Hence, “all definitions are contextual,” according to Rand. As our knowledge grows, we may select different essential characteristics by which to define an entity. But Rand emphasized that as our classifications become more advanced, they do not necessarily contradict more primitive definitions (43). Indeed, as Kelley and Krueger (1984) argue, the concept is an expandable relation. Over time, it incorporates “all the shared properties which science discovers in its investigation of the kind” (61). This dynamic definitional process views essences within a changing context. At no time does a change in definition signify a change in the referent. The same referent takes on different meanings depending on the context in which it is discussed.
For example, a “human being” might be defined by primitive peoples as “a being who talks.” Aristotle identified human beings as “rational animals.” Modem scientists have defined them as “bi-pedal mammals,” “rational primates,” or “Homo sapiens” (Peikoff 1976T, lecture 4). Each of these definitions is valid. But each is based on a different cognitive context.54 And in no case does the changing definition alter the concept, which refers to an existential referent. The referent remains the same, only our definition of the referent changes according to context. That a concept (i.e., a referent) receives different definitions in various contexts does not mean that these alterations are arbitrary or subjective (Peikoff 1991b, 103). They depend on the conditions of our knowledge (Introduction, 73).
Rand further argued that since a definition is based on contextually identified, essential characteristics, a concept and its definition are not interchangeable (“Appendix,” 233–34). For example, though human beings may be defined as “rational animals,” human nature comprises more than rationality and animality (Introduction, 39). They also have thumbs, stand upright, and so on. In reality, all these facts are simultaneous. To identify one characteristic, reason, as essential, is to focus on the cognitive faculty, which fundamentally differentiates human from nonhuman life forms.
Moreover, when Rand stated that “reason” is humanity’s “essential” characteristic, she did not mean to imply that rationality best “explains” other inborn traits, such as the distinctively human digestive system. But upon closer inspection, Rand’s expansive concept of “reason” may help us to understand that even the most “nonrational” of human characteristics can be deeply affected by the mind. Indeed, such a fundamental insight is central to holistic and psychosomatic medicine. When Rand attempted to transcend the dichotomies of reason and emotion, mind and body, her integrated, dialectical resolution preserved the centrality of the rational mind, even as it traced the reciprocal effects of the emotional and the somatic.
In her theory of definition, Rand admitted that there are some existents that may be difficult to classify or conceptualize. She called these “borderline cases.” Such existents may share some characteristics with the referents of a given concept, but lack others. Certain organisms, for instance, may be classified as either animals or plants. For Rand, the choice of classification is optional. One can make the borderline case a subcategory of either concept, or one can draw approximate dividing lines, or merely identify it descriptively. Since no definition is based on an unchanging, metaphysical essence, Rand did not consider her conclusions threatened by such borderline cases. Ultimately, by altering the level of generality, essential differences are bound to surface, and appropriate classifications will be generated (72–74).
What makes an essential characteristic “objective,” rather than intrinsic or subjective, is that it is a product of “a volitional relationship between existence and consciousness” (Peikoff 1991b, 113). Rand explained that metaphysically, objectivity is
the recognition of the fact that reality exists independent of any perceiver’s consciousness. Epistemologically, it is the recognition of the fact that a perceiver’s … consciousness must acquire knowledge of reality by certain means (reason) in accordance with certain rules (logic). This means that although reality is immutable and, in any given context, only one answer is true, the truth is not automatically available to a human consciousness and can be obtained only by a certain mental process which is required of every man who seeks knowledge—that there is no substitute for this process.… Metaphysically, the only authority is reality; epistemologically—one’s own mind. The first is the ultimate arbiter of the second.55
Thus Rand’s epistemology does not endorse intrinsic essences as found in traditional internalism. But neither does it endorse the subjectively identified essences typical of externalism. Rand argued that the relations one traces in reality must be connected to a specific cognitive task. Every characteristic of an entity is potentially relevant to our grasp of its meaning. And each existent is potentially relevant to everything else that exists in the universe. But this relevance must be ascertained within a specific context. As Peikoff explains, every blade of grass is potentially relevant to human life, because within a specific context, an attempt to count these blades must be related to a particular human purpose. The context helps us to determine relevance and essence (Peikoff 1989T). The meaning we attach to such counting is internally related to our actions, purposes, and knowledge. The meaning, the concept we form, constitutes a relationship between existence and consciousness.
While these principles have obvious application to the sphere of epistemology, they also have broader theoretical and methodological significance. In her social analysis and in her theory of history, Rand recognized a vast network of interrelationships between and among various, seemingly separable factors. Ultimately, she viewed these factors as she would those relational properties that organically constitute any single entity. She focused on the internal relationships between identifiable components within a single social totality. Whereas a nonradical would analyze social problems as if they were disconnected from one another, Rand was not unlike other radical theorists (e.g., Marx) in her emphasis on a kind of asymmetric internality between elements. Thus the singular issue of racial discrimination, for instance, cannot be disconnected from broad epistemic, psychological, ethical, political, and economic factors. Likewise, in her theory of history, she placed greater emphasis on the role of philosophy, even as she simultaneously recognized a form of organic, reciprocal interaction between many causal factors.
