Peikoff - Reality - Existence, Consciousness, and Identity as the Basic Axioms

Question 1

Philosophy is not a bauble of the intellect, but a …?

Answer 1

Power from which no man can abstain.

Question 2

The reason is that man, by his nature as a CONCEPTUAL BEING, cannot function at all without …?

Answer 2

Some form of philosophy to serve as his guide.

Question 3

Ayn Rand says about the need for philosophy:

Answer 3

You would not be able to deal with concrete, particular, real-life problems.

You would be in the position of a newborn infant, to whom every object is a unique, unprecedented phenomenon.

The difference between his mental state and yours lies in the number of conceptual integrations your mind has performed.

You have no choice about the necessity to integrate your observations, your experience, your knowledge into abstract ideas, ie into principles.

Question 4

Your ONLY CHOICE is whether …?

Answer 4

Your principles are true or false, rational or irrational, consistent or contradictory.

==> THE ONLY WAY TO KNOW WHICH THERY ARE IS TO INTEGRATE YOUR PRINCIPLES.

Question 5

What integrates them?

Answer 5

Philosophy.

A philosophic system is an integrated view of existence.

Question 6

As a human being, you have no choice about the fact that you need a philosophy. Your only choice is whether …?

Answer 6

You define your philosophy by a conscious, rational, disciplined process of thought and scrupulously logical deliberation, OR …

Let your subconscious accumulate a junk heap of unwarranted conclusions, false generalizations, undefined contradictions, undigested slogans, unidentified wishes, doubts and fears, thrown together by chance, but integrated by your subconscious into a kind of mongrel philosophy and fused into a single, solid weight:

SELF-DOUBT.

Like a ball and chain in the place where your mind’s wings should have grown.

Question 7

Philosophy is the fundamental force shaping every man and culture. It is the science that guides …?

Answer 7

Men’s conceptual faculty, and thus every field of endeavor that counts on this faculty.

Question 8

The deepest issues of philosophy are the deepest root of men’s …?

Answer 8

Thought, their action, their history-and, therefore, of their triumphs, their disasters, their future.

Question 9

Philosophy is a human need as real as …?

Answer 9

The need of food.

It is a need of the mind, without which man cannot obtain his food or anything else his life requires.

Question 10

To satisfy this need, one must recognize that philosophy is …?

Answer 10

A system of ideas.

By its nature as an integrating science, it cannot be a grab bag of isolated issues.

ALL PHILOSOPHIC QUESTIONS ARE INTERRELATED.

One may not, therefore, raise any such questions at random, without the requisite context.

If one tries the random approach, then questions (which one has no means of answering) simply proliferate in all directions.

Question 11

Suppose, for example, that you read an article by Ayn Rand and glean from it only one general idea, with which, you decide, you agree: man should be selfish.

Answer 11

How, you must soon ask, is this generality to be applied to concrete situations? What IS selfishness? Does it mean doing whatever you feel like doing? What if your feelings are irrational? But who is to say what’s rational or irrational? And who is Ayn Rand to say what a man should do, anyway? Maybe what’s true for her isn’t true for you, or what’s true in theory isn’t true in practice. What IS truth? Can it vary from one person or realm to another? And, come to think of it, aren’t we all bound together? Can anyone ever really achieve private goals in this world? If not, there’s no point in being selfish. What kind of world IS it? And if people followed Ayn Rand, wouldn’t that lead to monopolies or cutthroat competition, as the socialists say? And how does anyone know the answers to all these (and many similar) questions? What METHOD of knowledge should a man use? And how does one know THAT?

Question 12

For a philosophic idea to function properly as a guide, one must know …?

Answer 12

The full system to which it belongs.

==> An idea plucked from the middle is of no value, cannot be validated, and will not work.

==> One must know the idea’s relationship to all the other ideas that give it context, definition, application, proof.

==> One must know all this not as a theoretical end in itself, but for practical purposes.

==> One must know it to be able to rely on an idea, to make rational use of it, and, ultimately, to live.

Question 13

Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies …?

Answer 13

The nature of the universe as a whole.

Question 14

Epistemology is the branch that studies …?

Answer 14

The nature and means of human knowledge.

Question 15

Metaphysics and epistemology make possible a …?

Answer 15

View of the nature of man.

Question 16

Flowing from the above are the 3 evaluative branches of philosophy:

Answer 16

1. Ethics.
2. Politics.
3. Esthetics.

Question 17

Every philosophy builds on its starting points. Where, then, does one start? What ideas qualify as primaries?

Answer 17

By the time men begin to philosophize, they are adults who have acquired a complex set of concepts.

==> The first task of the philosopher is to separate the fundamentals from the rest.

==> He must determine which concepts are at the base of human knowledge and which are farther up the structure.

==> Which are the irreducible principles of cognition and which are derivatives.

