Question for old-timer's: Peikoff's view on certainty

[Neil Parille]

I wrote a brief essay on the subject of Rand's totalism --

http://solohq.org/Articles/Parille/Totalis..._Ayn_Rand.shtml

[Roger Bissell]

The real problem with Peikoff and the ARI crowd is that in their hierarchy of Objectivist values, moral judgment is the primary concern. They seem incapable of discussing any subject without slipping into this realm. This is what separates many real-world Objectivists from Howard Roark or the heros in Atlas Shrugged. In the case of the literary figures, there is very little actual moral judgment, and what we do see is always in service of the achievement of some immediate concrete goal. By contrast, for many Objectivists, moral evaluation is an end in itself.

Jeff,

I have seen the root is even deeper epistemologically. Peikoff wrote in OPAR, pp. 155-156:

There are four steps in the generation of an emotion: perception (or imagination), identification, evaluation, response. Normally, only the first and last of these are conscious. The two intellectual steps, identification and evaluation, occur as a rule without the need of conscious awareness and with lightninglike rapidity.

The cognitive parts of this (identification and evaluation) are automated. Since all moral condemnations are accompanied by emotions, I often see what I cannot call anything but an attempt to live on the level of emotions and pretend that the cognitive part has been carried out responsibly because it is automated.

There is another issue going back to Peikoff's essay, "Fact and Value," and even "The Objectivist Ethics" by Rand where (to quote them both): "every is implies an ought."

Taken literally, this means that cognitive awareness of anything is intrinsically a value judgment (which I strenuously disagree with). Once again, the attempt is to automate identification and live on the level of evaluation, i.e., live cognitively on the level of the emotions. I do not believe this was the case with Rand or even Peikoff (mostly), but the way they expressed it, the trap was set for those who do not want to think, but pretend that they do so they can feel justified in letting their whims and emotions guide them.

A good example is that if a person is in a nasty mood, it's OK to be obnoxious. That's "rational" because the person he is talking to said something "evil." He thinks it's automated cognition, so he can even feel superior to all others because he has performed "integration." This is nothing but kindergarten with a moral and intellectual sanction.

To quote my favorite Brazilian-American philosopher: DAYAM! Double-DAYAM!

Think about it: Peikoff is saying that "normally" the intellect is not even a conscious (i.e., deliberate) process. Of course, the devil is in the details. Is moral evaluation (and condemnation) included in the category of the "normal"? One would think so.

But perhaps (principle of charity, here), "normally" simply means: in everyday life. Many things truly are automatized and do not need to be deliberately thought about, just reacted to. So, perhaps Peikoff would ~not~ include moral judgment under the heading of automatic, lightning-like, "normal" intellectual and evaluative functioning.

However, it certainly seems that there are a lot of people out there, rationalizing their bad feelings about others, and doing an ex post facto moral evaluation to (attempt to) legitimate their nasty treatment of people that have supposedly hurt their feelings or offended them in some way.

Anyway, nice observation, Michael -- and I'm sure that even if Peikoff ~didn't~ intend his words to apply to the extent that you fear, or that you see others applying them, he has expressed himself far too sloppily on such an important matter.

REB

[Roger Bissell]

Jeff,

You made a good point, about moral judgment taking over and becoming paramount.

In OPAR, Leonard Peikoff is so desperate to assimilate epistemological evaluation to moral judgment that in one passage he equates trying to refute an arbitrary assertion with "sanctioning" it.

Game over, as far as I'm concerned.

Robert Campbell

Robert and Jeffrey: if Michael is correct, then far too many Objectivists have (mis?)interpreted Peikoff's words about identification and evaluation being automatic/lightning-like as a license to assimilate both epistemological evaluation and moral judgment to their ~feelings~.

Game over, indeed! :sick:

REB

[Roger Bissell]

Daniel, nice posts (#24 and 25). Right on.

REB

[Daniel Barnes]

Roger:

>Daniel, nice posts (#24 and 25). Right on.

