Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology: Expanded Second Edition

A critical reviewer writes: "Either universals exist outside the mind or they do not. If they exist outside the mind, there remains the question of where and how they exist, despite the changing nature of all particulars we experience, and how they get into the mind, since we experience only transitory particulars. If they exist only inside the mind, we have to confront the problem that knowledge is disconnected from reality." This is an excellent summary of the historical dichotomy Ayn Rand sets out to overturn in Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. Philosophers have long assumed that if there are no universals "out there" in external reality, in some sense existing independently of human cognition, then our abstractions or concepts represent some kind of fiction, and our conceptual knowledge is fundamentally cut off from reality ("I have seen many men, but I have never seen man."). In ITOE, Ayn Rand rejects this assumption and proceeds to offer the alternative no other philosopher had been able to conceive. No, there are no such things as universals, she answers; there are only particulars. But that does not mean our concepts are in any way a distortion of what exists. Concepts are our FORM of grasping reality. We group concretes together into abstract concepts, but we do not do so arbitrarily, nor does doing so prevent us from knowing that in reality all that exists are particulars, and that when we think, we are merely using concepts to think about particulars. Why are our conceptualizations not arbitrary? Because they reflect the factual, mathematical relationships among concretes. We group together concretes that are similar, and similarity is a quantitative relationship. Initially, this relationship is given in perception (recognizing it does not, as some reviewers have claimed, require any already held concepts): two concretes are perceived as similar when they differ significantly less from each other along some axis of measurement (e.g., shape) than they do from some third thing. For example, one does not need to possess the concepts 'chair,' 'table,' or 'shape' to perceive that the shapes of two chairs are similar in comparison to that of the table they're next to. Infants can perceive that, and so can animals (which accounts for the associations they're are able to form). In this way, Rand solves the difficult problem of how human beings are able to rise from the perceptual level of awareness to the conceptual. From there she moves on to higher-level "abstractions from abstractions," and explains that as we move up the conceptual chain (that is, further and further from the perceptual level) the possibility of error increases. That's right, Rand holds that one's concepts and definitions can be WRONG. A major reason for the need of a theory of concepts is that we need guidance in forming our concepts. To this end, Rand offers several conceptual and definitional rules. The reader comes to see what she meant in saying that concepts are OBJECTIVE. Her writings on this topic do not, as various reviewers have claimed, encroach on what ought to be the province of child psychology. Her discussions of the concept-forming processes of infants and young children are based on an understanding of (1) the mental processes that are implied by the learning of language and (2) the logically necessary order of learning concepts. (1) A scientist can observe how children behave when they're learning to speak, but only through "arm chair," philosophical reasoning can a thinker come to grasp what it is that is going on when a child reaches the ability to identify the tree in the front yard, the tree in the backyard, and the Christmas tree in the living room as all "trees." What is it about those three objects that enables one to call each a "tree," and what implicit mental processes must therefore be occuring? There is a reason no cognitive psychologist has ever solved the problem of universals. (2) Rand is able to infer a lot about how children form concepts from her understanding that concepts must be learned in a specific, logical order (which is not to say there are not options within the logical restrictions). It is logically impossible, for example, to grasp the concept "living organism" before one has grasped such concepts as "animal" and "plant." It is logically impossible to grasp the concept "orphan" before one has grasped the concept "parent." That does not mean a child can't parrot those words in the opposite order, but if he did his meaning in using the word (if any) would not be the same as ours. He would have the word but not the concept. ITOE is a rich philosophical tour de force, containing the solution to the problem of universals.

