Sub-differentshia…

Estudia: Phi, could you please explain what you said about the difference between an intrinsicist and a subjectivist. You said, “The nominalists are of the school of subjectivism but the realist are members of the intrinsicism class.” or something like that.

Philo: That’s what I said. The intrinsicists wants to base human thought on something in reality so they have a theory that projects our thoughts outward into a world apart from man. The subjectivists don’t like this projection so they don’t try to base thought on external facts, so they declare that concepts are simply based on our own creation or perspective on things which are detached from reality.

Estudia: But aren’t our concepts based on facts, the things that exist, and on our choices, how we decide to group them?

Philo: Very good. Both reality and human consciousness are involved. Our objective approach says we know something by our grasp of existents through our reality-based choice. Intrinsicism concludes that knowledge is the grasp of existents by way of a passively absorption or revelations about those existents. Subjectivism sees knowledge as a creation of an existent by way of some active inner thought process on our part.

Estudia: How do intrinsicists know that a concept is proper?

Philo: Intrinsic philosophers like Plato and Augustine realized that knowledge ought to conform to reality but they thought that the only way to have that conformity is to just be passively exposed to entities. If done correctly, this passive exposure would make one aware of concepts just as one is made aware of things on the perceptual level. According to the intrinsicist you don’t need any method of gaining conceptual knowledge. If you ask them how they know an abstract conclusion is right, they will ultimately have to say they know because they just know. They might say they know based on intuition, a sixth sense, extrasensory perception or divine revelation.

Estudia: But material entities do exist outside of us, and they do act on us to produce sensory experiences.

Philo: Right, but not abstract ideas. They don’t create conceptual content by acting on us. There would have to be a mind or consciousness that already possessed the knowledge of any particular abstract idea and somehow chose to communicate the idea to us. Plato had his Forms which could not be part of the reality that we perceive. Forms are abstractions that exist only as the content of some intelligence. Plato’s Forms were in another reality, or other-worldly place, so they would exist in some mind outside our reality. This is where God enters as only an other-worldly intellect could know of the Forms and somehow reveal them to us.

Estudia: So intrinsicism starts out by saying there are things that are real. That reality exists, but winds up concluding that reality is the product of some supernatural consciousness, right?

Philo: That’s right.

Estudia: And, what about the subjectivists? Who are some, and what do they advocate?

Philo: Immanuel Kant and John Dewey begin by advocating the primacy of human consciousness. They reject the mystic approach to gaining knowledge.

Estudia: That’s good, no?

Philo: Yes, but they conclude that there is no other means of gaining knowledge except by some sort of revelation. They conclude that we can’t really know reality and should give up the attempt. We don’t grasp external facts, we create facts out of our own inner consciousness. How we do this is arbitrary and not based on reality says the subjectivist.

Estudia: You mean I create my own world in my mind and it can be different from anyone else’s?

Philo: In the personal version of Subjectivism, yes. In the social version, the group creates a reality. In every version the standard of what is true is that it conforms to the demands of the individual or collective ruling consciousness. This results in what is known as pragmatism.

Estudia: What does a Pragmatist believe?

Philo: They believe that there is no real reality. Nothing is absolute. Nothing is absolutely true in every case and the truth may not correspond to the facts. What works and satisfies the desires of men is what is true and good.

Estudia: Was Aristotle an intrinsicist or a subjectivist?

Philo: Neither, but let’s save that for next time.

Estudia: Adieu.

Intrinsic or Subjectic…

Estudia: Now, Philo, I think I understand the Objectivist theory of concepts fairly well. Are there any other theories and what do they imply?

Philo: Oh yes, definitely. There are completely opposite theories that have come down to us through the ages. The three major theories are Platonic realism, Aristotelian realism, and nominalism.

Estudia: That would be from Plato, Aristotle and who?

Philo: Nominalism was developed by a bunch of skeptic philosophers like Protagoras, Hume, Dewey and Wittgenstein. In this view every object that exists is unique. The members of a group that will form the concept have nothing the same to unite them and thus no metaphysical basis to classify them. The things in a group do have a rough similarity that links some particulars so it’s useful to group various items under a single name. The nominalist says there really aren’t any facts that require a particular grouping, no objectively correct way of forming concepts. People just decide how to do this and create any concepts they think useful.

