Inductive Quest

Short Induction of "Man's Life as the Standard of Moral Value"

noreply@blogger.com (Roderick Fitts) — Sat, 25 Aug 2012 20:16:00 +0000

I’ve shown what I think needs to be shown for the principle that “life is the standard of value.” That applies to all living things as such. But humans are special, and it’s their special nature that brings in the necessity of morality.

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Short Induction of "Life is the Standard of Value"

noreply@blogger.com (Roderick Fitts) — Sat, 18 Aug 2012 05:00:00 +0000

After reading chapter 1 of Peikoff's "Understanding Objectivism," I decided to give my own induction as to why and how life serves as the standard of value.

The principle that “life is the standard of value” is not a deductive conclusion in the philosophy of Objectivism: it is inductive. It is an induction that arises from an analysis of value, of life, and of a standard, and observations of living organisms. If someone doesn’t understand that, then they do not really understand what Rand meant when she wrote that “life is the standard of value.”

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Research Materials for Inducing Individual Rights (Founding Fathers)

noreply@blogger.com (Roderick Fitts) — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 04:19:00 +0000

I've decided to include a list of sites and books that helped me really understand and flesh out the theory of individual rights as the Founding Fathers understood it.

The Jeffersonian Cyclopedia. The quotes on the topic of "rights" were really helpful in quoting Jefferson in support of the points I made in this paper.
Freedom Key's section, "About Rights." It has a good collection of quotes about rights, especially a few gems in particular by Jefferson, John Adams, and William Blackstone.
The Founder's Constitution is the online version of a five-volume text on the historical context of the U.S.Constitution. It has primary materials from the Founding Fathers, including letters sent amongst themselves, records of debates or meetings, and contemporary law cases. I especially relied on the materials found in the sections, "Rights," "Republican Government,""Right of Revolution,""Popular Basis of Political Authority," "Equality," "Property," and "Epilogue: Securing the Republic."
"Objectivism: the Philosophy of Ayn Rand," by Leonard Peikoff. Despite having read Ayn Rand's books before reading this, I never considered the point that rights are inseparable and form a unity until I read Dr. Peikoff's discussion of them in chapter ten of the book, "Government." The book is also my original source for the Samuel Adams quote about the rights of man being branches of "the duty of self-preservation."
"John Adams," by Anne Husted Burleigh. A republication of the biography Mrs. Burleigh wrote 40 years earlier, it is a very well-written work on the life of John Adams, and really gives you a sense of astonishment at the political victories this man accomplished in his life. I'm still in the middle of finishing it, but I used the pages relevant to rights and the government to inform my essay.
"The Leadership Assumptions of the American Statesmen During the Federal Convention and Ratification Debates, 1787-1789," the dissertation of Dr. Darin Layton Gerdes. Chapter four features the assumptions and the conclusions of the Founders and others who participated in the Federal debates to ratify the U.S. Constitution. These assumptions and conclusions centered around their ideas of "the nature of man," "the nature of power," "the nature of government," "the nature of people," and "the nature of society." That chapter alone is great material for inducing many of the Founders' political principles from their personal context, such as inducing the corrupt nature of political power by examining cases where unchecked power led to needless violations of rights, destruction, and death.

Those were my sources for the essay. I expect to use even more for my next essay, on republican government.

I may delve into this topic more deeply when I get the chance, so if anyone knows any works that would be really relevant, please let me know in the comments.

Induction of the Principle of Individual Rights (Founding Fathers)

noreply@blogger.com (Roderick Fitts) — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 17:00:00 +0000

Induction of the Principle of Individual Rights (Founding Fathers)

The Founding Fathers studied history, philosophy, economics, political science, and law, among other subjects. They were all thinkers, and men of action. In their own ways, they discovered the elements of two literally revolutionary ideas that they intended to finalize and put into practice for the first time on Earth: the principles of individual rights combined with a republican government. With those two overarching principles in mind, they intended to change history, in a phenomenal way that has never been matched since. I will focus on the principles and facts underlying the idea of individual rights, from the perspectives of American legends George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, Thomas Paine, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison, as well as lesser known Founders James Wilson and William Gladstone.

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Induction of Aristotle’s Theory of Four Causes

noreply@blogger.com (Roderick Fitts) — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 05:24:00 +0000

The aim of this essay is to retrace the steps Aristotle had to reach in order to induce his revolutionary theory of causality, second only to his theory of logic in philosophical importance. In presenting these steps, we’ll also see several philosophical problems he solved in the process of reaching his theory of four causes.
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Reduction of Aristotle's Theory of Four Causes

noreply@blogger.com (Roderick Fitts) — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 18:54:00 +0000

Let’s start with the definition of “causality”: “the principle that agents bring something about; a person or thing that gives rise to an action, phenomenon, or condition.”

