The Ayn Rand Lexicon - Objectivism From A To Z Part 3

[Leonard Peikoff, "The Philosophy of Objectivism" lecture series (1976), Lecture 6.J There is no escape from the law of ident.i.ty, neither in the universe with which [one] deals nor in the working of his own consciousness, and if he is to acquire knowledge of the first, he must discover the proper method of using the second; ... there is no room for the arbitrary in any activity of man, least of all in his method of cognition-and just as he has learned to be guided by objective criteria in making his physical tools, so he must be guided by objective criteria in forming his tools of cognition: his concepts.

[ITOE, 110. ].

See also AGNOSTICISM; CERTAINTY; OBJECTIVITY; POSSIBLE; PROOF; SKEPTICISM; TRUTH.

Argument from Intimidation. There is a certain type of argument which, in fact, is not an argument, but a means of forestalling debate and extorting an opponent's agreement with one's undiscussed notions. It is a method of bypa.s.sing logic by means of psychological pressure.... [It] consists of threatening to impeach an opponent's character by means of his argument, thus impeaching the argument without debate. Example: "Only the immoral can fail to see that Candidate X's argument is false." ... The falsehood of his argument is a.s.serted arhitrarily and offered as proof of his immorality.

In today's epistemological jungle, that second method is used more frequently than any other type of irrational argument. It should be cla.s.sified as a logical fallacy and may be designated as "The Argument from Intimidation."

The essential characteristic of the Argument from Intimidation is its appeal to moral self-doubt and its reliance on the fear, guilt or ignorance of the victim. It is used in the form of an ultimatum demanding that the victim renounce a given idea without discussion, under threat of being considered morally unworthy. The pattern is always: "Only those who are evil (dishonest, heartless, insensitive, ignorant, etc.) can hold such an idea."

["The Argument from Intimidation," VOS,191: pb 139.]

The Argument from Intimidation dominates today's discussions in two forms. In public speeches and print, it flourishes in the form of long, involved, elaborate structures of unintelligible verbiage, which convey nothing clearly except a moral threat. ("Only the primitive-minded can fail to realize that clarity is oversimplification.") But in private, day-by-day experience, it comes up wordlessly, between the lines, in the form of inarticulate sounds conveying unstated implica-. tions. It relies, not on what is said, but on how it is said-not on content, but on tone of voice.

The tone is usually one of scornful or belligerent incredulity. "Surely you are not an advocate of capitalism, are you?" And if this does not intimidate the prospective victim-who answers, properly: "I am,"-the ensuing dialogue goes something like this: "Oh, you couldn't be! Not really!" "Really." "But everybody knows that capitalism is outdated!" "I don't." "Oh, come now!" "Since I don't know it, will you please tell me the reasons for thinking that capitalism is outdated?" "Oh. don't be ridiculous!" "Will you tell me the reasons?" "Well, really, if you don't know, I couldn't possibly tell you!"

All this is accompanied by raised eyebrows, wide-eyed stares, shrugs, grunts, snickers and the entire a.r.s.enal of nonverbal signals communicating ominous innuendoes and emotional vibrations of a single kind: disapproval.

If those vibrations fail, if such debaters are challenged, one finds that they have no arguments, no evidence, no proof, no reasons, no ground to stand on-that their noisy aggressiveness serves to hide a vacuum-that the Argument from Intimidation is a confession of intellectual impotence.

[Ibid., 193; pb 140.]

Let me emphasize that the Argument from Intimidation does not consist of introducing moral judgment into intellectual issues, but of subst.i.tuting moral judgment for intellectual argument. Moral evaluations are implicit in most intellectual issues; it is not merely permissible. but mandatory to pa.s.s moral judgment when and where appropriate: to suppress such judgment is an act of moral cowardice. But a moral judgment must always follow, not precede (or supersede), the reasons on which it is based.

[Ibid.. 197: pb 143.]

How does one resist that Argument? There is only one weapon against it: moral certainty.

When one enters any intellectual battle, big or small, public or private, one cannot seek, desire or expect the enemy's sanction. Truth or falsehood must be one's sole concern and sole criterion of judgment-not anyone's approval or disapproval; and, above all, not the approval of those whose standards are the opposite of one's own.

[Ibid.]

The most ill.u.s.trious example of the proper answer to the Argument from Intimidation was given in American history by the man who, rejecting the enemy's moral standards and with full certainty of his own rect.i.tude, said: "If this be treason, make the most of it."

[Ibid., 198; pb 144.]

