From Younkins' article Immanuel Kant: Ayn Rand's Intellectual Enemy

The original article is at http://rebirthofreason.com/Articles/Younkins/Immanuel_Kant_Ayn_Rands_Intellectual_Enemy.shtml

Ed Younkins wrote:

According to Rand, there is no basis upon which to differentiate analytic propositions from synthetic ones.

I don't think Rand said that. It sounds more like Peikoff.

Is there a basis upon which to differentiate those two types of propositions? Yes, there is - as long as it isn't mischaracterized in some devious fashion or confused with Logical Positivism.

But the tendency here is to judge the issue according to the terms of concept-formation outlined in ITOE. And in fact that is exactly the lead Peikoff took when he wrote his article on the analytic-synthetic dichotomy.

IS it an issue of concept-formation? And is it an issue of how to define terms and form abstractions from abstractions?

This looks to me like one of those cases where Kant is being accused of trying to prove too much, and since his argument cannot support all that he is allegedly trying to prove, it is easily trounced just as straw men are always designed to be trounced - that's why they're straw men.

Instead of going into his argument (which I can do if you prefer), let me just explain the theory this way. An analytical proposition brings clarity to a concept; a synthetic proposition adds something to the concept not contained in its definition, in other words, it is the product of a combining or blending.

He's not talking about forming concepts here at all, although the structure of a concept has something to do with it. To say that a concept contains everything about the entity to which it refers has nothing to do with the issue. A concept still has a definition, and to analyze the concept is simply to bring it clarity.

After all, clarity of definition is certainly important to understanding a concept, isn't it? And how can clarity of definition be attained without some kind of analysis?

Why can't this be done without being accused of Linguistic Analysis, or better yet, context-dropping?

Rand wrote:

For an example, I refer you to my brief analysis of the need to form the concept "justice" (in the chapter on "Definitions"). ITOE2, 70

Did Rand's analysis bring clarity to the issue of the need to form the concept of "justice"? At least she tried.

If analysis isn't relevant to epistemology then Objectivism should just throw away the idea of defining their concepts.

I think, however, that there is an even better way of explaining this, and anyway I haven't explained synthesis yet. So here goes.

First let me start with an example that Peikoff got wrong.

i) 2 plus 2 equals 4.
ii) 2 qts. of water mixed with 2 qts. of ethyl alcohol yield 3.86 qts. of liquid, at 15.56°C.

Peikoff tells us that i) is [edit - allegedly] obtained through analysis. It is therefore an analytic truth. And ii) he considered to be an [edit - alleged] example of a synthetic proposition.

Now even a beginning student of this subject will tell you that both i) and ii) were considered by Kant to be synthetic propositions. In fact, Kant is even famed for his view that the propositions of mathematics are all synthetical (unless you count a = a which is analytic a priori). (Google using the search words "kant synthetic mathematics" and you'll find over 8,600,000 entries to browse through at your leisure.)

What Peikoff is arguing against here is a view held, implicitly, by Hume, not Kant. It is Hume who considered i) to be analytic.

Then why is i) synthetic? Because, as Kant explained, no analysis of 2+2 will tell you that it equals 4. The number 4, instead, is the result of a synthesis of two numbers in this case, and sometimes more depending on the equation that results in the number 4.

But, Kant explained, sometimes such a simple example doesn't work because, as simple and seemingly self-evident, it is sometimes confused with axiomatic propositions which are analytical.

Peikoff's example ii) is most helpful in explaining the synthetics of this. No amount of analysis of the left-hand side - "2 qts. of water mixed with 2 qts. of ethyl alcohol" - will get you to "3.86 qts. of liquid, at 15.56°C" on the right-hand side. In other words, it is a product of a combining or blending, not just of two substances, but of two concepts in the mind.

Post 1

Tuesday, January 12, 2010 - 12:50pm

Robert,

I don't have Peikoff's essay in front of me. It's been awhile since I read it. The example you gave suggests to me that Peikoff (and Rand) confused the analytic / synthetic distinction with the a priori / a posteriori distinction. Under Kant's theory, 2+2=4 is a priori true. And 2qts. H₂0 + 2qts. CH₃CH₂OH = 3.86 qts. at 15.56°C is a posteriori true. I think Kant would say both of these propositions are synthetic since neither subject "2+2" nor subject "H₂0 + 2qts. CH₃CH₂OH" somehow "contains" its predicate.

