The limits of rational self interest?

Ed to Ted: "Basically what you are saying is that most, if not all, people who are serial killers (or child molesters) -- were "born" that way. It's a nature OVER nurture argument. My problem with this argument is the same as Rand's would have been -- a problem with the idea that "humans" aren't (mostly, at least) self-made souls."

Absolutely, Ed. I think this is a failure to grasp that Objectivism holds that a man's behavior is motivated by the *values* that he has chosen either consciously or subconsciously. Although irrational values may indeed be difficult to uproot, they're always possible to change if a man makes the effort. It's this notion that makes us able to morally condemn a serial killer or child molestor. If they were merely "born" that way, then how could you rationally justify viewing their actions as immoral?

Post 41

Thursday, December 14, 2006 - 1:54pm

Jon,

Thanks for recognizing some wisdom in what I've said. Your further refinement about behavior always and only being value-originated, and about values either being rational or not, and about humans being that kind of creature possessing the will or agency to question those very things that they've been acting to gain or keep (their own values) -- helps me get clearer on my own position and how it relates to the intellectual opposition on this matter.

Ted,

I just believe that human nature cannot be reduced to "rationality."

Nor do I.

It will take some splainin, but "Man" is a concept, while Homo sapiens is a biological population which provides the referents for the concept Man.

Mr. Ricardo, how would you square that statement with the one from Rand wherein she postulated that the meaning of a concept JUST IS its referents (rather than being an Aristotelian essence)? In ITOE, Rand differentiated her view from moderate realism (Aristotle's essences). In short, I'm not sure that you are giving her enough epistemological credit.

As for nature versus nurture, nature provides, nurture develops and choice determines. Choice, in an adult, is the determining factor morally.

Well said.

Finally, I don't see how Darwinism can be either irrelevant to or a denial of Objectivism. It is simply a field which I believe has not been adequately addressed, and a field which absolutely must be addressed.

This reminds me of the debate about whether it's proper for philosophers to speak about perception -- when they lack the scientific tools and acumen to describe the underlying physics of perception. In On Ayn Rand (Perception and Concepts), Allan Gotthelf brings up this issue ...

It is the object's being of such a nature that it will be perceived by humans in this form and by the extraterrestrials in that form. This is a single property or attribute of the object, identified relationally--it's what we call its green color. Scientific (not philosophic) study allows us to identify the underlying causal basis of this property--what that nature is. The object's green color is not to be simply identified with that underlying causal basis, since the latter is inherent in the object, and the former is an inherent property qua interacting a certain way with conscious organisms. But both are real. And although the underlying causal basis has to be inferred, the green color of the object is something we are directly aware of, though in a certain form.

Apparently, for Gotthelf, one needn't possess the skills or acumen of a scientist in order to reach a conclusion about perception. In a similar manner, and for similar reasons, perhaps one needn't possess the skills or acumen of an accomplished geneticist -- in order to speak correctly about a nature of man.

;-)

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 12/14, 1:57pm)

Post 42

Thursday, December 14, 2006 - 10:44pm

Ted Keer writes,

Rand's idea of life was not a biological idea based on an understanding of evolution, development, ecology, phylogeny, genetic variation, or the nature of species not as types with essences, but as populations that are reproductively isolated from other populations. Her concept of life was that of a philosopher who understands enough to define and differentiate the living from the non-living, but not as an expert on the nature of animal species qua animal species. Rand herself, when questioned about evolution, said that it seemed plausible, but that she did not know enough about it to make a pronouncement.

The only problem with this is that if one is going to make life the basis for one's ethics and is going to thus implicitly rely upon a biological theory of human nature for one's ethical system, one is going to have to understand at least the fundamentals of evolution in order to make any meaningful and rigorous statements about what life is or what man's animal nature is.

Oh, come on, Ted. This is ridiculous. Are you telling me that before scientists were able to formulate the theory of evolution, no one could have recognized the value that living organisms place on their own lives, nor formulated a theory of ethics based on that recognition?!

This claim that life cannot be understood in any way beyond that of the pre-scientific is the central complaint of those (correct) scientists who claim that biology cannot be taught without reference to evolution. Indeed, nothing in biology can be integrated beyond a pre-scientific level without an evolutionary perspective.