7
REASON AND EMOTION
In recent studies of Rand’s philosophy, little attention is paid to her reflections on psychology. Peikoff’s systematic presentation of Objectivism, for instance, is purely and self-consciously philosophical; he avoids, on principle, any discussion of the extensive implications for psychology of Rand’s epistemology and ethics (Peikoff 1990–91T, lecture 13). Merrill (1991, 179) indicates his own unwillingness to discuss these aspects of Rand’s thought because their “status” in Objectivist literature is somewhat uncertain. Such themes as “psycho-epistemology,” “the psychology of self-esteem,” and “social metaphysics” were a theoretical outgrowth of Rand’s interaction with her chief intellectual protégé, Nathaniel Branden, prior to their break in 1968. Since that time, many of these important issues have been left largely unexplored.
Merrill correctly notes that Rand never repudiated the pre-1968 writings of Nathaniel Branden and Barbara Branden. Because Rand refused to sanction any of their later work, however, Objectivist scholars have been reluctant to deal with the Brandens’ contributions. However, I believe that it is as legitimate to examine the works of the Brandens as those of Binswanger, Kelley, Peikoff, and other Objectivists and neo-Objectivists. Each owes an enormous intellectual debt to Rand. One cannot possibly assess the intellectual implications and historical impact of Objectivism without discussing the contributions of others whom Rand directly influenced. Indeed, in several instances where Rand’s initial formulations were one-sided, her successors have developed a more comprehensive response to dualism that is completely consistent with Objectivist philosophy.
In this chapter I explore themes in Rand’s philos
ophical psychology, particularly those pertaining to the relationship between reason and emotion. Peikoff (1972T, lecture 1) once defined “philosophical psychology” as the theoretical application of metaphysics and epistemology to human nature. “Philosophical psychology” considers those topics in epistemology which have implications for psychology. It deals with the intersection between philosophy and psychology, and further illuminates the radical antidualism of Rand’s Objectivism.
THE NATURE OF EMOTIONS
Accepting Aristotle’s definition of human beings as “rational animals,” Rand did not reduce human “being” to rationality and animality. The definition serves the need for unit economy by isolating an essential characteristic distinguishing the human from the nonhuman. But such a definition does not capture the full complexity of the existent. In any study of the totality of human nature, it is important to consider both those aspects that are essential and those which are not essential to the definition. Hence, to define human beings as rational animals is not to deny that they have emotions.
For Rand, reason is an essential characteristic because it helps to explain seemingly nonrational aspects of human nature. In Rand’s view, human beings have an emotional capacity that is largely dependent on their distinctive rational character. Whereas any dog or cat can experience a “feeling” arising from associational perceptions, only humans are capable of experiencing emotions that are the complex product of their conceptual awareness.1
Rand did not consider emotions to be primaries. They are not tools of cognition; they are not instruments for the acquisition of knowledge. They must be clearly distinguished from thought, even if they are a component of consciousness (New Intellectual, 55). For Rand, emotions are the “automatic result” of value judgments previously integrated by the subconscious mind. They are lightning-like estimates “of that which furthers man’s values or threatens them, that which is for him or against him.”2
In Rand’s epistemology, reason is as basic as “existence” is in her ontology. Just as consciousness is asymmetrically internal to existence, so, too, is emotion asymmetrically dependent on the rational faculty for its content, even though it has reciprocal effects on mind and body. Those who would stress the primacy of consciousness or of emotion inevitably embrace a form of subjectivism or emotionalism that denies objectivity in cognition. Rand’s emphasis on the primacy of existence and the centrality of reason does not nullify either consciousness or emotion. Rand argued that consciousness is the faculty of perceiving that which exists; it cannot be in conflict with existence. So, too, reason is the human means of knowledge; it is not, properly, in conflict with emotion.
From her very earliest philosophical reflections, Rand rejected the view that reason and emotion were natural antagonists. Rand saw the dichotomy between the heart and the mind as a vestige of religious thought. Those who see emotions as the enemy of reason or vice versa perpetuate an erroneous dichotomy between two aspects of consciousness. By emphasizing “faith” as the means to knowledge, the religionists had, in actuality, proclaimed that their own “mystic” feelings were ineffable cognitive instruments, and declared war on reason.
Rand refused to regard reason as the enemy of theemotions. She refused to accept the view that “feelings,” “emotions,” and “instincts” are beyond rational control or understanding. In a 1934 journal entry, exploring whether the belief in such a dichotomy was the result of training, she wrote: “Why is a complete harmony between mind and emotions impossible?”3 She asked: “Is there—or should there be—such a thing as emotion opposed to reason?” For Rand, emotion is not a mystical endowment external to the reality-based means of knowledge. In Rand’s view, it is “a form of undeveloped reason,” a species of the conceptual faculty that may be comprehended through a process of psychological articulation.4
It is no coincidence that these first reflections on the nature of emotion take place within the context of Rand’s condemnation of religion. Rand’s denunciation of religious thought was partially due to her exposure to Russian mysticism. Russian religious philosophy, like much of Russian culture, had rejected the “Western” emphasis on reason as an absolute. Even Rand’s own teacher, Lossky, had stressed the intuitive basis of knowledge. Lossky’s hierarchical personalism was a deeply mystical vision in which all entities are One with the Kingdom of God.