In Aristotle’s mature view, there were four ways for something to be a cause, to be an explanation of a fact: the material, formal, efficient, and final.

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Advances in Baconian Induction: John Herschel (Part 3 of 3)

noreply@blogger.com (Roderick Fitts) — Mon, 23 May 2011 16:04:00 +0000

(Previous posts:
Advances in Baconian Induction: John Herschel (Part 1 of 3)
Advances in Baconian Induction: John Herschel (Part 2 of 3))

John Herschel’s theory of induction is a kind of empiricist epistemology rooted in analogies, from which we can generalize to hypotheses, theories, and the laws which are the foundations for theories. This essay will present Herschel’s views on the higher-stage inductions he believes comprises true scientific theorizing.

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Induction of "Reason is Man's Only Means of Gaining Knowledge"

noreply@blogger.com (Roderick Fitts) — Wed, 11 May 2011 10:41:00 +0000

[Previous Post in this series: "Induction of 'The Arbitrary as Neither True Nor False'" ]

In this essay, we’ll cover the inductions needed to reach the Objectivist principle that “reason is man’s only means of gaining knowledge.”

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Induction of "The Arbitrary as Neither True Nor False"

noreply@blogger.com (Roderick Fitts) — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 11:10:00 +0000

[Previous post: "Induction and Reduction of 'Values as Objective'"]

The aim of this essay is to induce the Objectivist principle that arbitrary claims are neither true nor false, but are in a third class: non-cognitive. Ayn Rand said in regard to arbitrary assertions that, “it is as if nothing had been said, because nothing of cognitive value or validity has been said.”

The outline of this essay consists of three inductions and two clarifications:

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Induction and Reduction of “Values as Objective”

noreply@blogger.com (Roderick Fitts) — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 20:57:00 +0000

[Previous post: "Induction and Reduction of 'Sex is Metaphysical'"]

The point of this essay is to induce and reduce the principle that “values are objective,” and we’re going to use Ayn Rand’s own life to reach this, since it was her identifications that led to the objective theory of values in the first place.

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Induction and Reduction of “Sex is Metaphysical”

noreply@blogger.com (Roderick Fitts) — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 00:22:00 +0000

[Previous post: "Induction of 'the Initiation of Physical Force is Evil'"]

The goal of this essay is to very nearly reach the Objectivist principle that sex is metaphysical, which is the essential part of Ayn Rand’s theory of sex. Keep in mind that by “metaphysical,” I mean “that which pertains to reality, to the nature of things, to existence,” so I’m reaching the idea that sex has some important relationship with us and the reality around us.

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Induction of “the Initiation of Physical Force is Evil”

noreply@blogger.com (Roderick Fitts) — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 20:14:00 +0000

[Previous post: "Reduction of 'the Initiation of Physical Force is Evil'"]

Having gone through the reduction, it’s time to induce the Objectivist principle that “the initiation of physical force is evil.”

The induction will consist of three steps:

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Reduction of “the Initiation of Physical Force is Evil”

noreply@blogger.com (Roderick Fitts) — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 03:42:00 +0000

[Previous post in the series: "Induction of Objectivity (Ayn Rand)"]

The aim of this essay is to reduce the principle that “the initiation of physical force is evil.”

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Induction of Objectivity (Ayn Rand)

noreply@blogger.com (Roderick Fitts) — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 00:00:00 +0000

[Previous post in the series: "Reduction of Objectivity (Ayn Rand)"]

The reduction of Rand’s idea of “objectivity” complete, we can now work through how she induced her redefinition of objectivity as involving both facts about the world and facts about human consciousness.

The induction will take two series of steps:

The first, basic series:

1. Assuming Aristotle’s knowledge, discover that knowledge has an order.
2. Discover that knowledge involves integration.
3. Find out that measurement is the essential means of moving beyond percepts.
4. Discover that consciousness has identity.

The second series:

1. From Aristotle’s discoveries and the above four, reach Ayn Rand’s theory of concept-formation.
2. Integrate her theory of concepts with Aristotle’s view of objectivity, and note the amendments that this involves, which include a reformulation of what it means to “follow logic,” and what it means to “be objective.” Two elements of knowledge that Aristotle only implicitly recognized, that knowledge is formed in a context and it exists in a hierarchy, will be explicitly included in logic, as it was in Rand’s view. This is the way that we’ll know how to adhere to reality by following a certain method, because we’ll be explicating that very method further than it was explained before by Aristotle.

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Current Plans for My "Inductive Quest"

noreply@blogger.com (Roderick Fitts) — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 16:27:00 +0000

So here's a preview of what will be appearing on the blog in the next few months (and years)!