Question 18

Objectivism begins by naming and validating its primaries.

Answer 18

Ayn Rand does not select questions at random; she does not plunge in by caprice.

She begins deliberately at the beginning. At what she can prove is the beginning, and the root of all the rest.

Question 19

Existence, consciousness, and identity as the basic axioms - We begin as philosophers where we began as babies, at the only place there is to begin:

Answer 19

By looking at the world.

As philosophers, however, we know enough to state, as we look at anything: it IS.

This (I am pointing to a table) is. That (pointing to a person seated at it) is. These things (sweeping an arm to indicate the contents of the whole room) are.

==> SOMETHING EXISTS.

Question 20

We start with the irreducible fact and concept of …?

Answer 20

Existence - that which is.

Question 21

The first thing to say about that which is is …?

Answer 21

Simply: IT IS.

Question 22

As Parmenides in ancient Greece formulated the principle: what is, is. Or in Ayn Rand’s words:

Answer 22

EXISTENCE EXISTS.

(“Existence” here is a collective noun, denoting the sum of existents).

==> This axiom does not tell us anything about the nature of existents; it merely underscores the fact that they exist.

Question 23

This axiom must be the foundation of everything else:

Answer 23

Before one can consider any other issue, before one can ask what things there are or what problems men face in learning about them, before one can discuss what one knows and how one knows it- first, THERE MUST BE SOMETHING, and one must grasp that there is.

If not, there is nothing to consider or to know.

Question 24

The concept of “Existence” is the …?

Answer 24

Widest of all concepts.

It subsumes everything-every entity, action, attribute, relationship (including every state of consciousness)-everything which is, was, or will be.

==> The concept does not specify that a physical world exists. As the first concept at the base of knowledge, it covers only what is known, implicitly if not explicitly, by the gamut of the human race, from the newborn baby or the lowest savage on through the greatest scientist and the most erudite sage.

==> All of these know equally the fundamental fact that THERE IS SOMETHING, something as against nothing.

Question 25

You, the reader, have now grasped the 1st axiom of philosophy. This act implies a 2nd axiom:

Answer 25

That you exist possessing CONSCIOUSNESS, consciousness being the faculty of perceiving that which exists.

Question 26

Consciousness is not inherent in the fact of existence as such:

Answer 26

A world without conscious organisms is possible. But consciousness IS INHERENT IN YOUR GRASP OF EXISTENCE. ==> Inherent in saying "THERE IS SOMETHING-of which I am aware" is: "There is something-of which I AM AWARE."

Question 27

The fact of consciousness is also a fundamental starting point. Even if ...?

Answer 27

Biologists or physicists were someday to give us a scientific analysis of the conditions of consciousness (in term of physical structures or energy quanta or something now unknown), this would not alter the fact that consciousness is an axiom.

Question 28

Before one can raise any questions pertaining to knowledge, whether of content or of method (including the question of the conditions of consciousness), one must first ...?

Answer 28

BE conscious of something and recognize that one is. All questions presuppose that one has a faculty of knowledge, ie, the attribute of consciousness. ==> One ignorant of this attribute must perforce be ignorant of the whole field of congition (and of philosophy).

Question 29

Consciousness, to repeat, is the ...?

Answer 29

Faculty of perceiving that which exists. ("Perceiving" is used here in its widest sens, equivalent to "being aware of."). To be conscious is to be conscious of something.

Question 30

Ayn Rand's crucial passage in regard to the above:

Answer 30

Existence exists-and the act of grasping that statement implies 2 corollary axioms: 1. That something exists which one perceives it. 2. That one exists possessing consciousness, consciousness being the faculty of perceiving that which exists.

Question 31

If nothing exists, ...?

Answer 31

There can be NO consciousness. A consciousness with nothing to be conscious of is a contradiction in terms. ==> A consciousness conscious of nothing but itself is a contradiction in terms. Before it could identify itself as consciousness, it had to be conscious of something. If that which you claim to perceive does NOT exist, what you possess is NOT consciousness.

Question 32

A 3rd and final basic axiom is implicit in the first two:

Answer 32

It is the law of identity: To be is to be something, to have a nature, to POSSESS IDENTITY. A thing is itself; or, in the traditional formula, A is A. The "identity" of an existent means that which it is, the sum of its attributes or characteristics.

Question 33

Ayn Rand offers a new formulation of this axiom:

Answer 33

Existence IS identity. She does not say "existence HAS identity"- which might suggest that identity is a feature separable from existence (as a coat of paint is separable from the house that has it). ==> The point is that to be IS to be something. Existence and identity are indivisible; either implies the other. ==> If something EXISTS, then SOMETHING exists. ==> An if there is a SOMETHING, then there IS a something. The fundamental fact cannot be broken in two.

Question 34

Why, one might ask, use 2 concepts to identify one fact?

