| | I have been spending some time digging into terms such as entity, existents, concrete, abstract etc and I was working in the direction of associating my boundary ideas with that of the idea of existent. However, my recent read of "The Metaphysical vs the Man-made" brought me to an epiphany of sorts.
I started reading this article with the intent on seeing if Rand's ideas of the man-made related to concepts and ideas. My thought was that if entities are the sum of their attributes, actions, properties, and we as conceptual beings are about the process of categorization, terms such as solid, concrete, blue, etc are "man-made" and therefore don't have to be. What has to be is existence existing in some way.
While I did find traces of these ideas in this article written by Rand I also realized why it is that Rand finds the scale of perception significant. Our means of perceiving reality are the metaphysically given in her philosophy. Because the scale of our perceptions are the metaphysically given they are also "metaphysically primary." So, for Rand, all things must trace back to our scale of perception - that which is the metaphysically given. Where I say that the scale of things implies we ought not consider these "entities" as metaphysically primary Rand would insist on it.
This is a rather compelling idea and one that I need to think more on.
What follows is what I was working on over the past few weeks. I have decided to go ahead and post it despite my epiphany.
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I want to start this discussion over in a sense by looking at a few passages from OPAR, ARL and ITOE. Please take note that while I am proposing a boundary oriented view I am not fully committed to it and if it can be shown where my thinking is in error or my ideas have mischaracterized the Objectivist position I would be willing to embrace the entity ontology as it is generally understood.
To briefly sum up my position again:
It is my thinking that terms like solid, concrete, physical etc are similar to terms like red and gray. When I look at my table I see a solid object but if viewed with the aide of microscopes there is a lot of space - solidity is scale dependent. This is similar to the man who sees red and the man who sees gray - they see the color in question on the basis of the form in which they perceive. Likewise, the solidity of the table is scaled on the basis of my form of perception.
It is my contention that though we perceive the world in terms of entities the notion that reality IS composed of entities is incorrect. Some have said that what I am proposing sounds subjective - i.e. if entities are the result of the process of perception reality is subjective.
According to the IOP dictionary Subjective means "Reality is generated or controlled by a conscious mind." If REALITY is taken to mean "composed of entities" then it would seem that my view falls under the heading of "subjective." However, if REALITY is taken to mean "composed of boundaries" (changes in value along a given dimension) it seems to be more in line with the idea of "object as perceived" as found in OPAR on page 45. All I have done, really, is move what part of reality is not generated or controlled by the mind - that part I call boundaries. Boundaries are the intrinsic not entities.
What does it mean when I say that "X" exists? I contend that for something to exist it needs to be isolated, bordered, and drawn out from the background. My scale of perception does this automatically - my senses detect changes in value, my perceptions integrate them into entities. Conceptually I identify those primary aspects and I consider them to BE separate before I chose to focus on them. (A reverse of cause and effect.) To say that "X" exists then, is to say that I have isolated some aspect of existence for the purpose of categorization.
By way of contrast, I would avoid saying that an existent exists apart from my isolating it. Instead I would say existents ARE, or existents are the intrinsic features of reality that make it possible for the means of perception to integrate. This has some merit in the literature though it would seem that entities and existents tend to inhabit the same sphere or idea about reality - they are in some way objects or things. This causes a good deal of confusion for me.
I want to examine Rand's concept of EXISTENT because there are times when the way in which the concept is used brings it close to the idea of boundaries. At other times, however, an existent seems to be saddled with the idea of "separatness" or "objectness." At any rate here is what the ARL has to say about the concept EXISTENT (this is lifted from ITOE page 6):
The building-block of man's knowledge is the concept of an "existent" - of something that exists, be it a thing, an attribute or an action.
While Rand seems to want an existent to be an object or a thing the way she has phrased it, I think, excludes the possibility. Rand is putting entities, actions and attributes on a level playing field - each of these aspects of an existent could be understood to be categories of the way existence is perceived. This makes some sense because Peikoff says that what exists when man's view is not present is existents. Entities, actions and attributes seem to be a "product" of the form of perception. The term EXISTENT doesn't seem to be about entities or "objectness" per se but some kind of "boundedness." Rand goes on to say:
Since it is a concept, man cannot grasp it explicitly until he has reached the conceptual stage. But it is implicit in every precept (to perceive a thing is to perceive that it exists) and man grasps it implicitly on the perceptual level - i.e., he grasps the constituents of the concept "existent," the data which are later to be integrated by that concept.
I find that the term "thing" (as well as something) is often vague and prone to equivocation in the literature. At times "thing" seems to refer to an object or something concrete whereas at other times it is used in ways consistent with EXISTENT i.e. boundedness. It is very frustrating.
