This post is part of a series on Objectivism the Philosophy of Ayn Rand by Leonard Peikoff. We’ve covered the Objectivist view of reality. Next, Peikoff addresses two opposing views. Today, I’m going to explore the first of these, the philosophy of Idealism.
The Mystics of Spirit
Rand labeled the Idealists as the mystics of spirit. She identifies the four major figures of idealist philosophy to be Plato, Plotinus, Augustine, and Hegel. In essence, she classifies their view to be that reality is a spiritual dimension that transcends and controls the natural world. In other words, that reality is essentially supernatural.
As Peikoff points out, the issue from this definition of reality is that it directly contradicts the established basic philosophical axioms. Super means “above” or “beyond”. And nature means a system of entities governed by laws – governed by the basic axioms of philosophy that we previously established.
Thus, supernatural means something that is above or beyond nature. It means a realm that is beyond the system governed by philosophical axioms. It means something beyond existence – something beyond entities – something beyond identity.
It is a direct contradiction of the axioms we have already established, and thus must be false.
The Problem of God
Essential to the philosophy of Idealism, Peikoff argues, is the fundamental concept of God (i.e. the supernatural). He argues that this concept is implicit in the philosophy of Plato (through his concept of the realm of the Forms), and that it is picked up eagerly and made explicit by early Christian philosophers.
In the modern world, the philosophy of Idealism is linked with the concept of God. Peikoff turns to ask and answer some of the root questions regarding God.
Is God the Creator of the Universe?
He cannot be if existence has primacy over consciousness. God is a consciousness. And the claim that a consciousness created the universe (i.e. existence) requires that consciousness has primacy over existence by necessity. The idea that God created the universe requires that God came first – that a consciousness came first, before any kind of existence. And this is false, according to what we’ve already seen.
Is God the Designer of the Universe?
He cannot be if the axiom of identity holds – not if A is A (as Aristotle would say). Peikoff puts this very concisely by stating that the alternative to design is not chance – it is causality. That’s very dense, so let me try to unpack that a little bit.
The design vs chance alternative reminds me of the how a religious person tries to frame the question of evolution. They argue that God must have designed life because there’s no way that these molecules could have just created DNA by chance.
Which brings to mind Richard Dawkins presenting his series, climbing mount improbability – where he shows that these random chances aren’t so slim after-all. In one scene, he shows a combination lock with several (e.g. 8) digits. He claims that instead of these random events having to get all 8 digits right at once, which would be 1 solution out of 100,000,000 permutations, life instead got the first number right, then the second number, etc. So the chance is essentially 1 out of 80 permutations.
But notice that Dawkins essentially adopts the religious argument – he does not contest the implicit statement that the only alternative to design is chance.
The Objectivist take here is so powerful because it casts aside this notion that these things happen by chance. Instead, Peikoff states that the alternative to design is causality. In other words, the reason that the universe does what it does isn’t because it was designed that way – it does what it does because it is a universe. It has the features, traits, characteristics of a universe. It has a specific nature, and it acts accordingly.
The answer that Peikoff puts in about 8 words took me weeks to get my head around.
Is God Omnipotent?
He cannot be if, again, existence has primacy over consciousness. If existence has primacy over consciousness, then no consciousness (not a human’s and not God’s) can alter the metaphysically given. God’s consciousness cannot wish the possibility of failure out of existence. But that is precisely what the concept of omnipotence means – it means that a consciousness can make reality bend to its arbitrary wishes.
Is God Infinite?
He cannot be is the axiom of identity holds. As Peikoff identifies, the concept of infinite does simply mean real big. It means a quantity that is larger than any specific quantity. You could say that infinity is larger than 1 by the exact same magnitude by which it is larger than 1,000,000,000,000,000,000. It is infinitely larger than both specific quantities. Thus, infinite means no specific quantity, and the actual must have a specific quantity. The actual is always finite.
Is God Purely Spiritual?
Spiritual means consciousness. But what is consciousness? Consciousness is a faculty of certain living beings under certain conditions. Consciousness is the means by which these living beings perceive reality.
A consciousness that is purely conscious means a consciousness that transcends nature – that transcends the system of entities governed by law. It is a consciousness that transcends objects and entities. It is a consciousness without the means or content of perception. A consciousness that is purely spiritual is literally a non-consciousness. It is a contradiction in terms.
Wrap Up
There’s a lot of dense material in this section, and I hope I’ve done an adequate job of presenting it. Writing this from my notes has helped me think through a few of these issues more clearly. This is the first section that really relies on deep understanding of the ground already covered in the book, so I think it’s a very helpful exercise to review the fundamental philosophical axioms and see how they relate to each question that Peikoff poses.
Until next time!
Ryan Sawatzky 