Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical

by Sciabarra, Chris

  By contrast, Rand rejects what Rasmussen (1980) has called, “vicious” circularity. In the “vicious” case, there is “reasoning from some principle in order to demonstrate that very principle” (68). For Rand, using an arbitrary assertion to confirm itself or a valid principle to deny itself are instances of vicious circularity.

  Adopting the language of internal relations, one could say that such circularity is illegitimate because it is based on arbitrary assertions that attempt to circumvent the hierarchically structured totality of knowledge. Those who make such arbitrary assertions are attempting to make themselves external to an epistemological totality that necessarily involves connections between and among concepts. Those who would deny the truthfulness of an axiomatic concept repudiate principles internal to every other concept in their usage. Such axioms are at the base of, and form the context for, all concepts. Those who would deny them by exempting themselves from the totality within which all others think and act, are trying to attain a synoptic perspective on the whole. This is an attack on the metaepistemological principles that make knowledge possible.

  In Rand’s view, the “reification of the zero” is one of the most notorious attempts to achieve such an internal contradiction. In this fallacy, the speaker regards “‘nothing’ as a thing, as a special, different kind of existent.” But for Rand, existence and nonexistence are not metaphysically equal. Nonexistence can only be defined in relation to existence. The concept “nothing” cannot be removed from the context that gives it meaning; it cannot be reified as a separate thing. Apart from its relational usage, “nothing” is a concept without validity (Introduction, 60–61). There is no such thing as “pure” negation apart from that which it negates. Those who attempt to prove the existence of a negative, or to deny an axiom, step outside the bounds of logic and ontologic, and are defeated by their own denials.

  ONTOLOGY AND LOGIC

  Having articulated the two basic axioms, Rand distinguishes a third, which is a corollary of existence and internal to all elements of reality and knowledge. It is the principle of identity, “A is A,” a variation on Aristotle’s law of noncontradiction.29

  In the Metaphysics, Aristotle argues that permanent negation is not possible. There is an ultimate principle at the base of reason which is both ontological and epistemological. It is not a hypothesis, but a principle that is “true of being qua being.” It is a principle that is “the most certain of all.… It is, that the same attribute cannot at the same time belong and not belong to the same subject and in the same respect.… it is impossible for any one to believe the same thing to be and not to be.”30

  Like Aristotle, Rand believes that logic is inseparable from reality and knowledge. She states: “If logic has nothing to do with reality, it means that the Law of Identity is inapplicable to reality” (Philosophy, 17). But, as Peikoff (1985) explains: “The Law of Contradiction … is a necessary and ontological truth which can be learned empirically” (185). Aristotle believed that people learned this principle by intuitive induction (198).31 Peikoff (1985) maintains that, for Aristotle, “the Law of Contradiction has … a twofold epistemological character: it is at once an experiential-inductive principle and an intuitive first principle. This characteristic Aristotelian union of the ‘empirical’ and the ‘rational’ is, in one or another form, fundamental to the whole subsequent Aristotelian tradition” (196).

  Peikoff, undoubtedly, sees Rand as having inherited significant elements of this Aristotelian tradition. And although it is true that the ontological conception is explicit in Aristotle’s text, it is also true that both Russian Marxist-Leninism and Russian neo-Idealism adhered to this view. Lenin himself had proposed an “objectivist” ontology and realist epistemology which echoed the Aristotelian themes.32 And Lossky, who introduced Rand to the study of Aristotle, was also an advocate of the ontological conception. He wrote: “Logical principles are merely that part of metaphysical principles which has significance both for the structure of being and for the structure of truth” (Lossky [1917] 1928, 183). Thus the laws of logic are at the base of both ontology and epistemology (Lossky [1906] 1919, 409). Rejecting the Eleatic monists and the Heracliteans, Lossky (1951) argues that stasis and change are not a violation of the law of identity, for “both movement and rest belong to the body in different respects” (288). Thus, “The laws of identity and of contradiction, if properly understood, are absolutely inviolable” (290).

  Rand’s Objectivism embraces a similar view. Logic is certainly a law of thought, insofar as it is “the art of non-contradictory identification.” But logic is true in thought only because contradictions cannot exist in reality. Rand writes:

  “An atom is itself, and so is the universe; neither can contradict its own identity; nor can a part contradict the whole. No concept man forms is valid unless he integrates it without contradiction into the total sum of his knowledge. To arrive at a contradiction is to confess an error in one’s thinking; to maintain a contradiction is to abdicate one’s mind and to evict oneself from the realm of reality.” (Atlas Shrugged, 1016–17)

  Moreover, the law of identity is not a static tautology. Identity includes change and transformation. A is A, but dynamism and process are inherent in A’s development.33 In Binswanger’s view, “the law of identity does not attempt to freeze reality. Change exists; it is a fact of reality. When a thing is changing, that is what it is doing, that is its identity for that period. What is still is still. What is in process is in process. A is A.”34

  Yet to state that “A is A” is not sufficient. Rand has not reified “existence” as something separate from the things that exist. She links her discussion of identity to specific existents: “To exist is to be something, as distinguished from the nothing of non-existence, it is to be an entity of a specific nature made of specific attributes.… A thing is itself” (Atlas Shrugged, 1016).