Induction of Objectivity (Ayn Rand) -- I'll present how Ayn Rand used her knowledge of concept-formation to reformulate Aristotle's theory of logic and conception of "objectivity."

Part 3 of John Herschel's theory of Baconian Induction -- I finish my series on the famous astronomer/philosopher of science, recounting his views on inductions of causal laws, the role of hypotheses, and analogical reasoning.

The rest of the lecture course, "Objectivism Through Induction" -- I only have three lectures left to cover, so I'm really excited about nearing the end, which leads to...

Inducing all of the principles of Objectivism -- one of my "Big Projects": I plan on working through all of the principles of Objectivism, and putting them together so that the result will be what the philosophy actually is--not words or books, but a system of inductive principles, axioms, theorems, and deductive conclusions. I'm guessing that this will take quite a few years, and "Objectivism Through Induction" is just the starting point.

William Whewell's "History of the Inductive Sciences" -- a three volume work describing how various sciences rose up from their beginnings, a work from which Whewell built his theory of induction. My second "Big Project," as I plan to work through and understand the inductions he will present in this work. I can't wait!

Whewell's "The Elements of Morality, Including Polity" and "Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences" -- These two present Whewell's inductive moral-political theory, as well as his theory of induction, "Discoverer's Induction."

John Stuart Mill's theory of induction -- presented in his work "A System of Logic," this is the theory that gave induction a bad name in science, and ended the view that the true scientific method was some form of induction. I don't think anyone should endorse this view, but it is important in the history of induction.

Induction of Mathematics -- at some point, I want to work on inducing the branches of mathematics, with a view toward understanding why we have the fields of mathematics that we do have. What problems were these fields created to solve? "Big Project" #3.

Induction of Economics -- "Big Project" #4 is working through four schools of economics: the Classical, Marxist, English Historical, and Austrian schools.

Karl Popper and the Logical Positivists -- their negative view of induction permeated 20th century philosophy of science, and thus post-modern science was further disconnected from the inductive past of modern science.

Reduction of Objectivity (Ayn Rand)

noreply@blogger.com (Roderick Fitts) — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 20:59:00 +0000

[Previous post in the series: "Induction of Objectivity (Aristotle)"]

Now that we’ve reduced and induced Aristotle’s idea of “objectivity,” we can start the reduction of Rand’s concept of “objectivity,” which is an important advancement over his idea.

Let’s start with Ayn Rand’s definition, though presented in Leonard Peikoff’s words: “volitional adherence to reality by following certain rules of method, a method based on facts and appropriate to man’s form of cognition.”

The “rules of method” is Aristotelian logic, but there are important epistemological discoveries within Rand’s version of objectivity that we need to focus on. Aristotle wouldn’t have focused on man’s form of cognition as something worth analyzing in order to understand how we reach knowledge.

Whereas, for Ayn Rand, it wasn’t enough that our method is based on facts; our consciousness offers something in the acquisition of knowledge, concepts are partly human, and as a consequence, objectivity has to take this element into account. So, to reduce the idea of “a method based on facts and based on human consciousness,” we need to understand Rand’s theory of concept-formation, specifically why it is that concepts require both reality and human consciousness.

There’s some kind of element involved in forming concepts, and recognizing this element will allow us to learn something that is inherent in all concepts, to then form Rand’s theory of concept-formation, and after that we can amend Aristotle’s view of objectivity.

The next step down is: how did Rand reach her theory of concept-formation? What observations did she need to reach it?

There four elements of consciousness that we need to know before reaching her theory of concept-formation:

1. We need to know beforehand that consciousness has a specific identity, the principle that identity is the means to knowing reality, not the impediment.
2. The identity of concepts includes the fact that it does something with measurements, and this is the means by which concepts can surpass and rise above percepts.
3. An understanding of cognitive integration is necessary before we notice that aspect of the identity of concepts; we need some general awareness that integration plays a crucial role in gaining knowledge.
4. Of course, before we can put things into a sum, integrate them, we must be able to take things apart, go through a certain sequence, a series of steps. This leads to our earliest understanding that knowledge inherently has a certain kind of sequence—concept-formation involves a process of forming one concept, and then forming another based on the earlier one, etc. To understand integration, we need to reach the idea that there’s an order to knowledge.

And this is where we’ve reached the end of the reduction, since below “an order to knowledge” are specific items of knowledge that we later relate as being in a certain sequence or pattern, and these are available to introspection.

[Next post in the series: "Induction of Objectivity (Ayn Rand)"]

Advances in Baconian Induction: John Herschel (Part 2 of 3)

noreply@blogger.com (Roderick Fitts) — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 00:04:00 +0000

(Previous post: Advances in Baconian Induction: John Herschel (Part 1 of 3) )

This essay will focus on the aspects of John Herschel’s Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy that discuss his ideas on causation and induction. Before presenting his rules of philosophizing, which amounts to his theory of how induction works, John Herschel discusses the characteristics of cause-and-effect.

