The Fallacy of Sufficiency

In The Art of Non-Fiction, Ayn Rand herself says that "there is no such thing as Objectivism." But to a certain extent, I fear that it is the belief of many so-called Objectivists in this effectively floating abstraction as a system sufficient unto itself which has been one of the major inhibiting factors in the spread of Ayn Rand's system and of her innovative concepts.

I do not wish to comment here on any specific personalities or individual schools. Anyone with more than a passing interest in Rand has his own knowledge and opinion on their various strengths and weaknesses. I do wish to comment on a fallacious notion that I see all to often embodied in those who call themselves Objectivists. This is the idea that Objectivism is a sufficient system.

I mean by what I shall call here the fallacy of sufficiency the idea that a familiarity with some or all of Ayn Rand's works, or even the greater Objectivist corpus, is a sufficient education in which to make one an authority in all matters of human knowledge, especially in the humanities, but also even in the physical sciences. For example, we get so-called Objectivists with little or no relevant knowledge of history, the Constitution, or international law and the conventions of war opining on the appropriateness of Bush's removing Saddam as if this were some matter to be settled upon 40 year old magazine articles alone, without reference to a huge body of knowledge; statecraft, the laws of war, what an armistice is, Saddam's and the US's treaty obligations, the President's oath of office, the Constitution's requirements upon and powers granted to the president, knowledge of the origins of Iraq, the Ba'athist party and its relations to Nazism, and so on, ad infinitum.

Not only do internet posters who have other day-jobs feel entitled to say that the US should not have started a preemptive war in Iraq (when it didn't) we also get more well-known thinkers and even foundation and movement "leaders" inveighing against Bush's "altruist" motives and protesting that Iran is the real enemy. Well, of course, the president might have mixed premises, and of course Iran might be a good target for us to attack. But by making these arguments using Objectivist cant, without referring to the facts of the matter - such as that by the laws of war and the terms of our armistice we were already at war with Saddam - and by relying on "But Ayn Rand said!" arguments alone, (25 years now after her death) anything that could be said would seem either beside the fact at best, or cultish at worst.

While Martin Luther preached the priesthood of all men, and hence the doctrine of sola scriptura or "by scripture alone," the Jesuits teach that it is a sin to make authoritative statements in an area in which you are not grounded - be it theology or medicine or law. Objectivists are not Jesuits. But we would do well as individuals to refrain from making arguments on highly technical and complex matters, often well outside our own expertise, and especially on matters which fall well within the scope of legitimate and established bodies of knowledge, as if those bodies of knowledge don't exist or need not be addressed since Rand never commanded us to do so.

Some so-called Objectivists feel sufficiently grounded by their familiarity with her works to advocate for "gay marriage" - without knowing what the concept of common-law marriage is, to argue about patent and copyright law, to argue about the innateness of sexual preference; to argue about the animal mind; or to argue for English spelling reform* - without, for example, a knowledge of previous attempts at such reforms; without knowledge of the origins of that spelling itself in the simultaneous adoption of the conventions of French, Latin, and Greek added on top of the underlying Germanic roots of our tongue; without a knowledge of all the various dialects of English - and the result that any spelling reform would have of enshrining one dialect's current phonology while making all other dialects that much farther from the approved standard. For instance, would we spell it Australia, or Oystrighleeya? Would "my mom" be "mah mahm" or "mee mum" or "migh maum"? The examples are, of course, absurd. But the idea that Objectivism is sufficient to determine the proper answers, without a broad knowledge of English dialects from Ireland to Bombay to Tasmania to Kentucky, and without a knowledge of philology and comparative linguistics, is even more absurd.

I am not trying to insult anyone here who has engaged in debates on such topics, taking one side or the other, being more or less-well versed in these subjects as independent matters. I'm certainly not one to withhold my opinion on any subject - but I try to acknowledge where my expertise ends and my ignorance begins. But when I hear people who are supposedly "leaders" or voices of the "movement" expressing opinions on the Big Bang without any grounding in physics, or on the "unfortunate" but not "immoral" nature of homosexuality without knowing anything about biology or animal sexuality, or expressing opinions on the origins of Christianity (the single most written about subject of all time) without even a cursory familiarity with any of that thought, I find their claims questionable, if not laughable, and the grounds for their claims insufficient.

