| | Ed wrote:
You are confusing the term "absolute" with the term "foundational." Absolute simply refers to necessary (i.e., objective) truths. This, by the way, is how Rand could say:
No, absolute is what I meant. And I stated it in the context of metaphysical uncertainty, that is, of never knowing whether or not one has uncovered the ultimate "cause" (Rand's own word in the ITOE appendix) of all the rest of an entity's characteristics.
What Rand is talking about in the quote you gave is not metaphysics.
Here is an interesting quote from Einstein regarding such statements:
"The physical world is real." That is supposed to be the fundamental hypothesis. What does "hypothesis" mean here? For me, a hypothesis is a statement, whose truth must be assumed for the moment, but whose meaning must be raised above all ambiguity. The above statement appears to me, however, to be, in itself, meaningless, as if one said: "The physical world is cock-a-doodle-doo." It appears to me that the "real" is an intrinsically empty, meaningless category (pigeon hole), whose monstrous importance lies only in the fact that I can do certain things in it and not certain others. This division is, to be sure, not an arbitrary one...
No, it's not an arbitrary division, only an empty one. You can substitute existence is an absolute for the physical world is real in the above quote and Einstein's criticism still applies.
Such statements are empty and meaningless for physics, likewise for philosophy. But they DO have psychological impact, even if they are entirely lacking in intellectual importance. Having psychological impact they can give the appearance of intellectual importance because of the philosophical context of the statements.
I agree with your distinction between necessary and foundational truths. That is identical to the Kantian distinction between necessary and a priori truths. All a priori truths are necessary, but not all necessary truths are a priori.
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