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Induction of Objectivity (Aristotle)

noreply@blogger.com (Roderick Fitts) — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 15:20:00 +0000

[Previous post in the series: "Reduction of Objectivity (Aristotle)"]

Objectivity now being reduced, we can work through the steps Aristotle had to in order to induce his principle of objectivity. It’s essentially five steps:

Grasp the distinction of percepts and concepts.
Understand that concepts are capable of error, whereas percepts are not.
Learn that the functioning of concepts is under our control, whereas percepts are not.
Discover that we can somehow use percepts as a means to measure concepts.
We’ll then know that a method is necessary, and that it is possible because we know what it would consist of, by reducing the fallible part to the infallible part.

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Reduction of Objectivity (Aristotle)

noreply@blogger.com (Roderick Fitts) — Sun, 26 Dec 2010 21:11:00 +0000

[Previous post in the series: "Induction of Justice"]

The aim of this essay is to reduce the idea of objectivity so that we can inductively reach Aristotle’s understanding of the concept. It’s important because we need his understanding of the concept to really understand Ayn Rand’s discoveries. After inducing this, we can induce the full, Objectivist understanding of objectivity from Aristotle’s development.

The definition of objectivity Aristotle would have given: “volitional adherence to reality by the method of logic.”

Dictionary definition: “Not affected by personal feelings; based on facts.” Based on facts, and not based on feelings—this is the main thing people understand about objectivity.

It isn’t enough to set aside your feelings in a cognitive context without some other means of understanding facts, and “based on facts” can’t simply be about percepts, because all conceptual knowledge would be barred from the approach of objectivity. So the dictionary definition informs us that we need a method or rules of thinking that ties thinking to facts, instead of feelings.

The first step down from this idea of objectivity is: “The method of adhering to reality to gain knowledge,” and we learn what the method is later. How would we grasp the idea that we even need a method?

It isn’t as simple as: from observation and induction we know that man is capable of error, he’s fallible; from this, we can deduce that you can’t be certain of your conclusions and that therefore, we can deduce that we need a method of gaining knowledge to guide us: this is a rationalistic argument.

It is necessary to grasp that we’re capable of error if we hope to even reach the concept of objectivity, but “objectivity” and “error” are vastly far apart from each other, cognitively speaking. The understanding of the fact of error came very easily, going way back into prehistory: people would bring home the wrong animal to eat, bring the wrong things needed to start a fire, etc. The striking fact, which the rationalist would overlook, is the idea that people are fallible didn’t suggest to anyone before the Greeks that we were in need of a method for checking our thinking and conclusions. In effect, the rationalist is taking as common sense what was actually a monumental discovery by the Greeks, by specifically Aristotle. The pre-Greeks had a means to deal with errors, but it wasn’t objectivity, but intrinscicism: authority, their faith in authority. The Pharaoh knows, or God knows, or whatever. It’s an invalid leap to go from “people are capable of error” to “we need a method of checking our thinking.”

So, to grasp why we would need a method at all, we need to know something about the mind, specifically what its operations are, what is possible of the mind, where it goes wrong, and how. If we don’t know how it goes wrong, or where, or what it could be doing that is different from what it’s doing, then we have no means to improve the mind. The first thing we need to know is that there are some areas or operations of the mind in which it is safe, or infallible. We have to know that first, before we can start looking for a method, as that knowledge gives us a clue as to what we can do when we’re using a fallible process.

Once we know that some part of our mind is error-free, we can figure out later that we can guide our minds reliably by using the safe data to check our fallible data, which is the essential process of objectivity. Later, we determine that the way to check this is to reduce all conceptual products to sensory observation. This idea of infallible data is important, because without it, we could never devise a method of guiding ourselves to the truth, and we could not count on it as underlying our conclusions, including our conclusion as to how we can improve our mental processes. There are then important distinctions which exist within our individual consciousness, which we have to discover before we could construct a method for correcting our errors, or even preventing them.

How could someone discover that there’s a process that can go wrong as opposed to a process that is safe?

Well, we know that we have free will, that we have control over something in our consciousness, because it would be impossible to wonder about how to guide our thinking, or find ways to improve our conclusions, if the whole operation of the mind is out of our control.

The idea we’re getting to is that Aristotle had to make a crucial discovery: there’s a part of the mind that can go wrong, and that’s the part that we’re in control of, where our free will reigns, and that there’s a part of the mind that is safe, where we don’t need control. As a result, we can decide to check the part that can go wrong using the other, error-free part. That’s what we have to know before we can search for a method of guiding our thinking.

