AUTHOR: T R Reedy
DATE: 04/11/11 10:25 am [Yahoo]
NOTES ON RAND ’S OBJECTIVISM: The Occluded Concept.
(Or, GIVE ME YOUR BRAINS)
The following is my little tract dealing with Ayn Rand (Alissa Rosenbaum.) Below the classical weak points of her philosophy have been already drawn by Kelly below. I merely take the reader down the path that has already been cleared by others.
Argument
1. Objectivist epistemology maintains that all knowledge is ultimately based on perception. "Percepts, not sensations, are the given, the self-evident."( Rand 1990) Rand considered the validity of the senses to be axiomatic, and claimed that purported arguments to the contrary all commit the fallacy of the "stolen concept" (Branden, Nathaniel (January 1963). "The Stolen Concept". The Objectivist Newsletter 2 (1): 2, 4) by presupposing the validity of concepts that, in turn, presuppose the validity of the senses.( Rand 1990) She held that perception, being physiologically determined, is incapable of error. So optical illusions, for example, are errors in the conceptual identification of what is seen, not errors in sight itself. (Kelly 1986)
2. The Objectivist theory of perception distinguishes between the form and object. The form in which an organism perceives is determined by the physiology of its sensory systems. Whatever form the organism perceives it in, what it perceives—the object of perception—is reality. Kelly (1986); Peikoff (1991) Rand consequently rejected the Kantian dichotomy between "things as we perceive them" and "things as they are in themselves." The epistemologies of representationalism and indirect realism that accept a "veil of perception", as put forward by Descartes or John Locke, are thus inconsistent with Objectivism. Rand rejected epistemological skepticism as the skeptics claim knowledge "undistorted" by the form or the means of perception is impossible. (Kelly 1996)---points from WIKIPEDIA for convenience to the reader.
Rand operates in the Dualist realm as she tries to unify a dichotomy in the perception of things as they are (subjective consciousness) and things as we perceive them (objective consciousness) by saying “what an organism perceives—the object of perception—is reality.” This move is made at the expense of an interpretive faculty which had been the faculty of error also, by turning the sense faculty into a camera obscura rather than a more complex instrument. What is not reliable for Rand is sensation which is the raw material upon which the interpretive faculty must work. Sensation is a bundle of information delivered to consciousness at the experiential moment and is far richer than any human percept. The collateral damage of this is the abolition of the subject-individual as the holder or judge of truth. (Science nominally has shown that sensation involves millions of times more brain firings than perception. However, conception—understanding is like an experience and is quite high in activity too.)
What is left in lieu of the faculty of comparison is to be supplied, I guess, by instinct in a process of determination. Rather, pre-determination in as much as instincts are predictable by definition but remain mutable by “evolutionary” stimuli.
Under Rand , all subjects receive the same truth undistorted but conceive differently. This is true enough but it offends Rand that it is true. Truth by her reasoning must be sought in the external environment or in its actors' objective behavior but not in their own sensations or concepts. Truth, such as it is, can only be found then, possibly by some Agency of Perceivers. Yet later, Rand will place the responsibility of good action squarely on top of the isolate human organism by virtue of its physiological perfection. It suffers thereby without intercession of doubt at the hands of a collection of perceptions. Is the contradiction yet obscure?
This is why authors of late --too late perhaps-- look in to her CV, into what seems to be a processed Aristotle and who benefits from excising the interpretive faculty as she expounds her critique of the people of the USA. What is the gift of Russian strife giving us?
In terms of the vector of Ayn Rand’s philosophical works and psycho-philosophical novellas one does get the spin of discomfort and distrust of the generic human as she finds them. This is quite understandable given her personal history within a greater struggle. She found her community in the customers of her father’s pharmacy, and then she saw them under the sway of revolution. Each of these is unpleasant and certainly revolution is the greatest horror imaginable. In fact, let us admit that a possible goal of Rand flowers in preventative, perhaps preordinate and preemptive works. What then is her handle on the inconsistent generic human?
Ayn Rand apparently missteps while handling the validity of perceptions. She 1) accepts perception and not sensation as self-evident and 2) optical illusion is the fault of conception not sight. These two propositions are grouped inelegantly. She seemingly equates perception with sight but disassociates it from sensation. Here, if sight is not sensation we have not yet seen at all. While these two propositions may be axiomatic for her, they are incomplete; not because of the stolen concept but because of an occluded one. Misconception is truly the unique cause of illusion but misperception is the cause of particular error of oversight. We have as yet no such thing as mis-sensation.
Rand uses the fallacy of The Stolen Concept as an example of self-refuting concept to invalidate any argument against her arrangement of perceptions and sensations. This is an extremely weak defense. Secondly it presents a false dilemma exactly because what is in question is axiomatic on both sides, exactly as Rand complains. Such that sense, object, sight, perception, form, concept are dependent; and by the way, all are features of the subjective consciousness. Have we seen as yet any of these abstractions take up residence in the objective reality as explanations of that reality as it occurs subjectively? And so, the fallacy of The Stolen Concept is a detour relative to Objectivism and hardly tangent to philosophy but it pulls the bulk of a feature of hers: Effective devolution of value from the subject to an external and objective synthetic SELF. This big self is none other that a paradigm since there is nothing substantial about it. It has to be didactic by default. Perhaps now it is clearer how Nietzsche begins to resonate and conjure the great Doer of the Ages of mythic (literally) proportions. This is not a Hero of Sense but Behavior, not a Discerner of information but an Actor on cue.