Answer 34

This procedure is common in philosophy and in other fields as well. When men have several perspectives on a single fact, when they consider it from different aspects or in different contexts, it is often essential to dorm concepts that identify the various perspectives.

Question 35

"Existence" ...?

Answer 35

... differentiates a thing from nothing, from the absence of the thing. ==> This is the primary identification, on which all others depend; it is the recognition in conceptual terms that the thing IS.

Question 36

"Identity" ...?

Answer 36

Indicates not that it IS, but that IT is. This differentiates one thing from another, which is a distinguishable step in cognition. ==> The perspective here is not: it is (vs it is not), but: it is this (vs it is that). ==> Thus, the context and purpose of the 2 concepts (existence and identity) differ, although the fact both concepts name is indivisible.

Question 37

Like existence and consciousness, identity is also a fundamental starting point of knowledge.

Answer 37

Before one can ask WHAT any existence is, it must be something, and one must know this. If not, then there is nothing to investigate-or to exist.

Question 38

Inherent in a man's grasp of any object is the recognition, in some form, that:

Answer 38

There is something I am aware of. There is = existence. Something = identity. I am aware of = consciousness.

Question 39

Existence, consciousness, and identity are the ...?

Answer 39

Basic axiomatic concepts recognized by the philosophy of Objectivism.

Question 40

An axiomatic concept, writes Ayn Rand, is ...?

Answer 40

The identification of a primary fact of reality, which cannot be analyzed, ie, reduced to other facts or broken into component parts. ==> It is implicit in all facts and in all knowledge. ==> It is the fundamentally given and directly perceived or experienced, which requires no proof or explanation, but on which all proofs and explanations rest.

Question 41

Axiomatic concepts are not subject to the ...?

Answer 41

Process of definition. Their referents can be specified only OSTENSIVELY, by pointing to instances. Everything to be grasped about these facts is implicit in any act of adult cognition. Indeed, it is implicit much earlier.

Question 42

"After the first discriminated sensation (or percept)," Miss Rand observes, ...

Answer 42

"Man's subsequent knowledge adds nothing to the basic facts designated by the terms: "existence", "consciousness", "identity"." Subsequent knowledge makes the explicit, conceptual identification of these facts possible. But the facts themselves-which are the data or constituents later to be integrated into the concepts-are present to and from the first such awareness. ==> It is in this sense that a knowledge of axioms is "implicit" from the beginning. ==> "It is this implicit knowledge that permits consciousness to develop further".

Question 43

Being implicit from the beginning, existence, consciousness, and identity are ...?

Answer 43

OUTSIDE THE PROVINCE OF PROOF. Proof is the derivation of a conclusion from antecedent knowledge, and nothing is antecedent to axioms. ==> Axioms are the starting points of cognition, on which all proofs depend.

Question 44

One knows that the axioms are true not by inference of any kind, but by ...?

Answer 44

Sense perception. When one perceives a tomato, for example, there is no evidence that it exists, beyond the fact that one perceives it. There is no evidence that it is something, beyond the fact that one perceives IT. And there is no evidence that one is aware, beyond the fact that one IS perceiving it. ==> AXIOMS ARE PERCEPTUAL SELF-EVIDENCIES. There is nothing to the be said in their behalf except: look at reality.

Question 45

What is true of tomatoes applies equally to oranges, buildings, people, music, and stars.

Answer 45

What philosophy does it to give an abstract statement of such self-evident facts. Philosophy states these facts in universal form. Whatever exists, exists. Whatever exists is what it is. In whatever form one is aware, one is aware.

Question 46

The above is the validation of the Objectivist axioms:

Answer 46

"Validation" I take to be a broader term than "proof", one that subsumes any process of establishing an idea's relationship to reality, whether deductive reasoning, inductive reasoning, or perceptual self-evidence. ==> In this sense, one can and must validate every item of knowledge, including axioms.

Question 47

The validation of axioms, however, is the simplest of all:

Answer 47

Sense perception.

Question 48

The fact that axioms are available to perception does not mean that all human beings accept or even grasp axioms in conscious, conceptual terms.

Answer 48

Vast number of men, such as primitives, never progress beyond implicit knowledge of the axioms. Lacking explicit philosophic identification of this knowledge, they have no way to adhere to the axioms consistently and typically fall into some form of contradicting the self-evident, as in the various magical world views, which (implicitly) deny the law of identity. ==> Such men stunt their minds by subjecting themselves to an undeclared epistemological civil war ==> The war pits their professed outlook on the world against the implicit knowledge on which they are actually counting in order to survive.

Question 49

The three axioms I have been discussing have a built-in protection against all attacks:

Answer 49

They must be used and accepted by everyone, including those who attack them and those who attack the concept of the self-evident.

Question 50

"People DISAGREE about axioms", we often hear. "What is self-evident to one may not be self-evident to another. How then can a man know that his axioms are objectively true? How can he ever be sure he is right?

