Rand's Trichotomies

[studiodekadent]

We all know about the IOS Trichotomy, but there are many others.... I am doing a quick catalog, comments appreciated.

1. Relationship Between Consciousness And Reality (Metaphysics/Epistemology)

a ) Consciousness gains knowlege diaphanously from ultimate reality (Intrinsicism (Plato, Rationalism, Faith))

b ) Consciousness actively integrates empirical data observed by the person (Objectivism (Rand, Locke, Aristotle, Empiricism))

c ) The nature of consciousness prevents 'unfiltered' understanding of reality (Subjectivism (Kant, German Idealism, Skepticism))

2. Problem Of Universals (Epistemology)

a ) Concepts refer to mind-external intrinsic essences/properties/forms (Intrinsicism (Plato, Aristotle))

b ) Concepts refer to integrated mental identifications of things based on similar properties (Objectivism)

c ) Concepts refer to purely mental phenomena disconnected from 'out there' (Subjectivism (Fichte, Neitzsche))

3. Mind-Body Dichotomy (Human Nature)

a ) Humans are fundamentally spirit/mind (Mystics of Spirit (religion, hippies on LSD, mysticism))

b ) Humans are an integrated organism, both rational and animal (Objectivism)

c ) Humans are fundamentally flesh/body (Mystics of Muscle (Marxism, Behaviorism, Reductive Physicalism, Determinism))

4. Cognitive Style (Cognition/Psycho-Epistemology)

a ) Floating Abstractions with no relationship to reality ("M" in DIM, Witch-Doctors, New Age etc)

b ) Properly Formed Concepts (Objectivism)

c ) Cognitive Disintegration ("D" in DIM, Atillas, Concrete-Bound, Failure to differentiate essentials from nonessentials)

5. Ethics

a ) Sacrifice Self To Others ((Altruism) Auguste Comte, Religion)

b ) No-Sacrifice Ever, Rational Selfishness (Objectivism)

c ) Sacrifice Others To Self ((Predation) Neitzsche)

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Replying to Rand's Trichomies???

Are you talking about trichomes or trichotomies?

trich·ome (trkm, trkm)

n.

A hairlike or bristlelike outgrowth, as from the epidermis of a plant.

tri·chot·o·my (tr-kt-m)

n. pl. tri·chot·o·mies

1. Division into three parts or elements.

2. A system based on three parts or elements.

(I am changing the title.)

Michael

[Reidy]

Thus, etymologically, the word could mean either "cutting in three" or "haircut."

[Dragonfly]

I think this is a severe case of trichoschisis, which can lead to trichotillomania.

[studiodekadent]

Thanks for fixing up the spelling error.

Does anyone want to comment on the substance of the post?

[Brant Gaede]

We all know about the IOS Trichotomy, but there are many others.... I am doing a quick catalog, comments appreciated.

1. Relationship Between Consciousness And Reality (Metaphysics/Epistemology)

a ) Consciousness gains knowlege diaphanously from ultimate reality (Intrinsicism (Plato, Rationalism, Faith))

b ) Consciousness actively integrates empirical data observed by the person (Objectivism (Rand, Locke, Aristotle, Empiricism))

c ) The nature of consciousness prevents 'unfiltered' understanding of reality (Subjectivism (Kant, German Idealism, Skepticism))

2. Problem Of Universals (Epistemology)

a ) Concepts refer to mind-external intrinsic essences/properties/forms (Intrinsicism (Plato, Aristotle))

b ) Concepts refer to integrated mental identifications of things based on similar properties (Objectivism)

c ) Concepts refer to purely mental phenomena disconnected from 'out there' (Subjectivism (Fichte, Neitzsche))

3. Mind-Body Dichotomy (Human Nature)

a ) Humans are fundamentally spirit/mind (Mystics of Spirit (religion, hippies on LSD, mysticism))

b ) Humans are an integrated organism, both rational and animal (Objectivism)

c ) Humans are fundamentally flesh/body (Mystics of Muscle (Marxism, Behaviorism, Reductive Physicalism, Determinism))

4. Cognitive Style (Cognition/Psycho-Epistemology)

a ) Floating Abstractions with no relationship to reality ("M" in DIM, Witch-Doctors, New Age etc)

b ) Properly Formed Concepts (Objectivism)

c ) Cognitive Disintegration ("D" in DIM, Atillas, Concrete-Bound, Failure to differentiate essentials from nonessentials)

5. Ethics

a ) Sacrifice Self To Others ((Altruism) Auguste Comte, Religion)

b ) No-Sacrifice Ever, Rational Selfishness (Objectivism)

c ) Sacrifice Others To Self ((Predation) Neitzsche)

This outline is turning Objectivist catechism into Objectivist jargon. The premise is Objectivism is perfect.