Before evolutionary theory was developed, there was no biological science?? Biology is not synonymous with evolution, nor does it depend on a theory of evolution, which is simply one part of biological science.

And an evolutionary perspective requires that one understand that species are populations, which, if sufficiently isolated from their closest relatives, may be "defined" by specific traits, but that species themselves are not concepts. Specie in the biological sense is a concept, but a species itself is not a concept. . .

Oh yes it is. Don't confuse a species with its individual members. The individual members are not the species; the species is a concept or a classification that refers to a specific group of individuals based on the fact that they bear a greater similarity to each other than they do to some third object(s) from which they are being differentiated. The fact that you are referring to a particular species (e.g., 'dog' or 'cat') rather than to the concept �species� does not mean that that particular species is not itself a concept. Quoting Rand,

Just as a concept becomes a unit when integrated with others into a wider concept, so a genus becomes a single unit, a species, when integrated with others into a wider genus. For instance, "table" is a species of the genus "furniture," which is a species of the genus "household goods," which is a species of the genus "man-made objects." "Man" is a species of the genus "animal," which is a species of the genus "organism," which is a species of the genus "entity." (ITOE, p. 42)

Taxonomic groups have phylogenies - family trees. But they do not have essences per se.
Yes, they do, but the essences are epistemological, not metaphysical.
This statement may seem wrongheaded to Aristotelians.

I'm not sure what you're getting at here, Ted, because Rand's theory of concepts is not Aristotle's. Aristotle regards essences as metaphysical; Rand regards them as epistemological.

Let us note . . . the radical difference between Aristotle�s view of concepts and the Objectivist view, particularly in regard to the issue of essential characteristics.

It is Aristotle who first formulated the principles of correct definition. It is Aristotle who identified the fact that only concretes exist. But Aristotle held that definitions refer to metaphysical essences, which exist in concretes as a special element or formative power, and he held that the process of concept-formation depends on a kind of direct intuition by which man�s mind grasps these essences and forms concepts accordingly.

Aristotle regarded �essence� as metaphysical; Objectivism regards it as epistemological.

Objectivism holds that the essence of a concept is that fundamental characteristic(s) of its units on which the greatest number of other characteristics depend, and which distinguishes these units form all other existents within the field of man�s knowledge. Thus the essence of a concept is determined contextually and may be altered with the growth of man�s knowledge. The metaphysical reference of man�s concepts is not a special, separate metaphysical essence, but the total of the facts of reality he has observed, and this total determines which characteristics of a given group of existents he designates as essential. An essential characteristic is factual, in the sense that it does exist, does determine other characteristics and does distinguish a group of existents from all others; it is epistemological in the sense that the classification of �essential characteristic� is a device of man�s method of cognition � a means of classifying, condensing and integrating an ever-growing body of knowledge. (Rand, ITOE, p. 52)

For instance, the �essence� of the concept �bird� for a child will be different than for an adult, because the child�s knowledge is not as great as the adult�s. For a very young child, the essence of a �bird� might be �a thing that moves in the air.� This allows the child to distinguish birds from things on the ground. But once he or she discovers kites, the essence of a bird will change to �a thing that flies under its own power,� which allows the child to distinguish birds from kites. When he or she discovers airplanes, the essence of a bird will change again to �a living thing that has wings and can fly,� which allows the child to distinguish a bird from a plane as well as from a kite. When he or she discovers flies and moths, the essence changes once more to �a warm-blooded vertebrate that has wings and flies,� which allows the person to distinguish a bird from flying insects as well as from airplanes and kites. (Examples cited from Leonard Peikoff's course on Objectivist Epistemology)

But it is established biological science, an unquestioned consensus view since Ernst Mayr and other such as Julian Huxley elucidated what is called the Grand Synthesis of Darwinian evolution, Mendelian genetics and population ecology in the middle of the 20th century.

Thus, when Rand speaks of man's "essential" trait, she may be making a valid observation which holds in so far as Homo sapiens is a very well defined group far removed from its closest relatives, and it shares many innovative traits such as bipedality and relative hairlessness and a conceptual linguistic faculty that differentiate it radically from its closest relatives who are languageless quadrupeds covered in fur. But Homo sapiens is a species, not a concept.
See above.
Triangle is a concept. If you have more or less than three sides and three angles, you are not a triangle.