See also CERTAINTY; LOGIC; MORAL COWARDICE; "PSYCHOLOGIZING. "

Aristotle. If there is a philosophical Atlas who carries the whole of Western civilization on his shoulders, it is Aristotle. He has been opposed, misinterpreted, misrepresented, and-iike an axiom-used by his enemies in the very act of denying him. Whatever intellectual progress men have achieved rests on his achievements.

Aristotle may be regarded as the cultural barometer of Western history. Whenever his influence dominated the scene, it paved the way for one of history's brilliant eras; whenever it fell, so did mankind. The Aristotelian revival of the thirteenth century brought men to the Renaissance. The intellectual counter-revolution turned them back toward the cave of his antipode: Plato.

There is only one fundamental issue in philosophy: the cognitive efficacy of man's mind. The conflict of Aristotle versus Plato is the conflict of reason versus mysticism. It was Plato who formulated most of philosophy's basic questions-and doubts. It was Aristotle who laid the foundation for most of the answers. Thereafter, the record of their duel is the record of man's long struggle to deny and surrender or to uphold and a.s.sert the validity of his particular mode of consciousness.

[Review of J.H. Randall's Aristotle, TON, May 1963, 18.]

Aristotle's philosophy was the intellect's Declaration of Independence. Aristotle, the father of logic, should be given the t.i.tle of the world's first intellectual, in the purest and n.o.blest sense of that word. No matter what remnants of Platonism did exist in Aristotle's system, his incomparable achievement lay in the fact that he defined the basic principles of a rational view of existence and of man's consciousness: that there is only one reality, the one which man perceives-that it exists as an objective absolute (which means: independently of the consciousness, the wishes or the feelings of any perceiver)-that the task of man's consciousness is to perceive0, not to create, reality-that abstractions are man's method of integrating his sensory materia)-that man's mind is his only tool of knowledge-that A is A.

If we consider the fact that to this day everything that makes us civilized beings, every rational value that we possess-inctuding the birth of science, the industrial revolution, the creation of the United States, even the structure of our language-is the result of Aristotle's influence, of the degree to which, explicitly or implicitly, mert accepted his epistemological principles, we would have to say: never have so many owed so much to one man.

["For the New Intellectual," FNI, 20; pb 22.]

Aristotle is the champion of this world, the champion of nature, as against the supernaturalism of Plato. Denying Plato's World of Forms, Aristotle maintains that there is only one reality: the world of particulars in which we live, the world men perceive by means of their physical senses. Universals, he holds, are merely aspects of existing ent.i.ties, isolated in thought by a process of selective attention; they have no existence apart from particulars. Reality is comprised, not of Platonic abstractions, but of concrete, individual ent.i.ties, each with a definite nature, each obeying the laws inherent in its nature. Aristotle's universe is the universe of science. The physical world, in his view, is not a shadowy projection controlled by a divine dimension, but an autonomous, self-sufficient realm. It is an orderly, intelligible, natural realm, open to the mind of man.

In such a universe, knowledge cannot be acquired by special revelations from another dimension; there is no place for ineffable intuitions of the beyond. Repudiating the mystical elements in Plato's epistemology, Aristotle is the father of logic and the champion of reason as man's only means of knowledge. Knowledge, he holds, must be based on and derived from the data of sense experience; it must be formulated in terms of objectively defined concepts; it must be validated by a process of logic.

[Leonard Peikoff, OP, 21; pb 19.]

Indicating that the early scientists had discarded Aristotle in rebellion against his religious interpreters, Professor Randall points out that their scientific achievements had, in fact, an unacknowledged Aristotelian base and were carrying out the implications of Aristotle's theories.

[Review of J.H. Randall's Aristotle, TON, May 1963, 18.]

Let us note ... the radical difference between Aristotle's view of concepts and the Objectivist view, particularly in regard to tire issue of essential characteristics.

It is Aristotle who first formulated the principles of correct definition. It is Aristotle who identified the fact that only concretes exist. But Aristotle held that definitions refer to metaphysical essences, which exist in concretes as a special element or formative power, and he held that the process of concept-formation depends on a kind of direct intuition by which man's mind grasps these essences and forms concepts accordingly.

Aristotle regarded "essence" as metaphysical; Objectivism regards it as epistemological.

[ITOE, 68.].

For Aristotle, the good life is one of personal selE-fulfillment. Man should enjoy the values of this world. Using his mind to the fullest, each man should work to achieve his own happiness here on earth. And in the process he should be conscious of his own value. Pride, writes Aristotle-a rational pride in oneself and in one's moral character-is, when it is earned, the "crown of the virtues."

