The Problem of Universals: Failed Attempts and Ayn Rands Solution

Gary Hall, 10/7/1996 1Hr 22min + Q&A

The goal of the lecture is to give a broad overview of the most crucial problem in philosophy: the
problem of universals
Universals means, concepts
The problem is very abstract and can be technical [thats an understatement]
Consider the two sets of objects [is holding three balls and three triangles]
All three balls are grouped into a class togetherball
As are the triangles
Notice that your mind does not individualize each concrete but generalizes and names them
all one thingball. Or triangle.
The problem is, the world is filled with individual concrete things.
Whats given is individual particulars
The problem is, where is the one in the many, to quote the Greeks
Ive seen many men but Ive never seen man
The three balls look alike but there are a great many differences among them
There is a difference in color and diameter between the golf and tennis ball
Every individual thing looks different, theres nothing identical in how they look
Yet we treat everything as an instance of a concept
Ex: each ball is an instance of the concept ball
Ex: To say that you love your job and your spouse are two different instances of
something which have been grouped under the concept love
Why does this problem matter?
All progress is the product of mans ability to conceptualize
A theory of concepts lies under your understanding of every idea you hold
From physics to sex
Ex: The field of political philosophy
Todays countless and contradictory uses of the concept rights
The animal rights movement argues that animals have rights because a rat and pig and
dog and boy all are part of the same concept
Intrinsic view of concepts
Came first in the history of philosophy
Ex: You shouldnt lie even to a murderer because, after all, god says lying is wrong
Holds that concepts or universals exist apart from your mind
Concept is intrinsic in realityits out there somewhere
Concepts are out there, and there are two ideas of what out there means
Plato and Religious views place the concept in a supernatural dimension
World of forms, transcendent, etc
Aristotle views universals as in things
Your mind is like a ball of wax and the concept imprints itself on your mindsomehow
Thus the two essentials of the intrinsic view are:
Concepts exist independent of your mind
Your mind is passive
The Problem of Universals: Failed Attempts and Ayn Rands Solution
Gary Hall, 10/7/1996 1Hr 22min + Q&A

Platonic intrinsicism
The first philosopher in history to explain comprehensively the problem of universals
His views found in three works: Phaedo, The Republic, and Parmenides
He is other worldly- the world of forms
Triangle, justice, etc exist in this other dimension
Socrates would hear an individual call an act a virtue
He would respond, how wonderful that you know the essence of virtue. What is it?
Person responds with an example
He was not looking for examples but rather the one in the many
He was doing the same thing for virtue that we did for ball
The Sophists tried to undercut concepts by relying on two premises
Reality is constant flux and changereality by its nature forbids absolutes
Perception is relativea building in the distance does not look the same to a man standing
next to it as it does a man standing far away
Platos heart was in the right place as he was attempting to prove that knowledge was objective
in refutation of the Sophists
Claimed that what is common is that they all have a relationship to the universal that exists
in the world of forms
When we use concepts we refer to universals that exist in the supernatural dimension
Ex: Love
Picks out a transcendent ideal apart from your life and your emotions
Leads to the idea that love and sex are mortal enemies
Aristotelian intrinsicism
Called this worldly intrinsicism
Concepts are out there, but theyre in individual things, in concrete entities
This theory is taken more seriously than Platos
Consciousness has to be passive
A universal is a characteristic
Logically dependent upon the entity
There is no such thing as a ball without the concept ball
Once you argue that a concept is in something, you have to ask how the concept gets into your
consciousness
The answer is, somehow
Intuition
A concept is like perception, just happens
Subjective view of conceptsnominalism
Humpty Dumpty: When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean. Neither more nor
less.
Feelings are the masters, concepts are the slaves
A concept is whatever someone wants it to be
The Problem of Universals: Failed Attempts and Ayn Rands Solution
Gary Hall, 10/7/1996 1Hr 22min + Q&A

