AN OBJECTIVIST DICTIONARY compiled by David King 58 Spring Valley Drive Milford WY 82520 Many of the items here are not, strictly speaking, definitions - but they do provide some useful insight to the meanings of the concepts. To find each word, search: * word REFERENCES AS :Atlas Shrugged (hardback). Basic :Basic Principles of Objectivism lectures DK :The cogitations of David King. DS :The Disowned Self (hardback). FNI :For the New Intellectual (paperback). HPD :How You Can Profit From the Coming Devaluation (hardback - index) IOE :Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology (the original green book). PRL :The Psychology of Romantic Love (hardback). PSE :The Psychology of Self-Esteem (hardback - index) SEM :Recordings of seminars held by Nathaniel Branden about l970 Think :Principles of Efficient Thinking lectures VOS :The Virtue of Selfishness (hardback - index) WAR :Who Is Ayn Rand (paperback). YY/Mmm/pp (e.g.: 67/May/11) :The Objectivist Newsletter or The Objectivist MmmYY-pp (e.g.: Apr87-10) :The Objectivist Forum ------------------------------------------- * ABSURD That which denies the axiom of Identity. That which contradicts itself. That which contravenes an ostensive concept. * ACHIEVEMENT Journal of the Institute for Objectivist Studies May93 The creation of values. * ADMIRATION PSE-129 The pleasure a man takes in the character and achievements of another human being. * ALIENATION Avoid unpleasantness and then avoid the fact that you are avoiding. AS-833 They pretend to themselves that they are not pretending. * ALTRUISM 62/Jul/27 Man must make the welfare of others his primary concern and must place their interests above his own; he has no right to exist for his own sake. * ANXIETY 67/Jan/12 Response to the threatened loss of a value. 66/Nov/7 A state of dread experienced in the absence of any actual threat. What you experience when your body prepares for a challenge that is not here in reality. If the challenge actually exists your excitement and energy can flow into the activity of coping with the challenge. Since the challenge only exists in fantasy there is nothing you can actually do and all your energy and excitement gushes out in trembling and other symptoms of anxiety. This also happens if the challenge is present in reality but you don't dare attempt it yet. * ART 63/Oct/37 65/Apr/16 A selective re-creation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value-judgements. Metaphysical values are those which reflect an artist's fundamental view of the nature of man and the nature of the universe in which he lives. * ASTROLOGY See Chapter 3 * ATTRIBUTE Basic2 An aspect or characteristic of an object which can be isolated and identified conceptually but which in fact cannot be separated from an object and cannot exist by itself. * AUTHORITARIANISM is the tiny, unnatural wire that reaches out to connect one person's brain with another person's muscles. * AXIOM FNI-155 A statement that identifies the base of knowledge. * BEAUTY DK A concept of consciousness. It is the integration of one or more experiences of pleasure along with one or more observations of a manifestation of one's values. * BLASPHEMY is what an old mistake says of a newly discovered truth. What last year's leaf says to this year's bud. * CAPITAL Accumulated stock of value in excess of immediate consumptive requirements. * CAPITALISM 63/Nov/44 65/Oct/47 65/Nov/54 A social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, and in which all property is privately owned. The process of using wealth not for immediate consumption but for the creation of more wealth. See Chapter 4 * CAUSALITY 66/Mar/9 AS-1037 The law of identity applied to action. All actions are caused by entities. The nature of an action is caused and determined by the nature of the entity that acts; a thing cannot act in contradiction to its nature. * CELEBRATION Basic16 An action undertaken not as a means to an end but as an end in itself, for the purpose of giving an objective expression to the enjoyment of a value achieved in the past. It objectifies the pleasure of consumption after the successful production of a value. * CENSORSHIP 62/Mar/9 A government edict that forbids the discussion of some specific subjects or ideas. * CERTAINTY DK A state of mind in which a person perceives a correlation between his mental images and Reality. See Chapter 3 * CONFIDENCE AS-1019 Basic10 The knowledge that the judgement of one's mind is valid. * CHAOS * RANDOM Compare the behavior of commuters dashing through a train station at rush hour with the behavior of a large, terrified crowd. The activity of the commuters resembles chaos in that although an observer unfamiliar with train stations might think people were running every which way without reason, order does underlie the surface complexity: eveyone is hurrying to catch a specific train. The traffic flow could rapidly be changed simply by announcing a track change. In contrast, mass hysteria is random. No simple announcement would make a large mob become cooperative. * CHARACTER 67/Mar/4 The sum of the principles and values that guide a man's actions in the face of moral choices. * PERSONALITY PRL-75 The externally perceivable sum of all the psychological traits and characteristics that distinguish a human being from all other human beings. 