I thank our old friend Ockham for adding links to two of my Rand posts to the Wikipedia Ayn Rand entry. (See note 4.) I am about to repost a slightly emended version of the more technical of the two posts, the one on existence. This is from my first weblog and was originally posted May 28, 2004. But first I refer you to Ockham's post Ayn Rand and Wikipedia in which he reports a disagreement at Wikipedia ". . . about whether the article about her should qualify her as a 'popular' or 'commercially successful' philosopher, or an 'amateur philosopher' (as Anthony Quinton did in his article on popular philosophy in the Oxford Companion to philosophy), or whether she is a philosopher without qualification."
Is Rand a philosopher? Yes. But she is not very good if among the criteria of goodness you include rigor of thought and objectivity of expression. No reputable professional journal or press would publish her work. So in one sense of the term she is not a professional, which makes her an amateur philosopher. But then so is Nietzsche. Both are well worth reading by amateurs and professionals alike. Both are passionate partisans of interesting and challenging ideas. If nothing else, they show pitfalls to avoid. If you seek respite from the buttoned-down prose of dessicated academicians, they provide it.
Since I am about to lay into Rand, let me begin with something nice about her. In the 20th century, she brought more people to philosophy than Immanuel Kant, let alone John Rawls. That can't be bad. She came to our shores, mastered our difficult language, and made it her own way by her own efforts. She understood the promise and greatness of America, and did it her way, celebrating the traditional American values of self-reliance and rugged individualism. She gave leftists hell.
So what's my beef?
To put it anachronistically, Rand’s philosophical writing reads like blogscript, loosely argued if argued at all, and sprinkled with a sizeable admixture of ranting and raving. To put it bluntly, she gives arguments so porous that one could drive a Mack truck through them.
Suppose we turn to p. 24 of Philosophy: Who Needs It (ed. Peikoff, Signet, 1982). There, in an article entitled “The Metaphysical and the Man-Made,” (1973) Rand states “...the basic metaphysical issue that lies at the root of any system of philosophy: the primacy of existence or the primacy of consciousness.” To contrast existence and consciousness in this way is dubious since
consciousness, if it is not nothing, exists. But I won’t pursue this line of critique; I will instead consider what Rand could mean by the primacy of existence. The primacy of existence is “the axiom that existence exists, i.e., that the universe exists independent of consciousness (of any consciousness), that things are what they are, that they possess a specific nature, an identity.”
If we think about Rand’s axiom, we see that it conflates three distinct propositions:
P1: Each thing exists independently of any consciousness.
P2: Each thing satisfies the Law of Identity in that, for each x, x = x.
P3: The identity of each thing consists in its possession of a specific nature.
Clearly these three are logically distinct. P2 is the least controversial of the three, for all it says is that each thing is self-identical. This is an admissible axiom since it is a law of logic. (An axiom is an ultimate premise, one that cannot be supported by logically deriving it from more basic premises.) But P2 does not entail P1. For if each thing is self-identical, it does not follow that each thing exists independently of any consciousness. To see this, suppose that God exists and creates everything distinct from himself. On this supposition, each thing distinct from God is self-identical but precisely NOT independent of any consciousness. Since P2 does not entail P1, these two propositions are logically distinct. Note that all I need is the mere possibility of God’s existence to show the failure of entailment.
Rand is deeply confused. She thinks that to say that x is self-identical is to say something about x’s mode of existence, namely, that x exists independently of any consciousness. If this were true, a mere law of logic would entail not only the nonexistence of God, but also the necessary nonexistence (i.e., the impossibility) of God. What’s more, it amounts to a solving by logical fiat of the problem of the external world. If Rand were right, one would be able to prove that an object of perception exists apart from its being perceived by simply pointing out that it is self-identical. Yonder mountain, qua object of perception, is of course self-identical; but that scarcely proves that it exists independently of my consciosness of it. Now consider an Aristotlean accident such as the being-tanned of Socrates. (Our man has been out in the sun, hence he is tanned, but he might have remained indoors.) An accident exists only in a substance, unlike a substance which exists in itself. An accident cannot exist in itself or by itself. Yet substances and accidents are both self-identical. It follows that self-identity implies nothing about mode of existence. To point out that x is self-identical leaves wide open whether x is an accident, a substance, a mind-dependent entity, a mind-independent entity, an abstract object, a concrete object, a process, a continuant, a nonexistent object of an hallucination, an existent object of a veridical perception, etc.
