humanities.philosophy.objectivism

On Mar 8, 1:05 am, Malrassic Park wrote:
> On Fri, 07 Mar 2008 16:07:41 -0800, Charles Bell
>
> wrote:
> >On Mar 6, 9:01 pm, Malrassic Park wrote:
>
> >> I can see her approach without any agenda because I use Objectivism on
> >> CD.
>
> >Then you can confirm the fact that Rand never uses the word
> >"universals" in the body of ITOE except to reject it, never to alter
> >it -- reject the schools of thought wherein it is ever used.  It is
> >not a word once used in Objectivism out of the context of some
> >philosophy that is to be rejected.
>
> After the Foreword she put scare quotes around the word "universals"
> at one point, and only used it in the context of false theories.
> Did
> she believe the problem of universals was a problem?

No.


> Here's the best
> answer:


Get rid of it along with the rest of the "Four Schools of Thought."


> And yet Rand never dealt with any "-ness" concepts in ITOE. She did
> not explain how they were formed.


Yes, she did.

> No, Rand only
> allows for similarities, resemblances. So, are they identical -- in
> the intellectual sense?
>
> The last question invokes my answer.


No, it does not.

> Unfortunately, Rand's theory
> of reason failed to thoroughly distinguish between the concepts
> "conceptual" and "intellectual,"


Yes, it does.


> in that the conceptual is
> "genetically dependent" upon the intellectual. The source of
> universals is man's intellect,


No. it is not -- any more than to say that the source of a
schizophrenic's hallucinations is his "intellect."


> universals go into the formation of
> classes,


No, they do not.


> and concepts are a species of class. The source of our
> perception of similarity is not perception
> it is intellect,

No, it is not. The source of a schizophrenic's hallucinations is his
mind, but hallucinations are not real. To pervert "intellect" into
anything and everything the comes out of the mind is exactly what Rand
does *not* do by rejecting "universals" as having any valid meaning.
The source of Objectivist abstractions is sense-datum, and thence
perception, of reality. To reverse the process is mental illness.

> and the
> intellect relies on its own universals

Intellect relies on concepts which are derived *after* percepts which
are derived *after* sense-datum. Intellectualism, as in the
apprehension by education of concepts without experience, does allow
for the learning of concepts without perception, but that is a
different subject, as is dreaming and mental illness. No one is ever
born with concepts already in his head. Concepts are created by
ratiocination upon direct percepts or are learned through education,
but leaned concepts means that someone, somewhere, always will have
processed the percepts into concepts in the first place.


> So in the long run, the "-ness" stands for the abstractedness of the
> process of concept-formation, or its bare possibility.

No, it does not.

> Please bear with me through the following two paragraphs:

No.


> She used two universals without calling them that on page 17,

No, she did not.


> and
> you'll deny that they are universals,


Yes, I do.


> but the issue "as it is usually
> presented" *describes the problem of universals as it really is
> usually presented, in terms of identical properties."

No, it does not.


> >Rand and Peikoff reject the traditional-realist "universals",


You have said the same thing over and over again: that Rand was really
talking about universals when she was not. She rejected that
philosophical method at the outset. End of story.