Re 5. Ethics: I would use "rational self-interest," because "rational selfishness" is an oxymoron when we consider Rand misused and misdefined the word in "The Virtue of Selfishness," apparently for polemical reasons. The fact remains, regardless, that any basic principle aside, the whole field of ethics is a wide open book with many blank pages. The only ethics I know of that might be truly objectified pertains directly to human rights: you don't violate mine and I don't violate yours. We can attack altruism as the moral basis for collectivism and collectivism for rights violations = the right of a man, the right of a woman, the right of a human being to live for his own sake, but not as a moral duty regarding his person. It is immoral to preach or teach otherwise for the damage that might do to others, especially children for that is essentially an attack on human happiness and human rights.

What is there about one man that gives him the right to violate the rights of any other man? Where is the morality in that? The immorality is obvious enough. Moral egalitarianism is the foundation of freedom. There is not one thing that one can do to make oneself morally superior to any other human being. However, one can make oneself morally less than other human beings by violating rights and advocating their violation and advocating altruism which is the base of moral in-egalitarianism and said rights violations.

--Brant

[Victor Pross]

Moral egalitarianism is the foundation of freedom.

Brant,

Really? Me thinks not. Egalitarianism comes in many forms, all of which are destructive: from equality of opportunity, to equality of results, and it always has a single result. Those that have achieved values must sacrifice them to those that don't. An egalitarian wants equality, not under the law, but in all practical consequences: equality of income, of talent and ability. And, of course, of outcome. It is a quest not for political quality, but of metaphysical quality—the quality of personal attributes and virtues (regardless of natural endowment or individual choice, performance, and character). As Rand pointed, it is not man-made institutions, but nature, i.e., reality, that they propose to fight—by means of manmade institutions.

-Victor

Edited April 15, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Brant Gaede]

In regard to Ayn Rand and her misrepresenting the dictionary definition of "selfishness," I would have been much more sympathetic to the book title if she had given the correct dictionary definition and announced that that definition was WRONG and that she was fighting for the CORRECT definition in both in practical reality and all the wrong dictionaries through her philosophy. Please note, though, that the definition she gave as correct (the dictionary definition) is so insipid and uninspiring that one might wonder why she titled her book that way. What gave the book title its power is the juxtaposition for virtue and evil, which means that Ayn Rand was using "selfishness" as a kind of stolen concept (for polemical purposes).

When evil was destroyed in "Atlas Shrugged" by the end of 'the sanctions of the victims,' all the zip went out of the book too. "The End." You see, the real trick for Randian heroes would have been to get a lot of people together, arm them to the teeth and go kick some Washington ass. But what more powerful response to the Soviet state could a mere writer do than to deny those thugs their very manhood through fiction, which was the only real option open to her?

In her much older age, as she got further and further from the USSR and what it did to her, her family and others she had known and loved, she became more conservative and less libertarian. Many libertarians actually believe in the practicality of dealing with bad guys by denying them sanction. Well, sometimes that might work and sometimes not. In any case, the conservative Ayn Rand could announce at the Ford Hall Forum (I was there, I heard her say it) that she would welcome a "just" war against the Soviet Union. Now there are many ways to fight a war without throwing nuclear bombs, but in the early 1970s war with the USSR was commonly understood and thought to be nuclear warfare.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

Moral egalitarianism is the foundation of freedom.

Brant,

Really? Me thinks not. Egalitarianism comes in many forms, all of which are destructive: from equality of opportunity, to equality of results, and it always has a single result. Those that have achieved values must sacrifice them to those that don't. An egalitarian wants equality, not under the law, but in all practical consequences: equality of income, of talent and ability. And, of course, of outcome. It is a quest not for political quality, but of metaphysical quality—the quality of personal attributes and virtues (regardless of natural endowment or individual choice, performance, and character). As Rand pointed, it is not man-made institutions, but nature, i.e., reality, that they propose to fight—by means of manmade institutions.

