How do I defeat subjectivism?
Matt Siemer
You'll have to forgive me; I'm very new to objectivism, and although I
like it a lot, I don't know much about it. I am an English major in
college, and I have suddenly awakened to find myself surrounded with all
kinds of subjectivist ideas in all my classes. I was wondering if someone
could answer a few basic questions about objectivism for me since I haven't
yet had the time to find answers by reading:
1. What is the basis or starting point of objectivism? And how does it
claim to have this starting point? I have heard others argue that
objectivism would have to be wrong because choosing its starting point would
be a subjective choice. So does the foundation of objectivism come from
some human choice, or is something found in the outside world, or something
else?
2. How can we claim to know reality objectively when we have to depend
on our minds to interpret it correctly? Won't our minds always interpret
reality and therefore make it subjective as opposed to learning what reality
really is, therefore making it objective? I think this was Husserl's
argument.
Again, something about these arguments sounds fishy to me, but I don't
know enough about objectivism at this point to be able to defeat them
convincinly. I would greatly appreciate your answers as well as other
interesting ideas about why subjectivism is wrong (For example, I've heard
that because subjectivism is self-defeating (you can say, "subjectivism is
stupid" and a subjectivist would have to admit that you're right), it
therefore has to be invalid by Aristotle's Laws of Logic. But then someone
says that you have posited Aristotle's Laws already, blah blah blah...).
Also, where is a good place (ie book or website) to begin learning the
basics of objectivity and looking at further analysis of the above
questions?
Thanks
Matt S.
Matt Siemer
Gear Pig1
First of all, you have to understand there is a distinction between objectivism
and Objectivism.
The first, with the lower case 'o', is the traditional epistemological position
that says reality is objective and that knowledge of reality therefore has an
objective basis.
The latter, with the upper case 'O', is the name of the philosophy begun by
fiction writer Ayn Rand, and it takes as fundamental the above and then adds
all kinds of things to it, all purportedly to be validly inferred from the
above.
>And how does it
>claim to have this starting point?
For the former -- the lower case 'o' objectivism -- is the denial of any kind
of representationalist account of the mind. This gets to...
> I have heard others argue that
>objectivism would have to be wrong because choosing its starting point would
>be a subjective choice. So does the foundation of objectivism come from
>some human choice, or is something found in the outside world, or something
>else?
The problem with any kind of 'subjective' theory and idealist theory (idealism
is any philosophy that draws a distinction between what is and what appears to
be) is that every version requires the assumption that the mind has a
representationalist take on reality -- that the data from the senses
"represents" to the mind the reality it is presenting. This notion leads to
subjectivism immediately, such as in Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant, etc.,
where the mind is said to have as it's content 'ideas' (hence 'idealism') that
are not necessarily perfectly representing the reality they derive their data
from. This has seemed very plausible to many people (in fact many beginning
students of philosophy find it "obvious"); idealists, realists, and empiricists
alike, but the problem is that it's just an assumption: there is no reason to
suppose it to be true. But proving it true or false is both equally difficult.
This no doubt accounts for the continuing debate on the matter regarding
whether idealism is or is not true, and whether or not there is a distinction
to be drawn between 'objective' and 'subjective'.
As for Ayn Rand, or the upper case 'O' version of Objectivism, the notion that
the senses do NOT actually represent reality accurately is to invoke what she
calls the 'stolen concept fallacy', where the positer of the notion must assume
the validity of the concept in attempting to argue the concept itself is not
necessarily accurately representative. This argument is roughly the same as a
traditional argument realists posit against nominalists when nominalists
attempt to deny the existsence of universals: nominalists themselves must use
the universals for communication when attempting to deny the existence of
universals.
As for these arguments (Rand's 'stolen concept fallacy' and the realists'
anti-nominalist argument), the problem is that they are ad hoc in a certain
manner: they only prove the opponent cannot escape usage of the 'ideas' he or
she is attempting to deny, not that his or her position is false. Of course
Rand or the realists -- specifically immanent realists -- would hear none of
this, but that's not my problem. Idealism and the problem of universals are
still very real philosophical problems.
>2. How can we claim to know reality objectively when we have to depend
>on our minds to interpret it correctly?
And here you are assuming a representationalist account of the mind, as I
described above. I would answer that though I do not know the answer regarding
a represenationalist take of the mind, I do not think there is any reason to
suppose it to be true. If it is not true, then our minds -- specifically the
'interpretation' of our minds on the data from the senses -- is not in the
least bit subjective, and in fact 'subjective' itself is something somewhat of
a misnomer, if not just unclear in it's meaning.
> Won't our minds always interpret
>reality and therefore make it subjective as opposed to learning what reality
>really is, therefore making it objective?
Answered above, regarding representationalism.
>I think this was Husserl's
>argument.
This was MANY people's argument; not just Husserl's.
>Again, something about these arguments sounds fishy to me
Me too, but I don't know the answer. I would say that no one else does either,
but I'm sure plenty would object to that.
> but I don't
>know enough about objectivism at this point to be able to defeat them
>convincinly.
As for the lower case version of objectivism, the rejection of subjectivism is
done by simply denying a representationalist account of the mind and pointing
out the fact that there is no reason to suppose it to be true. As for the
upper case version (Ayn Rand's version), less modesty and non sequitur's --
particularly 'affirming the consequent' fallacies -- is generally the rule of
thumb in order to deny subjectivism.