Estudia: So these nominalists believe that concepts are inside of us and are just arbitrary linguistic creations.

Philo: Yes, exactly, the nominalists are “subjectivists” in that they teach that concepts represent things grouped in your consciousness apart from existence.

Estudia: What about the Platonic and Aristotelian theories?

Philo: Plato believed that concepts were referring to some real thing that was other-worldly or not directly perceivable universals which he called Forms. Things like animalness, table- or chair-hood which exist independent of the consciousness of man and of any real existent.

Estudia: And this is called “realism”?

Philo: Yes, because abstractions are seen as part of reality and outside of or external to the mind. Plato actually taught that we remember entities from a previous life and that is how we acquire the truth of what a concept represents.

Estudia: Seriously? You’re joking right? Is this Pluto, not Plato?

Philo: Negative. Read Plato and weep. He thought that we don’t have to think at all but let our minds remain still, guru-like, and we will receive the truth like a match lit in a cave reveals the art-work on the wall.

Rand’s Razor…

Estudia: So, Phi’, do we have more to discuss about hierarchy of knowledge or learning?

Philo: Not really, but there is an important concept that Ayn Rand articulated that relates to hierarchy particularly to any philosophical discussion which she referred to as Rand’s Razor.

Estudia: What’s a razor? I mean I know a razor is used to shave with, but what did she mean?

Philo: Well, a razor is used to slice off things and Rand’s Razor is a technique that can cut off all sorts of false or useless ideas. Her razor simply says that you need to “name your primaries.” She said you must identify your starting point and you must name the concepts that you take as axioms because they can not be reduced. She says that you can not just pick some philosophical topic that seems interesting and start building a system of ideas from that topic while ignoring its roots in reality.

Estudia: I can see that a little. Philosophy is hierarchical like any knowledge and we must be able to reduce any idea back to the perceptual data from which it was derived..

Philo: Yes, exactly, but philosophers today evade this principle and in fact speak out against system-building by stating that philosophy consists of independent ideas unconnected to each other.

Estudia: For example?

Philo: The “Matrix” mentality were it is postulated that we are all duped into seeing reality as provided from some evil consortium that keeps us plugged in as a source of energy or computing power and of which we are unaware thinking that the things we see and touch are simply visions provided from the matrix on interconnected individuals. What we see is not real but a deception. This is a blatant inversion of hierarchy. How could we make such an assumption that this matrix controls us and yet we don’t know if what we see is real? The philosopher is using advanced knowledge to say what we know directly with our senses is false and misleading.

Estudia: Well, Rand’s Razor would shoot that down. The primaries would have to be that a matrix exists with evil controllers keeping it all running so we are deceived ― a bizarre out of context claim which can be easily refuted. Obviously they would not be able to reduce the concept back to the perceptual reality we all know.

Philo: Yes, and I hope you understand that you can’t hold true ideas either while ignoring hierarchy and context, just as it would be futile to try to uphold a false idea like the matrix.

Estudia: Maybe I wouldn’t understand the true idea if I didn’t understand its reduction?

Philo: Sure. Take property rights for example. You can’t just say it’s an axiom that man has property rights. The right to property stems from man’s right to life. But a man’s right to life depends on the nature and value of man’s life and a man’s life means that we can make objective judgments about value and that assumes that objective judgments are possible, meaning that we know the difference between consciousness and existence. You have to have all that hierarchy in mind in order to defend or defend the concept of property rights correctly.

Estudia: Wow. That is just the opposite of what I have been learning when I read other works on philosophy. They start analyzing a problem right in the middle, picking up some idea from a previous writer and expanding on that idea, never bothering to question its validity.

Philo: That’s a common mistake in philosophy today and it leads not to a hierarchy of knowledge but to a mish-mash of incomprehensible errors. The bottom line is that you should always check your premises to see what they depend on and to see that you can reduce the idea back to the base of the structure to be sure in is firmly planted in reality. The base of all ideas will, if truthful, lead you back to the axiom, existence exists.

Estudia: Got it. What’s next?

Philo: Review your notes and be sure you can perform a reduction as needed and take a break until we meet again. I want to go over some other theories of concepts with you so that you’ll understand why only Ayn Rand’s theory of concepts leads to the need for objectivity in human cognition, while other popular theories lead to just the opposite.

