Roger's "Ontologically Objective" - A Question

[Ellen Stuttle]

Roger,

If you see this entry...

I haven't computer-reading stamina for trying to post on RoR, but I keep feeling that the point you're trying to make with your "ontologically" versus "epistemologically" objective distinction isn't coming through to your respondents. I'm not sure if I'm getting it myself, but let my try this way of saying it and see how this "flies" with you:

I believe you're saying, in a (long) sentence, that: Facts are only "facts" from the perspective of a knower, that if there aren't any knowers, there aren't any "facts," there's only a non-known ("intrinsic") whatever.

Does this seem remotely close to what you're trying to express?

Ellen

___

[Roger Bissell]

No, Ellen, sorry. Let me reply in two parts:

1. In regard to facts...

Facts, like existents, exist independently of consciousness.

Existents are the referents of concepts and names and descriptions, and facts are the referents of propositions.

An example of each:

The redness of my car is an existent (viz., an attribute), and as such, it is a referent of the concept "red."

That my car is red is a fact, and that fact is the referent of the proposition "My car is red."

The relationship between facts and propositions is very easy to see in the following: since it is a fact THAT my car is red, I can refer to this fact by forming a proposition of the words that follow THAT: "My car is red."

2. Facts in re the ontologically objective:

Facts apart from consciousness are intrinsic.

Facts held as the object of consciousness are ontologically objective, and the act of consciousness holding them this way is epistemically objective.

A big part of my beef is that Rand & Co. focus on the epistemically objective, and especially on the volitionally epistemically objective, to the detriment of the ontologically objective.

I think that this has been overlooked mainly because Peikoff was intercepted by Rand before he got around to extending his application of intrinsic-objective-subjective from perception (which Rand rejected) to our other form of direct awareness: the issue of introspection.

Perception seems relatively unimportant to pursue, once you concede that the senses are valid. But introspection is an issue with a lot higher octane, so to speak. People really want to know that introspection is valid, and that it connects us with "inner reality."

Well, is this "inner reality" that we view introspectively in the form of mental qualities ("qualia") intrinsic to the brain -- a la naive realism -- or is it something that arises as our brains cognitively scan what they are doing? If the latter, then "qualia" are the brain as viewed introspectively, rather than "something else" that is somehow "in" the brain.

If this sounds a bit foreign, think of how much sorting out could have been done 35 years ago, if Rand hadn't shoo-ed Peikoff away from applying the trichotomy analysis to perception, and he had continued his good work, applying it to introspection. There might have been some confusion and floundering, but I think the issue would have been resolved long ago, and we'd have a decent grasp of the mind-body relationship. Instead, it's more like a Tower of Babel when you discuss it with Objectivists -- not to mention other folks!

I hope this answers your question.

REB

[MikeJoyous]

Hi Roger:)

Long time no hear:)

A "fact" is an idea that is true.

Ideas are not independent of consciousness!

best,

Mike

[Roger Bissell]

Hi, Mike Rael, how are you doing?

You said:

A "fact" is an idea that is true.

Let's road-test your definition, shall we?

That my car is silver is a fact.

That my car is silver is an idea that is true. (??)

Another example: on the tv show "Dragnet," Joe Friday said:

"Just the facts, ma'am."

"Just the ideas that are true, ma'am. (??)

I hope you can see that there are problems with the definition you offer for "fact." My dictionary defines "fact" pretty closely to the way I see it: a thing that is indisputably the case. Let's try this definition:

That my car is silver is a thing that is indisputably the case.

"Just the things that are indisputably the case, ma'am."

(Ahhhhh, much better.)

Mike, I think you are confusing cognition with reality here. By my understanding, an idea that is true is one that corresponds to a fact of reality. (My dictionary defines true as "in accordance with fact or reality.")

Now, the only kind of idea that can be true is a proposition. And it's true that there is an intimate relationship between propositions and facts. Propositions are the kind of idea or cognitive tool we use to identify and refer to facts. (We use concepts to identify and refer to existents, and we use arguments to identify and refer to causes or reasons.)* But we shouldn't confuse propositions with facts, any more than we should confuse concepts with existents. The former are cognitive tools; the latter are aspects of reality.