What obvious major discovery about consciousness had to be made before we can determine that one part is fallible while one isn’t, and that one part is controlled by our mind, while the other is not. What’s the basic distinction of consciousness that had to be discovered before we could discover other distinctions and thus grasp the need of a method? The distinction between percepts and concepts. Not those exact words: for instance, Plato and Aristotle called the distinction “the realm of sense” and “the realm of ideas.” Ideas or Forms or Universals or Essences: how we word it is irrelevant. The point is that without this distinction, we would have no footing in prescribing guidance.

So, we couldn’t reach the method of logic until we knew that the method was necessary and possible, and to know these we would need to know three things:

1. We need to know what kinds of error are possible. That means that we would have to discover what kind of mental content is fallible vs. infallible. This is necessary, because it gives us a clue as to what we’re trying to correct (the fallible part), and that we’re trying to accomplish this by somehow measuring the fallible part against the infallible part.
2. We have control over the fallible part—free will reigns over the fallible area. There’s no point in prescribing a method if we have no control over the relevant part of the mind.
3. What is the relationship between these two areas? How could we relate, measure or reduce the fallible to the infallible?

Once we know those three, we’ll know that a method is both necessary and possible. The final issue, between percepts and concepts, is directly observable, one by extrospection, the other by introspection.

[Next post in the series: "Induction of Objectivity (Aristotle)"]

Advances in Baconian Induction: John Herschel (Part 1 of 3)

noreply@blogger.com (Roderick Fitts) — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 03:38:00 +0000

Introduction

John Frederick William Herschel (1792-1871) was an important 19th Century scientist, arguably the most important. (I currently put William Whewell and Herschel on nearly the same footing, with Whewell having a slight edge.) He studied and made applications to the fields of astronomy, mathematics, chemistry, botany, and electricity. He was also one of the first modern "philosophers of science," and an advocate of the use of inductive reasoning in scientific investigations, particularly a version of Francis Bacon's method of induction, informed by the discoveries of science since the early 17th Century (Bacon died in 1626). To promote and encourage the activities of the "men of science," Herschel published the work A Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy (1830), a treatise on the scientific method, detailing the elements of science, scientific subjects that had been and were being studied, and the procedures that a good man of science should utilize. (This book would be influential for many later scientists, notably Charles Darwin.) Most importantly, Herschel proposed in this work an enhancement of Francis Bacon's philosophy of induction, discussing both the nature of inductive reasoning and the value that should be placed upon it in science. Indeed, the very progression of science from the state of pre-science speculations and collections of facts is a progression of inductions, Herschel would remind us.

This three part essay will detail the elements and rules of Herschel's view of induction, starting with his empiricist view of experience being the source of all knowledge, working our way through his rules for inductive reasoning and ways for verifying inductions made, and the role of analogy, hypothesis, and the complimentary relation of induction and deduction in science. As a result, it isn't a complete discussion of all the important points about science made by Herschel in his Preliminary Discourse, such as the role of precise measurement in describing laws of nature, and I would suggest that the reader takes some time to read the book itself.

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Induction of Justice

noreply@blogger.com (Roderick Fitts) — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 15:22:00 +0000

[Previous post in the series: "Reduction of Justice"]

After breaking down the idea of “justice” and understanding what is required to reach the idea of it, it’s time to induce the idea that justice is important.

The induction will take four steps:

(1) Things have consequences: because they have consequences, things can be good or bad for us, and that’s why it’s important to judge them.

(2) People have consequences too, and we’ll have to judge them.

(3) Once we judge them, a certain kind of action is crucial, which brings in rewards and punishments.

(4) Something about man or the situation brings about the idea of deserved behavior.

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Reduction of Justice

noreply@blogger.com (Roderick Fitts) — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 04:16:00 +0000

[Previous post in the series: "Induction of Egoism"]

The goal is to use the method of reduction to learn what things we need to know in order to induce the idea that “justice is important, it is something that we should have.” We’re not inducing the virtue of justice, as that presupposes that we already know a large amount of proper actions, and that we already have a criterion of “virtue” to compare justice with.

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Bacon's Theory of Induction as Presented in the Novum Organum Part 1 of 2

noreply@blogger.com (Roderick Fitts) — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 02:21:00 +0000

Objectivists tend to be very favorable to the views of philosopher Francis Bacon (1561-1626), particularly his often used quotes that "knowledge is power," and "nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed." My purpose here is to give us all yet another reason why we should appreciate and study Bacon: his theory of induction. Bacon's ultimate aim in life was to show us all the relation between knowledge and human power, between reason and human survival, and between scientific thought and the wealth of nations. The most important part of this project was his articulation of a new theory of inductive thinking—of forming generalizations from the particulars of experience—which he propounded in his 1620 work the Novum Organum, or "New Instrument." After we examine the contents of this monumental book, the reader may come to see why he's been widely regarded as a father of modern science.