Answer 50

This argument starts by accepting the concept of "disagreement", which it uses to challenge the objectivity of any axioms, including existence, consciousness, and identity. The following condensed dialogue suggests one strategy by which to reveal the argument's contradictions. The strategy begins with A, the defender of axioms, purporting to reject outright the concept of "disagreement".

Question 51

The dialogue:

Answer 51

A. Your objection to the self-evident have no validity. There is no such thing as disagreement. People agree about everything. B. That's absurd. People disagree constantly, about all kinds of things. A. How can they? There is nothing to disagree about, no subject matter. After all, nothing exists. B. Nonsense. All kinds of things exist. You know that as well as I do. A. That's one. You must accept the existence axiom even to utter the term "disagreement". But, to continue, I still claim that disagreement is unreal. How can people disagree, since they are unconscious beings who are unable to hold ideas at all? B. Of course people hold ideas. They ARE conscious beings-you know that? A. There's another axiom. But even so, why is disagreement about ideas a problem? Why should it suggest that one or more of the parties is mistaken? Perhaps all of the people who disagree about the very same point are equally, objectively right. B. That's impossible. If 2 ideas contradict each other, they can't both be right. Contradictions can't exist in reality. After all, things are what they are. A is A.

Question 52

Conclusion from the dialogue:

Answer 52

Existence, consciousness, identity are presupposed by every statement and by every concept, including that of "disagreement". (They are presupposed even by invalid concepts such as "ghost" or "analytic" truth). ==> In the act of voicing his objection, therefore, the objector has conceded the case. ==> In ANY act of challenging or denying the 3 axioms, a man reaffirms them, no matter what the particular content of his challenge. THE AXIOMS ARE INVULNERABLE.

Question 53

The opponents of these axioms pose as defenders of truth, but it is only a pose:

Answer 53

Their attack on the self-evident amounts to the charge: "your belief in an idea doesn't necessarily make it true; you must prove it, because facts are what they are independent of your beliefs". ==> Every element of this charge relies on the very axioms that these people are questioning and supposedly setting aside.

Question 54

"You cannot PROVE that you exist or that you're conscious" they chatter, ...?

Answer 54

Blanking out the fact that PROOF presupposes existence, consciousness and a complex chain of knowledge: the existence of something to know, of a consciousness able to know it, and of a knowledge that has learned to distinguish between such concepts as the proved and the unproved.

Question 55

When a savage who has not learned to speak declares that existence must be proved, he is asking you ...?

Answer 55

To prove it by means of non-existence.

Question 56

When he declares that your consciousness must be proved, he is asking you to ...?

Answer 56

Prove it by means of unconsciousness.

Question 57

He is asking you to ...?

Answer 57

Step into a void outside of existence and consciousness to give him proof of both. He is asking you to become a zero gaining knowledge about a zero.

Question 58

When he declares that an axiom is a matter of arbitrary choice and he doesn't choose to accept the axiom that he exists, ...?

Answer 58

He blanks out the fact that he has accepted it by uttering that sentence, that the only way to reject it is to shut one's mouth, expound no theories and die.

Question 59

An axiom is a statement that identifies the base of knowledge and of any further statement pertaining to that knowledge, a statement necessarily contained in all others, whether any particular speaker chooses to identify it or not.

Answer 59

An axiom is a proposition that defeats its opponents by the fact that they have to accept it and use it in the process of any attempt to deny it.

Question 60

The foregoing is not a proof that the axioms of existence, consciousness, and identity are true.

Answer 60

It is a proof that they are AXIOMS, that they are at the base of knowledge an thus INESCAPABLE. This proof itself, however, relies on the axioms. Even in showing that no opponent can escape them, Ayn Rand too has to make use of them. All argument presupposes these axioms, including the argument that all argument presupposes them.

Question 61

If so, one might ask, how does one answer an opponent who says: "You've demonstrated that I must accept your axioms if I am to be consistent. But that demonstration rests on your axioms, which I don't choose to accept. Tell me why I should. Why can't I contradict myself?

Answer 61

There is only one answer to this: stop the discussion. Axioms are self-evident; no argument can coerce a person who chooses to evade them. You can show a man that identity is inescapable, but only by first accepting the fact that A is A. You can show that existence is inescapable, but only by accepting and referring to existence. You can show that consciousness is inescapable, but only by accepting and using your consciousness.

Question 62

Relying on these three axioms, you can establish their positions as the foundations of all knowledge.

Answer 62

But you cannot convince another person of this or anything until he accepts the axioms himself, on the basis of his own perception of reality. If he denies them, it is a mistake to argue about or even discuss the issue with him.

Question 63

No one can think or perceive for another man:

Answer 63

If reality, without your help, does not convince a person of the self-evident, he has abdicated reason and cannot be dealt with any further.