Thanks Roger.

re:#24, do you think a similar motive might be behind Peter Schwarz's recent (hopeless) attempt to rewrite the rules of logic so that you can't draw true conclusions from false premises? I suspect there is.

I must say I enjoyed Bill Dwyer's mighty smackdown of Schwarz on this issue. I wonder if Schwarz has tried it on since?

[Roger Bissell]

re:#24, do you think a similar motive might be behind Peter Schwarz's recent (hopeless) attempt to rewrite the rules of logic so that you can't draw true conclusions from false premises? I suspect there is.

I must say I enjoyed Bill Dwyer's mighty smackdown of Schwarz on this issue. I wonder if Schwarz has tried it on since?

Yes, I do think that PS is trying to rule out drawing true conclusions from false premises. I've done some writing on this, and I'll try to chase it down and post some of it here, but the gist of it is that logic allows our valid conclusions to be necessarily true (when derived from true premises) or sometimes true accidentally (when derived from false premises). PS wants to rule out accidental truth. There's a lot more to it than this, but that's for starters...

Yes, I admired Bill's critique of PS, too. I don't know whether PS pays any attention to us renegade, rag-tag mosquitos. :-/

REB

[BaalChatzaf]

Yes, I do think that PS is trying to rule out drawing true conclusions from false premises. I've done some writing on this, and I'll try to chase it down and post some of it here, but the gist of it is that logic allows our valid conclusions to be necessarily true (when derived from true premises) or sometimes true accidentally (when derived from false premises). PS wants to rule out accidental truth. There's a lot more to it than this, but that's for starters...

Yes, I admired Bill's critique of PS, too. I don't know whether PS pays any attention to us renegade, rag-tag mosquitos. :-/

REB

There are Modal Logics which distinguish necessarily true propositions from contingently true propositions. This is not a new thing. It goes back to C.I.Lewis.

Using classical material implication a false proposition implies a true proposition. That is the bad news. The good news is that the premise must be true in order to detach the conclusion by Modus Ponens.

Classical material implication (a materially implies b if and only if either a is false or b is true), does not require the constituents of the implication to be semantically related in any way. Totally unrelated propositions a, b may be connected by material implication. For any propositions either a implies b or b implies a, where implies is material implication. There is a class of logics, called Relevance Logic which requires that the constituents be semantically related. That is the good news. The bad news is that there are no simple algorithms for determining the validity of a relevant implications (for example the truth tables used in classical propositional logic). The validity of a relevance implication cannot be determined simply by the forms of the compound statements. The meanings of the terms must be taken into consideration.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[jay]

It seems more likely that Peikoff is merely confused, or being deliberately confusing, rather than having any deeper, more "mind bending" insight.

We might consider an arbitrary assertion to be like an arbitrary action - say, like hitting a golf ball while blindfolded. Now, if by some miracle you hit a hole in one, this still is a hole in one, regardless. An arbitrary statement is just the same. I might predict, arbitrarily (in fact there is no other way), tomorrow's winning Lotto numbers. If I do, it will be true that I have won Lotto (if I don't, it will be false). Someone might make an arbitrary guess on a multi-choice quiz show that Ayn Rand is the author of "Atlas Shrugged." Regardless of the fact the guess was arbitrary, it will still be true that Ayn Rand is the author of "Atlas Shrugged," and that person will be right. And so forth

The obvious lesson from this is that the arbitrary can be a source of truth, though of course it is not necessarily, nor even likely to be a source of truth. Certainly there is nothing about the arbitrary that would render it undecideable. It seems to me that Peikoff is simply resorting to obfuscation to deny this. I suspect his motive for this obfuscation is that he wants to install reason as the only possible source of truth, instead of, less exaltedly, our best guide to truth.

Truth is the relationship between an idea and reality. If an idea corresponds to reality it is true. Thus truth is not in reality itself, nor in the mind itself but in the relationship between the two.

