A friend of mine e-mailed me the other day. He called me "Jordy the Sophist." I wrote him back a long e-mail. I figured I'd share it here.

But I am a sophist? That's news to me. No ill will towards sophists, but I just don't think I'd call myself one of them. But I rarely like to call myself part of any elite clique... My mind is my own, and I constantly search for some sort of box to put myself in that has no embarrassment, but also has no walls...

I think I'm closer to Socrates than Sophism... but Sophism does indeed show a lot of the limits to what we call "knowledge" and "logic." Of course, I'm skeptical of skepticism... because... well... Hey Zigmund, we're "talking" via electric boxes! They were certainly not born via a lack of knowledge... Even if we delve into solipsistic thought and exclude all others from truly existing, turning our conception of reality into something more akin to what we consider a dream than what we consider the waking world, we still believe such a thing for reasons based on either experience or rationality. (Whatever these two words mean precisely is irregardless. Even a solipsist must agree that we have some sort of experience of experience [IE, the qualia debate in phil of mind...] and we have some sort of experience of rationality... That there is a logical form to how we think and reason. Whether or not our rationality or experience is a limited spectrum in an infinite possibility of spectrums is somewhat moot, since it is a necessary condition to limit our knowledge for it to be knowledge. That is, unlimited knowledge can not be knowledge for it has no form to take in our mind; that is, unbounded knowledge would be a total mish-mash of everything since, in order for us to understand something, we must understand it in some sort of way... Whether that be extension, time value, etc.... As you know, Kant had a lot to say about this sort of stuff... Phenomenal versus noumenal and all that. Noumenal would be unlimited/unbound knowledge, while phenomenal would be limited knowledge. This also explains why we only ever know the phenomenal; we can only know things inside our human understanding. It seems odd to critic our knowledge because it is limited by what we are, but he was onto something nonetheless...)

Whereas the Sophists found truth to be arbitrary, I think I'd closer sit to the pragmatists in my most skeptical of times... Truth is, at the least, useful. It's just very, very hard to talk about this so called "absolute truth" that philosophers keep searching for. Some say "absolute truth" relates to "God", but that's just changing the word. (Both words are vague and impossible to define in any complete way. This is both a testament to both how important and how unimportant such concepts are, simultaneously. What a wonderful paradox.)

If all is consciousness, that is, if idealism is correct, then it follows that anything anyone calls "God" is a will much stronger than their own, with a mind to match... Something/someone so powerful that it captivates all other people's reality into some common context of understanding. If all is physical, then the universe is bound by strict, physical laws and all is determined...

Doomed to be puppets to higher powers either way! Ah, metaphysics...

I've come to think that free will is not an act, but precisely freedom of will. That is, we have the power to set things in motion, the power to choose a direction to go; we choose our character, our beliefs, our ideas, our values, our goals... These things are then reflected in our relationship with reality. I think that is as close to "free" as we ever get, even though we viscerally yearn for freedom as part of our nature.....

So this makes me a sophist? Perhaps I'm close enough to sophism to understand their points. I just don't think one can begin to make the claim that truth is arbitrary... Such a statement implies a truth value to itself, making the argument self-excluding and rather weak. Nonetheless, there is still some truth to what they believe... After all, if someone believes something it will affect their personal concept of existence and make such a thought real to those who chose it. In a sense, the human mind is a lot like the scientific process... We posit some theory and then go about gathering experience to test the theory. Some people search for Christ in all they do, and they find him (because anything can be related to the Bible, or, especially, an omnipotent god.) Some people search for mathematical patterns. They find them (and usually go promptly insane.) Some people search for the will, others consciousness, others physical interactions devoid of any sort of mythic existence and all these people seem to find what they're looking for. Obviously, we can't say what is RIGHT to search for in existence... all we can say is that searching for something opposed to something else will produce a totally different conception of the world and a different personality. I certainly don't want to touch the "good" and "evil" debate in relation to ideas, since these words are quite problematic. That is not to say that they do not exist... IE, Hitler and Stalin happened. If that didn't open the social conscience to the idea of evil, then I don't think any event ever will.... (of course, organized massacres of that sort have been going on for as long as we have been keeping track of history... but I give the nod to WW2 just because of how all encompassing the war was to so called "civilized society" at the time and how well documented every part of the war was... It was a world wide event, and everyone knew someone who had been traumatized, mutilated or killed for madness.) There is such a thing as malevolence, but ideas, in and of themselves can't be malevolent. It is the application of individual logic to try to use various ideas to produce what one believes to be an ideal reality where one finds malevolence... Hitler was such a self-hating part Jew and such a paranoid megalomaniac with enough power to corrupt his already misguided ego that he became a god-like figure, fueled by death and greed. The church has also had its share of death and greed despots in the seat of power, preaching to their followers that they must murder and suffer for their mighty, loving god. Stalin was so paranoid he was essentially murdering people at random.... "A single death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic." If I actually lived with such an idea as part of my reality, I would be a paranoid mass-murderer as well... After all, if murder is a given, and I'm the guy with all the power, and I've killed a lot of people... How long until someone comes after me? Well, I'd better go and kill more people to make sure everyone is too afraid of me to want to kill me. But, oh look, I've gone further down the spiral, and fear of me is now essentially universal! Hurray! Now, since everyone fears me, I also fear everyone... I can not get close to anyone or know who or how to trust. So... Let's kill some more to display my might and keep people afraid... Hey, let's kill more people than Hitler! He was a panzy that blew his own brains out!...Ah, Stalin...

Notice that I did not imply that he was wrong in his idea, for there is some sad truth to such a thought! He truly did view the purges of his own people as just numbers on his kill count growing. Numbers. Not people.

And, hey, that's even in the business world today... What does the boss look at? Profits, wages, hours worked, product returned...etc, etc... Numbers.

Part of what makes humans so powerful is our ability to objectify... That is, our ability to remove ourselves from the equation, to be cold, to examine the "hard facts;"... If such things grant so much power and use in life, how can we call them inherently evil? We can say "In history, becoming cold and objective often makes us loose sight of what is actually occurring." But what if we tried to keep sight of what is occurring as part of our objective process? Wouldn't this produce what we often call "good" instead of what we often call "evil?"

Perhaps I could have condensed this all to: "I know I'm not a sophist; this statement alone proves it." But instead, I went the Socratic route, didn't I? I rambled, on and on.... to try to prove that I know a lot, which amounts to next to nothing.... But next to nothing certainly isn't nothing...

Hmm. I think I'm going to share this on my journal. Do you mind?

It seems to me that a lot of people talk about 'chaos' and 'order' having some sort of ontological or metaphysical use. I wish to dispel this claim.

When I think of what we mean when we speak of "chaos" and "order", I can only conclude that we are using the words in such a way to discuss our understanding and nothing about the state of affairs at all. For instance, if I point to a piece of paper littered with dots, and say "This is chaotic" what I mean is, "I can not see a pattern in this." Meanwhile, another person could say, "No, you are wrong; here is a pattern!" and go about showing me how they perceive one.