Estudia: Okay, see you then.

Irreducibles …

Estudia: Okay, Phi’, let me see if I have this non reducible idea down or not.

Philo: Okay ‘Stu, what’s an example.

Estudia: Almost anything from religion I’ve decided. Concepts like heaven, hell, ghost, angel, devils, zombies, vampires, wizards, you name it. All of these things can’t be reduced to anything observable in nature hence then can’t be reduced.

Philo: Good. Those are all invalid concepts. They really don’t have any specific definition. They don’t refer to anything in particular. A ghost is just that, a ghost and not here nor there and you supposedly can only know one when you see one, or think you see one. They can mean a lot of different things and often something different to each and every person.

Estudia: Aren’t some terms like extremism, liberal, war-hawk a little like that too? They are concepts but generally don’t have specific definitions and mean different things to different people.

Philo: Yes, definitely. Terms like that are anti-concepts and are often used as an assertion without a meaningful definition. All higher-level concept and propositions must be reducible to be valid.

Estudia: Why propositions?

Philo: All propositions are based on a chain of ideas that led to them. If you do not grasp this chain all the way back to direct observation, then the proposition would just be an arbitrary idea, without context and with no objective foundation. In such a case the proposition is detached from reality and your correct thinking. This is why we need proof for any idea.

Estudia: Why’s that?

Philo: Proof is a type of reduction with the conclusion being the higher level proposition and its only link to reality is the premises. These premises eventually lead back to objective reality. To prove something you must identify the correct hierarchy of premises. You trace back the logical order of steps leading to the conclusion. Because of the need to trace the steps back to perceptual reality, you must use logic to validate the conclusion objectively.

Estudia: So what has this logic got to do with it?

Philo: Logic requires that you recognize the context as well as the hierarchy involved in a proof. Rand said that “Logic is the art of noncontradictory identification” but she implied that you must observe the full context of knowledge which of course includes its hierarchical structure.

Estudia: Well, I can see that if I reach a logical conclusion it would have to be integrated into my knowledge and it would have to fit in without contradiction. You’re just saying that if it has been related to perceptual data in this reduction process then I’ll know where the conclusion came from.

Philo: Yes, and you wind up checking your facts in two ways. Every proposition or conclusion has to jive with your other knowledge in a non-contradictory fashion and through the chain of reduction all the intermediate steps lead to things that can be experienced directly.

Estudia: So I suppose you are suggesting that I practice reducing all the concepts I want to use and all the propositions as well.

Philo: Right, but do it slowly. If you had been educated properly things would have been presented to you in a hierarchical manner and you would have been performing the reduction without thinking as you climbed the chain of ideas that led to a concept or a proposition.

Estudia: Interesting.

Philo: Yes, but remember to perform your reductions using only the essential terms. You should try to just get an overview of the higher level idea and see the major links that connect it to perceptual reality. Don’t worry about all the minutiae; you can always fill those in later.

Estudia: Good, ‘cause it looks like I’m going to be very busy. CU next time.

Reduction Reduced…

Estudia: Okay, Phi’, let me see if I can do this reduction thing.

Philo: Okay ‘Stu, tell me again what it is.

Estudia: Reduction is a way to connect some advanced concept, piece of knowledge, or cognitive item to reality, which is the perceptual level for us. Reduction involves a tracing backward of at least the essential logical steps that gave rise to the higher level concept being reduced.

Philo: Good. Now what concept are you going to try and reduce?

Estudia: How ‘bout something simple like Brother?

Philo: Well, okay, but you had better define what kind of brother you mean.

Estudia: Let’s see. Brother can be used to refer to any male acquiesce just as sister can be used for females, but I want to keep this simple so I’ll just reduce brother meaning males born from the same mother.

Philo: Okay.

Estudia: A brother designates a person or animal in a human family relationship as opposed to an acquaintance, friend or stranger. In particular the relationship involves two or more males of the same species that were born from one and the same mother. So now I have a definition to work from and the concept brother is a certain stage of conception. In this case it is the last stage and I can see that in order to understand a particular stage of any concept I have to ask myself what is it that I have to know in order to reach that stage.

Philo: Terrific deduction. You are trying to work back to the perceptual stage, right?

