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Introduction To Objectivist Epistemology

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Rand states early in this book that she has solved the problem of universals with a third category, objectivism, in addition to the traditional nominalism and realism. Bear with me here, as I'm going to excerpt a paper I wrote on Rand's writings, and I have to assume for brevity that you understand the problem (basically: realism - the properties objects hold in common actually exist on their own; nominalism - the properties objects seem to hold in common do not exist except in our minds)...

First, I established that Rand, who statedly does not believe in realist universals, would qualify as a nominalist trying to create a working analysis of similarity. This is accomplished by Rand's theory of concept formation by way of measurement-omission: "Let us now examine the process of forming the simplest concept, the concept of a single attribute (chronologically, this is not the first concept that a child would grasp; but it is the simplest one epistemologically)-for instance, the concept 'length.' If a child considers a match, a pencil, and a stick, he observes that length is the attribute they have in common, but their specific lengths differ. The difference is one of measurement. In order to form the concept "length," the child's mind retains the attribute and omits its particular measurements." (In the volume at issue.)

Rand's analysis of the problem seems to hold some weight - its account of similarity, if it functions, would give a corresponding form of nominalism equal explanatory power to realism. Unfortunately, this is not quite the case. Rand's theory that measurement omission will reveal basic assumptions itself is not unsound; it is a fully functional description of abstraction. Its problem is that it does not function as a nominalist account of abstraction at all.

The nominalist must admit that there are no actual universals, only some form of perceived similarities in objects that are assigned to categories by the human mind. That is, literally, there is no thing that any two objects literally have in common. The nominalist then makes the claim that concept formation occurs by observing differences among the characteristics of objects, noticing that the differences seem to occur in terms of measurement, and subsequently omitting the measurements from the mental abstract concepts. Let us use Rand's example: length. Once the match, the pencil, and the stick are observed, they seem to have differing quantities of length. Length is the similarity, the measurements are the difference. The problem is: now the match, the pencil, and the stick have some thing in common. This contradicts the earlier nominalist statement that there is no thing held in common by any two particulars. The very property being considered, length, still must be explained in terms of universals.

It seems to me that the nominalist may claim that there is, indeed, no thing held in common by these two particulars. For length to not be a universal, it must be observed that it is not a thing that exists. Here we see Rand again, now stating the childlike assumption more clearly:
"Or, more precisely, if the process were identified in words, it would consist of the following: Length must exist in some quantity, but may exist in any quantity. I shall identify as 'length' that attribute of any existent possessing it which can be quantitatively related to a unit of length, without specifying the quantity." (Rand)

The key word that is used here is exist. The abstract attribute of length is, even in Rand's account, some thing that exists. It is impossible, on face value, for the nominalist to continue to hold this view while remaining consistent. Rand's account has shown itself to be indisputably realist. This does not reveal what sort of realist she was, but simply that her own account could not support a different position.

From here I diverged; my interest was in an overall discussion of analyses of similarity, but we see that Rand's odd form of nominalism is, in fact, a very incomplete realism: for as soon as you accept that the objectivist stand is a realist one, you face the fact that Rand did nothing whatsoever to expand on the problems associated with realism (such as the difficulties of the various perceptions of where universals lie). Hence, any claim made that this book is a significant contribution to the problem of universals, much less a solution to it, is sadly flawed.

If you're a devotee of Rand, or interested in her as a philosopher, you might get something out of ItOE. But some claims made in favor of the book are...exaggerated. Also, there is useless renaming of terminology in the book; my paper, being submitted for a 300-level metaphysics course, used the terms that are in standard use. So caveat emptor.

I must say I'm surprised to see this book touted as a great work of epistemology by a defender of _reason_.

Reason? Where? Rand's theory of "concept-formation" never gets beyond the stage of simple object-recognition. There's not an iota of attention in this work devoted to the specifically rational task of _understanding_. ALL of her discussion of logic is folded into her discussion of so-called "axiomatic concepts"; NEVER ONCE does she consider the possibility that logic might involve finding intelligible connections among existents or attributes, or indeed anything more than simply recognizing the kind of object we might find in, for example, a cloistered New York apartment house.

Logic, for her, is simply the art of _noncontradictory identification_. And noncontradiction isn't sufficient for understanding; for that we need not mere consistency but positive coherence.