What I mean here is that the words and concepts of chaos and order are functions of our understanding. That is, "chaos" applies to what we do not understand (what we can not distinguish a pattern, use, or organization in...) and "order" applies to what we do understand. Chaos theory implies that all things become more and more "chaotic" from a simple cause, but all this seems to tell me is that "things become more complex over time." The implication of the word "chaos" seems to imply something more mystical than complexity, or perhaps even destruction. (Destruction, in the context of physics, makes no sense what so ever: energy cannot be created or destroyed.) What I mean to say here is that when we talk of the so called "butterfly effect", what we are examining is the increasing complexity of interactions based upon a specific thing we call a "cause." Of course when we state "If this event happened, everything else that follows is somehow related to the first event", things appear more "chaotic" through the passage of time. However, all this tells me is that the more things we consider (IE, the more we relate to the initial cause conceptually) the more complex the situation we're examining becomes. The passage of time allows more data to be absorbed into the "system", and thus, "chaos" appears as a function of how large we define our system. (As we include more events because of the passing of time, the larger our system becomes, and the more "chaotic" it appears because we slowly over-load our ability to find a discernible pattern with increasing complexity.)

The problem arises when we consider these things as some sort of "natural force", as if nature yearns for either chaos or order, while "chaos" and "order" are descriptions which we have created for our own use; that is, to say "We can gain an understanding from this" or "This seems far too complex for us to understand."

Our different theories of knowledge produce what we call "order" from what we do not fully understand. Science shows an order based on cause and effect, philosophy shows an order through logic and reason, and religion shows order through faith. It seems to me that faith is the most "problematic" of the three, in the sense that faith can only be applied through the system which one accepts, and not through an appeal to how we ascertain "order." Reason and induction certainly are tools which humans use to in our quest for understanding, but 'faith' seems more of a metaphorical approach to what is outside the realms of logic and reason. It makes sense, then, why people indoctrinate their children at a young age: the use of a common metaphor makes it easier for us to communicate our ideas about the unknown with one another, and, through practice with the same metaphor, one could become quite adept at discussing what is normally outside the bounds of our seemingly innate and clear ways of knowing (logic and reason). That is, it seems faith is more so learnt than imposed upon us by our nature, whereas induction and deduction seem an expression of how we learn and understand in a verifiable way. It also seems that because these are innate qualities within us, we yearn for "order"; that is, for things to work within a set of expectant rules opposed to acting in a way where we can not derive a discernible pattern. Morals are a set of rules which we follow to produce a higher level of cohesion and regularity among human individuals, for instance. (It can also be argued that morals can increase productivity of each individual because of our nature; we are endowed with reason... However, such a thought is outside the realm of what I wish to discuss in this entry.)

Faith is more concerned with our emotional and visceral ways of knowing; something entirely subjective and often influenced by what we believe. Such a statement is certainly true. However, I find religion often oversteps its bounds to proclaim that it has a system for providing a metaphysical or ontological "order" to existence, as if "order" were something that could exist without cognizance! The implication is that some other form of cognizance applies order to existence, but I do not think we could ever justify this claim. What we can do, however, is know that faith is a taught system that makes us consider such a possibility, and thus, derive a sense of order from a seemingly nonsensical, chaotic experience. What we must be careful of is taking the power of faith too far and claiming that the universe is ordered or chaotic, innately, opposed to"something that we may find an order or chaos in.

In philosophy some people have been rather harsh with solipsism. While I can certainly understand why they ought to be (the statement that other minds or people do not really exist is a rather absurd claim), thanks to Wittgenstein I’ve come to think that “there is some truth to solipsism.” In the post where d0ppelganger asked about how we deal with “the spiritual side of things”, I mentioned that one of my tools is solipsism. In my own defense, I’d like to explain why I said that and why I think solipsism is somewhat tenable.

In my first year of university, in one of my introductory philosophy courses, my professor wondered why solipsists write. Certainly radical solipsists have no reason to; if only their own minds exist, only an extreme narcissism could inspire them to desire to have their works published. What I want to propose is more of a Wittgensteinian approach to solipsism; we could call it “soft solipsism” or “weak solipsism”, but, in the end, we’re just finding another way to say what Wittgenstein says, “there is some truth to solipsism.”

That is, it is absurd to state that solipsism is true whole-sale. However, I think Wittgenstein’s point is thus: that our experience of reality and our consciousness is not accessible to anyone else and thus, our consciousness becomes a microcosm of the world. That is, our consciousness seems to have several properties to it, at least in my experience. These properties include memory, belief and immediate sense perception. Through combining these three qualities, we create our own personal sense of reality; something that is uniquely our own, yet it is still an impression of what we refer to as “objective reality”, which is a shared experience. The sum total of objective reality is outside the bounds of knowledge that any one person could ever have (the empirical data alone would take far more than one lifetime to observe directly), but, indirectly, we have access to a large sum of empirical data through social constructions such as language or education. That is, it is fair to assume that most people are at least somewhat capable at living in the shared context of objective reality despite the subjective aspect to their experience and the lack of absolute and complete knowledge of objective reality. It would also seem that most people have some sort of grasp on what reality is, what to expect from reality, and what they are capable of. I do not want to say that these beliefs are necessarily true objectively, but that these beliefs are true to the individual and are what mold the individual’s actions and life, and, thus, also mold the character and quality of their life. That is, one’s belief molds one’s personal experience of reality; there is some truth to solipsism.

The “problem of other minds”, I think, isn’t as much a real philosophical problem as it is an example of how there are things which we can be skeptical of even though all of our experience and intuition seems to show otherwise. It also helps emphasize how one is only aware of one’s own consciousness and not the consciousness of anyone else, directly. Even if we were capable of communicating through our consciousness alone (and I believe this is possible, perhaps even an inborn trait among most living things), the understanding of another’s consciousness would have to be processed through one’s own consciousness, still denying the individual direct access to another’s consciousness. Such a relationship is very reminiscent of our relationship of our consciousness and “objective reality.” Anything we know of objective reality is processed through our consciousness and, thus, is part of our own microcosm, opposed to being a direct “interface” with the macrocosm (the world at large.) While I would argue this does not warrant some of the empirical skepticism which philosophers often attribute to our understanding of the world (to have knowledge would be to have knowledge in some sort of way, and to say that our knowledge is deficient because we have some way of knowing seems odd…), I do think it shows, again, Wittgenstein’s claim that “there is some truth to solipsism.”
What I think Wittgenstein’s approach does teach us is how careful we must be with our beliefs and realizing the limits to whatever paradigm we currently exist within. That is, our beliefs do mold our world, and we ought to be careful to select beliefs which best represent who we are and our relationship with reality. This, of course, brings us full circle to the goals of philosophy: to present interpretations of what reality is, what we know of it, and how this should impact our lives.