In sum, Rand is attempting to squeeze controversial metaphysical assertions out of a mere logical axiom. It can’t be done.
It is also clear that P2 does not entail P3. P2 merely says that each thing is self-identical. But this implies nothing as to natures. If a thing has a nature, then it has some essential properties. But it is possible, and many philosophers have held, that all of a thing’s properties are accidental. Therefore, it is possible that a thing be self-identical and yet have only accidental properties – which shows that P2 does not entail P1.
P1 is also distinct from P3 in that the negation of P1 is consistent with P3.
Suppose we adduce a further passage: “To grasp the axiom that existence exists, means to grasp the fact that nature, i.e., the universe as a whole, cannot be created or annihilated, that it cannot come into or go out of existence.” (P. 25) Rand goes on to say that the universe is “ruled” by “the Law of Identity.” (Ibid.)
Any professional philosopher should be able to see how pitiful this is. Let’s not worry about Big Bang cosmology according to which the universe precisely did come into existence some 15 billion years ago. Instead, let us ask ourselves how one can validly infer a statement about the nature of the existence of existing things, namely, that they cannot come into or pass out of existence, from a mere law of logic. Suppose we construct an argument on Rand’s behalf:
1. Necessarily, every x is self-identical.
2. To exist = to be self-identical
Therefore
3. Necessarily, every x exists
Therefore
4. Every x exists necessarily.
Therefore
5. No x exists contingently.
Therefore
6. No x can come into existence or pass out of existence.
The problem with this argument lies with premise (2). Rand needs (2), but (2) does not follow from (1). (2) must be brought in as a separate premise. But, unlike (1), (2) is scarcely self-evident. For even if it is true that x exists iff x = x, it does not follow from this that the existing of x consists in x’s being self-identical. It is conceivable that there be a nonexistent object such as Pegasus that is self-identical but does not exist. This shows that the biconditional given is circular: x exists iff x = x & x exists. There is more to existence than self-identity.
Furthermore, what Rand’s view implies is that the universe is made up of basic constituents, each of which is a necessary being (since the existence of each = its self-identity). This further implies modal Spinozism, the doctrine that there is exactly one possible world, the actual world. For if each of the basic constituents cannot come into existence or pass out of existence, then the collection of these constituents – the universe – cannot come into existence or pass out of existence. (Trust me, I am not committing the fallacy of composition.) But if the universe CANNOT come into existence or pass out of existence, then its actual existence entails its necessary existence, which entails in turn that no other universe is possible.
My point is not that modal Spinozism is false – although I do believe it to be false – but that this extremely controversial thesis is not equivalent to the Law of Identity. Thus, those of us who deny modal Spinozism are not trying “to exempt man from the Law of Identity.” (P. 26) Besides,if this law “rules the universe,” how could any mere philosophy professor exempt anybody from it.
Ayn Rand has some insights, and she is worth reading; but she is an astonishingly sloppy thinker. Take a gander at this passage:
A typical package-deal, used by professors of philosophy [those bastards!], runs as follows: to prove that there is no such thing as ‘necessity’ in the universe, a professor [any one will do] declares that just as this country did not have to have fifty states, there could have been forty-eight or fifty-two – so the solar system did not have to have nine planets, there could have been seven or eleven. It is not sufficient, he declares, to prove that something is, one must also prove that it had to be – and since nothing had to be, nothing is certain and anything goes. (p. 28)
A pathologist would have a field day with this tissue of confusion. First, the reference to philosophy professors amounts to a hasty generalization: only a few would argue in this deeply confused manner. Second, although it is true that the conventional needs to be distinguished from the natural, surely it is highly implausible to maintain that our solar system’s having nine planets is necessary. It is certainly not logically necessary: there is no logical contradiction embedded in the supposition that there be some other number of planets. Nor is it nomologically necessary: the laws of physics do not dictate the number of planets. Had the initial conditions been different at the time of the formation of our planetary system, perhaps only eight planets would have congealed from the matter emitted from our sun. If Rand were right, then it would be necessary that the earth have only one moon, that this moon be waterless, that it have exactly the craters that it has, which implies that no meteors other than the ones that did slam into it could have slammed into it, that the Sea of Putridity, which is neither a sea nor putrid, have exactly the extent it has. And so on, for every natural fact.
