Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology (2nd edition)
Ayn Rand, Harry Binwanger and Leonard PeikoffToday man’s mind is under attack by all the leading schools of philosophy. We are told that we cannot trust our senses, that logic is arbitrary, that concepts have no basis in reality. Ayn Rand opposes that torrent of nihilism, and she provides the alternative in this eloquent presentation of the essential nature–and power–of man’s conceptual faculty. She offers a startlingly original solution to the problem that brought about the collapse of modern philosophy: the problem of universals. This brilliantly argued, superbly written work, together with an essay by philosophy professor Leonard Peikoff, is vital reading for all those who seek to discover that human beings can and should live by the guidance of reason.
| status | Copy #1 (4528): in |
|---|---|
| genre | Philosophy » General Philosophy |
| publisher | Penguin Group |
| publish date | 1967 |
| popularity | checked out 0 time(s) |
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Rand holds a “measurement-omission” theory of abstraction; that is, she regards concept-formation as a matter of grouping items together on the basis of a commensurable characteristic while omitting the specific measurements (e.g., grouping red objects together while omitting specific shades of red). Such abstraction does not falsify its objects, as in omitting specific measurements we do not claim that they do not exist, we merely fail to specify them. The similarities on the basis of which we form our earliest concepts are perceptually identified; more sophisticated concepts involve conceptually identified similarities.