity and the concept similarity. It also amounts to asserting the existence of innate ideas.

But on re-reading my post, you will notice that I speak of ‘similarity’, ie the concept. It’s a concept because it’s created by the mind. Like many things we create in our minds, there is a strong temptation to have them ‘migrate’ to the world external to the mind.

Rand fails to resist this temptation, hence her talk about the child observing ‘length’.

Again, this is a failure to distinguish between an instance of similarity and the concept similarity, and it amounts to asserting the existence of innate ideas. Is Brendan next going to try to tell us that we can't observe green or the smoothness of a table as I rub my fingers on it?

[tjohnson]

When you look at a group of trees, what you see is a group of trees. You don’t see “similarities”. The similarities occur because you compare one set of perceptions with another, and decide that they are similar in some way. The act of comparison occurs in the mind, not the senses.

I don't think so. First of all, there is no such thing as a 'mind', all we have is brains or nervous systems. I would like to see you show me a 'mind'. The process of abstracting similarities begins with perception and continues with language. How is it dogs recognize their owners if they cannot sense similarities?

[Rodney]

Daniel, the only contribution I attempted to make was to point out your wrongheaded interpretation of the "length" passage. The rest was tangential things in which I was mainly addressing Objectivists here.

On the matter of my willingness to confront and engage opposing views, I suggest you rethink and look back over my posting history. (Not just here, but also at the old SOLO and at Rebirth of Reason.) I also post on other boards under other names.

I have put forth pro-capitalism on the Carole King board. I have argued about hypercomplex numbers on a board for computer technologists.

Years ago, I revelled in being apparently the only Objectivist in my university, and wrote a prize-winning essay on existentialism, at the end attacking it from the viewpoint of Objectivism. I argued with professors and classmates. I loved it! I brought a philosophy of education professor to appreciate and recommend IOE to the class, when I stunned him with an impromptu oration on epistemology.

By the way, I once initiated an email debate at Solo with Next Level (apparently an old friend of yours). But he got banned, I think. I'll post it sometime, because I feel very insulted by your remarks.

-----

PS: Actually, writing this has dissipated my feelings and I'll do you the kindness of letting you have the last word (which I won't read). Gotta go.

Edited June 8, 2007 by ashleyparkerangel

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Michael: “You made an interesting argument and this touches on one thing I have observed that Rand did not cover: growth of the concept-forming capacity itself.”

Thanks for the compliment, Michael, but my “interesting argument” had nothing to do with any growth in the capacity to form concepts.

Brendan,

I expressed myself poorly. This is probably due to the fact that I have covered this issue in other places and there is an entire argument in my mind (and it is still developing in my mind). All this didn't come out in my words. You mentioned innate knowledge. The growth of a cognitive capacity rests on certain innate knowledge. Innate knowledge is the connection between your "interesting argument" and what "I have observed," not growth.

From what I have observed, we disagree on the nature of what knowledge is innate. As a quick overview, my contention is that cognitively, it is more agent-oriented and one component develops from growth (but it mostly develops from experience plus growth). Examples: left-handed or right-handed and the integrative functions of the mind. Normatively there are the affects (as shown by Steven Shmurak here), and some other examples. Interestingly, there are cases of strong emotional reactions of the young to dangers like snakes without previous contact or knowledge of them (I would have to look this up to provide sources).

From what I gather from your statement, you hold that the mind provides fundamental cognitive information that exists only in the mind and imposes this information on the perception of existents in order to organize thinking about them better. In essence, the agent does not perceive the existent as it is or perceive it only partially, but instead perceives it in a distorted manner by adding information that is in fact foreign to the existent. Is that correct?

Michael

[Daniel Barnes]

Mike:

>Going too far is meaningless, but not going far enough has its own problems.

Both Popper and I have tried to showed you where the "Stop" sign is clearly and logically marked. If you want to keep driving around in the dark, that's up to you.