  Rand’s characteristic formulation is that “Existence is Identity” (ibid.). Rand does not state that Existence has identity (Peikoff 1991b, 6); rather, existence and identity are simultaneous and indivisible. The only “difference” between existence and identity is in their conceptual context and purpose (Peikoff 1990–91T, lecture 1). For Rand,

  The distinction between these two is really an issue of perspective. “Existence” is the wider concept, because even at an infant’s stage of sensory chaos, he can grasp that something exists. When he gets the concept “identity,” it is a further step—a clearer, more specific perspective on the concept “existence.” He grasps that if it exists, it is something. Therefore, the referents of the concept “identity” are specific concretes or specific existents. And, you see, even though it is the same concept, the whole disaster of philosophy is that philosophers try to separate the two. (“Appendix,” 240–41)

  Thus existence and identity are one fact described from two different vantage points. Existence means that something exists; identity means that something exists (Peikoff 1991b, 7). Rand rejects the view that existence and identity are aspects of real existents. Rather, existence and identity “are the existents.”

  Similarly, Rand argues that if existence is identity, “Consciousness is Identification” (Atlas Shrugged, 1016). Since consciousness exists, it too, has a specific identity. It is not simply an attribute of a certain state of awareness within living organisms. It is the state of awareness. Consciousness is inherent in a person’s grasp of existence.

  Those who see consciousness as an epiphenomenon of material factors would criticize Rand for her belief that it is an irreducible primary. But Rand preserves the integrity of the whole by asserting that even if consciousness can be explained by a constellation of specific material factors, it is still not reducible to any of its constituent elements.35 As Robert Efron argues, scientists cannot assert that consciousness is reducible to the laws of physics and chemistry, when these laws are still not yet known in their entirety. Like all cosmologists, “the mechanists insist upon omniscience.” They also commit the fall
acy of the stolen concept by smuggling the facts of consciousness into their analysis, since they must use volition in the process of denying its efficacy.36

  Rand’s affirmation of the identity of existence and consciousness implies that entities which exist are limited, finite, and knowable. The Greeks believed that such limitation was inherently good. In Greek thought, the unlimited was both indefinable and unknowable. By contrast, the Christian metaphysic moved away from the realism of the Aristotelian tradition and elevated the infinite above the finite. Peikoff argues that this sparked a mystical rebellion against identity which culminated in the irrationality of modern philosophy. Objectivism attempts to recapture the profound realism of the Aristotelian worldview.37

  Rand believed that the three axioms at the base of ontology and epistemology were significant in several ways. First and foremost, she believed that knowledge depended on the recognition of certain basic foundations. The axioms provided such an ultimate context, an irreducible secular grounding for epistemological continuity, guidance, and objectivity (“Appendix,” 260–61). They are the preconditions of all knowledge (Peikoff 1983T, lecture 9).

  Second, she did not consider these axioms the foundation for a rationalistic science. Peikoff argues that to present Objectivism as a step-by-step deduction from first principles is to reconstitute it as a form of monism.38 Like Theodor Adorno, Peikoff admits that in the history of philosophy the articulation of axioms has sometimes led to rationalist authoritarianism.39

  Rand rejected monism as the acceptance of one polar principle over another. She repudiated cosmology and tried to avoid the kind of dogmatism that has plagued other ontologists.

  Moreover, Rand did not limit her axioms to the point of exclusion. Though existence, identity, and consciousness are the basic irreducible fundamentals in her system, Rand recognized that other concepts have an axiomatic character too. In their primary usage, such concepts as “entity,” “the validity of the senses,” and “free will” exhibit all of the irreducible, simultaneous qualities of axioms.40 Even though Rand provides broad validation of these concepts, she argues that none of them can be proven by reduction to sensory data because each is the basis of proof.

  Having emphasized the axioms of existence, identity, and consciousness, Rand traces their implications. The first “self-evident” consequence, or corollary, of identity is the law of causality. Rand’s approach to causality is a continuation of her critique of mechanistic materialism. Like the Marxists who reject “vulgar” materialism, Rand views entities as organic wholes that are more than the mere sum of their parts.41 Rand’s teacher, Lossky, also rejected the materialist and positivist conception of causality. He argued that in modern science, events are causally linked to preceding events. The world is studied purely in terms of actions and reactions. Lossky (1952, 372) believed that such materialism obscured the causal links between the entity and its actions. For Lossky, causality implies a teleological dimension in which the “substantival agent” causes and determines its own actions.

  The problem with Lossky’s “personalist” critique of materialism is that it ascribes a teleological character to every “potential” person, in both inorganic and organic nature. Even atoms, molecules, and electrons are endowed with the potential for causal efficacy.42 Rand rejected this approach. The concept of final causation applies only to human action. It applies to the work of a conscious rational entity who chooses a purpose and proceeds to effect this purpose through specific means. Rand used to joke that the extent to which any individual is an object of efficient causation, rather than final causation, is the extent to which he needs a therapist. Such a person, unmotivated by ends, is a pure reactive being (Rand 1958T, lecture 3).