You appear to be viewing a concept as synonymous with its definition or essential characteristic, but a concept refers to all of the characteristics of its units, not just to their essential characteristic, which, as we have seen, depends on, and can vary with, the degree of one�s knowledge.

But if you can breed with or are the product of the breeding of other members of the population Homo sapiens, then whether you are an ancephalic pinhead or a dolicholcephalic genius, whether you are a trader, or a rapist, or a murderer, or a lunatic; whether you have no limbs, or six digits on each, you are a human. If you wish to differentiate between being a Man and being a human, one can do that as a philosophical position. But one cannot deny the humanity of Adolph Hitler, or Terri Schiavo, or Osama Bin Laden, or Ayn Rand on a biological basis.

Where has Rand denied that murderers are human beings on either an epistemological or a biological basis?

Just as Jesus anthropomorphized God, Rand made humanity not a biological species, but a philosophical concept.

Nonsense! She obviously recognized man as a biological species.

Not recognizing this fact opens up her theory to criticisms from scientists as being abiological and from hostile philosophers as being naively equivocal.

Absolute bunk!

I agree in essence with her arguments as they apply to adult human persons of the eusocial type - a concept which I have alluded to, and which I shall address later. My criticisms are meant not to tear down what Rand wishes to build, but to fix the flaws in its foundations.

Well, I don�t see that you�ve identified any flaws in her view. What you have done is expose your own ignorance of her theory of knowledge. Before you presume to "fix the flaws" in her foundation, you might consider fixing the flaws in your own understanding of her philosophy.

- Bill

Post 43

Saturday, December 16, 2006 - 3:55am

Wow! Start talking about 'serial killers' seguing from 'rational self interest', and we're arguing evolution, Rand's ignorance of it, rights referred to as being given and taken (but, not referred to as 'recognized' or 'ignored') and...ants.

I'm a bit surprised that the idea of The Bad Seed (a condemned concept by the R-C religion, fwtw) never came up, nor any of John Douglas' ('Profiler' originator) concepts about the basic--chosen--motivations (all having to do with 'wants'; none to do with 'self-interest') common to the many famous serial killers he interviewed.

LLAP
J:D

Post 44

Saturday, December 16, 2006 - 6:09am

The 'bad seed' BASICALLY stems from the idea of rebellion against God - the rest evolved from that, the notion that by rejecting authority, one's actions are as consequence negative and anti-podal to others's interests and well-being....[ the straw dog of 'the brute' as the alternative]

It is rejected or condemned by the R-C via the Aquinas/Aristotle revisionism, in contrast to the Augustinian view... indeed, these two provide your opposings - 'self-interest' vs 'wants' , whether R-C or not, since the influences extended across the Western World......

(Edited by robert malcom on 12/16, 6:11am)

(Edited by robert malcom on 12/16, 6:15am)

Post 45

Sunday, December 17, 2006 - 11:00am

Robert:

Thanx for the background on The Bad Seed. Even *I*, an R-C 12-yr grajewet, wasn't aware of that. Was an interesting (and 'condemned' in R-C) movie in the re-make with Audrey Hepburn.

LLAP
J:D

P.S: I don't buy the idea, of course. Ntl, I do believe that some kids 'start early' on the primrose path to the 9th circle (a la Toohey), and, the idea can seem, contrary to Father Flanagan's ideas, tempting to believe in.

(Edited by John Dailey on 12/17, 11:07am)

(Edited by John Dailey on 12/17, 11:09am)

Post 46

Tuesday, December 19, 2006 - 11:16pm

Addendum:

Sorry, re A-Hepburn: got mixed up with The Children's Hour ('61). Similar idea, but different theme. --- Meant with Patty McCormack in 1956.

Down the same line, there's The Good Son (Culkin/'93), though it's ambigous as to whether or not the young boy's merely psychotic...for some undetermined 'reason.' But, e-v-i-l he is. (You don't want to leave HIM 'Home Alone'!)

