Logic Course Day 6
Most of Day 6 was a “questions and answers” session, and I don’t have much in the way of notes.
The only notes I have concern “propositional fallacies”.
The first is “self-exclusion”, which was defined as a form of self-refutation consisting of a contradiction between the content a proposition asserts and the act of asserting it.
An example of “self-exclusion” was: “We cannot be certain of anything.” I’ve heard this before. And my understanding is basically that by saying this, you are stating something with certainty, but you just said that you cannot be certain of anything…so you wind up in a sort of paradox or internal contradiction by saying this. I’m assuming the speaker called it “self-exclusion” because the speaker is, consciously or unconsciously, looking to “exclude” their statement from the general principle it asserts.
The speaker noted that you almost never “reach” anyone by pointing out when they’ve stated a self-exclusion like this. That is also my experience. Marxists will say that your class determines your consciousness, and that you can never get away from that, yet these same Marxists came from the bourgeois, and not the proletariat that they claim to speak for. But, if that is pointed out, they’ll just come up with some sort of complicated rationalization for why they’re different. (Although this might be more of an example of the next propositional fallacy.)
The second propositional fallacy that I have in my notes is the “stolen concept”. As far as I know, this is a term coined by Ayn Rand. http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/stolen_concept,_fallacy_of.html
A stolen concept was defined by the speaker as a hierarchy violation consisting of the attempt to use a concept in a way that ignores or denies the prior concepts on which it depends for meaning. One example given by the speaker of a “stolen concept” was: “A fully free society is an impossible ideal.” I think what the speaker meant was that “ideal” is being used without considering what “ideal” means. An ideal is “the possible”, so to say that an ideal is “impossible” is to disregard the fact that the concept of “ideal” is hierarchically dependent on the concept of “possible”. Another example of a “stolen concept” given by the speaker was: “We have an obligation to preserve the environment.” Here, “obligation” is being used without considering its logical hierarchy. What I think the speaker meant was this: Objectivism starts out by asking “Why be moral at all?” or “Why do we need morality?” http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/morality.html
Without getting into the details, which can be found in “The Objectivist Ethics” in _The Virtue of Selfishness_ by Ayn Rand, Objectivism says the concept of “moral obligation” depends on the concept of “value”, which depends on the concept of “mans life”, and the fact that you only need moral principles if you want to live. If you don’t want to live, then no moral principles are necessary. (Not only that, but no thinking, definitions, or concepts are necessary -we need to be rational in order to live.)
The idea of “hierarchy” requires a bit of explanation for someone not familiar with Objectivism. In the sense that it was being used by the speaker, “hierarchy” is a concept from Objectivism, or, at least, that is where I learned the concept. In “Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology”, in the chapter on definitions, Rand says:
“Since the definition of a concept is formulated in terms of other concepts, it enables man, not only to identify and retain a concept, but also to establish the relationships, the hierarchy, the integration of all his concepts and thus the integration of his knowledge. Definitions preserve, not the chronological order in which a given man may have learned concepts, but the logical order of their hierarchical interdependence.” (See “Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology”, Rand, Page 40, Kindle Edition, https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Objectivist-Epistemology-Expanded-Second-ebook/dp/B002OSXD8C/
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What Rand meant when she spoke of “hierarchy” of concepts was the idea that certain concepts must logically depend on certain other concepts. A probable example of this is the concept “organism” compared to the concept “dog”. If you introspect a little, you will notice how the concept “dog” seems much “closer” in your mind to that which you perceive around you. How is it “closer”? You can visualize a dog in your mind with a single mental image, but how do you “visualize” an “organism”? “Organism” is a concept denoting any type of living thing, whether it is a plant, an animal, or an amoeba. You could draw a simplistic picture of a dog, but you couldn’t draw a picture of an “organism” and really “get it”. You’d have to have multiple pictures of different type of living things that are organisms. (A question here might be *which* dog do you visualize? Do you visualize a German Shepherd or a Chihuahua? But, only as compared to the concept “organism”, the concept “dog” is easier to visualize because you could visualize any particular dog you’ve seen, while you couldn’t visualize any *particular* organism you’ve seen and “grasp” the concept -you’d have to visualize different types of organisms, and doing so simultaneously would be difficult due to the “crow epistemology”, further discussed below.)
In fact, even “plant” and “animal” are concepts that seem, in some sense, to be “further” away from what you observe in the world around you. “Plant” can mean a rose, or a blade of grass, or a a tree. “Animal” can mean a squirrel, a wasp, an oyster, or a human being. Rand also seemed to believe that the concept “animal” is logically dependent on underlying concepts like “squirrel”. Although, I will note here, that Rand discussed this issue at a seminar with various people, and she seemed to indicate that it is possible a child could form a concept “in a very loose way”, like “living entity” versus “inanimate object”, and then later subdivide the concept into “man”, “animal”, “plant” on the one hand and “tables”, “rocks”, and “houses” on the other. (See Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, Page 204, Kindle Ed. This appendix is her speaking extemporaneously, in response to other people’s questions, so whether it would have been her definitive view on the subject upon further consideration can also be questioned.) Rand said there was the possibility of “options” in terms of how a particular child formed a concept and the chronological order in which concepts were formed. When we speak of “hierarchy” we are speaking of the “logical order” of concepts, from an adult perspective.
I think it is probably impossible to form the concept “organism” without first forming the concepts of particular types of organisms because the concept “organism” involves too much observational data to be formed as an initial matter. Your mind cannot hold all of the observations that would be necessary to form that concept without underlying concepts. This phenomena of our minds is called “the crow epistemology” or “the crow” in Objectivist circles due to a story that was told to Ayn Rand at some point. The story is found at the beginning of chapter 7, “The Cognitive Role of Concepts” in Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology.