But apparently "reason" is the faculty by which human beings identify various articles of furniture. This faculty is what sets us apart from the lower animals.

As Leonard Peikoff notes in a "Concluding Historical Postscript" (a little jab at Kierkegaard, who admittedly deserved it), Rand developed her theory of "concept-formation" in about half an hour by introspecting on the manner in which _she_ formed concepts. This is presumably intended to show us what a Great Mind she was; we are supposed to fall all over ourselves saying, "Gosh! Imagine solving the problem of universals in half an hour! What a genius she was!"

Sorry, Leonard. All it shows us is what we already knew from the rest of the book: that Rand didn't give epistemology anything like the attention the topic deserved if it was to be, as she claimed, the foundation on which her entire philosophy rested.

In fact she left the problem of universals right where she found it. We can't even begin to apply her process of "measurement-omission" unless we can _already_ recognize lengths _as_ lengths, colors _as_ colors, shapes _as_ shapes. (In nature there is no such thing as a generic length, color, or shape. So how do we come by such universals? Blank out. The universals are here. How did they get here? _Somehow_.)

Think twice before regarding Rand as a defender of reason. What she meant by "reason" is severely limited in scope compared to the real thing.

Rand's best work lies elsewhere. Check out these imperfect but much more rewarding collections: _The Virtue of Selfishness_, _Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal_, and _Philosophy: Who Needs It_. And give this alleged work of "epistemology" a miss.

It's hard for me to give an objective review of this book. Honestly, it's a thought provoking philosophical work in the sense that it *does* force you to think if you are unacquainted with these problems. In addition, it's not as inaccessible as many contemporary and historical (traditional) philosophical works, and it presents some topics that *should* be of interest to the general public.

But if you are not a philosophical amateur, and you are acquainted with the *best* of traditional and contemporary philosophy, you will probably not find much in this book that piques your interest. There is no proper attempt made in this book to engage historical views properly, or to criticize contemporary views after developing them competently. It is not a scholarly or academic work - it is better than pop philosophy, but well below the (proper, not just pretentious) scholarly bar. And a huge part of the problem is that Rand has a cult following which claims that she was absolutely right on the major issues. The real problem is that the amount and quality of reading required to show she was wrong is probably beyond the practical limits of most people's interest in philosophy. However, I do not think that this is a sufficient reason to say that people should not read the book - it can genuinely aid your practical thought like it aided mine and that of many others.

Ayn Rand discusses the problem of universals, which has historically been characterized as an ontological (metaphysical) problem, in a book on epistemology. This might annoy some philosophical purists, but she does defend this act (while she might not have agreed with my claim that she was defending a form of conceptualism, it is that fact alone that might have justified her making the problem a matter of epistemology). I do not think that her attempt was ultimately successful (for the simple reason that I think that conceptualism cannot provide a *full* account of universals, which are properly ontological). However, given the fact that this book was written at a time when philosophies like pragmatism, logical positivism, and linguistic analysis were running things, Rand was a great alternative.

Rand doesn't seem to consider the possibility of real inter-contextual identities existing in reality (precisely the same shade of red on two different objects). She does give a decent account of similarity/resemblance, but I think that her account is contrived. I think that she depends on a real universal (length) in her account of similarity - however, it is the existence of that real universal that she is meant to explain without postulating its metaphysical existence if her account is purely epistemological.

Rand does ground a lot of her epistemology in sense perception and this is a good thing for the clarity of thought and communication. However, she doesn't distinguish between sensation and sense perception, and she fails to realize that reason is a faculty that provides a lot of the information given in sense perception. It seems that she is not at all acquainted with the arguments in British philosophy about the status of logic, mathematics and ethics as not being based in sense perception which hasn't been moulded by reason. This argument historically proceeded through the works of
: Locke, who claimed that all knowledge originates in sensation.
: Hume, who denied the validity of any knowledge not given in sensation.
: Green, the British Idealist who showed that Hume and Locke had to be wrong or knowledge would be impossible. His account of metaphysics and epistemology was defended by Bradley and Bosanquet in Britain and Royce and Blanshard in America, with Blanshard being the most empircally advanced in terms of 20th century science. There are many other important names in these debates apart from the British ones I mentioned, but the difficult "Introduction to Locke and Hume" shows the inadequacies of empiricism, and there is no need to read Kant or Hegel's dark ruminations, which are even worse (more difficult).