I don't think Peikoff's confusion is fatal to his argument. I'm not sure, but I think his underlying claim is that a subject always "contains" any predicate that is true. So he would reject the analytic / synthetic distinction as incorrectly limiting what a subject can and does "contain." I think his argument has problems, and I think the analytic / synthetic distinction does, too, but for reasons other than those Peikoff offers.

And separately, I would guess that Peikoff (and Rand) reject the idea of a priori truths, instead claiming that all truths are a posteriori, i.e., derived from the senses, hence experience.

Jordan

Post 2

Tuesday, January 12, 2010 - 3:20pm

There is still a question I'm waiting to be asked (by anyone) concerning post 0 here.
(Edited by Robert Keele on 1/12, 3:59pm)

Post 3

Tuesday, January 12, 2010 - 3:58pm

Jordan,

You wrote: I don't have Peikoff's essay in front of me. It's been awhile since I read it. The example you gave suggests to me that Peikoff (and Rand) confused the analytic / synthetic distinction with the a priori / a posteriori distinction. Under Kant's theory, 2+2=4 is a priori true. And 2qts. H20 + 2qts. CH3CH2OH = 3.86 qts. at 15.56°C is a posteriori true. I think Kant would say both of these propositions are synthetic since neither subject "2+2" nor subject "H20 + 2qts. CH3CH2OH" somehow "contains" its predicate.

I don't think Peikoff's confusion is fatal to his argument. I'm not sure, but I think his underlying claim is that a subject always "contains" any predicate that is true. So he would reject the analytic / synthetic distinction as incorrectly limiting what a subject can and does "contain." I think his argument has problems, and I think the analytic / synthetic distinction does, too, but for reasons other than those Peikoff offers.

And separately, I would guess that Peikoff (and Rand) reject the idea of a priori truths, instead claiming that all truths are a posteriori, i.e., derived from the senses, hence experience.

I don't see Peikoff as being confused, he was dealing with someone's version of a dichotomy only it was not Kant's idea. Kant, he wrote, gave it its "present name," not much else. So if you want to know whose version of it Peikoff was dealing with, I would look to A. J. Ayer in his 1952 work Language, Truth and Logic.

If Peikoff was using Ayer as an excuse to castigate Kant as some kind of demonic force, it is a weak excuse based on a simplistic view of history ("Kant led to Hegel," etc.)

I think you summed up Peikoff's argument correctly. And it's likely he would consider nothing to be a priori, only a posteriori, and the latter only in the sense that it is "a priori," i.e., a universal and necessary truth standing outside and independent of any human ability to represent and conceive.

So in his view being an "a posteriori" truth says nothing about the actual existents being considered, what they are is true no matter what we think about them. The "dichotomy" has conflated metaphysics with epistemology, the mind - a source of apriori truths - becomes independent of reality, from which it concludes that man's mind is impotent to deal with reality which is the source of a posteriori, contingent truths.

I wouldn't know why you consider Peikoff's argument to be defective. But it seems obvious to me that any true statement of fact contains both a priori and a posteriori elements. It only requires an intellectual effort to separate the two, but merely making the effort doesn't imply that any dichotomies exist.
(Edited by Robert Keele on 1/12, 10:18pm)

Post 4

Tuesday, January 12, 2010 - 6:56pm

Robert (and Jordan):

I think you summed up Peikoff's argument correctly. And it's likely he would consider nothing to be a priori, only a posteriori, and the latter only in the sense that it is "a priori," i.e., a universal and necessary truth standing outside and independent of any human ability to represent and conceive.

Would you guys please read my stuff and quit using the non-sensical sense of "a priori"?.

Thanks.

Ed
[some of my stuff ; and some more]

Post 5

Tuesday, January 12, 2010 - 9:11pm

Hi Ed,

I don't get it. Your stuff doesn't change how Kant used the term a priori. Whether we accept or reject it, doesn't it make sense to use the term as Kant used it? In philosophy, like it or not, he's really the reason we talk about a priori in the first place.

Robert,

I give up. What's the question?

Jordan

Post 6

Tuesday, January 12, 2010 - 10:21pm

Jordan,

It should be obvious that I'm using the word "synthetic" in some off-handed or incomplete manner. If it's not obvious, then perhaps it's because everybody here is too busy blinking back tears of boredom while they read my analysis.

Post 7

Tuesday, January 12, 2010 - 10:26pm

Ed,

I didn't see anything about "a priori" at either of those links.

Post 8

Tuesday, January 12, 2010 - 10:47pm

Jordan,

The a priori expresses three different ideas, two of them are not peculiar to Kant.