  Thus Rand rejected both the materialist-mechanist and the idealist-personalist versions of causality. She argues: “The law of causality is the law of identity applied to action. All actions are caused by entities. The nature of an action is caused and determined by the nature of the entities that act; a thing cannot act in contradiction to its nature.”43

  The law of causality is as all-encompassing as the law of identity. All the elements of the universe, “from a floating speck of dust to the formation of a galaxy to the emergence of life—are caused and determined by the identities of the elements involved.”44 Since each entity has a specific nature, it is the entity’s nature that is the cause of its actions. But actions have a context. The entity itself acts within a given set of circumstances. As an application of the law of identity, the law of causality states that the same entity under the same circumstances must behave in the same way. Causality applies to the relationship between entities and their actions, not between disembodied actions and reactions (Peikoff 1976T, lecture 2).

  In conjunction with her rejection of cosmology, Rand rejected the view that the universe itself has a cause. As Nathaniel Branden explains: “Causality presupposes existence, existence does not presuppose causality: there can be no cause ‘outside’ of existence or ‘anterior’ to it. The forms of existence may change and evolve, but the fact of existence is the irreducible primary at the base of all causal chains.”45

  Everything that happens has a cause. Events are determined by the circumstances within which they occur, and these circumstances include both the antecedent events and the nature of the entities that act (Kelley 1985aT, lecture 2). Causality “is a law inherent in being qua being. To be is to be something—and to be something is to act accordingly” (Peikoff 1991b, 17).

  THE ENTITY AS A CLUSTER OF QUALITIES

  In discussing the nature of an entity, Rand continued to emphasize that philosophy is metascientific. We may never know an entity’s ultimate constituents. We may never know if entities are reducible to matter or to some as-yet-undiscovered form of energy. We may never know if our perceptual level is even capable of discovering the ultimate nature of entities in the universe (“Appendix,” 290–95). None of this has any philosophic significance.

  The only important philosophical conclusion that can be made about the nature of any entities in the universe is that each has identity. For Rand, as for Aristotle, “‘Entity’ means ‘one’” (198–99). This is not an ineffable One, but a particular one. Rand was committed to metaphysical pluralism. Since everything that exists in the universe is a particular, particularity is inherent in existence as such. Every entity that exists is something in particular.46

  But metaphysical pluralism for Rand is not atomism. Just as Rand rejected metaphysical, organic collectivism, she also repudiates metaphysical atomism. In her emphasis on the ontological priority of individuals, Rand did not dissolve reality into wholly independent entities. Reality is an interconnected system of interacting entities governed by the laws of identity and causality (Peikoff 1976T, lecture 2). And since in a certain context, the universe itself can be thought of as an entity, it too has identity. It is something specific and finite. Like Aristotle, Rand argued that the concept of “infinity” is applicable only as a methodological tool; it does not apply to the universe as a whole. Such a metaphysical application is pure reification.47

  Moreover, Rand grasped that the concept of “order” is epistemological, and not metaphysical. The order of the universe is its identity (Binswanger [1987] 1991T, lecture 2). She states: “There is no such thing as a disorderly universe. Our whole concept of order comes from observing reality and reality has to be orderly because it’s the standard of what exists. Contradictions cannot exist” (1979aT).

  Since order is internal to the universe, Rand contended that in knowledge, as in reality,

  Everything is interrelated.… [S]ince reality is not a collection of discrete concretes which have nothing to do with each other, since it is actually an integrated, interrelated whole, the same is true of our conceptual equipment. We cannot begin to use it until we have enough interrelated concepts to permit us, beginning with a small vocabulary, to reach higher and higher distinctions. Observe that all concepts on the first, perceptual level are enorm
ously interrelated. And it would be impossible to say that we have to conceptualize tables first or chairs first. Or inanimate objects in the room before persons. There would be no rule about it. (“Appendix,” 180)

  Even though our knowledge is hierarchical, in reality, everything is simultaneous. Unlike Lossky, the arch personalist, Rand does not place greater existential emphasis on any particular elements of reality. Atoms are not lower or higher than chairs; chairs are atoms. Although people characteristically grasp the entity of “chair” before the “atoms” that comprise it, chairs and the atoms are on equal metaphysical footing (Peikoff 1990–91T, lecture 8).

  This whole realm of inquiry leads us to question the status of internal relations as an ontological doctrine in Objectivism.48 From a metaphysical standpoint, Rand refuses to speculate on whether a thing’s identity includes its relations to other things. For Rand, this is a scientific question and as such is outside the province of philosophy proper. However, although Rand offers no doctrine explicating the actual nature of the relationship between the constituent elements of reality, she defends the organic integrity of an entity. She argues that each entity is constituted by qualities from which it cannot be legitimately separated. Indeed, the entity’s properties are internal to its identity.