It doesn’t seem to me that this is an absurd position. In fact, it seems to cohere with many other positions in philosophy, simply showing that we are all stating the same sort of thing, just a different way. If anything, an attack on such a position would be done out of a desire to “prove” that one’s microcosm is the “right” microcosm, but to say that one microcosm is better than another could only be proved through personal achievement and logical reasoning. I guess this is where a priori judgments come in...

First, I want to say that what I want to talk about is mostly epistemological in nature, but not necessarily in substance. I am going to assume Wittgenstein is right with the statement “What we cannot say, we must pass over in silence.”

What I want to say is that knowledge of life, what exists and what does not exist is mostly an empirical question; that is, it is a question of wisdom. Someone who is older generally knows what they want to believe in this regard, and there is very little chance of changing their core values. While philosophy may strive to answer these sorts of questions, others often find solace in some form of religious belief. Just as those who study philosophy would like those who study religion to listen to their opinions, I think philosophers also must consider religion as, at least, an archaic attempt at philosophy. That is, it is still an attempt to answer similar questions and to develop a personal theory of life.

I want to say that if a person acts in accordance to what they believe, then a person is a self-contained description of reality, whose test is life itself. The paradox of such a statement is it can only be proved through living life. It follows from this theory that the moral worth of one’s character results in one’s nature, which results in one’s actions, friendships, personal psychologies, beliefs and so on. Since wisdom either confirms or denies one’s beliefs, one augments their beliefs as life progresses, usually in a large quantity while one is young, and with a smaller and smaller quantity as one grows older.

What I also want to say is that one needn’t necessarily study philosophy or religion to have a moral character; that is, morals can develop through living life. It is only from this standpoint can one make sense of a statement such as “honor among thieves”, and it only makes some sense of the fact that there is some code of ethics behind racial wars, gangs, dictatorships, organized crime, and hate oriented organizations such as the KKK. Without some theory of ethics, there would be no organized units of human beings; that is, Nietzsche was correct in his analysis that ethics is a form of domestication of human beings. Certainly, however, the brutish and fearful quality of life associated with such organizations is proof enough that their moral code is somewhat deficient: in most people, such a state of affairs inspires fear, hate, disgust, pity and anxiety, and these are emotions most people would rather avoid. If morality is a guide to human action, then a “good” morality would be one people would prefer to subscribe to rather than a morality which offers them a state of affairs which they would not prefer.

I also would like to say that dogmatism is the enemy of intelligence and useful knowledge, and would like to show this. That is, a balanced theory of knowing would offer one a way to avoid dogmatism and form a path into more enlightened thinking.

I also want to say that studying religion is not the only path to religious knowledge; people claim to having moments of ‘revelation’ or spirituality when doing decidedly unreligious things such as performing scientific experiments, having sex, playing sports, playing music, philosophizing, reading books not written by religious scholars, consuming drugs, sleeping, and watching movies.

It follows, then, that a balanced system of knowing must consider all types of knowledge useful in forming a theory of everything: empirical, logical, mathematical, religious (or ideal), and artistic. “Artistic” includes everything from prose to athletics to cooking to music to war to dancing to computer programming, and so on. That is, if there is a technique to be learnt with the possibility of human ingenuity to augment it, then a theory of everything can be learnt through one’s passion of pursuing such a task. Proof of this would be to examine the moral characters of people such as a business tycoon, a general, a famous musician, a famous philosopher, a famous scientist, and so on. That is, an intelligent man is one who is proficient at his own discipline, but a brilliant man is one who can recognize intelligence in disciplines foreign to his own. That is not to say that the master guitarist should learn from and only from his discipline, but that his ability ought to be a sign of intelligence. Their intellect would be related to their success, but not of their moral character. The quality of their moral character would be decided by the quality of the life they choose to lead. If they live a life which most people would truly prefer to their own, then their moral character can be thought of as “good.” It must be considered that by quality of life I do not mean only material wealth, but also mental and physical well-being. I do not include ‘spiritual-well being’ because there is no objective way to test if someone is spiritually well or spiritually ill; the best attempts at doing so can all be related to either physical health, material wealth, or psychological well-being.

What I want to do is to remove the power that certain disciplines believe they have over knowledge. That is, I do not think knowledge or intelligence is a quality that can or should be contained to certain groups of individuals. In the Dark Ages, knowledge was kept to an elite few who believed themselves more capable of “divine revelation,” and the results were disastrous. However, there are still religious and intellectual practitioners today who believe that absolute knowledge is only attainable to certain people studying a certain doctrine or set of doctrines. Hard materialists believe that the sciences are the only intellectual pursuits that can provide true answers while radical religious idealists insist that religious study is the only path to enlightenment, damning science as being too obsessed with the material world. Academic elitists believe only people with a degree (or even a certain type of degree!) have proven their intellectual worth, while corporate businessmen complain that academia isn’t as important as keeping the economy healthy, or, worse, that academia creates idiot savants. For every type of life, there is an elitist group which claims to have rights to knowledge which is not available for someone of a different type of life. However, I would argue to be an intellectual in our current intellectual climate would insist that one must have reverence of disciplines of knowledge which one does not fully understand.

That is, part of our knowing something comes from experience and attempting to learn about things that we had not known before. Therefore, dogmatism hinders knowledge; it keeps people from acting in ways or thinking of things which contradict a strict set of beliefs and leaves no room for intellectual growth. Thus, a balanced notion of knowing would not be obsessed with finding an answer which was the most defensible, but rather appeal to a coherence theory of truth; that is, accept something as true when it coheres with the most bodies of knowledge available, including science, math, philosophy, religion, and personal experience.

This is precisely my problem with organized religions; that they often breed dogmatism while trying to answer questions which are, by their own admission, unanswerable. The solution which seems to appeal to my mind would be of agnosticism; that is, it is a statement of fact that I do not know and can not know, for certain, whether a certain conception of spirituality is true or false. Even if I am confronted with a spiritual experience, I can question what imposed this experience, or even if it were spiritual at all. By religion’s own admission, belief in a higher power or an afterlife is not a matter of empirical data or logical proof, but of faith. That is, by definition, we only call spiritual experiences ‘spiritual’ because we have faith that they are spiritual, and that such experiences are not constructs of our mind or some other state of affairs (Descartes’ evil demon, The Matrix, solipsism, etc). Even if one feels that this experience is genuine, he could easily credit such a feeling to the expectation of such a state of affairs. For instance, I could not label an experience as spiritual unless I entertained the thought that some God or gods existed. Was it my belief in a God or gods which made this experience spiritual, or was it the experience itself? By the nature of so called “supernatural” phenomena, it is an experience which can not be explained through logic, reason or mechanistic science. Without these tools to explain these phenomena, the only method of knowing left would be religious or spiritual inquiry; something which is disputed and has no possible way to be proven.

From the other side of the argument, science is a human creation which is obsessed with the physical world and can not offer us true knowledge, only knowledge which is inspired by or known to our senses and influenced by our false belief in our own capacity and rationality.

