Peikoff - Reality - Existence As Possessing Primacy Over Consciousness Flashcards
(30 cards)
After a child has observed a number of causal sequences, and thereby come to view existence (implicitly) as an orderly, predictable realm, he has …?
Advanced enough to gain his first inkling of his own faculty of cognition.
==> This occurs when he discovers causal sequences involving his OWN SENSES.
***For example, he discovers that when he closes his eyes the (visual) world disappears, and that it reappears when he opens them.
This kind of experience is the child’s …?
First grasp of his own means of perception, and thus of the INNER world as against the OUTER, or the subject of cognition as against the object.
==> It is his IMPLICIT grasp of the LAST of the 3 basic axiomatic concepts, the concept of “consciousness”.
From the outset , consciousness presents itself …?
As SOMETHING SPECIFIC ==> As a faculty of perceiving an object, not of creating or changing it.
Eg A child may hate the food set in front of him and refuse even to look at it. But his INNER state does NOT erase his dinner. Leaving aside physical action, the food is impervious; it is unaffected by a process of consciousness as such. It is unaffected by anyone’s perception or nonperception, memory or fantasy, desire or fury-just as a book refuses to roll despite anyone’s tantrums, or a pillow to rattle, or a block to float.
The basic fact implicit in such observations is that …?
Consciousness, like every other kind of entity, ACTS IN A CERTAIN WAY AND ONLY IN THAT WAY.
**In adult, philosophic terms, we refer to this fact as the “PRIMACY OF EXISTENCE”, a principle that is fundamental to the metaphysics of Objectivism.
Existence, this principle declares, …?
Comes FIRST.
==> Things are what they are INDEPENDENT of consciousness-of anyone’s perceptions, images, ideas, feelings.
Consciousness, by contrast is …?
A DEPENDENT.
Its function is NOT to create or control existence, but to be a spectator: to look out, to perceive, to grasp that which is.
The opposite of this approach Ayn Rand calls the …?
PRIMACY OF CONSCIOUSNESS.
==> This is the principle in that consciousness is the PRIMARY METAPHYSICAL FACTOR.
***In this view, the function of consciousness is NOT perception, but creation of that which is.
==> Existence, accordingly, is a DEPENDENT; the world is regarded as in some way a DERIVATIVE of consciousness.
A simple example of the primacy-of-existence orientation would be …?
A man running for his life from an erupting volcano.
==> Such a man acknowledges a fact, the volcano-and the fact that it is what it is and does what it does INDEPENDENT of his feelings or any other state of his consciousness.
==> At least in this instance, he grasps the difference between MENTAL CONTENTS and EXTERNAL DATA, between PERCEIVER and PERCEIVED, between SUBJECT and OBJECT.
***Implicitly, if not explicitly, he knows that wishes are not horses and that ignoring an entity does NOT make it vanish.
Contrast this approach to the savage who …?
Remains frozen under the same circumstances, eyes fixed sightless on the ground, mind chanting frantic prayers or magic incantations in the hope of wishing away the river of molten lava hurtling toward him.
==> Such an individual has not reached the stage of making a firm distinction between consciousness and existence.
==> Like many of our civilized contemporaries who are his brothers-in-spirit (and like the ostrich), he deals with threats NOT by identification and consequent action, but by BLINDNESS.
==> The implicit premise underlying such behavior is: “If I don’t want it or look at it, it won’t be there; i.e., my consciousness controls existence”.
The primacy of existence is NOT an independent principle:
It is an elaboration, a further COROLLARY, of the basic axioms.
==> Existence PRECEDES consciousness, because consciousness is consciousness of an object.
==> Nor can consciousness create or suspend the laws governing its objects, because every entity is something and acts accordingly.
==> Consciousness, therefore, is only A FACULTY OF AWARENESS.
Its the power to grasp, to find out, to discover that which IS. It is not a power to alter or control the nature of its objects.
The primacy of consciousness represents a rejection of all the basic axioms. It is an attempt to …?
Have existence and eat it, too.
==> To have it, because without existence there can be no consciousness. To eat it, because the theory wants existence to be malleable to someone’s mental contents.
==> It wants existence to shrug off the RESTRICTIONS OF IDENTITY in order to obey someone’s desires.
==> It wants existence to exist as NOTHING in particular.
==> But existence IS identity.
The above is NOT to be taken as a PROOF of the primacy of existence, but …?
As an explication of a SELF-EVIDENCY implicit in the child’s first grasp of consciousness.
==> The ability to prove a theorem comes later.
==> First, one must establish the ideas that MAKE POSSIBLE such a process as proof, one of which is the primacy of existence.
==> Proof presupposes the principle that FACTS ARE NOT “MALLEABLE”.
**If they were, there would be no need to prove anything and no independent datum ON WHICH TO BASE any proof.
Since knowledge IS KNOWLEDGE OF REALITY, every metaphysical principle has …?