A proposition is a priori in form if its content expresses 1. universality and 2. necessity.

3. In a strictly Kantian sense, the a priori is knowledge which cannot be validated by means of experience.

All three ideas are contained in the Kantian construct, thus you have his theory that to derive necessary and universal truths a posteriori is impossible.

Furthermore, a priori knowledge not only cannot be validated by means of experience, as universal and necessary it also NEED NOT be validated by means of experience. It is, in Kant's theory, the very basis of experience itself, thus it cannot and need not be validated in experience.

I agreed when you wrote that "2 qts. of water mixed with 2 qts. of ethyl alcohol yield 3.86 qts. of liquid, at 15.56°C"
is a synthetic a posteriori proposition. However, you've got to admit that, given all the same conditions, that proposition will always hold true. And as based in laws of chemistry, it is thus synthetic a priori.

Synthetic a posteriori judgments express something not quite capturable by laws of nature, some subjective or unpredictable (chaotic) element in experience. For example, I never know from day to day if my wife's hand will feel warm, cold, or even hot to my touch. It's something I have to find out through experience, and only experience will tell.

Post 9

Wednesday, January 13, 2010 - 5:06am

Robert,

The second link in my post # 4 here contains a post # 12, which contains a link "knowledge" -- which, if clicked on, reveals an article which, if read, reveals a sensical sense of the a priori.

Ed

Post 10

Wednesday, January 13, 2010 - 9:06am

Ed, your article on Certainty is excellent. Your Peikoff quote brings me right back again to Thomas W. Clark accusing Machan of a belief in "contra-causal will." Peikoff wrote:

Many people in our Kantian era think, mistakenly, that absolutism is incompatible with a contextual approach to knowledge. These people define an "absolute" as a principle independent of any other fact or cognition; i.e., as something unaffected by anthing else in reality or in human knowledge. ...

Contra-causal will is human will unaffected by the context of the world around man, as if the freedom we have to choose our course of action was not at all dependent on the things that are causing us to choose in the first place; i.e., first-cause will power.

Maybe this mistake about absolutism, which I know Clark deplores, explains his odd uses of the concept "a priori":

Causes are natural phenomena that are discovered empirically. Rational relations are a priori but not causal ones. Of course, a naturalist will be happy with a pragmatist or broadly fallibilist conception of epistemology which is, indeed, provisional. [And this:] However, I think we need to be careful with statements like "naturalists are committed to the worldview of the various sciences," since that presumes a priori that science cannot discover the supernatural, and I do not believe that is a valid assumption.

It might also explain his almost incomprehensible sentences. But it does not explain how a naturalist who denies the supernatural is claiming that it is not a valid assumption to presume "a priori" that science cannot discover the supernatural.

As far as the non-sensical sense of "a priori" goes, read this one. It is from an interview with Galen Strawson by Tamler Sommers, one of Clark's famous "contributors", on getting rid of free will (!)

Strawson: But the basic argument against ultimate moral responsibility works whether determinism is true or false. It’s a completely a priori argument, as philosophers like to say. That means that you can see that it is true just lying on your couch. You don’t have to get up off your couch and go outside and examine the way things are in the physical world. You don’t have to do any science. And actually, current science isn’t going to help. Ultimate moral responsibility is also ruled out by the theory of relativity. Einstein himself, in a piece written as a homage to the Indian mystical poet Rabindranath Tagore, said that ‘a Being endowed with higher insight and more perfect intelligence, watching man and his doings, would smile about man’s illusion that he was acting according to his own free will.’

Now, watch him change the context when he next states:

"I just want to stress the word “ultimate” before ‘moral responsibility.’ Because there’s a clear, weaker, everyday sense of “morally responsible” in which you and I and millions of other people are thoroughly morally responsible people."

Non-sensical uses of a priori lead to non-sensical contradictions and equivocations. You can't use the phrase this way without equivocation because their is no correspondence between the first use of "moral responsibility" and the second. Strawson can not stick to his own "absolutism" because the use of it is a floating abstraction, made so only by claiming it is a priori.

P.S. I take a lot of pleasure in trying to destroy T.W.Clark's naturalism. He hates Rand, he had no argument to provide when I challenged him on the meaning of "self-made soul" and "self-made man", and by telling people they cannot take ultimate responsibility for their own actions, he is helping to destroy responsible actions. He may well be to blame for some of those psychopaths who refuse to help others when the need is clear and it presents no danger to themselves. "Why bother? I'm not to blame if the child dies; I didn't put her there in the woods and ultimately she isn't my responsibilty."