It seems to me, then, that this would be an argument of epistemology and metaphysics: idealism versus empiricism/realism. However, I think Kant somewhat showed that both schools of thought were conversing about similar experiences, just taking a different approach to showing what it is. Modern empiricism and idealism, both, seem to produce sceptical approaches to epistemology… But then, it would seem, philosophy has accomplished nothing since the days of Socrates, only bellowing over and over about how we really know nothing. Is this the case? In the face of all the knowledge one can obtain in our modern age can we honestly say, with conviction, that we know nothing?

Certainly in the religious paradigm we can. If we believe in some sort of perfect being that has perfect knowledge, our knowledge becomes impotent. However, this seems to do a great disservice to the wonders of our age and our capacity for social evolution. Furthermore, even the most nihilistic thinker acts according to some expectation of cause and effect, some sort of expectation that they can expect things to act in accordance with what they are, rather than what they are not (the law of identity), and so on. Complete scepticism would require one to deny that he knows that he needs to eat to live, or that gravity exists, or that his car requires gas to function. That is, stating that we know nothing seems to leave us in a strange quandary, we act as if we do know something.

I do not wish to say that humans have all knowledge, in fact, I think having all knowledge is completely impossible; with every new discovery there are more questions which can be asked to further grow our body of knowledge. However, I do wish to dispel the idea that human knowledge is ignorant simply because it is human knowledge. Our knowledge may be ignorant when compared to all possible knowledge, but this is because all possible knowledge is a hyperbole and an abstraction; there is no possible way to even quantify all possible knowledge, let alone show an empirical example. All possible knowledge is outside the bounds of any sort of knowing, for to know in a certain sort of way is to know something in such and such a way and not another way. That is, just because I have my own personal sense experience of reality does not make my sense experience any less justified, only my own. That is, just because I can doubt my senses does not make the data which they produce to me any less real, and just because I can doubt the existence of my consciousness does not make my consciousness cease to be. In a religious or spiritual spectrum, just because I can question if I have spiritual experiences at all does not mean that spiritual experiences do not occur or that there is no truth to religion. There is, however, a limit to what I can communicate as fact; there is a limit to what I can say I am certain of.

I would like to say that Kant influenced me to think about things in two spectrums of knowledge rather than one: phenomena and noumena opposed to either one or the other. A belief in a totally unknowable, ideal reality seems bizarre and anti-intuitive. A belief in a purely phenomenal reality seems deficient and drab. However, stating that both exist and that both influence each other directly seems to cohere with more experiences of reality than either one or the other. It accounts for why religion is so powerful, spiritual experiences, the pragmatic use of science, empirical knowledge, and so on. It also accounts for the multitudes of subjective interpretations of reality and the experiences people have which cohere with their subjective interpretations of reality.

That is, I want to say that there are things outside the spectrum of current human knowledge, and it seems like the only things we have to answer such questions would be religious or spiritual knowledge. However, to be overly interested with this type of knowledge would be a mistake of excess; one must ignore large bodies of knowledge pointing towards a very real and very knowable reality described in a mechanistic way.

Even more bizarre is the rift between science and religion; science wishes to elucidate the unknowable into mechanistic terms, and, therefore, it is attempting to provide a theory of everything. Thus, science and religion are both working towards the same goal: the revelation of knowledge. While some religious thinkers dispute science because it raises empirical facts about the world which we live which does not cohere with their interpretations of their allegorical book of choice, I do not think such an argument holds weight against scientific knowledge.

Postmodernism is still quite a powerful sect of belief in today's society; radical skepticism, subjectivism and nihilism seem almost undefeatable because of their premises. That is, if one accepts postmodernism, making an attack against postmodernism is essentially powerless, because it would only show both that we are incapable of knowing (even through the lens of postmodernism) and that any attack that could be made would be a product of the person and not necessarily the truth (which is totally unknowable.)

I have my reservations about postmodernism, and most people generally do as well when first confronted with the idea. Certainly, it seems like we know things, we can predict things, and we act in ways which seem to prove this true. I have no fear of my gasoline becoming urine while I'm driving my car. I do not worry that when I type on my computer that my monitor will turn into a snake and attack me. I do not question whether or not I will be propelled forward if I walk in such a direction. Yet, idealistically, it would seem that all these cases could happen, if we are to abstain from making claims to truth. So, then, what I am left with is a totally chaotic reality which has no order, meaning or knowable existence. I can not appeal to any authorities, because all authorities are flawed in their own ways; science is too empirical, religion is too ideal, social convention is biased by the society, and so on. I am left without a guide to follow except for my own intuitions and the idea that "all people are right in their own way."

Ideally, I think postmodernism is problematic. That is, I do not think postmodernism accepts how powerful ideas are; the movement is too caught up in deconstructing every idea they can that they forget what it is they are deconstructing and that some ideas exist in reality because of their use and not merely because of convention. I would contend that postmodernism seems to merely disregard the power of ideas; that is, it seems to accept that people are a product of what they believe, but fails to make the correlation that if someone has an idea which is detrimental to their life, or the lives of others, that this idea is detrimental and can cause great harm. A postmodernist wouldn't want to make such a claim, stating that "I am in no position to judge;" but, surely, thousands of years of social progress can't be totally arbitrary, can it? If we are in no state to judge other's ideas, only understand them, what is the point to the understanding? Worst of all, I think many postmodernists are so caught up in understanding other's ideas that they forget that these ideas can be judged based on some types of reasoning. That is, we can talk about the worth of an idea versus another based on contexts and what tools we use to measure them; whether they be moral tools, logical tools, or religious tools; and that these tools offer us some method and reasoning to follow to create ourselves as people rather than be content with being somebody who cannot, in good conscience, make judgements, and thus, progress in life. (A life without judgements is a life of blind adherence to whatever situation is presented. Attempting to change the situation shows that you have made a judgement that another situation would be better, and thus, you can not be fully prescribing to the postmodern ethic. A true postmodernist can not think for himself, and expects the same from everyone else.) Furthermore, a moral subjectivist needs to bat an eye at things most people find morally reprehensible; Nazism was "just a product of the societal factors in Germany during the time. The Nazis can not be blamed." This seems nonsensical to me; it seems like postmodernism wishes to nullify the existence of evil by merely shrugging at it and saying that "Don't worry, it wasn't your fault, it is just your nature." I think the standpoint of "no standpoint" shouldn't be used so hastily; that is, if there is evidence and tools to analyze this evidence, then it is acceptable to do so. "No standpoint" would be reserved for when there is not enough information to reasonably analyze anything and all the tools which one could use provide no more use in such a context than any other (This, I think, is the realm of "absolute knowledge", that is, whatever knowledge is outside the grasp of human understanding. I would contend that "absolute knowledge" doesn't exist in any sort of specific way, but is merely a function of our language and intuitions to describe what it is we do not understand. "Absolute knowledge", then, is merely potential knowledge, for when we learn something more about "absolute knowledge", we also raise more questions and expand the potential power of our consciousness.) However, knowledge and ideas are important; people act on what they believe and thus, ideas not only build nations but destroy them, not only increase the quality of life but diminish it, and not only help people live but also kill. To simply say that no side is always the best side of argument for us to be "truthful" is to disregard that life does matter, to us, viscerally, and that we do have our own goals and desires. A human with no desires for anything is, essentially, dead or waiting to die.