A proud man does not negate his own ident.i.ty. He does not sink selflessly into the community. He is not a promising subject for the Platonic state.

Although Aristotle's writings do include a polemic against the more extreme features of Plato's collectivism, Aristotle himself is not a consistent advocate of political individualism. His own politics is a mixture of statist and antistatist elements. But the primary significance of Aristotle, or of any philosopher, does not lie in his politics. It lies in the fundamentals of his system: his metaphysics and epistemology.

[Leonard Peikoff, OP, 21; pb 30.]

Throughout history the influence of Aristotle's philosophy (particularly of his epistemology) has led in the direction of individual freedom, of man's liberation from the power of the state ... Aristotle (via John Locke) was the philosophical father of the Const.i.tution of the United States and thus of capitalism ... it is Plato and Hegel, not Aristotle, who have been the philosophical ancestors of all totalitarian and welfare states, whether Bismarck's, Lenin's or Hitler's.

[Review of J.H. Randall's Aristotle, TON, May 1963, 19.]

There is no future for the world except through a rebirth of the Aristotelian approach to philosophy. This would require an Aristotelian affirmation of the reality of existence, of the sovereignty of reason, of life on earth-and of the splendor of man.

Aristotle and ()bjectivism agree on fundamentals and, as a result, on this last point, also. Both hold that man can deal with reality, can achieve values, can live non-tragically. Neither believes in man the worm or man the monster; each upholds man the thinker and therefore man the hero. Aristotle calls him "the great-souled man." Ayn Rand calls him Howard Roark, or John Gait.

[Leonard Peikoff, OP, 337; pb 311.]

See also ANCIENT GREECE; DEFINITIONS; IDENt.i.tY; LOGIC; OBJECTIVISM; PRIDE; RENAISSANCE; ROMANTICISM; SCIENCE; TABULA RASA.

Art. Art is a selective re-creation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value-judgments. Man's profound need of art lies in the fact that his cognitive faculty is conceptual, i.e., that he acquires knowledge by means of abstractions, and needs the power to bring his widest metaphysical abstractions into his immediate, perceptual awareness. Art fulfills this need: by means of a selective re-creation, it concretizes man's fundamental view of himself and of existence. It tells man, in effect, which aspects of his experience are to be regarded as essential, significant, important. In this sense, art teaches man how to use his consciousness. It conditions or stylizes man's consciousness by conveying to him a certain way of looking at existence.

["Art and Cognition," RM, pb 45.]

By a selective re-creatiott, art isolates and integrates those aspects of reality which represent man's fundamental view of himself and of existence. Out of the countless number of concretes-of single, disorganized and (seemingly) contradictory attributes, actions and ent.i.ties-an artist isolates the things which he regards as metaphysically essential and integrates them into a single new concrete that represents an embodied abstraction.

For instance, consider two statues of man: one as a Greek G.o.d, the other as a deformed medieval monstrosity. Both are metaphysical estimates of man; both are projections of the artist's view of man's nature; both are concretized representations of the philosophy of their respective cultures.

Art is a concretization of metaphysics. Art brings man's concepts to the perceptual level of his consciousness and allows him to grasp them directly, as if they were percepts.

This is the psycho-epistemological function of art and the reason of its importance in man's life (and the crux of the Objectivist esthetics).

["The Psycho-Epistemology of Art," RM, 23; pb 19.]

Is the universe intelligible to man, or unintelligible and unknowable? Can man find happiness on earth, or is he doomed to frustration and despair? Does man have the power of choice, the power to choose his goals and to achieve them, the power to direct the course of his life-or is he the helpless plaything of forces beyond his control, which determine his fate? Is man, by nature, to be valued as good, or to be despised as evil? These are metaphysical questions, but the answers to them determine the kind of ethics men will accept and practice; the answers are the link between metaphysics and ethics. And although metaphysics as such is not a normative science, the answers to this category of questions a.s.sume, in man's mind, the function of metaphysical value-judgments, since they form the foundation of all of his moral values.

Consciously or subconsciously, explicitly or implicitly, man knows that he needs a comprehensive view of existence to integrate his values, to choose his goals, to plan his future, to maintain the unity and coherence of his life-and that his metaphysical value-judgments are involved in every moment of his life, in his every choice, decision and action.

Metaphysics-the science that deals with the fundamental nature of reality-involves man's widest abstractions. It includes every concrete he has ever perceived, it involves such a vast sum of knowledge and such a long chain of concepts that no man could hold it all in the focus of his immediate conscious awareness. Yet he needs that sum and that awareness to guide him-he needs the power to summon them into full, conscious focus.