Estudia: Yes, so I have to know what a mother is in terms of the brothers. Here the essential concepts are female, male and giving-birth. Female and male can be defined in terms of complex concepts like chromosomes, hormones or brain chemistry but really here we can jump to the perceptual level and point out sex organ differences. You are a female in terms of the concept brother if you have a uterus and ovaries capable of producing eggs which can be fertilized by sperm from a male. Lots of concepts, but the primary one is simply observed physical features. The other perceptual level concept you would need to understand is that of giving birth. This involves lots of additional concepts like eggs, sperm, placenta, fetus and much more, but the essential is simply the observed process of producing a baby from the birth canal. You can include C-sections as well as natural births but again the perceptual level is seeing a female expel a new born. This concept of brother is rather easy to comprehend as it is not far removed from the perceptual. You need female, mother, giving-birth and male and you have it reduced.

Philo: What about a concept like lovers?

Estudia: Well that gets a bit more complex. For the concept brother, by reduction, I can now say that I mean this and give my definition, two males born from the same mother or female. For lovers, we would have to introduce things like mutual respect, caring, esteem, affection, sexual desire perhaps, and physical intimacy. They we’d have to say that these things depend on values and values depend on what one acts to gain or keep and that could be things like food, water, air-conditioning, energy, etc and those would be at the perceptual level. Am I close to understanding reduction?

Philo: Yes, you are getting there. Once you know the roots of any concept you will understand the chain of concepts that link the idea to perceptual reality. So then you will know how to use the concept and can recognize when the concept is misused. Like “brother”, you have to stretch the concept to include that “you are your brother’s keeping” when you are talking about caring for strangers. That brother is obviously much broader and all inclusive, invoking a stolen idea, males born of the same mother, and applying it to all strangers male and female. Most people don’t understand the roots of a concept. How it is grounded in things from the perceptual level. They treat most concepts as primaries and don’t consider its place in the hierarchy of concepts that led up to the concept being used. All strangers become you brother or sister and deserve the same respect and attention as a family member.

Estudia: So if I reduce all concepts I will understand its definition.

Philo: Right, and that is the only way you can make a definition fully clear. You have to take the initial definition back through each level and understand the definition of the earlier concepts all the way back to the direct perception of reality. But be aware that certain concepts can not be reduced to observational perceptions. Certain false-concepts can’t be reduced.

Estudia: Like?

Philo: Think about it and next time we’ll see if you can come up with some.

Estudia: Good, I’ve lost weight trying to grasp reduction so I need a break. See you later.

Explanation on Reduction…

Estudia: Okay, Phi’, you were about to explain to me the need for reduction based on the fact that knowledge is hierarchical. Go ahead, please.

Philo: Well, think about this. If you always first gained knowledge of things directly by observation and were very clear about those things in reality; then if you moved to a higher level concept while you retained a clear understanding of the lower level, you would be growing your understanding hierarchically. The fact of hierarchy would not be a problem for you. You could not use a higher-level concept without understanding its relationship to perceptual reality. Your new higher-level concepts, ideas and conclusions would be grounded in perceptual reality and hence would never be what we call floating abstractions.

Estudia: If I thought like that, I would have a chain of concepts in my mind that would connect every higher-level concept with the sensory data that was the first link in the conceptualization. Sure, I see that.

Philo: Good. But you must realize that people in general try to use higher-level concepts without understanding completely the intermediate steps.

Estudia: Why do they do that?

Philo: Well, there are several reasons. Impatience, aversion to effort ― they just don’t want to work at understanding the material, or even just simple error. One biggie for many is that they want to use what someone else has come up with or concluded. Other people’s ideas are just used without understanding the chain of concepts that led to the idea. You use a higher-level concept without fully understanding it and consequently you are a little confused, but you build on the idea anyway. You become more and more confused because the chain of knowledge is broken and the concept is not tired to perceptual reality. You are not grounded in your thinking and only accidentally will you wind up producing actual new knowledge or understanding that is factual.

Estudia: So what’s with the ideal of reduction?

Philo: We saw that we have to keep our ideas in context to connect them to reality, right?

Estudia: Right. And I can see that if the context is hierarchical, each level of structure serves as a connecting link. Oh!! That means that in order to keep things in context, we have to identify and remember each connecting link, right?