The first point I want to make is that such a statement (moral subjectivism) implies there is no such thing as 'free will.' While I certainly would agree that there are limits to how free our will is and that our will is heavily influenced by our situation, nothing would ever change if everyone merely was following their instinctual drives and the will of the society. No new ideas could be produced, and thus, we shouldn't have houses; we should still be living in the forest with the rest of the animals.

Second, I would like to say that there must be a way to transcend postmodernism, since the end result of knowledge certainly couldn't only be confusion. Our lives have patterns, and there are many different tools we use to predict such patterns: cause and effect, psychology, political science, economics, mechanistic science, etc. If these tools have uses, then how can truth be totally arbitrary and unknowable? How do these tools work in a totally random, causal-less world that is completely unknown to the human mind? These things are all human inventions which have proved extremely useful over the centuries. How can a postmodernist account for this if all ideas are essentially equal in worth? How can we account for the fact that some systems of belief offer us more productive solutions than others?

Furthermore, postmodernism, in critiquing other points of view, proves itself wrong. Postmodernism uses tools such as reason, psychology and sociology to show how biased (or flawed) other positions are. However, such statements are claims to truth; the antithesis to the postmodern ethic.

In the end, I think what postmodernists tend to forget is that their theory is the same as any other theory and should be integrated into their conceptual tool-set rather than used as, exclusively, 'the best tool.' It has its uses, strengths, and weaknesses, but it fails at becoming what everyone wishes their philosophy to be: a full textbook to describe life. Of course, the postmodernists feel that they have sidestepped that claim by claiming that statement as true as a foundation, but such a foundation does not support any room for truth and action, and thus, is deficient as a life philosophy or a bastion of truth.

I would like to posit and prove a moral axiom and a theory of morality. The moral axiom I would like to say would be: "An action is a moral action when one's intention is to act in a way which, in theory, produces the best possible outcome." To assess if an action will produce the best possible outcome, there must be tools to use to judge moral action: virtues. The final judge of morality would be reality; that is, once one performs an action the outcome which is provided, both external (in terms of reward) and internal (in terms of what one must accept as 'moral' and expect from others based on such a judgement and emotional well being.) That is, the result of moral, amoral or immoral action is the quality of one's life and one's character.

An immoral action, then, is one when one posits a probable scenario which produces the best possible outcome and then choses a different action.

An amoral action would be if one acts without considering the outcome; actions of ignorance. Amoral action can be either positive or negative, depending on the situation involved. However, these acts are neither sinful nor good; any result would be a product of blind chance. It is possible an amoral action could produce a great good for society at large, but such a person would not be a moral person for doing so.

I call this theory "deontological ethical egoism" because it is both concerned with the intention of one's actions and the outcome benefiting the individual. The assumption is that if one always acts in the way to produce the best possible outcome, one would be of great use to society and others, and thus, it would make sense that others would want to reward a moral individual's merit. This coheres with the moral axiom, since it is both in your best interest to help those of merit live happy lives so that they may be more concerned with other's problems rather than their own and, also, by rewarding people of merit it would also be possible for those people to learn of you, value you and befriend you. Since to have moral friends of merit would seem to be in one's best interest, it follows that one should be generous to those who show merit. Also, if people of merit have happy lives, they ought not feel like they have to worry about personal problems. By "personal problems" I mean anything; from basic: food, clothing and shelter; to complex, emotive desires: love, feeling that their needs for material wealth are met satisfactorily, etc. If one is purely concerned with only benefiting an aspect of the self, whether it be something as basic as food or as complex as a need for more material wealth, they are either acting amorally (not considering the outcome of their action) or immorally (considering that another action would produce a better outcome, in the long term but performing such an action anyways.) Merit may be as simple as "being alive" (altruism) or as complex as being a brilliant physicist. However, it must be noted that one should only reward another person if giving that person a reward would, in their mind, help produce the best possible outcome for their own well being and the well being of the individual they wish to reward. If someone is rewarded too much for too little merit, they will expect rewards they do not deserve. If someone is rewarded too little for their merit, they may feel unwanted, depressed or feel that their actions are pointless. (Altruistic idealists, however, would try to produce as much merit as possible for as little reward as possible. Such a person, I would argue, would not produce the best possible outcome unless they are truly comfortable with the small reward they receive. That is, the amount of reward required for rewarding merit is based upon the individual and the individual's situation. If the individual desires too much reward for too little merit, then the individual would constantly feel deprived of a better life; if the individual denies his own desires too much, the individual would constantly feel emotionally incomplete or drained.)

Another assumption is that one can not escape a feeling of guilt if they have acted immorally. That is, if they are responsible for something that produced a negative outcome in their life, they would feel remorse for doing so. If they are responsible for producing a negative outcome in someone else's life they must either believe that the person deserved such an act (and, therefore, they must note not to become like that person) or believe that there are "limits to morality." In the latter case, one must expect other people to be willing to "transcend" (more accurately, "ignore") the "limits of morality" as well, and thus, trust would be an issue for such a person. They also would have to be secretive about their actions, which would result in some degree of paranoia, justified or unjustified. I would argue that such an internal state would seriously hamper all future intentions and actions, because one would have to take these new found problems into account whenever creating their intentions, leading them to make worse and worse decisions and creating more problems. That is, it would colour the intentions of all following actions, making it harder to act in a perfectly moral way. If such a "perfectly moral" person existed, such a person would, in theory, have complete control of their life because they would always know the correct solution to any life problem and they would know that such a solution would produce the greatest happiness for themselves in their life as a whole. That is, such a perfectly moral person would become a Nietzschian ubermench, in a way, because their will would be more powerful than all other wills. However, such a person would be of great benefit to society as a whole; they would always act in such a way that produced the best possible outcome.

I would like to note that people may make undeserved moral judgements of others to justify themselves in producing a negative outcome in that person's life. I think that this is a complex issue, but I think its solution is rather simplistic: to treat other people as agents of moral action. That is, if a person is acting immorally and producing negative outcomes in your life, the best solution would be to sever all ties with such a person. Physical force could only be justified in defense, since the initiation of physical force would be to restrain another person from performing moral action and producing the best possible outcome. The assumption is that most people think that violence is a "necessary evil" at best, and thus, avoiding violence would be a way to produce a better situation. Put another way, it is quite similar to the Kantian categorical imperative: "Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end." If one always views others as an end within themselves, one can not justify harming others unless it is in defense. "Defense" can be in many ways; one could lie to someone who has ill intentions to protect one's self or a friend, one could use physical force as a defense against physical force, or one could justify putting another company out of business through fair competition. (As an aside, "fair competition" would simply be treating the other in the same way you'd like to be treated in your shared context.)

