| | Tibor Machan, one of my dearest and oldest friends, wrote:
It is fine to attempt to formulate a conception of objectivity without volition but it will not be related to Rand's Objectivism I respectfully disagree with Tibor's characterization of my position about objectivity and the objective. It bears no relationship to what I wrote in my article.
Tibor and I have heard the same Peikoff lectures. He and I both know that Peikoff, for a time, presented perception as being objective -- and then, at Rand's behest, abandoned this view, cleaving instead to the notion that non-volitional adherence to reality does not count as being objective. (Which is true enough, by definition, if you define "objective" as: being volitionally adherent to reality.)
Tibor knows -- at least, he should know, if he read my article -- that I am not offering a "deterministic" definition of "objectivity," any more than Rand was offering a "deterministic" definition of "value," when she defined it as "that which one acts to gain and/or keep."
In fact, in my article, I did not challenge the Objectivist doctrine of volition, but instead deliberately assumed, for the sake of argument, that volition is true, and located volitional objectivity within the more general category of objectivity. Here is the relevant quote from my article:
Before the Trichotomy was “Objective Reality.” Rand’s original formulation of “objectivity” ("Who is the final authority in ethics?", Objectivist Newsletter) was twofold, but it had nothing to do with the IOS trichotomy, formulated and published mere months later in the same publication (in her essay "What is Capitalism?"). Nor was it equivalent to the distinction in this essay between the ontologically objective and the epistemically objective (itself drawn from my own analysis of Rand's discussion in "What is Capitalism?").
Rand first focused on objectivity as an ethical matter, an aspect of rationality. For Rand, rationality, the basic virtue, entailed the respect for and recognition of facts. Every other virtue was an aspect of rationality and involved, in some way, the recognition of a significant fact of reality.
Objectivity, too, was for Rand (1965a) a virtue, in that it involved one’s recognition of two basic aspects of “the relationship of consciousness to existence” (7).
To be metaphysically objective, or to possess metaphysical objectivity, one must recognize that the world exists and is what it is “independent of any perceiver’s consciousness.” Consciousness holds existence as its object; it does not create the world.
To be epistemologically objective, or to possess epistemological objectivity, one must recognize that, to know the world, man must adhere to reality by using a specific means (reason) in accordance with a certain method (logic). Consciousness can know the world as it is; it is not blocked from reality and need not distort reality, but knowledge is not automatic or causeless.
In each case, however, it must be remembered that we are speaking of the objectivity not of reality, but of one’s recognition of how reality and awareness relate to one another—i.e., not of “objective reality,” but of one’s objective recognition of reality’s being independent of awareness. That is, both elements of the distinction in Rand's first 1965 essay are volitional aspects of what I call epistemic objectivity, i.e., a consciousness (and person) that is adhering to reality. It is not until later that year that Rand succeeded in articulating both epistemic objectivity, in its more general form,
My friend Tibor also wrote:
Perceptual awareness may well be objective but cannot be known as objective without conceptual objectivity which, however, is tied to the human capacity to initiate the creative activity of concept formation (nothing in the world forces concepts, let alone definitions, upon us).
Again, this may well be true, but it is irrelevant to my article. There is a vital distinction between truth and justification of knowledge. You can hold a belief that is true, even if you have not rationally justified it. If I say "There is water on Mars," but I have not yet proved that there is water on Mars," my statement, while unjustified, is nonetheless true. Similarly, if perception is objective -- i.e., adherent to reality -- even if it is not yet known to be objective, it is nonetheless adherent to reality.
Peikoff, who had such a wonderful beginning to his analysis of perception, caved in to Rand's overly narrow definition of "objectivity." He basically shrunk his concept of objectivity as "adherent to reality" to objectivity as "volitionally adherent to reality." It is a classic case of the Fallacy of the Frozen Abstraction. (See Rand's "Collectivized Ethics" in The Virtue of Selfishness.)
It is as if Rand, having second thoughts over her definition of value as "that which one acts to gain and/or keep," and redefined it as "that which one volitionally acts to gain and/or keep" (or "that which one rationally acts to gain and/or keep"). And this observation/comparison is not that far-fetched. There are folks on this website, even in this thread, who have fallen prey to the error of the Frozen Abstraction Fallacy in regard to Rand's concept of "value."
Stay tuned, folks: next week, some well-meaning Objectivist is going to come out with an argument that altruism is "not really" a moral code, and that the virtues of Christianity are "not really" virtues, and that Platonism is "not really" a philosophy. You think it can't or won't happen?
My friend Tibor suggests that I abandon Objectivism and start my own cult of determinism. I respectfully decline his suggestion. Instead, I think I will continue to ask that Objectivists re-examine and cleave to Rand's best, most fundamental premises and insights -- among others, her illuminating discussion of the Fallacy of the Frozen Abstraction -- and to reject her ill-considered attempts to "correct" Peikoff's best insights and contributions to philosophy.
REB
(Edited by Roger Bissell on 2/15, 6:07pm)
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