The Humpty Dumpty Definition Fallacy and False Reassurance
It’s been a while since I’ve written an inflammatory post about Objectivism. I should do something about that.

Was Ayn Rand an idiot? Well, she defines an ‘idiot’ as someone who is bad at redefining terms to suit their own purposes, so no, Rand was not an idiot. That bit of silliness gets at a common error Rand throws at us. She will redefine a word using a irrelevant technicality so she can dodge being labelled as such.

For instance, take 'naïve realism'. We covered naïve realism in one of my psychology classes this week while we were dealing with psychology errors. It was an accurate description of the kinds of mistakes Rand commits. “I see reality, and my actions and beliefs are based on a rational interpretation of reality” was one of the applicable lines. Another line translated into Objectivese would be “Ultimately, there is no such thing as genuine disagreement between honest men”. There was a third line about those with different beliefs, but no one would believe me if I translated that into Objectivese.

However, Rand told us that she isn’t a naïve realist. Objectivists used to tell me that all the time. She said that she isn’t, so she isn’t. Are you calling Rand a liar? Well no, just that she is really really bad at analyzing her own philosophy and a very sloppy thinker. How did she avoid the naïve realism label? Well, naïve realism she tells us is when we grasp objective truths instantly, but it is more complicated then that and it takes longer where we spiral inwards (not upwards) towards the objective truth. A subtle technical difference, but what makes naïve realism both naïve and realist is not the length of time it takes to grasp objective truths. It’s that it is there and we can grasp it. Her redefinition notwithstanding, Rand is a naïve realist. Sorry.

Another example is 'conservative'. Is Rand a conservative? Hell, yeah. Every Objectivist would deny that for, I dunno, some technical reason that escapes me. I probably didn’t know it when I used to argue that she wasn't back in the day, but that didn’t stop me. It boils down to Rand redefines the term so she isn’t one, so she is not and I would appreciate it if every non-Objectivist would stop saying that she is.

My favourite bit of redefining a term in order to win an argument actually comes from Nathaniel Branden on the nonexistence of instincts. The argument goes like this: Knowledge is redefined to only be propositional knowledge. Propositional knowledge isn’t inherited. Therefore, instincts don’t exist. QED. Let’s ignore that nobody thinks that knowledge is only propositional knowledge and that is clearly not what people are talking about when they talk about instincts. However, it is good enough to confuse 16-year-old Objectivists who don’t know better.

Damn. I have another favourite. I think I can do this for a while. Science. Is Rand pro-Science? Yes. Well, not if you mean science as in empirical science, the scientific method, or what scientists do. Objectivists hate that! If you mean Aristotelian Science however, that is, naïve realism, then yes Rand is pro-science. What? No one means that when they use the word ‘science’. Screw ‘em. I go by Rand!

Now let’s switch gears. Naïve realism gives us a zoo of ontological goodies. We have the power to grasp these ontological thingies. Not instantly, that would be naïve realism and silly, but it takes a while going through the long process of Aristotelian science which is also naïve realism and silly. However there is a problem. Your religion is false. Those things don’t exist, we can’t grasp what isn’t there, and we don’t have those powers even if they did. Bummer. We have another problem though. We think we have these objective truths in our head and that we grasped them all scientifically. We aren’t appealing to evil empirical science, to non-Rand authorities, or to a panel of experts. We grasped them. We grasped these objectively objective truly true truths. That is, we feel that they are true, so they are true. QED. A is A. Abracadabra. Let the truthiness set you free.

This is especially evident in aesthetics where we can’t even half-heartedly appeal to empirical science. Nobody who is arguing for objectivity in art thinks that their argument collapses to “I like this and not that”. No, great art is great art. It just is. Really. Truly. Yet everyone who argues with them thinks that the Objectivist’s argument does collapses to “I like this and not that”. It does and it has to. Lots of people have tried not to do that and they all failed. They reassure us that they aren’t personally making the decisions of what art is or is not, but as the argument moves along everyone else sees that is exactly what they end up doing. Why? Because your religion is false. Objectivity in art does not exist. Naïve realism makes you think that your opinions, feelings, beliefs, and intentional objects are really real and they really aren't. It's our brain's fault.

Okay, that's enough inflammatory comments for today. Now it is time to go off to yoga and meditate on my heart chakra to shine loving thoughts to the world. Namaste!