Problem Of Universals; Empirical vs. Abstract Properties

[Roger Bissell]

I understand your point. I agree with you, but I think you are kind of misunderstanding me. What I am asking is whether Rand's solution to the problem of universals, which I can see working easily for abstract properties (i.e. the "DVD-ness" in a DVD, the "Apple-ness" in an apple), but I find it doesnt account for empirical properties. However Ba'al was right that I was mixing up the conceptual level with the perceptual level. All fixed now.

Andrew,

"Conceptual level with the perceptual level" is not the kind of language I have seen Bob use. From what I see, he doesn't really have any room for "percept" in his thinking (at least in the comments I have read). He goes from sensory input directly to a different kind of mental processing, structuring the input mentally in a manner that bears no relation to it in reality (or the entity it was reflected or emanated from), but kinda does.

This has nothing to do with what "conceptual level" and "perceptual level" mean in Objectivism.

Michael

Rand was a mathematical ignoramus along with her lap dog L.P. Neither of them have any real comprehension of logic, mathematics or physics.

Had I not become a grad-school dropout I would have done my PhD thesis in logic. I spent over forty years of my life doing applied mathematics and logic and getting paid (rather well) for it.

Bob, I am with you on all of this.

In regard to Rand, Peikoff and mathematics/logic, I think that Rand was actually better than Peikoff on her understanding of mathematics. Peikoff for years has persisted in referring to mathematics as essentially deductive, when it is clear to me (and other such as George Polya) that there is a major and crucial role for "creative induction" to play in learning and discovering mathematical principles. I would go so far as to say that the absence of inductive methodology from high school algebra is a chief contributing factor to the rampant rationalism (floating abstraction mongering) that goes on in academia and in the Objectivist movement as well.

I, too, have a passion for mathematics and logic, and I have made some rather interesting (if esoteric) discoveries using my own brand of "creative induction." (I.e., induction) But I think that one of the absolutely most powerful tools, yet to be fully appreciated and exploited, is the tetrachotomy -- i.e., the conjoining of two true dichotomies. My first published comments on and application of this are in an essay to appear in the Fall 2007 issue of The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies. I'll let you know when it's available. I think you'll be interested in reading it.

Best to all,

REB

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Roger,

I'm merely curious. Do you think Rand had no real comprehension of logic?

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

Roger,

I'm merely curious. Do you think Rand had no real comprehension of logic?

Michael

If you wanted a definition of the field of medicine, who would you go to: a novelist or a physician?

It works the same way for logic.

How did she define logic?

Logicians who get paid for doing logic define logic as the art/discipline of valid inference. Now how did Rand define it?

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited August 25, 2007 by BaalChatzaf

[BaalChatzaf]

Everything in my "mind" starts in my senses.

Bob,

Universals don't for you. You said so yourself. You said universals are in the brain only. Are you now saying something else?

Michael,

Your senses are part of your brain.

--Brant

The retinas of the eye sare forward extensions of the visual cortex connected by substantial nerve fibers (the optic nerves) to the back of the head. Most of the visual cortex is in the back of the head. The retinas which catch the light focused on them by the lenses are in the front.

There is no "bright line" between the visual sense and the branial processing of information produced by the eyes. It is all one unbroken process.

Some Objectivists would profit greatly by consulting works on physiology. I am sure Rand would have agreed that humans are what they are and they have specific and discernible characteristics including their physical makeup.

But what do I know? I am just a concrete bound materialistic pragmatic mystic of muscle. In short, I pay attention to the details. The details are where both God and the Devil live.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Roger Bissell]

Roger,

I'm merely curious. Do you think Rand had no real comprehension of logic?

Michael

If you wanted a definition of the field of medicine, who would you go to: a novelist or a physician?

It works the same way for logic.

How did she define logic?

Logicians who get paid for doing logic define logic as the art/discipline of valid inference. Now how did Rand define it?

Ba'al Chatzaf

Michael, I realize that Rand was perfectly capable of thinking and writing logically, especially when her emotions did not get the better of her. (My favorite example of the latter is her essay "The Age of Envy," where she flip-flops between conceding that "haters" are and are not members of the human race.)

I also acknowledge that she knew the essentialness of the Law of Identity (and Contradiction and Excluded Middle) to logical reasoning.

But beyond this, she didn't teach me a hell of a lot about logic. In particular, I learned almost nothing from her about propositions, which are the vehicle of truth, after all. In contrast, one of the very best (IMO) traditional Aristotelian logic text books -- Intentional Logic by Henry B. Veatch -- though snidely referred to by some of the ARI crowd, was an enormous help to me in learning the nature of propositions. (By the way, his phrase "cognitive tool" very likely was the unacknowledged origin of Rand's pet term "tools of cognition.")

If she had a deep comprehension of logic, beyond what I noted above, I have yet to see evidence of it. She was like a talented musician, whose knowledge of musical theory is sketchy at best. She knew it was important to play in tune, and she could, but she knew very little about the temperament systems, so to speak.