LLAP
J:D

Post 47

Thursday, January 4, 2007 - 9:40pm

Bill, Ed

I apolojize for not havinq answered your last post at lenqth. I am between livinq arranjments and my jee key is broken, so I am leavinq the thread marked unread and will answer st lenqth when I am able.

To reiterate, biolqically, a species is a population of orqanisms which can interbreed. Loqically, a concept is a mental inyteqration of entities defined by their essential charac teristic. Bioloqical species as bioloqical qroups and concepts as "natural kinds" do for the most part overlap. But they are not identical and the difference between a concept and a bioloqically species cannot be pooh-poohed. Bioloqical species as bioloqical entities do NOT have essences. Aqain, I refer anyone who wants to understand this to read Ernst Mayr's "development of bioloqical thouqht" since the arqument is technical and lenqthy.

Bill, no, there was no truly ~riqorous~ science of bioloqy until Darwin. Somewhat like Physics and Newton.

I do not arque that Rand's thouqhts on this matter are wronq headed, only that they are open to criticism on technical qrounds, and that human nature is a matter for bioloqists to explore, not to be deduced sylloqistically from a set of philosophical axioms.

Ted

Post 48

Saturday, January 6, 2007 - 12:30am

Ted wrote,

Bill, Ed

To reiterate, biolqically, a species is a population of orqanisms which can interbreed. Loqically, a concept is a mental inyteqration of entities defined by their essential charac teristic. Bioloqical species as bioloqical qroups and concepts as "natural kinds" do for the most part overlap. But they are not identical and the difference between a concept and a bioloqically species cannot be pooh-poohed. Bioloqical species as bioloqical entities do NOT have essences. Aqain, I refer anyone who wants to understand this to read Ernst Mayr's "development of bioloqical thouqht" since the arqument is technical and lenqthy.

Ted, it is obvious from everything you've written that you do not understand Rand's epistemology. Again, biological species, such as 'man', 'dog', 'insect' are concepts, which subsume biological entities -- entities that are grouped together on the basis of their similarities as against a background of difference. As such, these biological species do indeed have essences, but again, the essences are epistemological not metaphysical, and will, therefore, vary according to one's range of knowledge.

Bill, no, there was no truly ~riqorous~ science of bioloqy until Darwin. Somewhat like Physics and Newton.

Ted, it doesn't matter. A science of ethics based on man's biological needs is still possible. It doesn't require an understanding or acceptance of evolutionary theory.

I do not arque that Rand's thouqhts on this matter are wronq headed, only that they are open to criticism on technical qrounds . . .
Well if they're open to criticism on technical grounds, then they are indeed wrongheaded; they can't be right and at the same time deserving of criticism. I do not, however, think that they are wrongheaded, nor therefore that they are open to criticism, technical or otherwise.
. . . and that human nature is a matter for bioloqists to explore, not to be deduced sylloqistically from a set of philosophical axioms.

Again, you betray your ignorance of Objectivism. Before criticizing Rand's philosophy, you need to understand it. Rand does not deduce human nature syllogistically from a set of philosophical axioms. That's rationalism, which is a philosophical position to which Objectivism has been opposed from the very beginning. Rand's philosophy is quintessentially inductive, as it holds that all knowledge is based on and derived from sensory evidence. For further details, see Leonard Peikoff's course Objectivism Through Induction.

- Bill

Post 49

Saturday, January 6, 2007 - 10:32am

Ted,

Here are relevant excerpts from my new copy of Ayn Rand's Marginalia (thank you, Erica!) -- excerpts which allow the reader to see inside her mind (and to REALLY know what it is that she was talking about, when she was talking about the particulars of her philosophy -- as differentiated from something supposedly close to it) ...
=====================
John Herman Randall, Jr. (JHRJ) in Aristotle (New York: Columbia Press, 1960):

The syllogism will operate in a world exhibiting "kind," gene^, a world in which are to be found real species and genera, a world in which individual things are what they are because they are of a certain kind, because they belong to a certain species. (49)

Rand's (AR) notes on this:

This is the root of all misinterpretations of Aristotle! This is the total inversion (the primacy of consciousness): the universe consists of species and genera because logic demands it--not logic establishes these categories because such is the nature of the universe.