Best regards,

Roger Bissell

*This is not necessary to my point about facts, truth, and propositions, but someone out there is surely curious to know what philosophical corruption I have been cooking up in epistemology, so here it is...Facts and causes are existents, too, but more epistemologically complex kinds than what are referred to by concepts. For reasons peculiar to my own anti-Objectivist mentality (har-har), I refer to facts as "duplex existents" and to causes as "triplex existents." And accordingly, the name I give in my system to the kind of things that concepts refer to is "simplex existents." The reason for this new jargon has to do with the way that I extend Rand's unit-perspective into the areas of propositions and arguments. I presented this in 1996 to David Kelley's online seminar about propositions. Needless to say, it hasn't caught on yet! But don't let it scare you. It's very little different from what we learned in English grammar about simple, compound, and complex sentences, except that here we have simplex existents ("existents"), duplex existents (facts), and triplex existents (reasons or causes). They're all existents, just on different levels of epistemological complexity. More on this another day!

[MikeJoyous]

Hi Roger:)

Doin' OK. Are you still playing ye piano at Disneyland? If so, when? I'm overdue to go to Disneyland again --I got the primal urge!

About your explanation of "fact"---when I thought it over, I had to admit (albeit reluctantly) that you're right about this:) A "fact" does indeed refer to that which is true, not an idea about that which is true!

best,

Mike

[Roger Bissell]

Hi, again, Mike. Please feel free to indulge your primal urges! :-)

I play trombone (not piano) at the Magic Kingdom, most weeks from Thursday through Monday. (I'm usually off Tuesday and Wednesday.) My work location is basically Main Street, in or near Town Square. I'm in the 15-piece Disneyland Band in the morning, and in a 9-piece Brass Band in the afternoon.

How that relates to epistemology is not clear? Hmmm, using Rand's unit-perspective <mumble, mumble>, OK, here, try this:

The Disneyland Band is an existent.

That the Disneyland Band is a group that works 5 days a week is a fact.

"The Disneyland Band is a group that works 5 days a week" is a proposition.

Here, for the curious, is an example of how duplex units function in propositions:

In the above proposition, the unit referred to by "The Disneyland Band" is identical to one of the units referred to by "a group that works 5 days a week." Thus, the same unit has a dual or "duplex" function in the above proposition. And this is the pattern of unit-functioning in ALL propositions.

Something similar operates in syllogisms, but I won't go into that here, because I already sense that eyes are glazing over! :-)

REB

[tndbay]

too bad rand didn't have skinner to give her some solid neurological foundations to tie epistemology to it.

for truth is implicit and can be extracted automatically- this is what brains do. their relationship in time makes it possible to distinguish a cause from its effect.

validating it with logic requires language, but long chain associations, whether labelled, defined and validated or not still are in the genus 'concept'

[Robert Campbell]

tndbay,

Your last post lost me in a couple of places.

B. F. Skinner wasn't terribly interested in neurology. He maintained that he could account for learning without knowing the details of the organism's neurology, or waiting for results from the wet labs.

What's more, I don't see how a concept is an association, or a chain of associations. Associationism is currently at a very low ebb in the cognitive sciences, because it isn't able to explain much of anything that the mind does.

Robert Campbell

[tndbay]

i have trained animals. i actually design the concepts and implant them in the animals. association is how the animal learns automatically.

it doesn't matter to me what is fashionable or not because i see it work in daily life.

i don't find a thing that it fails to explain- and as my typing improves and 'ing' becomes a single efferent concept i find i can type faster. 'ion' is now a single element.

phonics was the program of associations that enabled me to read.

rehearsal improves my performance.

learning is a habit i acquired by developing the habit. when i was born i had only the automatic associative learning to use. it was not til a million habits, each a long chain of associations, got me to using language and defining words that i had an alternate means of ingesting information.

so much for my testimony that associative learning works- i use it successfully and it never fails me, so it has passed all my criteria for validity.

what do you think a concept is?

pete

[Roger Bissell]

Roger,

...your "ontologically" versus "epistemologically" objective distinction ...

Just for clarification, for anyone who reads my essay forthcoming in Journal of Ayn Rand Studies vol. 9, no. 1, please note that I have replaced the above terminology with "existentially" versus "cognitively" objective, so that I can use the abbreviations ObjectiveE to connote both existential and existence, and the abbreviation ObjectiveC to connote both cognitive and consciousness.

I have tried to avoid "alphabet soup" as much as possible, but I have referred to Rand's trichotomy as IOS, short for intrinsic-objective-subjective, which coincidentally is the abbreviation for the original incarnation of The Atlas Society (formerly Institute for Objectivist Studies, then The Objectivist Center/TOC) -- and I thought that it would make ObjectiveE and ObjectiveC slide a bit easier through the reader's mind on repeated encounters if the letters designated terms that fit them, which "ontologically" and "epistemologically" did not.

