humanities.philosophy.objectivism

Malrassic Park wrote:

Interesting subject(s) Mal, but I'm not sure I always understand you. So
I've asked you a bunch of clarifying questions (mostly definitional in
character), which I hope you'll answer for me.

Mal said:
>Let me start off by defining what I mean by a "class."
>
> A class is "a collection of things sharing a common attribute."
> http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

I need to understand this definition better. Starting from the end and
going backwards, I think I understand the word "attribute" well enuf,
for it means ruffly the same as characteristic, and the example you give
is redness, right?
Now "common" I take to approximately mean similar. So that if I have,
for example, two copies (which presumably suffice for a collection) of
Mao's little Red Book before me, I can see that both shades of red are
similar/common, right?
But what does sharing mean? I see that I have two instances of what I
call redness before me. Is there some relation (called sharing perhaps)
of these instances to a Platonic Idea in Plato's Heaven where the entity
(?) or relation (?) redness exists, or does it subsist or what exactly
is its existence status? Do I have before me a piece of redness, or a
copy of redness, or what exactly of redness have I got?
Does "things" include mental phenomenon (e.g. thots) or only the
material? If the mental is included and I have say a thot of unicorns,
what exactly is the thot's existence status? I mean, we can all agree
that unicorns don't exist as entities, but does the thot of unicorns
exist, and in what way, if any, is its existence different from material
entities? Do you distinguish between the act of thinking from the object
thot about and could their existence status differ?
Is a class just a thot that has no referent, or is that referent just
another thot? If so, what gives that thot its meaning? If all thinking
creatures were snuffed out, but the books remained extant, would the
class of Mao's Red Books still exist? If so, where is the locus of class?

If you can answer these basic questions for me Mal, it'll go a long way
to understanding your definition better.


>
>
> An example of this would be the class of red books. Notice that I have
> not defined a concept here, only a class. It's distinguishing
> characteristic is redness, which is a universal, but not essential

What does "essential" mean and why is redness not essential in the
concept of red books?

>to
> forming a special

Special?

>concept of red books. (There is also the universal
> 'bookness' characterizing the books, but let's just discuss redness
> for now.)
>
> In order to designate

If I follow your drift, "designate" means something innocuous akin to
the phrase "select for discussion", right?.


a concept it was necessary for Rand to designate
> a special form

That "form" word gives me a lot of trouble. I rarely know what people
mean by it. Please explain how you use it here and further down below.

> of class, known as a concept, which integrates two or
> more instances by means of certain properties known as essentials.
> These essentials are defined as distinguishing characteristics of an
> entity, distinguished "from the other entities belonging to the same
> genus." (41)
>
> (I'll ignore the fact that her theory of concept-formation by
> essentials illustrates a logical fallacy known as the 'fallacy of
> difference,' which states that distinguishing characteristics are not
> necessarily essentials, as rationality is not necessarily essential to
> manness merely because it is a characteristic used to distinguish
> man from animals. Or perhaps let's just say rationality is only
> essential to forming the concept, it is not necessarily essential in
> the metaphysical sense.)

How can the metaphysical have a sense?
What does metaphysical mean here? Is a concept a metaphysical? Is a
class a metaphysical? Is the epistemological (whatever that may mean)
also a metaphysical? How does one tell whether or not an attribute is
metaphysically essential?

>
> In class theory it is not necessary to denote


What does denote mean? Is it the referent as distinguished from the
meaning, or is it something else? If its the so called class extension
please differentiate it from class intension and define both, please.




two or more instances in
> forming the class.

>A class can consist of one member or even zero, for
> example, if someone painted an elephant pink, and it was the only one
> in the world, the only member of its class; or if there were no pink
> elephants in existence, the class would be empty.
>
> No attribute is essential to forming a class, what matters is that the
> uniting


What's being united to what, especially in the case of classes with zero
or 1 members; and if there is more than 1 attribute, which one is the
one that unites?


> by all members of the class such that it helps to define the class.


> In that case, the attribute is a property, belonging to individual
> entities as members of the class, becomes known as a universal.
> A universal is held in common


What exactly does "held in common" mean? But perhaps you've already
explained it up above.


>by all members of a class, even if the
> class consists of only one member, or none.

Is a universal a metaphysical existent?

>
> ITOE consists of some kind of answer to the problem of universals,
> accomplished, in Rand's own words, "by presenting my theory of
> concepts" (3). And in her mind, universals are equated by Rand with
> concepts or abstractions (1).
>
> So as a result of Rand neglecting to examine the issue of classes upon
> which is genetically dependent

What does "genetically dependent" mean?

the issue of concepts, she did not
> thoroughly examine the issue of universals connected with it, assuming
> the problem of universals is only an epistemological one (which it is
> not; it is primarily metaphysical at its root).

Is an epistemological also metaphysical? Please clarify the relation of
the epistemological to the metaphysical.

>And if a particular
> property can be universal to a class consisting of only one member,
> then it follows that a concept can be formed from a class consisting
> of only one member.
>
> There is an example of such a class found in ITOE, and that is the
> concept or axiom "existence." It seems to violate Rand's rules of
> concept-formation, particularly that of the conceptual common
> denominator, "The characteristic(s) reducible to a unit of
> measurement, by means of which man differentiates two or more
> existents from other existents possessing it." (14) In this case there
> is only one existent, existence itself. (For those of you who believe
> that "existence" is only a concept, Rand believed that concepts are
> also existents, indeed, even concrete mental entities.[156])

I can't quite make sense out of the phrase "concrete mental entities" -
could you explain further please, perhaps with a few examples.