Thought may be merely philosophical or it may be true philosophy, in a rigorous and disciplined sense. Anyone who has read Ayn Rand’s masterpieces, “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead,” is inclined to think it is the latter of these; but it is in this work, “Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology” in which one sees, in classic philosophic expositional form, the thoroughgoing rigor of her thought. Rand’s clarity in prose and precise, simple, yet elegant style make for a relatively easily digested set of ideas. I say “relatively” because the subject matter is by no means extraordinarily easy to handle to the typical reader of Rand’s novels –and this is perhaps why Rand has been so influential, having been capable of canalizing her ideas into the genre of fiction. However, for those with any kind of exposure to proper philosophy will find the ideas presented amazingly clear and straightforward. The average reader, in the end, with some reasonable amount of effort, should be able to get a handle of this works central and most prominent parcels of ideas. The appendix of discursive intercourse should further assimilation of Rands points presented in the main body of the text. The value in doing this, so far as the layperson is concerned, is that this work provides the groundwork for the entire Objectivist philosophy, and it provides immediate insight into Rand’s position on each of the major branches of philosophy. In short, her idea is that language and existence has been artificially separated by philosophers, as she employs with appropriate snarkiness phrases like “floating terms.” Peikoff’s supplement is amazingly well chosen and, in my opinion, a necessary addition to Rand’s work. For the philosophically trained pupil and expert, I find it inconceivable that this text could be presented without it. The article that Peikoff supplies is on the analytic-synthetic divide, and he employs Rand’s theory to show why exactly this is an erroneously contrived dichotomy. Without going into any detail, the Rand text and Peikoff supplement provides a response to a long tradition of post-Kantians and “mini-Kantians” (e.g., pragmatists and logical positivists); and this, in itself, should make the work interesting enough for students of philosophy and philosophers to have a peek, if not study it thoroughly. The text, as a whole, is so rich and thought provoking, and so compelling, that I feel it is among the more important works in epistemology ever written. A final word about the status of this book as an “introduction,” since I have read complaints in reviews elsewhere. This book is not an introduction, in the sense of remediality and oversimplification; that is, it is not a reworking of a set of ideas so as to make them more readily available. It is an introduction in the sense that Rand realized that her system of epistemology is incomplete, requiring a resolution to the problem of induction, etc. Attempts toward this end can be found in Peikoff’s lectures, “Induction in Philosophy and Physics,” Peikoff’s book, “DIM Hypothesis,” and David Harriman’s “The Logical Leap: Induction in Physics.” In other words, Rand was fully aware that her epistemological framework described well concept formation, but similarly acknowledged that this didn’t explain how universal generalization is possible from particulars, as it is done in the physical sciences. It is in this regard, awaiting a fuller and complete epistemology, that Rand entitled the work an “introduction.”

What some of Ayn Rand's enemies recognize but many of her friends don't is that because this book is easy peasy it is dangerous. Because of my own first hand experience I know this to be true. That is, this book is easy peasy IF you understand that it was written for the man-in-the-street-human being not man-in-the-ivory-tower-philosophy student. For example, who besides me hasn't had a dream where your dream circle swooshed in on a red cup and in the same dream scene also on red painted fingernails from a long, slender hand dangling in the scene and then the next day on your 4th birthday woke up thinking about red as-a-thing? And then why some decades later when they read this on the first page of Chapter 2 of ITOE and [inserted] their own first hand experience while doing so: ... 2. Concept-Formation A concept is a mental integration of two or more units [cup & fingernails with something same about them] which are isolated according to a specific characteristic(s) [same look] and united by a specific definition [this cup and those fingernails look the same]. The units involved may be any aspect of reality: entities, attributes [same look], actions, qualities [same look that is different from the rest of the stuff--hand and table cup sits on--in the circle], relationships, etc.; they may be perceptual concretes [fingernails, cups] or other, earlier-formed concepts. The act of isolation involved is a process of abstraction: i.e., a selective mental focus [dream circle] that takes out or separates a certain aspect of reality from all others (e.g., isolates a certain attribute [color] from the entities [fingernails attached to a hand and a cup standing by itself nearby in an otherwise all black & white dream] possessing it, or a certain action from the entities performing it, etc.). The uniting involved is not a mere sum, but an integration, i.e., a blending of the units into a single, new mental entity .... [red!!!] ... ... why they didn't end up keeling over from way way way too many multiple (mental) orgasms as the foreplayful Ms. Rand connected the dots--dot after dot after dot--for said individual such as myself, I'll never know--actually I do know, that is, actually, internally speaking I did keel over. That is, a self who suffered greatly from the rampant Kantian abuse shoved down his throat by the mere fact of the fact that he took education seriously and was educated in the Kantian driven American Public Education