The extant body of human knowledge and research is largely valid, and is entirely beyond the scope of any one individual. If reasoned science, secular humanism, classical liberalism, and rational egoism are to become well-grounded and ultimately dominant and default positions of mankind, Objectivism, or at least the valid innovations of Ayn Rand and the beginnings of an outline of a full and broad philosophy will be necessary. But also necessary will be lawyers and statesmen who happen to know Objectivism, ecologists and historians and physicians who happen to know Objectivism, military strategists and diplomats and educators who happen to know Objectivism, astronomers and politicians and police who happen to know Objectivism, and linguists and movie directors and financiers who happen to know Objectivism. Rand's central Objectivist corpus alone is necessary, but not sufficient. Objectivist specialists need to apply Objectivism to their specialties and to make their analyses available to all. And Objectivists should judge these works on their individual worth and promote these works for their own independent value, not according to which faction has published them. Objectivism is neither complete, nor closed, nor sufficient, (nor the property of any one person) and so long as human knowledge expands, it never, by itself, will be.

Ted Keer June, 2007

Addendum: I wish to make it clear that the positions that I used as examples in my post should be taken as conclusions sometimes reached through faulty reasoning. However, they are not necessarily invalid positions in themselves. They simply need to be addressed both in light of Objectivist principles and the existing context, facts, laws, and so forth. For instance, regarding the Iraq War, I would consider it totally invalid to argue simply that the war is not in our interest, question closed. I would, however, accept as valid an argument saying that the war is against our interest and thus we should have repealed our armistice or negotiated a new treaty with Iraq.

What is Volition?

The question of free will is a difficult and unsettling one, even for the person who believes that our possession of free will is axiomatic. Before we can address the nature of free will, we need to address the nature off will itself, the type of volition that man and the higher animals possess.

Simple organisms such as plants and bacteria act by tropisms. Stimulus, light, they follow it, threat, the bacteria "runs away" - yes or no, based on chemistry.

But humans face complex alternatives and situations where they are not driven to act. No external stimulus requires that we act in one of the myriad ways open to us. Yet, we act. We can choose to act even though no external stimulus forces us to act. At the banquet table, bacteria move toward sugar by chemical necessity. We could eat the beef, the fish, the fruit, the pasta, some or none or all. We could eat the salt or even look in the closet for rat poison. But we neither act of necessity - our beef receptors do not switch on, like sugar receptors driving a bacterial tropism - nor do we, like Buridan's ass, sit in indecision until we starve. Neither does Buridan's ass. We choose among possible alternative courses of action, even though no on-off switch forces us to act.

The ability to act when external stimuli are sub-determinative is volition.

Does Being Mean Being in Some Place?

Where is your Mind? Does existence imply existence in some place? It depends on the type of existent considered.

For an entity to exist does require that it exist in some place, for place is that which exists between bodies in result of their being extended. Body and place are inseperable in concrete physical reality. We can have placeless bodies only in our imagination. (Even at the level of quantum physics, things have place, even if that place is fuzzy or, due to its size compared to the precision of our instruments, indeterminable.) To be a separate body is to occupy a separate space. Just as a body is its attributes, it also is its relations. The one relationship which exists between all bodies is the relationship of place. Indeed, just as one can consider body to be the primary example of entity, place (location in space) is the primary example of relation. Since existence is the sum of all entities, their attributes, and their relations, it follows that every entity, since it exists within existence, exists in some relation to all other entities. A body is necessarily either here or not here. And if it is not here, it is because it is there - i.e., in some other "here."

But entities are not the only existents. Relations exist too. Awareness is a type of relationship. Location is another type of relationship, as are equality, friendship, and anything that exists metaphorically "between" existents. Consider the relationship fatherhood. Does it have a place? One might be tempted to imagine fatherhood as existing where the father and his child exist. Likewise, consider the relationship of awareness. One might think of awareness existing where the sensing and where the sensed entity exist. But this is naive. I am aware of you existing in California while I exist in New York. Perhaps we are speaking on the phone. Is my awareness through the phone? In one sense, yes. In another sense, no. My awareness does not travel down the wire to you in the way that my voice travels to you as an impulse on the line. If I pass out, that route does not thereby become bereft of "awareness." Neither does my awareness exist in a straght line, or, indeed, in any other spatial relation to you. For awareness is not a substance. The mind is not a thing. Indeed, if a relation existed in a place, this place would itself be a relation. The relation would have a place, which would be a relation, and that relation would also have a place. Indeed, one would have to draw the absurd conclusion that place must have a place, which must have a place, ad infinitum, just as Plato's theory of forms requires an infinite revress of forms of forms.

