Sense Perception, Ethics, and Objectivism

Miscellaneous General
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1

So I’m trying to understand the Objectivist POV on sense perception, but I’m having some trouble here. I was reading Leonard Peikoff’s book about Objectivism, and in it, he stated that our sense perceptions are correct as an axiom.

How can this be? If humans can have dreams and hallucinations where they can see, touch, and even smell and taste figments, how can we know for sure that the “physical” world around us is actually physical and not just a kind of dream or hallucination?

Isn’t it possible that we’re just a bunch of brain cells in a petri dish somewhere? I’m not saying that that’s necessarily true, but that it is impossible to prove beyond doubt the existence of the world and the universe as we know it.

As for Objectivist ethics, I don’t quite understand why we should follow our own “rational self interest.” As I understand it, Rand’s argument was that since survival/life is a universal value, we should follow it as well, which leads us to rational self interest as the primary ethical goal. However, isn’t this just a naturalistic fallacy? Only because all organisms try to survive, does that mean we should do the same?

I understand that it is rational to act in your own self interest, but I don’t understand how it is ethical. In other words, it makes sense that one should improve oneself, but it doesn’t make sense why not doing so would be unethical.

Furthermore, doesn’t Rand’s ethics depend on her epistemology/metaphysics? If one cannot prove that the physical world, and therefore the organisms within it, exist, can one really say that we should follow our own self interest because it is, in a sense, a universal value?

So wouldn’t a more rational approach to ethics try to determine if there is some basis for ethics a priori instead of a posteriori?

Please correct me if I’m wrong in anything I’ve written, and please help me understand the Objectivist view on senses. Thanks. :slight_smile:

2

Dreams and hallucinations don’t involve sense-perception.

Well, if we are, that’s for the person who believes it to prove. The only reasonable default position is that the world we see around us exists as we perceive it.

The survivalist interpretation of Rand is a mistaken one, in my opinion. As for the naturalistic fallacy, it’s bogus. See Rand, Veatch, and Rasmussen and Den Uyl’s arguments against Hume and Moore.

Why would it not make sense for it to be ethical to pursue one’s own flourishing and unethical not to?

The burden of proof is on he who thinks we do not exist. Good luck with that one.

Rand rejects this dichotomy as false.

3

But you believe that you are seeing, touching, tasting, hearing, and/or smelling an object. Couldn’t the same apply to the real world (that we percieve that something exists, but nothing does)?

That’s kinda my point. Somebody needs to prove that our senses are indeed valid and that, therefore, the physical world exists. The “default position” is that your mind (not your physical brain) exists.

Then what is the basis for Rand’s ethics?

Could you explain?

The question is why would it make sense for it to be the overlying ethical goal to pursue your own interests over that of others or something else entirely.

Cogito ergo sum. The burden of proof lies on you to prove anything beyond that.

Yes, I am aware. What does she say about analytic statements?

4

Cogito ergo sum barely even proves thoughts exist. Why is the burden of proof on me to prove that the fancies of the skeptic are not true? If someone claims we’re brains in vats, well that’s cute, but the burden is squarely on their shoulders.

-Jon

5

But optical illusions, for instance, do. So to say that “our sense perceptions are correct as an axiom.” seems to be wrong.

6

I’m not a skeptic. When you or GAP say that our sense perceptions are right as an axiom, you are effectively evading debate as to whether or not our senses are actually real. The burden of proof doesn’t fall on me or anyone else who doubts the existence of the physical world, God, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, since you cannot prove a negative. The burden of proof rests on you to prove that those senses that tell us about the physical world are valid.

7

Why is this repeated as if it’s actually correct? You can’t prove a negative? I can’t prove that I don’t have green hair or that --p = p (this is a basic logical transformation)? No, the burden of proof is on anyone making an assertion, negative or positive in nature - all the more so in the case of incredible arguments (e.g. we’re all brains in vats, solipsism &c.)

As for Peikoff’s argument, I’d need to see it fully elaborated to see whether I agree with it or not.

-Jon

8

Austin addressed optical illusions when dealing with the “argument from illusion” - they’re exactly what one ought to perceive under certain circumstances. What is typically done is that delusions are conflated with optical illusions. Skeptics often try equivocate, because their case would be stronger if optical illusions were the same as delusions. Optical illusions in fact are consistent with proper sense-perception. Delusions, dreams &c. do not involve it.

-Jon

9

What do you mean by ‘proper’ sense-perception ?

It seems to me that optical illusions show that under certain circumstances the eye/brain system does provide wrong information.

Certainly the gray bar in the middle has a darker and a lighter side ? Wrong! It’s the same shade of gray throughout.

10

Given our knowledge of science, what exactly is fascinating about this? The construction of the sensory organs, circumstantial facts and the thing being perceived should all lead to the mind perceiving these things the way it does - it is if it didn’t that there would be something to worry about. Another infamous example is the stick which when submerged looks “bent”. Big whoop. It’s what one would expect given the laws of physics, and not sense-perception malfunctioning. As I said, Austin dealt with this stuff; it’s about as interesting as party tricks are. I’m not sure what Peikoff means or what his proof is, but even in the case of optical illusions sense-perception is functional.

-Jon

11

Sorry, but that’s not an optical illusion, just like seeing pink when wearing pink colored glasses is not an optical illusion.

Anyway, the point is, the naive assumption that senses always provide correct information is wrong.

12

And that doesn’t need to be proved?

Lack of proof doesn’t nessesitate truth in the opposition, just that the positive claim is unsupported.

Also, such a position would support solipsism, not realism.