>
> At one time I thought that the axiomatic concept 'existence' was no
> concept at all, that is, by Rand's own rules of concept-formation.
> However, it appears that the problem lies with her theory of
> concept-formation, most basically, her neglect in examining the wider
> genus determining the very notion of a concept, and that is, the class
> theory behind it.
>
> Rand defined "concept" as "a mental integration of two or more units
> which are isolated according to a specific characteristic(s) and
> united by a specific definition."(9) However, "a mental integration"
> is not specific enough, as "set" or "class" also constitute mental
> integrations of material serving as members distinguished by
> properties held in common, that is, universals.

So are you saying redness is or is not a concept and/or a class?

> ("Class" and "set" are
> often used interchangably, but "set" is more of a mathemetical
> expression to which I don't want this analysis to be limited.)
>
> How does this issue

Which/what issue?

>apply to the problem of universals? This problem
> does not rely on the issue of class or even concept, but how man has
> knowledge of 'redness' despite the fact that, in reality, there is no
> particular color that he can distinguish as epitomizing "redness." Or
> perhaps many things can serve this function; however, all of them will
> vary in their particular shade of red. Thus the question is not "where
> is the manness in men" (2), but "How does man's knowledge of manness
> arise?" Or, "How does man's knowledge of universals arise from amidst
> the great variety of particulars around him?" This is a question of
> epistemology, and it is not answered by any theory of
> concept-formation.

I'm not sure I get this at all. If I have before me two books, each with
a slightly different shade of red, can I not see that those shades of
red resemble each other more than either resembles the green books? If
so, cannot I then treat them as belonging together to a group which I'll
label as the concept redness?

>
> Geometry can help answer this question, or at least, pose the question
> in a more useful way. For example, there are no straight lines in
> reality, none at any rate which correspond to man's concept of a
> straight line. A straight line is a mental construct, an ideal
> concept, used for creating or defining approximations of straight
> lines in reality based in utility. Every straight line in reality

I thot you just got thru saying there are no straight lines in reality???

> instantiates the universal "straightness," without however
> substantiating it.

What does substantiating mean, particularly how does it differ from
instantiating?

>There is no substantiating a universal because
> there is no substance, no entity in reality equal to this mental
> entity, only approximations to it. There is, to put it in terms of
> Rand's question (2), straightness in a straight entity, but only
> insofar as a mind puts it there. The universal therefore lies a priori

What does "a priori" mean?

> to the judgment of that which is considered straight.
>
> And so, as Aristotle indicated in his Metaphysics II §8, Being and
> Unity, the two highest universals, are as one in the same entity, only
> I say not in the ontological

How does the ontological differ from the metaphysical?

>sense. The being, the whatness, the
> universal, is a product of the mind, the unity is univerals to any
> particular individual in reality (a unit). The product of their
> synthesis is variety in experience, without which, in Aristotle's
> words, "there is much difficulty in seeing how there will be anything
> else besides these, - I mean, how things will be more than one in
> number." For if Being and Unity,

What exactly does Being/Unity mean?

> two universals, existed in
> themselves, as properties of an entity, then it would be impossible
> to have the concepts of plurality, variety, or many-ness.
>
> And so the properties we designate to individuals, when these
> individuals are formed into classes, become universals, but are not
> thereby granted existence outside a thinking being qua universals.

> Induction only gives the material

Do you mean induction operating upon the data of experience?

>for creating the universal, but as
> essential to its completion there must be concepts borrowed from
> metaphysics, that is, metaphysical properties attributed to the
> members of the class. For example, Being (Substance), Unity, and
> Necessity.
>
> This class of concepts was not derived from empirical reality,

Well, why can't Substance be the attributes we sense, and why can't
Unity be a product of our ability to see entities? Necessity seems more
difficult to derive but suggestions have been put forward, yes?



as if
> we could somehow intuit its Platonic form,

Assuming there is such a thing (or need for) as Platonic form, yes?

they are nevertheless
> metaphysical as deriving from man's primary *form*

What does "form" mean?

of cognition which
> is rational. Just as man's metaphysical nature demands

The word "demands" is a metaphor for something or other. For what exactly?



> that he find
> straightness in that which is not,

Can't he have found (i.e. conceptualized) straightness by noticing that
certain objects look similar (straight, as opposed to the crooked ones)
and that certain of those straight looking ones are indistinguishable,
one from the other, thus straightness becomes a measure of his limit of
discernment?

as a formal standard to serve
> practical engineering purposes, so his metaphysical form of reasoning
> demands that he produce concepts of things from the vastness and
> variety of nature, utilising concepts of his own devising a priori.
> --

Well, maybe. But I'm a long way away from being convinced that
experience doesn't suffice as a source of our ideas. But I admit I don't
know nearly enuf to reasonably make such a judgement. With your help, by
answering some of my questions, perhaps I'll come to soon feel
comfortable making such a judgment.

Vonvegas

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