Its the same thing when people hear the term "objective reality" used in objectivism, they hear that there is only one reality, it exists independently of our consciousness(which is true), but then they place truth within this reality, thinking that objectivism believes that truth also exists independantly of our consciousness. Objectivity is an epistemological term, as Peikoff says "Existents are not objective, they simply are"

Thus while the above guess that Ayn Rand is the author of Atlas is right , it is not a truth in so far as their is no "correspondence" going on between the mind and reality(the guess was arbitrary as you say). Now if you want to use truth that includes non correspondense situations, then fine. I think it would be more interesting to ask why Peikoff excludes them.

jay

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Jay,

A warm welcome to OL.

I took the liberty of editing your post to make it clear whom you were quoting and where the quote ended.

I put together a simple tutorial for this: Inserting quotes from other posts.

Unfortunately learning forum commands is not user-friendly, but my little tutorial will take no longer than a couple of minutes. I personally used this forum for a couple of months before I figured out what the Quote button was for.

I hope you enjoy yourself here. There are lots of good intelligent people around.

Michael

[Daniel Barnes]

Jay writes:

>Truth is the relationship between an idea and reality. If an idea corresponds to reality it is true. Thus truth is not in reality itself, nor in the mind itself but in the relationship between the two.

Yes. So if I guess randomly that Ayn Rand is the author of "Atlas Shrugged", that idea in my mind is true, because it corresponds to the reality i.e. Ayn Rand is the author of "Atlas Shrugged." How this relationship between the idea and the object came about - whether I guessed, deduced, or knew it - is irrelevant. The simple fact is that, as you say, the "idea corresponds to reality, therefore it is true."

By confusing the validity of the correspondence of the idea with the source of the idea, Peikoff obfuscates the issue. Thus he leads you to contradict your initial position above (see my emphasis) with your later statement:

jay:

>Thus while the above guess that Ayn Rand is the author of Atlas is right , it is not a truth (emphasis DB) in so far as their is no "correspondence" going on between the mind and reality(the guess was arbitrary as you say)

You see, the arbitrary does not exclude correspondence. Think it through and you will see my point. If I think of the winning lottery numbers, say, they will still correspond to the actual numbers in the tumbler, and therefore my guess will be true, even though the source of my guess can only be arbitrary (i.e. I cannot rationally discover them)

>I think it would be more interesting to ask why Peikoff excludes (arbitray guesses)

As I said earlier, I think it is because Peikoff wants to install reason as the only possible source of truth, at least for rhetorical purposes. This is as opposed to reason's more humble status as merely our best means of finding truth. It is not in fact that interesting, because his motive is the same as that of philosophers throughout the ages - that is, seeking the source of Justified True Belief.

Edited August 2, 2007 by Daniel Barnes

[jay]

Daniel

I thought truth meant the correspondance between reality and an idea, backed by facts and excluded the arbitrary, in other words the mind has to be involved.( relationship between existance and conciousness)Which I guess does mean reason as the only claim to knowledge.

If arbitrary guesses were alowed as sourses of truth. How could one ever claim certainty? The point is, one couldn't, and therefore certainty as contextual in the objectivist sense would be replaced by a kind of "absolute certainty" which as a concept would be meaningless because man cannot obtain it(which is how it is used today). People would then(rightly) conclude that certainty is imposible for man and this would open the door for people to claim that"absolute certainty" is possible only by some other means(ie) faith. If you want to be a little more generous toward peikoff, what he is trying to do is rescue the term certainty, by making it possible for someone to claim certainty within a context, while at the same time allowing for the fact that man can be in error. This grounds "certainty" in reality and stops people from using it as an anti-concept. This is what I like about objectivism, concepts refer to reality and are useful in reality. The fact that the rejection of the arbitrary is based on lack of evidence(if existed would be in reality) but this rejection IS overtured when evidence (again in reality) is then persented pretty much shows he is not searching for "true belief". Otherwise he wouldn't specifically say that the arbitrary in one context could become possible in a different context provided new evidence is given. If reason is not the only means to knowledge then THAT is what opens the door for "philosophers throughout the ages" to suggest a different "source of Justified True Belief." (I could accuse you of perhaps wanting that, since you did accuse peikoff of the same, but I wont)

I've noticed this lately. Scepticism is actually religions biggest friend, because the scepticism is only amed at man's reasoning ability. The more reason is discredited by scepticism, the more religion as an alternative is hailed as a value because it dosen't follow a method that has a possibility for error. Yet people view scepticism as being against religion. So religion uses scepticism to promote its dogmatism by discrediting its enemy(reason).