School System as same existed from 1951 to 1987 wherein he was "educated". (Granting that the first half of this period contained enough Classical Education influence to prevent total and complete mind destruction, in balance it still required a big dudette coming along at exactly the half way point in my education to save me.) All's I can say is, "Thank god for Ayn Rand." The dangerous part is both theoretical and factual. Theoretically, that is, IF ONLY I could now go back to my 10th grade high school class and have the teacher-lead-whole-class laughing at me for ME saying in response to the teacher's question, "of course there is a sound when the tree falls in the woods without anyone around" and they all laughing in unison at me and saying you just don't get it do you Deering, you can't know this THAT'S THE POINT would I ever have a thing or two to tell them. Thing 1: if you too want to know that you can know then read Ayn Rand's Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. Thing 2: Not all teachers are rational. Thing 1a: If you want to know HOW you know then read Ayn Rand's Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. Factually, if after your sixth or seventh read through of this book where each time around the part just above last time's easy peasy parts that you didn't get then but now all of a sudden these new parts seem easy peasy too then welcome to the world of the knowers. It is a fun world, but as I said it is not without danger ... as the following letter of mine sent to a local editor attests to: Dear Editor The Minneapolis Star: [Not reprinted here] [I have to stop here because of amazon's limitations--it can't differentiate between swear words used inappropriately (profanity--that is, swear words as substitutions for appropriate abstract concepts that the user does not know and is too lazy to learn) and ones used appropriately (emotional end-state descriptors). Since my letter-to-the-editor (lte) has two appropriately used swear words in it and since I accept amazon's rules about me qua "reviewer/commentator" on their website not making them differentiate I can't put this lte here. However, for those aforementioned friends who are still interested you can read the full "review/comment" at my degageblog.] I sometimes think that "Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology" is the greatest book Ayn Rand ever wrote. But then of course other times I think it is "Atlas Shrugged". Either way, if you like thinking about thinking then there is a really good chance you will like ITOE. If on the other hand you love knowing and knowing that you know then there is a really really good chance you will love ITOE. PS: here's a small tip on how to help you make this book be easy peasy(ier) for you if it already isn't, 1. Buy the original non-expanded version first (my 4th Printing copy--Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, pub: The Objectivist, Inc.--was printed in 1973) and read and study it first because it is physically a littler book (quarter inch thick) that can seem less daunting then this FOUR TIMES BIGGER (one-inch thick) Expanded Version. Also, some of the material in the Expanded Version's expanded section prevents you from learning the material on your own without having to rely on more experts to give you the answers. (You will end up relying on them only after you have to--see more following). 2. Read it and re-read it as required for the next year or so as you give yourself a chance to learn on your own all you can about epistemology in general and objectivist epistemology in particular (which ultimately--if both match reality--are the same thing). 3. When you get to the point where you can't easily continue your understanding of the book's ideas by simply re-reading it (and thinking about the book's ideas in-between these re-reads) then get this expanded version and read it's expanded parts and 4. then continue on as required to learn all you can about epistemology in general (and in particular, eventually, your own personal epistemology, i.e., psycho-epistemology, i.e., your own personal thinking modus operandi as herein resides your biggest source of self improvement you'll ever find) and 5. then, voila! after several years you too can conclude: "...this stuff is easy peasy ..." (notice, when you are 3 years old several years is a lifetime but when you are thirty it's only about 10% of a lifetime ... voila, easy peasy/piece of cake are teleömetric--that is, relative--terms ... ). PPS 1. If you can't get a copy of the original non-expanded version then buy two copies of this the paperback Expanded Version and 2. put one copy away for future use, and 3. take the other copy, turn to page 88 and tear off the rest of the book from pp 89 to the end and throw it away and 4. cross off page 88 (title page for Dr. Peikoff's Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy article*) with a giant X and then 5. what's left is the original non-expanded version for you to read and study and reread and continue studying for the first year or so ... then go to number 3 in the PS above and continue on your way to easy-peasy ville ... FPS Objectivism can be intimidating or at least it was to me but I refused to let this intimidation stop me and I highly recommend that you persevere also as the reward of ... knowing and knowing that you know is ... invaluable. ----------------- * I can't remember for sure if I read this article before or after ITOE (since for me it was just under a half a lifetime ago when I read it) but I think I did and so since it was an invaluable article for me--or as I've published elsewhere: "[the] Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy article ... single handedly uncrooked well over half of my 17 years worth of American-Public-Education-induced, intellectually twisted, psycho-epistemology"--it might prove to be the same for you so you can read this as a standalone thing independent of its inclusion here in ITOE.