EPISTEMOLOGICAL implications.
==> Particularly obvious in the case of the primacy-of-existence principle, because it identifies the fundamental relationship between our COGNITIVE FACULTY + EXISTENCE.
If existence is independent of consciousness, then knowledge of existence can be gained only by …?
EXTROSPECTION.
==> Nothing is relevant to COGNITION OF THE WORLD except data drawn from the world, ie, sense data or conceptual integrations of such data.
Introspection, of course, is necessary and proper as a means of …?
Grasping the CONTENTS or PROCESSES of consciousness.
==> But it is NOT a means of EXTERNAL COGNITION.
There can be NO appeal to the knower’s feelings as …?
An avenue to truth.
==> There can be NO reliance on ANY MENTAL CONTENTS alleged to have a source or validity independent of sense perception.
==> Every step and process of cognition must proceed in accordance with FACTS.
And EVERY fact must be established, directly or indirectly, by OBSERVATION.
***To follow this policy is to follow REASON.
If a man accepts the primacy of consciousness, by contrast, he will be drawn to an opposite theory of knowledge.
If consciousness controls existence, it is NOT NECESSARY to confine oneself to studying the facts of existence.
==> INTROSPECTION becomes a means of EXTERNAL COGNITION.
==> At critical points, one should BYPASS the world in the very quest to know it.
==> and instead look inward, searching out elements in one’s mind that are DETACHED from perception, such as “intuitions”, “revelations”, “innate ideas”, “innate structures”.
==> In relying on such elements, the knower is not, he feels, cavalierly ignoring reality. He is merely going over the head of existence to its MASTER, whether human or divine.
==> He is seeking knowledge of fact DIRECTLY FROM THE SOURCE OF FACTS, from THE CONSCIOUSNESS THAT CREATES THEM.
***THIS kind of metaphysics implicitly underlies every form of UNREASON.
3 versions of the primacy of consciousness have been prevalent.
Distinguished by their answer to the question: upon WHOSE consciousness is existence dependent?
- Supernaturalistic.
- Social.
- Personal.
Dominating the philosophy from Plato to Hume was the …?
Supernaturalistic version.
==> Existence is a product of a cosmic consciousness, God.
==> This idea is implicit in Plato’s theory of Forms and became explicit with the Christian development from Plato.
==> According to Christianity (and Judaism), God is an infinite consciousness who created existence, sustains it, makes it lawful, then periodically subjects it to decrees that flout the regular order, thereby producing “miracles”.
Epistemologically, the supernaturalistic version can lead only to …?
Mysticism.
==> Knowledge is said to rest on communications from the Supreme Mind to the human, whether in the form of revelations sent to select individuals or of ideas implanted innately or otherwise, throughout the species.
The popular question “Who created the universe?”, which presupposes that the universe is NOT eternal, but has a source beyond itself, in some cosmic personality or will.
It is useless to object that this question involves an INFINITE REGRESS, even though it does:
If a creator is required to explain existence, then a 2nd creator is required to explain the first, and so on.
==> The believer will reply: “One can’t ask for an explanation of God. He is an inherently necessary being. After all, one must start somewhere.”
==> Such a person does not contest the need of an irreducible starting point, AS LONG AS IT IS A FORM OF CONSCIOUSNESS.
==> What he finds unsatisfactory is the idea of existence as the starting point.
==> Driven by the primacy of consciousness, a person of this mentality refuses to begin with the world, which we KNOW to exist; he insists on jumping beyond the world to the UNKNOWABLE, even though such procedure EXPLAINS NOTHING.
==> The root of this mentality is not rational argument, but the influence of Christianity. In many respects, the West has NOT recovered from the Middle Ages.
In the 18th century, Immanuel Kant secularized the religious viewpoint.
The human mind-specifically, the cognitive structures common to all men, their INNATE FORMS of perception AND CONCEPTION is what creates existence (= PHENOMENAL WORLD).
==> Thus, God’s will gives way to man’s consciousness, which becomes the metaphysical factor underlying and ordering existence.
==> Implicit in this theory is the SOCIAL version of the primacy of consciousness, which became explicit with the Hegelian development from Kant and which has dominated philosophy for the past 2 centuries.
According to the social version, …?
No individual is POTENT ENOUGH to create a universe or abrogate the law of identity, BUT A GROUP-mankind as a whole, a particular society, a nation, a state, a race, a sex, an economic class-CAN DO THE TRICK.
Epistemologically, this variants leads to …?
Collective surveys-a kind of group INTROSPECTION-as the means to truth.
==> Knowledge is said to rest on a CONSENSUS among thinkers.
==> A consensus that results not from each individual’s perception of external reality, but from subjective mental structures or contents that happen to be shared by the group’s members.
