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(Published in Objectively Speaking, 12-88)
"All I want is the right to ask questions."
"You have to keep an open mind."
"For the sake of argument, if what I said was true, then you would have to grant me that conclusion."
"You can't define that. In fact, it's wrong even to try. After all, you have to be practical."
These are four statements that are uttered all the time. Four statements that most people would grant as valid. Four statements which reveal more of their authors' true attitudes towards life than they probably realize.
These are four statements that in the contexts in which they are most frequently used are dangerous, destructive, and simply wrong.
"All I want is the right to ask questions."
Nothing wrong with that attitude, right? How else does one learn about things without inquiring as to what's out there and what it means? If your goal is to discover the facts of reality, to use your consciousness to identify the nature of reality, then this is a perfectly legitimate course to follow.
But knowledge is not what the follower of the philosophy of skepticism is after. He wants freedom to ask questions...and to ask...and to ask... But an answer -- any contextually final answer -- is the last thing he desires.
He passionately insists that all he wants is "the truth"...then he rejects the possibility that the truth even exists, or if he is willing to grant that it does exist, he dismisses the notion that it can be known. After all, he says, one's senses cannot be trusted. They distort what is out there. One can never directly know existence. Reality itself can never be discovered. An approximation is all that can ever be achieved. Since one can never know everything about reality, then, of course, nothing which one knows can be valid or certain. ("I know that nothing can be known," the skeptic says, somehow wishing to exempt himself from his own philosophy. But his very statement is self-refuting and thereby invalid.)
These descendants of Plato hide behind the mirror of reason yet refuse to face it directly. To do so would be to reveal the exact nature of their error, a betrayal and an evasion far worse than that of those self-avowed mystics who forthrightly proclaim that reason is impotent, that only faith can reveal the true essence of existence. Like Kant who penned A Critique of Pure Reason in an attempt to "save" reason but in the process undercut its very meaning and foundations, the skeptic disguises his abandonment of reason by giving lip service to rationality then doing his utmost to deny the validity of perception, identity, logic, and existence.
Every answer given to the questions the skeptic asks increases the level of his vociferous condemnation of any attempt to reveal basic principles. Though he supposedly seeks answers, he rejects you precisely because you have answers. For him to ackowledge that you know something with certainty about reality, to acknowledge that such truth is even possible would destroy the illusion which maintains his precarious self-image as "a foe of dogmatism" and of "closed-mindedness." A recognition of the possibility that knowledge is, indeed, possible would reveal that his philosophy is self-contradictory and barren. It would shout that his Trojan Horse attempt to storm the ramparts of reason is doomed to failure; that his inability to deal with the uncompromising demands of reality is merely a reflection of the hollowness of the philosophy by which he tries to live. But the skeptic cannot hide from reality, cannot evade existence forever; the existence which he may concede is there, but which he stoutly maintains is "irrelevant" to the "practical" problems on which he insists on focussing.
The skeptic drifts through life in a concrete-bound framework. To him, principles of nature and action -- if he is even willing to grant their existence -- these principles have no bearing on the "real issues" of the world. Principles are not "pragmatic." He supports relativistic ethics, the notion that whatever a small group of people decides is proper is what is "right"...though how, without a set standard, any "right" can be defined, he does not say. Doubtless he would answer that such a concern does not matter. What "works" for the group is what is important. Like most closet collectivists -- a term which is often synonymous with closet dictators -- the skeptic never considers that what the group might decide is moral might be at variance with his own notions of what is ethical or "practical." When the group votes that it is the skeptic's life and property that are to be forfeited for the "greater good," he will have no grounds for complaint.
The anti-conceptual nature of the skeptic is revealed when he seeks to "defend" capitalism. "People used to be judged on competence," he says, "but no one cares anymore. No wonder capitalism is in trouble." But to the skeptic, the reason why "no one cares anymore" is one question he does not want to ask. Any issues of metaphysics or epistemology or ethics have, for him, no bearing on the "practical" problem of what he says is a bad trend. He does not want to hear that capitalism in this country was weakened precisely because no explicit metaphysical, epistemological, or ethical defense was made for it until Ayn Rand did so. The skeptic is unconcerned with the evidence of two-hundred years of subversion and betrayal. He wants only to consider what is to be done here and now with the business practices he sees around him. We should "emulate the Japanese," he says, ignoring the fact that it is government and not business that has been the prime agent of the philosophy which caused the decline of American capitalism. "Ignore the past," he proclaims while he repeats the mistakes of past generations of so-called "defenders of free enterprise." Better that, he thinks, than to admit the truth. His evasion is all the more indefensible because the correct answers to the dilemma of a moral defense of capitalism are now available, are valid, and are being espoused by Objectivists across this nation "here and now."