Recap:
If the universe consisted of species only merely because (syllogistic) logic demands it -- then that's rationalism; and Rand explicitly disagrees with that (as Bill had said above).
=====================
JHRJ (on Nicomachean Ethics VI 7):

It is clear that theoretical wisdom cannot be the same as political intelligence; for if we are to call knowledge of our interests wisdom, there will be a number of different kinds of wisdom, one for each species: there cannot be a single such wisdom dealing with the good of all living things, any more than there is one art of medicine for all existing things. (79-80)

AR:

Mixture of the abstract and the concrete; the basic principles of medicine are one for all living things (the preservation of the life of the organism)--and the same is true of ethics.

Recap:
Having different life forms on earth does not preclude the having of basic principles for the optimization of the mental and physical well-being of those different life forms. To make conjecture to the opposite -- is to ignore the (limited) shared features of all life forms, such as continuance and flourishing (as the kind of thing they are). It's to make a distinction, where there is no difference.
=====================
JHRJ (Ch 5: The Power of Selective Response: Sensing and Knowing):

[A]ny construing of the fact of "knowledge," whether Kantian, Hegelian, Deweyan, Positivistic, or any other, seems to be consistent and fruitful, and to avoid the impasses of barren self-contradiction, and insoluble and meaningless problems, only when it proceeds from the Aristotelian approach, and pushes Aristotle's own analysis farther, as in the light of our scientific knowledge they must be pushed farther today--only, that is, in the measure that it is conducted upon an Aristotelian basis.

AR:

In these two last paragraphs, Randall is truly superficial and "modern." What would be left of Kant, Hegel, Dewey and the Positivists if one removed their "non-Aristotelian elements"? The reference to philosophy being "pushed" by science is meaningless, "lip-service" nonsense. ...

Recap:
Philosophy is what it is that makes science possible and precise, not the other way around.
=====================

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 1/06, 10:34am)

Post 50

Saturday, January 6, 2007 - 12:14pm

And more ...

JHRJ (Ch 6: First Philosophy: The Ultimate Distinctions):

But the "essence" of a thing, ... since it is not common to anything else, and since in a sense it is identical with the thing itself, can be said to be the ousia of that thing. The ousia of an individual thing is peculiar to it and belongs to nothing else. ... The "essence" of each thing is that which it is said to be in itself (kath' hauto) and in accordance with its own nature (kata physin). Hence the essence is one and the same thing with the particular thing. ... (119)

AR:

Here is the source of the confusion about "universals" and "particulars."

Here is where my theory of "essences" as epistemological and contextual, is crucially important.

Recap:
Things are what they are, but we should think of them in certain ways -- ways making their natures intelligible to us. In do so, we utilize universals -- because that is the only way to humanly think (universals are our method of conceptualization of particulars; not something actually, extra-mentally instantiated out in reality).

Ed

Post 51

Saturday, January 6, 2007 - 12:19pm

Addendum:
I should add my own philosophical 'watershed' insight (not yet published elsewhere), that the only inherently-unchangeable "essence" of a thing -- is it's capacity for change (which, itself, doesn't ever change).

Ed

Post 52

Sunday, January 7, 2007 - 6:21pm

Gentlemen,

Again, I do not believe that either of you acknowledge that I do understand what a concept (as a mental entity) is, and that while the referents of a concept and the members of a biological species may co-incide, a biological species, which is a population of physical entities, is not identical with a concept or indistinguishable from a concept.

Again, while concepts do have essences, species as biological populations do not. If neither of you understands this point, I would refer you to Ernst Mayr's Growth of Bioloical Thought" which I have been mistakenly refering to as "Development" of Biological Thought.

Given that neither of you has objected to virtually the same arguments I have made here, when they have been made by others more circumspectly on the sociopath/devil-next-door thread and on the current DIM thread where Dean Michael Gores refers to man as a "fuzzy" concept, I see little point in thinking that your misunderstanding of my statements has anything to do with my lack of understanding of the issues.

I have also read Rand's Marginalia, but have it in storage, and don't find the comments particularly relevant.

Let me repeat one question that I would like answered explicitly, and then give some examples of why I think that using the concept "man" rather than a biological investigation of individual people as varying in nature is a mistake.