"The best possible outcome" is vague, however. All moralities claim to be the path to produce "the best possible outcome"; that is, to offer a way for people to, ideally, become perfectly moral people. However, even the most powerful moralities have situations that produce exceptions that such a morality can not explain. That is, morality is partially subjective; there may be some guidelines one can create, but the complexities of human existence may render them useless in some odd situations. Thus, I wish to attempt to offer some guidelines to conceive of the "best possible outcome." The guidelines I provide would be virtues. In theory, virtues are ethical rules to be followed to help the individual conceive of a way to produce an idea of the best possible outcome and a way for an individual to create a path to such an outcome.

The first virtue I would offer would be honesty. In order to create accurate intentions, one must be honest with one's self about one's character and honest about the state of affairs which one is involved in. That is, one must be honest about what knowledge one has about the goal one wishes to achieve and honest about what possible ways to achieve it (or if the goal is possible at all.) Honesty towards people of merit is a given; if you respect someone, you ought not to lie to them unless telling the truth would produce a negative outcome. (For instance, if your girlfriend asks you "How do I look?", you would want to respond positively unless you had some serious issues about what she was wearing.) Honesty wouldn't be required to someone who has no merit; for instance, someone holding a gun to your face does not deserve your honesty if such honesty would harm another or yourself. Lying indiscriminately would either be amoral action (action without any moral intention) or immoral action (lying when you know telling the truth would produce a better possible outcome.) When I speak of the virtue of honesty, I mostly refer to the act of being honest to yourself, and not so much being honest to others.

Rationality is another virtue, since rationality allows us to conceive of what is probable. Whether or not there are limits to rationality is a moot point; it is the best tool we have for accurately predicting events in our life. Thus, to create accurate intentions one must have an adherence to rationality. (For instance, I may have an immediate desire for a ferari, but rationality tells me that the only probable way for me to immediately have one would be to steal one. Since this act would probably make me guilty for stealing, turn me into a fugitive, and make me feel that anyone should be allowed to steal my car from me at any time following my example, it does not produce the best possible outcome. However, if I had a long term goal of owning a Ferrari, I could attempt to earn enough money to afford a Ferrari, if such a high paying career was within a possible future for me. However, I highly doubt that I could ever have enough money to justify, based on the buying power of one-hundred thousand dollars, buying a Ferrari, rationality would dictate that such a desire is a foolish whim. If, however, I was such a car-enthusiast that buying a Ferrari meant enough to justify spending one-hundred thousand dollars and I had the money to spend, buying a Ferrari would be a moral intention. Such an intention would require me to make myself into such a person of merit that I could afford to spend one hundred thousand dollars on a car, and, assuming that I wished to be a moral person, I would have to earn such money, meaning that my desire for a Ferrari would make me into a large enough asset to society that I could earn a salary that would allow me to afford one.)

Integrity would be the third virtue. One must have integrity to produce moral intentions; if one has no integrity, one is not in the state of mind to produce moral intentions. Derivative of integrity, I would say, is:

1) Conviction: Intention alone is nice, but intention without action is stagnation, and thus, immoral action. (No action is still an action.) Without conviction to follow your moral intentions, your moral intentions can not be exercised and are of no use to yourself or society.

and

2) Respect: Respect entails that one sees merit in others and acts accordingly. It also implies that one should respect others as ends within themselves when forming moral intentions. Respect also includes self-respect; acknowledging merit in yourself and adjusting your intentions based upon your own merits.


These are what I would consider my "big three virtues." They are influenced by Ayn Rand's ethical stance, as well as my own conception of what makes a good person. I think if someone had all three of these virtues, fully, they have full potential to act morally and create moral intentions. Other virtues, it would seem, are more contextual than universal, and thus, would be derived through the application of honesty, rationality and integrity.

Objectivism is the philosophy of the writer Ayn Rand, which has been made into a more precise philosophy by her intellectual heir, Leonard Peikoff. It is often under fire from its detractors for being a "cult", and I wish to dispel this claim by showing that those who label it as such are guilty of the same "sin."

The first thing we need to define is "cult." Most people make a distinction between a cult, a philosophy and a religion, but I consider this an intellectual error. It seems to me that a cult becomes a religion only when it has reached a certain level of recognition and a certain level of zealous followers. It also seems to me that something is considered a "philosophy" based upon the intellectual density of the author's writing. That is, philosophers are elitists; if a philosophy seems too simple, they use the tool of radical scepticism to undermine its premises. I would like to argue that a cult is a religion which is a philosophy. That is, all the terms seem synonymous in use, and the different terms are only used to place a certain level of sanctity on one's own beliefs over those of those who disagree with them. It is the zealous followers of other philosophies and religions who are make such claims of Rand inventing a cult. I do not wish to say that all they say in opposition to Rand is false; in fact, I will discuss some of my problems with Rand in this article, but I do wish to say that it is a red herring arguement to call Objectivism a cult.

I do not wish to give a discourse on Objectivism here. Leonard Peikoff's book "Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand" would do her beliefs far more justice than I could. Furthermore, Rand's books "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged" are brilliant literary pieces and contain her philosophy in a theoretical application, similar to The Bible for Christians. What I do want to say is that to truly understand Rand you must understand the major premises of her philosophy and what it is she is trying to do. Her philosophy is, in essence, a synthesis between two seemingly polar opposites, Nietzsche and Aristotle. This is quite an undertaking, especially since Nietzsche's radical scepticism can lead to a state of total intellectual doubt. As Nietzsche writes, (paraphrased) "One cannot stare into the abyss and pretend it is just scenery." Nietzsche offers intellectual tools to "stare into the abyss", that is, to undermine all knowledge. It is because of this that he enthusiastically claimed that he was the Antichrist, but, of course, Nietzsche said so more in jest than seriousness. He realized how his philosophy undermined all realms of human knowledge, and certainly created an attack on Christianity that I do not think can be answered in Christian context. Many modern philosophers and religious thinkers use Nietzsche's beliefs to talk of an understanding of religious beliefs; for instance, the professor who taught me about Nietzsche, Dr. Litke, packaged Buddhism with Nietzsche as a way to offer some sort of context for life, opposed to Nietzsche himself, who wished to obliterate all contexts of understanding.

Aristotle, however, has always been an intellectual herald to times of great progress in society. Aristotelian metaphysics and epistemology can be summed up in two words: "naive realism." That is, the belief that the reality given to us through our senses is a given truth. Aristotle is the forefather of the scientific paradigm, that is, naive realism helps human beings understand the world within a human context and allow us to make progress. However, other examples of Aristotelian type thinking in philosophy have always left us with unanswered questions and seemingly over-simplified answers. Such beliefs include (but are not limited to) John Locke, pragmatism and logical positivism.