Great book!

My grading of Ayn Rand`s "Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology" shows a bi-polarity: a-priori and upon analytic insight it is only worth one star and should be avoided by the vulnerable that might find their intellect injured by reading it; a-posterior and upon empirical insight it is possible to correct Rand`s objectivism and return logic to an intuitionism that is worth five stars to any reader that is able to understand the corrections. I am an optimist, and so I give this very dangerous book four stars; but by subtracting one star note that you have been warned! According to Rand`s objectivism, deduction, induction, and concept-formation are all that is needed to acquire objective knowledge. Rand`s "concept-formation" is to first differentiate (or particularize) a set into units and then to integrate (or generalize) over the set. Rand (1990, page 28) limits concepts to a bi-polarity and writes: "The process of observing the facts of reality and of integrating them into concepts is, in essence, a process of induction. The process of subsuming new instances under a known concept is, in essence, a process of deduction." Rand correctly connects induction and deduction with the proclivities of generality and particularity, respectively, but in doing this she turns concept-formation into an empty bi-polarity that holds nothing else but induction and deduction. Rand`s Chapter 8 puts a great deal of emphasis on the "Law of Identity," and something must be said about this. This law is only vaguely formulated if you check with the literature. Nevertheless, the Law of Identity is considered a law of thought, and is typically stipulated as a prelude to deductive logic. It is sometimes presented as a tautology, which says something to the affect that proposition A equals proposition A, or A=A for short. As a tautology that applies to grammar and logic, the fact that A=A, is very unilluminating. I can only guess that Rand uses this tautology because it enforces a type of literalism that applies when concepts are used in language and in logic. This seems to be an okay convention. However, I don`t believe we can assume that objectivism is pristine enough for such enforcement, and so the use of this law is on very thin ice. Note the duplicity in Leonard Piekoff`s contribution in the same book (pages 88-121), where departure from the Law of Identity is blamed for Kant`s analytic-synthetic dichotomy. However, in passing judgment, Piekoff changed the meaning of the Law of Identity given as the simple tautology that merely resides in abstract thought. Piekoff (page 99) writes: "The fact that certain characteristic are, at a given time, unknown to man, does not indicate that these characteristics are excluded from the entity - or from the concept. A is A; existents are what they are, independent of the state of human knowledge; and a concept means the existents which it integrates. Thus, a concept subsumes and includes all the characteristics of its referents, known and not-yet-known." We discover that the Law of Identity is meant to apply to the bi-polarity offered by concepts! This can only mean that the Law of Identity underwrites the most significant synthetic that is the giver of all pristine facts, represented by the time-sense polarity: {analytic a-priori <> empirical a-posteriori}! If a concept emerges from the polarity and comes with an utterance that asserts that A=A, we know automatically that the middle-term that unites the polarity`s left-hand side and right-hand side is found undeclared by the utterance. Mere tautology that asserts that "concept is concept" is only wallpaper and comes no where close to declaring the middle-term that holds the polarity together, and it gives us no license to take the middle-term for granted. In other words, the middle-term that holds all concepts together is found undeclared by objectivism. The Law of Identity is used as an excuse to enforce a brand of circular reasoning that will evade any mention of this weakness. I ask the question: what is it? The objectivist answers: it is what it is! Objectivism is found unable to avoid Kant`s dualism, but I agree with Piekoff that this dualism is unnecessary. To find a hint of what the middle-term might