Sensation, Perception, Conception
I had a brilliant train journey today, from Chennai to Bangalore. My N72 was wondeful company and Ayn Rand kept my mind working most of the time. I felt that this particular paragraph from her book 'For the New Intellectual' has to be put up on my blog. The logic seems just perfect. Though I tried to come up with arguments against the logic and reason that she gives in the paragraph, I couldnt really help but get convinced by her thoughts.
P.S: I am an animal. I will, very soon, be a man.''Man's consciousness shares with animals the first two stages of its development; sensations and perceptions; but it is the third state, conceptions, that makes him man. Sensations are intergrated into perceptions automatically, by the brain of a man or of an animal. But to integrate perceptions into conceptions by a process of abstraction, is a feat that man alone has the power to perform - and he has to perform it by choice. The process of abstraction, and of concept-formation is a process of reason, of thought; it is not automatic nor instinctive nor involuntary nor infallible. Man has to initiate it, to sustain it and to bear responsibility for its results. The pre-conceptual level of consciousness is nonvolitional; volition begins with the first syllogism. Man has the choice to think or to evade - to maintain a state of full awareness or to drift from moment to moment, in a sem-conscious daze, at the mercy of whatever associational whims the unfocused mechanism of his consciousness produces. ''
9 comments:
Why do you think you're not a man yet?
P.S- That question can be interpreted in so many shady ways. :D
En guru, phull filosofy na?
"Man has the choice to think or to evade - to maintain a state of full awareness or to drift from moment to moment..."
What are the foundations of thought? Which building blocks do these "concepts" stem from, for Ayn Rand to posit that thought leads to full awareness? There is a great deal more here than meets the eye...
What constitutes thought? Is it logical reasoning? Logic stems from two fundamental principles - inference and deduction. Consider the story about the apple that fell on Newton's head, which led to the postulation of the Law of Gravitation - an abstract concept. Now, how do you know that this law is valid? What guarantees that an apple will still fall to the ground tomorrow?
The question is simply this : can "concepts" tell you something new - that hasn't been percieved or experienced (in this case, that an apple will continue to fall to the ground in the years to come) - about the world, or do they merely state correlations and patterns of percepts?
~ Your 'good' friend
P.S. Please note that I'm not disputing what Ayn Rand says. I'm only stating that what she's said is not complete.
P.P.S. If you're really, really interested, the Law of Gravitation is an example of a 'synthetic a-posteriori' proposition, i.e., one whose truth is contingent. This is an inference which is drawn based on past experience.
There is another class of propositions called 'analytic a-priori', which are true or false by definition, i.e., the predicate-concept is contained in the subject of the proposition.
Kant was the first philosopher to introduce a third class of propositions called synthetic a-priori, and posit that it is possible to know something about the world without empirical experience.
At last! I have something to say of Mr.Kant than a reference to his Critique of Pure Reason.. Thank you good Mr.Anon!
~Mohan,
You're welcome. :) Oh, and by the way, Mister Anon? Rather sexist, aren't we?
Was that an inference drawn from the general readership of this blog, or do you perchance have some a-priori knowledge of my identity?
@ Anon & Mohan
I havent read any philosophy by Kant. I will do so and try understanding things from a different perspective. Only after you know things from all perspectives should you start conceptualizing. That is my philosophy.. :)
And for certain hidden reasons, the 'good friend' here is a person from a very small sample space of males.
@Cheeky
Reasoning... I am still learning how to do that. :)
LOL @ Cheeky
And Czar, Well...Reason it out.
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