[BaalChatzaf]

I've noticed this lately. Scepticism is actually religions biggest friend, because the scepticism is only amed at man's reasoning ability. The more reason is discredited by scepticism, the more religion as an alternative is hailed as a value because it dosen't follow a method that has a possibility for error. Yet people view scepticism as being against religion. So religion uses scepticism to promote its dogmatism by discrediting its enemy(reason).

The Greek root of the word skepticism is skeptesthai which means to examine closely.

There is a form of skepticism wherein a proposition is NOT accepted unless there is sufficient evidence to support it. That is the skepticism of sensible folk. I would call it Missouri Skepticism. Show me. Then maybe I will believe what you are saying. The Skepticism of sensible folk is aimed against accepting a position which is not sufficiently supported by empirical evidence.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited August 3, 2007 by BaalChatzaf

[Daniel Barnes]

If you want to be a little more generous toward peikoff, what he is trying to do is rescue the term certainty, by making it possible for someone to claim certainty within a context, while at the same time allowing for the fact that man can be in error.

There is no need for me to be more generous towards Peikoff, because this is exactly what I am claiming he (and Rand) is doing - trying to "rescue" the term "certainty."

Here's how they try to do it.

1) Take a rhetorical position which is highly dismissive of skepticism.

2) Take an actual position that is, in practice, indistinguishable from it.

The rhetorical form they use to provide verbal cover for their actual position is the oxymoron, or self-contradictory statement. A typical Randian oxymoron is the "contextual absolute"; for, of course, an "absolute" is something that is true no matter where in space or time, ie. regardless of context. (For example, an absolute law of physics). Thus a "contextual absolute", or an absolute that changes depending on the context, is not an absolute at all. Thus the phrase is an oxymoron. Likewise, "contextual certainty" is, on examination, no different from saying "definitely maybe." Far from a ringing refutation of skepticism and uncertainty, this is in fact a tacit acceptance of it.

Thus in actual practice, as opposed to Rand's fiery rhetoric, Objectivist "contextual certainty" is the exact equivalent of a standard skeptical approach to knowledge, which can be summarised as: we may know P, but P may be false. (Randian philosophy prof. Fred Seddon has also made this point).

The situation is initally confusing because Rand wrote so passionately against skepticism people find it difficult to believe her underlying position contradicts this. She was a stylish and powerfully persuasive writer but also a very unself-critical one, so my guess is that she simply kidded herself that she'd refuted skepticism. I don't think her misdirection was intentional. But for all her style and emotive power, her arguments in this field (ie epistemology), it turns out, are what are called verbalist ones. That is, while superficially impressive they reduce down on closer inspection to mere plays on words like the above. If Rand had used the commonplace "definitely maybe" instead of the more intellectual-sounding "contextual certainty" then I doubt many would have taken her epistemological claims very seriously. Yet the two phrases are equivalent. So the difference can only be superficial.

I have made these arguments before, and no doubt I will make them again...;-) But I believe they are sound.

I've noticed this lately. Scepticism is actually religions biggest friend, because the scepticism is only amed at man's reasoning ability. The more reason is discredited by scepticism, the more religion as an alternative is hailed as a value because it dosen't follow a method that has a possibility for error. Yet people view scepticism as being against religion. So religion uses scepticism to promote its dogmatism by discrediting its enemy(reason).

Jay, pointing out the limits of reason is not the same as "discrediting" it. Reason is, after all, not an omnipotent power, correct? Therefore it has limits that should be identified. And this is all that rational skepticism does. For this reason I doubt your point really holds. The dangerous members of any religion are always the fanatics, the "true believers" - as opposed to the "unbelievers". Right? Skeptics are obviously far, far closer to the latter than the former, so it is hard to believe they are really much use to religion.

