RoR: Forum

Bill,
This is a great series of articles. I look forward to #3. You said:

... there is no evidence in her writings to suggest that she would have agreed with the principle that Schwartz is advocating.

I agree. I've been looking in her published work and I can't find any argument by her to that effect. And it's not clear to me that Schwartz's principle follows from the meaning of "context".

David Kelley says the following in his review of OPAR entitled "Peikoff's Summa", available here:

Nor does he deal with hard cases for the contextual theory. It does happen in murder trials, for example, that the available evidence meets the legal requirements of proof, and the suspect is convicted accordingly, but evidence later discovered demonstrates that he could not have committed the crime. Peikoff says that "knowledge at one stage is not contradicted by later discoveries" (173), but he does not say how this applies to such cases. To hold that the jury's verdict is not later contradicted, we must formulate that verdict with a qualification: "Within the context of the circumstances known, S is guilty." But the suspect's guilt or innocence is a fact of the matter - either he committed the act or he didn't - and it is not dependent on anyone's context of knowledge. The verdict simply did not correspond to the facts, and was therefore false, no matter how rational it may have been in the circumstances. Peikoff does not face up to the difficulties of integrating the contextual theory of knowledge with the correspondence theory of truth. [Emphasis added.]

Thanks,
Glenn

Post 1

Thursday, August 17, 2006 - 9:26am

From the article: �Contrary to Peikoff, however, an arbitrary claim, which expresses a meaningful proposition, is not �analogous to the shapes made by the wind or to the sounds of the parrot,� for such a proposition either does or does not correspond to reality, and is therefore either true or false. To put it another way, whereas the shapes made by the wind or the sounds of a parrot are not a meaningful proposition (to the wind or parrot), an arbitrary claim understood by a human being is a meaningful proposition to the human being. That is the difference, and that is why a meaningful proposition, however, arbitrary, can be true or false, whereas meaningless shapes and sounds cannot.�

This expresses eloquently what has troubled me about his parrot analogy.

Out-of--hand rejection of �the arbitrary� is being way overused. At SoloPassion I asked Valliant�since he has seen the archives, all the diary entries�would he confirm for me that all that was relevant was used in his book, was he sure he wasn�t given only the stuff that others wished him to have. He answered, in so many words, �No way will I respond to your arbitrary question.�! Obviously, I cannot produce evidence that something was left out, that�s why I asked someone who had such opportunity. Rejection of �the arbitrary� is used by some to avoid inconvenient questions and criticisms.

Bill, I enjoyed this article very much.

Post 2

Thursday, August 17, 2006 - 9:28am

It sounds like Schwartz has been a little imprecise in his use of language. Rather than saying that a conclusion is false if arrived at incorrectly, he should say it is an "invalid conclusion." It can still be a "true statement."

Isaac is an animal.
All rabbits are animals.
If I conclude that Isaac is a rabbit (which he is), that's an invalid conclusion, but it's a true statement. I would say that I don't "know," on the basis of this argument alone, that Isaac is a rabbit, even though I believe it and it's true.

Also, I agree with you that an arbitrary proposition has to be either true or false; the fact that it's unverifiable at this time doesn't make it false.

Post 3

Thursday, August 17, 2006 - 10:33pm

Thank you all for the great replies -- Glenn, Jon and Laure. I can see that I've attracted some quality posters to this article.

Glenn, the Kelley quote is very interesting. I had not seen it before, and curiously, I had asked Kelley how he would justify the Objectivist theory of contextual knowledge in a legal context when I was at the TAS Seminar last month. He replied that he was "working on it." Of course, I had no idea that he had expressed exactly the same reservations in his review of Peikoff's book.

Nick Otani, whom I'm not overly fond of, to put it charitably, quoted something that Rand said, without giving the source, but I think the quote is accurate, as I recall seeing it before. She stated: "One cannot expect, nor is it necessary, to agree with a candidate�s total philosophy�only with his political philosophy (and only in terms of essentials)�if he advocates the right political principles for the wrong metaphysical reasons, the contradiction is his problem, not ours.� Does anyone know the source of that quote? It's worth mentioning in this context, because it contradicts Schwartz's "vital principle, that "a seemingly right conclusion arrived at via the wrong reason is the wrong conclusion."

Laure, I don't think that Schwartz is being imprecise here. He did not mean to say, as you are suggesting, that a seemingly right conclusion arrived at for invalid reasons, is an invalid conclusion. Strange as it may seem, he meant to say that �a seemingly true conclusion validly derived from false premises is a false conclusion." I covered this in Part I, but you'll see its application to politics, when we get to Part 3.

- Bill

(Edited by William Dwyer
on 8/17, 10:37pm)

(Edited by William Dwyer
on 8/18, 1:40pm)

Post 4

Friday, August 18, 2006 - 1:31am

Bill (to Laure),

========================
He [PS} did not mean to say, as you are suggesting, that a seemingly right conclusion arrived at for invalid reasons, is an invalid conclusion. Strange as it may seem, he meant to say that �a seemingly true conclusion validly derived from false premises is a false conclusion."
========================

But a seemingly right conclusion arrived at for invalid reasons -- IS an invalid conclusion (ALL conclusions arrived at invalidly, are invalidated, ipso facto).

Ed
[context, overwhelmingly, matters; in matters of epistemology]

Post 5

Friday, August 18, 2006 - 1:38pm

Laure, my apologies for misspelling your name!