That ends this brief, perhaps unnecessary note of clarification.

REB

[BaalChatzaf]

The redness of my car is an existent (viz., an attribute), and as such, it is a referent of the concept "red."

That my car is red is a fact, and that fact is the referent of the proposition "My car is red."

The relationship between facts and propositions is very easy to see in the following: since it is a fact THAT my car is red, I can refer to this fact by forming a proposition of the words that follow THAT: "My car is red."

The light radiating or reflecting of your car is the existent. The redness of your car is how your eye and visual cortex respond to that light. And your car "is" red only if it is reflecting light which has a red component. In a sodium light, you don't see your car as red at all. The attribute you refer to is the paint on your car which absorbs most other light frequencies, except for the frequencies corresponding to "red".

Perception seems relatively unimportant to pursue, once you concede that the senses are valid. But introspection is an issue with a lot higher octane, so to speak. People really want to know that introspection is valid, and that it connects us with "inner reality."

Alas! There is no empirical test a second party can do to verify your introspections. You either believe they are "true" or you don't. You have no way (nor does anyone else) of distinguishing them from hallucinations or false memories. Neither do I, which is why I gave up introspection for Lent. I restrict myself to thinking and recalling stuff.

Well, is this "inner reality" that we view introspectively in the form of mental qualities ("qualia") intrinsic to the brain -- a la naive realism -- or is it something that arises as our brains cognitively scan what they are doing? If the latter, then "qualia" are the brain as viewed introspectively, rather than "something else" that is somehow "in" the brain.

At this juncture nobody really knows what qualia are in terms of the electro-chemical functioning of our brains. It is a very wide open question and perhaps it may never be solved. It could be we that are not smart enough to solve it. Your locution of brains "scanning" siuggests the idea of a little person in your head checking things. This is an instance of the fallacy of the Cartesion Theatre. Read -Consciousness Explained- by Daniel Dennett. He deconstructs this fallacy thoroughly. We are in a position to understand (pretty well) what goes on in the nervous system of a nemotode. Perhaps it would require a being with a hundred pound brain and ten thousand times our intelligence to figure out what is going on in our heads. But this hypthothetical smart critter probably won't understand what is going on in his head. It seems that it takes a brain bigger than your brain to understand your brain. So it seems. Just a hunch so don't take my speculation too seriously.

If this sounds a bit foreign, think of how much sorting out could have been done 35 years ago, if Rand hadn't shoo-ed Peikoff away from applying the trichotomy analysis to perception, and he had continued his good work, applying it to introspection. There might have been some confusion and floundering, but I think the issue would have been resolved long ago, and we'd have a decent grasp of the mind-body relationship. Instead, it's more like a Tower of Babel when you discuss it with Objectivists -- not to mention other folks!

You got that right!

If a physicist or a chemist ever seriously invoked his introspections in a proposed journal article, it would be bounced forthwith. No reputable publisher would even assign a referee to examine the article. The way I see it introspection and $1.67 will get you a large French roast at the local Dunkin' Donuts ™. Introspection and common sense are right up there as less than reliable guides to finding out what is really happening Out There. Introspection isn't even reliable for finding out what is happening In Here either. The only safe form of introspection is imagining, which you know right up front is just --- well ---- imaginary. Imagination and gedanken experiments have yielded good results on occasion, but it still takes empirical witness by both first and second parties to establish the soundness of the imagining. That is why theories have to be tested experimentall and scientific experiments have to be verified and replicated by second parties to be accepted as factual.

Extrospective witness can be relied on (particularly if replicated). Introspective witness is dicey at best. External witness double checked empirically is the most reliable way to truth.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[tjohnson]

I hope you can see that there are problems with the definition you offer for "fact." My dictionary defines "fact" pretty closely to the way I see it: a thing that is indisputably the case.

This does not make sense, only a statement can be disputed - not a "thing". Also, any statement can be disputed, a fact is a statement that a reasonable person familiar with the evidence would not dispute.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

A fact is merely something that exists. How we process our perception of it is another matter, related but different.

Michael

[tjohnson]

A fact is merely something that exists. How we process our perception of it is another matter, related but different.

Michael

Using Roger's test doesn't work for this.

That my car is silver is a fact.

That my car is silver is something that exists. (??) Hmm... your car exists, the paint on it does, but "my car is silver" does not exist, except as a statement.

Another example: on the tv show "Dragnet," Joe Friday said:

"Just the facts, ma'am."