Edited August 4, 2007 by Daniel Barnes

[Robert Campbell]

Jay,

I'm in the midst of writing an article about the notion of "the arbitrary."

This activity limits my ability to contribute to the thread, but you've raised some important issues here.

Leonard Peikoff does say that the same proposition can be arbitrary when asserted by one person under one set of circumstances, and false when asserted by another person in different circumstances. (The same holds for propositions that may be asserted arbitrarily by some people, and truly by others... though Peikoff gives less attention to this latter case).

However, I see two serious difficulties with his position:

(1) If the arbitrariness of an assertion depends not just on the proposition being asserted, but on the knowledge and the intentions of the person making the assertion, how do you determine whether the conditions for arbitrariness have been met (in which case the assertion is neither true nor false, and you are either allowed or obliged to dismiss it out of hand)? Or the conditions for non-arbitrariness (in which case it is either true or false, and you are obliged to respond to it)? Dr. Peikoff gives little guidance on the matter. He often writes, in fact, as though arbitrary assertions are all put forward on purpose. Yet he fails to explain how a rational person will be able to determine whether an assertion is purposely arbitrary or not.

Digging deeper, Dr. Peikoff has provided no standards of evidence for most areas of inquiry, which makes it difficult to determine when an assertion is truly "devoid of evidence" (his definition of "arbitrary").

(2) Dr. Peikoff insists, in OPAR, that an arbitrary assertion has no context, and no place in the hierarchy of propositions (or of premises); consequently, he declares, it "cannot be cognitively processed." How could an arbitrary assertion ever become non-arbitrary, if what Leonard Peikoff says is true?

How can an assertion be arbitrary in one context and nonarbitrary in another context? For if it's genuinely arbitrary, it's in no context at all.

I generally agree with Daniel that, with his strictures against "the arbitrary," Dr. Peikoff is trying to rule out any element of chance in cognition.

I don't see how this can work.

First, in evolutionary epistemology, the starting point is blind trial and error. According to Peikoff, that cannot be a means of knowledge under any circumstances. Apparently, then, he must reject any form of evolutionary epistemology.

Second, it isn't just in obvious cases like guessing lottery numbers that it depends on chance whether we are correct or not. When Peikoff admits that a proposition of which we are now contextually certain (because there is enough evidence available, all of the available evidence supports it, and none contradicts it) could turn out to be wrong in the future, when new evidence not anticipated today is forthcoming, he is admitting by implication that chance plays a role in rational cognition.

For it is just bad luck that the evidence against the proposition wasn't on hand when we reviewed everything that was available and concluded that the proposition was certainly true.

Robert Campbell

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Robert,

When we get to discussions of this nature, I can't help but think that on being born, we are dealt a hand in a game we didn't choose. We have no control over the rules of the game, but we do over how we play.

In this game, there is chaos (chance) and causality, infinity and finiteness, consciousness and matter, logic and emotions, volition and prewiring, and so on. Death is the whistle indicating that the game is over. All this is "the given" to use Objectivist jargon.

Then some of the players set up their table at this game as "philosophers" and go about trying to change the rules by denying one or more elements and holding up a specific one as all there is. There are variations such as claiming that this or that element controls its counterpart, which actually exists but in an inferior state, etc., but the real idea is to pile on the complications to make it all sound good.

Voila! A school of philosophy is born.

That's my best shot at understanding all this so far.

Michael

[Dragonfly]

Leonard Peikoff does say that the same proposition can be arbitrary when asserted by one person under one set of circumstances, and false when asserted by another person in different circumstances. (The same holds for propositions that may be asserted arbitrarily by some people, and truly by others... though Peikoff gives less attention to this latter case).

