Category: Philosophy

Logic course, Day 4:

The importance of learning the method of definition – The genus-differentia method is the pattern of all conceptual cognition.  The genus integrates and differentia differentiates.

What is the distinction between the “genus” and the “CCD”?

The “CCD” means the “conceptual common denominator”, and is an idea put forth by Ayn Rand in her book “Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology”. (http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/conceptual_common_denominator.html)

This was not said during class, but by way of my own explanation of the CCD:
When forming units in one’s mind, you do so on the basis of “commensurable characteristics”. So, for instance, when forming the concept “rabbit”, you do so on the basis of something like the length of the animal’s ears and its method of locomotion (hopping).  These characteristics of ear-length and method of locomotion are the “conceptual common denominator” that rabbits have in common with other animals that you are distinguishing them from. For instance, if you mentally isolate two rabbits into a mental group that is different from a dog that you see, then both the rabbits and the dog have a certain ear-length and a method of locomotion. This is the “conceptual common denominator”. (Ear-length and method of locomotion are *different measurements* for rabbits than they are for dogs, and this “measurement omission” is part of the process of concept formation for Ayn Rand. http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/measurement.html
)

Also, when you take two concepts and combine them into a wider concept, then you take one or more common characteristics that all of the units of that new, wider, concept have in common. For instance, when forming the concept “mammal”, you would see that dogs and rabbits have characteristics in common: lactation, fur, and giving birth to live young. From this, your mind has a “conceptual common denominator” of: “method of taking care of offspring”, “substance covering the body”, and “developmental status of offspring when mother gives birth”. Mammals share this conceptual common denominator with reptiles, birds, and fish. The distinction between mammals on the one hand and birds and reptiles on the other is that birds and reptiles both have different “methods of taking care of offspring”, “substances covering their bodies” and “developmental status of offspring when mother gives birth”. For instance, when it comes to “method of taking care of offspring”, in the case of reptiles, they abandon their young. In the case of birds, they take care of their young by catching food, eating it, then regurgitating it to their young in the nest. When it comes to “substance covering the body”, birds have feathers, and reptiles have scales. When it comes to “developmental status of offspring when mother gives birth”, reptiles and birds both lay eggs. (So, this would not be part of the CCD when distinguishing birds and reptiles.)

[Additional note made on 8/4/2018: I was thinking about the above example of forming the concept “mammal”, and realized I might be implicitly assuming one had already formed the concept of “animal”, since “animal” might be part of the “CCD” when forming the concept “mammal”. It didn’t seem likely to me that a child would form the concept “mammal” without first forming the concept “animal”. In that case the “CCD” would be the three characteristics I mentioned in the previous paragraph, and also the characteristic of “moves about in the environment of it’s own volition” or “animate things”, which mammals, birds, reptiles, and fish all share as “animals”. However, I think it is still possible for a child to form a concept of “mammal” without necessarily having the wider concept of “animal”. Rand also seems to indicate this in “Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, at page 24 of the Kindle Edition of ITOE:

“The chronological order in which man forms or learns these concepts is optional. A child, for instance, may first integrate the appropriate concretes into the concepts ‘animal’, ‘bird’, ‘fish’, then later integrate them into a wider concept by expanding his concept of ‘animal’. The principles involved and the ultimate choice of distinguishing characteristics will be the same, granting he reaches the same level of knowledge.”

Basically, a child could have a concept of “things with fur that move about in the world”. The child would likely use the word “animal” initially, then he would encounter birds and fish and say: “birds are things that have feathers and move about in the world” and: “fish are things that have fins and move about in the water”. From there, he’s essentially got the concepts of “bird”, “fish” and “mammal” (although he calls the later “animal”). Then he can form the wider concept of “animal”, as in: “a thing that moves about in the environment of its own volition” or “animate things”, which is closer to the adult-level definition of the concept “animal”.]

The speaker in the logic course then went on to make the distinction between the concept of “genus” and the concept of the “CCD”. His example was the definition of “boy”: “A boy is a young man.” In this definition of “boy”, “man” is the “genus”. “Age” is the CCD.