Ed, you wrote,

Bill (to Laure),

========================
He [PS} did not mean to say, as you are suggesting, that a seemingly right conclusion arrived at for invalid reasons, is an invalid conclusion. Strange as it may seem, he meant to say that �a seemingly true conclusion validly derived from false premises is a false conclusion."
========================

But a seemingly right conclusion arrived at for invalid reasons -- IS an invalid conclusion (ALL conclusions arrived at invalidly, are invalidated, ipso facto).

I agree. I didn't say that Schwartz actually said that "a seemingly right conclusion arrived at for invalid reasons is an invalid conclusion," but that's how Laure seemed to be interpreting him. So I wanted to correct her misinterpretation. What Schwartz actually said is: "A seemingly right conclusion arrived at via the wrong reason is the wrong conclusion." But, as was evident from the context of his remarks, what he meant is that a seemingly true conclusion validly derived from false premises is a false conclusion. I discussed this in more detail in Part I, which you may want to review.

[context, overwhelmingly, matters; in matters of epistemology]

I agree, which is why the the context of Schwartz's remarks is so important here.

- Bill

(Edited by William Dwyer
on 8/18, 1:42pm)

Post 6

Friday, August 18, 2006 - 8:08pm

In Post 3, I quoted Rand as follows: "One cannot expect, nor is it necessary, to agree with a candidate�s total philosophy�only with his political philosophy (and only in terms of essentials)�if he advocates the right political principles for the wrong metaphysical reasons, the contradiction is his problem, not ours.� I then asked, "Does anyone know the source of that quote? It's worth mentioning in this context, because it contradicts Schwartz's 'vital principle,' that 'a seemingly right conclusion arrived at via the wrong reason is the wrong conclusion.'" As I indicated in Part I of this series, what Schwartz actually means is that a seemingly true conclusion validly derived from false premises is a false conclusion. So, he is saying that a true conclusion cannot validly be derived from false premises.

If he were to apply his principle to Rand's comments, he would have to say that she is incorrect to assume that a candidate can advocate the right political principles for the wrong metaphysical reasons, since a true conclusion cannot validly be derived from false premises. Since, according to Schwartz, the reasons condition the meaning of the conclusion, if the reasons are false, then the conclusion must be false. We saw this principle exemplified in his argument that no Christian can be an opponent of murder, because the Christian's reason for opposing murder is God's commandment, which means that the Christian is perfectly willing to commit murder, if God commands it. Thus, no Christian can be considered a genuine opponent of murder, nor therefore an ally of Objectivism in its advocacy of individual rights. I'm sure Ayn Rand would have loved to have heard that argument!

At any rate, Roger Bissell was kind enough to point me to the source of Rand's statement, which is her article on "How to Judge a Political Candidate" in the March 1964 issue of The Objectivist Newsletter. Her comment appears at the beginning of the article, third paragraph from the top.

- Bill
(Edited by William Dwyer
on 8/18, 9:05pm)

Post 7

Sunday, August 20, 2006 - 2:19am

Hi Bill,

This is a really interesting topic. I'm glad you brought it up. I hadn't thought about the relationship between the "contextual knowledge" theory and the Correspondence Theory of Truth. Great stuff so far. Very, very thought provoking.

I already commented on my take of the "vital principle" from your previous article. I'll try to leave that topic on that thread.

Let me start with a minor comment. You said, "Evidently, Rand did not think that a seemingly true conclusion (a belief in individualism) that is derived from false (religious) premises is therefore a false conclusion not shared by Objectivists."

This was after quoting Rand regarding religious people. From the quote you gave, she doesn't suggest that the individualism, or support for freedom, is derived from the religious premises. I could make the same statement she did and mean that religious people hold beliefs that aren't actually based on or compatible with their religious beliefs. That is, they can form those conclusions correctly in spite of also having religious beliefs. Unless you've got more, that statement doesn't support your position.

As far as Schwartz principle making truth relative or subjective, I think that depends on your interpretation of Schwartz's vital principle. If, as I argued in the other thread, he means that the proposition actually has a different meaning for the two people, then there's no problem. Just as if you use a word to refer to a different concept than I do, it doesn't make truth relative or subjective.

I think you can only come to the subjectivism conclusion if you believe he's stating that the proposition, in its most general meaning, is false for one person and true for another. That is, if "love is good" just means that love is a good thing (without really defining what either term means), then it would be subjectivism to say that it's true for me and not for you. But if you assume he's saying that we mean different things by it, then it is not a problem to say that one version is true and the other is false.

Now onto the 'arbitrary' topic. I don't like trying to defend someone else's position, so I'll try to discuss the topic without trying to interpret what Peikoff or Schwartz "really meant".

I think the first thing to note about the arbitrary is that Objectivism rejects belief in the arbitrary. Faith is believing in something without reason or against reason. But the "without reason" part is one place where the arbitrary comes up. It's making a statement without any reason or evidence for it. I think it's clear that this kind of statement has to have a special status in arguments. A statement that has evidence or reasons behind it can be judged by the evidence or reasons. We can evaluate the validity of the reasoning. A statement without any support is different. We could make a case to show the statement is false. But certainly we have no reason or obligation to. We should take the statement to be empty of meaning, just like Peikoff's parrot.

But I don't think that really addresses the point of true or false. If we take George Walsh's example of suggesting someone is at the door, it very well may be true, even if it is an arbitrary statement. We could verify whether it is true or false.