be, note that Piekoff`s (page 113) writes this about the dichotomy: "To introduce an opposition between the logical and the factual is to create a split between consciousness and existence, between truths in accordance with man`s method of cognition and truths in accordance with the facts of reality. The result of such a dichotomy is that logic is divorced from reality (logical truths are empty and conventional) - and reality becomes unknowable (factual truths are contingent and uncertain). This amounts to the claim that man has no method of cognition, i.e., no way of acquiring knowledge." We may conclude that the undeclared middle-term fills in the noted gap not filled by objectivism, and this act of filling is needed for cognition and knowledge! Yet Rand (page 87) writes, "The motive of all the attacks on man`s rational faculty, is a single basic premise: the desire to exempt consciousness from the law of identity." The best she can do to defend her covert circular reasoning offered by objectivism is to point to "attacks" and "desire." Rand spent her life defending rationalism from the likes of collectivists, from Kant, from altruism, and from mysticism, and this effort was made by an objectivism that concealed its own circularity. At best she can only offer her emotions for acting the way she did, and that is the key to the undeclared middle-term that mystics have no trouble understanding. The synthesis of deduction and induction that is necessary for Rand`s concept-formation shows reciprocity in the best tradition of Taoism, and it reveals naked emotionality! Revealed emotion informs on the middle-term that holds the bi-polar concepts together permitting the passing of objectivism over to intuitionism. Yes, it is true, words are concepts that emerge from concept-formation as indicated by objectivism. However, the concepts are now recognized as Kantian synthetics that reach across the third antinomy (representing the rift offered by the One and Many of Greek philosophy), they are not products of Rand`s "law of identity" that is also conveniently found ignoring the very emotive middle-term that holds concepts together. Rather, it is the middle-term that signifies the changeless identity. It is the authentic synthesis that supports the identity that unites the analytic and the empirical. Even the facts of reality, that pass over to human concepts, come as authentic synthetics that are open to less than perfect interpretations. This simple modification corrects Rand`s epistemology. The Many now reconcile themselves with the One, and this implies that knowledge is vastly additive as predicted by objectivism, but coming with a proviso that emotion must become more fully integrated with logic.

Ayn Rand is influential to Libertarian philosophy. Although I disagree on some things, as per readings you can do further than just this book, it sets up for understanding philosophy on objective standards. The only points I disagree on is the need of a coercive government and Intellectual Property. Ideas can't be excluded like how Friday may use a stick for fishing, but Crusoe wants to stoke a fire. A stick has to be excluded for the use of fishing, but the idea of fishing can't be excluded.

If I could give this book ten stars out of 5, I would. Make no mistake. This short but dense book is worth reading and re-reading as many times as necessary until you download and install this new operating system in your mind. Suppose you want to understand how the process of how knowledge works read this book. Your output (ideas, communication, work, projects, products, services) can improve substantially and exponentially. If you have survived public school's torture, do your mind a favor and give it the vital nutrition it needs to uninstall the aimless, foggy, noisy, zombie-like state. I am a young rational animal, and I can not recommend this book enough. It will protect you against attacks on your mind from all enemies. It is not an easy read, but neither is working out and improving your health. But it is worth the struggle. I hope you get a software upgrade too! Cheers

Absolutely incredible a must have for the inquisitive mind. It explains so many aspects of the thought processes. Makes you wonder what else you’re missing.