By way of my own explanation: “age” is the commensurable characteristic that boys share with adult men. The difference between a boy and a man is “age”. The concept of “boy” is formed in this case by mentally isolating two or more perceived boys from adult men by means of age, and then omitting the particular ages of the boys when forming the concept, on the premise that they must have *some* age within a certain range but, they can have any age within that range. (That is the “measurement-ommission” part.) For instance, when it comes to the two boys you perceive in forming the concept of “boy”, it may be that one boy is five and the other boy is ten years old.

We then went on to go over the unfinished homework from last time, which, was to define certain concepts. First up was the concept of “prize”. My notes get a little sketchy on this, but I think an audience member suggested that “prize” could be defined as: “A reward for an unusual achievement.” The lecturer didn’t like this definition because it wasn’t concrete and specific enough. We then went over examples of “prizes” to help “zero in” on a good definition. Examples of “prizes” included winning a gold medal and winning the lottery. We then went over things that are similar to a “prize” but slightly different. These included: (1) A college degree, (2) The Nobel Prize, (3) a reward for turning in a fugitive from justice. I think these three things were not considered “prizes” because they were all things you get that don’t involve a contest or competition, per se. Even though the “Nobel Prize” is called a “prize”, the speaker believed it is actually more accurate to call it the “Nobel Award”, because the scientists aren’t engaged in a contest to obtain it, like an Olympic medal.

I think you should also remember that the point of these exercises wasn’t whether you 100% agreed with the definition of “prize”, or how it was derived, but rather that you see the pattern of thinking that goes into getting a good, robust definition of a particular concept.

Based on these examples of “prizes”, as well as the examples of similar concepts, the speaker then said the definition of prize was something like: “A value offered in advance to the winner or winners of a competition to intensify the competition.”

The next concept to define in the lecture was “racism”.

My notes get sketchy on this, mainly because I personally don’t know what people mean when they say “racism” or “racist”, and I ignore it if someone describes me that way. I see the word “racist” as simply a word people on the political left use to try to silence anything you say that they disagree with, or that members of other races use as a way to manipulate white people into feeling guilty in order to get something from them. (A good comedic example of this is “Cabbage Head”, from an old Canadian comedy show “The Kids in the Hall”, where the main character tries to get women to sleep with him, and when they won’t, he says: “You won’t because I have a cabbage for a head.” Basically, he tries to make people feel guilty and then to manipulate them into doing what he wants. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKaP0Y_4COE&list=RDTKaP0Y_4COE&t=152 )

Stefan Molyneux makes the same point as me on the term “racism” and “racist” around 47 minutes into this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjYRH9FpiDA  He notes that, at this point, one should have the attitude that an atheist has if someone accuses them of being demonically possessed. The atheist is just going to say: “I don’t really believe in demons, so I don’t care if you call me demonically possessed.” Similarly, you should just ignore being called a “racist” because the word has lost all meaning in modern society.

But, what I have down in my notes are the  “similar but different” concepts for racism being “sexism”, “nationalism”, and “collectivism”. Of those three, I understand the concept of “collectivism” fairly well, and see it as a useful concept to hold -as distinguished from individualism. “Sexism” is like “racism” to me -a word that I ignore when people call me that because its an attempt to make me feel guilty in order to get something from me or to control me.

At any rate, the speaker gave a definition of “racism” as “a racial form of collectivism”. I believe this is the definition of “racism” that Ayn Rand had. (http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/racism.html)

If the term were used solely in the way that Rand used it, and not as a smear-tactic to silence members of the political right, then I suppose I wouldn’t have too much of a problem with it. Although, I think it is largely not a problem, and never has been, even when defined properly. The problem has been “over-blown” by the political left as “individualist window dressing” to cover up their vicious collectivist ideology and their desire to destroy the competent and the able.

The last concept to define in the logic class was “dignity”.

I had real problems coming up with a verbal definition of this concept. I simply had an image of an older man in a three-piece suit who stood resolute and, frankly, seemed a bit humorless. Sort of like Winston Churchill. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winston_Churchill)

Some of the words I used to describe “dignity” were: “the state of being without stain”, “without reproach”, “morally upright”, “upright posture”,  “unconquered”, and “stiff upper lip”.

To my surprise, in the logic class, the lecturer also started out with picture images. He first gave two “negative examples”. In other words, the speaker gave two examples of “undignified” people.

The first example of undignified was Howard Wolowitz from the TV show “The Big Bang Theory”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Wolowitz  I think this was based on the way that the character dresses or acts. I’ve seen enough of the show to know the character. I guess I wouldn’t describe him that way, and I also think the show is a comedy, so “dignity” isn’t something that comes to my mind in a comedy.

