Objectivist metaphysics
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article or section is missing citations or needs footnotes. Using inline citations helps guard against copyright violations and factual inaccuracies. (September 2007) |
| Part of a series on Objectivism |
|
Overview Principles Further Reading Special Topics Groups |
All of Objectivism rests on Objectivist metaphysics and Objectivist epistemology: the study of the fundamental nature of reality, and of the nature and proper method of acquiring knowledge. The key tenets of the Objectivist metaphysics are (1) the Primacy of Existence, (2) the Law of Identity ("A is A"), and (3) the Axiom of Consciousness. In addition, (4) the Law of Causality is a corollary of the Law of Identity. The Primacy of Existence states that reality (the universe, that which is) exists independently of human consciousness. The Law of Identity states that anything that exists is qualitatively determinate, that is, has a fixed, finite nature. The Axiom of Consciousness is the proposition that consciousness is irreducible. The Law of Causality states that things act in accordance with their natures. These propositions are all held in Objectivism to be axiomatic. According to Objectivism, the proof of a proposition's being axiomatic is that it is both (a) self-evident and (b) cannot coherently be denied, because any argument against the proposition would have to suppose its truth.
[edit] Meta-Metaphysics: The nature of philosophical axioms
Ayn Rand's metaphysics is based on three axioms: Existence, Identity, and Consciousness. Rand defined an axiom as "a statement that identifies the base of knowledge and of any further statement pertaining to that knowledge, a statement necessarily contained in all others whether any particular speaker chooses to explicitly identify it or not. An axiom is a proposition that defeats its opponents by the fact that they have to accept it and use it in the process of any attempt to deny it."[1] As Leonard Peikoff noted, Rand's argumentation "is not a proof that the axioms of existence, consciousness, and identity are true. It is proof that they are axioms, that they are at the base of knowledge and thus inescapable."[2]
This leaves the question as to how one can determine if the axioms are true. Rand's answer is that the axioms can be validated by direct perception. One determines that existence exists merely by seeing, smelling, touching, tasting, or hearing something that exists. That our senses are being activated, proves to us that there is something that exists. Validating that consciousness exists rests on sense information as well, by noting that one is aware of sensations. Likewise for validating the law of identity; one validates this by seeing or touching a thing and noting that any entity has particular attributes or characteristics that distinguishes it from other entities, and thereby realizing that that is what makes a thing what it is. This leads one to recognize that a thing cannot be of a nature that is contrary to its nature or it would be something else (or A=A). Rand believed that individuals already hold these axioms implicitly, but that it is helpful to make them explicit to avoid philosophical errors. According to Peikoff, if individuals "[lack] explicit identification of this knowledge [of the axioms], they have no way to adhere to the axioms, consistently and typically fall into some form of contradicting the self-evident, as in the various magical world views, which (implicitly) deny the law of identity" or philosophers "who reject the self-evident as the base of knowledge, and who then repudiate all three of the basic axioms..."[2]
Also note that axioms in this philosophical sense contrast sharply with axioms in a mathematical sense, in that one may deduce an entire mathematical system from mathematical axioms (ala Euclidian geometry), but one cannot deduce an entire philosophy from philosophical axioms. Philosophical axioms such as these are abstract and fundamental truths which one uses to ensure proper integration of what one is learning inductively.
[edit] The Axiom of Existence: "Existence exists."
The first axiom states that something other than one's own consciousness exists. If it did not, according to Rand, consciousness itself would be an impossibility. Rand believes that this principle is self-evident (its truth is given in perceptual experience) and such that any attempt to refute it implicitly assumes it. This axiom entails metaphysical realism, the view that things are what they are independently of the mental states (beliefs, desires, etc.) of individual cognizers.[2] Metaphysical realism is also accepted by Aristotle, Francis Bacon, and G. E. Moore (and many 20th Century scientific realists), though it is denied by idealists such as Berkeley, Leibniz, and Hegel. Objectivism rejects the view that one could, in principle, be conscious exclusively and entirely of one's own consciousness. Objectivism holds that consciousness is not possible without the prior existence of something, external to consciousness, for consciousness to be conscious of: "To be aware is to be aware of something."
