Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical (40 page)

Rand would not have disagreed with any of these observations. She recognized that
consciousness
is, by its nature, finite and limited. Indeed, as Peikoff (1991b, 125) suggests, no mind can hold in the “flash of a
synoptic insight” all of the ideas and skills that are relevant to a particular task. And Branden ([1969] 1979) states further that no individual “can achieve exhaustive knowledge of the nature and laws of mental activity, merely by
introspection
” (9).

But to state that human beings are not omniscient or that they cannot gain complete knowledge of their own minds through introspection is
not
to suggest that certain
epistemic
elements are fundamentally inexpressible. What Rand opposed in Hayek and
Polanyi
was their tendency to view skills, ideas, and morals as ineffable.
³¹
Even though Hayek and Polanyi did not object to the post hoc attempt at a rational reconstruction of a tacit act, they believed, nevertheless, that there are certain epistemic components that cannot be articulated in principle.

By contrast, Rand viewed the tacit components of knowledge as articulable in principle, even if these components had yet to be fully understood. Rand did not believe that it was a requirement of human survival to articulate
every
tacit practice.
³²
But for Rand, the
articulation
process was not only possible, but
essential
, especially in the realm of morality, because it enabled individuals not only to “do the right thing” but to know
why
it was the right thing to do.
Philosophy
, she maintained, holds the key to such articulation.

To live, human beings must act efficaciously. To act, they must choose. To choose, they must define a code of
values
. To define values, they must know their own natures and the nature of the world around them. No one can escape from this need to act, choose, value, and know. Rand argued that for the individual the “only alternative is whether the philosophy guiding him is to be chosen by his mind or by chance.”
³³
The only alternative is whether to act on the basis of rational conviction and articulated understanding or on the basis of raw emotion and tacit sense of life. In Rand’s view, an articulated philosophy is a necessity for efficacious living. It is “the foundation of science, the organizer of man’s mind, the integrator of his knowledge, the programmer of his subconscious, the selector of his values.”
³⁴

How could Rand make this statement when she had already acknowledged that most people are moved by tacit factors they have never fully grasped or articulated? If people begin by acting on subconsciously held metaphysical value-judgments, is the formation of explicit philosophical convictions nothing but an exercise in rationalizing the implicit? No. For Rand, articulation is
not
rationalization. Our core evaluations of ourselves, of others, and of the world may be wrong, but by not relying on the conclusions of our conscious minds, we are left at the mercy of inarticulate impulses that are largely the result of emotional and perceptual associations. Appropriate, efficacious
action
is based on the
integration
of the conscious and the
subconscious
. It may require alterations in our
subconscious premises or, alternatively, in the explicit philosophical principles we have accepted. As Rand put it:

You have no choice about the necessity to integrate your observations, your experiences, your knowledge into abstract ideas, i.e., into principles.… A philosophic system is an integrated view of existence. As a human being, you have no choice about the fact that you need a
philosophy
. Your only choice is whether you define your philosophy by a conscious, rational, disciplined process of thought and scrupulously logical deliberation—or let your subconscious accumulate a junk heap of unwarranted conclusions, false generalizations, undefined contradictions, undigested slogans, unidentified wishes, doubts and fears, thrown together by chance, but integrated by your subconscious into a kind of mongrel philosophy and fused into a single, solid weight:
self-doubt
, like a ball and chain in the place where your mind’s wings should have grown.
³⁵

As people learn to define the fundamental principles of their actions, they begin to accept a philosophy by choice. Their conscious convictions program their subconscious minds, rather than being mere rationalizations for the values they have accepted tacitly. Those who are led by conscious thinking are more aware of their values and the premises of their emotions and are far more likely to lead integrated, efficacious, and empowering lives. This does not mean that every person must be an intellectual innovator. But it does mean that each individual must judge ideas critically and choose appropriately correct courses of action.
³⁶
The nature of the conceptual faculty is such that we are not equipped to survive without some kind of comprehensive view of our existence. Whatever the level of our intelligence, we need to integrate our knowledge, project our actions into the future, and weigh the consequences contextually.