The other example the speaker gave of “undignified” were the “two wild and crazy guys”, that Dan Aykroyd and Steve Martin used to play on “Saturday Night Live”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recurring_Saturday_Night_Live_characters_and_sketches_introduced_1977%E2%80%931978#The_Festrunk_Brothers_(%22Two_Wild_and_Crazy_Guys!%22) I’m just old enough to remember them.

The speaker then showed a painting of a self-portrait by Rembrandt, I believe, as an example of “dignified”.

The speaker then gave a definition of “dignity” as: “The proud, calm, self-command that results from holding the full context in judging what is important and what is not.”

Our homework was then assigned which was: (1) Define “rationalization”, and (2) Identify the fallacy in the following statements: (a) “A fully free society is an impossible ideal”, and, (b) “We have an obligation to preserve the environment.”

Humor in the Fountainhead Lecture

The next lecture of the day was on humor in Ayn Rand’s novel “The Fountainhead”.

The lecturer noted that there was more humor in the Fountainhead than any of Rand’s other novels.

When I read this novel for the second time in law school, I had also noticed there was a lot of humor in it. There is more humor in the Fountainhead than in any of Rand’s other novels. Possibly this is because “We The Living” is set in 1920’s Soviet Russia, and its hard to find humor in living in a totalitarian dictatorship run by the likes of Joseph Stalin. Similarly, “Atlas Shrugged” is essentially a dystopian novel in which a near-future America has become such a heavily controlled-economy that the producers in it have no choice but to go on “strike”, destroy the established social and political order, and start over.

Unfortunately my note-taking for this lecture is almost non-existent. Going from memory, and from what I know about Rand’s attitude on humor in art, I think the central thesis was that humor in fiction is a “negative” element that should only be used against the “bad guys” in the novel. So, you shouldn’t use humor against the hero or against good ideas. Although, I also think Rand said it’s okay to “laugh with the hero”, as long as your not “laughing at him”. http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/humor.html

One interesting question from the audience I remember was “But, what about Monty Python? Would you regard that as “acceptable” humor?” The speaker said he had seen “Monty Python’s Search for the Holy Grail”, and remembered laughing a lot at the scene where the rabbit flies through the air and kills several knights, just because of the absurdity of it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnOdAT6H94s   I think the speaker basically responded that he didn’t know how extremely absurd comedy like Monty Python would fit into the Objectivist aesthetics.

I tend to think you’d need to start by looking at “comedy” as its own distinct subgenera of literature or cinema, and then think about how it is different from “dramatic” literature. There’s usually an element of absurdity in comedy. I’d have to think about it some more, but I have always been a big fan of Mel Brooks movies, like “Young Frankenstein”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO3qJGKs9gw

It seems to me like there is almost a “cartoonish” element to Mel Brooks movies, in which no one can actually get hurt. For instance, in the scene with the candle stick from “Young Frankenstein”, Gene Wilder’s character gets caught between the rotating book case and the wall, which would seriously injure or kill you in real life, but it doesn’t cause the main character any long-term problems. So, its kind of like saying: “Nothing really bad happens in life, and you can just laugh at your problems.” This seems like a good attitude, rather than constantly worrying about the bad things that could happen to you. “Absurd” comedy like this sort of lets you live for a moment like you and your loved ones never have to worry about the bad things that can happen in life, and you can just “laugh at danger”. It makes the bad things that could happen in your life seem more distant.

Another interesting question from the audience was about the TV show “Parks and Recreation”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parks_and_Recreation The audience member asked if the lecturer had seen the show and what he thought of the character of “Ron Swanson”. The lecturer said he enjoyed the show, and that character.

I was familiar with the character of Ron Swanson only because a friend of mine had told me about the show. I’ve watched maybe one episode of it. My friend had told me that Ron Swanson is a “libertarian”, which is funny because he believes government is mostly bad and should get out of the way of the private sector. My friend told me that the character spends his day trying to “sabotage” whatever the Parks and Recreation people want to do in order to ensure that they don’t interfere with the free market. So, he tries to make his department as ineffective as possible, and only hires incompetent people.