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Bacon's Theory of Induction as Presented in the Novum Organum, Part 2 of 2

noreply@blogger.com (Roderick Fitts) — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 02:09:00 +0000

Book II

Human Power and Human Knowledge

On a given body to generate and superinduce a new nature or new natures, is the work and aim of Human Power. Of a given nature to discover the form, or true specific difference, or nature-engendering nature, or source of emanation (for these are the terms which come nearest to a description of the thing), is the work and aim of Human Knowledge. (Bacon, Novum Organum, Book II, Aphorism 1)

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McCaskey, Private Concerns, and Induction in the History of Science

noreply@blogger.com (Roderick Fitts) — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 20:45:00 +0000

There's been quite a bit of discussion revolving around the issues brought on by Dr. John McCaskey's recent resignation from both the Ayn Rand Institute's (ARI) Board of Directors, and the Anthem Foundation for Objectivist Scholarship.

My goal in this essay is to present my own views on the whole matter, particularly what I think was the import of Dr. McCaskey's critical comments of Mr. Harriman's book The Logical Leap, and to weigh in on the issues revolving induction that this series of events has sparked.

Thoughts on McCaskey's Resignation and Private Matters

I found out from a friend that John McCaskey, Ph.D., resigned from the ARI Board of Directors and the Anthem Foundation for Objectivist Scholarship on September 3rd. According to his resignation message on his website, he made the decision after Dr. Peikoff sent a letter to the Board which contained his evaluations of Dr. McCaskey’s view of Mr. Harriman’s book, The Logical Leap: Induction in Physics, his own view of Dr. McCaskey, and his ultimatum to the ARI.

Dr. Peikoff's letter, Dr. McCaskey's resignation message, and his Amazon review, are required reading for understanding this post. They can be found here:

Resignation
Amazon Review

As I understand the history from reading his resignation message, Dr. McCaskey exchanged emails with David Harriman on issues regarding his book in progress, The Logical Leap (now published), including what he thought was a consistent problem with it. These emails were always privately discussed, and according to Dr. McCaskey, he never spoke about them to Dr. Peikoff. There was also a 2-1/2 day meeting in July between academics and professors (including Dr. McCaskey, but not the author, Mr. Harriman), where the members discussed issues surrounding the book's content; this was carried out with the understanding that they wouldn't discuss each other's views outside of the group until the speakers had time to "reflect upon, refine, write up and publish [the views]," as the resignation message states it. Between the July meeting and August 30th, someone violated the agreement, seemingly around the same time that Dr. Peikoff learned of Dr. McCaskey's emails to Harriman.

Dr. Peikoff believes that Dr. McCaskey is attacking Harriman's book, and in some way Dr. Peikoff's introduction to the book which praises it as an expression of Objectivist epistemology, and his lecture course "Induction in Physics and Philosophy." But I disagree: Dr. McCaskey says on his site that: "The historical accounts as presented [in The Logical Leap] are often inaccurate, and more accurate accounts would be difficult to reconcile with the philosophical point the author is claiming to make." Whether Harriman's historical narrative in his book is wrong or Dr. McCaskey's proposed revisions are mistaken wasn't really the point: the point of the emails and of the July meeting was to investigate ways that the book and theory could be improved. So if he thought Harriman erroneously used a scientific-historical narrative to reach a certain philosophical point, he was being helpful in pointing how the history of science might have actually occurred (backed up with scholarly publications), and then modified the philosophical point being made accordingly.

Whatever objections Dr. McCaskey made were tentative, made in an effort to help the author (whom wasn't present at the meeting) by offering criticisms of areas where the theory could be improved--they certainly were not firm, definitive judgments of Harriman's book. It was constructive criticism that may not even fully represent Dr. McCaskey's views, not an "attack." It would have been an attack to say: "Your theory is false, your historical record is bunk, etc." He clearly wasn't saying that. His criticism is an instructive point about being rigorous in one's research, and a suggestion that being objective here could mean reworking the theory, as it may conflict with the facts.

I haven't yet encountered any damning evidence which would justify the harsh treatment given to Dr. McCaskey. From his Amazon review, it appears to me that he was being helpful in general: Harriman's historical record is an important part of the book, as it integrates his theory with what scientists actually did. If that record is flawed (and Dr. McCaskey hasn't definitively said "yes" or "no" on this point), then it will hurt the theory: it will be too narrow to account for different historical records and different developments in the history of science, and will only be a partial theory or hypothesis as a result, if not outright contradicted. He offered the criticism so that Harriman would consider modifying his record (and/or his theory) to better account for what might have been the facts.

