Ayn Rand’s theory of concepts answers many so-called problems in philosophy. One of these is Kant’s claim that such concepts as space, time, and causality are innate (“a priori”), independent of sense perception and therefore of reality. Whatever we are aware of are phenomena, appearances in our minds, not the noumena of true reality. The positivists took this a step further and declared all abstractions from abstractions “arbitrary constructs.” Let us see what Rand’s theory can say about these broad concepts.
An abstraction from abstractions, according to Rand (chap. 3), begins with perceived concretes, such as chairs, tables, and beds. A first-level abstraction from abstractions might be furniture, by identifying the similar characteristics that the three concretes share, namely large objects designed to support the human body and smaller objects. A further abstraction might be household goods when we integrate furniture with furnaces, air conditioners, and kitchen appliances, and, further, the broad abstraction of human-made objects by integrating household goods with bridges, automobiles, and skyscrapers.
To keep our knowledge in good order, says Rand, we must be able to trace the steps from broad abstraction back to perceived concrete, in my example from human-made object to chairs, furnaces, and bridges. Consider now Kant’s broad abstractions and alleged innate concepts space, time, and causality.
Contrary to Kant, all of these concepts have referents in perceptual reality. Space, to put it rather simply and obviously, is an empty place, such as a room that has no furniture, an available parking location, and the spot on my desk where my water glass was. All of these concepts are perceptual, metaphysical (out there) referents of the (in here) abstraction from abstractions of “space” and “place.” Note that my examples of space can be described in geometrical terms, respectively, as three dimensional, two dimensional, or just a point, all perceptually grasped.*
Time, said Aristotle, is a “measure of motion” as the cubit is a measure of length.** Ayn Rand says it is a “change of relationship,” of one entity that moves from one place to another in relation to an entity that is stationary (256–60). For example, if I move my water glass from the right side of my computer to the left, I become aware of the passage of time.
Historically, time was discovered as the changing phases of the moon in relation to the earth, then later as the movements of the sun across the earth’s sky. It was measured initially by water clocks and sun dials. Today, we base our understanding of time on the revolutions of the earth around the sun and measure it with more and more precise time pieces.
Because we must know several prior concepts—entity, change, motion, measurement—time is a broad abstraction whose referents can be traced back to perceptual concretes. It is not innate.
Causality, according to Rand, is decidedly an abstraction from abstractions, not an innate Kantian category.
For Rand, causality is “the law of identity applied to action” (Atlas Shrugged, 1037). It is the actions of one or more entities in relation to the actions of one or more other entities. Essentially, this is Aristotle’s formal cause, including his distinction between potentiality and actuality, and a rejection of the view that has dominated philosophy of science since the Renaissance. That view looks only at efficient causation, the so-called billiard-ball causality.
One of Rand’s fundamental propositions is that an entity is all its attributes and that is its identity. There is no substratum or glue holding the attributes together, which would take us back to the intrinsic theory of essences. Thus, to arrive at a causal explanation of an event we have to recognize the nature of the entities involved.
A billiard ball, for example, going in the pocket of a pool table is not fully explained by saying the cue stick moved in a certain way to knock it in (efficient causation). We have to know that the balls are hard and roll easily on the fabric of the table and a well-chalked cue stick in the hands of a skilled player with good vision hits the ball at the right angle and speed.
The concepts of a round and hard ball, smooth and flat table, chalk and cue stick, and skilled player with accurate eyesight are all attributes of the respective entities and their interactions to cause this event.
Simple billiard-ball causation is not so simple. As can be seen, Aristotle’s other three causes—material, final (when talking about human and other living action), and efficient are relevant in a full explanation of a cause. But formal cause, the nature or identity of the entities involved, is central.
