Excerpt from “How We Know: Epistemology on an Objectivist Foundation” by Harry Binswanger Principles as Absolutes Within their proper context, principles are absolutes. This follows from the nature of a principle: the law of causality has no exceptions. Thus, a valid principle can never be violated with impunity. A principle allows for the operation of countervailing factors (as the force of gravity can be balanced by the force of an airplane’s lift), but there is no such thing as a cancellation of the law of causality. Within their context, principles hold exceptionlessly. Why, then, do people so often violate their own principles? In some cases, the explanation is that the principle is false. In that case, the principle tells one to follow a course of action that is demonstrably self-destructive. In other cases, the problem is one’s failure to grasp and hold a principle in an authentic, first-hand manner. If a man’s “principles” are merely his internalization of the blindly accepted assertions of his parents, his teachers, and his neighbors, then he holds arbitrary, undigested rules, not actual principles—i.e., not road-maps to the achievement of his own values. Finally, man is not automatically rational: one does not automatically activate his abstract, conceptual knowledge. It takes no effort to be aware of short-range consequences; they are glaringly evident, here and now. But principles are highly abstract; it takes some conceptual effort even to realize that a principle is at stake, and more effort is required to apply the principle to a new, concrete case—and to hold onto the resulting knowledge under fire. So, in some cases, simple mental lethargy explains why people act against the better knowledge their principles make available to them. A frequent rationalization used to justify violating a principle is that it will be violated “just this once.” But the absolutism of principles cannot be escaped. First, if the principle is true, then it is true. That means one cannot succeed—whether one is attempting to acquire knowledge without obeying the principles required to do so, or trying to reach an existential goal without obeying the causal principles that identify the necessary means. Principles provide the map that identifies the location of a goal that one cannot directly see. If the map shows that the goal lies to the north, whatever the temporary attraction of heading south, doing so takes one farther from one’s goal. Even if one seeks a “compromise” by heading northwest, one will miss the goal. Violating a principle does not work; sooner or later, it results in failure. Failure exacts existential and psychological costs: wasted time and resources, and weakened self-confidence and self-respect. Consider a second, and deeper, penalty for violating a principle. There is a logic to principles, and a logic to what happens when one acts against them. In acting against a principle, one faces consequences not just in regard to the case at hand, one is also implicitly endorsing an opposite principle and beginning to establish it in one’s soul. For instance, if one tells a “white lie” to spare a friend’s feelings, one is endorsing the (false) principle, “Avoiding negative feelings is more important than facing reality.” One is also endorsing certain principles about the nature of friendship, such as that it is based not on mutual esteem but on pity and shared weaknesses. To the extent that one is rational, one’s principles define what one judges to be rationally necessary. Thus, flouting a principle jettisons both reason and causal necessity. This amounts to endorsing two wrong wider principles: epistemologically, that reason is not an absolute and that one’s rational judgment is dispensable. The latter, epistemological point is not just a theoretical implication. The unadmitted meaning of violating a principle is the dethroning of reason. One’s operating premise is: “I’ll go by reason—unless I don’t feel like it.” The meaning of this is a new (and false) principle: feelings trump reason. It doesn’t matter what one advances as the factor before which reason must retreat—a hunch, social mores, short-range advantage, God’s will—that factor cannot be something endorsed by reason. The idea of a rational limitation on reason is a contradiction in terms: if reason endorses the use of some consideration, then it is not beyond reason but part of reason; if reason does not endorse it (which is always the actual case), then it is against reason. And as explained in the preceding chapter, accepting the arbitrary is as irrational as accepting the contradictory. What is not rational to believe is irrational to believe. The issue is: on what grounds does one mark off an area with the sign, “Here reason does not enter”? It cannot be on rational grounds: the attempt to use reason to exclude reason from a given domain is a contradiction: it means holding, “By the nature of things in this domain, reason cannot know them.” Yes, supposedly, it is precisely the nature of those things that reason cannot know. Let us even assume that the things in the domain are not held to be contrary to reason, only inaccessible to reason. But how does one know that? Not by reason, because reason has been excluded. It must be that the “limits” set for reason are imposed by faith, or by whatever non-rational, non-validatable means of knowledge one claims to possess. Thus, the claim reduces to: “I have no reason to think that there are things inaccessible to reason; I accept that on faith.” Which is to say that it is an arbitrary assertion and therefore against reason. Whenever someone asserts: “There are areas that the human mind cannot penetrate,” he has either just penetrated it (in contradiction to his claim), or else he has made an arbitrary assertion. (There is a third possibility: he could claim to be superhuman.) Since the only demonstrable human faculty that can stand opposed to reason is emotions, the violation of a rational principle necessarily inculcates the principle that emotions are superior to reason. Since reason is the faculty required to identify the facts of reality, taking emotions to be superior to reason means taking them to be superior to reality—which is the primacy of consciousness. Beneath all the sophistries and rationalizations, the man who violates a rational principle is saying: “This will work, because I *want* it to work.” “Just One Contradiction” A principle identifies an action that is required by the facts at hand. To violate a principle is to act as if what is required were not required—a contradiction. The oft-heard excuse “just this once” means: “It’s safe to accept just this one contradiction.” But accepting a contradiction undercuts the whole structure of one’s knowledge. It forces a puzzle-piece into a space it does not fit, spoiling the overall picture (and leaving no place to put the right piece). Clinging to the contradiction undercuts method as well as content: one becomes unable to check ideas for consistency with *all* that one knows. Without that consistency-checking, one cannot distinguish knowledge from mere belief or feeling. The contradiction leads one into a swamp of subjectivism, bereft of epistemic guidance. The only way out is to renounce the attempt to “get away with” a contradiction, repair the damage done, and resume the task of non-contradictory integration, as a matter of *principle.* To see the cognitive consequences of accepting a contradiction, consider the simplest possible case: accepting a contradiction in arithmetic. Let’s take a hard case: a “small” contradiction not at the base of arithmetic, but further down the line. Suppose one accepts the contradictory idea that 14 = 15. Can’t one still have arithmetic? No, because arithmetic is an integrated whole. Consider: if 14 = 15, then what is the result of 15-14? Is it 1? Is it 0? There’s no way to know. What is 14 + 14? It could be 28, 29, or 30. Such undecidable questions cannot be quarantined. What is the result of 2 X 14? Is it the same as 2 X 15? Is 14 even or odd? Since 14 is supposed to be the same quantity as 15, we can’t answer. What happens to the Pythagorean Theorem if we have a right triangle with one side 14 inches long and one side 15? A contradiction, if maintained, *paralyzes* thought. One can proceed only by abandoning logic and just making up an answer as an arbitrary dictum. Ultimately, the alternative is: adherence to logic or cognitive paralysis.
Posted on: Tue, 06 Jan 2015 02:44:49 +0000
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