Epistemology: Reason

("You can't eat your cake and have it, too." )



In the following post I will analyze some concept/s of the essentials of the classical Objectivism as published in the ARI pages proposing expansions, complements and/or new thoughts about them.

Traditional Objectivism:

Epistemology

"Man's reason is fully competent to know the facts of reality. Reason, the conceptual faculty, is the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by man's senses. Reason is man's only means of acquiring knowledge." Thus Objectivism rejects mysticism (any acceptance of faith or feeling as a means of knowledge), and it rejects skepticism (the claim that certainty or knowledge is impossible)."


Expanding the concept:

No question the reason is man's only means of acquiring knowledge and to know the facts of reality
More: Man itself "is" reason, since what everyone of us are, what each one of us calls "I" reside nowhere else that inside our respective minds.
And when traditional Objectivism "...rejects mysticism..." it is expressly referring to any acceptance of faith or feeling as a means of knowledge.
But Gods exist, feelings exist, emotions exists, intuitions exists. Let's analyze them from an Objectivistic point of view and see where they come from and what they could be useful for.

My contribution:

1-Gods exist, we created them! As we created theater plays, mathematical equations, the Mona Lisa, or our reasons to love
And we own them a great debt: They served in the early past of the humanity to the first differentiation between matter and ideas, earth and sky, and ultimately as the first system for establishment and preservation through generations of the primitive ethical values that gave origin to civilization.
There is a God that I specially like: "The Sould of the World" that is the sum of all the thoughts, the work, the knowledge, the art, the effort, the wishes, the dreams, the beliefs, the books, the lives, etc. accumulated thought history by the Human Race since we were almost monkeys and someday we suddenly threw a bone to the sky...
This "God" is our heritage as specie and the "shoulder" each one of us stands on as individuals, in order to be able to grow further...

But most people use different Gods to avoid thinking, to avoid fear to death, or to justify their nonsense, their laziness, their lack of intelligence, their robbery to other people or even their massacre of other human beings.
So what can Gods be useful for an Objectivistic man, who usually doesn't believe in Gods in the same way other people do?
I like martial arts and some time ago I read an ancient Japanese book called "The Demon's Sermon on the Martial Arts" by Issai Chozanshi, where he differentiates in a man's attitude: "letting things to fate" from "letting things to Gods"
While "letting things to fate" is just letting happening whatever the "fate" has for us, without taking any responsibility in our destiny, without doing anything to change them, without using our mind to find a solution to our problems, "letting things to Gods" is the opposite attitude what means really doing our best effort in order to achieve the results we are looking for, using our intelligence, our creative work, playing our best cards on the table. But finally we have also to recognize that we are neither omnipotent nor omniscient, so the results are never guaranteed. "The rest is in God's hands" could be a good phrase to resume the concept, when used in the correct sense.

Everyone has their own Gods, whether they are inside churches or at home represented by their careers, the money, the family, friendship, success, culture, fame, people they admire, or the best motorcycle in town: Their beliefs, their values.

2-As for emotions, feelings and intuitions Ayn Rand herself in "The virtue of Selfishness" says:

"Emotions are the automatic results of man’s value judgments integrated by his subconscious; emotions are estimates of that which furthers man’s values or threatens them, that which is for him or against him—lightning calculators giving him the sum of his profit or loss"

It is quite clear that emotions, feelings and intuitions are very related between them inside our mind and they can be in daily life powerful friends to be used in our benefit or fearsome enemies that will turn against us if we can't manage or use them properly
Those three elements are no doubt product of certain processes inside our mind somewhere in the frontier between our conscious and subconscious, they have nothing of "divine", "occult" or "paranormal", and without entering in any profound psychological analysis, which I am not skilled enough for, we all can more or less testify that they appear quite suddenly triggered by some situation or stimuli and most of the times are not easy to control.

What can we do then? Just abandon ourselves to these apparently "irrational" (a hard word to swallow for an Objectivist) parts of us?
No. There is always something to do instead to just "let things to fate". These three elements: emotions, feelings and intuitions can be very powerful tools for us in certain situations where speed is required over the more deep and accurate but slower totally-conscious analysis (emergency situations or daily routines by example)
Can they be wrong? Of course, as anything inside ourselves, because they are nothing more than the product of our mind in last instance. The good news are that we can work on them, modify them if necessary even when they are produced in some physiological centers where we don't have total control with our consciousness.
How?
The human being comes to the World as "tabula rasa" and these three elements are somewhat automatic reactions related with the "software" we write in this tabula rasa during our lives, specifically they are very closely related with our values
So modifying our values, changing our deepest mind, is the only way to modify the "source" where our emotions, feelings and intuitions are based on.
I know our values strongly comes from our early childhood, our education, our life's experience, etc. but they are no immutable, they can be learned, changed, expanded, improved...
With effort you can be a better person than your are, closer to your dreams, closer to the ideal man you want to be.

Believe me it can be done. I did it. I was originally destined by birth to be a poor fool, unsuccessful, unhappy loser in my life, and I was, and it took 43 years of internal work, changes, learning, efforts and challenges to be a better person, but I am. And even when I could think that I somewhat lost almost 40 years of life, it would have been much worse never knowing a better way of life, never knowing myself, never being happy as I am now. More: I have the priceless proud of having won a hard game. The fun is on the road, the objectives are just the engine.
In the beginning it can seem to be an extremely difficult and even impossible task, it can take years, decades, but as long time passes the task gets easier due to practice and despite the results it is a good and rewarding way to live, because there will be always something new in the horizon.


Note:
You can finally ask why the Ying-Yang icon in the picture? The answer is that you don't have to be worried about the results of this sometimes enormous effort when they are not totally the ones you expected, this icon symbolizes the cycles in the flow of life: if you are not totally successful today, persist, endure, don't abandon. Because tomorrow the tide can be more in your favor or the internal work can finally give the desired fruit in some future, it is never in vain.
This icon also symbolizes the ethics, the black-and-white idea, the concept that for an Objectivist nothing "is the same", ideals are not meant to be gray. But as you can note there is a small circle of black in the white, (and vice-versa) meaning that finally nothing is perfect, so don't be over-exigent with yourself to the point of not enjoying the life, a little character's defect only demonstrates that the character in the whole is good, even when this defect should be marked for later improvement. An exception only proofs the rule, doesn't invalidate them. More: Complex systems with some little internal contradictions tend to be more stable than "perfect" ones, but this will be a subject for some future post...