Do you understand that a species, as a biological entity, is not identical to a concept, as a mental entity? In other words, do you acknowledge that biological species do not have essences, but are rather populations which are isolated from other populations in so far as interbreeding is concerned?

I find that basing one's morality on the concept man, rather than upon a biological investigation of human variation is problematic because while yes, all rational animals should live as rational animals, not all humans can be happy living as typical humans. Consider the following:

Can a homosexual live as a heterosexual, even if both are rational animals? Can a congenitally deaf person fully flourish as an oralizing lip-reader? (See Sacks below.) Can a dwarf live happily trying to live the same life as a big person? Can an high-functioning autistic person live as a non-autistic person? Can a person with Tourettes' syndrome disown their Tourettism? Can an intersex or hermaphroditic person live as a typically gendered person? Do any of these atypical groups find the admonition to follow the Objectivist Ethics, without a profound focus on their own special natures, anything other than a most patronizing and condescending sort of unhelpful foolishness?

If these above groups, whose natures vary so much from that of the norm, can only live and find value in their own special ways which must be investigated, not deduced from their admitted "rationality", is it not possible that sociopaths and child-molesters (if such is a constitutional condition) will have natures that preclude them from finding happiness in the same way as the Deaf, the homosexual, or the Autistsic? Rather than jump all over me for "not understanding Objectivism" I suggest that you read the original post in this thread, and ask whether I have tried to answer it in good faith and with an understanding of the objections raised. In the overall context, I assume you may find my statements less personally upsetting.

If you cannot understand the distinctions I am making, cannot keep the context of my hundreds of posts to this site, and the context of the opening post of this thread, or are simply unfamiliar enough with any abnormal people to understand that mere reference to the normal is insufficient guide for some people to live happy lives, then please let me know so I can either further clarify myself, or we can agree to drop the issue. I have not found it necessary to impugn anyone's understanding of ITOE or needed to quote Rand at people ad nauseam to make my points. I keep referring to extra-Randian evidence, while at the same time being able to criticize and comprehend her, myself, and others in stride.

I would finally refer those interested to Oliver Sacks' works Seeing Voices (where he explains why the deaf were not even recognized as truly human until the 1770's, how they became fully functioning not when they were forced to mimic speech, but rather were allowed to develop "Sign" languages which differ radically from mere transliterations of spoken language - i.e., ASL is not in any way the same as "signed English") to his Anthropologist on Mars (where he shows that the "Touretter" cannot live as if he did not have Tourette's, that the profoundly color-blind cannot live as if he had color vision, and the functioning autistic cannot live as if they did not have autism). I also recommend Temple Grandin's Emergence and Animals in Translation and the works of Monty Roberts, the real "Horse Whisperer."

Ted Keer
(Edited by Ted Keer
on 1/07, 8:09pm)

Post 53

Sunday, January 7, 2007 - 7:25pm

In case I did not make it clear, there are congenitally deaf, high-functioning autistic, homosexual, intersexual, transsexual, dwarf, Tourette's Syndrome, and many other atypical people who do, if they learn and are allowed to live according to their special natures, live flourishing and happy lives. These rational animals do not live happy lives by trying to live typical lives, and indeed, cannot.

While the difference between the typical person and an atypical person may not be conceptually different in essence, the difference is more than merely accidental so far as life experience. Ask the typical homosexual or Dwarf or deaf-mute if he would choose to be born that way, and he will say no. Ask if he would flip a switch today to become typical if he could, and his answer will also be no. Having achieved a happy life in an atypical fashion, the atypical person would be unhappy to be anything other than himself.

I can't speak on behalf of the sociopath or the child-molester, or advise whether the condition of the second is constitutional or acquired. But in so far as one's nature is biologically given, if it is given, moralizing, however high-minded and broad one's premises, is neither an answer nor a cure

Ted Keer

Post 54

Sunday, January 7, 2007 - 7:45pm

Ted,

... while the referents of a concept and the members of a biological species may co-incide, a biological species, which is a population of physical entities, is not identical with a concept or indistinguishable from a concept.

Ted, how do you square THAT with THIS? ...

