Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical (32 page)

ABSTRACTION AND CONCEPTION

Rand regarded
perception
as a nonvolitional process integrating
sensations
into a single unit. She regarded this
integration
as a primitive relational form at the base of knowledge. In her view, human beings transcend the purely perceptual level of
awareness
. The
volitional
ability to
focus
and reason—in short, the capacity to think—constitutes and is constituted by a distinctly human,
conceptual
level of awareness. The difference between
conception
and perception, then, lies in the character of the relation. Perception is a relational integration of sensations performed
automatically
by the mind. It is awareness of concrete entities, rather than of isolated sensations. Conception, by contrast, is a relational integration
of perceptions performed
volitionally
by the mind. The ability to regard perceived entities as relational
units
is distinctive to this human mode of cognition. Rand explains: “The building-block of man’s knowledge is the concept of an ‘existent’—of something that exists, be it a thing, an attribute or an action” (
Introduction
, 5). The concept of “existent” is implicit in every percept. The mind makes a transition from an awareness of
existents
to an awareness of their specific
identity
. The ability to discover the “identity” of an existent emerges from the perceptual ability to distinguish among entities. It is the capacity to
differentiate
entities from one another.

Thus, to grasp an “existent” and its “identity” is to move from perception to perceptual judgment. But to link the identified existent to other similar or different existents is the crucial, primary epistemological step in the conceptual process. This view of an entity as existing in certain relationships with other entities is an awareness of the existent as a relational unit. Rand states: “
The ability to regard entities as units is man’s distinctive method of cognition,
which other living species are unable to follow” (6).

Rand defined a unit as “an existent regarded as a separate member of a group of two or more similar members.” To identify such units in reality, a person must engage in “a selective focus” (6–7). This selectivity is based on objective criteria of classification. For instance, things exist.
Attributes
exist. The thing is its attributes. But the attributes can be separated from the thing in an act of mental isolation. The abstracted unit cannot be reified into a separate thing, but it does enable a person to bring the elements of the real world within the range of
consciousness
. Rand explained: “
Units are things viewed by a consciousness in certain existing relationships.
” The unit helps us to classify objective existents according to observed, real characteristics. Thus, in her concept of “unit,” Rand bridges metaphysics and
epistemology
, the existence of the thing and our knowledge of it as a relation (7).

For Rand, the formation of relational units is the essential foundation of concept formation. A “concept” integrates two or more perceptual concretes—or units—which are isolated by a process of
abstraction
according to specific characteristics and united by a specific definition.
⁴²
A concept means the existential referents it signifies, or the existents it identifies. This understanding of concept formation involves many distinct and interrelated epistemological aspects.

The first moment of the conceptual process is the ability to abstract. Rand would have agreed with the Marxist theoretician
Bertell Ollman
, who explains that the necessity of abstraction is

[a] simple recognition of the fact that all thinking about reality begins by breaking it down into manageable parts. Reality may be in one
piece when lived, but to be thought about and communicated it must be parceled out. Our minds can no more swallow the world whole at one sitting than can our stomachs.… “Abstract” comes from the Latin,
abstrahere
, which means “to pull from.” In effect, a piece has been pulled from or taken out of the whole and is temporarily perceived as standing apart. (Ollman 1993, 24)

Likewise, for Rand, this process of abstraction is “a selective mental focus that
takes out
or separates a certain aspect of reality from all others” (
Introduction
, 10). Abstraction is a necessary moment of the
conceptual
process because the mind cannot deal at once with all of the complexities of the totality. People are not
omniscient
; they function neither as gods nor like
Aquinas
’s angels. Rand explained that in the Thomistic view, each of the angels embodies the form of a different species. Lacking corporeality and human consciousness, the angels are conceived as being capable of grasping all the instances of every universal Form in existence by a single act of contemplation. Rand warned that human beings cannot attempt to operate like Aquinas’s angels (Peikoff 1972T, lecture 8).

The human mode of awareness limits how much can be grasped in a single cognitive act. By abstracting
units
from the totality, people make the world knowable and manageable. These units form the basis of open-ended
concepts
, each of which incorporates a recognition of context and change. Our abstractions enable us to “chew” the pieces of a complex totality in an effort to make them cognitively digestible.

Thus, abstraction is necessary, according to Rand, because people cannot deal with the whole of reality, or the totality of their own knowledge in a single, simultaneous instant of cognition (“Appendix,” 172). Abstraction enables us to reduce the information at our disposal to manageable cognitive units. In this sense, a human being is no different from a crow; each has a limited ability to discriminate beyond a certain number of units. The difference between a human and a crow, however, is that humans are capable of conceptualizing relational units which internalize innumerable variations within a specified range. Thus, though human cognition is also limited by the “crow
epistemology
,” humans are able to transcend these limits by a conceptual process condensing the number of units with which they must grapple
(Introduction
, 63). As Kelley (1984a) explains, the unit economy inherent in concept formation “is a way of treating discriminable things as if they were identical. This has the advantage of filtering out a mass of information that is irrelevant to most cognitive tasks” (19).