But how about a more general statement? Like an argument that love is good? If someone just asserted the love was good, without having any kind of meaning, context, qualifications, etc., could we verify whether it's true or false? Certainly if we took our own interpretation of the statement, we could say it's true. But if the statement is made without a meaning, asserting that love is good without a clear meaning of either of the terms or the way in which they're connected, I think one could make the argument that this arbitrary statement can't be judged as either true or false.

The difference between this statement devoid of meaning and Walsh's example is that the second has a very specific meaning, even though it's groundless to assert. But in the second case, precisely because it's groundless to making the assertion, the meaning is so vague it's essentially undefined. So when it comes to correspondence to reality, the "love is good" statement can't be judged because of its insufficient clarity.

Given the two examples, I don't see how one could make a general statement about arbitrary assertions and their relationship to the correspondence theory of truth. And I mean both the view that you can't judge them as true or false, or that you can judge them. It appears that one would need to make a further classification among "arbitrary" statements.

(Edited by Joseph Rowlands on 8/20, 2:29am)

Post 8

Sunday, August 20, 2006 - 5:00pm

Hi Joe,

You wrote,

This is a really interesting topic. I'm glad you brought it up. I hadn't thought about the relationship between the "contextual knowledge" theory and the Correspondence Theory of Truth. Great stuff so far. Very, very thought provoking.

Thank you, Joe. Thank you very much!

I stated, "Evidently, Rand did not think that a seemingly true conclusion (a belief in individualism) that is derived from false (religious) premises is therefore a false conclusion not shared by Objectivists."

This was after quoting Rand regarding religious people. From the quote you gave, she doesn't suggest that the individualism, or support for freedom, is derived from the religious premises. I could make the same statement she did and mean that religious people hold beliefs that aren't actually based on or compatible with their religious beliefs. That is, they can form those conclusions correctly in spite of also having religious beliefs. Unless you've got more, that statement doesn't support your position.

The assumption I was making is that, for a religious person, morality is based on God's commandments, so that, like the founding fathers, such a person would argue that human beings are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. If Rand shared that assumption, as I suspect she did, she would be saying that, despite the reasons for their belief in individual rights, these religionists can nevertheless be viewed as holding the same belief as Objectivists. This is born out by the statement in her essay, "How to Judge a Political Candidate," in the March 1964 issue of The Objectivist Newsletter in which she wrote: "One cannot expect, nor is it necessary, to agree with a candidate�s total philosophy�only with his political philosophy (and only in terms of essentials)�if he advocates the right political principles for the wrong metaphysical reasons, the contradiction is his problem, not ours.� (Emphasis added)

As far as Schwartz's principle making truth relative or subjective, I think that depends on your interpretation of Schwartz's vital principle. If, as I argued in the other thread, he means that the proposition actually has a different meaning for the two people, then there's no problem.

I agree with you here, Joe. I think that you make a valid criticism of this part of my argument. Good detective work! The best I can say is that Schwartz regards the same true proposition as true for you if you arrive at it for the right reasons, but false for me if I arrive at it for the wrong ones -- which would imply a subjectivist theory of truth only if one were to agree that they're the same proposition, which of course they are. But Schwartz doesn't agree, so he would deny that there is any subjectivist implication.

Now onto the 'arbitrary' topic. I don't like trying to defend someone else's position, so I'll try to discuss the topic without trying to interpret what Peikoff or Schwartz "really meant".

I think the first thing to note about the arbitrary is that Objectivism rejects belief in the arbitrary. Faith is believing in something without reason or against reason. But the "without reason" part is one place where the arbitrary comes up. It's making a statement without any reason or evidence for it. I think it's clear that this kind of statement has to have a special status in arguments. A statement that has evidence or reasons behind it can be judged by the evidence or reasons. We can evaluate the validity of the reasoning. A statement without any support is different. We could make a case to show the statement is false. But certainly we have no reason or obligation to. We should take the statement to be empty of meaning, just like Peikoff's parrot.

I agree that we don't have an obligation to refute the statement if no evidence is offered in support of it, but that doesn't mean that the statement is meaningless to the person who understands it. It doesn't mean that the utterance would have the same status if made by a parrot who doesn't grasp its meaning. In order for something to be true or false, it has to have meaningful content, which means that it has to be understood by a rational mind.

But I don't think that really addresses the point of true or false. If we take George Walsh's example of suggesting someone is at the door, it very well may be true, even if it is an arbitrary statement. We could verify whether it is true or false.

Exactly!

But how about a more general statement? Like an argument that love is good? If someone just asserted the love was good, without having any kind of meaning, context, qualifications, etc., could we verify whether it's true or false?

No, there has to be a clearly understood meaning.

Certainly if we took our own interpretation of the statement, we could say it's true.

Right.

But if the statement is made without a meaning, asserting that love is good without a clear meaning of either of the terms or the way in which they're connected, I think one could make the argument that this arbitrary statement can't be judged as either true or false. The difference between this statement devoid of meaning and Walsh's example is that the second has a very specific meaning, even though it's groundless to assert. But in the second case, precisely because it's groundless to making the assertion, the meaning is so vague it's essentially undefined. So when it comes to correspondence to reality, the "love is good" statement can't be judged because of its insufficient clarity.

Right!

Given the two examples, I don't see how one could make a general statement about arbitrary assertions and their relationship to the correspondence theory of truth. And I mean both the view that you can't judge them as true or false, or that you can judge them. It appears that one would need to make a further classification among "arbitrary" statements.