I watch little TV, but at some point, I may try to go back and watch some of “Parks and Rec”, because the Ron Swanson character does sound pretty great, and I bet there is a lot of humor there.

Great Heroes of Literature Lecture

The last item I have in my notes from that day was a lecture describing the characteristics of a “hero” in fiction and then analyzing the heroes in five works of fiction: The Odyssey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odyssey
, Cyrano de Bergerac https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrano_de_Bergerac
, An Enemy of the People https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Enemy_of_the_People
, Shane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shane_(novel)
, and Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead.  The lecturer’s views on the themes and “plot-themes” of each of these was gone over.

“Plot-theme” is another term coined by Ayn Rand. http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/plot-theme.html

The lecturer’s characteristics of a hero included: (1) Holding values that benefit life on Earth, (2) the ability to overcome obstacles, (3) “dauntlessness”, (4) and the achievement of victory, although I think he said that could be a “moral victory”. I assume an example of the last would be Ernest Hemingway’s “Old Man in the Sea”, where the hero is “destroyed by not defeated”. Rand’s novel, “We The Living” has that sort of ending.

The next day, while waiting for a bus after I had gone to the beach, I started thinking about what it means to be a “hero”. I suspect this was inspired by this lecture and also by having seen a statue at the beach of a local lifeguard who was killed in the line of duty. According the plaque near the statue, the life guard had died trying to rescue a swimmer in distress. https://ktla.com/2014/07/07/he-is-definitely-a-hero-fire-chief-says-of-lifeguard-who-drowned-in-newport-beach/

This lifeguard would be regarded by most as “heroic”. I certainly think of him that way.

I’ve always struggled with the term “hero” and “heroic”, since it is used a lot in Objectivist circles. http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/man-worship.html  I’m not clear in my own mind what a “hero” is, and what it means to be “heroic”, especially since a lot of people seem to use it in the sense of someone engaging in an act of self-sacrifice. Running into a building to save a bunch of random strangers from a fire doesn’t seem particularly “heroic” to me. It seems irrational to risk your life for strangers.

That said, I would describe a lifeguard who risks his life to save a swimmer in distress, or a fireman who saves people from a burning building, as “heroic”. The difference there to me is that the lifeguard and the fireman have both agreed to risk their lives to save strangers in exchange for money, so that’s their job. If a fireman collected his paycheck every week and then refused to run into a burning building, I’d view that as cowardice. But, I have trouble articulating all of this in terms of words. It’s just my “gut reaction”, which can be wrong.

Also, another aspect of “heroism” that is rarely covered anywhere but in Objectivist circles is the heroism of people who don’t actually risk their lives. For instance, I’d describe a doctor who came up with a cure for cancer as “heroic”, and probably so would most other Objectivists. The doctor was never in danger of dying, but his years of effort and thought all amount to heroism to me. Based on this, I’d say a “hero” is probably something like a label that the rest of us bestow on someone who has produced a great value for mankind. Calling someone a “hero” is a way to honor that person. However, this seems to leave out the fireman who rescues a child from a burning building, which I also think is “heroic”. Perhaps the great value can just be bestowed on a subset of mankind, and still be described as a heroic act. So, the parents of the child rescued from a burning building by the fireman are going to regard the fireman as “heroic” and the rest of us do sort of by “proxy”, since we can imagine how thankful we’d be if someone saved our own child. At any rate, I struggle with this concept.

Logic Course, Day 3

Day 3 of the Logic course started out with a discussion of what “definition” is and why we need definitions for our concepts. I will note here that if you find my summary of the logic course interesting, you can read Ayn Rand’s book “Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology” to see a lot of discussion on the concept of “definition”. http://aynrandlexicon.com/ayn-rand-works/introduction-to-objectivist-epistemology.html

One thing I forgot to mention earlier is the speaker thought that most people don’t get their syllogistic, or deductive, reasoning wrong. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syllogism
What they get wrong is their understanding of certain concepts. If these underlying concepts are wrong, then their deductive reasoning can be formally correct but lead to wrong conclusions. This is why I think so much of the course was focused more on methods for establishing correct concepts than on deductive reasoning, which you can get in most college courses.

Definitions were described as: “Devices for logically organizing concepts,” and as “tying the concept to its specific referents in reality by means of the genus and differentia method.”