Rand, that stalwart defender of rationality, ‘reasons’ as follows:
A. If some facts are not necessary, but contingent,
Then
B. No fact is necessary.
Therefore
C. Nothing is certain.
Therefore
D. Anything goes.
Each of these inferences is invalid. It is a contingent fact, if it is a fact, that there are nine planets, but it is not a contingent fact that water is H2O. So B does not follow from A. Nor does B entail C. Necessity is not the same property as certainty. The fact that I am now thinking is not necessary,but it is certain: see Descartes. Finally, C does not entail D. If nothing is known with certainty, it does not follow that there are no absolute truths; what follows is merely that we who hold them hold them fallibly.
Finally, let me point to a passage on p. 33 where Rand refers to John Rawl’s A Theory of Justice as “an obscenely evil theory [that] proposes to subordinate man’s nature and mind to the desires (including the envy), not merely of the lowest human specimens, but of the lowest non-existents....” To put it anachronistically, Rand the ranter is the Ann Coulter of philosophy. This sort of raving is not the way to refute Rawls.
Rand illustrates the perils of being an amateur philosopher. By the way, the difference between a professional and an amateur philosopher is not the difference between one who makes money from philosophy and one who does not. It is the difference between one whose work meets a certain standard of competence and rigor, and one whose work does not. Spinoza and Schopenhauer were professional philosophers despite their not making money from philosophy; Ayn Rand and plenty of hack philosophy teachers are amateurs who nonetheless made money from philosophy.
Thanks for this. Enjoyable reading.
Your assertion that Ayn Rand brought people to philosophy is certainly true of me. She's a fine example of pitfalls to avoid. Very, very big pitfalls. I personally avoid them by remaining an amateur student of philosophy, and not an amateur philosopher.
A quibble: I wouldn't class Nietzsche as an "amateur" philosopher, or demean him with being in the same class as Ayn Rand. Wouldn't he fit better with the "wisdom" literature, Epicurus, Marcus Aurelius, etc.?
Posted by: Court | Wednesday, January 14, 2009 at 12:35 AM
You're welcome, Court. I figured someone would object to a comparison of Rand and Nietzsche. It is obvious -- which is why I didn't state it -- that Nietzsche's cultural significance is far, far greater than Rand's. And the same goes for his literary merit. He is one of the great German stylists despite his excesses. He also towers over Rand in the originality of his ideas. But neither is a professional philosopher and so both are amateurs. N's professional training was in philology. 'Amateur' need not carry a pejorative connotation. An amateur is one who engages in an activity but does not meet professional standards of performance. I am an amateur chessplayer but there is nothing pejorative in pointing that out. Even if I made a living from chess by giving lessons or writing books I would still be an amateur as I am using 'amateur.'
To compare N with Marcus, e.g., would require a separate post. But Marcus is solid where N rants and raves. Marcus is working from a professionally articulated system of Stoic ideas -- their dogmas as they call them -- whence their wisdom precepts flow. There is a Stoic school which many philosophers took part in building. There is Stoic logic, ethics, epistemology, etc. In N there is no coherent system of ideas and little by way of wisdom. Central doctrines such as perspectivism are nonsense. But unargued nonsense can be very instructive! And fascinating from aesthetic and psychological points of view.
Posted by: Bill Vallicella | Wednesday, January 14, 2009 at 04:48 AM
Rand, that stalwart defender of rationality, ‘reasons’ as follows:
A. If some facts are not necessary, but contingent,
Then, B. No fact is necessary. Therefore, C. Nothing is certain.
Therefore, D. Anything goes.
For all I know, Rand is a bad philosopher. I have no opinion on it, though her style of arguing certainly invites criticism. Still, something sounds familiar in the quoted argument she too-casually presents. She might be getting at an argument van Inwagen offered that the principle of sufficient reason entails that there are no contingent events, facts, etc. (cf. Peter van lnwagen, An Essay on Free Will (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983) pp. 202-204. There's a similar argument in William Rowe, The Cosmological Argument (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1975) ch. 2). So, restricting her quantification over facts in this argument to quantification over what we would ordinarily take to be clear-cut contingent facts, what she says here might be closer to the truth. Either there is contingency all the way up, or there is necessity all the way up (beginning with God's necessity). Needless to say, I couldn't tell you that this is just what she had in mind.
