From: merritt@macro.bu.edu (Sean Merritt)
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism
Subject: Re: Modern Logic -- question (was Obj. Philosophy)
Date: 8 Jan 93 15:32:08 GMT
	<MERRITT.93Jan7100008@macro.bu.edu> <TORKEL.93Jan7180729@lludd.sics.se>
	<MERRITT.93Jan7142129@macro.bu.edu> <TORKEL.93Jan7211409@bast.sics.se>
Organization: Boston University Physics Department
In-reply-to: torkel@sics.se's message of 7 Jan 93 20:14:09 GMT

In article <TORKEL.93Jan7211409@bast.sics.se> torkel@sics.se (Torkel Franzen) writes:



   In article <MERRITT.93Jan7142129@macro.bu.edu> merritt@macro.bu.edu
    (Sean Merritt) writes:

      >I have forgotten nothing.

#     That's fine, but there is nothing in your quotations or other comments to
#   indicate how the characterization of logic as "having a single law, the Law of
#   Identity, and its various crollaries" *does* refer to logic as the subjct
#   is understood in logic, mathematics, or philosophy, or tells us anything
#   about that subject.

I don't have any hope of convincing you that Ayn Rand offered
Objectivisim first as a Science. That science being Epistemology,
the basis of knowledge and the limits of it's validity.

Futher still she did intend to replace and offer a way out
of the dilemma's modern philosophers had created by taking
the position that "reality is meaningless"(extreme nominalist)
But you will say that Kant or Hume was a philosopher and
Ayn Rand was not?

      >To you perhaps to Ayn Rand, no.

#     Come now. If "to Ayn Rand" her axioms were associated with a well-defined
#   language and rules of inference, please specify the language and the rules of
#   inference.

English.

      >This is not true. Ayn Rand appeals directly to logic and human cognition
      >in a formal sense to develop a basis for knowledge.

#     Again, to refute my assertions you need merely specify the language and
#   the inference rules. This is not a matter of opinion.

Is the problem that you have that AR's definitions are somewhat
"operational"?

Ayn Rand:

"Existence exist-and the act of grasping that statement implies two
 corollary axioms: that something exist which one preceives and that
 one exists possessing consciousness, conciousness being the faculty
 of perceiving that which exists."

Plato:

 "Abstractions exist as real entities in another dimension of reality
  that is not directly perceiveable by human minds. These entities
  are archetypes, the perception of these by man is that of an 
  imperfect reflection of these entities."

AR:

"The units of concepts of "existence" and "identity" are every entity,
 attribute, action, event or phenomenon(including conciousness) that
 exists, has ever existed or will ever exist." 

 To identify is to perform a cognitive measurement(consistant with the physical
 and mathematical laws with certain omissions.)

 "The measurements omitted from axiomatic concepts are all measurements
  of all existents they subsume; what is retained metaphysically,
  is only a fundemental fact; what is retained epistemologically,
  is only one category of measurement, omitting its particulars:
  time-i.e. the fundemental fact is retained independent of 
  any particular moment of awareness."

Plato:

"Existence has the ultimate manifestation in an `universal' humans
 cannot know. The identity of objects in this world is the association
 of the imperfect object with that of the perfect object by the
 the human mind."

 Plato gave no cognitive element in a human's act of association except
 that they "remembered" the true form from the time they existed in
 the world of forms reality.

The justification for calling Objectivism an Operational Philosophy
is the rise of the new Science; Cognitive Science. It has taken
the combinations of Computer Science, Physics, Philosophy, Psychology,
Engineering, Biology and Mathematics, as it's progenators.

As a formal science Cog Sci did not exist within Ayn Rand's lifetime.
Her attempt to include the cognitive role of knowledge of existence
was nothing short of brilliant.

What she left behind as Objectivisim is however, to be kind,
isn't very useful, in my opinion. The validity of her method is
beyond reproach.


-sjm
--
Sean J. Merritt		         | "Every revolt is a cry of innocence    
Dept of Physics Boston University|  and an appeal to the essence of being."
merritt@macro.bu.edu             | Albert Camus, The Rebel