Another view of Leonard Peikoff

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Ted,

Thank you, but I gave up sanctions some 17 thousand or so sanctions ago.

I agree with you that pretending things that should not be pretended about morality can be immoral. Especially if done for manipulating people or to spread dogma.

I do not believe Dragonfly was pretending. We don't see eye to eye and often do not speak the same language, but I know him well enough to know that his thoughts come from a good part inside of him. In a word, I trust him. He has earned that.

I know that in an objectively dangerous or volatile situation where I would need to rely on someone to do the right thing, he would do it immediately, almost without thinking. How many people do you know like that?

He says this is not objective. I say it is.

Just words.

The concepts are far more solid underneath.

(And they are objective. )

Michael

[kiaer.ts]

I wasn't really addressing Firelfly. The point was that it is incoherent to say that belief in an objective morality is objectively immoral. Even if a person wouldn't use this formulation, he can understand and approve of the sense. If the question is between someone you can count on, and someone who mouths the words, they are two different things, and of course the former is what counts. But having the idea reinforces the habit. And those who deny the sense of the idea, (everyone can understand the sense) no matter how they state it, are trying to destroy the habit.

[Dragonfly]

There is a prior concept of the objective. It just doesn't apply to some areas, such as ethics or artistic taste.

(sigh)

1. If you do things that kill you, you die.

What has that to do with ethics? You shouldn't believe everything Rand wrote!

2. Any child can easily learn a major scale in music and use it to anchor musical ideas like melody. It can let you easily identify melodies and when one is reproduced correctly or if there is a sour note. Almost nobody can learn a dodecaphonic sequence and recognize when it is right or wrong in a composition.

What has that to do with artistic taste? Is music that is easily recognized and reproduced "better" than difficult music like dodecaphonic music? Never mind that I don't like dodecaphonic music either, I cannot prove that it is bad, because the criteria I use to judge it are subjective. That said, I far prefer Berg's violin concerto, that is largely dodecaphonic, over any pop song with easy tonality.

[Daniel Barnes]

However, I think Rand deserves the credit for identifying the fallacy and naming it, and NB for making it public. It is a very valuable tool to have in one's kit. E.g., the common assertion that all ethical judgements are subjective falls flat because it is not possible to identify something as subjective without the prior concept of the objective.

1) Isn't the "stolen concept" fallacy simply a self-contradictory proposition?

2) Re: "the common assertion that all ethical judgements are subjective falls flat because it is not possible to identify something as subjective without the prior concept of the objective". I don't agree that the "stolen concept" applies here, because you can of course compare and contrast ethical judgements (which have a subjective element) to say, mathematical equations or logical derivations (which don't). There is no contradiction in doing this.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Dragonfly,

When you make statements like "What has that to do with ethics? You shouldn't believe everything Rand wrote!", I begin to seriously wonder whether you understand the Objectivist theory of concept formation. (Hint, It's incremental from metaphysics on up.)

Also, it is a gross oversimplification to imagine that there is only one criterion—and one only—for aesthetic values, and that one is personal likes and dislikes based on any standard one feels like using at the moment. Oddly enough, this is an error in thinking method (gross oversimplification) more typical of Objectivist errors.

Michael

[tjohnson]

If, in an attempt to deny the existence of something, you have to assume it's existence then you are "stealing" the concept. For example, if you attempt to deny there is no difference between 'yes' and 'no' you cannot, because if there is no difference the question cannot be answered.

[Nicholas Dykes]

Sorry, I don't understand you. Your implication does not seem to follow from what I said. The statement 'all ethical judgements are subjective' doesn't assert or deny the existence of objective judgments elsewhere.

Well, in that case there is nothing wrong with that statement. There is a prior concept of the objective. It just doesn't apply to some areas, such as ethics or artistic taste.

