Peikoff - Sense Perception And Volition - Volition As Axiomatic Flashcards
(17 cards)
So far, I have been identifying the nature of man’s power of choice, according to the Objectivist theory.
But how is this theory VALIDATED? Can one prove that the choice to think is real, and not, as DETERMINISTS would say, an illusion caused by our ignorance of the forces determining us?
Can one PROVE that man’s consciousness does not function automatically?
If man’s consciousness WERE automatic, if it did react deterministically to outer or inner forces acting upon it, then, BY DEFINITION,
==> A man would have no choice in regard to his mental content; he would accept whatever he had to accept, whatever ideas the determining forces engendered in him.
In such a case, one could not prescribe …
Prescribe methods to guide a man’s thought or ask him to justify his ideas.
==> The subject of epistemology would be INAPPLICABLE.
==> One cannot ask a person to alter or, justify the MENTALLY INESCAPABLE, any more than, in physical terms, one can ask him to alter or justify his patellar reflex.
==> In regard to the involuntary, there is no alternative but to submit-to do what one MUST, whatever it is.
The concept of “volition” is one of the roots of the concept of …?
“Validation” (and of its subdivisions, such as “proof”).
A validation of ideas is necessary and possible only because …?
Man’s consciousness is VOLITIONAL.
==> This applies to any idea, INCLUDING the advocacy of free will.
==> To ask for its proof is to presuppose the reality of free will.
Once again, we have reached a principle at the foundation of human knowledge.
A principle that ANTECEDES all argument and proof.
How, then, do we know that man has volition?
It is a SELF-EVIDENT FACT, available to any act of INTROSPECTION.
You the reader can perceive every potentiality I have been discussing simply by observing your own consciousness.
The extent of your knowledge or intelligence is not relevant here, because the issue is …?
Whether you use whatever knowledge and intelligence you do possess.
==> At this moment, for example, you can decide to read attentively and struggle to understand, judge, apply the material-OR you can let your attention wander and the words wash over you, half-getting some points, then coming to for a few sentences, then lapsing again into partial focus.
==> If something you read makes you feel fearful or uneasy, you can decide to follow the point anyway and consider it on its merits-OR you can brush it aside by an act of EVASION, while mumbling some rationalization to still any pangs of guilt.
==> At each moment, you are deciding TO THINK OR NOT TO THINK.
==> The fact that you regularly make these kinds of choices is DIRECTLY ACCESSIBLE to you, as it is to any volitional consciousness.
The principle of volition is a …?
Philosophic AXIOM.
It is a primary, a starting point of conceptual cognition and of the subject of epistemology.
==> To direct one’s consciousness, one must BE FREE and one must know, at least implicitly, that one is.
==> It is a fundamental ==> Every item of conceptual knowledge requires some form of validation, THE NEED OF WHICH RESTS ON THE FACT OF VOLITION.
==> It is SELF-EVIDENT. It is INESCAPABLE.
==> Even its enemies have to accept and USE it in the process of any attempt to deny it.
Let us see why.
When the determinist claims that man is determined, …
This applies to ALL man’s ideas, INCLUDING HIS OWN ADVOCACY OF DETERMINISM.
Given the factors operating on him, he believes, HE HAD to become a determinist, just as his opponents had NO ALTERNATIVE but to oppose him.
How then can he know that his viewpoint is TRUE? Are the factors that shaped his brain INFALLIBLE? Does he AUTOMATICALLY follow reason and logic?
CERTAINLY NOT! If he did, error would be impossible to him.
The determinist’s position amounts to the following:
My mind does NOT automatically conform to facts, yet I haveNO CHOICE about its course.
==> I have no way to choose reality to be my guide as against subjective feeling, social pressure, or the falsifications inherent in being only semi-conscious.
==> If and when I distort the evidence through sloppiness or laziness, or place popularity above logic, or evade out of fear, or hide my evasions from myself under layers of rationalizations and lies ==> I HAVE TO DO IT.
==> Whatever the irrationalities that warp and invalidate my mind’s conclusions on any issue, they are IRRESISTIBLE, like every event in my history, and COULD NOT HAVE BEEN OTHERWISE.
If such were the case, a man could not rely on his own judgement. He could claim nothing as objective knowledge, INCLUDING THE THEORY OF DETERMINISM.
An infallible being, one that automatically grasps the truth-such as an animal (on its own level) or an angel, if such existed- …
Can BE DEVOID OF VOLITION, yet still acquire knowledge.
==> Such a being does NOT need to perform a process of thought.
But man (beyond the perceptual level) must think in order to know.
==> He must think in a reality-oriented manner ==> And the commitment to do so is observably NOT INBUILT.
==> If in addition it were not within man’s power of choice, human consciousness would be deprived of its function.
==> It would be incapable of cognition.
==> It would NOT BE CONSCIOUS.
Volition, accordingly, is …
NOT AN INDEPENDENT philosophic principle, but a COROLLARY of the axiom of consciousness.
Not every consciousness has the faculty of volition. But …
Every FALLIBLE, CONCEPTUAL CONSCIOUSNESS, however, DOES HAVE IT.
If a determinist tried to assess his viewpoint as knowledge, he would have to say in effect …
I am in control of my mind.
I do have the power to DECIDE to focus on reality.
I do NOT merely submit spinelessly to whatever distortions happen to be decreed by some chain of forces stretching back to infinity.
==> I am free, free to be objective, free to conclude-that I am NOT free.
Like any rejection of a philosophic axiom, determinism is …
Self-REFUTING.
Just as one must accept existence or consciousness in order to deny it, so one must accept volition in order to deny it.
==> A philosophic axiom cannot be proved, because it is one of the bases of proof.
==> But for the same reason it cannot be escaped, either. By its nature, it is IMPREGNABLE.
Most of the traditional opponents of determinism have regarded free will as …
Mystical, as an attribute of an otherwordly soul that is antithetical to science and to man’s this-worldly reason.
==> The classic expression of this viewpoint is the disastrous Kantian slogan “God, freedom, and immortality”, which had the effect of making “freedom” laughable by equating it with 2 bromides of supernaturalism.
By identifying the locus of man’s will as his conceptual faculty, AR …
Aborts such mysticism at the root.
==> Will, in her view, is not something opposed or even added to reason.
==> The faculty of reason IS the faculty of volition.
This makes it possible for the first time to validate the principle of volition OBJECTIVELY.
==> It removes the principle once and for all from the clutches of religion.
Man’s senses are valid. His mind is free. Now how should he use his mind?
At last we can leave the anteroom of epistemology and enter the great hall of its mansion.
