dwyer@vixie.UUCP (Bill Dwyer) (10/09/86)
[Adam Reed (ihnp4!npois!adam)] states:
Rand's suggestion is that an axiom can be identified by the fact that it
cannot be denied without self-exclusion, since such a denial would
"*necessarily* have to be either meaningless or self-contradictory. For
example, the claim that "awareness does not exist" expands to "I am
aware that it is true of reality that there is no such thing as
awareness", which is self-contradictory. Hence, Rand's claim that
awareness is an axiom.
Jan Wasilesky comments on Mr. Reed's explanation as follows:
It seems possible to justify axioms of existence in this way; but how
does one justify, e.g., A=A?
"It is true that no one denying A=A can help using implicit assumptions
of the form A=A, but this only implies that *sometimes* A=A, not that
*always* A=A.
However, it is not just that I cannot help using implicit ASSUMPTIONS of
the form A=A when denying identity; it is that I cannot help making an
implicit ASSERTION of the form A=A when denying identity. Any
statement that one makes carries with it an implicit assertion of identity
merely by stating that such and such is the case RATHER THAN not the case
-- otherwise there is no statement. If I say that I am a man and also that
I am not a man, what have I said? Essentially nothing, for I have negated
what I have affirmed. As Rand puts it, "Existence IS identity";
"Consciousness is identification."
Ms. Wasilewsky then comments on my statement that: "What consistency
means is a context in which you do not have both A and not A (at the same
time and in the same respect). She states:
"It is never the same time and the same respect." The two mentions of
A come one after the other in a text; and their context is always
different. The object denoted has also changed; if it is an event, then
the memory of it has changed. It requires a convention, implicit or
explicit, to ignore these differences in some cases - and in this class
of cases, A is A.
But it doesn't matter that the "two mentions" of A come one after the
other in a text. A is merely a symbol denoting an object. What is
important is the object denoted.
She says: "The object denoted has also changed."
But if one cannot talk about the same object, then how can one say that it
-- the object denoted -- has changed? In order to say that an object has
changed, one must be able to say that the SAME OBJECT BEING TALKED
ABOUT is different before than after the change. If one cannot say that it
is the same object which is different, then one cannot say that any
so-called change has taken place. Perhaps one object has simply been
substituted for another. Perhaps it's a different object altogether, not
just the same object in a changed state.
Furthermore, the law of identity applies as much to change as to anything
else. The same object cannot both change and not change during the same
period of time and in the same respect. The denoted object which has
changed is the denoted object which has changed: A is A.
Wasilewsky states: "if [the denoted object] is an event, then the memory
of it has changed".
Really? How does she know, if there is no self-same event to compare the
memory with? Her memory of WHAT has changed?
Wasilewsky then states: "It requires a convention, implicit or explicit, to
ignore these differences in some cases - and in this class of cases, A is
A."
So, according to her, the law of identity is not a principle describing the
nature of reality -- but simply a human convention designed to IGNORE the
differences in reality. In a word, the identity of the law of identity is
that it is conventional not ontological. But since, according to her,
identity is itself a convention, it is then merely a convention, and not part
of the reality of the law, that the law of identity is conventional. In
which case, her claim that it IS IN REALITY conventional is self-refuting.
To be sure, the symbols we use are conventional, but the facts of identity
and non-contradiction which they designate are not.
Wasilewsky says: "Or consider "Cramer vs Cramer". Are the words
"Cramer" used in the same respect? First define respect . . . In each case,
Cramer means "the litigant we are talking of".
Clearly, "Cramer vs Cramer" refers to two different people with the same
last name. So what is the point of asking whether or not the words are
being used "in the same respect"? They are not even used to denote the
same person, let alone used in the same respect. Yes, in each case, Cramer
means "the litigant we are talking of" -- but in each case, we are talking
of a different litigant. So what's the point? Consider again the
statement A = A. In each case, A means the object we are referring to, but
in each case, we are referring to the SAME object, not to a different one.
The reason why Aristotle formulated the law of non-contradiction with
the qualification "at the same time and in the same respect" is because it
is not sufficiently precise to say simply .that a thing cannot be both A and
non-A. The same car can be both white and non-white at the same time in
different respects, i.e., it can be a two-tone. Or it can be both white and
non-white in the same respect (on the same part of the car) at different
times. The reason that we say it cannot be both white and non-white at
the same time AND in the same respect is because we see that if it were
both white and non-white -- both A and non-A -- at the same time and in
the same respect, then it would not be what it is.
Once again, change does not contravene this fact, for (contrary to
Heraclitus, Hegel and Marx) change is not an exception to but a part of the
identity of the thing which changes. Wasilewsky has not grasped this very
important fact, as indicated by her following misrepresentation of the law
of identity:
"A is A is a useful rule. But it is not simple. It can, for example, be
reformulated like this: "It is often worth while to use terms in such a
way that the name changes when the meaning does". Of course, it is not
completely practicable. I changed while writing this, yet I still sign --
Jan Wasilewsky."
Yes, Jan Wasilewsky changed while writing this, but If her identity had not
endured throughout that process of change, SHE would not have undergone
the change. If she had no identity that persisted throughout the change,
who or what would be the individual that underwent the process of
change? There would be no self-same subject -- no person -- to do the
changing, since there would be no continuity or connection between the
person FROM WHOM she changed and the person TO WHOM she changed. In
short, to say that she has CHANGED is to say that SHE has changed.
Again, when we refer to the law of identity, we are not simply referring to
our use of terms -- to the fact that it is often worth while to use terms in
such a way that the name changes when the meaning does. We are
referring to something far more fundamental -- to that on which all
reasoning necessarily depends. The law of identity does not simply refer
to a static or frozen state of affairs, or even to a need to impose an
ordered permanency on a universe of flux. It is refers to that which
EXISTS -- whether it is static or in process or in transition or whatever. A
thing, an action, a process, a conflict, a development is what it is -- A IS A.