But the skeptic does not hear those answers, does not see that they exist. After all, abstract, basic principles are of no use in dealing with "practical" issues, are they?
The skeptic has evidently never heard of the hierarchy of concepts, the idea that higher order abstractions arise from, are dependent upon, and would be meaningless without a proper foundation of basic, axiomatic principles -- such as existence, identity, and consciousness -- which by the application of logic and experience give rise to those higher, "practical" concepts such as capitalism with which he prefers to concern himself. If he were to apply his attitude to the strictly "practical" world he loves so well, the skeptic would have to say that to have a penthouse suite, there is no need to bother oneself with a basement or a foundation or the first hundred stories of a skyscraper. Just build the suite floating there alone and perfect in the air. If the penthouse is all one wants, why waste time with the rest? The image this conjures correlates well with the skeptic's view of the nature of reality and the "practicality" of the nonsensical vision entailed by the philosophy of skepticism.
"Don't be concerned with where ideas come from," he says. "Adopt any combination of metaphysics and epistemology and ethics you want. As long as it works for you and your group, that's all that matters." The skeptic reveals himself here as a person who has never grasped the fundamental fact that there is no dichotomy between the abstract and the practical. Reality is not a smorgasbord where one can pick and choose according to the dictates of whim and desire. It is a seamless whole. A particular metaphysics implies a particular epistemology which implies a particular ethics which implies a particular political/economic system which implies a particular esthetics. The abstract concept not tied to reality is meaningless, and the "practical" not arising from basic principles carries the seeds of its own destruction. The skeptic seeks to live by the standard of the arbitrary, the standard of majority vote, the standard of the pragmatic. He equates the decline of capitalism with "incompetence" without troubling himself with the metaphysical, epistemological, or ethical sources and meaning of that term. Does he not know that to be "incompetent" is make wrong choices, which means to follow a course of action not in accordance with reality, which means to act in a way which destroys or diminishes one's ability to function properly, which means to lower one's ability to live effectively, which means to lose values which arise only from life, which means to be self-destructive, bad, and, possibly, evil? And does he still maintain that the notion of "incompetence" is merely a pragmatic concern and has nothing whatever to do with ethics?
Unfortunately, yes.
But perhaps it is necessary to "keep an open mind." An "open mind" one would have to have in order to accept what the actual results of the philosophy of skepticism are rather than what the skeptic purports to be aiming at. One would need an "open mind" to accept what the skeptic says since he has no facts to support his metaphysical positions, no objective evidence to indicate that his statements are anything other than mere assertions. His existential doubt obliterates the concept of proof by equating the arbitrary with the logically derived, by demanding equal standing for his arguments no matter how irrational or anti-conceptual they might be.
"Grant me 'if,'" he says. "If the situation is such and so, then my position obviously follows. You have to grant me that." With such an argument, he believes he has refuted you and established his position beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Did I say that the skeptic refuses to accept any answers? That stricture, of course, does not apply to any answers which he might supply. Somehow his philosophy does not apply to itself or to him. Any questions as to what basic principles he used to reach his answers are, of course, dismissed. After all, of what value are axiomatic principles to the "real world"?
But, yes, if you were to grant him his postulate, then, yes, his conclusion would logically follow. But by what standard should you grant him that postulate? If -- for the sake of argument, as he, of course, would say -- you were to accede the validity of his approach to reaching a true understanding of existence, then I could postulate that if men could lift 10,000 pounds by muscle power alone, then we could do without a lot of expensive machinery which clutters our factories. If the moon were made of cheese, we could eat it. If we could abolish entropy, then we would never have to worry about running out of energy. If socialism could perform economic calculations, and if everyone voluntarily gave up his property to the state and was willing to submerge his individual identity beneath that of the group, and if the basic nature of humanity changed, and if no one ever again used violence against someone else, then, of course, the state would wither away and we could establish a benevolent, fruitful, idyllic existence here on earth where everyone would be equal and there would be no want or poverty or disease. As you can see, of course, my conclusions follow directly and logically from my premises.