"Just the things that exist. (??)

[Roger Bissell]

I hope you can see that there are problems with the definition you offer for "fact." My dictionary defines "fact" pretty closely to the way I see it: a thing that is indisputably the case.

This does not make sense, only a statement can be disputed - not a "thing". Also, any statement can be disputed, a fact is a statement that a reasonable person familiar with the evidence would not dispute.

I think you're right in disputing the dictionary definition I mentioned. :-)

But we certainly can dispute facts. We can argue about whether or not something is the case, whether or not something is a fact--and that is what is meant by "disputing the facts."

And I also disagree with your claim that a fact is a statement. We acknowledge that facts exist (i.e., "things are the case that") independent of our awareness of them, and we also form statements about things that are the case (facts). Facts are existential and statements are cognitive, and this distinction is important and necessary.

"My car is silver" is a statement. Whatever we might think about the color of my car, I think we would both agree (i.e., not dispute) that that is a statement. ~That~ my car is silver is (happens to be, anyway) a fact. That it is silver is the case (i.e., is a fact) whether or not we form a statement about it.

Facts are not simple things like entities or attributes or actions. They are compound things, i.e., relationships or states of affairs between one thing and another thing. Chicago's being south of Milwaukee is a fact, i.e., something about Chicago in relation to Milwaukee. An entity's being the cause of its actions is a fact, something about entities in relation to their actions. My being Rachel's father is a fact, something about me in relation to Rachel.

REB

[Roger Bissell]

A fact is merely something that exists. How we process our perception of it is another matter, related but different.

Michael

Using Roger's test doesn't work for this.

That my car is silver is a fact.

That my car is silver is something that exists. (??) Hmm... your car exists, the paint on it does, but "my car is silver" does not exist, except as a statement.

Another example: on the tv show "Dragnet," Joe Friday said:

"Just the facts, ma'am."

"Just the things that exist. (??)

Michael, you are right that facts exist independent of our awareness, but they are not simple things like entities, attributes, actions. Facts are ~things about~ things that exist. Two of the things about my car, which exists, are its being silver and its having four wheels. The car is an existent. That my car is silver, or that it has four wheels, is a fact. Both my car and the facts about my car exist independent of my awareness of them. (And please don't confuse the color of my car -- which is its attribute of being able to reflect some light waves and absorb others -- with my sensory awareness of its color. Silver is the color of my car as it appears to me under "normal" lighting conditions -- and silver is the form in which I am aware of the color of my car under "normal" lighting conditions. [Please don't turn on the sodium light, Ba'al!])

"Just the facts, ma'am" = "Just things about things that exist, ma'am." :-)

REB

P.S. -- Sorry I earlier referred to my car as being red. That's my ~other~ car. :-)

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Roger,

The existence of an entity is a fact. That's the way it is in Objectivism the last time I checked. Entities are facts irrespective of our awareness of them. So are attributes, etc.

GS,

I have no idea what you are talking about.

Michael

[Roger Bissell]

The existence of an entity is a fact. That's the way it is in Objectivism the last time I checked. Entities are facts irrespective of our awareness of them. So are attributes, etc.

Michael, an entity or an attribute is an existent. The existence of an entity or an attribute of an entity is a fact.

Remember, I said a fact is ~something about~ an existent. Its being an existent, its having a nature, its being somewhere, it's existing at some time -- all of these are things about an existent, things that are so "irrespective of our awareness of them."

I see there as being three tiers of existents or things in reality.

1. Simple things or existents like entities, attributes, and actions. Existents are grasped by concepts.

2. Things about existents, connections between existents, i.e., facts -- such as silver being the color of my car, Ayn Rand's attributes being the identity of Ayn Rand, your being the cause of your actions, X's being a thing of reality (an existent), Chicago's being south of Milwaukee, Roger's being the father of Rachel. Any time you have an expression "X's being Y of Z," you have a fact that can be stated as a (categorical) proposition: "Ayn Rand's attributes are her identity," "You are the cause of your actions," "X exists," "Chicago is south of Milwaukee," "Roger is Rachel's father." Facts are grasped by propositions.

3. Connections between facts, i.e., reasons or causes. Just as facts are based on connections between existents, so reasons or causes are based on connections between facts. If I lay out a valid syllogism such as All men are mortal, Socrates is a man, therefore Socrates is mortal, I am arguing that all men's being mortal is the reason or cause of Socrates's being mortal. Reasons/causes are grasped by arguments.