67/Mar/4 The superficial mannerisms by which his principles are acted out. * COGNITIVE * NORMATIVE 65/Mar/10 65/Apr/15 Cognitive abstractions identify the facts of reality. Normative abstractions evaluate the facts, thus prescribing a choice of values and a course of action. Cognitive abstractions deal with that which IS; normative abstractions deal with that which OUGHT TO BE (in the realms open to man's choice). Cognitive abstractions form the epistemological foundation of science; Normative abstractions, of morality and of art. * COINS HPD-178 Real money transformed into a recognizable shape and weight in order to facilitate exchange. * TOKEN HPD-180 A money substitute in metallic form rather than paper. * COMMON GOOD 65/Dec/55 An undefinable concept. "Good" and "Value" pertain only to a living organism - to an individual living organism - not to a disembodied aggregate of relationships. If taken literally its only possible meaning is: the sum of the good of all the individual men involved. But in that case the concept is meaningless as an ethical criterion: it leaves open the question of what is the good of individual men and how does one determine it? The concept becomes an ethical blank check for those who use it. It means that the good of some men takes precedence over the good of others. * COMMUNICATION DK Transfer of information from one mind to another such that both minds recognize the meaning of the information. * COMPLEX A complex system is one comprised of many agents, each of which interacts with its neighbors and can adapt to change. * COMPROMISE 62/Jul/29 64/Jan/1 An adjustment of conflicting claims by mutual concessions. This means that both parties have some valid claim and some value to offer each other. And this means that both parties agree upon some fundamental principle which serves as a base for their deal. It is only in regard to concretes or particulars implementing a mutually accepted basic principle that compromise can occur. * CONCEPT IOE-17 A mental integration of two or more units possessing the same distinguishing characteristic(s) with their particular measurements omitted. 65/Apr/15 A mental integration of two or more perceptual concretes which are isolated by a process of abstraction and united by means of a specific definition. 67/Jun/7 The meaning of a concept consists of the units - the existents - which it integrates, including all the characteristics of these units. * ANTI-CONCEPT The Ayn Rand Letter pg 1 An unnecessary and rationally unusable term designed to replace and obliterate some legitimate concept. The use of anti-concepts gives the listener a sense of approximate understanding. * CONCEPT OF CONSCIOUSNESS IOE-33 A mental integration of two or more instances of a psychological process possessing the same distinguishing characteristics with the particular contents and the measurements of the action's intensity omitted. * CONCEPTUALIZE 66/Dec/13 To organize an indiscriminate perceptual chaos in terms of essential characteristics. * CONSCIOUSNESS PSE-3 5 The faculty and state of awareness. The condition of an organism in cognizing, perceiving, or sensing. WAR-63 The function of consciousness is perception, cognition and the initiation and direction of action. * COURAGE - BASIC10 The knowledge that to act on the judgment of one's mind is practical. AS-1019 The practical form of being true to existence. * CURRENCY HPD-178 Money substitutes in paper form. * DECIDOPHOBIA The fear of making the decisions that give shape to one's life. * DEDUCTION IOE-30 The process of subsuming new instances under a known concept. * DEFLATION HPD-178 A decrease in the amount of money substitutes that are in excess of the stored stock of real money. * DEFINITION 63/Jan/3: Identify the specific meaning of a concept by isolating the facts of reality to which the concept refers and of which the concept is a mental integration. The purpose of defining one's terms is to afford oneself the inestimable benefit of knowing what one is talking about. 67/Jul/9: To keep a concept distinct from all others, to keep it connected to a specific group of existents. HPD-29: To draw a sharp line between what IS a certain thing and what isn't. BASIC6: A statement that identifies the essential characteristics of the aspect of reality which a concept denotes. IOE-76: A statement that identifies the nature of a concept's units. See Chapter 3 * DEMAND DEPOSIT HPD-178 the storing of your money in a bank but still available on demand, for which you usually pay a fee. * DEPRESSION HPD-178 62/Aug/33 The liquidation period following a prolonged inflationary cycle and/or a liquidation period in which governmental restraint of trade prevents orderly liquidation thereby prolonging a recession. * DEPRESSION 67/Jan/12 Response to the accomplished loss