Well, an assertion or a statement has to "assert" something or "state" something, which means that it has to have meaningful content. Otherwise, it's simply unintelligible sounds or meaningless marks on a page, which is why Peikoff is correct that an utterance by a parrot (without anyone else's hearing or understanding it) is neither true nor false. It's neither true nor false, because it's not an assertion, statement or proposition, all of which presuppose intelligibility to a mind capable of grasping it. An arbitrary assertion still asserts something, even if no evidence is offered in support of it; it still has intelligible content to a rational mind and is therefore either true or false.

- Bill
(Edited by William Dwyer
on 8/20, 5:02pm)

Post 9

Sunday, August 20, 2006 - 5:40pm

> It does happen in murder trials, for example, that the available evidence meets the legal requirements of proof, and the suspect is convicted accordingly, but evidence later discovered demonstrates that he could not have committed the crime. Peikoff says that "knowledge at one stage is not contradicted by later discoveries" [David Kelley]

My answer to this is, yes, what constitutes actual knowledge to a "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard is sometimes contradicted by later discoveries. But when one does not have a -reasonable- doubt, one is entitled to claim certainty because all of the -available- evidence points in only one direction. One can treat epistemological principles about how to weigh information as part of the evidence (I believe that is Peikoff's position as well). Let's consider several examples:

1. (an example Peikoff offerred in one of his lecture series) Certain blood types are compatible (for transfusion purposes, for example) and some are not. There is a list. There is certainty on this issue. But a new blood type or ingredient (Rh factor?) is discovered. If the previous knowledge was stated (qualified): "Based on all available scientific knowledge at this point in history, blood types X and Y are always compatible/incompatible", that statement is true even after the new discovery.

2. I flip a coin in a closed air raid shelter and claim with full certainty that it will land either heads or tails. There is a sudden hurricane which rips the roof of the building at exactly the moment I am flipping the coin and deposits the coin on its edge.

3. Albert is certain Jack Ruby murdered Lee Harvey Oswald because he and thirty million other people saw him do it on live television. However, it turns out that a Nazi war criminal who had escaped capture and was now psychotic and hiding in Dallas had had plastic surgery which made him look exactly like Jack Ruby.

Supposing that the facts in each of the three cases turned out to be true, one would have to conclude that a previous certainty had been overturned. But -was- there certainty in each case? Yes, because there was no -reasonable- basis for doubt in each case. There was no evidence that another conclusion was possible. You can only act, only convict people of crimes, take blood transfusions or calculate mathematical probability on the basis of what is reasonable (to a 99.999% probability or excluding extraneous eventualities that are -metaphysically- possible, but that there is absolutely no evidence could occur under the circumstances in question ... psychotic Nazis with plastic surgery, freak hurricanes, totally unexpected new laws of science.

is it -absolute- certainty. No. Is it -contextual- certainty. Yes.

[Peikoff discussed metaphysical and epistemological possibility in his Graduate Seminar in the Philosophy of Science at Brooklyn Polytechnic...something which I'm not sure he's discussed elsewhere. This doesn't mean he'd agree with my examples and analysis...so I'm giving my own conclusions, not trying to worry much about whether P. or K. is right or wrong.]

My conclusion: Beyond a reasonable doubt, as described above, is a proper epistemological standard, not only in a court of law, but in every area of human action and existence.

Phil

(P.S., I'm responding to what was raised in the Kelley quote, not the entire thread.)

(Edited by Philip Coates
on 8/20, 5:46pm)

Post 10

Sunday, August 20, 2006 - 5:48pm

Hi Bill,

I still think the your original quote about religious people is too vague. While religious people may claim to base their morality on the bible or god's will or whatever, it's clear that they often interpret the bible based on their moral views. Your second quote is a little better. It still has the same problem. It says "if he advocates" for the wrong metaphysical reasons. It may be that he's formed the conclusion correctly, but then justifies it poorly. That's what I claim the religious people often do. They try to rationalize their correctly drawn conclusions by trying to find a biblical reason for it. But you might also interpret it to mean that Rand thought the conclusions were actually derived from the faulty premises.

I would still hesitate to use that argument. She doesn't seem to have addressed this specific topic, and these examples are open to interpretation. I don't think she thought about every topic, and without a specific discussion on these ideas, even a short one, I don't think we should attribute meanings to her statements. If you think it follows from some of her arguments, that's worth pointing out. But I don't think we can view this as a contradiction.

You say:

I agree that we don't have an obligation to refute the statement if no evidence is offered in support of it, but that doesn't mean that the statement is meaningless to the person who understands it.

It might be true that he means something specific by it, which means we may be able to go and test whether it's true or false. That wasn't my point. I was trying to get at the fact that it really is baseless. It's a statement of faith. As far as we're concerned, it might as well have been said by a parrot. We can take the words and go test it ourselves, but we don't treat it as the output of a rational mind drawing a conclusion about the world through reason and evidence. We'd just ignore the source and go look to see if the statement ended up being an accurate description. If a person (using faith) or a parrot said "Someone's at the door", we would ignore the fact that there's no reason for them to mouth those particular words, and if we wanted, we'd humor ourselves by checking the door. The fact that the person understand the words and believes them is a difference, but I don't see how it's a useful difference. I admit to not having given it much thought. I don't think those differences change how we should treat the sentence.