" ... a word has no meaning other than that of the concept it symbolizes, and the meaning of a concept consists of its units. It is not words, but concepts that man defines--by specifying their referents.

The purpose of a definition is to distinguish a concept from all other concepts, and thus to keep its units differentiated from all other existents."--ITOE, 52

Recap:
Effective conceptualization is "getting the reference right."

If you are arguing that "man" is "different" from the (rational) "conception" of man -- then THAT is Kantian and wrong. It's to say that there are things that exist as they "are"; and that there are also things that are "thought" to exist in a certain way -- and that ne'er the twain shall meet. And that the reason that things can't be conceived as they "are" -- is because "conceptions" inherently introduce error (by some ineffable means). It's the same as saying we're blind -- simply because we have eyes (eyes that see a "certain" way; and not "other" ways).

Ed

Post 55

Sunday, January 7, 2007 - 7:49pm

Ted,

Thanks for the references. I found "Seeing Voices" which is what I think you meant.

I'd forgotten how interesting Oliver Sacks was, I haven't read anything of his since "The man who mistook his wife for a hat". This is the first I've heard of Temple Grandin. I'll get her book first.

Best wishes,

Mike Erickson

Post 56

Sunday, January 7, 2007 - 8:08pm

Ted,

Again, while concepts do have essences, species as biological populations do not. If neither of you understands this point, I would refer you to Ernst Mayr's Growth of Bioloical Thought" ...

But species DO have essences. Perhaps you didn't "get" my watershed insight above. The "essence" of a species is its capacity for change -- something which, itself, doesn't ever change. Take water, for example, as a very-simplified "species" of possible existents. Water can boil or freeze or remain liquid -- but ONLY with given temperature and pressure ranges. It will not ever do otherwise. It cannot ever do otherwise. A thing cannot successfully act in contradiction to its nature. Not water, not a water-buffalo, not humans.

I realize that you are attempting to say that biology can somehow supercede philosophy (ie. that it can "inform" philosophy). I, myself (like you), have a biology degree. Yet, I do not think similarly. Philosophy is something that lets men find what's right when thinking or doing; and science is something that let's men find out exactly how thought thoughts or done things are done. Get the difference?

Ed

Post 57

Sunday, January 7, 2007 - 8:25pm

Ed,

No, no, no, no, no. Species as biological populations do NOT have essences. I'm just about ready to buy a copy of Mayr for you. The argument is technical and lengthy. It requires an understanding of Sewall & Wright's population equations. It is neither obvious nor easy for the layman. I doubt most undergrads would grasp the matter. In any case, will you at least acknowledge that a population of real living animals which are physical entities is not a concept, which is a mental entity?

The referents of a concept are not a concept, although they may be its meaning. If no humans (or conceptual minds) existed, biological populations could still exist...

Since biological populations can vary, as I explained about the gull species above, so that although they form a continuous chain, the ends of the chain cannot interbreed. They cannot be treated typologically, but must be treated populationally.

I do understand what a concept is. You are not understanding what a biological species is. A species is unique in biology. It is not a mere classification, as are higher level types such as Classes and Phyla. We cannot get around this impasse.

But one last attempt. A concept is not differentiated in time. A triangle today is a triangle ten million years ago. But a species can only be meaningfully described within a certain time-frame, since a species is defined as a population which can interbreed. We cannot actually try to interbreed willy-nilly with fossils. So while we can speak of fossils as belonging to typological species, (as a matter of convenience, but without recourse to proof through experiment, - whicxh are basically conceptual constructs, but are not ALIVE) we do not speak of living species in this manner. A living population either interbreeds and exchanges genes, or it does not. (Either the groups are sterile, or their hybrids are sterile like mules.)

In benevolent frustration,

Ted

(Edited by Ted Keer
on 1/07, 9:10pm)

Post 58

Sunday, January 7, 2007 - 9:05pm

The 1988 Uprising at Gallaudet

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Mike,

Thanks for the correction. I am living out of a suitcase, and the title did strike me as questionable. I think the subject of the book is deserving of further comment.