In fact, it can be argued that so many philosophical errors were repeated in the 20th century because the work of the Idealists was not properly understood before being rejected. British Idealism was uncritically associated with mysticism, and rejected by some secular philosophers the same way that classical economics was rejected by some pro-capitalist economists because it was uncritically associated with socialism. If people had sat down and understood the arguments of the Idealists before writing them off, maybe we would not have had the foolishly dark pronouncements of skepticism emanating from the vortices of logical positivism, linguistic analysis and existentialism today.

Rand talks about many interesting issues: essences, axioms, definitions etc. Whether they all properly belong in a work on epistemology is another story. There are some ad hominem remarks directed at opposing positions (sometimes right, but still not good writing practice). The essay by Peikoff on the Analytic-Synthetic dichotomy correctly rejects the dichotomy, whose acceptance was based on a rejection of necessity in causality, but the arguments get the distinction wrong and mix it up with a lot of other dichotomies. However, one cannot know this unless one acquaints oneself with philosophical history of the highest quality (and not just the popular, but often incorrect/biased people like Bertrand Russell either).

I think this is a good book for anyone who wants to gain some insight into knowledge. Ayn Rand was probably the biggest bridge on my path to becoming an amateur philosopher so I can recommend this book to anyone. However, the level of sophistication with which the arguments are presented makes the book more of a sermon than a philosophical argument. It should be read quite critically, and I would recommend the books of Robert Audi or Laurence Bonjour for those who want good, contemporary traditionalist and rationalist accounts of epistemology in the purist tradition of philosophy. For a good historical account of philosophy that is accessible to the intelligent reader, I, without hesitation, recommend anything by Brand Blanshard, who is easily my favorite philosopher.

If the assertions in this book were validated from an empirical/scientific standpoint, it would be a major advance in psychology and neuroscience. The author of this book though did not intend to produce a scientific work, but instead a philosophical one, and as in all such works, one is free to speculate, with the only side constraint being that its logic must be cohesive (although some modern works relax even this restriction). The claims that the author makes in this book are very extreme, considering the paucity of scientific evidence and complete lack of references.

The author's intent was to summarize the "Objectivist theory of concepts" as a prelude to a future book on Objectivism, the latter name the author has given to her philosophy. Since it is a summary, and since it is philosophy (which usually eschews any need for empirical validation), one perhaps should not expect the details of all the assertions made in the book. The problem with this work though is that the author implicitly draws on fields such as child psychology and neuroscience, but no citations are given and therefore its credibility is suspect.

Some examples of the parts in the book that need reworking include: 1. The author's assertion that the human mathematical and conceptual abilities develop simultaneously. Not only is the author assuming that these abilities are indeed different, she offers no studies to support her assertion concerning the time development of these abilities in a child. What studies influenced her thinking on these matters? It is doubtful that the author has conducted the careful experimental work needed to reach her conclusions. Considering the amount of research that has been done in child and cognitive development in the past fifty years, this research involving many individuals, the author's claims on the cognitive development of a child are most astounding. 2. In her discussion on concept formation, the author explains the process, as she sees it, of the forming of the simplest concept, the concept of a single attribute. She does not define or have a criterion for "simplicity" of a concept, but as an example gives the concept of "length" as being one of the simplest. For the author, the child forms the concept "length" by observing objects of different length, noting that the length is the attribute they have in common, but the actual measurements are omitted. The author does not give any empirical evidence supporting this claim of concept formation, and she asserts that this process does not involve words. The lack of words to form concepts is not by itself troubling, but the lack of evidence to support both of these claims is. Again, there are many researchers who are very curious about the processes of learning and cognition, and much work in these areas has been done. The author's claims are extraordinary in this regard, and require much more substantiation if they are to be accepted from a scientific standpoint. 3. It is very apparent throughout the book that the author's knowledge of mathematics is very limited, and her limitations here cause problems in many of the discussions in the book. For example, when she describes the process of a child forming the concept of "table", she claims that it is the "shape" of the tables that forms the distinguishing characteristic. However, "shape" is a more complicated concept than the author realizes from a mathematical standpoint. A classification of objects by "shape" would not necessarily be the rigid geometric one which she clearly wants to use in the book. As another example, she discusses integral calculus as being a method for calculating the area of circles. It does this of course, but this is perhaps its most elementary application, and it goes far beyond this in its ramifications. The author's case for the importance of mathematics in her theory of concept formation would be much more credible if she would have obtained a more in-depth understanding of modern mathematics. 4. In the book the terms "complexity" and "random" are used very loosely. Since these notions are important in her epistemology, and of course very important from the standpoint of modern computer science and complexity theory, they need more careful consideration in this book. Indeed, her assertion that as a child's knowledge grows the complexity of the definitions of his concepts increases may if taken at face value completely invalidate her theory of concept formation. This is because some theories of concept formation that are based on knowledge trees can run into the problem of a "combinatorial explosion" or if based on first order logic may be "undecidable". The author's definition of complexity is completely absent though, and so one cannot analyze her works in the context of modern notions of complexity. Her notion of randomness too is left undefined, but she makes use of the notion frequently in the book, as for example in her assertion that concepts cannot be formed "at random". But randomness is a notion that requires careful elucidation in many different fields of endeavor, and especially in the field of neuroscience, the latter of which is also very concerned with developing a successful theory of concept formation.