At the end, you say it must assert or state something to really be a statement, and so vague statements can't be judged as true or false. I think I agree there. So the issue with the arbitrary is if the meaning is left unclear because of the arbitrariness of the assertion. Then it stops being a specific, identifiable assertion. The only way Peikoff or others could claim the arbitrary can not be true or false is to make the very bold assertion that being arbitrary, it lacks sufficient meaning. I think in the "love is good" example, I showed that this is possible. But they'd have to take a much harder step of showing that it's necessary. And I think we both agree that they haven't met that standard.

Great stuff Bill! It's a pleasure discussing this with you!

Post 11

Monday, August 21, 2006 - 2:21pm

Bill Dwyer quotes Rand, from

"How to Judge a Political Candidate," in the March 1964 issue of The Objectivist Newsletter in which she wrote: "One cannot expect, nor is it necessary, to agree with a candidate�s total philosophy�only with his political philosophy (and only in terms of essentials)�if he advocates the right political principles for the wrong metaphysical reasons, the contradiction is his problem, not ours.� (Emphasis added)

I simply can't see a way to square this with what Schwartz says, on this subject and especially on the very related subject of "Libertarianism."

It's also obvious that Rand is making a claim to truth even where it's not yet recognized by everyone: that capitalism is the right social-political system for man (given man's requirements for living qua man, etc.). Moreover, she's more in line with plain, ordinary common sense: that people can offer bad justifications for principles that are, in fact, true.

I can't remember whether Rand, in her article, considered a very relevant criterion for judging a political candidate, besides his broad political positions: his willingness or tendency to compromise on them. A candidate who espouses a more radical position but who ends up compromising on them more severely than a candidate with less radical espoused positions but less tendency to compromise, is not the better candidate of the two.

Now, saying that Rand's statement doesn't apply to Schwartz's doctrines because her comments are narrowly confined to the subject of judging political candidates, still doesn't deal with the stated point, in general terms, about advocating the right principles for the wrong reasons.

Post 12

Tuesday, August 22, 2006 - 7:16pm

Hi Joe,

You wrote,

I still think the your original quote about religious people is too vague. While religious people may claim to base their morality on the bible or god's will or whatever, it's clear that they often interpret the bible based on their moral views.

Yes, but remember that, according to Schwartz, if the Christian believes that murder is wrong, because God forbids it, then the Christian doesn't believe it's wrong for the right reasons and, therefore, doesn't actually believe it's wrong, because he'd be quite willing to commit murder if God commanded it. If he wouldn't be willing to commit murder if God commanded it, then he doesn't believe it's wrong based on God's commandment. He believes it's wrong for other reasons. You can't have it both ways. Either he believes, and justifies, it based on his religious metaphysics, or he doesn't.

Your second quote is a little better. It still has the same problem. It says "if he advocates" for the wrong metaphysical reasons. It may be that he's formed the conclusion correctly, but then justifies it poorly.

Well, if he's justified it poorly, then he still holds it for the wrong reasons, because he doesn't consider his "formation" of it to be its justification. When Schwartz says that "a seemingly right conclusion arrived at via the wrong reason is the wrong conclusion," he means "justified" for the wrong reason. So does Rand. When she says "advocated" for the wrong metaphysical reasons, she doesn't mean that the theist is pretending to support it for the wrong reasons. She means that he is actually supporting it for the wrong reasons.

That's what I claim the religious people often do. They try to rationalize their correctly drawn conclusions by trying to find a biblical reason for it.

Yes, but that's because they see the bible as the final arbiter, the final justification for their beliefs. If they didn't, then they wouldn't be supporting their political views for religious reasons.

But you might also interpret it to mean that Rand thought the conclusions were actually derived from the faulty premises.

I think that's the only reasonable interpretation. Otherwise, why would she say,

One cannot expect, nor is it necessary, to agree with a candidate�s total philosophy�only with his political philosophy (and only in terms of essentials)�if he advocates the right political principles for the wrong metaphysical reasons, the contradiction is his problem, not ours. (Emphasis added)

She's talking about the candidate's actual philosophy, not some pretense that he pays lip service to.

I would still hesitate to use that argument. She doesn't seem to have addressed this specific topic, and these examples are open to interpretation.

I think her meaning here is crystal clear. It doesn't make sense to interpret it any other way.

I don't think she thought about every topic, and without a specific discussion on these ideas, even a short one, I don't think we should attribute meanings to her statements.

I don't think she thought about every topic either, but she thought about this one, because she wrote on it. I have to assume that she knew what she was saying.

You say:
I agree that we don't have an obligation to refute the statement if no evidence is offered in support of it, but that doesn't mean that the statement is meaningless to the person who understands it.
It might be true that he means something specific by it, which means we may be able to go and test whether it's true or false. That wasn't my point. I was trying to get at the fact that it really is baseless. It's a statement of faith. As far as we're concerned, it might as well have been said by a parrot.

No, because if it were said by a parrot, then it would be meaningless, because the parrot doesn't understand it, whereas it is not meaningless to a human being who does understand it, even if it's arbitrary.

We can take the words and go test it ourselves, but we don't treat it as the output of a rational mind drawing a conclusion about the world through reason and evidence.

I agree, but that's not the point. The point is that it is still true if it corresponds to reality and false if it fails to correspond.

We'd just ignore the source and go look to see if the statement ended up being an accurate description.

But observe that if it does end up being an accurate description, then it was true to begin with. It didn't become true simply because you discovered that it was an accurate description. Your discovery didn't create its accuracy or its truth. It was true before you discovered that it was, because even then, it corresponded to reality; you just didn't know it.