Abstraction
is a necessary first step in
concept
formation, but it is not the culmination of the process. Those who would abstract a unit without
reintegrating it into a cognitive totality create a distorted, partial, or segmented view of reality. The totality cannot be ignored.
⁴³
Rand would have agreed with
Lossky
([1906] 1919) that our ability to abstract “separates out from … reality some fresh aspect, of which we become aware precisely as an aspect of, or an element in, the part of reality under investigation” (230). For Rand, the part can never be reified as a separate whole. If we are to avoid such
reification
, the abstracted units must be blended or synthesized into a single, new mental entity. This new unit of thought is a concept, which is denoted by a word.
⁴⁴

The concept can be reduced to its component parts whenever analysis is required. Indeed, the integrated units of a concept can be expanded or contracted depending on the cognitive context. But our
integration
of the units into a concept is not an arithmetic sum. One does not merely add such units as “mind,” “arms,” “legs,” and “heart” and achieve a concept of human being. Rand preserved the integrity of the
conceptual
whole. She viewed concept formation as closer to an algebraic formula in which the concept itself stands for a limitless number of concretes of a specific kind (
Introduction
, 10). The consequent blending of the abstracted units “is not a mere sum, but an inseparable sum forming a new mental unit.” It is an
integration
.
⁴⁵

Thus the second moment of concept formation is integration. The process of abstraction necessitates the process of integration. These two are inseparable; neither aspect is possible without the other (“Appendix,” 138, 144). Breaking up and “chewing” the pieces of reality is an analytical process that must be followed by synthesis, so that the pieces are reconnected to the larger totality.
⁴⁶
A fully human method of
thinking
requires us to “dance back and forth” between concretes and abstractions. Physical concretes and conceptual units must never be disconnected. And abstractions must never be left floating in disregard of the existential reality that gives them meaning. By integrating concretes and abstractions, units and concepts, human beings unify the elements of body and mind, existence and
consciousness
(Rand 1958T, lecture 5).

To abstract and to conceptualize, human beings must expend cognitive effort. As a dialectical thinker, Rand would have agreed with
Ollman
(1993), who argues that “most people are lazy abstractors, simply and uncritically accepting the mental units with which they think as part of their cultural inheritance” (26). Rand implored us to stop thinking in a preconceived square, to name our primaries, to identify our starting points, to recognize the hierarchical structure of our arguments and knowledge.
⁴⁷
For Rand, this necessity to check our premises is the hallmark not only of a fully human
epistemology
but of
radical
thinking as well. Radicals go to the root; they
refuse to be locked into the ideological boundaries set by others. Indeed, they question their
own
assumptions and strive to articulate their basis in reality as well. As in her distinction between the metaphysical and the man-made, Rand rejected the reification of the status quo as transhistorical and natural.
Every
issue, event, thought, desire, and action must be understood through a process of articulation.

Once the mind has achieved the tasks of abstraction and integration, the formation of a concept is complete. Rand saw each concept as an open file. A concept becomes an instrument for knowing reality. Our initial
concepts
allow us to grasp new elements of knowledge. With each epistemological expansion, we can return to our original concepts and enrich their meaning. Such integration of old and new knowledge enables us, over time, to subtly change our vantage point on the totality.
⁴⁸
As Rasmussen (1983a) explains, a concept is “not a closed, a-contextual, repository of omniscience which provides a non-empirical path to knowledge.… The ‘rich’ character of a concept’s cognitive content results from the fact that its significance … is not limited by what the knower explicitly considers when using a concept” (525–26). Thus, our understanding of each concept grows extensively and intensively with each advance in knowledge.

Rand explains that concept formation is an essentially
mathematical
process.
⁴⁹
Since every existent is part of the same reality, each is measurable. The standards of
measurement
may vary.
⁵⁰
For Rand,
everything
is measurable, either cardinally or ordinally. Our concept formation process incorporates this reality in the very act of abstraction. In abstracting two or more units from the totality, we
differentiate
within a specific context according to those characteristics which are commensurable. Our conceptual classifications omit specific measurements and intensities, while retaining the commensurable characteristic(s) that unites the identified cognitive units.
⁵¹

In forming the concept “dog,” for instance, we need not be aware of every dog on earth. We omit the variations within the species, forming a classification that comprises all of the diversities within a specific range. As our knowledge deepens from observation and scientific investigation, we are able to sharpen our
definition
of the dog’s essential characteristics, without changing our concept of the existent, “dog.”

The wide range of the
concept
“dog” incorporates every dog that has ever lived and will live, from Chihuahuas to Great Danes. But it does not include any cats. The concept “dog” omits the
measurements
(the various kinds of dogs), but retains those characteristics shared by all dogs. Abstracted characteristics enable us to distinguish “dogs” from “cats,” and “dogs” and “cats” from “tables.” As our context changes, however, so can our cognitive classifications (
Introduction
, 13–14). Ultimately,
everything
that exists can be integrated by the
axiomatic concept “existence,” since all things belong to the same reality. But for the purposes of concept formation, indeed, for the purposes of
human
knowledge, we engage in a primary inductive process in which characteristics are isolated according to
perceptual
similarities. As our knowledge grows, we begin to classify newly discovered instances of established
concepts
. This interaction of inductive and deductive moments makes possible the movement toward more specific
differentiation
and wider
integration
(19, 28).

Rand’s theory of measurement omission leads to an interesting paradox. Though the process is crucial to conceptualization, it is not wholly directed by the faculty of
volition
. Rand argued that most people do not realize that they are engaging in any kind of measurement or measurement omission when they are forming concepts. But from the very first moments of
abstraction
, our ability to differentiate
is
an ability to distinguish between larger and smaller entities, hotter and colder states, brighter and darker colors, weaker and more intense emotions. Each of these differentiations involves
implicit
measurement. One does not have to measure the exact wavelengths of light that distinguish the color red from the color blue. We perceive differences even though we are not aware of measuring these differences at the time of concept formation. Science and mathematics can help us to articulate the actual measurements that are involved in this process, but explicit quantification is
not
typical or necessary.