It is readily apparent while reading the book that the author was completely isolated from the mathematical and scientific community while the book was being written. The lack of references, the extraordinary claims made, and the overall tone of the book make it almost useless to those readers who are actively involved in developing theories of cognitive development or those who are curious about such developments. If the book had included what was needed, its size would be many times over what it is now. Its status as a book on epistemology is typical of philosophical treatises: lots of speculation and arm-chair reasoning, but little or no empirical content.

This books has generated a lot of passionate commentary, so I'll just focus on one problem in ITOE. If you want a complete refutation of ITOE, check out Mr. Scott Ryan's webpage.

What strikes me as interesting about ITOE are the numerous references to how children and even animals thinks. For example, in chapter 2 Rand tells us how concepts are allegedly formed. Then she states: "The child does not think in such words (he has, as yet, no knowledge of words), but that is the nature of the process which his mind performs wordlessly." (p. 11, see also pps. 43 & 66.) Now, just ask yourself: does Rand give a single shred of evidence that this is how children reason?

In any event the passage does indicate that children can form concepts even in the absence of language. However, she states on p. 167 that a child does not form a concept until he gives "it" (the concept that is not a concept) a "name." So apparently children do not think conceptually until they learn language.

Rand is apparently an expert in animal psychology as well: "If the state of an animal's perceptual awareness could be translated into words, it would amount to a disconnceted succession of random moments . . . ." (p. 57.) Again, what's the proof?

OK, since Rand knows a lot about how animals and children think, I'll tell you about Rand's thought process: "If Ayn Rand's reasoning could be coherently explained, it would have all the philosophical sophistication of a 20 year old fratty bagger after having just taken an introduction to philosophy course."

There are numerous other problems with ITOE, but I'll stop here.

If this is the best "defense of man's mind" ever presented, then mankind is in deeper trouble than we thought.

Although Rand believes we are a "tabula rasa," there is still some undefined "mechanism" within us that still "organizes" our perceptions, which is a bit of a contradition on her part, which doesn't matter, because she contradicted herself all the time, nor does it matter that the reader should read a *real* book of epistemology first, rather than this one (since this one will only confuse you), nor does it matter than she confuses sensations and perceptions, nor do any of her many, many other mistakes matter, such as not believing in any kind of "noumenal" reality (because Kant created the term, who as we all know Rand considered the most evil human being who ever lived, even though she never read him, only what others wrote about him, and as a result mispresented what he thought, which is nothing out of the ordinary for Rand, since she misrepresented every philosopher and economist she ever read [or didn't read]), so indeed if you want to be confused, then by all means read this book, which is not really about Objectivist epistemology, but what it really is, which is Subjectivist epistemology, which is just another example of Rand trying to redefine commonly accepted terms, such as altruism (which she tried to redefine as the government taking your money and redistributing it), and sacrifice, which is tried to redefine as giving up the greater for the lesser, when the true meaning is the opposite. Just watch a baseball game sometime.