-Victor

That's why I said "moral egalitarianism." No, all forms of equality are not destructive. Victor, you quoted me but you didn't read what I wrote.

--Brant

Edited April 15, 2007 by Brant Gaede

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

The right to due process under the law based on identical individual rights is a form of egalitarianism. Rights and legal considerations are equal for all (as stated, at least).

Michael

[SteveWolfer]

The right to due process under the law based on identical individual rights is a form of egalitarianism. Rights and legal considerations are equal for all (as stated, at least).

Well stated, Michael.

• If moral rights are objectively derived from human nature then we all are born with the same rights - king and peasant both.
  
• If our rules of social conduct are derived logically from those moral rights, and only from those moral rights, then we have equality under the law.
  
• If those laws are supported by honest and efficient stuctures and applied rigorously, we will have freedom and justice.
  

Conversely,

• If rights are not derived from human nature and based upon man's life, they will be subjective, arbitrary and collectivist.
  
• If anything other than moral rights are used to make law, laws become tools of prejudice, special interest goups, and an accidental hodge podges of unfair rules that violate rights.
  
• If the structures of law - the political system, the courts, and police - aren't kept honest and true to their purpose they will be hijacked by special purposes or become impotent from internal contradictions. And we will have neither freedom nor justice.
  

Edited April 15, 2007 by Steve Wolfer

[Victor Pross]

Brant, I read you clearly. You speak of “moral egalitarianism” –and I disagree…and MSK makes a good point in correcting me on the issue of LEGAL egalitarianism: All men are equal before the law.

-Victor

Edited April 16, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Brant Gaede]

Thx, Vic. (It's easy to piss me off, but I usually correct myself.) However, moral eagalitarianism results in legal egalitarianism (if not vice versa).

--Brant

Edited April 16, 2007 by Brant Gaede

[Reidy]

In what I think is the best review of Ayn Rand, the Russian Radical, James Lennox points out that Rand emphasizes a number of two-way oppositions in her theory, contrary to Sciabarra's thesis that she wants to transcend them all and unify everything. By enumerating 3-way distinctions as well, you help to strengthen Lennox's point.

She made whatever distinctions and classifications she thought right. I don't see that we're going to accomplish much by concentrating on the ones, the twos or the threes to the exclusion of the rest.

[studiodekadent]

Brant,

Thankyou for your comment. I will agree that Rand (almost deliberately) went against the common use of the term "selfish" but that was provocation. Strictly speaking, "rational self-interest" is more correct. The use of "selfish" to provoke is mostly about rejecting the implication that 'self' is immoral. The traditional use of the word "selfish" I refer to as "predation." But I concede, Objectivists do not use common definitions.

I certainly agree with you that individual rights is based on a particular form of egalitarianism and that this form of egalitarianism is good. However, 'egalitarianism' is often used to refer to ECONOMIC egalitarianism only, especially by self-proclaimed egalitarians. Legal egalitarianism and Rights egalitarianism (equality before the law and equal rights) are based on a form of moral egalitarianism: the idea that there are no intrinsically superior people (i.e. no one's nature makes them superior). Since rights proceed from human nature, if our natures are morally equal (our natures, NOT our characters/actions/achievements) then our rights are equal. So in this way Objectivism supports this form of egalitarianism.

[John Dailey]

~ This thread, upon reading so far, looks like a bunch of debaters looking for a subject (preferably a Rand-established point) to debate-for-the-sake-of-debating-over. I mean, I really don't see a 'problem' here that anyone ostensibly really has...other than "Rand said 'X'", so...

~ Isn't there a good DVD to catch, like SAW II?

LLAP

J:D

[Robert Campbell]

Andrew,

Here's another trichotomy in Rand:

1. Whatever is immoral ought to be illegal (theocratic conservatism, Nanny State-ism)

2. Moral justice is not legal justice, and some immoral acts should not be prohibited by law

3. Only what ought to be illegal is immoral ("economistic" libertarianism, "non-judgmental" modern liberalism)

Not unique to her, but she did give it a pretty crisp formulation.

Robert Campbell

[Robert Campbell]

Peter,

Jim Lennox's review of Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical is more than a bit of a hatchet job.

See Chris Sciabarra's reply here:

http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sciabarra/rad/...ews/lennor.html

Lennox found himself in the peculiar position of trying to downplay Nicholas Lossky's intellectual influence on Ayn Rand, despite her own testimony on the matter.