That power is given to him by art.

[Ibid., 21; pb 19.]

It is not journalistic information or scientific education or moral guidance that man seeks from a work of art (though these may be involved as secondary consequences), but the fulfillment of a more profound need: a confirmation of his view of existence-a confirmation, not in the sense of resolving cognitive doubts, but in the sense of permitting him to contemplate his abstractions outside his own mind, in the form of existential concretes.

["Art and Sense of Life," RM, 48; pb 38.]

As to the role of emotions in art and the subconscious mechanism that serves as the integrating factor both in artistic creation and in man's response to art, they involve a psychological phenomenon which we call a sense of life. A sense of life is a pre-conceptual equivalent of metaphysics, an emotional, subconsciously integrated appraisal of man and of existence.

["The Psycho-Epistemology of Art," RM, 28; pb 24.1 The emotion involved in art is not an emotion in the ordinary meaning of the term. It is experienced more as a "sense" or a "feel," but it has two characteristics pertaining to emotions: it is automatically immediate and it has an intense, profoundly personal (yet undefined) value-meaning to the individual experiencing it. The value involved is life, and the words naming the emotion are: "This is what life means to me."

["Art and Sense of Life," RM, 44; pb 35.]

Since man lives by reshaping his physical background to serve his purpose, since he must first define and then create his values-a rational man needs a concretized projection of these values, an image in whose likeness he will re-shape the world and himself. Art gives him that image; it gives him the experience of seeing the full, immediate, concrete reality of his distant goals.

Since a rational man's ambition is unlimited, since his pursuit and achievement of values is a lifelong process-and the higher the values, the harder the struggte-he needs a moment, an hour or some period of time in which he can experience the sense of his completed task, the sense of living in a universe where his values have been successfully achieved. It is like a moment of rest, a moment to gain fuel to move farther. Art gives him that fuel; the pleasure of contemplating the objectified reality of one's own sense of life is the pleasure of feeling what it would be like to live in one's ideal world.

[Ibid., 48; pb 38.]

The importance of that experience is not in what he learns from it, but in that he experiences it. The fuel is not a theoretical principle, not a didactic "message," but the life-giving fact of experiencing a moment of metaphysical joy-moment of love for existence.

["The Goal of My Writing," RM, 171; pb 170.]

Art is man's metaphysical mirror; what a rational man seeks to see in that mirror is a salute; what an irrational man seeks to see is a justification-even if only a justification of his depravity, as a last convulsion of his betrayed self-esteem.

Between these two extremes, there lies the immense continuum of men of mixed premises-whose sense of life holds unresolved, precariously balanced or openly contradictory elements of reason and unreason-and works of art that reflect these mixtures. Since art is the product of philosophy (and mankind's philosophy is tragically mixed), most of the world's art, including some of its greatest examples, falls into this category.

["Art and Sense of Life," RM, 49; pb 39.]

Art is the indispensable medium for the communication of a moral ideal.... This does not mean that art is a subst.i.tute for philosophical thought: without a conceptual theory of ethics, an artist would not be able successfully to concretize an image of the ideal. But without the a.s.sistance of art, ethics remains in the position of theoretical engineering: art is the model-builder....

It is important to stress, however, that even though moral values are inextricably involved in art, they are involved only as a consequence, not as a causal determinant: the primary focus of art is metaphysical, not ethical. Art is not the "handmaiden" of morality, its basic purpose is not to educate, to reform or to advocate anything. The concretization of a moral ideal is not a textbook on how to become one. The basic purpose of art is not to teach, but to show-to hold up to man a concretized image of his nature and his place in the universe.

Any metaphysical issue will necessarily have an enormous influence on man's conduct and, therefore, on his ethics; and, since every art work has a theme, it will necessarily convey some conclusion, some "message," to its audience. But that influence and that "message" are only secondary consequences. Art is not the means to any didactic end. This is the difference between a work of art and a morality play or a propaganda poster. The greater a work of art, the more profoundly universal its theme. Art is not the means of literal transcription. This is the difference between a work of art and a news story or a photograph.

["The Psycho-Epistetnology of Art," RM, 25; ph 21.]

As a re-creation of reality, a work of art has to be representational; its freedom of stylization is limited by the requirement of intelligibility; if it does not present an intelligible subject, it ceases to be art.

["Art and Cognition," RM, pb 75.]

