From: nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson)
Subject: Re: The Enduring Rand (was: Re: Theory?)
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 13:48:50 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Corporation, Chelmsford, MA

In article <BxzJ8z.Evo@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> jwales@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (jimmy donal wales) writes:

>I'll take it as given that we can all agree upon what a human being
>is.  You are a human.  I am a human.  There are humans in China,
>etc. etc.  Mentally handicapped people are human.  Neo-Nazis are
>human, too.  Peter Nelson is a human.  How do we form the concept
>'human'?  We observe the world.  We notice differences and similarities
>among different entities in the world.

  Is a zygote, 1 minute after conception human?



>Note well that the definition of a concept is contextual.  If we
>were scientists interested in sorting our samples of DNA, we might
>well use a more technical definition of human.  Note too, the
>interesting feature of Rand's definition that the _definition_ does
>not (necessarily) serve as the criterion for inclusion.  A definition,
>in Rand's epistemology, serves to identify the fundamental (contextually
>fundamental, recall) attributes of the existents.

  How do you decide what constitutesa "fundamental" attribute?

>What does 'reason' mean?
>
>"Reason is the faculty that identifies and integrates the material
>provided by man's senses." (Rand, VOS, "The Objectivist Ethics, p. 20).
>Rand's full description of our rational faculty can be found in
>_Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology_.

  In other words you are not prepared to define "reason".

  Notive that Mr. Wales devotes several paragraphs to discussing what
  constitutes "human" a subject that for most purposes (though not all,
  as I indicated in my reference above) is not under dispute.  But
  on the tricky issues he skips out on us again.

  The question still stands, unanswerd my Mr. Wales or Mr. Starr:
  What is meant by "rational" (or "reason")?  How do you know when you
  have it?  How do you know how much you have?


>So what does it mean to say that 'man is a rational animal'?  
>
>What this statement means is that, based on our current state of knowledge
>about human beings, the attribute that does the most to explain all the
>other attributes of human beings
 
  What does this mean, "does the most to explain".  I could say what 
  "does the most to explain all the other attributes of human beings"
  is our genome.  It is one very clearly, measurable objective fact
  that defines "human".  And while it no doubt explains much in our
  intellectual skills, it also explains thousands of other biochemical
  aspects of "human".   


>faculty.  That is, humans are what they are.  Every human being is
>what that human being is.

  This is circular to the point of being tautological.  It is the same as
  saying "I am observing all members of this set to determine the
  features they have in common, in order to define set membership."
  Note that "a=a" would be optimized out of existence by any decent
  compiler because it's logically meaningless.



  We form the concept human being by omitting
>measurements along all the commensurate characteristics (the conceptual
>common denominator).  We then note that rationality is the characteristic
>that explains the most about humans

  You can't note ANYTHING about "rationality" because you haven't
  defined it!   As I've pointed out in posting after posting.
  Tell us where to buy a rationo-meter.



>Rand's statements about reason in humans are not tautological.  This
>is very important.  Rand's theory of concepts (and in particular, her
>theory of definition) is able to avoid the trap of 'nontestability'

  Saying so doesn't make it so.   "Testability" means that the terms
  are defined clearly enough so we can unambigously compare what our
  theory says to the real world.  We can take measurements and compare
  them to what our model says.  "Testability" does not merely mean
  there is some vague "connection" to reality that Mr. Wales says.
  I can cite the tests used to verify the theoretical proposition
  that, for instance, light can be bent by gravity.  Perhaps Mr. Wales
  would be so kind as to cite an instance of "testing" any of Rand's
  theories.




>are hypothetical imperatives.  Reality's only command to humans is
>'you must, if...'  You must eat, if you are going to live.  You must
>think, if you are going to prosper.

  No, this isn't true.  Rand says that if I initiate an act of 
  force against someone else, depriving them of their life or of
  their ability to live "as man" I have done something _wrong_.  
  But concepts of "right" and "wrong" are ethical concepts.  The
  means of life (oxygen, food, even "reason", if we accepted Rand's
  "definition") are not.   That's the leap I'm talking about.

   
---peter





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