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Does anybody on this list remember the student uprising at Gallaudet University in 1988? The school is the only University for the Deaf in the world. It had never had a deaf president. A large minority of the faculty was deaf, but a majority of the faculty and almost all of the Board of Trustees and other administration was hearing, and most could not sign in either signed-English or in the true "Sign" (Sptial/Symbolic) language ASL, aka AmeSLan or American Sign Language.

At the time of the uprising, I thought that what was going on was nothing more than a leftist agitation over identity politics. As a young Objectivist, this seemed quite obvious. But it turns out not to be so simple. When the first "sign language" was designed in Enlightenment France, the deaf of Paris, who had their own rudimentary pidgin, were taught grammatical French inflected as French but in a symbolic visual code. This code turned out to be difficult for the Deaf to learn, especially with its arbitrary conventions matching sounds that were irrelevant to visual communication. Also, matters which were expressed sequentially in speech (which is like beads of meaning on a string) were hard for the visually and spatially oriented minds of the deaf to grasp. But Spatially oriented signs, which could be gestured in the three dimensions of the body, rather than only sequentially as in speech, were much easier to comprehend, and were much richer in meaning. Eventually, the deaf were "allowed" to drop the sequential conventions of French translated into signs, and were allowed to develop their own totally independent language (you have to see the pictures) which was not so much as hand symbols for what might be the written word, but was a totally new thing, like going from one-letter at a time communication to moving holographs.

Now it turned out that hearing people found learning this true spatial Sign language difficult, and they tended to wish to keep the deaf learning French or English simply transliterated into finger symbols. Oliver Sacks explains at length that for the congenitally deaf, this almost always means mental stultification. Those who never learn a spatial language are kept to a basically perceptual level of consciousness, and find abstraction and even the posing of questions to be almost impossible. But if they are left to themselves, the deaf will always revert to a spatial language (and indeed will make one up if they are not taught one) amongst themselves. The spatial speakers of Sign are fully functional conceptual beings. Sacks uses these very terms.

But in 1880, under the influence of PROGRESSIVE education theories, the use of Sign was decided against at an international conference FOR the deaf where deaf delegates were EXCLUDED from the vote. Even signed English was discouraged, and the deaf were taught to lip-read and to attempt speech. This was "for their own good."

As hearing people, we might not realize what a disaster this was. The deaf fought for decades against it. Wherever they came together in groups, Sign (specifically ASL, which is not relted in any way to English, but rather to French Siggn) as an entity totally separate from spoken languages was maintained in secret, even though it meant severe punishment if it was found out.

(Underground Railroad, anyone?)

Then in the 1960's, certain linguists discovered that Sign actually did have all the characteristics of natural language, while signed English was shown to be an impoverished substitute. Yet up until 1988 true Sign was still forbidden in the classroom, and signed English was the required medium of instruction. This is much worse than the requirement that the subject peoples of the Soviet Union be taught Russian, which at least as hearing children they might master. It was as if until 1988 we forced the deaf to speak English with plugs in their ears and marbles in their mouths and punished them if we heard them making subtle distinctions such as number and tense in secret amongst themselves.

Well, the revolt at Gallaudet was precipitated when the Chair of The Board said that the deaf weren't yet ready to function in the real world (Imagine separate and unequal) and yet again a non-deaf person was appointed as Dean, even though the runners up were both deaf and proficient Sign users. The revolt ended up after a week installing a Dean who, while not deaf from birth, used ASL, a true Sign form, rather than mere signed English. The revolt was won over the right of the students to learn in a language that fully allowed them to conceptualize for the first time as a matter of right, and not as a hidden secret.

The administration knew all the arguments. They knew all the official premises. They had the best interests of the deaf in mind. They could intellectualize what it was to be deaf. But they weren't deaf, and the concept of deafness couldn't get them to the reality of deafness.

The deaf are indeed rational animals. But that doesn't tell you half of what you need to know about them, and no mere premise or system outside of actual live experience will get you there. "Philosophy" kept the deaf dumb. Real life experience, finally forced upon the outside in a manner which I myself would have quashed as irrational and based on bad principles allowed the deaf finally to achieve their own voice.

Ted Keer

(Edited by Ted Keer
on 1/07, 9:49pm)

Post 59

Monday, January 8, 2007 - 4:35am