Subsequent research on Ayn Rand's university transcript has nailed down when Rand took Lossky's course.

And research on drafts of We the Living has turned up a character named Professor Lesskov who is obviously based on him.

Robert Campbell

[Reidy]

To sum up Sciabarra's reply, he doesn't agree with Lennox and he would have liked a more favorable review. This is easy to believe, but so what?

The fact that Rand was a student of Lossky's has been public record since Barbara Branden's 1962 biography in Who is Ayn Rand? and no one has denied it. This doesn't prove an influence on her later thinking. Sciabarra doesn't address the most important point Lennox makes, which is that the book's hand-waving, coulda/mighta/musta biographical inferences aren't convincing.

[Robert Campbell]

Peter,

Before we go any further with this topic, I need to ask whether you've read Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical.

Jim Lennox's effort to cast doubt on Rand's own recollection can be seen in these two full paragraphs from his review (IOS Newsletter version):

The various philosophical currents flowing through post-Revolutionary Petrograd University are briefly summarized before a discussion of the "links between Lossky and Rand" ensues. It opens with a frank admission that "it is almost impossible to establish the exact circumstances of their relationship" (p.84). I would only add that no "inexact influences" are established either. The evidence for a connection consists of: 1) taped interviews with Rand reported in Barbara Branden’s The Passion of Ayn Rand, and the earlier essay "Who is Ayn Rand?"; 2) conflicting recollections of Lossky’s sons, grandson, and a student; 3) Lossky’s memoirs; and 4) archival records regarding events at Petrograd during the period from 1917–1923. Unfortunately, the evidence derived from sources 2–4 is either neutral or negative with respect to a relationship between Lossky and Rand. For example, though Rand recalls a class in ancient philosophy taught by Lossky, there are no records of his teaching such a course. Furthermore, Lossky was removed from Petrograd’s faculty by the Soviets in 1921, before Rand entered, and within the year he had left Russia forever. Dr. Sciabarra speculates that, in the interim, he may have given lectures at the University’s Institute for Scientific Research, which Rand may have attended. But he also presents evidence that Lossky was ill a good deal of this time.

The impact of this evidence is to increase the reader’s skepticism about an intellectual relationship between Rand and Lossky. Yet, while admitting there is no other evidence supporting Rand’s recollection, he later concludes: "By another ‘accident’ of historical circumstance, young Alissa Rosenbaum had been among the very last students taught by Lossky in his native homeland" (p.91). Similarly, the earlier speculation that Alissa could have learned of Lossky while in prep school (p.71) later becomes a certainty (p.90). Such upgrading of possibilities into established conclusions without additional evidence is a persistent feature of The Russian Radical.

Subsequent research has shown that, in fact, Ayn Rand was one of the last students taught by Lossky before he was expelled from the Soviet Union.

Lennox provides no reasons for believing that Rand made up her recollection of taking a course from Lossky. Yet he stops just short of drawing that conclusion. What would drive a proponent of strict Peikovian orthodoxy to question Rand's credibility in such a way?

Robert Campbell

[Reidy]

I read it when it first came out. The historical stuff went over my head, and what didn't struck me as yet another attempt to rationalize Rand into something she patently wasn't - postmodernist leftist in this case, Christian, Jew, Taoist (not making that up), flower child, 60s radical, Limbaugh/Buchanan social conservative or Manhattan/LA westside establishment liberal in others. Looking back, I see that the expected surge of interest in Rand on the part of the academic left didn't happen, "mainstream" academic Objectivists haven't followed up, and rank-and-file Objectivists spend more time these days talking about Valliant (pretty much as I predicted ten years ago on the old ATL list). Sciabarra is enormously intelligent, hard-working and sincere, but that doesn't make him right.

Proof has come to light since he wrote his book and Lennox wrote his review, that Rand was enrolled as a student of Lossky. This is not sufficent to establish an intellectual relationship - an influence of Lossky's thought on hers. Lennox is not "a proponent of strict Peikovian orthodoxy." The review I linked to is at the Atlas Society / TOC / IOS website, and he was once on the organization's board.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Pete,

I have not finished RR yet. Yet my impression is vastly different than yours. The part I read was done "cold." I had no idea of all the controversy surrounding this issue when I read the part I did. I approached it as a scholarly work and I saw that it started correctly by mentioning all of the different strains of thought in the Objectivist world and went on from there.