>I would greatly appreciate your answers as well as other
>interesting ideas about why subjectivism is wrong (For example, I've heard
>that because subjectivism is self-defeating (you can say, "subjectivism is
>stupid" and a subjectivist would have to admit that you're right), it
>therefore has to be invalid by Aristotle's Laws of Logic.
I don't see how it follows that subjectivism therefore has to be invalid by
Aristotle's laws of logic. You'll also notice that Aristotlean logic simply
cannot deal with anything other than simple syllogism's, and cannot deal with
existential qualifiers, etc. It took the genius of Gottlob Frege (mostly
Frege), Alfred North Whitehead and (my personal favorite) Bertrand Russell to
usher in what's now called 'modern logic' (sentential calculus, predicate
calculus, modal logic), which has much semblance to Aristotlean logic (or
'traditional logic') but goes far further and also brought about many
perplexing problem's of it's own.
One intersting issue is the nature of 'meaning', which Frege noticed, and that
a contradiction of the law of identity is entailed if we're to suppose meaning
is to be identified purely with reference. This problem is specifically
ignored in Ayn Rand's version of objectivism, and in fact regards meaning as
wholly identified with reference. As a result, there are huge problems
throughout Rand's epistemology that, in the general case, Objectivists either
do not see or else deny. One example might be the strict adherence by
Objectivists to Aristotle's almost obsessive love of genus (or "essence" or
"characteristics") and differentia (or "species" or "specifics") when they
borrow from Aristotle and say the defining essence of 'man' is that he is a
rational animal -- despite the fact not every man is rational all the time, nor
is every man rational. One could also posit that an essential feature of man
is irrationality, but Rand's followers no doubt would hear none of that.
Generally they leave the empirical arguments at that point (Objectivism is
strictly empiricist) and object that 'man' "means" 'rational animal', despite
the fact not every person takes 'man' to mean that. For example, I take 'man'
to mean 'male human being', but when discussing philosophy with Objectivists, I
have to include women and their childeren in that definition .
>Also, where is a good place (ie book or website) to begin learning the
>basics of objectivity and looking at further analysis of the above
>questions?
I would start with Plato to learn the problem of universals and also what's
called 'Platonism', or 'transcendental realism', which is a realist position.
Then of course to Aristotle, specifically the Organon, and throughout the
scholastics, like Aquinas, then the rationalists, like Descartes, Spinoza and
Leibniz, then the empiricists, like Locke, Berkeley and Hume (David Hume rocks
-- Another favorite of mine), then to Kant. After Kant, to be honest, I think
most of the continent philosophers of the nineteenth century stink -- like
Hegel and Nietzche, but Marx I like a great deal. As for the Anglo - American
side of things, an interesting philosopher is William James, who specifically
denied any kind of objective/subjective distinction as fundamental but instead
posited what's called 'instrumentalism'.
Then you get to the turn of the century, when analytic philosophy got it's big
jumpstart, but it cannot be understood without first understanding Frege's
problem with meaning and also Whitehead's and Russell's failed logicism. At
this point, Rand's version of objectivism really has no place in 20th century
analytic philosophy (you might say Rand belongs more on the continent side of
things, but most do not even take Rand seriously as her philosophy is wracked
with very obvious problems, and problems she and her followers generally do not
seem to admit to). After Wittgenstein's big influence and the death of logical
positivism, you're kind of left with scatterings all over the place. My
favorite contemporaries are Quine (Specifically "Word and Object," and "From a
Logical Point of View"), the battles between Rawls and Nozick (political
philosophy -- Rawls being the liberal and Nozick the libertarian), Jerry Fodor
('mentalese'), Noam Chomsky ('universal' and/or 'generative' grammar in
linguistics), Davidson ('anomolous monism').
On the continent, you get really far out stuff, like Deleuze (I'm struggling
with him right now), Derrida (post modernism), Heidegger (the guy obsessed with
'being', or 'existence' as Objectivists prefer).
A great start is Bertrand Russell's "A History of Western Philosophy", which is
fantastically biased and prejudiced, and spares no shame on criticizing the
heck out of the philosopher's he talks about -- except that he uses arguments
(he was a logician, of course) and not just mere polemics (like some pop
philosophers do).
Hope this helped some.
Desio
> the senses do NOT actually represent reality accurately is to invoke what she
> calls the 'stolen concept fallacy', where the positer of the notion must assume
> the validity of the concept in attempting to argue the concept itself is not
> necessarily accurately representative. This argument is roughly the same as a
> traditional argument realists posit against nominalists when nominalists
> attempt to deny the existsence of universals: nominalists themselves must use
> the universals for communication when attempting to deny the existence of
> universals.
>
> As for these arguments (Rand's 'stolen concept fallacy' and the realists'
> anti-nominalist argument), the problem is that they are ad hoc in a certain
> manner: they only prove the opponent cannot escape usage of the 'ideas' he or
> she is attempting to deny, not that his or her position is false. Of course
> Rand or the realists -- specifically immanent realists -- would hear none of
> this, but that's not my problem. Idealism and the problem of universals are
> still very real philosophical problems.
Complicated and wordy...
What do you mean by this? How can you prove that everything is empirical without
knowing what the other person sees or that his senses may perceieve things
differently?
I like Objectivism, but it is a very confusing and hard-to-follow philosophy.
Please explain.
________________________________________________________
Por siempre defendiendo el racional,
Desio, Webmaster www.dissension.com