The concept of the “crow” can be grasped by way of the story in ITOE. You can read it there for the complete version, but here is my “run down”: Supposedly, a scientist ran an experiment in which someone hidden would observe another person walk into a clearing in the woods where a flock of crows had gathered. The crows would fly away at the approach of the person. The crows only returned to the clearing when the single person left the woods by the same route he came in. Then two people entered the forest, and went into the clearing. The crows left, and wouldn’t come back until *both* people had left. Then three people, to the same effect on the crows. Then, four people. Same effect on the crows. Then, when five people entered the woods and walked to the clearing, something different happened. Only four people left the forest, while the fifth person presumably hid somewhere in the forest near the clearing. The crows came back to the clearing because they couldn’t discern in their minds that while five people had entered the forest, only four had left.
Rand notes that regardless of whether this story is true, the phenomena can be grasped introspectively in your own mind. You can tell that “|||” is three, probably without counting. However, without counting, try to discern “|||||||||” from “|||||||||||”. It’s fairly difficult, without engaging in some sort of conceptual thought. (You might be able to discern a length difference in this example, but that wouldn’t be available to the crows in the forest, and measuring length is likely a form of conceptual consciousness anyway. If you made the lines I’ve drawn here nine random dots in a circle versus ten random dots in another circle, you probably couldn’t discern any difference without counting.)
Rand’s concept of “hierarchy” takes this fact about how our minds work, “the crow”, into account and then tries to develop a system of thinking based on it. So, she is not saying that the concept “dog” is somehow more fundamental than the concept “organism” in some sort of “metaphysical sense” -out there in the universe. http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/metaphysical.html
In reality, apart from human beings, there are just things. Human beings categorize them based on the needs of their minds and lives -which are also specific things with a specific identity.
I believe this feature of the human mind and the concept of “hierarchy” has practical consequences for how you should approach learning. For instance, if you want to study Biology, the science of living organisms, you have to learn something about individual living things. You study particular frogs by dissecting them. This helps you to learn about frogs. Then, you study particular pigs by dissecting fetal pigs. This teaches you something about pigs. Then, you see what frogs and pigs have in common, as animals. Then you study particular roses and particular trees and learn what they have in common as plants. Then you can discern what both plants and animals have in common as organisms. By way of contrast, a Platonist will say there is an “ideal pig” somewhere in the Platonic realm and the pigs you see around you are just “shadows” of the ideal pig in the Platonic realm. http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/platonic_realism.html https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/platonism/
Then, the Platonist will say that there is an “ideal organism” in the Platonic realm, and all organisms are just a reflection of the ideal organism in the Platonic realm, and so on. But, none of these concepts necessarily have any logical connection in the mind of a Platonist. There isn’t any hierarchy there. The “ideal features” of an organism exist in the Platonic realm in some “pure” form, while the “ideal features” of a pig also exist in the Platonic realm in their “pure form”. I doubt that a science of biology would even be considered necessary for a Platonist. The Platonist could study pigs at the same time he studies the stars and human consciousness. There is no greater or lesser connection in the mind of a Platonist between pigs and other animals than there is between pigs and the chemical composition of the interior of the sun. They’re all just a reflection of their ideal form. Furthermore, the Platonist believes he can learn something about the concept of “organism” without studying individual organisms. He just needs to “tap in” to the Platonic realm somehow.
I by no means consider myself to be an expert on Miss Rand’s epistemology, so what I’ve stated is just my own best understanding at the moment. If you found any of this interesting, I’d recommend reading three books. First, read “Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology” by Ayn Rand. https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Objectivist-Epistemology-Expanded-Second/dp/0452010306/ Then read “Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand” by Leonard Peikoff https://www.amazon.com/Objectivism-Philosophy-Ayn-Rand-Library/dp/0452011019/
, especially the chapter on “Objectivity”. Finally, although I am only about halfway through it, you should read “How We Know: Epistemology on an Objectivist Foundation” by Harry Binswanger. https://www.amazon.com/How-Know-Epistemology-Objectivist-Foundation/dp/1493753142/
This last book is by the author who was speaking at the conference, and I think what he spoke on is covered in his book, so to the extent that I’ve misinterpreted anything he said, you can learn what he thinks by reading the book.
As far as other speakers were concerned on day 6, I don’t have any notes. I think I didn’t find the other topics covered that day of sufficient interest to attend any of them, when there were still things I wanted to see on what would likely be my only extended vacation of the year from work. (This gets into what Ayn Rand described as “the hierarchy of values”. http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/teleological_measurement.html
)
Looking at the pictures I took on my phone, that was the day I took a bus south on Coast Highway to a place called Crystal Cove, near the beach. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_Cove_State_Park Although I had never been to that specific area, it reminded me of the Southern California beaches I would go to with family and friends as a child, so the geography, climate, vegetation, ocean, and wildlife all evoked strong memories for me from years that were probably fairly formative of my personality. There was a strong “nostalgia element” for me.
Once I got off the bus, I walked through scrub brush, trails, and down a hill to the actual beach, which was quite secluded. There were few people around, which gave the area a “magical” quality to me -like being the only person left in the world. This is a feeling that I think is nice to feel from time to time, although, if prolonged, it feels quite lonely. From there, I wandered down the beach for some distance until I found a series of dilapidated houses and a small bar and restaurant near the beach. From there, I had a beer, then walked back up the highway, and eventually caught a bus back. (The buses in the area were not great in terms of how often they ran, but I preferred a slow $4 bus ride to what might have been a $20 Uber ride.)
That night, I went to a West Coast Swing dance lesson and social dance, which I enjoyed a lot. I didn’t want to leave California without West Coast swinging.