What, to quote Kant, has "awoken me from my dogmatic slumber" of being an Objectivist was the philosophy of Nietzsche and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein's linguistic philosophy undermines Rand's attempt to, essentially, show that all knowledge can be reduced to words. The fact that Wittgenstein shows that words are a product of society and learned from use; that is, words have no precise meaning except within a context, begins to make us wonder the validity of how much can be said and how much we must, as Wittgenstein says in the Tractatus, "pass over in silence." Wittgenstein shows in the Tractatus that we can only approach truth, that is, the quest for absolute truth is like trying to map the progression of the addition of a series of 1/0, (the smallest number one can possibly imagine) on a graph approaching the number 1. It would take an infinite amount of time to reach 1, for the closer we approach the number, the smaller we could make the result of "1/0" be ("1/0" produces however small or large a number that is between 0 and 1, but is neither 0 or 1), and, thus, the progression of human knowledge to absolute truth is an infinitely long process, for with every new piece of knowledge about reality we gain we metaphorically open more doors to possible knowledge. That is, the more powerful our telescopes, the more of space we can see and the more we realise is out that that we did not know was out there before, and the more powerful our microscopes the more we can realise how in every single object there is an infinite amount of sizes smaller which we had not comprehended before. It is from this understanding that it makes sense that we can only talk about probabilities in quantum mechanics, since we simply do not have enough knowledge about such a small size context; we require more powerful microscopes to prove Einstein's theory rather than just take it for granted.

Nietzsche would attack Objectivism for different reasons; that is, Rand only conceives of the world within a human context, and thus, she does not account for true objective reality (whatever that is supposed to mean.) Rand would respond to Nietzsche's attack with the simple statement that we are human, and thus, to posit another type of context is to just play in the realm of fantasy, whereas Wittgenstein offers a more powerful response in the Tractatus with his discussion of solipsism:

"5.61 Logic pervades the world: the limits of the world are also its limits.
So we cannot say in logic, 'The world has this in it, and this, but not that.'
For that would appear to presuppose that we were excluding certain possibilities, and this cannot be the case, since it would require that logic should go beyond the limits of the world; for only in that way could it view those limits from the other side as well.
We cannot think what we cannot think; so what we cannot think cannot say either.

5.62 This remark provides the key to the problem, how much truth there is in solipsism.
For what the solipsist means is quite correct; only it cannot be said, but makes itself manifest.
The world is my world: this is manifest in the fact that the limits of language (of that language which alone I understand) means the limits of my world.

5.621 The world and life are one.

5.63 I am my world. (The microcosm.)"

What I think Wittgenstein shows here is that there is shades of truth to solipsism, that is, that you are a self-contained reality in and of yourself. There is still an external reality putting pressure onto you, but this external reality is other people's views of existence and life, and their reality is formed through what they believe. What Nietzsche seems to talk about in the same sort of context is how absolute truth is impossible; that is, that we create a lie to believe to label that which we do not understand and make ourselves capable of living within reality. Rand's response to this problem is why she accepts naive realism; the simplest solution to this problem is to only believe what is empirically verifiable, that is, what can be shown within language, math or science. Thus, Rand razors all that we experience but can not explain; and thus, this would explain why she would label herself as "aspiritualist." Her reasoning for doing so is because (paraphrased) "It would be wrong to view something (God) as innately better than one's self." Rand basically admits in such a claim that one needs to have faith in something, and the best solution for such a problem is to have faith in what would make you the most productive in reality; have faith in yourself.

This is where philosophers attack Rand; they try to undermine human knowledge to show that we don't really know anything for certain. While this can be construed as true in a personal reality, it does not offer one the ability to progress, merely to stagnate. If you are to say "I know I am good!" there are those who would wish to show you that this is wrong, and that if you make progress you should feel guilty. This is the foundation of the ethics of altruism: self-sacrifice, self-denial, and self-doubt. I do not wish to say that altruism is "evil", but merely that it is not conductive to an individual's life unless the life they wish to lead is a pious one. A pious life is a life lived for others, and there are problems which arise from this, which Rand is quick to point out. Since we only know the context of our own life, pious individuals will often see themselves as "better" than those who are selfish, and thus, try to impose their beliefs upon those who wish to live for self-gain rather than self-sacrifice. Christians have the belief in Hell in order to try to domesticate other people into following them, while Buddhists maintain that "rocking the boat is bad" to keep those who wish to be pious from living lives of self-fulfillment. This is not to say that the Christians or the Buddhists are "evil" either, but they are merely exposing their own personal realities in an objective way; through spiritual philosophy, also known as religion or, in philosophical jargon, "idealism." There are uses for such a belief within the individual context, but the problem which constantly arises is that if someone believes something they are going to act upon it and try to make others conform to their beliefs. The result of altruism in a societal sort of sense is that you have people trying to convince other people to abdicate whatever goals they have and pursue death as meaning to their life. This is useful for helping those who need help and are incapable of helping themselves, however, it is utterly destructive if applied to individuals with potential for greatness. Rand's philosophy of naive realism and egoism is the opposite: it produces individuals willing to earn what they believe they deserve and attempt to do so in productive ways. The opposition between the two is a never ending debate in philosophy which started between Aristotle and Plato and also pre-dates Christianity.

What I want to say is that while detractors of Rand are often quick to call her a naive realist, more often than not they are naive themselves: they are naive idealists. I will state that Rand does come across as dogmatic at times, but her insistence upon the individual's right to knowledge, the individual's ability to determine their own self worth, and, most of all, the individual's necessity to come to his own conclusions allows her to sidestep this claim and become, as Peikoff put it: "the saleswoman of philosophy." She, like other philosophers, makes radical attacks on other big names of philosophy, but, to truly follow Rand's philosophy one must understand and read these philosophies for one's self to become a true individual.

Thus, I cannot call Objectivism a cult. While it has the aspects of a cult, these aspects are the same qualities of a religion which are the same qualities of any full system of philosophy. She has produced a powerful defense of the moral philosophy of egoism with her synthesis of Aristotle and Nietzsche, and I do not think any other philosopher has yet to undermine it. I do think her metaphysics and epistemology can be undermined by her own influence, Nietzsche, and I believe she knew this as well. The most interesting thing about Rand is while she mentions many other philosophers by name I have yet to read an article of her's where she mentions Nietzsche by name. This shows, I believe, that she knew her philosophy could be undermined by Nietzsche, but she believed she had revamped his beliefs enough with Aristotle that a study of Nietzsche was not required. My tendency is to agree with her in the context of most individuals, that is, people who do not wish to actively study philosophy as a passion, but merely as a tool for finding truth in their lives. For those of us who are truly interested in philosophy, Nietzsche is required reading.