Yeah, sorry, I made a mistake, foggy brained with sleepiness! I shouldn't have put 'ethical'. It should have read 'all judgements are subjective' which does involve a stolen concept. However, is the assertion 'all ~ethical~ judgements are subjective' -- as an universal affirmative proposition -- an ~objective~ judgement, hence self-contradictory? But leave that, my main reason for contributing was to point out Stirner's astute observation.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

However, is the assertion 'all ~ethical~ judgements are subjective' -- as an universal affirmative proposition -- an ~objective~ judgement, hence self-contradictory?

Nick,

It was not an objective judgment, self-contradictory or otherwise. It was a subjective proclamation.

Decree, edict, ruling, directive, canon or commandment work quite well if you don't like proclamation.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

If the question is between someone you can count on, and someone who mouths the words, they are two different things, and of course the former is what counts. But having the idea reinforces the habit.

Ted,

This is as I believe, within reasonable limits for the second statement. After tasting the sheer nastiness of some Objectivists, I opted for a different standard than analyzing what people say. I went back to my childhood roots. When I see a conflict between what a person says and what he does, I now go with what he does and put the ideas in second place. I then act accordingly.

I find—from observation—that certain habits are hard to destroy in good people (bad people too), irrespective of the philosophical ideas they hold. I do not believe ideas are impotent, but I also do not believe they are all-powerful. They are certainly not the best indicators of a person's character. They are only one part of a much bigger picture.

For instance, I have been studying psychological triggers for my studies in Internet marketing and I see they are far more important in brainwashing people (as one use) than philosophy. I will use them in my sales rather than strict adherence to philosophy. (See Cialdini for a good start.)

Don't get me wrong. I love reason. But I have seen far too many defenders of reason who are irrational assholes to equate commitment to reason with the whole picture. There's a hell of a lot more, starting with a choice—whether you want to be a good guy or a bad guy.

I am now on a proposition of seeking out good guys who use their minds to the best of their abilities, irrespective of their philosophy, and leaving the bad guys to stew in their own bile. I have no doubt reason ultimately predominates in such good people, so respect, civility and tolerance are the order of the day with them. (I don't extend the same to bad guys.)

Michael

[Dragonfly]

When you make statements like "What has that to do with ethics? You shouldn't believe everything Rand wrote!", I begin to seriously wonder whether you understand the Objectivist theory of concept formation. (Hint, It's incremental from metaphysics on up.)

I understand very well what's wrong with the Objectivist theory of concept formation, but I don't see what that has to do with 'If you do things that kill you, you die." and the subjectivity of ethics.

Also, it is a gross oversimplification to imagine that there is only one criterion—and one only—for aesthetic values, and that one is personal likes and dislikes based on any standard one feels like using at the moment. Oddly enough, this is an error in thinking method (gross oversimplification) more typical of Objectivist errors.

See for example this post. What I say about art work equally applies to music. De gustibus non est disputandum. You may try to explain why some kind of art or music may appeal to some people or even to many people, but that doesn't make artistic taste objective. The same applies to the appreciation of broccoli or wine.

[Dragonfly]

However, is the assertion 'all ~ethical~ judgements are subjective' -- as an universal affirmative proposition -- an ~objective~ judgement, hence self-contradictory?

"All ethical judgements are subjective" is an objective statement, but it isn't self-contradictory, as it is not a ethical judgement itself (a statement about ethics is not the same as an ethical statement).

[Nicholas Dykes]

Nicholas,

You said:

However, I think Rand deserves the credit for identifying the fallacy and naming it, and NB for making it public. It is a very valuable tool to have in one's kit. E.g., the common assertion that all ethical judgements are subjective falls flat because it is not possible to identify something as subjective without the prior concept of the objective.

Even if we've only identified examples of the stolen concept before Rand, I find it hard to imagine that she was the first to idetify it. It's really just a version of begging the question.

-NEIL

____

Neil,

Re 'subjective', see my responses to Dragonfly below.

