No matter what system of morality and ethics you evolve, it's ultimately going to rest on premises that must be taken as axiomatic because they are fundamentally unprovable, and objectivism is no different than any other system in that regard.
Actually, I disagree. They are not fundamentally unprovable, they are self evident and all further constructions rely upon them for their existence. Their proof is that they cannot be dispensed with. For example, morality or ethics presume the concept of choice. You can prove that choice exists but you cannot reduce any further than choice. If there is no choice, there can be no morality or ethic, since there would be no way ‘choose’ a higher value, namely life over death. Thus the error of the following:
Thank you for your taking the time to explain the subjectivity of objectivism.
Then the following:
I'd say that on the underside of what we take as "axiomatic" in any philosophy or religion are subjective decisions.
See, ‘decisions’ implies something to choose between, or there would be nothing to decide. You can reduce decisions to choice but can go no further. Even the concept of ‘value’ requires the ability to choose one thing over another that contributes to life. Rocks compared to food.
The rest of this isn’t worth (value) taking time (choice) to respond to. For example:
"Relationality" may not be in the dictionary, but from what I see, it is the most essential aspect of being, more essential than knowing, I think.
Now, how can he know there is anything other than himself to relate to, if he doesn’t know anything? Hierarchy of conceptual develop is violated here. I suppose if he rises no higher than an animal, which relate to each other. But to live as a human being, using concepts, knowing comes prior to relationship. He must know himself and know the other for there to be a relationship.
And thinking this, I think that our identity as a relational being is determined by how we relate with what and whom we relate with.
See? All this knowing, how, who, what. He’s thinking about all this, conceptual symbolism. How can one have an 'identity' to relate with without first knowing it? Behind it all is choice. Do I choose to eat a rock? Do I choose to steal her food? Do I jump off this cliff?
Somebody put this guy through a logic course please.
g_r: No matter what system of morality and ethics you evolve, it's ultimately going to rest on premises that must be taken as axiomatic because they are fundamentally unprovable, and objectivism is no different than any other system in that regard.
BTW, for purposes of this argument I'm ignoring/allowing a scientist's/logicians's usage of the concept of "proof" here, though it is stricter than common sense tells people to use.
Let's see what you've done here, LW:
They are not fundamentally unprovable, they are self evident and all further constructions rely upon them for their existence. Their proof is that they cannot be dispensed with.
1. By implication, you assume that you and I are persons and not only apparently autnonmous creatures of the imagination of some god in the Dharma, the Kaaba, etc. or perhaps a god who hasn't let on about him-her-itself (and that we aren't merely power cells The Matrix and so on). Thank you.
2. You assume you are a person who understands logic (and I wouldn't say otherwise, of course).
3. More germane, you assume that one can't (shouldn't? mustn't? would-be-crossing-me-if-they-are-disagreeable-enough-with-me-so-as-to?) determine that: there may be truths that one can depend on, even if positivist-limited logic will not show them to be incontrovertible.
For example, morality or ethics presume the concept of choice. You can prove that choice exists but you cannot reduce any further than choice. If there is no choice, there can be no morality or ethic, since there would be no way ‘choose’ a higher value, namely life over death. Thus the error of the following:
Thank you for your taking the time to explain the subjectivity of objectivism.
4. Here's a big one: you assume that there are "higher" values, but you furnish skimpy proof here. My concepts of what are higher values are different than yours. I value the life of God over mine (when I'm being fully sane) and the life of others so much that I may sacrifice my preferences for my life for their benefit. Therefore you assume that my values are incorrect for me, but without a higher source from which to derive your concept of "higher."
So you tell me where in the above you have not depended upon axioms (and I'll do my best to be educable).
Let's see... what else...?
Now, how can he know there is anything other than himself to relate to, if he doesn’t know anything? Hierarchy of conceptual develop is violated here. I suppose if he rises no higher than an animal, which relate to each other. But to live as a human being, using concepts, knowing comes prior to relationship. He must know himself and know the other for there to be a relationship.
You seem to have picked another axiom and apparently it is that knowledge (conceptual knowledge as defined in late Western thought) is more important than life. Think back to when you were in the womb. Well, you may not be able to remember, but think of it anyway. What did you know? But then, what and who were you related with? I suggest the facts of the answer to the latter question were more important to you than the answer to the first. E.i., what we are related to and what we relate with, whether we know it or not (by any of the various definitions and standards of "knowing") is more important to us than what we know. This common sense fact has big implications, so objectivists/positivists/naturalists and relativists and everybody make sure you have your seatbelts on and I suggest we meditate upon it.
