Objections to the Axioms (Part 5)

Objection: The Axioms Equivocate on Their Content

This objection concerns exactly what it is that the axioms are explaining and implying.  It highlights a seeming equivocation:

[…]In the Logical Structure of Objectivism, David Kelley makes the following observation:

Notice that neither [the axiom of existence nor the axiom of identity make] any specific statement about the nature of what exists. For example, the axiom of existence does not assert the existence of a physical or material world as opposed to a mental one. The axiom of identity does not assert that all objects are composed of form and matter, as Aristotle said. These things may be true, but they are not axiomatic; the axioms assert the simple and inescapable fact that whatever there is, it is and it is something.

Very well. Now consider what Rand draws from these very same axioms:

To grasp the axiom that existence exists, means to grasp the fact that nature, i.e., the universe as a whole, cannot be created or annihilated, that it cannot come into or go out of existence. Whether its basic constituent elements are atoms, or subatomic particles, or some yet undiscovered forms of energy, it is not ruled by a consciousness or by will or by chance, but by the law of identity. All the countless forms, motions, combinations and dissolutions of elements within the universe—from a floating speck of dust to the formation of a galaxy to the emergence of life—are caused and determined by the identities of the elements involved. 

In other words, she draws from these axioms: (1) that the universe is permanent and can neither be destroyed nor created; (2) the universe is not ruled by will or chance, but by the ‘law of identity’; (3) everything that happens is caused by the ‘identities’ of the elements involved. She also implies that the basic constituents of the universe, whatever they may happen to be, are non-mental (i.e., atoms, particles, or forms of energy). How does Rand draw all these things from these axioms when, according to Kelley [quoted earlier in the blog post] (who, in this instance, is being entirely orthodox) these axioms only assert that ‘something’ distinguishable exists?[1]

I’ll sum up this objection as: “Objectivism equivocates between axioms not specifying content (e.g. specific identities, specific actions), and inferences about reality that supposedly follow from the axioms (e.g. the universe cannot be created or destroyed, reality isn’t ruled by chance).”

Objections to the Axioms (Part 3)

Previous: Objections to the Axioms (Part 2)

Question: “Are Axioms Proven or Merely Assumptions?”

“Are first principles or the axioms of logic (such as identity, non-contradiction) provable? If not, then isn't just an intuitive assumption that they are true?[...]”[1]

The axioms are neither “proven” nor “assumed.” 

(In the Objectivist view of axiomatic corollaries, Aristotle’s “Laws of Thought” are corollaries of the Existence axiom.  And more specifically, the Law or Principle of Non-contradiction and the Law of the Excluded Middle are restatements/corollaries of the Law of Identity, which is a corollary of “existence exists.”[2] So I’ll consider this question as broad enough to encompass any first principle, including the Objectivist axioms.)

I’ll make several points about why this can’t be the case when speaking of actual axioms.

Nathaniel Branden Against Ayn Rand and Objectivism

Nathaniel Branden delivered a speech on May 25, 1982 entitled, "The Benefits and Hazards of the Philosophy of Ayn Rand A Personal Statement." It was reprinted in the Journal of Humanistic Psychology, it's available on the internet, and it is also the epilogue of his The Vision of Ayn Rand: The Basic Principles of Objectivism. (This last being in very bad taste stylistically, in my view: it undercuts the entire purpose of putting the BPO lectures into book-form, by claiming that the ideas contained within them caused so much harm to people.) It doesn't amount much to a criticism of the philosophy—it rarely critiques any of its principles. Rather, it's mainly a criticism of Rand and of the attempts of people to apply Objectivism to their lives, the errors that they fall into—errors which Branden claims are practically guaranteed to happen. He makes several dozen negative claims about Rand and Objectivism in this essay: I believe I have covered them all, or at least the vast majority. I've broken the essay up into claims Branden makes about practicing Objectivists, and claims concerning Rand, organizing them so as to present a detailed case of each.