I believe, without being 100% certain, that the Rand/Branden article in The O'ist Newsletter back in January 1963 was the first time that the fallacy of employing a concept while simultaneously denying the conditions which make that concept possible was specifically identified as such. The fallacy was also named 'stolen concept' in that article. That other philosophers may have anticipated Rand on this issue, i.e. Stirner, doesn't diminish the originality of the Rand/Branden contribution. As far as I know, other philosophers did not spell the fallacy out, identify it clearly, and give it a name.

Begging the question -- assuming in a first premise what you set out to prove, as in the famous Ontological Argument for the existence of God -- is surely not the same issue. Or, more precisely, if it is, I can't see it!

How are things in New England? I lived in Montreal for a while and later in Ottawa, and the thing I loved most was visiting Vermont, Maine and upper NY state on the weekends.

Nicholas

[kiaer.ts]

If you say that all judgments are subjective you could simply mean that they are the judgments of some person, and hence are personal. This is not what those who say that all judgments are subjective mean. They want to smuggle in the notion that because all judgments are personal, they are like "opinions," not "true for everyone." It may be true for "you" but it's not true for me. This has many problems. Opinions are not truly universal statements, but this lack of universality is not a lack of objective truth. "Vanilla tastes better than chocolate" is sloppy shorthand for "vanilla tastes better than chocolate to me." This fuller statement is indeed either objectively true or false. The person who claims that all judgments are subjective is simply a sloppy thinker who leaves unstated arguments of the verb unstated.

An argument of a verb is any portion of a predicate, such as the subject, direct object, indirect object, and any adverbial phrases which are true, whether implicit or explicit. Every verb has an infinite number of true but implicit arguments. But we only make certain ones explicit. Usually this is a matter of economy. But consider the vicious phrase "Bush lied." To whom? About what? Why? When? If one makes the accusation more fully explicit, Bush "lied" to a congress that had the same knowledge as he... then the banality of the phrase becomes apparent. If one thinks clearly and makes the necessary arguments of the verb explicit, every statement becomes objectively true or false. (Statements where the arguments are not (possibly) made explicit are, for the most part, arbitrary.)

One can only steal concepts when one ignores the true but implicit arguments of the verb.

[kiaer.ts]

OPAR is pedestrian. If you have read all the canonical works, it will come across as dry and tedious but essentially valid, a very good high school book review of Objectivism. (Ominous Parallels is a truly bad joke.) OPAR no where approaches it in repetitive dullness. Its discussion of arbitrary concepts is the only issue that is better developed than one can gather elsewhere. I defaced my copy with the subtitle "Rand's last laugh." but I have leant it to others who were interested in Objectivism. It is a reasonable introduction. I told them to ignore my subtitle.

[tjohnson]

When making a statement about other statements it is imperative to exclude itself. For example, if I said "All statements made by me are false" then for this to not lead to a contradiction I must exclude this statement from being an argument. In other words, I must make the condition "All statements made by me, except this one, are false" .

[Dragonfly]

If you say that all judgments are subjective you could simply mean that they are the judgments of some person, and hence are personal. This is not what those who say that all judgments are subjective mean. They want to smuggle in the notion that because all judgments are personal, they are like "opinions," not "true for everyone." It may be true for "you" but it's not true for me. This has many problems. Opinions are not truly universal statements, but this lack of universality is not a lack of objective truth. "Vanilla tastes better than chocolate" is sloppy shorthand for "vanilla tastes better than chocolate to me." This fuller statement is indeed either objectively true or false. The person who claims that all judgments are subjective is simply a sloppy thinker who leaves unstated arguments of the verb unstated.

I don't think this is really a problem. Nobody will deny that it's very well possible that a statement about a preference, whether it's about food or about an art work, is objective in the sense that it really represents the opinion of the speaker, that is in fact rather trivial. If he's sloppy in his statement, the fault lies with him. I would for example never say: a steak tastes better than a fish, because that would clearly imply a universal truth. I would always say something like: I like a steak and I dislike fish. This is an objective statement, but the judgement is subjective, meaning that not everyone will make the same judgement. The point is that a judgement is not the same as the statement in which that judgement is expressed.