Posted by: Mike | Wednesday, January 14, 2009 at 06:06 AM
"Surely it is highly implausible to maintain that our solar system’s having nine planets is necessary."
You seem to have missed her point. Rand rejects the necessary/contingent dichotomy. She does not say that the nine planets are "necessary"; she says that they ARE, that it is a metaphysically given fact.
Posted by: Mark Wickens | Wednesday, January 14, 2009 at 08:27 AM
I take your point about Marcus A's wisdom flowing from a system. Fascinating that wisdom can come from such a flawed system (from our perspective). But if wisdom can come from a flawed system, couldn't it also come from no-system? N, of course, was opposed to system on principle, as it were.
I guess what I'm asking is, what makes wisdom?
Posted by: Court | Wednesday, January 14, 2009 at 05:49 PM
Happy New Year, Mike. Interesting comment. I have thought about the van Inwagen argument you mention. Jonathan Bennett also endorses a version of it as I explain in my most recent post. How exactly this connects with Rand, though, is none too clear.
Mark,
I'm not following you. If 'planet' is defined a certain way, then there are 9 planets in our solar system. If you are telling me that Rand's view is that the proposition that there are 9 planets is neither necessarily true nor contingently true, then I submit that her view is incoherent. It has to be one or the other. Either the fact that there are 9 planets could have been otherwise or it could not have been otherwise. In the first case the truth is contingent, in the second it is necessary.
Posted by: Bill Vallicella | Wednesday, January 14, 2009 at 07:10 PM
Bill,
As I said, Ayn Rand does not accept the validity of dividing up facts like that. All facts not caused by the choice of a being possessing free will are simply facts. There is no justification for, and no insight to be gained from, saying some facts had to be and some didn't. According to Rand's view of metaphysics and epistemology, it is just as logically wrong to say that there are 17 planets in the solar system as it is to say that 2 + 2 = 5.
Leonard Peikoff has written on this topic:
http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/necessity.html
As far as metaphysical reality is concerned (omitting human actions from consideration, for the moment), there are no “facts which happen to be but could have been otherwise” as against “facts which must be.” There are only: facts which are . . . Since things are what they are, since everything that exists possesses a specific identity, nothing in reality can occur causelessly or by chance. The nature of an entity determines what it can do and, in any given set of circumstances, dictates what it will do. The Law of Causality is entailed by the Law of Identity. Entities follow certain laws of action in consequence of their identity, and have no alternative to doing so. Metaphysically, all facts are inherent in the identities of the entities that exist; i.e., all facts are “necessary.” In this sense, to be is to be “necessary.” The concept of “necessity,” in a metaphysical context, is superfluous.
More here:
http://wiki.objectivismonline.net/wiki/Analytic-synthetic_dichotomy
Posted by: Mark Wickens | Wednesday, January 14, 2009 at 08:49 PM
If the genus of philosophy is deep and fundamental questions, then its differentia is its rigorous and logical approach, accepting nothing that is not either self-evident and clear, or derived from it. That is what differentiates philosophy from other approaches to those same questions such as mysticism, beliefs taken on authority, pseudoscience or (in this case) pseudo-philosophy, i.e. an approach which borrows the big words of philosophy, and may superfically have appearance of logic and rigour, but which isn't either logical or rigorous.
You and I may disagree on whether philosophy is ultimately nothing more than logic. I think we both accept the need for a logical, rigorous and highly self-critical approach.
Posted by: ocham | Thursday, January 15, 2009 at 12:54 AM
I, too, was brought to philosophy by Rand, and quite refused to read outside of objectivism for a good year or so. Is she good for amateurs to read? If they are brought to the world of philosophy, then that is an argument for her. My experience, though, is that she so badly misrepresents many philosophical problems, and thinkers, that it may simply be best to avoid her.
While it has been a long time since I've read anything she's written, all I can remember is that in her, and Peikoff's work, the amount of things that are either submitted to be self-evident but were not, and were assumed to follow necessarily from "premises" when they did not NECESSARILY follow were quite staggering. (I only realized this after reading other thinkers.)