What are the valid forms of art-and why these? ... The proper forms of art present a selective re-creation of reality in terms needed by man's cognitive faculty, which includes his ent.i.ty-perceiving senses, and thus a.s.sist the integration of the various elements of a conceptual consciousness. Literature deals with concepts, the visual arts with sight and touch, music with hearing. Each art fulfills the function of bringing man's concepts to the perceptual level of his consciousness and allowing him to grasp them directly, as if they were percepts. (The performing arts are a means of further concretization.) The different branches of art serve to unify man's consciousness and offer him a coherent view of existence. Whether that view is true or false is not an esthetic matter. The crucially esthetic matter is psycho-epistemological: the integration of a conceptual consciousness.

[Ibid., 73.]

Art (including literature) is the barometer of a culture. It reflects the sum of a society's deepest philosophical values: not its professed notions and slogans, but its actual view of man and of existence.

["Bootleg Romanticism," RM, 121; pb 129.1 See Conceptual Index: Esthetics.

Artistic Creation. As to the role of emotions in art and the subconscious mechanism that serves as the integrating factor both in artistic creation and in man's response to art, they involve a psychological phenomenon which we call a sense of lifr. A sense of life is a pre-conceptual equivalent of metaphysics, an emotional, subconsciously integrated appraisal of man and of existence.

["The Psycho-Epistemology of Art," RM, 28; pb 24.]

It is the artist's sense of life that controls and integrates his work, directing the innumerable choices he has to make, from the choice of subject to the subtlest details of style. It is the viewer's or reader's sense of life that responds to a work of art by a complex, yet automatic reaction of acceptance and approval, or rejection and condemnation.

["Art and Sense of Life," RM, 43; pb 34.]

The psycho-epistemological process of communication between an artist and a viewer or reader goes as follows: the artist starts with a broad abstraction which he has to concretize, to bring into reality by means of the appropriate particulars; the viewer perceives the particulars, integrates them and grasps the abstraction from which they came, thus completing the circle. Speaking metaphorically, the creative process resembles a process of deduction; the viewing process resembles a process of induction.

This does not mean that communication is the primary purpose of an artist: his primary purpose is to bring his view of man and of existence into reality; but to be brought into reality, it has to be translated into objective (therefore, communicable) terms.

I Ibid., 44; pb 35.]

An artist does not fake reality-he .stylize.s it. He selects those aspects of existence which he regards as metaphysically significant-and by isolating and stressing them, by omitting the insignificant and accidental, he presents his view of existence. His concepts are not divorced from the facts of reality-they are concepts which integrate the facts and his metaphysical evaluation of the facts. His selection const.i.tutes his evaluation: everything included in a work of art-from theme to subject to brushstroke or adjective-acquires metaphysical significance by the mere fact of being included, of being important enough to include.

An artist (as, for instance, the sculptors of Ancient Greece) who presents man as a G.o.d-like figure is aware of the fact that men may be crippled or diseased or helpless; but he regards these conditions as accidental, as irrelevant to the essential nature of man-and he presents a figure embodying strength, beauty, intelligence, self-confidence, as man's proper, natural state.

[Ibid., 46; pb 36.]

See also ART; CREATION ; EMOTIONS; PSYCHO-EPISTEMOLOGY; SENSE of LIFE; STYLIZATION.

a.s.sociations. See Cooperation.

Atheism. Every argument for G.o.d and every attribute ascribed to Him rests on a false metaphysical premise. None can survive for a moment on a correct metaphysics....

Existence exists, and only existence exists. Existence is a primary: it is uncreated, indestructible, eternal. So if you are to postulate something beyond existence-some supernatural realm-you must do it by openly denying reason, dispensing with definitions, proofs, arguments, and saying flatly, "To h.e.l.l with argument, I have faith." That, of course, is a willful rejection of reason.

Objectivism advocates reason as man's sole means of knowledge, and therefore, for the reasons I have already given, it is atheist. It denies any supernatural dimension presented as a contradiction of nature, of existence. This applies not only to G.o.d, but also to every variant of the supernatural ever advocated or to be advocated. In other words, we accept reality, and that's all.

[Leonard Peikoff, "The Philosophy of Objectivism" lecture series (1976), Lecture 2.]

See also AGNOSTICISM; EXISTENCE; G.o.d; MIRACLES; NATURE; RELIGION; SUPERNATURALISM.

Automatization. All learning involves a process of automatizing, i.e., of first acquiring knowledge by fully conscious, focused attention and observation, then of establis.h.i.+ng mental connections which make that knowledge automatic (instantly available as a context), thus freeing man's mind to pursue further, more complex knowledge.

[ITOE, 86.].