How we grasp these three tiers of existents are the respective focuses of the three branches of logic: concepts, propositions, arguments. There is a very good presentation of this approach in Henry Veatch's Intentional Logic or the text he co-wrote with Francis Parker, Logic as a Human Instrument. No other logicians that I am aware of conceive of logic in quite this clear a manner. Kelley comes close.

REB

[tjohnson]

Suppose I am colour blind and your red car looks green to me, or whatever. This means colour is not an attribute of the car and so not independent of observer. But the statement 'my car is red' will still be considered a fact by most people, who can see normally. Similar arguments apply to all our sensory functionality. 'Factness' is about agreement with statements.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Roger,

I have a real problem trying to separate the existence of anything from the existent itself. Existence is inherent in its very, er... existence. And that's a fact.

(btw - I use "truth" as a proposition in the manner you are using "fact.")

Michael

[John Dailey]

~ Like MSK, I've become lost in all this...clarification. Methinks all discussants are getting tied up in (sorry GS) mere semantics of word-use ('fact'/'exist'/'perceive'/etc.)

~ An aside for GS: the fact (oops) that one does not perceive/experience a car color is irrelevent to it's having that color (or, put another way, reflecting light within a specific e-m range); we do not hear what bats hear, ntl...the 'sounds' are there.

LLAP

J:D

[Roger Bissell]

Roger,

I have a real problem trying to separate the existence of anything from the existent itself. Existence is inherent in its very, er... existence. And that's a fact.

(btw - I use "truth" as a proposition in the manner you are using "fact.") [emphasis added -- REB]

Michael

Good thing Rand's not still alive, or she would kick your butt! :poke:

In her letter dated Jan. 3, 1961, in which she admonished John Hospers for confusing "truth" with "facts," Rand wrote:

"Truth" is a concept that refers to epistemology, not to metaphysics; to consciousness, not to existence or reality. "Facts" cannot be "true" or "false"; facts are ("existence exists"). "Facts" are the standard of truth or falsehood; it is by means of "facts" that we determine whether an idea of ours is true or false. "Truth" is the attribute of an idea in somebody's consciousness (the relationship of that idea to the facts of reality) and it cannot exist apart from a consciousness. You say: "There are truths even when nobody knows them and nobody recognizes them." No, there are "facts" even when nobody knows them and nobody recognizes them; these "facts" are potentially the material of truths; the recognition of these "facts" by some human consciousness constitutes "truths." [Letters of Ayn Rand, p. 528, emphasis in original]

I think this is one of the most helpful, most important things that Rand ever said on epistemology, and it is buried in a letter to Hospers. <sigh> To this insightful passage, I would add only the obvious corollary of Rand's first sentence: "Fact" is a concept that refers to metaphysics, not to epistemology; to existence or reality, not to consciousness.

Some people err by trying to make truth independent of consciousness. Some err by trying to make facts dependent on consciousness. (Not to name any names here. ) Equating "truth" and "fact", or "using" them in the same "manner," is a sign of one or the other of these errors. We need both concepts. They are importantly related to one another. But they don't mean the same thing.

REB

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Roger,

Where are you saying anything different than what I said?

You are the one claiming that entities do not have an existence separate from human awareness, i.e., they are not facts. Or did I misunderstand you?

Michael

[tjohnson]

~ An aside for GS: the fact (oops) that one does not perceive/experience a car color is irrelevent to it's having that color (or, put another way, reflecting light within a specific e-m range); we do not hear what bats hear, ntl...the 'sounds' are there.

LLAP

J:D

It is bewildering to me how you can say an object's attributes are independent of the observer. How can we ever discover attributes if we cannot sense them? We cannot, and since everyone has their own individual "take" (called first order abstractions in GS) on things we end up having to agree on descriptions, which we call 'facts' when we have widespread agreement.

[Roger Bissell]

Roger,

Where are you saying anything different than what I said?

You are the one claiming that entities do not have an existence separate from human awareness, i.e., they are not facts. Or did I misunderstand you?

Michael

Yes, you did.

Entities exist separate from human awareness. Things about entities (facts) exist separate from human awareness. Connections between facts (e.g., causes) exist separate from human awareness.

I am simply saying that entities are not the same thing as facts. Facts are things about entities, and things about other existents.

E.g., it is a fact that mass is an attribute of entities. The fact is not mass, nor entities, nor attribute, but THAT mass IS an attribute of entities. Being an attribute of entities is the relationship between mass and entities, and THAT mass IS an attribute of entities is the fact about that relationship.

All of this exists separate from human awareness.

REB