Rand's understanding of the historical problem of universals is entirely nominalist, since the only characteristic of a nominalist given is that the referents in certain systems of philosophy has its own premises which differ from Rand's, but if Objectivist epistemology is then to be considered a subset of Nominalism, then Rand's specific method of concept formation was a unique approach within this context and is dismissed as mistakes made by Abelard and Locke in favor of Realism which, in this description, is identical to the realist claim that the universal essences exist, and the specific method by which human consciousness understands them lies beyond the method of reason, since a non-rational claim to knowledge is mysticism, which is precisely what the title states and the points she makes which seem misguided and arbitrary are cleared up as mysticism in subsequent re-readings as long as the reader keeps in mind that once she defines a term, she does not hold to its meaning, which in this context refers to the issue of the relationship between concepts and their perceptual referents; the HISTORICAL problem of universals, for which Rand willing to drop the necessary context and argue based on various meanings of the term universal, few of which are relevant to the issue at hand, so it is amusing to read disagreements of the Objectivist theory of concepts which are addressed in the appendix, in which Rand was, apparently, at her intellectual pinnacle at this point, and any potentially hazy points are obscured beyond recovery, so I certainly would have preferred a more scholastic presentation and a deeper exploration of the background of certain ideas, but this was Rand's style.

Why does this volume require such long critiques? The simple fact is that Rand blows it from the start.

On the very second page of her second chapter, Rand illustrates her theory of concept-formation in what she describes as its simplest case epistemologically: the formation of a child's concept of 'length'. The question-begging nature of this account is obvious on a single reading; she defines length in terms of itself. According to Rand, in order to form the 'concept', we already have to have it.

If that case doesn't work, the rest of her theory can't get off the ground. All this stuff about 'necessity' and so forth is interesting, but it's quite needless as a review of *this* book.

Rand was no philosopher, and her epistemology was no epistemology. Look elsewhere for enlightenment.

Even someone as generally supportive of Ayn Rand as Tibor Machan had to declare that this book was too polemical to qualify as genuine scholarship.

And no wonder. Throughout this volume we are treated to dismissive remarks on entire alleged schools of philosophical thought (e.g. conceptualism, nominalism) without _ever_ encountering either (a) a reference to a thinker who actually held the views Rand dismisses without argument or (b) a definition of what any of these schools allegedly believe. Even when she mentions a name, she doesn't provide any sound information; her occasional curt references to Russell, Kant and Hegel are vague and "psychologizing" (we are told, e.g., that Russell was able to "get away with" something, though we aren't told what).

The book fares no better on its positive side. Rand's own theories are markedly unoriginal, and her inability to read the works of genuine philosophers led her to repeat quite a few mistakes that she might have avoided with a little more knowledge of the history of philosophy. But other reviewers have already noted some of the more obvious difficulties and errors in her approach to epistemology - though, really, there was no need to do so, since Rand herself presents no arguments whatsoever in favor of her theories.

I will add only that anyone who thinks this book is THE book on epistemology is clearly as unfamiliar with the field as Rand was. And more: if this book is YOUR introduction to epistemology, make sure you have a dictionary or encyclopedia of philosophy handy, or Rand will render you completely unfit to read other works in the field.

I believe Ayn Rand's writings are very destructive. And this isn't because of her highly un-original philosophy. No, the reason for this is the powerful grip the books has on her followers. In her books they find justification for behaving in a anti-social manner that is slowly destroying the fabric of the societies of the Western World. This egoism is supposedly derived from "reason". In the real world however there is no reason for people not to find fulfillment and meaning from helping others and caring for their family and friends. The accusation that "altruism", i.e. decency and goodness, leads to tyranny is nothing but products of a very paranoid mind. The craziest thing about this though is the fact that Ayn Rand has been raised to a saint-like status by her followers. No disagreement with her writings is ever accepted and if you disagree you are an evil communist/collectivist. To be a true individualist you must agree with everything she has ever written. Isn't this collectivism in a true sense? No, says her followers, those views are derived by reason and must therefore be share by all intelligent human beings. Pretty scary!! Note that Objectivism, like Marxism, Freudianism and Jungianism, is a closed system of thought in the sense that any critisism of the system is automatically seen as a symptom of unreason. This is what makes Objectivism a religion rather than a philosophy or scientific method. And this is also the reason for the fanatical behavior of her disciples.