13

Yea, I do think there is a danger of accepting a sort of naive empiricism in which all sense data is assumed to be absolute truth. To me this places too much trust in the senses. People can claim to sense all sorts of absurd things, but that wouldn’t make it true. It makes no sense to assume that all sense data is 100% accurate, or at least that the conclusions derived from such sense data is 100% accurate. Perhaps that helps clarify - perhaps it’s the conclusions or abstractions people derive from their sense data that is really at issue; the ex-post-facto judgements or reflections of one’s perceptions can often be quite inaccurate.

But also the mere limits of perception would seem to indicate that sense data itself is not necessarily fully representative of the thing being percieved, since one cannot percieve something from all perspectives at once. Often “the thing in itself” simply cannot be directly percieved as a coherant whole, but rather all one can do is make educated inferrances from the limited data and to compile data from the widest variety of sources possible as to create the closest thing to an all-encompassing picture of the coherant whole possible. That being said, I think we can reasonably infer some fairly certain things about that which we percieve, for the most part; especially if we put our noggins together and learn as best we can from eachother’s experiences.

In short, I do tend to think that the epistemological approach of Objectivism has often represented a sort of naive realism that maintains no meaningful skepticism whatsoever with regaurd to sense data. Some kind of “skeptical realism” seems more well-rounded to me. I think it’s erroneous to create a false dichotomy between something like solipsism or some kind of radical skepticism and the defacto absolute acceptance of all sense data or all things deriving from sense data. I don’t see why I can’t reject both objectivism and post-modern uber-relativistic bullcrap at the same time.

14

Do you mean like in the case of that image you showed, where according to scientific principles one is seeing exactly what they ought to be seeing? Right, because that’d mean it’s no different from the submerged stick.

-Jon

15

In the absence of evidence to the contrary, why exactly ought one doubt that we perceive reality more or less as it is? I am open to proof to the contrary, but I’ve yet to see a skeptic mount something even coming close, other than elaborate thought experiments.

-Jon

16

Why? All evidence and reason points to its truth. If you think otherwise, the burden of proof is on you to provide arguments and evidence that commonsense reality is false. Even if it turned out we all lived in the Matrix, we would still be living in a virtual reality within a normal reality.

? No, it doesn’t. Solipsism has no support. For one thing, it is impossible to have language and therefore conceptual thought with only one rational being. If you want to prove solipsism, go ahead and try. I won’t be holding my breath though. The Cartesian position or method of radical doubt is untenable.

17

The idea that a solipsist should feel the need to prove their argument to anyone is amusing.

-Jon

18

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I didn’t say anything about axioms. And yes the burden of proof does fall on you because you would be the one challenging the commonsense view of reality, the view of it that all reason and evidence supports. God and the Flying Spaghetti Monster are of course different than the question of reality/existence. It is ridiculous to lump the former in with the latter.

Our senses show us the world as it is. It is when cognition enters the picture that the possibility of error enters the picture. Thus, when our senses present us with the image of the bent stick half-submerged in water, our eyes are presenting with facts of reality - the water bends the light and so we see a bent stick - if we then conclude that the stick really is bent that is not an error of our senses but a cognitive error.

Read Karl Schuhmann and Barry Smith “Against Idealism: Johannes Daubert vs. Husserl’s Ideas I” and my “Against Idealism: Rand and Daubert vs. Husserl’s Ideas I.”

19

If anything, it’s the commonsense view that is skeptical of the extravagant ontological claims made by some “skeptics”.

-Jon

20

No. Doubting a particular thing is not the same as doubting existence as such. Even illusions exist, they just aren’t what they appear to be. Even if we lived in the Matrix, the Matrix still exists and requires normal reality to exist within. It is up to us to correctly interpret the evidence of the senses. We can make mistakes, as with believing that a stick half-submerged in water really is bent. Our eyes show us the stick-in-water as it really is in the world. We see it bent because the water bends the light. That’s the way reality works and the way our eyes work. To complain that our eyes don’t show us a straight stick is to complain about the nature of reality and about the fact that we have to have eyes to see. “Oh, why can’t we see without eyes?” It’s to accuse us of being blind because we have eyes. Another one of our senses, touch, can show us that the stick is indeed not bent by the water. We can touch the stick with our hands, feel that it is still straight. This combined evidence can lead us to realizations about the natures of solid matter, water, and light and how they interact. It is a false colloquialism to say that our eyes deceived us. They didn’t. We just misinterpreted the data.

No, someone needs to prove that our senses are not accurate and that therefore the physical world does not exist. Even if one proved the former, the latter does not follow. The default position is not solipsism, thank you very much. That’s Cartesian nonsense. It’s untenable.

Survival qua man, i.e., human flourishing/well-being. Not bare survival a la Hobbes. See Aristotle, Veatch, Rasmussen and Den Uyl, Fred Miller, Roderick Long, etc.

See Veatch and Rasmussen/Den Uyl. They’ve been cited numerous times on this forum.

This is mistaken. Why do you think self-interest is necessarily in conflict with the interests of others? You seem to think it precludes other-regard. It doesn’t. See Aristotle, who’s ethics is also one based in rational self-interest but in which friendship and other other-regarding things play an important role. Also, what is the alternative? That we should subordinate our interests to the interests of others? No thank you.

No, it doesn’t. For anything to be conscious, it must be conscious of something (other than itself). Existence is primary. The Cartesian position or method of radical doubt is untenable. See those essays I linked to earlier.

I recommend reading her yourself rather than expecting me to give you the cliff notes version. Also, see some of the work of Henry Veatch and Roderick Long.