Part 10 (2/2)

Dark Ages. The infamous times you call the Dark Ages were an era of intelligence on strike, when men of ability went underground and lived undiscovered, studying in secret, and died, destroying the works of their mind, when only a few of the bravest martyrs remained to keep the human race alive. Every period ruled by mystics was an era of stagnation and want, when most men were on strike against existence, working for less than their barest survival, leaving nothing but sc.r.a.ps for their rulers to loot, refusing to think, to venture, to produce, when the ultimate collector of their profits and the final authority on truth or error was the whim of some gilded degenerate sanctioned as superior to reason by divine right and by grace of a club.

[GS, FNI, 211; pb 169.]

In the history of Western civilization, the period known as the Dark Ages, after the fall of the Roman Empire, was a period when Western Europe existed without any social organization beyond chance local groupings cl.u.s.tered around small villages, large castles, and remnants of various traditions-swept periodically by ma.s.sive barbarian invasions, warring robber bands, and sundry local looters. It was as close to a state of pure anarchy as men could come.

[”A Nation's Unity,” ARL, II, 2, 2.]

See also HISTORY; MIDDLE AGES; MYSTICISM; PHILOSOPHY; REASON; RENAISSANCE.

Decorative Arts. The task of the decorative arts is to ornament utilitarian objects, such as rugs, textiles, lighting fixtures, etc. This is a valuable task, often performed by talented artists, but it is not an art in the esthetic-philosophical meaning of the term. The psycho-epistemological base of the decorative arts is not conceptual, but purely sensory: their standard of value is appeal to the senses of sight and/or touch. Their material is colors and shapes in nonrepresentational combinations conveying no meaning other than visual harmony; the meaning or purpose is concrete and lies in the specific object which they decorate.

As a re-creation of reality, a work of art has to be representational; its freedom of stylization is limited by the requirement of intelligibility; if it does not present an intelligible subject, it ceases to be art. On the other hand, a representational element is a detriment in the decorative arts: it is an irrelevant distraction, a clash of intentions. And although designs of little human figures or landscapes or flowers are often used to decorate textiles or wallpaper, they are artistically inferior to the nonrepresentational designs. When recognizable objects are subordinated to and treated as a mere pattern of colors and shapes, they become incongruous.

[”Art and Cognition,” RM, pb 74.]

See also: ART; BEAUTY; ESTHETICS; PSYCHO-EPISTEMOLOGY; VISUAL ARTS.

Deficit Financing. The government has no source of revenue, except the taxes paid by the producers. To free itself-for a while-from the limits set by reality, the government initiates a credit con game on a scale which the private manipulator could not dream of. It borrows money from you today, which is to be repaid with money it will borrow from you tomorrow, which is to be repaid with money it will borrow from you day after tomorrow, and so on. This is known as ”deficit financing.” It is made possible by the fact that the government cuts the connection between goods and money. It issues paper money, which is used as a claim check on actually existing goods-but that money is not backed by any goods, it is not backed by gold, it is backed by nothing. It is a promissory note issued to you in exchange for your goods, to be paid by you (in the form of taxes) out of your future production.

[”Egalitarianism and Inflation,” PWNI, 161; pb 133.]

See also CREDIT, GOLD STANDARD; GOVERNMENT; INFLATION; MONEY; TAXATION; WELFARE STATE.

Definitions. A definition is a statement that identifies the nature of the units subsumed under a concept.

It is often said that definitions state the meaning of words. This is true, but it is not exact. A word is merely a visual-auditory symbol used to represent a concept; a word has no meaning other than that of the concept it symbolizes, and the meaning of a concept consists of its units. It is not words, but concepts that man defines-by specifying their referents.

The purpose of a definition is to distinguish a concept from all other concepts and thus to keep its units differentiated from all other existents.

Since the definition of a concept is formulated in terms of other concepts, it enables man, not only to identify and retain a concept, but also to establish the relations.h.i.+ps, the hierarchy, the integration of all his concepts and thus the integration of his knowledge. Definitions preserve, not the chronological order in which a given man may have learned concepts, but the logical order of their hierarchical interdependence.

With certain significant exceptions, every concept can be defined and communicated in terms of other concepts. The exceptions are concepts referring to sensations, and metaphysical axioms. [ITOE, 52.]

The rules of correct definition are derived from the process of concept-formation. The units of a concept were differentiated-by means of a distinguis.h.i.+ng characteristic(s)-from other existents possessing a commensurable characteristic, a Conceptual Common Denominator. A definition follows the same principle: it specifies the distinguis.h.i.+ng characteristic (s) of the units, and indicates the category of existents from which they were differentiated.

The distinguis.h.i.+ng characteristic(s) of the units becomes the differentia of the concept's definition; the existents possessing a Conceptual Common Denominator become the genus.

Thus a definition complies with the two essential functions of consciousness: differentiation and integration. The differentia isolates the units of a concept from all other existents; the genus indicates their connection to a wider group of existents.