[Nicholas Dykes]

If you say that all judgments are subjective you could simply mean that they are the judgments of some person, and hence are personal. This is not what those who say that all judgments are subjective mean. They want to smuggle in the notion that because all judgments are personal, they are like "opinions," not "true for everyone." It may be true for "you" but it's not true for me. This has many problems. Opinions are not truly universal statements, but this lack of universality is not a lack of objective truth. "Vanilla tastes better than chocolate" is sloppy shorthand for "vanilla tastes better than chocolate to me." This fuller statement is indeed either objectively true or false. The person who claims that all judgments are subjective is simply a sloppy thinker who leaves unstated arguments of the verb unstated.

An argument of a verb is any portion of a predicate, such as the subject, direct object, indirect object, and any adverbial phrases which are true, whether implicit or explicit. Every verb has an infinite number of true but implicit arguments. But we only make certain ones explicit. Usually this is a matter of economy. But consider the vicious phrase "Bush lied." To whom? About what? Why? When? If one makes the accusation more fully explicit, Bush "lied" to a congress that had the same knowledge as he... then the banality of the phrase becomes apparent. If one thinks clearly and makes the necessary arguments of the verb explicit, every statement becomes objectively true or false. (Statements where the arguments are not (possibly) made explicit are, for the most part, arbitrary.)

One can only steal concepts when one ignores the true but implicit arguments of the verb.

Sorry Ted, but this went over my head. Verbs convey actions to me, passive or active, they don't convey arguments. I'm afraid my Latin's not much cop either. Homo sum, etc, what does it mean? I am a man ...??

[kiaer.ts]

First, the quote is Terence: "I am a man. I hold nothing human to be alien to me." Here at wikipedia. (FYI, the easiest way to find a quick translation for such quotes is to Google them.)

Second, argument is being used in a special logical-linguistic sense. An argument of a verb or a predicate is any phrase (implicit or explicit) that modifies it. To die has a necessary one-term argument, the subject. To give has a necessary three term argument, the subject and direct and indirect objects. One does not simply "give." Somebody gives something to someone. Likewise, one does not simply lie, just as one does simply die. Someone lies to someone about something.

According to ItOE, (sorry, no citation, it's in storage) the analytic-synthetic dichotomy is denied because all concepts have an infinite number of arguments that apply to them. Man is not just the rational animal. He is the rational animal who Xsub1, Xsub2, Xsub3,. These arguments are implicit and perhaps not yet even known. Most fallacies and "Big Lies" rely on keeping silent any inconvenient arguments. The "Bush lied" statement becomes banal when one makes it fully explicit. To whom did he lie? About what? And, one must ask, did not his audience know exactly the same facts he did? Rand used the method of making arguments explicit all the time: "For what?" "By whom" "By what right?" "For whose benefit?" "At what cost?" "They oughta..." - "Who oughta?" "Why?"

Some languages allow arguments to be left implicit. Russian and Latin allow commands without objects - "give!" - while English in the same case requires the verb's objects to be stated: "give it to me." (Some languages require that verbs always be marked to show their subject, object, and direct object. These langaues make evasion difficult!) Only in colloquialisms and child talk do we hear "gimme!" Political speech with suppressed arguments is the preferred method of smuggling in premises that would be unacceptable if they were explicit. Orwell's Newspeak was designed to expose the nature of such so-called thought.

Wikipedia on Verb Arguments.

[kiaer.ts]

When making a statement about other statements it is imperative to exclude itself. For example, if I said "All statements made by me are false" then for this to not lead to a contradiction I must exclude this statement from being an argument. In other words, I must make the condition "All statements made by me, except this one, are false" .

This is an arbitrary ad-hoc manoeuver meant to avoid the problems of a rationalist Goedelian/Russellian epistemology. It doesn't work. The exclusion "except this one" is no better, since "this one" is logically ambiguous. The proper move is not to try to fix broken false statements, but not to make them in the first place.