Philo: Exactly. This is why reduction is required. You have to be able to work in reverse order. From the higher-level concept you should be able go backwards to the step that logically led to the idea from perceptual reality.

Estudia: Ah! So we integrated concepts to move up the chain, and now we disintegrate or rather reduce them to move down the chain.

Philo: Yes. Reduction is the process of identifying the logical sequence of steps that relates a thought to perceptual data. This doesn’t mean you have to retrace the exact steps, but you must retrace the concepts with essentially the same logical structure.. It is the only way to remain objective. Your only direct contact with reality is through the data provided to you by your senses. The sense data is the standard of objectivity and all other concepts, thoughts, ideas, images, i.e. all cognitive material must be grounded in the data of the senses.

Estudia: Can you give me an example?

Philo: That’s your job. Think about this and see if you can take a higher-level concept and reduce it to its perceptual foundation.

Estudia: Hmmm. Okay. Right now?

Philo: No, next time.

Reducing Integration…

Estudia: Okay, Phi’, how are we going to relate the issues of context and hierarchy?

Philo: Well, first remember that knowledge is hierarchical. If you were able to comprehend any and every concept or conclusion just by observation ― by looking at things in reality ― then you wouldn’t have to worry about the order of ideas. Everything would just be observable and some accumulation of primary entities. But things aren’t that simple. Concepts are different from each other in one very important respect.

Estudia: What’s that?

Philo: You tell me. Remember some items can be understood from simple sense perception. Colors, smells, tastes, and so on come immediately to mind. Other things, like furniture or government, can only be understood by understanding a whole host of things. You have to first grasp a continuous chain of concepts from the simplest to more and more complex with each link of the chain dependent on the one before it.

Estudia: Oh, I see what you mean. Concepts differ in how far removed they are from the perceptual level. Some are simple sense experiences but most are more complex.

Philo: Right. In some instances the nature of your senses determines the hierarchy. Like things you can see and observe come before things you can only see through a microscope, or things you can only detect with some measuring instrument.

Estudia: Well that means that knowledge has to follow some order. We have to understand things like “cat”, “dog”, “cow” and more before we can conceptualize “animal”.

Philo: But notice that it doesn’t matter if you used “goat”, “zebra” or “elephant” to form the concept animal. A higher-level concept depends on you grasping a series of simpler concepts; however, the series is not unique. There is no hierarchy when there is an option like this. Hierarchy applies when there is not an option. Hierarchy applies to a concept when the only way to reach that concept is through some understanding of simpler concepts.

Estudia: Kind of like a prerequisite.

Philo: Exactly. Understanding the simpler concepts is a prerequisite to understanding the higher level concept.

Estudia: Certainly applies to most course work in college. You are not going to understand Calculus without some knowledge of arithmetic and geometry.

Philo: Right on. Now this brings us to your original question. We can relate context and hierarchy together. You see, a hierarchy is a kind of context. We discussed the contextual view of knowledge and said that your thinking is relational. You have to keep things in context.

Estudia: Right. So?

Philo: The hierarchical nature of knowledge tells us that our thinking is relational. This hierarchical view tells us that every item or concept has a context that is built in a logical fashion from a foundation of first-level items. Context says that the things we know are a sum of items. Hierarchy says that the way we learned about our concepts was by necessarily starting with the simpler ideas and moving to the more complex.

Estudia: Hmmm. Okay. The idea of context takes the big view. What we know is a sum. The idea of hierarchy takes a look at the way something is learned and concludes that the simple ideas make the more complex ideas possible. So what?

Philo: So what? Well, it makes a big difference. This all says that to gain knowledge you have to integrate ideas into your already existing knowledge. Knowledge we said is contextual. This means you have to integrate new knowledge into your existing knowledge very carefully..

Estudia: That’s pretty obvious to me now. The need for integration is why it is so difficult for me to keep all this in mind. I’m learning all sorts of new concepts and reaching all sorts of conclusions that have to be consistent with what I know or I have to change what I know to fit the new facts. What about the hierarchical nature of knowledge? What does that imply we have to do to gain knowledge?

Philo: Reduction.

Estudia: Reduction? What’s that?

Philo: Let me explain next time we get together.

Estudia: Fine, I need a break. See you later.