Posted by: Kevin Currie | Thursday, January 15, 2009 at 04:25 AM
O,
You write, "If the genus of philosophy is deep and fundamental questions, then its differentia is its rigorous and logical approach, accepting nothing that is not either self-evident and clear, or derived from it." That sounds good, but let me raise a difficulty.
Suppose I agree that the genus of philosophy is what you say it is. The genus is inquiry into deep and fundamental questions. Among the species of this genus we find theology based on revelation (as opposed to natural theology which is a branch of philosophy) and mysticism. But also natural science and mathematics. Surely mathematics treats of deep and fundamental questions. But the differentia you specify is common to both philosophy and mathematics, is it not?
"I think we both accept the need for a logical, rigorous and highly self-critical approach." On this we certainly agree.
Posted by: Bill Vallicella | Thursday, January 15, 2009 at 04:48 AM
"As I said, Ayn Rand does not accept the validity of dividing up facts like that."
The problem is with the basis on which she rejects it, which is stated by Peikoff as follows:
"Since things are what they are, since everything that exists possesses a specific identity, nothing in reality can occur causelessly or by chance. The nature of an entity determines what it can do and, in any given set of circumstances, dictates what it will do. The Law of Causality is entailed by the Law of Identity."
At best this is begging the question as against Dr. Vallicella's position. It asserts that the nature of a thing (viz., its necessary properties) is nothing different than all of the things properties, which would be a controversial assumption in any case and which is exactly what is in dispute in this one.
Posted by: Jonathan Prejean | Thursday, January 15, 2009 at 11:29 AM
Jonathan,
Good to hear from you again. I recall some of your excellent comments on my old blog. Funny you should mention that passage from Peikoff. I was reading it just this morning. It's on pp. 108-109 of Intro to Objectivist Epistemology. Even more bizarre is the sentence immediately preceding: "The view that facts are contingent -- that the way things are is only one among a number of alternative possibilities, that things could have been different metaphysically -- represents a failure to grasp the Law of Identity." (108)
I should write a separate post about this. For now I will content myself with the quip that Rand sure packs a lot into the Law of Identity!
Posted by: Bill Vallicella | Thursday, January 15, 2009 at 04:51 PM
An interesting point about natural science and mathematics. I have heard this objection before. My usual reply is that the words 'deep' and 'fundamental' and 'principle' are all capturing the same idea, which is of a beginning point (the literal and original meaning of 'principle'). Philosophy is primarily interested in these 'principles'. Mathematicians in my experience are not. E.g. they assume the notion of a set without question, as an assumption, whereas philosophers seize on it.
Natural scientists are beginning to talk about explaining things like consciousness, intentionality and such things using a standard 'scientific' approach though I think they either make a hopeless mess of it (like Penrose in my view) or they start sounding more like philosophers. If the latter, my case is proven.
Posted by: ocham | Friday, January 16, 2009 at 01:36 AM
O,
You made a plausible response, but it may recoil on your suggestion that philosophy is one among several species of the genus inquiry into deep and fundamental questions. If you mean the deepest principles, those common to every special science, then philosophy is identical to the genus and is not a species of it.
These are fascinating and very difficult questions that ought to be pursued in separate posts.
Posted by: Bill Vallicella | Friday, January 16, 2009 at 04:28 AM
Hello,
I rather liked this post, Bill, since I've felt similar irritation with Rand's sloppiness, particularly as pertains to her abuse of the Law of Identity. Still, I must somewhat echo Mark's point that I think you misunderstood her intention in the package-deal quote. From what I can tell, Rand gives the imaginary professor's argument precisely as an example of fallacious reasoning, not as a vehicle for her own views. So criticizing the strength of this argument doesn't really demonstrate poor reasoning on her part, since she criticizes the very same argument herself.
Now, whether professors of philosophy actually do argue that poorly is another issue all together, and it may be a grievous indicator of Rand's ineptitude that she attributes it to them. More importantly, we can question Rand's own reasons for thinking that the professor's argument is fallacious, and I do suspect you have a much better understanding of its foibles than she does.
But I get the impression that you just shot down a reasoning process she did not commit to, then rebuked her for it; either that or I myself have horribly misunderstood your post?