[Paul Mawdsley]

OPAR is pedestrian. If you have read all the canonical works, it will come across as dry and tedious but essentially valid, a very good high school book review of Objectivism. (Ominous Parallels is a truly bad joke.) OPAR no where approaches it in repetitive dullness. Its discussion of arbitrary concepts is the only issue that is better developed than one can gather elsewhere. I defaced my copy with the subtitle "Rand's last laugh." but I have leant it to others who were interested in Objectivism. It is a reasonable introduction. I told them to ignore my subtitle.

Not a resounding endorsement! I am in the frame of mind to explore some new (to me) books that present innovative views and ideas. I recently ordered four that include Kelley, Sciabarra, Jung and an overview on post modernism. I am questioning whether or not I should order OPAR.

My thinking is, with so much in this world I haven't read, and having read most of Rand's own books, why would I spend my time and money on OPAR? I am not particularly interested in fitting myself into some Objectivist club, nor in learning the 'true system,' so these motives for reading OPAR do not apply. I find I am not that interested in thinking or talking about the history of the Objectivist movement (with the exception of an interest in a study of the psychological factors that are responsible for some pretty strange behaviour) because I did not live it. (Personally, I still find it strange that people, especially people who were not there, continue to take up arms in a family feud that goes back 40 years.) So I am not interested in OPAR as part of the historical context of the Objectivist movement.

I am interested in experiencing radical ways of seeing the world (orientations/lenses). I am interested in discovering promising new principles for processing information about existence. I am interested in exploring innovative means of integrating the psyche. To these ends I am interested in the visionary qualities of Ayn Rand that come through in her fiction, the principles and psychology that shaped her vision, and, to a lesser degree, the philosophy she made more explicit by identifying some of the principles that shaped her vision and psychology (which had the unfortunate result of causing much psychological and social disintegration). Does OPAR advance my interest beyond Rand's own publications? Or does it require an interest in Peikoff's vision/principles/psychology/philosophy to be worthwhile?

Paul

[kiaer.ts]

I would suggest that you either find a used copy of OPAR at abebooks.com, or get it from a library.

You will find much more of interest in Rand's Journals, Letters, and Art of Fiction and Non Fiction. Her last two are presented as lectures on writing, but they are rather lectures on the ethics of thinking, and some of her best work. I would not spend good money on OPAR unless you have pretty much read everything else, and need some good "bathroom" reading - not a joke - that's how I refer to things one reads a paragraph at a time, when otherwise occupied.

As I said, his treatment of the Arbitrary is good and I have not come across it elsewhere. His discussion of the unimportance of cosmology (the meta-puff analoy) is also good. But even these ideas are implicit elsewhere.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Dragonfly,

The objective part of aesthetics does not pertain to whether one likes meat better than fish. It pertains to whether one eats meat for food or mud for food.

That's objective.

I normally do not like to argue solely by example, but we keep talking past each other on abstractions because we are using highly different definitions for the same words.

Michael

[Paul Mawdsley]

I would not spend good money on OPAR unless you have pretty much read everything else, and need some good "bathroom" reading - not a joke - that's how I refer to things one reads a paragraph at a time, when otherwise occupied.

That's funny! Even though it was "not a joke."

Thanks Ted...for the laugh and the insight.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

As I said, his treatment of the Arbitrary is good and I have not come across it elsewhere. His discussion of the unimportance of cosmology (the meta-puff analoy) is also good. But even these ideas are implicit elsewhere.

Ted,

Good?

Heh.

May I introduce you to Robert Campbell?

(btw - I found the hypothetical reduction of the universe to puffs of existence really lacking when compared against actual quantum physics experiments.)

Michael

[tjohnson]

This is an arbitrary ad-hoc manoeuver meant to avoid the problems of a rationalist Goedelian/Russellian epistemology. It doesn't work. The exclusion "except this one" is no better, since "this one" is logically ambiguous. The proper move is not to try to fix broken false statements, but not to make them in the first place.

What do you mean by "logically ambiguous" ? What is the difference between "logical" ambiguity and just regular ambiguity?