Rand says that the term EXISTENT can refer to an entity, action or attribute; therefore, what IS apart from a form of awareness is not entities, actions or attributes but EXISTENTS - or some kind of intrinsic features.
At the base of perceptual awareness is the implied object "entity" which is said to be the "sum" of its parts. Rand rejects the idea of some kind of substratum on which these attributes hang. [ITOE Pg 266] Given that Rand is about "objectness" I think she wants to view existents as some kind of "object" but she has, in my mind, excluded this possibility. The question in my mind is - How is one to understand the concept EXISTENT? Rand is not clear on what existents are. At times they seem to be created by an act of isolation and other times seem to be what actually exists apart from an act of awareness. She goes on to say:
(It may be supposed that the concept "existent" is implicit even on the level of sensations - if and to the extent that a consciousness is able to discriminate on that level. A sensation is a sensation of something, as distinguished from the nothing of the preceding and succeeding moments. A sensation does not tell man what exists, but only that it exists.)
Here again, I have trouble distinguishing if the terms "what," something," "it" etc are intended to refer to - an object? The terms "something" and "it" cannot refer to objects because Rand is speaking of existents and she has just finished telling me that the constituents of existents are entities, actions and attributes - which are the result of the form of perception.
What exactly is being discriminated at the level of a sensation? Is it an object or is it some boundary? If a boundary is defined as a change in value along a given dimension then I think I am in the ballpark. A series of sensations integrated by the process of perception will give the one who perceives the impression or sense that what exists is a solid, concrete thing consisting of particular attributes and acting in a particular way. Colors, scale, solidity would be the result of intrinsic boundaries and the scale of perception.
On page 74 of OPAR Peikoff introduces the movement from existent to unit. On page 75 he quotes Rand where she mixes or uses the terms "entity" and "existent" interchangeably. Peikoff quotes Rand as saying:
"A unit... ...is an existent regarded as a separate member of a group of two or more similar members."
"This is the key, the entrance to the conceptual level of man's consciousness. The ability to regard entities as units is mans' distinctive method of cognition, which other living species are unable to follow."
So which is it? Are existents to be regarded as units or entities? The second statement is more in tune with the traditional view: that what is primary are entities and anything beyond the perceptual level is the result of abstraction from entities.
The former statement implies what I have been saying with regard to boundaries: that entities, actions and attributes are divisions of a selected part of reality for the purpose of conceptual identification or categorization. The conceptual faculty gives the user the ability to change "focus" in such a way so as to push beyond the entity oriented perspective.
"The result is a new scale of cognitive ability." [OPAR pg 76]
Peikoff explains how this "new scale" brings about the purposeful pursuit of knowledge: one can set aside percepts, pick others up, segregate, separate and group. In other words, as long as the purpose is to understand some aspect of reality, and the parts selected are grounded in some intrinsic feature, our process can be called objective. If Rand would stick to the view that existents are intrinsic features of reality, and that entities are the perceptual integration of existents, then what I am saying with regard to boundaries would be very close.
When studying the unit-perspective, it is essential to grasp that in the world apart from man there are no units; there are only existents - separate, individual things with their properties and actions.
Once again the term "things" crops up - but this time Peikoff is caught in a contradiction of sorts. If the term "separate individual things" refers to entities, actions, properties, and attributes then Peikoff has a problem because these features do not exist in the same way if man's perspective on things is absent. So, while Peikoff is trying to draw a distinction between an entity and an existent the way he is phrasing it tends to eliminate the distinction. Peikoff realizes the importance of there being something intrinsic but his entity ontology undermines what he is trying to establish.
Are existents actually separate "things" apart from some method which is aware of them? Or are existents levels of boundaries from which a method of awareness is able to distinguish, integrate, and present as if that part were separate before it was separated? Again, is this a reverse of cause and effect? I think perhaps it is.
AR: An existent is a concrete. "Existent" is a very convenient term in that it subsumes entities and attributes and actions and even mental events. They exist.
Prof. B: Relationships too?
AR: Yes - everything that exists on which you can focus, anything which you can isolate, whether it is an entity, a relationship, an action, or an attribute. The concept "existent" refers to something which exists. And it is wider than the concept "entity," because it permits you to subsume under that concept, and focus on, attributes or relationships or actions - on that which depends on an entity but can be studied separately. [ITOE Pg 241]
Rand says that the term "existent" is a term of convenience - and entity isn't?. Also, if one turns to ARL where Rand gives the definition of an abstraction her definition excludes the possibility of mental events being an existent:
Abstractions as such do not exist: they are merely man's epistemological method of perceiving that which exists - and that which exists is concrete.