It would seem to me there are different hierarchies of knowledge and philosophy which are attainable to the individual. That is, there are different sorts of possible lives available to each individual based upon the amount of knowledge and questioning they wish to pursue. This idea seems similar to Keirkegaard's hierarchies of morality, but I wish to take more of a philosophical approach opposed to the Christian approach Keirkegaard chose.

The first stage of existence is a given upon being born into the world; the immediate stage of existence, the unexamined life. One does not question why or how, one simply exists and reacts to situations based upon immediate feelings, thoughts or beliefs. One does not question their beliefs, search for meaning or even wonder if there is a meaning; one simply is. Such a state reduces a human being to being an automaton; they cannot think or feel for themselves, they can not make their own choices, they merely follow the path that is supplied to them. Animals, especially domesticated ones, seem to follow such a state of existence, and, surely, a large portion of the populace seems to be in such a state as well.

The second stage of personal existence would be an examination of life, a questioning. Such a questioning only goes as far as required to prove what one already "knows" to be "true" as true. That is, it is a state of existential zealotry, still in a state of following, but yearning for deeper meaning or answers to be supplied to the individual. Religion is a prime example of a system which supplies such a 'rulebook', but many philosophers are of the same category. The philosopher themselves is of a higher order, but their works claim to offer a definitive definition of reality; something for others to follow. Such philosophers include Ayn Rand, Descartes, Kant, Plato and Aristotle. Science is also contained in this stage of knowledge, since it searches for meaning through empirical, "provable" evidence, for the most part. There are many scientists who transcend such a stage (Schrodinger and Einstein being two of the most famous), but it still stands that the scientific paradigm rests upon an axiom of cause and effect; a rule that one must follow to find "truth."

The third stage of personal existence would be the total disregard for rules or a questioning of all rules. Skepticism, existentialism and most understandings of Nietzsche are within this realm. One realises how reality is very much influenced by personal beliefs and choices, and one accepts themselves as masters of their own destiny. The individual transcends laws and understandings others hold dear and realizes them to be rather moot in the individual's life. The individual no longer wishes to be part of the second stage of existence because they have realised that absolute truth is only temporary or does not exist at all. In this stage the individual has no system to follow, no meaning to existence, and no one else to count on. The individual must be his own arbiter of morality and must take full responsibility for his actions and beliefs. The individual must transcend "good" and "evil" and understand that such labels are of the second order of personal existence. The individual may even begin to feel solipsistic, that is, that all reality is contained within his own head and everything other than himself is not as "real" as he is. Rules and morality no longer apply, and meaning is seen as a creation of the individual or individuals involved, but not of a higher order. The contradiction in this stage of existence is that one follows the rule that "there is no rules", and thus, is hypocritical.

The fourth stage of personal existence is a synthesis between the second and third stage. Such philosophers as Kant and Rand have attempted to create philosophies to follow which are of this order, but on the very virtue of trying to offer their personal realities for others to follow their philosophies immediately become part of the second stage of personal existence within others by creating rules for others to follow. I have no doubt that both Kant and Rand were of this stage of personal existence, however. It is their followers who I do not believe, for the most part, have achieved this. (Of course, there may be Objectivists and Kantians out there who are of this order of personal existence, since there are exceptions to every rule conceivable.) The only philosopher I know of who offers a philosophy which seems to be an example of this stage of existence would be Wittgenstein, who makes no claims to truth, but is quick to point out the errors in other's thinking. At this stage of personal existence, one realises that you do create your own meaning for existence within your life, and from this meaning you can derive discussions of right and wrong. The meaning one picks is totally arbitrary, and the individual accepts this, but is still capable of being critical of others by exposing faults and contradictions within their personal realities and philosophies. One realizes that there are things that can be said and have meaning, but such meaning is contextual and must be limited by the reality which the individual or individuals experience. The guide is the individual's life and not a set of rules to follow. However, this stage is still limited by the fact that one is still dependant upon others to give some levels of truth and meaning to their existence; that is, the individual does not derive meaning from themselves exclusively, as in the third stage, but derives meaning from themselves and others.

The fifth, and final stage of personal existence would be the transcendence from other thinkers into your own, personal world and personal philosophy. One actualizes their own beliefs as reality through action and belief. It is the acceptance of the fourth stage of personal reality combined with the experience of it actually occurring in your life. One still thinks of things as "right" and "wrong" but understands other's conceptions of "right" and "wrong" as well, and knows how to cohere with other people's lives so that they can live in accordance to what they believe and want without disrupting the personal realities of others unless the other stands in direct opposition to them. The individual does not compromise with others, but merely has to show to others that they are right, and can do so. It appears to be akin to the third stage of existence, but one has meaning, purpose and goals and can display these qualities to others. One has a relationship with reality or God or whatever one labels existence as in terms of their own personal reality. One's beliefs are not imposed by other thinkers or people. One can see shades of themselves in all of existence, but is not solipsistic. One understands that he is reality as much as he is not all of reality. Any contradictions which arise are not considered contradictions, but tautologies; self-evident facts; things that are either true or not true, and can be either depending on the individual's goals. The individual does his best to create the best of all possible personal realities; they try to reach for the Aristoliean "eudaimonia", and, at this stage, in theory, they have reached it. One feels happy with their accomplishments, their life, and has the drive to continue because they do not wish their reality to end.

When one reaches a various stage of existence it does not mean that they will stay at that stage for the rest of their lives. As life progresses and goals change, one may have to return to a lower level or transcend to a higher level of personal existence based upon their personal goals and the state of affairs that they are in. If one reaches the fifth stage they needn't necessarily stay there, although one would like to. However, if a glaring contradiction between their personal reality and the state of affairs in external reality exists, one would have to return to a lower stage of personal existence to reconcile external reality with their own reality. If too glaring a disconnection between one's personal reality and external reality exists, it can result in great suffering, or even death. Believing yourself to be part of such and such a state of existence is often self-defeating after the first two stages for it makes a definitive claim to knowledge, rather than an experiencing existence as it is or living in defiance (part of the third stage of personal existence.) For each individual, based upon who they are, different stages of existence may be more or less suited to them. Some prefer to live in defiance, others prefer to live in immediacy, others still prefer an enlightened life. To call one "better" or "worse" is a matter of subjective taste within one's personal existence, but in terms of overall mastery of reality, it would seem that the fifth stage would have the most potential. However, it is also the hardest to attain and the hardest to maintain, especially since those in the third stage of existence would be jealous or angry at you for being such a person; those that live in defiance would need to stand against those of a higher order than them to be defiant. Those in the fourth and fifth stage of existence would cohere with one another and see that they have many goals in common, and understand those goals which are not in common are moot and matters of personal preference.

Of course, in trying to describe anything characterizing the third stage and above I immediately fail, because it is my description and not a general description. However, no general description can be made for each individual is an individual, and each individual must define the qualities of their stages of existence differently. This document, then, is merely more of an example rather than a guide. It is impossible to offer a guide for life, for in doing so, you only doom those who follow to the second stage of existence.