[edit] The Axiom of Identity: "To be is to be something, a thing is what it is," "A is A."
Objectivism regards identity as the essence of existence: "Existence is Identity." The corollary of this is the Law of Identity, which states that everything that exists has an identity, and that whatever has an identity is an existent. In saying this, Objectivism is asserting more than the tautology of self-identity (i.e., "everything is identical to itself"). It is asserting that everything that exists has a specific identity, or nature, which consists of its attributes and the values of those attributes (as Rand wrote, "to be is to be something in particular"). Objectivism holds that all attributes (properties and characteristics) that constitute an existent's identity have specific values, so that each exists in a specific measure or degree; in this respect "identity" also means specificity. Therefore, according to Objectivism, everything that exists has a specific, finite nature. An existent with a specific, finite nature cannot both have and not have the same attribute; and an attribute of a real existent cannot both have and not have a single, specific value. Therefore, everything in reality is non-contradictory; though contradictions may be imagined in the mind, there are no contradictions in the real world.
Interestingly, William F. O'Neill, author of With Charity Toward None: An Analysis of Ayn Rand's Philosophy, takes issue with this interpretation of the law of identity. O'Neill argues that Rand misinterprets Aristotle's use of the law of identity, which ought to be thought of as a principle of linguistic meaning. In effect, O'Neill says it means that a word cannot change meaning within a specified context.[3] This is starkly different from Rand's own interpretation, which seems to be ontological rather than merely semantic. If correct, O'Neill's argument may cause considerable trouble for the whole of objectivist philosophy, especially the law of causality; undermining it at its very foundation. This, indeed, was O'Neill's own assessment of his critique of Objectivist philosophy, saying "Ayn Rand's philosophy begins with ethics and terminates with a theory of truth and knowledge. Her epistemology and her metaphysical assumptions—indeed, the vast bulk of her philosophy– are essentially an a posteriori rationalization for a fervent a priori commitment to the ethics of lassiez-faire capitlaism."[4] The correctness of either Rand or O'Neill's interpretations of the law of identity seems to fall to a question of Aristotelian scholarship.
[edit] The Axiom of Consciousness: Consciousness is an irreducible primary.
This axiom is the recognition that consciousness exists and is an irreducible primary. It cannot be analyzed in terms of other concepts, and it is pre-supposed by all knowledge. While we can study the attributes of the faculty of consciousness, we cannot further analyze what it "means to be conscious" as such. Rand writes that "consciousness is conscious," affirming both that the thinker is conscious and that he is conscious of something external to himself. She writes, "If nothing exists, there can be no consciousness: a consciousness with nothing to be conscious of is a contradiction in terms" (Atlas Shrugged, p. 1015)[1]. To be conscious, one must be aware of something; one cannot be "aware only of being aware," without first having been aware of something other than one's own awareness. Rand's axioms of consciousness is different from Descartes' Cogito principle in that Descartes' Cogito is an a priori principle, while Rand's axiom of consciousness is self-evident by being implicit in awareness at all levels, including the starting level of sensory perception.
[edit] The Primacy of Existence over Consciousness
In addressing the fundamental relationship between consciousness and existence, Objectivism holds that existence takes primacy over consciousness: that existence exists independently of consciousness, and that therefore the essential function of consciousness is the grasp of existence. "Consciousness is identification." In this view, consciousness is fundamentally dependent upon existence. In contrast, there is the broad position that consciousness takes primacy over existence: that existence is in some sense fundamentally dependent upon consciousness -- that consciousness can be prior to existence and that it somehow creates or shapes existence. Insofar as they have a specific identity, Objectivism holds that minds, thoughts, desires, intentions and so on do exist, but only as consequences of consciousness, which cannot come into existence without the prior existence of external objects to be conscious of.