If a person (using faith) or a parrot said "Someone's at the door", we would ignore the fact that there's no reason for them to mouth those particular words, and if we wanted, we'd humor ourselves by checking the door. The fact that the person understand the words and believes them is a difference, but I don't see how it's a useful difference. I admit to not having given it much thought. I don't think those differences change how we should treat the sentence.

I agree that they would not change how we should treat the sentence insofar as taking it seriously or acting on it. But that's a different issue -- one of justification. What is at issue here is only whether or not the statement is true if it corresponds to reality or false if it doesn't. Suppose someone was at the door, after all. Wouldn't the statement, "Someone's at the door" have been true? Or suppose no one was at the door. Wouldn't it have been false?

At the end, you say it must assert or state something to really be a statement, and so vague statements can't be judged as true or false. I think I agree there. So the issue with the arbitrary is if the meaning is left unclear because of the arbitrariness of the assertion. Then it stops being a specific, identifiable assertion. The only way Peikoff or others could claim the arbitrary can not be true or false is to make the very bold assertion that being arbitrary, it lacks sufficient meaning.

But, of course, being arbitrary does not imply an absence of sufficient meaning. An arbitrary statement can be perfectly meaningful, like the arbitrary statement "Someone's at the door."

I think in the "love is good" example, I showed that this is possible. But they'd have to take a much harder step of showing that it's necessary. And I think we both agree that they haven't met that standard.

Yes, and remember that Schwartz is not saying that his "love is good" proposition lacks meaning; he is saying that it has a very definite meaning, one which makes it false!

Great stuff Bill! It's a pleasure discussing this with you!

Thanks, Joe. I've enjoyed it as well.

- Bill

Post 13

Monday, August 28, 2006 - 6:55pm

Bill,

You've been doing great work with this three-part essay.

I especially appreciate the way you tie Schwartz's claims about true conclusions arrived at for wrong reasons with Peikoff's, er, expansive treatment of "the arbitrary" in OPAR.

I'm curious how you would evaluate the various purported examples of "the arbitrary" that Peikoff gives. How many do you think should actually be classified as arbitrary and not taken seriously in a discussion?

Also, are you familiar with Nathaniel Branden's 1963 article on agnosticism, which appeared in the Intellectual Ammunition Department of The Objectivist Newsletter?

NB's conception of the arbitrary (in that old article) is a good deal less expansive than Peikoff's (in OPAR). Are there reasons to prefer it to Peikoff's?

Robert Campbell

Post 14

Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - 8:22am

Bill,

I have to take issue with your interpretation of Rand�s theory of truth. After quoting Peikoff as saying that

"Truth," in Ayn Rand's definition, "is the recognition of reality."

you say:

In keeping with Rand�s definition of truth as �the recognition of reality,� Peikoff equates a proposition�s �correspondence� to reality with a mind�s �recognition� of the fact expressed by the proposition. But a �recognition� of reality would not occur if one were to accept a true conclusion on the basis of false premises. In that case, although the mental content forming one�s conclusion would correspond or conform to reality, it would not constitute a recognition of reality. My dictionary (The American Heritage, 1991) defines �recognize� as:

1. To know to be something that has been perceived before: recognize a face.
2. To know or identify from past experience or knowledge: recognize hostility.

In other words, �recognize� implies knowledge of what is recognized. So, if I conclude on the basis of false premises that capitalism is better than socialism, then even though capitalism is better than socialism�even though my conclusion corresponds to reality�I do not �recognize� that capitalism is better, because I do not know that it is. Peikoff�s claim to the contrary, Rand�s definition of truth does not correspond(!) to a correspondence theory of truth.

On page 48 of ITOE, Rand gives her definition of �truth� as follows:

Truth is the product of the recognition (i.e., identification) of the facts of reality.

Note how she has clarified what she meant by �recognition�. She is using it in the sense of acknowledgment. My dictionary includes this meaning, as in:

b. �to acknowledge the de facto existence or the independence of�.

So, truth is what you get if you identify a fact of reality, and that does correspond to the correspondence theory of truth.

Thanks,

Glenn

Post 15

Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - 12:23pm

Robert Campbell wrote:

Bill,

You've been doing great work with this three-part essay.
Thanks, Bob.
I especially appreciate the way you tie Schwartz's claims about true conclusions arrived at for wrong reasons with Peikoff's, er, expansive treatment of "the arbitrary" in OPAR.

I'm curious how you would evaluate the various purported examples of "the arbitrary" that Peikoff gives. How many do you think should actually be classified as arbitrary and not taken seriously in a discussion?

Good question. Peikoff writes:

An arbitrary claim is one for which there is no evidence either peceptual or conceptual. It is a brazen assertion, based neither on direct observation nor on any attempted logical inference therefrom. For example, a man tells you that the soul survives the death of the body; or that your fate will be determined by your birth on the cusp of Capricorn and Aquarius; or that he has a sixth sense which, surpasses your five; or that a convention of gremlins is studying Hegel's Logic on the planet Venus. If you ask him "Why?" he offers no argument. "I can't prove any of these statements," he admits -- "but you can't disprove them, either."

The answer to all such statements, according to Objectivism, is: an arbitrary claim is automatically invalidated. The rational response to such a claim is to dismiss it, without discussion, consideration, or argument.