of a value. Dec85- 9 "I want something that I value very highly, something that I believe is crucial to my happiness, and I don't think I can ever have it." Included in the evaluation is a strong element of hopelessness about the future. If the conclusion applied only to the present - only to not achieving some value for the time being - the resulting emotion would be sadness, hurt, and disappointment, but not depression. * SUFFERING 62/Jan/3 The emotion that results from the frustration of one's desire or the destruction of one's values. * DESPAIR Gandalf: Despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. * DETERMINISM 63/May/17 Denies the existence of any element of freedom or volition in man's consciousness. It holds that every action, desire and thought of man is determined by forces beyond his control. But if man believes what he HAS to believe; if he is not free to test his beliefs against reality and to validate or reject them; if the actions and content of his mind are determined by factors that may or may not have anything to do with reason logic and reality; then he can never know if his conclusions are true or false. If his capacity to judge is not free there is no way for a man to discriminate between his beliefs and those of a raving lunatic. (Or to assert as truth the postulate of determinism.) * DEVALUATION HPD-178 Repudiation of the government's promise to honor its money substitutes at the stated rate of exchange. * DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM WAR-16 AS-320,952 Man's mind and its content are determined by the material factors of production existing at a given time. Discovery of Freedom by R. W. Lane: The communist is looking for the Authority that controls men and taking it for granted that since the man does not control himself then the Authority that controls him must be his situation. * DISSOCIATION The failure of the power to recall things which normally should be remembered; an interruption or repression of memory. * DOGMA A set of beliefs accepted on faith. * DUTY 70/Jul/3 The distinction is between realistic necessity (obligation) and human whims (duty). A debt you owe to yourself to fulfill. Obligations you have assumed voluntarily. See Integrity, * ECONOMICS is the production, transportation, exchange and consumption of wealth. It is also the study of these activities. There are two broad divisions of economics: Personal (in which a person produces wealth and then consumes that wealth himself) and Social (in which more than one person is involved in the production or consumption of wealth). Macroeconomics: the study of the money supply, the GNP, and the regulation of credit on a nationwide scale. (A lecture on mass transit systems.) Microeconomics: the study of the aggregate of individual market transactions. (A study of the average gas mileage of the local buses.) Picoeconomics (Browneian economics): the study of the relationship of individual human beings to the economic world each lives in. (Directions to the nearest bus stop.) * EGO - PSE-148 161 A man's ego is his mind - his faculty of awareness - the faculty that preserves the inner continuity of his own existence and generates his sense of personal identity. Ego and mind denote the same fact of reality: that which knows, judges and feels. * EGOISM 62/Sep/39 Holds that man is an end in himself; that ethically the beneficiary of an action should be the person who acts. WAR-31 Holds that self interest is man's proper moral goal. * EMERGENCY * CRISIS 63/Feb/6 An unchosen unexpected event, limited in time, that creates conditions under which human survival is impossible. In an emergency situation man's primary goal is to combat the disaster, escape the danger and restore normal conditions. Man cannot live his life by the guidance of rules applicable only to conditions under which human survival is impossible. * EMOTION 62/Jan/3 The psychosomatic form in which man experiences his estimate of the relationship of things to himself. The psycho-somatic embodiment of a value judgement. VOS-27 Estimates of that which furthers man's values or threatens them. 66/Jan/14 Reactions to the appraisal of perceptions, as opposed to feelings which are reactions to the appraisal of sensations. DK States of consciousness produced by actual or anticipated change in the relationship between a person and his values. * EMOTIONAL OPENNESS - SEM 13 Communication of the value-significance of things and events. * ENVY The motive of a man who is willing to make himself worse off in order to bring another down to his level. See Chapter 3 * EPISTEMOLOGY 64/Oct/41 The science that studies the nature and means of human knowledge. Its primary purpose is to establish the criteria of knowledge and thus enable man to distinguish between that which he may and may not regard as knowledge. * ESSENCE IOE-49 The essence of a concept is that fundamental characteristic of its units on which the greatest number of other characteristics depend and which distinguishes these units from all other existents. * ESTEEM Dec86-5 The