Yet, she did grasp the fact that developing a network of concepts was similar to the processes of induction and deduction, and that there was an analogy between arithmetic and algebra on the one hand and percepts and concepts on the other. (Concepts are the algebra of cognition, she said. That being so, I wonder why she never noted that propositions are the equations of cognition.) So, I will give her that.

But I think you can get a really good picture of how deep a philosopher's understanding is on a subject, when you look at the work of their students, especially their pet students, the ones they hovered over for years.

Peikoff's course on logic (c. 1974) was not much help (and he had Rand in the wings, helping him, as he did with his other courses at the time), especially since I'd already had a good college course on symbolic logic. There is not much there that you can't get much better from one of the standard texts such as Hurley or Copi. Or, better yet, David Kelley's book (now in its 3rd edition) on logic.

Yet, even Kelley misses some golden opportunities to answer some of the long-standing problems in logic, such as "Existential Import." (What is the meaning and truth-status of propositions that refer to things that don't exist?), or to explain the deep significance of "Standard Form" and why this is much more than just an aid to clearer working of inference patterns, or (for that matter) to extend Rand's file-folder metaphor in a unifying way to tie together all of logic.

When I write my book on logic....

REB

[Brendan Hutching]

I couldn't figure out who you are by reading your profile, so I read some of your posts. It is obvious that you are "Epistemological Man!"

Just coincidence. I first came across Rand back in the 80s when I picked up AS in a second-hand bookshop. I recognised the name of author, but I can’t say now how I first heard of her, possibly in a newspaper or magazine article.

Reading AS is like stepping into an alternate universe, strange and unsettling, like and old black and white movie. Human beings are a strange breed. They adopt intellectual and aesthetic viewpoints that make them strange to each other.

Brendan

[BaalChatzaf]

Reading AS is like stepping into an alternate universe, strange and unsettling, like and old black and white movie. Human beings are a strange breed. They adopt intellectual and aesthetic viewpoints that make them strange to each other.

Brendan

That observation astute. -Atlas Shrugged- could be seen as Alternative History, a sub genre of Science Fiction. That is how I look at it.

Are you familiar with the Nail Furgeson pseudo history -For Want of a Nail-.? It gives a world where the American Revolution was ended at the Battle of Saratoga by a victorious John Burgoyne. Winston Churchill (yes, THAT Churchill) wrote a pseudo history where the Confederacy was victorious in the War Between the States (and there are several others along that line). Rand wrote a pseudo history where the collectivist thinking typical of the New Deal completely obliterated any classical American political thought. It is a weird weird world. Fortunately, the real world is nothing like the fiction of Rand. The country does not depend on just a few thousand talented individuals. There are, instead, millions who put up with a lot of shit and do not look like they are about to quit and Go On Strike.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Come on, guys.

Try art, not history. Not even historical fiction. The target audience was an individual reader, not a government or something like that.

All great fiction is like "stepping into an alternate universe." That's what it is for.

This reminds me of a story about a time before I stopped using drugs. I was on crack at the time and did not use anything else. A person offered me a joint and I said, "I don't like grass anymore. It makes me dizzy." Then I went on doing whatever I was doing. After a while, I felt one of those uneasy feelings of being watched. I turned around and the guy was staring at me intently with a weird look on his face. He had been staring at me like that all that time. He exploded incredulously, "But that's what it's supposed to do!"

Michael

[Brendan Hutching]

-Atlas Shrugged- could be seen as Alternative History, a sub genre of Science Fiction...It is a weird weird world...There are, instead, millions who put up with a lot of shit and do not look like they are about to quit and Go On Strike.

Atlas Shrugged is definitely a species of genre writing. That’s no bad thing, but the existence of such categories recognises that the imagination of some writers outstrips their writing talent.

People don't go on strike because they’ve got too much invested in the status quo, and a good thing too, if you ask me, at least at this point in our history. The 20th century was a madhouse, and a hiatus in history would be no bad thing, although we’re not going to get it any time soon.

As for alternate histories, I’m still trying to figure out the one we have. The more I think about human beings, and life in general, the more improbable and strange it all seems.

Brendan

[Brendan Hutching]

All great fiction is like "stepping into an alternate universe."

That’s true. I remember as a child dipping into Dickens, and being fascinated and repelled by his vision of horrific childhood.

But I had in mind a couple of other things. One is that Rand is a genre writer, and genre writers in particular seek to create an alternate world. The second is that to read a novel or experience any work of art is to enter into the mind of the author. We find some minds stranger than others, or rather, we can identify with some minds more than others.

Why some people identify with Rand -- or more generally, what attracts people to certain thinkers, artists etc -- is a question that has long interested me. I have yet to come up with an answer, beyond ‘temperament’ or ‘aesthetic sensibility’, what Rand I suppose would call sense of life.

But ultimately, those sorts of explanations don’t say anything about the experience of identifying with Rand, which will remain beyond the ken of many people. I can’t say I’ve had that experience, at least not in a positive sense, so I’m like the boy peering through the school gates, seeing but not fully comprehending.

Brendan