Whether one should dismiss such claims without discussion depends, I suppose, on whether one thinks that there is something to be gained by discussing them. Let's take Peikoff's first example about the soul's surviving death. People will argue that the soul survives death, because God said so. Does the claim become non-arbitrary, because the bible is invoked on its behalf? Others will argue that out-of-body experiences are evidence that the soul survives death. One could, of course, dismiss out-of-body experiences as illegitimate evidence, on the grounds that they are hallucinogenic. But in doing so, one would not be dismissing them without consideration. And even if no such "evidence" were offered to support the idea of a disembodied soul, one could still point out that the soul depends on a functional body, and that when the body dies the soul dies as well. This would refute both the biblical and the paranormalist claims for a disembodied soul.

The biblical "evidence" that the soul survives deaths raises the question of whether or not a belief in God is arbitrary, since the bible does not qualify as legitimate evidence. There are, of course, the arguments advanced by Thomas Aquinas. But these too are illegitimate - mere rationalizations to support a religious doctrine accepted on faith. Should a belief in God be dismissed without discussion, consideration or argument? Peikoff certainly made a point of refuting the arguments for God in a lecture he gave for Branden's Basic Principles series. If someone gives a spurious argument on behalf of a baseless claim, does it deserve a response? Is a spurious argument enough to make an absurd claim non-arbitrary? And, lacking legitimate reasons, is the argument itself to be considered arbitrary and therefore unworthy of discussion or consideration? Do Aquinas' arguments for God qualify as "conceptual" evidence, even though they're patently fallacious? And if they do not, then is there no justification for considering or refuting them? Perhaps, Peikoff would say that even though the arguments are patently fallacious, they are still an attempt to provide evidential support and therefore cannot be considered genuinely arbitrary.

What about Peikoff's other examples, viz., that your fate will be determined by your birth on the cusp of Capricorn and Aquarius; or that someone has a sixth sense which, surpasses your five; or that a convention of gremlins is studying Hegel's Logic on the planet Venus? Well, the astrological claim has its defenders who will argue that there is indeed evidence that your birth sign influences your future. Of course, their "evidence" is bogus, but does their claim deserve to be ignored. Skeptics have addressed such claims and shown them to be utterly without merit. Were the skeptics wrong to have taken them seriously? Perhaps, but their refutation may well have convinced previous adherents. Similar considerations would apply to any claim of extra-sensory (or "anomalous") perception, which Nathaniel Branden himself considers credible, and he will gladly provide you with evidence to support them. Once again, perhaps Peikoff would say that such claims are arbitrary only if no evidence is offered on their behalf. As for the convention of gremlins studying Hegel on Venus, what exactly is a "gremlin"? Isn't it a fictitious entity? If so, then the statement is false. There are no fictious entities studying Hegel on Venus.

Also, are you familiar with Nathaniel Branden's 1963 article on agnosticism, which appeared in the Intellectual Ammunition Department of The Objectivist Newsletter? NB's conception of the arbitrary (in that old article) is a good deal less expansive than Peikoff's (in OPAR). Are there reasons to prefer it to Peikoff's?

Yes, I'm familiar with Branden's article. The only difference between his example and the one's that Peikoff gives is that some of Peikoff's examples can be refuted on their face, whereas the one that Branden gives -- of an arbitrary allegation of murder -- cannot. But, of course, such an allegation deserves no serious consideration, since the onus is on the accuser to provide evidence for the allegation. The fact that such an allegation could conceivably be true does not mean that it deserves to be taken seriously. Suppose that I assert, quite arbitrarily, that you have prostate cancer. It is true that my assertion is not evidence and there is no reason for you to take it seriously. But my assertion is still true or false. Either you have prostate cancer or you don't. And this could be verified or falsified by the appropriate medical examination. Therefore, it doesn't follow, contrary to Peikoff, that because my assertion is arbitrary, it's neither true nor false.

However, I don't think there is any substantive difference between Peikoff's position and Branden's. In the article to which you refer ("What is the Objectivist view of agnosticism?", in the April 1963 issue of the The Objectivist Newsletter, Branden writes:

When a person makes an assertion for which no rational grounds are given, his statement is -- epistemologically -- without cognitive content. It is as though nothing had been said.

Compare this statement with Peikoff's:

An arbitrary idea must be given the exact treatment its nature demands. One must treat it as though nothing had been said. The reason is that, cognitively speaking, nothing has been said. (OPAR, pp. 164, 165)

And, of course, if a statement lacks cognitive content, then it is neither true nor false, which means that Branden, as well as Peikoff, would subscribe to the notion that an arbitrary statement is neither true nor false. But an arbitrary statement is a statement nonetheless. It is not bereft of cognitive content; if it were, it wouldn't be a statement, but a meaningless utterance. Moreover, just where is the evidence for the assertion that an arbitrary statement lacks cognitive content? Does the arbitrary statement, "There is life on Venus," lack cognitive content? Of course not. Therefore, since Peikoff and Branden offer no evidence for their assertion that an arbitrary statement lacks cognitive content, their assertion is itself arbitrary, which means that, on their theory, it is neither true nor false. Thus, not only is their concept of an arbitrary statement false; it is self-refuting as well.

- Bill
(Edited by William Dwyer
on 8/29, 3:08pm)

(Edited by William Dwyer
on 8/29, 8:18pm)

Post 16

Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - 1:29pm

Glenn, you wrote,

Bill, I have to take issue with your interpretation of Rand�s theory of truth. After quoting Peikoff as saying that "Truth," in Ayn Rand's definition, "is the recognition of reality." You say:
In keeping with Rand�s definition of truth as �the recognition of reality,� Peikoff equates a proposition�s �correspondence� to reality with a mind�s �recognition� of the fact expressed by the proposition. But a �recognition� of reality would not occur if one were to accept a true conclusion on the basis of false premises. In that case, although the mental content forming one�s conclusion would correspond or conform to reality, it would not constitute a recognition of reality. My dictionary (The American Heritage, 1991) defines �recognize� as:

1. To know to be something that has been perceived before: recognize a face.
2. To know or identify from past experience or knowledge: recognize hostility.