Clark: Seeing that we are fully caused creatures - not self-caused - we can no longer take or assign ultimate credit or blame for what we do.

Post 11

Wednesday, January 13, 2010 - 12:44pm

Hi Robert,

However, you've got to admit that, given all the same conditions, that proposition will always hold true. And as based in laws of chemistry, it is thus synthetic a priori.

Because we need experience, at least initially, to verify that proposition, it can never be a priori. Propositions never switch their a priori / a posteriori status. (Just in case: I'm simply entertaining, not accepting, the dichotomy as it is traditionally understood.)

An analytical proposition brings clarity to a concept; a synthetic proposition adds something to the concept not contained in its definition, in other words, it is the product of a combining or blending.

Given your odd treatment of "synthetic," I confess I don't know what the above quote really means.

Jordan

Post 12

Wednesday, January 13, 2010 - 12:44pm

Ed,

I still don't see any reference to "a priori" at the link, or a post #12.

I did however find this from Peikoff:

Many people in our Kantian era think, mistakenly, that absolutism is incompatible with a contextual approach to knowledge. These people define an "absolute" as a principle independent of any other fact or cognition; i.e., as something unaffected by anthing else in reality or in human knowledge. ...

What then would qualify as an absolute? Only a fact that has no relationships to anything (like Hegel's supernatural Absolute). Such a fact would be knowable only "in itself," by mystic insight, without the "contamination" of any "external" context of evidence.

The modern definition of "absolute" represents the rejection of a rational metaphysics and epistemology. It is the inversion of a crucial truth: relationships are not the enemy of absolutism; they are what make it possible. We prove a conclusion on the basis of facts logically related to it and then integrate it into the sum of our knowledge. That process is what enables us to say: "Everything points to this conclusion; the total context demands it; within these conditions, it is unshakable." -- Peikoff, OPAR, p 174-5

1. This is not a Kantian era we live in. Almost everything I have read has been an attempt to fend off Kant for various reasons, the rest has been an attempt to clarify and understand Kant.

The latter reason is crucial because, in fact, every attempt to fend off Kant has been based on an interpretation, and these have often been diametrically opposed to each other. For example, Catholics hate Kant for reducing God to a mere Idea; atheists hate Kant for attempting to bring religion back into the picture.

Which is it? Can it be both? Peikoff won't tell you. Objectivists don't tell you these things or really seem to notice them at all.

2. Peikoff put the word "contamination" in quotes as if he were quoting someone, but he doesn't cite his source. That's because there is no source, Peikoff just makes up his "facts" as he goes.

3. Peikoff refers to integration as if it were a simple given fact requiring no justification, without bothering to ask how said integration is possible, or how it makes for metaphysical certainty. Objectivists want to have their metaphysical certainty without proof because, allegedly, such proof would beg the question being answered, while attempts to disprove it can only allegedly rely on the fallacy of the stolen concept. In other words, Objectivists want to have their "a priori" cake and eat it too.

(Edited by Robert Keele on 1/13, 12:47pm)

Post 13

Wednesday, January 13, 2010 - 12:57pm

Jordan,

"A posteriori" means you would have to mix ethyl alcohol and water together every time under the same conditions to find out the answer, because the answer, as "a posteriori," constantly changes. "A priori" means you don't have to, because the laws of chemistry give you these handy formulas to work with, and they work every time. They are as absolute as the synthetic a priori laws of mathematics which do not have to be validated every time by counting on your fingers and toes every morning to make sure that 10 and 10 still add up to 20.

Your answer was to say that the solution had to be derived by experience in the first place. Even if that's true, it misses the point. Because it is only through such experimentation that the laws of chemistry can be derived, or really, discovered - you do not actually "derive" them - as some ridiculously claim about the a priori - innately. That is just someone's invalid straw man argument against the Kantian a priori.

(Edited by Robert Keele on 1/13, 1:05pm)

Post 14

Wednesday, January 13, 2010 - 1:03pm

Jordan,

My last post was about the a priori, so this one will address your concerns about the synthetic.

You wrote: Given your odd treatment of "synthetic," I confess I don't know what the above quote really means.

Here's the simplest example I can think of -

2 + 2 -> 4. The answer "4" is derived synthetically, that is, by combining 2 and 2 into a new unit, 4.

4 -> 2 + 2. This analyzes the unit "4" into its constituent components, thus clarifying how the "4" was derived in the first place.