Most importantly, we should keep in mind that Dr. Peikoff made his judgment based on partial, out-of-context information about Dr. McCaskey's views. Dr. Peikoff seems to indicate that he hasn't read all of Dr. McCaskey's emails, and he must have heard about the July meeting from second-hand accounts. (Contrary to his description of the meeting as a "forum" in his letter to the Board, the meeting was not public, but private and confidential.) Because of the tentative nature of scholarly debate and discussion, and perhaps especially in email discussions which are often extemporaneously typed up, the views of the participants may change later, or they might offer an objection as a devil's advocate, etc., in other words, there could be a lot of factors involved; I'll note that my reading of Dr. McCaskey's resignation message gives me the impression that the ideas thrown about at the meeting were extemporaneous as well, and sometimes even "partly-baked," as Dr. McCaskey describes it. Given all this, it's my belief that Dr. Peikoff should have at least discussed these issues first-hand with Dr. McCaskey before taking any action, especially the drastic one he took.

(As an aside, but something that needs to be noted: this issue technically isn't about Objectivism. Objectivism does not have a theory of induction; rather, Objectivists who specialize in epistemology figure out ways to apply the philosophy to the area of induction. From the content of the Dr. Peikoff's letter, he seems to be reacting to his judgment that Dr. McCaskey thinks that either the way Harriman and himself applied the philosophy (i.e. his theory) is wrong, or that Objectivism is wrong due to its inadequacies in this area. Either reason appears good enough for Dr. Peikoff to deem a person unqualified for a position on the Ayn Rand Institute's Board. It should grab one's attention that this applies to not only public assertions of such judgments, which I could understand for obvious reasons like public image, but also for private judgments, such as those of Dr. McCaskey's. The implication of this is that any leadership role at the ARI would demand not just a commitment to advancing Objectivism in the culture (and beyond), but to Dr. Peikoff's theories as well.)

Issues Concerning Induction, the History of Science, and The Logical Leap

At the heart of this controversy are the issues raised by Dr. McCaskey in his emails and at the July meeting, a sample of which was presented to the public in his Amazon review. In his words, "[t]he historical accounts as presented [in The Logical Leap] are often inaccurate, and more accurate accounts would be difficult to reconcile with the philosophical point the author is claiming to make." The Amazon review makes it clear that he isn't 100% sure in every case whose interpretation of history's scientists are right, whether Harriman's or the scholars' who have produced works about those scientists. One case where Dr. McCaskey is correct seems clear-cut to me, however: how Galileo determined that all free bodies fall to the Earth at the same rate regardless of their material composition or weight.

On pages 43-44 of The Logical Leap, Harriman presents Galileo's discovery as the result of experiments with dropping balls of the same material but different weight (the first experiment), and balls of the same weight but different material (the second), and thus induced that the rate at which a body falls is independent of its weight or material. He goes on to say, "Imagine that he attempted to drop the lead or oak balls through water instead of air . . . . The result would not have led to any important discovery." (p. 43) Dr. McCaskey points out that Galileo considers the difference between dropping balls through air and through water as the heart of his discovery, rather than water being an uninteresting case. A read through the relevant passages of Galileo's Dialogues Concerning the Two New Sciences (Day One, 8: 110-116) shows that Dr. McCaskey is correct:

Salviati [the character representing Galileo]: [...]But tell me now whether the density [corpulenza] of the water, or whatever it may be that retards the motion [of bodies falling], bears a definite ratio to the density of air which is less retardative; and if so fix a value for it at your pleasure. (Galileo Galilei, Dialogues Concerning the Two New Sciences. Translated by Henry Crew and Alfonso de Salvio. The Macmillan Company, 1914. Day One, 8: 110-111. p. 66. First two brackets, and the fourth, are mine.)

I shall now take one of those bodies which fall in air but not in water, say a wooden ball, and I shall ask you to assign to it any speed you please for its descent through air. (ibid., 8: 111)

Indeed there appears to be a considerable antagonism between air and water as I have observed in the following experiment. (ibid., 8: 115)

Those passages show Galileo's fictional characters working through issues relating to the resistance of media in relation to falling objects, buoyancy, and how the speed of objects falling is affected by such phenomena, whether the effect is their being slowed down, quickened, or halted. Air and water are the crucial data Galileo discusses, and they are repeatedly brought up in the progression towards his probable conclusion about all falling bodies. It's examples like this that support Dr. McCaskey's point that, "[r]eaders of [The Logical Leap] should be aware that the historical accounts presented here often differ from those given by academic researchers working on the history of science and often by the scientists themselves."