If...if.
But you cannot postulate away existence. You cannot by "if only" destroy the Law of Identity. Reality is reality. A is A. "If only" divorced from previously validated knowledge is merely one more futile attempt to do an end-run around facts and logic and existence. Any such efforts cannot succeed.
In the guise of "keeping an open mind," the skeptic would have you abandon your senses, your judgment, your knowledge; would have you abandon that mind of yours which he seeks to keep open to any contradictory nonsense he cares to expound.
Seeking to postulate without facts, without evidence or logic, seeking to have you admit -- for the sake of argument -- that A is equal to not-A is simply a poorly disguised effort to indulge in whims, in wishes and fantasies; a way to escape the iron-clad identity of nature by ceding to the mystics and the altruists that, "Yes, your way is what I really want. Reality is too hard for me to face. If only it did not exist. I want to escape it. I did not ask for it to be this way, and I do not want it! I don't want the responsibility of dealing with reality. If only I could have it be the way I want it to be," he says. "Save me from it. I'll do whatever you want, give you whatever you demand. But...I still want to pretend that I believe in reason, in logic, in facts, in reality, so please, please, don't tell the rest of them what you're up to. We'll just have to make certain to ask them to keep open minds..."
A poorly disguised effort, indeed. But what is truly sad -- and tragically frightening -- is how many people are taken in by that mask of respectability.
These are the same people who do not believe that all valid concepts must be defined or at least be definable. To define what skepticism really means is to shred the veil of pseudo-rationality that conceals its philosophical sleight-of-hand. Skepticism succeeds to the extent that it does because there are people willing to be duped, an audience which, through ignorance or evasion, actively participates in the fraud and deception.
When someone says that a concept cannot be defined, he is implying that that concept is arbitrary, that it can mean "whatever you want it to mean," that you should accept it on faith, that A does not have to equal A, that there is no objective reality out there to anchor our conceptual framework.
But there is no room in any aspect of life for the subjective in the sense of the arbitrary, in the sense of placing one's wishes, hopes, whims, or fears above facts in one's cognitive processes; for believing that reality can be altered by one's beliefs or should be for one's "convenience."
Whether the concept is love or justice or ethics or beauty or art or chairs, to say that the concept cannot -- or worse, should not -- be defined is to say that reality cannot or should not be known. It is to say that one's mind is impotent to grasp reality, that it is better to float along in a hazy evasion of what is out there since "everybody knows what you mean anyway, right?" But how do they know? What do they know? By what standard is one to decide?
Blank-out.
This is not the same as saying, "I don't know what that particular definition is." That is simply a lack of specific knowledge. If one knows that a definition exists, one can obtain it or derive it logically from more basic facts or concepts. It may be the case that the definition is incomplete or contains inaccuracies. While the skeptic accepts only the eternal, infallible, or omniscient as qualifying as knowledge, man is none of those things, and few philosophical principles would likewise satisfy such unreasonable requirements. If knowledge and certainty are to have any meaning at all, they must be understood in relationship to man's nature and his epistemological needs. Knowledge and certainty can be contexually absolute, but this is a far cry from the skeptic's strawman representation of "dogmatism." In fact, the very definition of what it means to be "human" has altered over time: from being a tool-user to a language-user to a being an animal possessing a rational, conceptual, volitional consciousness. None of those expansions invalidated the earlier ones. All qualified as knowledge and were contextually absolute, i.e., were valid when the widest range of knowledge then available was considered.
But to use terms and concepts which one says are valid but which cannot be or should not be defined in relation to reality is to take a position no different from the mystics who say that God or Oneness or the social good or the material productive forces of history exist but need not be defined because you either know what those concepts mean -- somehow, by faith or revelation or class membership or race -- or if you do not know then no explanation is possible.
But there is not more than one logic which is to say that there is not more than one Law of Identity which is to say that there is not more than one reality.
At this point, the skeptic will undoubtedly ask, "How do you know that?" One is tempted to grant him his contention that he can never know anything. But to such a question one can say only, "I know it to be true because the world exists, because I possess a consciousness which perceives that existence of which I am a part, and because I can think rationally in accordance with logic and the Law of Identity."
...The last of which, apparently, the skeptic cannot -- or will not -- do.