Rand’s insistence on the centrality of reason is in many ways an outgrowth of her antipathy toward such mysticism. Rand’s stress on the role of reason cannot be fully appreciated apart from this Russian context. For Rand, anything that even hinted at a devaluation of the rational faculty was to be rejected and criticized. In her view, reason was the only spiritual endowment.5
By 1946, Rand had begun to develop a more explicit theory of the relationship between reason and emotion. She wrote in her notes for Atlas Shrugged:
The basic process of a man’s life goes like this: his thinking determines his desires, his desires determine his actions. (Thinking, of course, is present all along the line, at every step and stage. His desires are a combination of thought and emotion (the “production” and the “consumption” sides being involved), and all his emotions, of course, are determined by his thinking, most particularly by his basic premises.) … This is the basic pattern, or “circle,” of man’s life on earth: from the spirit (thought) through the material activity (production) to the satisfaction of his spiritual desires (emotions). (He must eat in order to think; but he must think in order to eat. And he must think first.)6
This theme guided Rand in nearly every aspect of her mature philosophic vision, including her ethics, politics, and theory of history. A person learns to utilize the conceptual faculty through various moments of awareness. From focal awareness to logical reasoning, thinking is set into motion—and sustained—volitionally. Thinking determines one’s goals. Goals are achieved by human action. Thinking, then, is not purely contemplative. Rand saw it as praxis-oriented, akin to “production.” It is a vital, creative activity aiming for the satisfaction of both material and spiritual needs. Thinking is the distinctive activity of human existence. Cognitive activity is translated into material activity.7 The “basic pattern” Rand discerned is between “production” and “consumption”; the productive, creative act of thought aims for the consumption and enjoyment of deeply spiritual and material needs. At once, Rand creates a link between spiritual and material concerns. She sees a movement from creative thought to material production to exalted spiritual satisfaction. But at the core of this “circle” is the prime mover of human action: the ability to think.8
By the time Rand wrote Atlas Shrugged, she had fully formulated her theory of emotions. Her protagonist, John Galt, states in the novel: “Emotions are inherent in your nature, but their content is dictated by your mind” (1021). For Rand, emotions are natural, this-worldly phenomena whose content derives from our cognitive contact with reality. In the novel, she presents characters who are rational creatures with the capacity to experience ecstasy. As a paean to integrated human being, Atlas Shrugged presents a union of reason and emotion, cognition and evaluation. The novel is filled with tirades against “whim-worshipers” who act without thought or principles, and who view their own subjective emotions as axiomatic guides to practice. But the novel does not reject emotions as subjective per se; it attempts to link human emotional capacity to the conceptual faculty. One of Rand’s characters states: “Feelings? Oh yes, we do feel, he, you and I—we are, in fact, the only people capable of feeling—and we know where our feelings come from. But what we did not know and have delayed learning for too long is the nature of those who claim that they cannot account for their feelings” (783).
This is crucial to Rand’s understanding of emotions: truly human beings do not supplant their ability to feel with their ability to reason. They do not seek to conquer, rule, or direct their emotions. Rather, they seek to set into motion a process in which emotions and reason are brought into harmony. They seek to articulate
the cognitive basis of emotions by introspecting. Extrospection is an outwardly directed epistemological process. It answers the typical questions of epistemology: “What do I know?” and “How do I know it?” Introspection, by contrast, is an inwardly directed epistemological process. It attempts to answer the questions: “What do I feel?” and “Why do I feel it?” Introspection seeks to identify explicitly that which is merely implicit (“Appendix,” 262). Though we experience emotions as immediate primaries in our awareness, the introspective person does not accept them as axiomatic. Fear, anger, guilt, shame, joy, arousal are emotions with both mental and somatic effects. But no emotion is without causal antecedents. Every emotion is a complex, derivative, integrated sum.9
Nathaniel Branden explains that in our experience of an emotion, we move through a series of psychological events: from perception (of an external or internal event) to evaluation to emotional response. The entire sequence is not immediately apparent, however, for we are aware only of the movement from perception to emotion. Training ourselves to introspect is one of the most important epistemological tasks because it enables us to isolate, through a process of abstraction, the actual moments of the emotive cycle.10
Branden explains further that each feeling is experienced as a totality, that is, as a union of two inseparable aspects of the evaluation that they imply: content and intensity.11 The content of the emotion refers to the implicit evaluation: is that which I have perceived “for me” or “against me”? The intensity of the emotion refers to the implicit judgment: “to what extent?” Thus, we never feel any emotion without content or intensity. We can be slightly angry, or in a state of rage. We can like somebody, or be deeply in love with them. In all cases, the content and the intensity of the emotion will have implications for the course of action, or inaction.12
Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical Page 24