The implication of Rand’s view that causality is identity in action is that essentialization is a grasp of causality. Conceptualization through essentialization identifies causes and effects of the existents that the concept identifies. The essential distinguishing characteristic of an entity and Rand’s rule of fundamentality (45–46) say that to identify the essential characteristic of a concept, we must identify the one or more that explains and causes all or most of the others. Again, this means that the explanation is “in here,” in our internal mental process of consciousness and is epistemological, and the causal relationship is “out there,” in reality apart from that mental process and is metaphysical.
Thus, cholera is explained and caused by the essential distinguishing characteristics of the comma bacillus (today called Vibrio Cholerae) interacting with the digestive system of the human body. Dew is explained and caused by the characteristics of water condensation, that is, of water vapor in the air interacting with air temperature such that liquid forms on our cars, windows, and leaves of grass. And tides are explained and caused by the attractions between water on earth to the sun and moon as they move, especially the gravitational pull of the moon on the oceans of earth; those oceans that are on the side of earth closest to the moon, and furthest away, “bulge out” and create high tides. The in-between oceans, depending on rotation of the earth, experience low tides.
Which is not to say that the above explanations are exhaustive of the respective causes. Qualifications are often required, as the “simple” explanation that water boils at 212º Fahrenheit requires the qualifications “varying by air pressure and purity of water.” Nevertheless, the many concepts involved, which means the many entities with their specific attributes involved, had to be examined in detail through testing and trying in various experiments to arrive at the final essential distinguishing characteristics.
And the word “final” must be taken advisedly as this does not mean these findings are true “eternally.” Knowledge grows and discoveries increase, meaning that our causal definitions are contextual and may need to be adjusted. Einstein’s theory of gravity in relation to Newton’s is just one example of this “editing” of a previous theory.
Conceptualization by measurement omission, which identifies the cause of an event by singling out the essential distinguishing characteristic or characteristics of the existents involved, is the essence of theory in both basic and applied sciences. Measurement is not the essence of science; it is an aid, which may be extensive in some sciences, to the discovery and application of theory.
An appropriate note here is to point out that many controlled experiments performed today aimed at determining cause and effect relationships are superfluous, correlational, or performed with less than sound methodology, such as inadequate assumptions or insufficient study time to identify accurate effects. Many such studies only generate historical data, not theory.
Contemporary psychoanalyst Jonathan Shedler states that we do not need to conduct RCTs—randomly controlled trials, as they are called in some sciences, such as medicine—to know that “the sun causes sunburn, sex causes pregnancy, or food deprivation leads to starvation.”
These examples, Shedler continues, are known by observation because we know their mechanisms (or means) of action. And these examples, I would add, are applications of well-known concepts that illustrate Aristotle’s formal cause and Rand’s theory of causality. “Mechanism of action” means that by identifying the entities and their attributes in a causal situation—sun, skin, and sunburn; sex organs, sex, and pregnancy; nutritional organs, food, and starvation—we can know their actions and effects on each other.
Conceptualization, grasping the essential distinguishing characteristics of the entities and attributes involved, which includes retention of all the knowledge we have learned to date about the entities, that is, the information in our respective “file folders,” as Rand calls them, are key to knowing the operation of any action.
* Aristotle in the Physics, iv 212a5–31, preferred to use the word “place,” instead of “space.” Aristotle also regarded mathematical concepts as abstractions from abstractions, stating that the mathematician “strips off all the sensible qualities [of perceptual concretes] . . . and leaves only the quantitative and continuous, sometimes in one, sometimes in two, sometimes in three dimensions.” Metaphysics, 1061a30–35. By implication, using Rand’s theory, we perceive the solid object, then abstract from it the concept of plane, then from plane, the concept of line, and finally from line, the concept of point, which is the highest-level abstraction. Cf. Topics, 141b10–11: “A solid falls under perception most of all, and a plane more than a line, and a line more than point.”
** Aristotle, Physics, iv 221a1–3. A little later, Aristotle says time is “not motion, but number of motion.” 221b10. Cubit is an ancient measure of length that extends from one’s bent elbow to the end of the middle finger.