Anyway, cheers, and keep up the good work.
Posted by: diotimajsh | Monday, January 19, 2009 at 12:47 AM
Rand never said that nothing is certain. It's the other way around. Thing is what it is, A is A and A is not non-A. New things can't come into existence, but they can change their shape and properties due to their interaction. I can make a cube of clay from a ball of clay due to clay's interaction with my hands. People here do not understand Ayn Rand's philosophy at all. They clearly haven't read even Objectivist Wiki ound on www.objectivismonline.com . This specific article has one critical mistake among others. Ayn Rand never thought of neccesary/unneccesary, but man-made/metaphysically given. Sun can't be blue or green because I want it that way or because sun is so complex. Sun is of golden color because it is that way, no matter what we think it is. Ice melts on 0 degrees Celsius on normal atmospheric pressuse. You can't make it melt faster by your though only. Because ice is what it is...
Posted by: Justas Jagminas | Sunday, February 08, 2009 at 03:07 AM
There's too much here to keep up with. But let me choose my shots.
1. What happened to good manners? What's up with such attacks as: "A pathologist would have a field day with this tissue of confusion" and "... sprinkled with a sizeable admixture of ranting and raving." (BTW, there's no ranting or raving in AR's writings--unless, by your lights, moral judgment per se counts as "ranting and raving").
2. Bill: >>she gives arguments so porous that one could drive a Mack truck through them. Suppose we turn to p. 24 of Philosophy: Who Needs It (ed. Peikoff, Signet, 1982). There, in an article entitled “The Metaphysical and the Man-Made,” (1973) Rand states “...the basic metaphysical issue that lies at the root of any system of philosophy: the primacy of existence or the primacy of consciousness.” To contrast existence and consciousness in this way is dubious since consciousness, if it is not nothing, exists. But I won’t pursue this line of critique . . . <<
Please read more carefully. The Mack truck may be , uh, on the other foot. The issue here is the primacy of existence vs. the primacy of consciousness. Which comes first? Which is independent and which dependent? I think this is an absolutely fundamental issue, and helpful way of classifying philosophic systems.
In Consciousness, the book I'm writing, I explain the primacy of existence this way:
In teaching the primacy of existence vs. the primacy of consciousness, I put it in the form of a table, whose format, with numbered points, should appeal to you:
The PoE View:
In metaphysics:
1. Existence is independent of consciousness
2. Consciousness is dependent on existence
In epistemology:
1. Existence must be known before consciousness can be known
2. The existence and identity of the external world is known by extrospection, based on sensory perception
The PoC View:
In metaphysics:
1. Consciousness is independent of existence
2. Existence is dependent on consciousness
In epistemology:
1. Consciousness can be known before existence can be known
2. The existence and identity of the external world is known by introspection and deduction (as in Descartes "proof" of the existence of the world)
3. Jonathan Prejean: >>At best this is begging the question as against Dr. Vallicella's position. It asserts that the nature of a thing (viz., its necessary properties) is nothing different than all of the things properties, which would be a controversial assumption in any case and which is exactly what is in dispute in this one.<<
Whether it constitutes Begging the Question or not, yes this is exactly what Objectivism holds: a thing is its properties. "Existence is Identity." There is no Lockean "substratum." And existence is not a property. To be is to have a specific identity; and to have a specific identity is to be. (Obviously this plays into the familiar criticism of the Ontological Argument--but I have a new, additional critique of it, which maybe I should post.)
Posted by: Harry Binswanger | Sunday, February 08, 2009 at 12:38 PM
Dr. Binswanger,
I'm only an amateur when it comes to the history of philosophy, but is it really the case that Ayn Rand was the first to identify the "stolen concept fallacy"? I believe philosophers use it all the time to refute skepticism and the how-do-I-know-I'm-not-dreaming claim, among other things.
I hope this isn't off-topic, but the claims of Ayn Rand's originality seem vastly overstated as I've discussed:
http://aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/2008/03/ayn-rands-originality-pt-4-epistemology.html
http://aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/2008/02/ayn-rands-originality-part-3.html
http://aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/2008/02/ayn-rands-originality-part-2-social-and_22.html
Posted by: Neil Parille | Sunday, February 08, 2009 at 02:08 PM