Hobbes and Hume on the Senses: a Response

This essay is a follow-up to “The Perceptual Level as Given.” It will discuss a philosophical school that tried to answer the question of what the mind starts with: the sensualists/empiricists. The bulk of this essay will be an extended presentation of the sensualist approach of consciousness and knowledge as expounded by key sensualists like Hobbes and Hume. That section will be followed by a couple of my own problems with sensualism as they relate to the perceptual level of consciousness. (My issues with the sensualist view of the conceptual level will have to wait until I work through the inductions of concept-formation. I’ve also modernized the words in Hobbes’ and Hume’s quoted statements.)

The Perceptual Level as Given

One of the questions that philosophy asks is, “what information does the mind start with, what is ‘given’ with regard to our consciousness”? To answer this question, let’s briefly survey the levels of information that the mind deals with from the Objectivist perspective. As this principle sort of encapsulates the Objectivist view of perception, I’ll elaborate on some aspects of perception that I covered in previous essays. After giving this overview, I’ll discuss this principle’s relation to the previous intuitive inductions I’ve written about. The conclusion will discuss some overall lessons to be learned about epistemology from the Objectivist principles about perception that have been explained.

Consciousness as Possessing Identity

My previous essay on sensory qualities indicated that past philosophies generated doubts about the validity of the senses. As would be expected, historically there have been criticisms levied against all of the standard forms of gaining knowledge: perception, as we’ve already seen, but also the conceptual faculty/faculty of reason, and the art of logic. The principle that consciousness has identity gives a general answer to these kinds of criticisms. It also highlights what should be regarded as the proper starting point for an epistemology.

Sensory Qualities as Real

If Objectivism had been created earlier in history, perhaps a mere mention of the validity of the senses combined with the consciousness axiom would have sufficed. However, this is not the case: centuries, even millennia of philosophical debates have clouded and casted doubts on the issue of sense-perception. Several problems and purported solutions were advanced long before Objectivism was formed, and merit responses or clarification. This principle, the validity and metaphysical status of sensory qualities, is one such issue that will be tackled in the foregoing.

The Metaphysical Status of Sensory Qualities

Philosophy acknowledges that perception is an activity that people engage in. Epistemology generally holds that an “object” is “that which a cognitive subject perceives, knows, is aware of, describes, refers to, etc.”[1] A perception is understood to be a type of enduring awareness of an object.

The Senses as Necessarily Valid

Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that studies the nature and means of human knowledge.  The field lays out the rules and principles to guide the formation of concepts, the construction of logic, and generally how to gain knowledge and show its validity.  Objectivism holds that metaphysics and epistemology combined are the theoretical base of any philosophy.[1]

There is a little more context needed than metaphysics to fully confront the issues in epistemology. We must first discuss 2 topics that make the field of epistemology possible: sense-perception and volition (free will).  I’ll also cover the axiomatic concept of “self” at the end of this series, as I think it’s a subject that needs to be discussed for a complete understanding of Objectivism.

Now we can begin with the role and validity of human sensory-perception.

Objections to the Axioms (Part 6)

This will probably be my last response to the metaphysical axioms for some time.

A commenter raises the following issue:

It's often said that to deny axiom[sic] is to engage in self contradiction - and that wouldn't be a valid objection because in order to classify contradiction as an error one has to assume axioms to be true. I see circular reasoning in this answer against axiom deniers.[1] 

Objections to the Axioms (Part 4)

Objection: The Axioms are Circular

The axioms rest on the law of noncontradiction for their validity, but the law of noncontradiction itself rests upon the axioms.[1] 

The Validity of the Axioms

The (basic) axioms do not rely on each other for their validity. Direct experience or sense-perception is the means of validating the basic axioms.[2] Derivative axioms like "self" and "volition" rely on the fact of the basic axioms and direct experience for their validity, but not the basic axioms themselves. Further, the basic axioms being part of the validation of derivative axioms does not mean that the derivative axioms are deductions from the basic ones, or logical consequences. In Objectivism, the material required to form the basic axioms of existence, identity, and consciousness are discovered simultaneously. Peikoff mentions in a lecture course that: "'A is A' is independent of consciousness for its truth, but it’s not independent of the existence of consciousness to be grasped."[3]

Objections to the Axioms (Part 1)

Previous: The Order of the Objectivist Metaphysics

The axioms lay the proper foundation for a philosophy.  But for any statement or expression, there is almost always someone who disagrees.  Axioms are of no exception.  Of the people who are dismissive of Objectivism, I believe many are especially opposed to the Objectivist axioms.

Since I covered the metaphysical axioms of Objectivism in this series of posts, I’ll take the time to answer a series of actual objections to the axioms of the philosophy, and one objection to the idea of axioms as unprovable, originally answered by Aristotle.

Rand on Concepts, Relation to Induction (Part 1)

In her Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology (ItOE), Rand presents a theory of concepts, which describes what concepts are (as opposed to what they are not) and how they are properly formed (and how they are improperly formed). A concept, Rand maintains, is a “mental integration of two or more units possessing the same distinguishing characteristic(s), with their particular measurements omitted.” (ItOE, 2nd Edition, p. 13)