From the Amazon review, the philosophical point that Dr. McCaskey may disagree with Harriman on is how concepts develop into inductive propositional generalizations. I'll quote Dr. McCaskey himself for the comparison of the two views:

Generally, scholars who try to recreate the development of scientific concepts in the minds of great scientists are struck by how successful these scientists are in making propositional generalizations while still forming--and often themselves never fully forming--the concepts that constitute the generalizations. The narrative these scholars present (using Harriman's metaphor, not theirs) is not that a fully formed concept comes into the mind of the scientist who then uses it as a green light to an inductive propositional generalization, but that a partly formed concept serves as a flickering greenish light to a partial generalization, which acts as a less flickering, somewhat greener light to a better concept, which in turn improves the generalization, which then improves the concept, and so on, until well-defined concepts and associated propositional generalizations emerge fully formed together (at which point, the subjectivist says, 'See, it's all just a matter of definitions.') Most scholars find the process of scientific progress less linear than Harriman indicates and much more iterative and spiral.

So, the difference is that Harriman presents in the book a linear approach to inductive generalization-formation—using a conceptual framework and reasoning (and experiment when applicable), one forms a concept, which acts as a "green light" to form the inductive generalization—whereas Dr. McCaskey highlights the fact that scholars in the history of science would say that the process by which scientists learn concepts is more of a iterative process. This view of new knowledge as iterative brought up in my mind a number of technical issues regarding how our reasoning impacts our concepts, and vice versa, such as whether or not this is related to the Objectivist idea of "reduction." It was because of my research that I learned about the Objectivist idea of a "spiral theory of knowledge."

The spiral theory of knowledge is a technical aspect of Ayn Rand's philosophy, Objectivism. In the Objectivist view, all of one's knowledge should be tied together into an integrated sum, with the higher, more abstract knowledge resting on the lower-level knowledge, and with one's perceptual knowledge as the base. The spiral theory is the idea that gaining new knowledge is a process of rising from the perceptual level to higher abstractions to form concepts, and them moving back down to the perceptual level to validate, apply, and refine those concepts.

(For anyone still not sure what this "spiral theory" is all about, see this lengthy, but very informative post on examples of the spiral theory from Montessori teacher Dr. Deborah Knapp.)

Ayn Rand used this "spiral" method to clarify a number of concepts in her philosophy: her simple definition of "concept" which she later develops and defines as resulting from a process of abstraction she named "measurement-omission"; her non-sophisticated concept of "egoism" which lead to her technical theory of "rational egoism/selfishness"; her general definition of "government" which produced the only justified sort of government, one which respected individual rights; and her concept of value (as being the object of one's actions) resulting in Rand's technical conclusion regarding the nature of life and the objectivity of value.

In Dr. Peikoff's lecture course "Objectivism Through Induction," he frequently makes the claim that understanding Objectivism requires reaching non-philosophical concepts and inductions about a variety of issues in life before one can truly induce the principles of Objectivism themselves. This means that one reaches a non-philosophical account of "egoism," for instance, and after gaining more knowledge, one can then spiral back to this non-philosophical knowledge, integrate it with more of your knowledge, and thus reach the Objectivist understanding of egoism inductively. When all of your knowledge is integrated, new knowledge has implications for your old knowledge, and it redounds on it and strengthens it, leading to a new integration.

Even David Harriman implicitly refers to this "spiral theory":

I began this section by emphasizing that philosophy is the foundation of the specialized sciences, and yet now I have emphasized that some crucial philosophic knowledge is induced from the history of those sciences. Both points are true and consistent with one another. One must have the essentials of a this-worldly, rational approach in order to discover specialized knowledge; then, once a significant amount of such knowledge has been discovered, one can reflect on the process and come to a more explicit understanding of method. (p. 239)

As the "spiral theory" has so many applications in learning about Objectivism, why wasn't this idea discussed in The Logical Leap? My point in bringing all this up is because these are technical, scholarly questions about induction that should have been raised and answered, not brushed aside.

There are other issues as well:

How does induction relate to the spiral theory of knowledge, and how does the spiral theory relate to the case of concepts formed by a method of induction?

What is the relationship between induction, mistaken concepts, and the principle in The Logical Leap that "induction is self-corrective"?

What is the difference between forming a predicate concept (burns, rolls, is red, is hot) and forming a universal proposition? Is a theory of propositions needed to validate a theory of induction?

Does Aristotle's distinction of a nominal ("in name only") definition and that of a causal definition have any bearing on this issue? What is its relation to how Rand would define, analyze, and then causally redefine a concept?

There are other questions to ask, but I merely wanted to indicate how I would approach Dr. McCaskey's criticisms and how I am approaching Harriman's book: with critical thinking about the claims made by all sides, and my own understanding of the issues I think we would need to solve in order to reach a fully valid theory of inductive reasoning. Tackling these issues is the means to working out such a theory, and in my view, Dr. McCaskey was helping Mr. Harriman to make the book a stronger product than it was. It is a real shame that such an attempt at providing help seems to have been construed as an attack and a denunciation in Dr. Peikoff's view.