“Differentia” was described as “The characteristic(s) that differentiate within the genus, the units from its nearest relatives.” (The concept of “unit” has a specific, and possibly unique, definition within Objectivism, which you can find in the online version of “They Ayn Rand Lexicon”. http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/unit.html
)  For instance, with “a triangle is a 3-sided polygon,” the genus is “polygon” and the differentia is “3-sided”.

One other point that was stressed about definition is that it should be regarded as the “label on the mental file folder”, rather than the “word”. (The “mental file folder” being an analogy for a concept.) The “word” is what binds the folder together. I think something similar to this is said in “Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology”, somewhere.

The function of a definition was then described as both “logical” and “psycho-epistemological”. (“Psycho-epistemological” is a term coined by Rand and is unique to Objectivism. http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/psycho-epistemology.html
) The logical function of a definition is is to give a concept a firm identity in your mind and to give an indication of the concept’s relationship to other concepts in its “family tree”. For instance, my own example of this is: “A dog is a four-legged mammal that barks.” This indicates in your mind that dogs are conceptually within the category of “furry animals” and that they are distinguished from those other animals by the fact that they emit a certain type of sound. That way you recognize that they are similar to cats and squirrels because they all have fur, feed their young by lactation, and are warm-blooded. It also maintains in your mind that dogs are more distant, conceptually, than lizards and snakes. (Also you should note that Rand did not believe that a “definition” for a concept can never change as you get more knowledge. So, for instance, you may define a “fish” as “a creature that swims in the sea”, and then later, when you discover the octopus, you may change the definition of “fish” to “a creature with fins that swims in the sea”, while “octopus” is “a creature with tentacles that swims in the sea”. In that case, it’s still true that a fish is “a creature that swims in the sea”, but you are now distinguishing it from your new observations about the octopus. http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/definitions.html
)

The psycho-epistemological function of definition was described as providing a fast and accurate filing and retrieving system from your “mental storage”. I took this as meaning that if you’re trying to remember what a “fish” is, you can start by mentally thinking: “Okay, a ‘fish’ is “a creature with fins that swims in the sea.” So, right there you can think of “fins” and “sea” and “swim”, and start visualizing the characteristics of a fish. Without that, you’d have to pull up individual “mental pictures” of fish you had actually seen before, then try to picture what they all had in common and different from other animals, etc. It would make any sort of advanced thinking impossible if you didn’t have the use of definitions.

The previous day’s homework was then gone over, in part. The speaker asked for people from the audience to give him their definition of the concepts “seven”, “window” and “war”. I had worked on these the previous night, and come up with some definitions for these terms. Once again, I considered it “cheating” if I looked up the terms, so I just went straight from what I already had in my head. For the number “seven”, I had drawn a picture. Basically, I drew seven periods, like: “…….”, then I drew seven squares, and seven circles. I somewhat sarcastically said to myself something like “seven is what comes after six and before eight”, but I thought that was a bad definition because it seemed kind of “circular” to me. But, the speaker did define the concept of “seven” as “what comes after six. He said it couldn’t be defined as “what comes before eight”, because then when you defined the concept “eight”, you would say it was “what comes before nine”, and it I gathered that would involve you in a sort of “infinite regress” on your definitions of numbers.

The discussion of the definition of “window” proved quite interesting. I had defined “window” as “an opening in a structure for looking out of or in to.” But, I had definitely left out a key function of windows from this definition. Another gentleman in the audience who sounded like an Indian gave a definition of:  “An opening in a car or home for letting in light or air.” So, first of all, I had forgotten about the windows on cars, and I’d also forgotten that windows can be opened to let in air. Now, note, that my definition is not “wrong”, at a certain level of knowledge. If a kid had lived his whole life until then in skyscrapers, where the windows didn’t open, and had never seen a car, he might have my definition of window. My definition just didn’t take into account my full context of knowledge about windows -so it was only a wrong definition given my overall knowledge level.

The speaker then asked anyone if they had defined a “window” as something like “glass in a structure”, or had used a definition involving “glass”. A few people raid their hands, and he said that was not a good definition, because glass windows was fairly new historically. Windows had long existed before we invented glass, and many third world countries still have houses with open windows or windows with cloth coverings. He said using glass to define windows was too “parochial” – too specific to one’s own social and technological context.