That's completely crazy. 2 + 2 = 4 is a true statement, also when uttered by a parrot that has no idea how to prove it (neither has Peikoff, I suspect, so if he says that 2 + 2 = 4 we should consider that an arbitrary statement...). Peikoff should call his philosophy subjectivism, as he thinks that the validity of a statement depends on who is making that statement, implying that it cannot be determined objectively.

[Daniel Barnes]

DF:

>Peikoff should call his philosophy subjectivism, as he thinks that the validity of a statement depends on who is making that statement, implying that it cannot be determined objectively.

Yes I agree, and have often remarked that if you follow Rand and Peikoff's "contextual" theory of knowledge, the logical end result is subjectivist theory of truth.

[jay]

Leonard Peikoff does say that the same proposition can be arbitrary when asserted by one person under one set of circumstances, and false when asserted by another person in different circumstances. (The same holds for propositions that may be asserted arbitrarily by some people, and truly by others... though Peikoff gives less attention to this latter case).

That's completely crazy. 2 + 2 = 4 is a true statement, also when uttered by a parrot that has no idea how to prove it (neither has Peikoff, I suspect, so if he says that 2 + 2 = 4 we should consider that an arbitrary statement...). Peikoff should call his philosophy subjectivism, as he thinks that the validity of a statement depends on who is making that statement, implying that it cannot be determined objectively.

I am trying to understand this. Is truth not a epistemological concept? Does objectivism not deny that something can be true "in itself"(intrincism).When you think of something that is true, what goes through your mind. Is the word "truth" being used here the same way the word "reality" is used when someone says "reality exists independently of consciousness".Reality is not the same kind of concept as truth.

[jay]

DF:

>Peikoff should call his philosophy subjectivism, as he thinks that the validity of a statement depends on who is making that statement, implying that it cannot be determined objectively.

Yes I agree, and have often remarked that if you follow Rand and Peikoff's "contextual" theory of knowledge, the logical end result is subjectivist theory of truth.

Isn't he saying that it can be determined objectively IF a given person is using an objective method.

1) How DOES one determine something objectively?

2) Now, can a parrot do that (Question 1)?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Jay,

For the parrot, it doesn't matter. To him, 2+2=5 works just as well as 2+2=4.

Those statements only mean something to a conceptual being, like a person listening to the parrot. There is no knowledge without a thinking agent (and knowledge/thinking can be on a perceptual level, but not the math above). You are correct that truth and reality are separate concepts.

Michael

[jay]

Jay,

For the parrot, it doesn't matter. To him, 2+2=5 works just as well as 2+2=4.

Those statements only mean something to a conceptual being, like a person listening to the parrot. There is no knowledge without a thinking agent (and knowledge/thinking can be on a perceptual level, but not the math above). You are correct that truth and reality are separate concepts.

Michael

Great. That makes sense to me. And it sounds consistant with what peikoff is saying, except those above call it subjectivism, which I find confusing. Unless you mean that the above statement you made which uses the word knowledge cannot be valid if you used the word truth. 2+2=4 is knowledge/truth only to a thinking agent.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

2+2=4 is knowledge/truth only to a thinking agent.

Jay,

Not precise. 2+2=4 is knowledge/truth only to a conceptual thinking agent. The parrot thinks, but not in human concepts. Some animals are starting to show signs of being able to understand primitive math and low-level concepts. Even so, they do not have any corresponding mental unit for the concept of truth.

Michael

[Daniel Barnes]

Jay:

>I am trying to understand this. Is truth not a epistemological concept?

Yes. So, therefore is falsity, obviously.

>Reality is not the same kind of concept as truth.

Truth is usually meant as knowledge that corresponds with its object/s in reality.

This is not to be confused with the source of that knowledge, as Peikoff does, ok? Peikoff is not reliable on this - and, IMHO, many other issues. For example: If I make a random guess that the time is 11.03am, and it turns out to be true, it doesn't magically become untrue just because I guessed it, now does it.

The issue of who thinks it - the "knowing agent" - is a red herring, and is a separate issue which confuses the situation. (The "knowing agent" is assumed in the first place) Just focus on this bit for now: If a parrot says "2+2=4", 2+2 still =4. Likewise, if a parrot says "2+2=5" this is still false.