For instance, in the definition of table (”An item of furniture, consisting of a flat, level surface and supports, intended to support other, smaller objects”), the specified shape is the differentia, which distinguishes tables from the other ent.i.ties belonging to the same genus: furniture. In the definition of man (”A rational animal”), ”rational” is the differentia, ”animal” is the genus.

[Ibid., 53.]

A definition must identify the nature of the units, i.e., the essential characteristics without which the units would not be the kind of existents they are.

[Ibid., 55.]

It is the principle of unit-economy that necessitates the definition of concepts in terms of essential characteristics. If, when in doubt, a man recalls a concept's definition, the essential characteristic(s) will give him an instantaneous grasp of the concept's meaning, i.e., of the nature of its referents. For example, if he is considering some social theory and recalls that ”man is a rational animal,” he will evaluate the validity of the theory accordingly; but if, instead, he recalls that ”man is an animal possessing a thumb,” his evaluation and conclusion will be quite different.

[Ibid., 86.]

Now observe... the process of determining an essential characteristic: the rule of fundamentality. When a given group of existents has more than one characteristic distinguis.h.i.+ng it from other existents, man must observe the relations.h.i.+ps among these various characteristics and discover the one on which all the others (or the greatest number of others) depend, i.e., the fundamental characteristic without which the others would not be possible. This fundamental characteristic is the essential distinguis.h.i.+ng characteristic of the existents involved. and the proper defining characteristic of the concept.

Metaphysically, a fundamental characteristic is that distinctive characteristic which makes the greatest number of others possible; epistemologically, it is the one that explains the greatest number of others.

[Ibid., 59.]

All definitions are contextual, and a primitive definition does not contradict a more advanced one: the latter merely expands the former.

[Ibid., 56.]

Since man is not omniscient, a definition cannot be changelessly absolute, because it cannot establish the relations.h.i.+p of a given group of existents to everything else in the universe, including the undiscovered and unknown. And for the very same reasons, a definition is false and worthless if it is not contextually absolute-if it does not specify the known relations.h.i.+ps among existents (in terms of the known essential characteristics) or if it contradicts the known (by omission or evasion).

[Ibid., 62.]

An objective definition, valid for all men, is one that designates the essential distinguis.h.i.+ng characteristic(s) and genus of the existents subsumed under a given concept-according to all the relevant knowledge available at that stage of mankind's development.

[Ibid., 61.]

Truth is the product of the recognition (i.e., identification) of the facts of reality. Man identifies and integrates the facts of reality by means of concepts. He retains concepts in his mind by means of definitions. He organizes concepts into propositions-and the truth or falsehood of his propositions rests, not only on their relation to the facts he a.s.serts, but also on the truth or falsehood of the definitions of the concepts he uses to a.s.sert them, which rests on the truth or falsehood of his designations of essential characteristics.

[Ibid., 63.]

The truth or falsehood of all of man's conclusions, inferences, thought and knowledge rests on the truth or falsehood of his definitions.

[Ibid., 65.]

Definitions are the guardians of rationality, the first line of defense against the chaos of mental disintegration.

[”Art and Cognition,” RM, pb 77.]

To know the exact meaning of the concepts one is using, one must know their correct definitions, one must be able to retrace the specific (logical, not chronological) steps by which they were formed, and one must be able to demonstrate their connection to their base in perceptual reality.

When in doubt about the meaning or the definition of a concept, the best method of clarification is to look for its referents-i.e., to ask oneself : What fact or facts of reality gave rise to this concept? What distinguishes it from all other concepts?

[ITOE, 67.].

Let us note, at this point, the radical difference between Aristotle's view of concepts and the Objectivist view, particularly in regard to the issue of essential characteristics.

It is Aristotle who first formulated the principles of correct definition. It is Aristotle who identified the fact that only concretes exist. But Aristotle held that definitions refer to metaphysical essences, which exist in concretes as a special element or formative power, and he held that the process of concept-formation depends on a kind of direct intuition by which man's mind grasps these essences and forms concepts accordingly.

Aristotle regarded ”essence” as metaphysical; Objectivism regards it as epistemological.

Objectivism holds that the essence of a concept is that fundamental characteristic(s) of its units on which the greatest number of other characteristics depend, and which distinguishes these units from all other existents within the field of a man's knowledge. Thus the essence of a concept is determined contextually and may be altered with the growth of man's knowledge. The metaphysical referent of man's concepts is not a special, separate metaphysical essence, but the total of the facts of reality he has observed, and this total determines which characteristics of a given group of existents he designates as essential. An essential characteristic is factual, in the sense that it does exist, does determine other characteristics and does distinguish a group of existents from all others; it is epistemological in the sense that the cla.s.sification of ”essential characteristic” is a device of man's method of cognition-a means of cla.s.sifying, condensing and integrating an ever-growing body of knowledge.

[Ibid., 68.]

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