An interesting observation was then made about the definition of almost all man-made things. Almost all man-made things will be defined in terms of their purpose. For instance, when you define “window” you talk about it being used to let light or air into or out of -which is the purpose of that device. The speaker said the only man-made concept that didn’t seem to be defined in terms of it purpose was the concept of “junk”. I assume this is because “junk” would be defined as something like: “items of human technology that were intended to serve a useful purpose, or that once did serve a useful purpose, but no longer does.” So, for instance, everything at the landfill is “junk”. As long as it has its present form, and given present human needs, it’s useless to us and just takes up space. It has no purpose and is actually detrimental to human purposes, but it is also man-made.

The speaker then went on to ask for audience member’s definitions of “war”. I had defined “war” as “A violent conflict between two or more armed groups of people who both claim political sovereignty or a right to hold territory” I had originally wanted to say “armed conflict among nations”, but I decided this was too narrow. A “civil war” is a war within a nation. The two sides are both claiming to have political sovereignty over a given land. I had also wanted to include the possibility of “gang war”, like when one street gang tries to push another one out of a given area of a city.

One of the audience members defined “war” as “the pursuit of political ends through force”, but the speaker believed that was too broad because an assassination of a political figure could be included in that definition, and no one thinks of that as “war”. Another proposed definition was “a means of setting disputes between nations”, but the speaker noted that the aboriginal Americans living here before the Europeans arrived would have wars, and they weren’t really “nations” -just tribes or groups.

The speaker also noted that “war” is probably distinguished from “skirmish”, which I hadn’t thought of. For instance, every once and a while, I think India and Pakistan will trade shots at each other across their borders, but they aren’t really “at war”.

Various rules of coming up with a definition were then gone over. (The other homework examples were left until the next lecture, I think due to time constraints.) For instance,  a definition must have a “genus” and “differentia”, and the definition must specify a group of referents in reality. One important rule of definition was called the “rule of fundamentality”, which was defined as “the definition must state the fundamental distinguishing characteristics. This was credited to Aristotle. (I’ve also heard that term “fundamentality” used in “Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology”, so I’m guessing Rand got it from Aristotle. http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/fundamentality,_rule_of.html
)

The rule of fundamentality is considered so important because following it will prevent you from defining things in terms of non-essential characteristics. For instance, “man is the animal possessing a thumb” is a bad definition because it completely ignores the human mind and its unique features in the animal kingdom. The rational faculty makes our technology and way of life possible. (This doesn’t mean that we could never discover organisms with a rational faculty, it simply means that, as of right now, we see that faculty as unique. If we ever met beings with a rational faculty, we would need to redefine the definition of “man”, which is perfectly acceptable in Objectivism.)

The speaker noted that defining things in terms of “non-essentials” is the reason there are so many “package deals” in politics. (This is a term Ayn Rand coined: http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/package-dealing,_fallacy_of.html)

A question was asked by an audience member about the “mental file folder” that is a concept. The question was: Does the “mental file folder” hold the knowledge or the units? The units would be the actual mental images that were used to form the concept. So, when you first form the concept of “bird”, you hold in your mind the image of two or more particular birds you perceive, and note they have characteristics that are more alike one another than the characteristics of another type of animal you perceive, like a squirrel. (In that case, you’d notice the birds both have feathers and walk on two legs while the squirrel has fur and walks on four legs most of the time.) The answer to the question was: the “mental file folder” you have of the concept “bird” does not hold the mental image of the two or more birds you originally perceived in forming the concept.

A formal method of coming up with a definition was then given: (1) Give some examples of the concept, (2) Ask what facts of reality give rise to the need for such a concept, (3) Give some examples of the concepts “nearest relatives”, for instance when defining “marriage”, you might think of “love affair” or “girlfriend”, (4) Identify the “genus” (5) Identify the differentia, (6) Formulate the definition, (7) Test the definition versus the rules -I assume this means the rules for definition that were set out in the course, like the need to define things in terms of their essential characteristics.

Characters From the Fountainhead Lecture

The next lecture was regarding Ayn Rand’s novel “The Fountainhead”. My notes look like it was some sort of analysis of some of the characters from the novel, but I cannot remember what the overall topic of discussion was now, and I cannot discern it from my notes, which are not extensive.

It looks like there was a discussion of the different things that motivated different people in the novel. So, for instance, Peter Keating was described as very “status conscious” -he cared what other people thought of him in a fundamental way. He cared more about what others thought than he did about truth, or justice, or reality. (This is my take on Peter Keating.)

The speaker noted that Guy Francon was also “other-regarding” in his approach to life, but not in the same way as Keating. He was concerned with “dignity” or “tradition”, which was exemplified by his “classicist world-view” when it came to architecture.

Elsworth Toohey was described as regarding nothing important on Earth but human beings and their relationships with each other. The speaker also noted that Toohey saw people who were better than him as a threat, and he wanted to gain power over them.

I think the psychological principle of Toohey was that he regarded himself as incompetent and corrupt and anyone who was competent and rational made him feel bad about himself. The way he got over that feeling was to try to destroy the person who was better than him. (I am not sure at this point to what extent my analysis of Toohey is consistent with the speaker’s.) Toohey is probably not someone that could exist in real life in that “pure” of a form. I think he’d either destroy himself or be “boycotted” by others who would at least sense the evil of someone like that. However, there are people who have some “Elsworth Toohey” in their thinking and actions to a greater or lesser degree. The character from the novel is just a “purified” version of this feeling of extreme envy and the will to act on that envy. (I think there is nothing wrong with feeling envy, as long as you don’t go out and try to destroy people who are better than you in an effort to eliminate that feeling. What makes Elsworth Toohey a villain is he always acts on that feeling of envy by trying to destroy whoever he regards as good, and that methodology has become habituated for him.)

The speaker then went over some of the “good guy” characters from the Fountainhead, other than Roark, and what mistakes they were making in the novel. For instance,Steven Malory was a great sculptor, but he toiled in obscurity thanks to the likes of Elsworth Toohey, and was very frustrated by it. The speaker said the problem with someone like Steven Malory is they see the irrationality of other people in the world, and it bothers then greatly. Roark tends to just dismiss that sort of irrationality, but someone like Steven Malory gets sort of, mentally and emotionally, “hung up” on it.

The speaker said Gail Wynand saw the incompetence of a lot of people around him, and it made him a little “crazy”. His solution to the problem was to try to “rule the mob” by pandering to their irrationality with his newspaper.

In the novel, Wynand’s paper, “The Banner”, simply put out articles expressing ideas that 99% of the population already agreed with, and without attempting to challenge any of those ideas that might be incorrect or in need of being re-considered.

The speaker said Dominique Francon, Roark’s “love interest” in the novel, thought that a person is so interconnected with others in the world that you cannot achieve anything in the face of all the irrational people. Her solution to this perceived dilemma was to “detach” herself from society. Her “awakening” comes when she is married to Gail Wynand and sees how this supposed “ruler” of the mob is really miserable. She sees that Wynand is also a frustrated lover of the best in people, but his “solution” merely empowers the likes of Elsworth Toohey. (For instance Toohey used “The Banner” to run a campaign against Howard Roark and his architecture. So, Wynand empowered Roark’s destroyer, despite the fact that Roark was the only friend Wynand had ever had.)

I will note that I tend to doubt that there are that many people in the world that I would describe as “irrational”. I think most people are “mixed” when it comes to their level of rationality, or they “compartmentalize” and are rational in some areas of life, and not rational in others. I think many average Americans are just ignorant of the truth rather than explicitly irrational. The difference between “ignorance” and “irrationality” to me is this: An ignorant person can be taught and is open to learning, while an irrational person is “closed” to hearing anything contrary to what they believe. I think too many Objectivists regard themselves as being alone in a sea of irrationality, which I think is going to lead to misanthropy. (People who self-describe as “Progressives” often have similar tendencies, I’ve noticed, so this isn’t unique to Objectivism. Although, I think “Progressives” have the added disadvantage that their political views are largely incorrect.)

Relationships Lecture

The next lecture I attended that day was titled “Deeper Connection Through Mutual Selfishness” and was given by a psychologist. There was a lot that was covered here, and my note taking was light, so these are just some of the highlights that I caught on paper.

“Connection” was defined as “mutual understanding and valuing between two human minds”. One of the things that was stressed was “learning to say the ‘I’”, which I believe is a reference to Rand’s novel “The Fountainhead”, where someone says something like: “To say ‘I love you’, you have to be able to say ‘I’.” For instance, the speaker noted you have to “have a self”, which means you have to be able to ask someone out on a date, and get rejected without it completely “destroying” you. You have to have a sure enough sense of your self and self-worth to be able to handle rejection.

I’ve heard the expression “dating is a numbers game”, and I think this is applicable. As a man, or at least a man in Texas, since women almost never ask men out here, you’ve got to ask a lot of women out, and get turned down a lot, especially in Dallas. As a woman, it probably means going on quite a few first dates with some “toads” before you can meet “prince charming”.

Another interesting aspect of this idea of “learning to say the ‘I’” was what you get out of different relationships. The speaker said a relationship can provide “spiritual value” or “instrumental value” -although it was noted that most provide at least some of each. What was meant by a relationship deriving “spiritual value” is when it is more of an “end in itself”. For instance, you like spending time with the person because you have interesting conversations. “Instrumental value” was when the relationship was more of a “means to an end”, like someone you’re friends with at work, primarily because you collaborate on work projects together.

Anther example of an “instrumental value”, according to the speaker, was “He/she might make a good husband/wife.” I can certainly see how this is more than just a “spiritual value”, but I had never really thought about it. When picking a wife, you probably want to take into consideration whether she’ll be a good mother to the kids, isn’t going to spend every dime you make, etc. And, when picking a good husband, you’ve got to consider if he has a good job, or at least *a* job, will treat you and the children well, etc. (This is not to say men couldn’t stay home and take care of the kids while the wife worked -that’s just not as common.)

A “framework” was presented of three different personality types: “Passive”, “Assertive”, and “Aggressive”. The passive personality was defined as “self-deprecatory”, “bottling up feelings”, and a “pushover”. The Aggressive personality was defined as “self-centered”, I assume in the sense of disregarding the fact that others have their own lives and goals, “domineering”, and “pushy”. The assertive personality, which was considered ideal was “self confident”, “directly and calmly expresses his feelings and needs”, and “respectful, yet firm”.

I’m not sure if this was said, or I just thought it, but in my notes, it says this framework has pitfalls. I wrote that “maybe you should be ‘aggressive’ with a mugger.” I think this must have been my thought, because I seem to recall Colonel Jeff Cooper in his book on personal protection talking about the need to act aggressively with someone initiating physical force against you because they’ve already got the advantage of being the first to strike against you. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Cooper) But, leaving aside emergency situations, the framework makes sense in every day “civil society”.

I also suspect that many “aggressive” personalities would claim they are just being “assertive”, and that many “passive” personalities would claim that they are “kind”, which they would say is good. You have to be careful to really consider reality and facts when trying to determine what your personality type is and when trying to address any flaws that you may have -that’s probably where a psychologist can be helpful.

The speaker also discussed premises that can lead to “fear-based” motives. Such as “if this person breaks up with me, I’ll be alone forever,” or “no one would love me if they knew I had these flaws.” I agree that this is a problem to be aware of in your own thinking, and that it can cause you to act in a manner that is not always entirely rational. I see this in others, and, without getting too personal, I sometimes become aware of it in myself.

The next aspect of creating “connection” that the speaker spoke on, that I have in my notes, concerns the Objectivist idea of “trading value for value”. In other words, for Objectivists, relationships should be “win-win”, and not a “zero-sum game”. The speaker said for any given decision, ask yourself: What for?” In other words, what values do you seek to gain by the relationship, and what values will you offer in exchange for the relationship? She discussed when you should argue or voice disapproval in a given situation. I take this to mean, “picking your battles”, although my notes are a little sketchy on this. She also discussed when you may need to “break off ties” with someone in a particular relationship, and this depends on what you are gaining from the relationship, or if the relationship is no longer a value to you.

The third thing I have in my notes from this lecture has to do with communication as a necessary aspect of “connection” in a relationship. The speaker noted that “connection” does not mean “mind reading”, and that you should beware of “projection” -which I think means, assuming someone believes or thinks what you do without having sufficient information to make that assumption. I’m guessing this also probably means you shouldn’t assume someone has characteristics that they may not actually possess based on too little information. I think Sandra Bullock does this with the man she sees every day at the train station in the movie “While You Were Sleeping”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IW-_UDU7Kdw  Basically, she falls in love with a man she knows very little about that she sees every day at work on the train station, despite knowing very little about him.

The last thing I have from this speaker is that you have to make your mind known and “put yourself out there” if you’re going to “connect” with people.