In other words, �recognize� implies knowledge of what is recognized. So, if I conclude on the basis of false premises that capitalism is better than socialism, then even though capitalism is better than socialism�even though my conclusion corresponds to reality�I do not �recognize� that capitalism is better, because I do not know that it is. Peikoff�s claim to the contrary, Rand�s definition of truth does not correspond(!) to a correspondence theory of truth.
On page 48 of ITOE, Rand gives her definition of �truth� as follows:
Truth is the product of the recognition (i.e., identification) of the facts of reality.
Note how she has clarified what she meant by �recognition�. She is using it in the sense of acknowledgment. My dictionary includes this meaning, as in:
b. �to acknowledge the de facto existence or the independence of�.
So, truth is what you get if you identify a fact of reality, and that does correspond to the correspondence theory of truth.

I don't dispute Rand's clarification of her meaning. I agree that "recognition" means "acknowledgement." I thought that was obvious from the statement of mine that you quoted. As I said, "'recognize' implies knowledge of what is recognized." But you ignore my argument that a statement can correspond to reality without constituting the recognition of reality. If truth is the correspondence of a proposition to a fact of reality (which is the traditional correspondence theory), then a proposition that so corresponds is true, even if the person entertaining the proposition does not recognize the correspondence, because he has not identified the fact of reality to which it corresponds.

Consider a research scientist who is investigating a purported cure for cancer. Let's say he is testing the claim that Agent X cures cancer. Now either Agent X cures cancer or it doesn't. Either the claim is true or it's false, quite independently of whether or not the researcher recognizes that Agent X cures cancer. That's why he's doing the testing; he wants to find out which it is. But that means that the claim is true or false independently of whether or not he recognizes it -- independently of whether or not he identifies that Agent X does or does not cure cancer.

You say that truth is what you get if you identify a fact of reality. No, knowledge is what you get if you identify a fact of reality. Truth is not something you "get" from a process of identification, as if a proposition's truth depends on your identification of the fact to which it corresponds. Truth is simply a relationship between a proposition and a fact of reality. If the proposition corresponds to the fact, then the proposition is true; otherwise, it is false.

- Bill
(Edited by William Dwyer
on 8/29, 2:59pm)

Post 17

Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - 3:50pm

Bill,
Now I get your point. The traditional correspondence theory of truth states that a proposition is true if it corresponds to a fact of reality. The correspondence is independent of whether a consciousness recognizes (or identifies) that fact of reality.

On page 165 of OPAR, Peikoff says:

The concept of "truth" identifies a type of relationship between a proposition and the facts of reality. "Truth," in Ayn Rand's definition, is "the recognition of reality." In essence, this is the traditional correspondence theory of truth: there is a reality independent of man, and there are certain conceptual products, propositions, formulated by human consciousness. When one of these products corresponds to reality, when it constitutes a recognition of fact, then it is true. Conversely, when the mental content does not thus correspond, when it constitutes not a recognition of reality but a contradiction of it, then it is false. [Italics added.]

Clearly Peikoff is using "corresponds to reality" as synonymous with "constitutes a recognition of fact". But, as you pointed out,

a statement can correspond to reality without constituting the recognition of reality.

Gee, more food for thought. No wonder I'm putting on weight.
Thanks,
Glenn

Post 18

Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - 7:51pm

Bill,

Do you see Branden's 1963 article as disagreeing with Peikoff's exposition in OPAR, about anything that matters in the present discussion?

*******

...if a statement lacks cognitive content, then it is neither true nor false, which means that Branden, as well as Peikoff, would subscribe to the notion that an arbitrary statement is neither true nor false.

*******

Branden didn't *say* that arbitrary statements are neither true nor false; Peikoff did. But if you take "it is as if nothing had been said" literally, how would you avoid Peikoff's conclusion?

*******

But an arbitrary statement is a statement nonetheless. It is not bereft of cognitive content; if it were, it wouldn't be a statement, but a meaningless utterance. Moreover, just where is the evidence for the assertion that an arbitrary statement lacks cognitive content? Does the arbitrary statement, "There is life on Venus," lack cognitive content? Of course not.

*******

Although Peikoff never actually uses the word "meaningless" in his treatment, I have also taken "has no cognitive content" or "cannot be cognitively processed" to imply "meaningless."

The ARI contingent at SOLOP was not pleased with my interpretation, however. (For the highest signal-to-noise ratio on the issue, I would direct you to Thomas Lee's comments.)

By the way, are you familiar with Peikoff's early-1970s approach to such statements as "The present king of France is bald"? I kept expecting him to mention it during his discussion of "the arbitrary," but he never did.

Robert Campbell

PS. Sorry about the clumsy formatting on the quotations, etc. Using an Intel-based Mac, I couldn't run Internet Explorer if I wanted to, for Microsoft has pulled the plug on IE for OS X. I need to learn how to get one of my browsers to get sites to respond to it as though it is IE (there is supposedly a way to do this).

Post 19

Thursday, August 31, 2006 - 12:47am