>it sounds consistant with what peikoff is saying, except those above call it subjectivism, which I find confusing.

Here's the problem: Despite railing against subjectivism, ironically Rand didn't realise that her own "contextual" theory of knowledge logically leads to a subjectivist theory of truth.

This is quite simple to demonstrate. Her "contextual" theory states that whatever you believe in the current context of your knowledge, you are entitled to say is true.

For example, two scientists, both acquainted with the same facts, which are all that are available in the context of human knowledge at the time, come up with two contradictory theories to explain these facts (a common enough occurrence -- in fact any given set of facts can produce an infinite number of theories). Yet, according to Rand's theory, both can claim their theories are true.

So her theory can easily lead to subjectivism.

Edited August 18, 2007 by Daniel Barnes

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

The issue of who thinks it - the "knowing agent" - is a red herring, and is a separate issue which confuses the situation. (The "knowing agent" is assumed in the first place) Just focus on this bit for now: If a parrot says "2+2=4", 2+2 still =4. Likewise, if a parrot says "2+2=5" this is still false.

Daniel,

Red herring? By what standard? Do you posit that knowledge exists without a knower? Or does being "assumed in the first place" an axiom one is not supposed to consider because it is inconvenient to an argument?

I do agree that to a conceptual person, 2+2=5 is false regardless of who utters it or where it is found—even if it is seen as an accident of cloud formation or on a cheese sandwich (like the Virgin Mary in the Las Vegas casino). But the point is that if a parrot utters it, it is not a statement in the conceptual sense until a conceptual agent thinks it. The statement has no true/false meaning to the parrot.

I will even go one further. In civilizations where Arabic numbers are not used, 2+2=5 is meaningless. Just symbols. And that is among conceptual beings. Knowledge can only be true or false (or even exist at all) if someone thinks it. If no one thinks it, it ain't knowledge. Therefore it cannot be true or false.

Michael

[Daniel Barnes]

Mike:

>Red herring? By what standard? Do you posit that knowledge exists without a knower?

As a matter of fact, and as a side issue, it can be argued that it does. Popper puts the case in his important essay "Epistemology Without A Knowing Subject." For example, take the writings left by an extinct race. Later archaeologists may learn to decode the writings, and learn what those extinct people knew.The writing is obviously knowledge, but during the period between the extinction and its rediscovery, there was no knowing subject. Further, the writer of a book often does not know the full implications of their writings. Einstein did not know his theories contained the atomic bomb. Thus, while we create knowledge, it can and does supersede us.

>Or does being "assumed in the first place" an axiom one is not supposed to consider because it is inconvenient to an argument?

It's not inconvenient to any argument. It's not relevant. See below.

>I do agree that to a conceptual person, 2+2=5 is false regardless of who utters it or where it is found—even if it is seen as an accident of cloud formation or on a cheese sandwich (like the Virgin Mary in the Las Vegas casino).

Well, then you and I agree, tell it to Lenny The P.

>But the point is that if a parrot utters it, it is not a statement in the conceptual sense until a conceptual agent thinks it. The statement has no true/false meaning to the parrot.

The Objectivist theory of the arbitrary, and indeed the whole philosophy, is about human knowledge, not parrots, turtles, or marrows. The statement "2+2=4" has no meaning to a banana either. This obvious,and potentially infinite point has therefore no bearing on the point you and I agree on.

>I will even go one further. In civilizations where Arabic numbers are not used, 2+2=5 is meaningless. Just symbols. And that is among conceptual beings. Knowledge can only be true or false (or even exist at all) if someone thinks it. If no one thinks it, it ain't knowledge. Therefore it cannot be true or false.

This is simply incorrect. If a child, or a civilisation, does not know how to add, this does not make "2+2=5" objectively neither true nor false, only subjectively so. It is objectively false. See how easy Rand's thought tumbles into subjectivism?

Edited August 18, 2007 by Daniel Barnes