Synthesis is combination of separate parts into a new whole; analysis is clarification, let's say, through reduction into its component parts and methods, of that which was previously combined by synthesis.

Post 15

Wednesday, January 13, 2010 - 1:19pm

Robert: "Catholics hate Kant for reducing God to a mere Idea"?????

"Kant [ ] defines religion as "the acknowledgement that our duties are God's commandments". He describes the essence of religion as consisting in morality. Christianity is a religion and is true only in so far as it conforms to this definition. The ideal Church should be an "ethical republic"; it should discard all dogmatic definitions, accept "rational faith" as its guide in all intellectual matters, and establish the kingdom of God on earth by bringing about the reign of duty. Even the Christian law of charity must take second place to the supreme exigencies of duty. In fact, it has been remarked that Kant's idea of religion, in so far as it is at all Scriptural, is inspired more by the Old than by the New Testament. He maintains that those dogmas which Christianity holds sacred, such as the mystery of the Trinity, should be given an ethical interpretation, should, so to speak, be regarded as symbols of moral concepts and values. Thus "historical faith", he says, is the "vehicle of rational faith". For the person and character of Christ he professes the greatest admiration. Christ, he declares, was the exemplification of the highest moral perfection."

from the Catholic Encyclopedia and there is much more there that shows no animosity toward Kant. Judging by what I read of the article, Catholics appreciate his efforts.

Post 16

Wednesday, January 13, 2010 - 2:53pm

Curtis,

Newadvent.org has been one of my favorite sites in terms of anti-Kantianism. At least that has been my experience with them. The part you quoted doesn't seem positive or negative to me, just neutral.

However, you should have read down to the bottom of the page you linked me to, because it reads:

The Immanentist movement, the Vitalism of Blondel, the anti-Scholasticism of the "Annales de philosophie chretienne", and other recent tendencies towards a non-intellectualapologetic of the Faith, have their roots in Kantism, and the condemnation they have received from ecclesiastical authority shows plainly that they have no clear title to be considered a substitute for the intellectualistic apologetic which has for its ground the realism of the Scholastics.

You may question that criticism as not being aimed directly at Kant, only at those movements that have their roots in Kantism. So here is one example of a truly critical observation from that site:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03432a.htm

Man, conceived as a law unto himself and an end in himself, is emancipated from God as his master and separated from Him as his supreme good; conceived, moreover, as autonomous and independent of any higher authority, he is deified. This is not building up true and lofty morality, but is its complete overthrow; for the basis of morality is God as the ultimate end, highest good, and supreme lawgiver. Kant utterly ignores the nature of both intellect and will. Human reason does not enact the moral law, but only voices and proclaims it as the enactment of a higher power above man, and it is not from the proclaiming voice that the law derives its binding force, but from the majesty above that intimates it to us through our conscience.

Here is an example of anti-Kantianism from another Catholic site, for good measure:

http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/civilization/cc0011.html

Yet this abstract professor, writing in abstract style about abstract questions, is, I believe, the primary source of the idea that today imperils faith (and thus souls) more than any other; the idea that truth is subjective.

Post 17

Wednesday, January 13, 2010 - 3:24pm

"The latter reason is crucial because, in fact, every attempt to fend off Kant has been based on an interpretation, and these have often been diametrically opposed to each other. For example, Catholics hate Kant for reducing God to a mere Idea; atheists hate Kant for attempting to bring religion back into the picture."

Which is it? Can it be both? Peikoff won't tell you. Objectivists don't tell you these things or really seem to notice them at all.

Objectivism doesn't waste time trying to fit itself into some spectrum of false philosophies, Robert. Objectivism is not a mere academic exercise where so-called intellectuals jockey for position in university departments and post-modern journals.

Curtis, the Catholic Encyclopedia is an objective one. It has articles that describe matters of interest to Catholic intellectuals and intellectuals interested in Catholicism. It is not a work of criticism or catechism. The fact that they do not attack Kant reflects no necessary approval, just a desire to present him honestly. It is not consistent with scholastic epistemology to misrepresent or understate an opponent's position.

A case has not been refuted until it has been stated at its strongest.

Post 18

Wednesday, January 13, 2010 - 5:06pm

Ted,

Notice that my newadvent.org quote was a denuciation and not an objective attempt to educate interested readers:

Kant utterly ignores the nature of both intellect and will. Human reason does not enact the moral law...etc.

Post 19

Wednesday, January 13, 2010 - 5:14pm