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.)

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 2)

Previous: Objections to the Axioms (Part 1)

This next objection is about the utility of the axioms.  

Objection: “Axioms Must Have Deductive Implications”

[...]A first principle is only useful and workable if you can deduce the rest of the worldview from it. You can't deduce anything from 'whatever exists exists'. You can't deduce any kind of epistemology (ie, how we know that whatever exists exists, how we know that we know, etc); we can't deduce any kind of metaphysic (ie, what is the nature of existence, what is the ground of existence, etc); and we certainly can't deduce any ethical or anthropological propositions (ie, what is right and wrong, what is the nature of man, etc).[...][1]

The Law of Causality (Cause-and-Effect)

Previous: On Axiomatic Concepts and Axioms

Causality is something inherent in reality; it is an inescapable law of existence. In Objectivism, it is the first principle of Metaphysics after the identification of the basic axioms. I will give an inductive investigation of sorts into how this law can be formed. Afterwards, I will show why it can’t be an induction strictly speaking, and is rather a self-evident corollary of the Law of Identity.

Inducing Cause-and-Effect

Causality, or cause-and-effect, is the view that the world is lawful, orderly, or uniform in its operations. To understand what this means, we’ll have to revisit a number of concepts I discussed previously in my essay on axiomatic concepts and axioms.

Bacon's "More Certain and Guarded Method" of Induction

"[...]our determination is that of trying, whether we can lay a firmer foundation, and extend to a greater distance the boundaries of human power and dignity."[Bacon, New Instrument, Book 1, Aphorism 116]

"Our only hope, then, is in genuine induction."[ibid., Aphorism 14. See here: The Ideas that Have Influenced Civilization, in the Original Documents]

Sir Francis Bacon (1561–1626) was the first modern philosopher of science, and was instrumental in the development of what we now call the “scientific method.” Here are the essentials of his method of induction, which unfortunately was never completed.