Rand argued that throughout human history this need was served by
religion
. The necessity for a comprehensive understanding of existence led even the most primitive peoples to embrace some form of religious belief.
³⁷
And yet no form of faith or mystic revelation could take the place of rationally dictated principles. Although religion attempted to fulfill this need, its very methods and many of its teachings undercut the ability of people to live and act in a moral and rational manner.
³⁸
Rand’s rejection of religion is not a repudiation of ethics. It is an affirmation of a supremely secular need that people have to make their lives knowable, understandable, and efficacious. It is the nature of this “will to
efficacy
” which must be examined in greater depth.

THE WILL TO EFFICACY

In both her ethics and her
epistemology
, Rand preserved the centrality of reason because she saw it as an individual’s chief means for achieving
efficacy
. Such efficacy is essential to
human
survival. But it is also internally related to an individual’s self-concept. By preserving the ability to think and the will to understand, the individual achieves the
self-esteem
necessary for psychological and existential well-being (N. Branden [1969] 1979, 117).

In his early essays while he was associated with Rand, Nathaniel Branden explains that to the extent that individuals are committed to the goal of
awareness
, their mental operations will tend toward cognitive
efficacy.
To the extent that they fail in this commitment, they will achieve cognitive
in
efficacy (111–12). Efficacy is the conviction that one is capable of producing the desired effects in one’s actions. A consistent ability to translate thought into action leads to a sense of cognitive control over one’s life that is essential to living. Whereas Nietzsche spoke of the “
will to power
,” Objectivism aims to legitimate and affirm what Branden has called, the
will to efficacy
(123). Psycho-epistemologically, Rand’s Objectivism reverses the Cartesian cogito. It begins with the fact of existence and defends the necessity of the conscious apprehension of both internal and external reality. In effect, Rand argued: “I am, therefore I will think” (B. Branden 1962T, lecture 10). Branden too emphasizes that we, as volitional beings, must engage in a consistent practice of awareness. We must grasp the cognitive roots of our emotions and the somatic-emotive contexts that condition our understanding. To the extent that our awareness is unobstructed, we will tend to achieve, in action, the goals that we have rationally sought and emotionally desired.

An unobstructed awareness is achieved through both a generalized or “metaphysical” efficacy and a specific or “particularized” efficacy. Metaphysical efficacy, Branden explains, pertains to a person’s fundamental relationship to reality. The degree of a person’s metaphysical efficacy is a reflection of the reality-oriented nature of that person’s process of awareness. Particularized efficacy, by contrast, refers to a person’s ability to achieve desired results through the mastery of specific practices. Such efficacy can only be affirmed through the expansion of knowledge and skills. The relationship between metaphysical and particularized efficacy is reciprocal.
³⁹
Specific achievements will fuel a person’s feeling of basic cognitive self-control, and such fundamental efficacy will promote the further mastery of practical skills.

Both Rand and Branden might be subject to the criticism that their belief in the human need for psycho-epistemological competence is specific to Western
culture
. Both of these thinkers recognize that “the individual” and
“the self” are phenomena that have existed for thousands of years, though it was not until the development of industry and the rise of capitalism that such concepts were explicitly articulated. Yet, Rand would have agreed with Branden (1992) that the need for cognitive
efficacy

is not the product of a particular cultural “value bias.” There is no society on earth, no society even conceivable, whose members do not face the challenges of fulfilling their needs—who do not face the challenges of appropriate adaptation to nature and to the world of human beings. The idea of efficacy in this fundamental sense (which includes competence in human relationships) is not a “Western artifact.” … We delude ourselves if we imagine there is any culture or society in which we will not have to face the challenge of making ourselves appropriate to life. (19–20)

It might be said that the need for cognitive efficacy is a part of the identity of the human species. But the kinds of social practices that affect human efficacy
are
a reflection of the culture within which people develop and thrive. Culturally specific political institutions, the family, the school, and the workplace will encourage, reinforce, or, alternatively, thwart the development of the efficacious mind. Branden argues that in our society, there are dysfunctional families, dysfunctional schools, and dysfunctional organizations.
⁴⁰
One might say that Rand’s critique of
statism
, which I explore in
Part 3
, is an examination of a
dysfunctional
social formation that places institutional obstacles in the path of human efficacy, values, and life itself.