Although we naturally speak of an object of a concept, its clear that such an object does not
exist. There is no reason to suppose that there is an entity belonging to the concept
There are no clean breaks between entities
There is no triangleness in triangle
The characteristics of each thing is different than every other one
The tennis ball is different in every particular from the golf ball
You could argue from intrinsicist viewpoint
There is something in the object that remains identical and the same when you remove
everything thats different [Sounds like John Lockes context omission]
However, if you remove each trait that is not difficult, you end up with nothing
The one, of the one in the many, is inside your mind
There are images and words in your mind that you associate with the individual concrete
things
A picture or a word is that which is the same to a collection of entities
Ex of problem: Create in your mind the image of a one thousand sided figure
Cant do it. [Crow epistemologyrecognition that mans consciousness has identity]
What happens when one persons image is different than another persons image
Each word is one specific perceptual concrete
The one in the many, in this case, is the name (or the word)
But no written word (or spoken word) is exactly the same as another written (spoken) word
If you want to figure out the meaning of a word right, you need to figure out how its used
Rands solution to the problem of universals:
Perception (direct evidence of senses) is the base of mans knowledge
Concepts are means of classifying and organizing knowledge
Allow you to discover knowledge of not just one tree, but all trees
Concepts are nothing more than mental space savers
There is a limit to what you can discriminate and retain at any one time
Forming a concept requires two processes
Differentiation- the process of grasping differences
Integration- the blending of elements into an inseparable whole
Ex: suppose you see three entities: two balls and a block
The similarity between the two balls becomes apparent by comparing them to the block
The big difference between the blocks and balls pushes to the foreground the
resemblance between the two balls
When we form a concept we are forming a human view on reality but it is not subjective
We classify according to the attributes which you observe in reality
The power to do this is the power to observe the similarity while dropping the mathematical
measurement of the similarity
The primary purpose of a word is identification and understanding
The heart of her view is the connection between measurement and concept formation
In measurement, you use an instance of the trait being measure
The Problem of Universals: Failed Attempts and Ayn Rands Solution
Gary Hall, 10/7/1996 1Hr 22min + Q&A

Ex: take a foot. Youre relating all instances of length to that specific length
Reduces the number of units: 5280 feet is condensed into one unit, a mile
Makes possible knowledge beyond what is directly perceived
When we form a concept the process is retaining the similarity between existents but
ignoring the measurement
Every particular thing classified under one concept is commensurable
They can all be related mathematically to the same standard
The only difference is the amount
Ex: All individual balls can be compared to the tennis ball
They only differ in the quantity of their circumference, or the height they can bounce,
etc
Some but any principle
In measurement omission two or more things have the same common trait but to a greater
or lesser degree
Your mind simply ignores the greater or lesser degree
The thorny problem is figuring out what is the same
Differences are obvious- you just look
Similarity is two things:
Partial identity
Partial difference
It is the relationship between two or more existents which possess the same
characteristic but in the varying degree
Thus differences are crucial to identifying similarities [you need a third foil to figure
out that two concretes are similar]
The commensurable characteristic is the CCD- conceptual common denominator
You cannot differentiate balls from musical notes, but you can differentiate among balls
Namely, the shape of the balls
I have seen many men but not man
To what precisely do we refer when we call three individual men, men
We mean that these three entities contain the same distinguishing characteristic that
differentiate them from other entitiesthe rational faculty
The faculty may exist in any quantity but must exist in some quantity
This is the same basic principle of algebraic symbols
Concepts are to individual things as algebraic symbols are to numbers
Question: Im in law school and concepts are mutilated. Every day Im confronted by this problem
how should I respond?
If your professor is going to penalize you, its better to stay quiet
Question: Is there more than one way for our perceptual data to be organized?
All concepts have to be made along a commensurable CCD
There is optionality in the order of conceptualization but the options are limited by
commensurability
The Problem of Universals: Failed Attempts and Ayn Rands Solution
Gary Hall, 10/7/1996 1Hr 22min + Q&A

Question: What happens where there is no clear difference as in colors
There is a clean distinction between yellow and black
But on the issue of borderline caseslike red and orange and red orange
Or Venus flytrapanimal or plant?
How do you know that this is a borderline case without reference to the extreme?
How do you know this is a mix of plant and animal without knowing the characteristics of
plants and animals
Fallacy of stolen concept: Taking a higher level concept and uses it to invalidate the lower level
concepts which gave rise to the higher level concepts