Place is a relationship of physical entities. Relations, such as awareness or fatherhood or even place itself are not entities, and hence, do not have place. The mind is not a thing, and hence does not have alocation. Dont worry, you haven't lost your mind. It wasn't there in the first place.

Substance and Entity

Entity is a concept, and, like substance, is a tool by which we grasp reality. Reality in itself is what it is whether we conceive of things as entities, or substances, or existents.

Consider the Chinese language. Unmodified nouns in Chinese are always substances, never entities. In English we have what are called count nouns (entities) such as 'dog' and 'tree' and we have mass nouns such as 'gold' and 'grass' and 'rice.' Count nouns speak of individuals, and can be counted. Mass nouns speak of substances, and cannot. One can own 'a dog' or cut down 'three trees' but one does not own 'a gold' or cut down 'three grasses.' Mass nouns must be quantified with a quantifying word which serves as a unit. One can own a piece of gold or cut a blade of grass. In Chinese, except for quantifiers, all nouns are inherently mass nouns.

From Wikipedia:

Chinese nouns require counters (also termed measure words or classifiers) in order to be counted. That is, when specifying the amount of a countable noun, the counter has to agree with the noun. Hence one must say "兩頭牛/两头牛 two head of cattle", not two cows, with "頭/头 head" being the unit of measurement, or measure word. This phenomenon is common in East Asian languages. (In English, some words, as in the cited example of "cattle", are often paired with a noun used much like the Chinese measure word. Bottle in "two bottles of wine" or piece in "three pieces of paper" are examples; one does not typically say, "two wines" or "three papers", unless talking about types of wine or academic research respectively.)

Substances and entities are different ways of speaking of things that exist physically no matter how we do or do not think of them. One can say look at that body (entity) or look at that flesh (substance). A person can be a "waste of flesh." Now, of course, humans are, by their nature, individuated. It might be hard to say whether a plant with three trunks is a sparse bush or three merged trees. But a living human is an individual, even if the living individual has a parasitic conjoined "twin."

Rand speaks of units as the way by which we measure substance as if it were entity. Chinese, and many other languages do this with all existents by speaking of one body of man and one grain of rice.

Psychoepistemologically, entities are prior, since the first given is the body, which is an entity. We experience existence as a body within a world of bodies. Everything of which we are aware is a body, or exists in relation to a body. It is the bodily, and not material or substance which is given.

In nature, the term which we use depends on scale. Prospectors find nuggets of gold which are big enough to be treated as entities, and they find gold dust, which, due to matters of scale, is treated as if it is a substance. But substances are always definite. The always have some definite extension, some definite amount, even if that amount is so fine grained that we find it difficult to measure. In the end, we find some whole number of atoms of gold, we do not find three and 3/4 of an atom of gold.

Everything that exists is some definite thing. To that extent, we can say that all existents are entities – or are substances comprised of entities. There is a finite number of molecules of gas in a gust of wind. To speak of the molecules as individuals is perverse so far as every day usage is concerned. At our scale, treating air as a mass noun makes sense. But the perspective of language can change according to the needs of mental economy. Whatever our needs, the underlying reality is what it is regardless.

Physical Monism - The Body as Given

Physical Monism

Materialism is not a primary. It is the learned theory that bodies are comprised of inanimate elemental substances in the chemical sense. But knowledge of matter is not an immediate given. That of which we are directly aware is the bodily which I call the physical. That physical bodies are comprised of matter is a complex scientific theory, not a metaphysical given.

To exist is to be a body, to be of a body, or to be in relation to a body. Body is a perceptual given. Your body, its perceivable attributes, and its relations are your primary given. You are a body that interacts with bodies. Your senses are bodily, and of bodies. Everything that you know, directly or indirectly, you know in relation to your body, which is a Randian entity, perceived directly, but in some Kelleyan perceptual form.

Matter is posited as the substance of body. Matter is not epistemologically prior. All humans are aware of their bodies. The notion of matter is a recent conceptual discovery. Matter is the scientifically discovered non-sentient substance of the body.

Consciousness is a formal relation between the body and its environment, which includes the self. The mind is a complex existent which is discovered. We are not, following Adler, aware of the mind - we are aware of bodies, their attributes, and their relations. The mind is the complex sum of one's conscious and subconscious acts and potentiallities.