The Number of the Beast

Regi: “To deny the concept man is to deny there are men, and the denial is mistaken.”

Only if one subscribes to a specific epistemological theory (I use the word loosely), that concepts mean all their referents. In that case, a denial of the meaning of the concept entails a denial of the actual existence of the referents. But this notion is flawed, in that meanings are non-material and are attributed to minds. If the meaning of the concept existence is found in its objects, this implies that existence is primarily mental, which implies idealism.

The flaw here is the failure to distinguish between sense – roughly the meaning of the concept, the knowledge we have of the referents -- and reference, the real-world objects that the concept refers to. With the sense/reference distinction, it becomes quite possible to challenge – deny -- the claimed meaning of a concept without denying its referents.

 Regi: “Contingent on what? Except for the man-made, no entity is contingent on anything if it is a "real-world" entity.”

Contingent is this context means “doesn’t have to be”, therefore, all real-world existence is contingent.

Brendan: “Another difficulty with the above quote is that if the concept of existence is included under the phenomenon of consciousness ...”

Regi: “It isn't. Consciousness is included as one of the referents of existence.”

Yes, consciousness is one of the referents of the concept existence, but so are the contents of consciousness, including the concept existence. So the concept existence is self-referential.

Let’s run though this again. We have a concept, existence, which is the product of consciousness. This concept means all real world phenomena, including real consciousness and its contents. One of the contents of real consciousness is the concept existence. We are now back where we started.

Therefore, the argument merely begs the question, so the concept existence as Rand uses it isn’t really about the world. More than that, since the starting point is a concept, this implies primacy of consciousness.

Regi: “That does not mean the concept consciousness subsumes, as one of its referents, the concept existence.”

I think you need to read my comment again. I didn’t say the concept consciousness subsumes the concept existence. I said consciousness does, that is, real consciousness.

Brendan

Only at its most basic level. If I say “table” in the presence of a table, I am certainly identifying an existent, but if I tell my child to “act wisely” I am issuing a command. Concepts can be used to perform several functions.

Regi: “Tell a child that says, "I want a banana," that what he means by banana is "non-material,"”

When a child wants a banana, it wants a ‘yellow, bendy, mushy thing’. One can then offer an object that conforms to this description. But compare and contrast a ‘yellow, bendy mushy thing” to ‘third world export commodity’. The two senses are quite different, but the referent is the same object

Regi: “Whatever is, has to be.”

Take a real world example: plate tectonics. The current world land masses are of specific shapes and sizes, as a result of aeons of movement of the earth’s surface. There’s no reason to suppose that the end result had to be these specific shapes and sizes. They could have been different. If existence exists is a necessary truth, and the term means all its referents, at least some of which are contingent, you have a problem with your meaning of the term existence.

Regi: “The term "self-referential" as a fallacy only pertains to those things which refer to themselves for verification.”

So how is the concept existence verified? One of Rand’s claims is that the axiomatic concepts are perceptually evident, which in the face of it is nonsense, given that non-material entities cannot ordinarily be perceived. Another is that axioms are “present” in the mind with the very first perception, but since Rand denies both innate ideas and a priori intuition, it’s unclear how they become so present.

Both of the above are unconvincing attempts at an empirical verification, and as the logical positivists discovered, it’s unclear whether the verification principle is itself tautological or empirically verifiable. Rand’s use of the undeniability argument as a justification lends weight to the view that it’s the former, in which case Rand’s concept existence is certainly self-referential.

Brendan

Michael: “Axioms are perceptually self-evident. The proof of "existence exists" is the fact that you are perceiving it... "that thing which you are perceiving right now is existence.” 

Michael, you may like to describe the perceptual characteristics of this entity you call existence – its weight, colour, texture etc. If you cannot do that, you may like to re-visit the above claim.

Michael: “The concept of existence cannot be given a standard definition with a genus and differentia…”

In which case, on Rand’s epistemology, ‘existence’ cannot be a concept.

Michael: “Thus, existence must be defined ostensively, i.e. by pointing at reality.”

So point away. Paint us a picture. Let us see it.

Brendan

quote

Michael: “Thus, existence must be defined ostensively, i.e. by pointing at reality.”

So point away. Paint us a picture. Let us see it.

Uhhhh, ok.  I was going to try and remain aloof from this discussion, but this is just silly.  If there's no existence, how exactly did you make the characters that form that quote, and how am I perceiving them?  Why does Michael need to paint you a picture when you're clearly painting one yourself just by typing those words?

Andrew, Jeremy. This has gotten a bit out of hand. On re-reading my above comments to Michael, they are rather sharp and somewhat unclear, for which I apologise.

I have never denied the existence of minds and external objects. Refer my post 78: “Sure you can point to the existence of an external world by reference to your experience of objects that exist apart from your own self. That’s what I would do.”

This part of the thread has been about concepts and their referents, if any, and the relevant quote from Rand was: "The units of the concepts "existence" and "identity" are every entity, attribute, action event or phenomenon (including consciousness) that exists, has ever existed or will ever exist."

Rand appears here to be identifying the concept ‘existence’ with the concept ‘identity’, and by way of the units, identifying both concepts with real existence and real identity. But as was pointed out long ago, existence is not obviously identical – the same as – identity. What we can say of existence is that it is non-specific, omnipresent, necessary, eternal. On the other hand, identity is regarded as specific, localised, contingent, temporal. Seen this way, the two concepts are anything but identical. Therefore, when Michael says, “that thing which you are perceiving right now is existence” he appears to be saying that real identity is identical to real existence, which is not at all obvious. And since the meaning of existence rests on the assumption that identity is existence, it is therefore not axiomatic.

Brendan