If “efficacy” is the ability to achieve the effects one desires, then “inefficacy” is its opposite. Does the Objectivist notion of efficacy imply that people are inefficacious if they are unable to actualize their intentions? Is Rand’s understanding of efficacious action excessively rationalistic?

RATIONALISM AND EMPIRICISM

Since Rand’s project stresses the efficacy and centrality of reason, several critics have placed her in the rationalist tradition.
⁴¹
In order to assess the validity of this criticism, it is essential first to explore the extent to which Rand separated herself from both
rationalism
and
empiricism
. In this regard, Rand reaffirmed the nondualistic intellectual tendencies of her Russian predecessors.
⁴²

For Rand, the genuinely philosophical mind is critically objective; it requires an active, passionate, engaged commitment to the pursuit of truth
and knowledge as “of crucial, personal,
selfish
importance” to each human actor.
⁴³
Rand’s indictment of
rationalism
and
empiricism
is, in many ways, a component of her broader critique of “the
unphilosophical
mind.” The unphilosophical mind is representative of contemporary, antirational culture. It consists of an “indiscriminate mixture of floating abstractions and momentary concretes, without the ability (or the need) to tie the first to reality, and the second to principles.”
⁴⁴
While Rand’s repudiation of rationalism centers on its penchant for glorifying floating abstractions, her rejection of empiricism focuses on its essentially anti-conceptual character.

In Rand’s view, the inability of post-Renaissance philosophy to solve the problem of universals ultimately led to the development of two schools of thought: “those who claimed that man obtains his knowledge of the world from
concepts
, which come from inside his head and are not derived from the
perception
of physical facts (the Rationalists)—and those who claimed that man obtains his knowledge from experience, which was held to mean: by direct perception of immediate facts, with no recourse to concepts (the Empiricists).”
⁴⁵

This division between rationalists and empiricists was a reflection of the mind-body dualism deeply ingrained in Western philosophy. Each tradition embodied a distortion; each was half-right and half-wrong. For Rand, knowledge was the product of a conceptual integration of the facts of reality. It could not be achieved by severing concepts from percepts, thought from reality, or abstractions from concretes.

Rand’s analysis of rationalism and empiricism is not restricted to their post-Renaissance historical incarnations. Rand maintained that both rationalism and empiricism are employed as methods of inquiry by contemporary social scientists. Such modes of investigation must lead inevitably to a fragmentation of knowledge.

Both Rand and Peikoff argue that
rationalism
begins with a truth: human awareness is distinctively conceptual. But by cutting concepts from their perceptual roots, rationalists base their analyses on floating abstractions. From these dogmatic, acontextual premises, rationalists typically engage in deduction as the means to knowledge. They claim that to achieve certainty, one must be fully comprehensive. Such a proposition, however, translates into a version of strict organicity; rationalists cannot explain anything without knowing everything. They exhibit an almost neurotic compulsiveness for systematization and order. Paradoxically, in their quest for totalistic knowledge, they are led toward more concrete-bound methods of inquiry. Rationalism is the basis of compartmentalization in modern social science. The desire for absolute specialization is the desire to know everything about minutiae. The tinier the fragment, the greater the potential for
more “complete” knowledge of it. Each discipline becomes fractured from the totality. “Full” knowledge of the abstracted part is achieved, but the context and conditions from which the part emerges, is ignored. Rationalists are left with the study of disconnected concretes, mirroring their empiricist counterparts (Peikoff 1983T, lecture 7).