The prior paragraph refers to existents as something "created" by an act of isolation - what else could "focus" refer to in this sense? Mental events are not "concretes" but they can be isolated by an act of focus. However, Peikoff has just finished explaining that what exists apart from man's persepctive on things are existents. These two views are incompatible.
In ITOE existents refer to anything which can be focused on and isolated - the act of doing so is justification for a "thing" which exists. However, in the above quote abstractions (mental events) are not counted as something which exists because what exists is that which is concrete - or open to the scale of human perception. The confusion, I think, is due to Rand's treatment of entities in ITOE. On Page 268 she says:
We call an entity that which is welded together physically and about which we can learn something, to which we can ascribe certain properties, as a whole.
In other words, there is some metaphysical glue which makes some entities REAL entities. Other things may be regarded as entities for the purpose of specialized study as long as there is something that acts like "metaphysical glue" - I think she would call it epistemological glue. For instance, one can consider society an "entity" if one understands the "glue" which holds it together are the laws and such that "binds" the collective together. What's interesting is that in this case the "source" for the glue is our focusing on reality in just that way. If focusing on reality this way is the source of the entity in question why can't it be that way for ANY entity? In the case of primary entities the separation and epistemological glue has been automatically done but we still have to focus on them - other than one is "the given" what's the difference?
An entity, in the primary sense, is a solid thing with a definite boundary - as against a fluid, such as air. In the literal sense, air is not an entity. There are contexts such as when the wind moves as one mass, when you can call that, by analogy, but in the primary sense, fluids are not entities. ARL Page 146
What about, for example, a small particle flying through space. This particle encounters earth - and flies right through as if nothing existed? In both cases the particle and earth fit the bill of entity because both are "welded" on the basis of some metaphysical glue. But because of our scale of perception Rand would consider the earth a "real entity" whereas the particle is only an entity for convenience. Or, consider the earths crust - it's moving ever so slowly but it is acting like a fluid - the difference is time. How is the movement of the earth's crust solid while the air is not - the difference, once again, is how we are relating to it. In any of these cases our purpose for categorizing realty as "X" or as "Y" is going to depend on the scale at which we view things and what our purposes are.
An entity is perceptual in scale, in size. In other words it is a "this" which you can point to and grasp by human perception. In an extended sense you can call molecules - or the universe as a whole - "entities," because they are self-sufficient things. But in the primary sense when we say that entities are what is given in sense perception, we mean solid things which we can directly perceive.
How, exactly, is this NOT subjective? To raise the status of entities we directly perceive to metaphysical status is in some sense bending reality to our whim. Entity "X" IS an entity in the primary sense because my means of perception tells me it is a solid thing?
So where does this leave me? I'm not sure really but I can't help but get the feeling that the Objectivist ontology is sometimes confused and conflicted. At times existents are what really exists and at other times existents are understood to be as a matter of convenience. But because, on the whole, Objectivists consider entities (as perceived by the scale of man) to be the primary existents there is a level of agreement and continuity despite the problems.
What about cause?
Even if entities are understood to be the creation of the process of awareness on the basis of scale I think that cause can still be understood in the same sense as it is generally accepted in Objectivism. For instance, let's take a look at Peikoff's example of balloons in OPAR. He says that balloons with sand and helium are going to act differently because their natures are such that they behave in just the way that they do. But what has already taken place before he speaks of these balloons and their nature? He has already categorized things like sand, balloon, float, drop etc. So, when Peikoff identifies two balloons with different natures he is simply drawing borders around different aspects existence - a balloon with helium and a balloon with sand. The entities in question still perform the acts and act according to their nature.
What about freewill?
I want to tack this on as a side note. In another thread I posted about freewill and determinism. There was a lot of discussion back and forth. At any rate, for me freewill lies in the process of categorization itself.
Rather than use the term "focus" I would like to instead use the term "isolation." Perceptions are "pre-isolated" due to the identity of the objects in question. As sensations are integrated into perceptions and perceptions identified and integrated into conceptions the movement from percept to concept is where freewill lies. I have no ability to change the way I perceive. Because I can accept the given percept or instead isolate parts of the given percept - or even isolate things not directly perceivable - it is, in my mind, the locus of freewill. This may or may not be what Rand has in mind when she uses the term focus. From what I understand of her idea of focus is not so much "isolation" as it is a state of mind:
"Focus" designates a quality of one's mental state, a quality of active alertness. "Focus" means the state of a goal-directed mind committed to attaining full awareness of reality. Its' the state of a mind committed to seeing, to grasping, to understanding, to knowing. ARL
Where Rand sees the locus of freewill as a focused state of mind I see freewill as the extent of the ability to isolate - the ability to go beyond the perceived - the ability to disregard the scale of our perceptions. The fact that the underlying processes are "deterministic" or not is somewhat irrelevant.
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