Because consciousness cannot precede existence, the universe as a whole cannot be the creation of a consciousness, nor itself be entirely mental. The principle of the primacy of existence is at the root of the Objectivist opposition to theism and philosophical idealism. (This argument is laid out in Chapter 1 of Leonard Peikoff's Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand[2]).
[edit] The Law of Causality: Entities act according to their nature.
The Law of Causality is a formulation of the observation that there are no disembodied events: Every event is an action of an entity, and an entity can only act according to its specific nature. Thus Objectivist philosophy regards the Law of Causality as a corollary of the Law of Identity: "the law of causality is the law of identity applied to action."[1] The Law of Causality states that things act in accordance with their natures. The way an object behaves when another object contacts it is solely a function of the specific nature (or "identity") of those objects; if one or both object(s) had a different identity, there would be a different action. "A thing cannot act in contradiction to its nature."[1] Note that this conception of Causality does not assert that everything has a cause. Indeed, according to Rand, existence itself can have no cause on the account that there would have to be something outside of existence to cause existence. This would be incoherent, according to Rand, because that which does not exist could not do anything whatsoever.
Objectivism opposes other contemporary interpretations of the Law of Causality, such as "Every event is caused by previous event(s)," because such interpretations lead to paradoxes regarding free will, cosmology etc. Contrary to common contemporary assumptions, the Objectivist position is that among those things or actions that are caused, "the causal link does not relate two actions."[2] According to Rand, an "action" is not an entity; rather, entities act. Therefore, an action cannot be properly regarded as the fundamental cause of another action, as actions do not exist apart from the entities that produce them. To illustrate the Objectivist position, Peikoff said, "It is not the motion of a billiard ball which produces effects; it is the billiard ball, the entity which does so by a certain means. If one doubts this, one need merely subtitute an egg or soap bubble with the same velocity for the billiard ball; the effects will be quite different."[2]
A further implication of the Objectivist account of causality concerns explanation: since genuine explanation is causal, nature can only be explained in terms of nature (i.e., without reference to the supernatural).
[edit] Mind, Body, Soul
Objectivism rejects the mind-body dichotomy, holding that the mind and body are aspects (sets of attributes) of the conscious organism as a single, integral entity. Though this doctrine may sound like a stance in the philosophy of mind — a doctrine concerning the relationship between consciousness (mind) and brain (body) — it is not. Rather, it amounts chiefly to the assertions that (a) conscious organisms have both mental attributes and physical attributes, and (b) both kinds of attributes may participate in determining the causal powers of the conscious organism. Whether attributes of either kind, or their causal powers, can be reductively explained is a question for what Ayn Rand called "the special sciences" rather than philosophy. Objectivism rejects both Marxian materialism and Christian spiritualism (Marxists hold that the material factors have metaphysical priority over consciousness; Christian spiritualists hold that reality is fundamentally spiritual, a view declared heretical by Catholic and Orthodox doctrines.) Objectivism rejects both views: both physical attributes and mental attributes of conscious entities have identifiable (that is, measurable) values. Because existence is identity, both exist, and neither is more real than the other. Objectivism does not include any specific ontological or scientific explanation of the relationship between mind and body in the philosophy of mind.
[edit] Notes
- ^ a b c d Rand, Ayn. (1996) Atlas Shrugged. Signet Book; 35th Anniv edition. Appendix. ISBN 0-451-19114-5
- ^ a b c d e f Peikoff, Leonard. Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, Meridian, 1993, p. 11
- ^ O'Niell, William F. With Charity Toward None: An Analysis of Ayn Rand's Philosophy New York: Philosophical Library, 1971 pp.130-137
- ^ O'Niell, William F. With Charity Toward None: An Analysis of Ayn Rand's Philosophy New York: Philosophical Library, 1971 pp.175
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- The Ayn Rand Institute: The Center for the Advancement of Objectivism
- Objectivist Center: Metaphysics
- The Ayn Rand Forum — An online forum for discussing Ayn Rand and Objectivism.
- The Importance of Philosophy and [1]: sections on Objectivist metaphysics