I am no friend of academic language and one of my plans is to make a layman's outline of that book here on OL, with a glossary as we go along. For example, when I first read that Rand rejected formal dualism, I had no idea of what that meant. Now I have an idea and it still may be incomplete. I did not know what dialectics was beyond the Marx/Hegel model. How about the hermeneutic philosophers? Deontological ethics? Infallibalist premises and bifurcated categories?

So I admit it is a tough book.

Maybe the part about Rand being a flower child, Christian and so forth is in the section of the book I have not read. I haven't found it yet.

Michael

[Ellen Stuttle]

Maybe the part about Rand being a flower child, Christian and so forth is in the section of the book I have not read. I haven't found it yet.

It's been a number of years since I read the book, but I don't recall any of that stuff being in it anywhere. As to the influence of Russian Radical, I think that Peter Reidy is forgetting what the mythology of Rand was like at the time when that book appeared: the image of Rand, sold by her as its first source, of her not having gone through an intellectual development, of her having "always" held "the same" philosophy, the Athena-from-the-head-of-Zeus image. Today, even the Orthodox accept -- without giving any credit to Chris Sciabarra's work -- that this image isn't an accurate one. Whether specific speculations in Chris' account of formative influences is correct or not, I think is minor compared to the overarching thesis that, yes, Rand did, as does every other thinker, arise from an intellectual context and that the context in which she grew up and echoes of which would always remain in her work was Russian. The sheer fact that we can talk on this list -- as we have recently in another thread -- about what sort of ideas of evolution Rand might have gotten from her schooling is a change from any form of discussion about Rand which could even have been had except with the rare Objectivist back in "the old days." Just try back then -- I did try -- to suggest to folks who had bought the Athena image of Rand that Rand's early intellectual milieu might have had some relevance to her thinking.

I got into a brief exchange with Fred Weiss on SOLO about RR, a year or so ago when I posted a few blips on that list. I was entertained at seeing even Fred Weiss, who considers Chris Sciabarra nothing short of EVIL, saying things like, no one denies that Rand after all was educated in a Russian context. That's today. 'Tisn't the tune Fred and co were singing back in the '70s. Chris' work -- though I agree with Peter that it hasn't inspired a "surge of interest in Rand on the part of the academic left" -- has had the effect of inspiring interest even on the part of the Orthodox in Rand's educational history. (And recall that the ARI-archives folks availed themselves of Chris' help in regard to the transcript.)

A detail, Peter, from what you wrote. You said:

Looking back, I see that the expected surge of interest in Rand on the part of the academic left didn't happen, "mainstream" academic Objectivists haven't followed up, and rank-and-file Objectivists spend more time these days talking about Valliant (pretty much as I predicted ten years ago on the old ATL list).

Your "pretty much" can cover latitude of interpretation, but just to have the record straight here: I for sure do not recall, on your part or anyone else's, any mention of James Valliant on the old ATL list. I was a member of that list from its day #1. The first I ever heard of James Valliant was a couple years ago when his book was published. (Nor has there been any discussion of PARC on A2; the folks who post there -- not many these days -- aren't interested in details of specifically O'ist-world doings. I think PARC's existence was cursorily mentioned there a time or two, but that's it.)

Ellen

___

[Reidy]

Sciabarra doesn't try to make Rand out as a flower child, a Christian, etc., but others have. The point was that I've always found such attempts unconvincing, and this is another. They remind me of the story of the blind men and the elephant.

Fred Weiss is the expert on what Fred Weiss believed at any given time, but Rand freely acknowledged her Soviet schooling nearly 50 years ago in her intro to We the Living, her interviews with Barbara Branden and her Madamoiselle interview (which would be very interesting to revive today; it ran in 62 or thereabouts), or 70 years ago in the novel itself. New information is always welcome, but Sciabarra's biographical findings don't contradict Rand.

Objectivists weren't talking about Valliant 10 years ago, but we were talking about ARRR. That's why I said "pretty much."

Edited April 19, 2007 by Reidy

[Dragonfly]

I have not finished RR yet.

Do you ever finish a book? I see in my imagination a huge tower of books on your nightstand, all with bookmarks somewhere around page 40 or so... :devil: