Logic Course Day 5
My notes show that we started with a review of the homework. The first was coming up with the definition of “Rationalization”. Once again, I tried to work this idea out without using reference materials or the Internet for a definition.
The definition of “rationalization” I came up with prior to this class was: “An express explanation for something you do that hides or conceals your actual reason.”
The first thing that the speaker noted was that “rationalization” tended to be an “automatic thing”.
Examples the speaker gave were: (1) a person who is dieting might say: “It’s all right to have that pie, it’s the weekend.” Or, (2) another person who wants to excuse his bad behavior might say: “I’m not to blame, because ‘freewill’ doesn’t exist.”
Facts giving rise to the concept of “rationalization” were: Freewill, “Honesty vs. Dishonesty”, “Rationality vs. Emotionalism”
“Near-relatives” of “rationalization” were: (1) “The check is in the mail” -Which I take as when someone says they have paid you when they really haven’t, but intend to do so very soon; (2) “Flattery” – which is where you complement someone with the motive to get something from them, or where you don’t really mean the compliment.
The “genus” or “rationalization” was described as: Deception.
The “differentia” of rationalization was described as: Deception of others and/or oneself about what’s really justified.
The full definition of “rationalization” given by the speaker based on the discussion was then: “Phony justifications manufactured to make emotionalism look enough like reason that one can indulge the emotionalism.”
The speaker then went over some “fallacies of conceptualization”.
According to my notes, which may be incomplete or not entirely accurate, the speaker discussed two broad categories of “fallacies of conceptualization”: (1) Insufficient Conceptualization, and (2) Mis-conceptualizations.
Regarding insufficient conceptualization, the speaker described three types: (a) Concrete-boundedness (i.e., non-conceptualization or non-integration); (b) Floating abstractions (i.e., “aborted conceptualization); and (c) “Frozen Abstraction” (i.e., insufficient conceptualization).
Regarding concrete-boundedness, I have no notes, but it is described some in the Ayn Rand Lexicon: http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/learning.html http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/guild_socialism.html
The remedies for floating abstractions given by the speaker were to come up with: examples, definitions, and “reduction”. (This last term is an Objectivist term that you can find more information about in Leonard Peikoff’s book: “Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand”).
Regarding “frozen abstraction”, the speaker gave as an example: “Communism = Soviet Union”. I believe what the speaker was getting at here is that when you criticize communism by pointing to examples of the bad things the Soviets did, an apologist for communism will say “That was just the Soviet Union, I am a socialist, and my society will be different.” Basically, the speaker denies that what they believe is the same as what happened in the Soviet Union by saying in their mind: “Communism=Soviet Union”.
The example I came up with of “frozen abstraction” was “morality=altruism”, or “morality=religion”. So, you can only be moral if you are religious or an altruist. I got these examples from Rand. http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/frozen_abstraction,_fallacy_of.html
Within the category of “Mis-conceptualization” the speaker said these are “invalid concepts”. They either: (a) have no units, (b) have the wrong units, or (c) are what Rand called “anti concepts”. Keep in mind that “units” is an Objectivist term. http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/unit.html
Regarding mis-conceptualizations that have no units, I have no examples in my notes, but I think the speaker was referring to terms like “ghost”. Since ghosts have no units, it is a mis-conceptualization to have a concept of “ghosts”. Although, I think “ghosts” can be a valid concept in the sense of: “A mythological being that exists only in fiction and made-up stories.” Just like “Elf” is: “A mythological being that exists only in fiction and made-up stories.” There is no referent in reality, but you can have the concept “ghost” as long as you have as part of your definition that the thing isn’t real.
Regarding mis-conceptualizations that have the wrong units, I have in my notes that the speaker spoke of “package deals”. This is a term adopted by Ayn Rand. http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/package-dealing,_fallacy_of.html The speaker said a “package deal” puts together in one concept things that are incompatible. For instance, “extremism”. The speaker said the solution to this was the rule of “fundamentality”. http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/fundamentality,_rule_of.html
Regarding “anti-concepts”, which is a term coined by Ayn Rand, the speaker said these are bad concepts designed with an “evil purpose”.http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/anti-concepts.html
The speaker said “socialization” is an example of this. “Socialization” was described by the speaker as a theory that the child gets his values and norms from other children. He says it implies that everyone is a “Peter Keating” and there are no “Howard Roark’s” http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/selflessness.html
. That learning is all “imitation” and that there is no observation of reality.
Another example given by the speaker of an “anti-concept” was “homelessness”, which is an attempt to destroy the concept of “bum”.
This isn’t in my notes, but I think what he was getting at was how you are throwing out all moral and ethical judgments that come with someone who chooses not to work and to just sit on the side of the road collecting money despite being able-bodied and able-minded to work. I think you have to distinguish between people who are not mentally-ill and have all of their limbs and choose not to work, who should be described as “bums”, versus people who are either mentally ill or missing body parts and can be somewhat morally excused for having no place to live and being unable to care for themselves. Calling both of those groups “homeless” destroys the moral distinction between those two types of people panhandling on the streets and sidewalks of most major American cities.
Objectivist 4th Of July Celebration
That’s all I have in my notes from July the 4th. Since it was a holiday, I believe there were no other lectures that day. There was an hour-long 4th of July celebration that I attended. Someone sang “America the Beautiful”, which I hadn’t heard since Elementary school in Texas.
One of the distinctions I remember between Elementary school in Texas versus when I attended it in California in the 1980’s, was the promotion of patriotism in Texas by saying the Pledge of Allegiance and singing “America the Beautiful” in Elementary school. (I have some criticisms of Texas Elementary schools too, but that is for another time.)
There was also a reading of the “Declaration of Independence” at the Objectivism conference, which I realized is probably not read in school any more, since it refers to “merciless Indian Savages” and also makes allusions to “domestic insurrections”, which is clearly a reference to slaves in the South. http://www.ushistory.org/Declaration/document/
Neither of these references bothers me at all -but I’m probably ‘out of touch’ with the cultural mainstream of America at this point. I’m certainly “out of touch” with most people who have a college degree -but I view this with pride.
I suspect if the Declaration is read in school today, it is with a heavy dose of retroactively imposing the knowledge-level of modern-day persons on people from the 18th century. Or, more likely, teachers in schools today emphasize the references to Indians and slaves in the Declaration of Independence in an effort to get students to mentally “throw out” the essential message of the Declaration of Independence, which is that all men have “unalienable rights”, in order to make way for the “Progressive’s” collectivist ideology of socialism and the destruction of the sanctity of the individual.
As an aside, this is pretty much the same agenda associated with any effort to take down monuments to Thomas Jefferson and George Washington on the grounds that they owned slaves. It’s an attempt to take a non-essential of these historical figures and turn it into an excuse to destroy their essential meaning as historical figures -which was that they advocated limited government, whose purpose is to allow people to pursue their unalienable rights to life liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We study and revere certain historical figures because of their effect on the present, not because they were entirely consistent or because they had views or activities that were common to many people of that era. For instance, Isaac Newton is studied and revered because he developed a system of Physics that is still widely used today, not because he believed he could transmute lead into gold through alchemy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton%27s_occult_studies
The notion that Newton had some unscientific views was a reflection of the era he lived in. The fact that he “rose above it” to develop the Theory of Universal Gravitation is why he is remembered today, and why he is regarded as a hero of science. That is the “essence” of Isaac Newton as a historical figure -even if the man didn’t always live up to that standard in some areas of his life.
Since Objectivism is explicitly an atheist philosophy, when the group-pledge was said at the conference, the words “under God” were explicitly removed. The guy leading the pledge of allegiance also somewhat “jokingly” noted that since half the audience was foreign, they were “excused” from saying it.
My own “relationship” with the Pledge of Allegiance is somewhat complicated, and I chose to simply stand while other Americans at the conference participated. (I have blogged before on saying the pledge, and I won’t re-iterate it here.)
Ayn Rand Institute Tour
I believe after the 4th of July Celebration, all I did conference-wise was go on a tour of the Ayn Rand Institute that was being given. It was fairly interesting to see where the organizers of the conference worked on a daily basis. It had a lot of art work up on the walls, and various other things that would be of interest to Ayn Rand fans, so I enjoyed seeing it.
Trip to Balboa Peninsula
I then spent my afternoon touring the Newport Beach area, specifically Balboa Peninsula, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balboa_Peninsula,_Newport_Beach
, which appeared to be the heart of the local tourist industry, with numerous beach houses and public beaches. Since it was the 4th of July, it was very crowded. I was glad I took a bus to the base of peninsula and then walked in, since traffic made travel by car almost impossible.
I was pleased to see so many American flags on display around the peninsula, as I have a perception of California as an anti-patriotic, left-wing state. Although, I think Orange County, the home of John Wayne, is somewhat of a “cultural outlier” on the coast of California. Orange County has more in common with Texas than it does with Los Angeles, San Francisco, and other major population areas of the Golden State. One evening, I happened upon the web site of a local venue where dancing occurs, and I did a bit of a “double take” when I saw a Confederate Flag. (Even mentioning this somewhat concerns me, because I can see leftists now combing the dance venues of Orange County looking for Rebel flags so that they can ship in large numbers of protestors from Los Angeles to disrupt that business.)
Generally, my impression of the City of Newport Beach was fairly negative. I found it to have a “museum quality”, with few people, and very little “youthful energy”. I saw no production going on -just consumption, with a bunch of malls. It felt like a big shopping center or retirement community to me. A nice place for a vacation, but I don’t believe I’d enjoy living there. That day on the peninsula was an exception to my feeling. There were a lot of young people doing all of the things, both good and bad, that young people tend to do. The area felt very “alive” as a result.