What else now?
See? All this knowing, how, who, what. He’s thinking about all this, conceptual symbolism. How can one have an 'identity' to relate with without first knowing it? Behind it all is choice. Do I choose to eat a rock? Do I choose to steal her food? Do I jump off this cliff?
And how about this choice?: What do I permit myself to regard as something I know with certainty (however anyone else defines the word "know," limiting its use like the "knowing police," despite the definitions people have been pleased with over previous millennia... whatever anyone else says about what I may know and how I may know it)? For example, when God tells me that after accepting Eve, Adam "knew" her by a relational choice and set of conditions, what if I choose to believe Him? And if God tells me that He knows me relationally and I sense it in my "inner self" and there is perfect logic based upon it, who says that I may not know what God has told me I know?
Now, I realize that in classic and modern thought, knowledge requires proof, while belief may not, but how do we decide which standard of proof to use, and for what? If I have a mustard seed's worth of faith/belief in something which is not necessarily incontrovertible by standards of logic and by someone else's limited naturalistic evidences, but there is something (which logic cannot disprove) that is most me that can not deny it and its truth relationally, who can say I don't know it? I sure wouldn't.
So here again, all knowing is subject to what actually is (betty boop's Reality) and what actually is, is more important to me than what I may be able to demonstrate conceptually that I know (whether or not I am capable intellectually of doing so) and I may know it when it is True and I relate in complete confidence with it, knowing it for what it is. I think that's how I know "I AM THAT I AM" for who He is.
Somebody put this guy through a logic course please.
As I recall, I took a course by Dr. Besancon in Judson College called something like "Logic and Critical Thought," or "Logic and Semantics." Dr. Besancon was a good professor and the subject material was fun. I got to learn even more about finding fallacies than my life's education had taught me. I may just find another good book on the subject and look into it again. I'm having fun with it again.
But more important than standards of how we might prove and disprove, is how we are related with what, whom, and Whom, in Reality. Rest assured, we will all demonstrate that (whether we or not we know what we are doing).
Since I was the one who originally said that, I suppose I ought to take up the banner of defending it ;)
Actually, I disagree. They are not fundamentally unprovable, they are self evident and all further constructions rely upon them for their existence.
However, the question is, how do such propositions relate to objectivism? And the problem is that, according to objectivism...well, let them speak:
“Man’s reason is fully competent to know the facts of reality. Reason, the conceptual faculty, is the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by man’s senses. Reason is man’s only means of acquiring knowledge.” Thus Objectivism rejects mysticism (any acceptance of faith or feeling as a means of knowledge), and it rejects skepticism (the claim that certainty or knowledge is impossible).
The problem is that if "reason is man's only means of acquiring knowledge", self-evidence is no longer an appropriate standard of knowledge. After all, axioms cannot be rationally derived from other principles - if they could be, they wouldn't be axioms. We treat axioms as real because of their apparent self-evidence, or because they are useful in constructing our preferred system of morality, or whatever, but ultimately the question of whether they are real is not answerable in any reasonable way - you simply must take them as given.
And that's hardly the end of the problems with that standard of knowledge - by that standard, that says that the notion of certainty being impossible is false, inductive reasoning is rendered illegitimate, since it produces probibilistic arguments, and not certainties. So you're limited to deductively reasoning out truths, but with deductive reasoning, the only way you can be certain that your conclusion is, in fact, true, is if the argument is logically valid and the premises are true - if the premises are false or the logic is invalid, then the conclusion may still be true, but you can't know as a matter of certainty that it is true unless the premises are known to be true and the logic is known to be valid. But in the case of axioms, you may inductively reason that they are true, or you may find it useful to treat them as true, or you may consider them self-evident, but unless you can deductively prove them to be true - as objectivism says you can and must before accepting them to be true - you cannot be certain that your conclusions are true. The objectivist's proposition that certainty is possible in all places and times is thus rendered false. QED.
Their proof is that they cannot be dispensed with. For example, morality or ethics presume the concept of choice. You can prove that choice exists but you cannot reduce any further than choice.
Certainly you can, and in fact, people of a deterministic bent do it all the time by arguing that choice and free will are illusions. Now, for most of us, free will certainly appears to be real, and we generally behave as though it were real, but that hardly makes it actually real - "seems" is not the same as "is", and ultimately there's no way to know if free will really exists if you're even moderately clever about how you construct your argument for determinism.
Brilliant! I thank you for writing this.