She leaves by default that perceptions are at once self-evident and incapable of error while they simultaneously depend upon sense input or form without an interpretive apparatus.
This is a logical mess, because while it is perception that is qualified as this or that and accorded the status of the “self-evident,” it is all limited by imperfect sensory input and massive conceptual repertoire of the “seer”. I pose that optical illusion is the fault of sensation (what you can see) as limited by conception (internal models of what you’ve seen) resulting in perception of form (what you think you see.)
For example, I sense a formula on the screen as a pattern of marks but I do not perceive or conceive it as such because I am a baboon. On the other hand as a 2nd grader I may perceive a nominal formula and still not conceive of it and remain ignorant of its inner or implied structure. Yet I have seen it all the while as the photons hit receptors in my eye. Cleary all of these variables impinge on Form.
(In the monist perspective “external” perception enjoys the same shaky ground with ‘internal’ sensation and relevant conceptions because they are co-dependent and really occur in one and only one “space.”)
Rand’s objectivism lops off internal (subjective) consciousness yet she remains conscious herself, I suppose and able to come to a corporate understanding. In doing so, the awareness of every other entity is truncated and thrown into a very convenient ‘emotional’ heap (sensations?) by which it receives its valuation accordingly.
It is at this point that the Hero appears. His role is that of the mere didact or teacher by default for he has no life of his own. It is in fact an image. But who is supplying the image? Well that’s just it! Nobody is supplying an image, yet. What is being achieved now is preparation of fecundity within the devolved subject! The paradigm so far is an empty set.
Anyone except the Hero can plausibly project his or her own percepts and concepts into the void left by discarding another’s internal sensations; thus homogenizing and reducing the extended interior landscape of actors in the world to an atom identical with the same. Self-justification is obtained in this way and is experienced as a manic victory.
Of course, the self needs no justification, it just IS.
Yet the above process of faire de zombie can be driven in a theatrical setting, such as churches, temples, conclaves, institutes, public and private media producing an external yet forever virtual PR victory. This arrangement clears the way of any compunction in the individual against corporate behavior at all, substituting instead the pleasure of acquisition limited only by other individuals’ ability to retain self control. Suppose now that Rand had any connection with cinema!
Rand 'decorates' her new self-concept (thanks to her own subjective reflections) with Greek military images. She is typically visual and masculine in this sense. For the Rand materialist it is: Veni, vidi, vici. Isn’t this the imperial cry of pseudo-Conservatism? A grasping stereopticon unleashed from consideration of “people.” Why would hawks adopt her dicey philosophy and stick it in nearly every Philosophy Department in the USA ? Self-justification is the kernel of the whole endeavor. Self-justification must reach a plateau to accomplish its task. This plateau is Exceptionalism.
Evolution, while not a philosophy but an hypothesis nevertheless cannot be called on as a demonstration of her principles. They are not convergent. Evolution hypothesizes on changes of biology. Objectivism hypothesizes on changes of judgement. But Evolution is touted as a precedent of force for human interactions and therefore forms a criterion of judgement. Evolution taken loosely can be used to rationalize anything which results in a gain for somebody, anybody. Because of this it carries some weight in terms of human progress or the idea that things will get better for humanity. But, Evolutionary principles appear to apply from microbes to macrobes and their existence seems to reinforce the hypothesis globally. But I have said that Rand devolves the subject from a Discerner to a Doer by abridging the discerning power of the generic human. Does Objective Evolution accompany Subjective Devolution? No, but Evolution as we have it now also does not recognize any subject beyond an artifact of instincts and de facto choices.
The key lies in a teleological question. Evolution foresees no goal, no paradigm of finished nature. Nature holds no objective ideal. Objectivism on the other hand does envision a criterion of judgement as paradigm. Additionally, if we look more closely at Evolution we see that rather than a cardinal source of clout, it is in fact subordinate. What force contains Evolution like a faucet? The answer is change. Transcendental change brings about necessarily a change in requirements. This makes certain forms obsolescent. Those who are invested thereby devolve accordingly if they cannot transform themselves. Does this describe Progress in terms Rand sees it in her Hero? Does it describe the devolution of the subject as discerner of truth?
We can now see the Evolution and Objectivist Progress are definitely different concepts. But now we see how their auras, their cache illuminate an objective, a teleology. Yet as we look at Rand ’s life and see how the world regards her, we can glimpse again the ends her philosophy has in mind. It is odd that she, a Jewish woman in Russia , should apply to Nietzsche and fascist forms like her countries enemy, Hitler, did playing up the charismatic Hero with clear objectives and the tenacity to achieve them along with a machine state and a new machine to keep track of it--the computer. ---Copyright2012T.R.REEDY
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