recognition of character traits or qualities which you judge to be of significant (moral) value. * ETHICS 65/Apr/15 70/Jun/4 VOS-15 The study of the proper values to guide man's choices and actions. * MORALITY 64/Jun/21 64/Nov/48 65/Mar/10 That branch of philosophy that studies values. An abstract conceptual code of values and principles. WAR-24 A code of values accepted by choice. (Morality in children: 65/Mar/9) Moral principles are requirements of man's survival proved by reference to the most fundamental aspects of his existence and to the deepest premises of philosophy. They are life-or-death absolutes. DK Morality describes intra-personal actions whereas Ethics describes inter-personal actions. * EUPHEMISM an inoffensive way of identifying an offensive fact. Or, more likely, a way of avoiding the necessity of identification. * EVALUATION PSE-91 The process of identifying the beneficial or harmful relationship of some aspect of reality to oneself. * EVIDENCE is suggestive or indicative information, frequently based on observations or oral statements. * DATA, on the other hand, usually take the form of numerical information, suitable for processing and analysis. * EXPENSE See Chapter 3 * EXPERIENCE 70/Mar/2 The evidence of man's senses. * EXPLANATION 68/Feb/9 To account for some aspect of reality which you do not understand on the basis of concepts which have already been validated. * EXPLOITATION DK involves the making of two judgements of a situation from two different perspectives. The person being exploited judges his situation and concludes that he is choosing a desirable alternative. The person who sees the situation as exploitative is judging that there are more preferable alternatives available. * FAIR - what informed people freely agree to. * FAITH 62/Mar/11 The acceptance of an idea without evidence or proof or in spite of evidence to the contrary. * FASCISM 65/May/19 A governmental system with strong centralized power permitting no opposition or criticism and controlling all affairs of the nation (industrial, commercial, etc.) * FAVOR 65/OCT/48 A favor means the unearned since the earned is a right not a favor. * FEAR 62/Jan/3 Your response to that which threatens your values. Fear is how you feel when you wait for something bad to happen, and fun is what you have when you figure out a way to make something good happen. * FEELING 66/Jan/14 A positive or negative internal state which is a direct and immediate effect of sensory stimulation. * FORCE The separation of a person from his rightfully achieved values without his voluntary consent. * FRAUD 63/Dec/46 Obtaining material values without their owner's consent under false pretenses or false promises. Receiving values then refusing to pay for them and thus keeping them by force (by mere physical possession) not by right, and without the consent of their owner. * FREE WILL 64/Jan/3 64/Apr/15 holds that man is capable of performing actions that are not determined by forces outside his control; that man has the power of making choices which are causal primaries. Objectivism locates man's free will in a single action of his consciousness: to focus his mind or to suspend it. Man has the power to regulate the action of his own consciousness. * FREEDOM WAR-43 See Chapter 5 In a political-economic context it means only the absence of physical compulsion. A free society is that state of affairs where there are no man-made restraints on the release of creative human energy. * GENERAL PRICE LEVEL HPD-178 the available money supply divided by the goods and services available for sale. * GOOD 64/Nov/47 65/Dec/55 An evaluation of the facts of reality by man's consciousness according to a rational standard of value. The good is an aspect of reality in relation to man. It must be discovered, not invented, by man. Dec83-7 That which a man finds of value through the independent judgment of his rational mind. * GREATNESS AS-1145 To be master of reality in a manner no other has equaled. * HAPPINESS 62/Jan/3 AS-1014 the consequence of fulfilled desire. The emotion that results from the achievement of one's values. * HATRED 62/Jan/3 The consequence of fear. The wish for the destruction of that which endangers my values. * HONESTY PSE-219 AS-859,1019 The refusal to seek values by faking reality - by evading the distinction between the real and the unreal. * HUMANITIES - the study and/or evaluation of man and his actions. * HYPOCRISY - to assert the falsity of that which is real while asserting the reality of that which is false. * IDEA - A light turned on in a man's soul. * IDEALISM 66/Sep/10 Aspiration to any values above the level of the commonplace. * IMPLICIT knowledge is that which is available to your consciousness but which you have not conceptualized. Implicit knowledge is not a substitute for explicit knowledge. Values which you cannot identify, but merely sense implicitly, are not in your control. You cannot tell what they depend on or require, what course of action is needed to gain and/or keep them. And you cannot teach them to your children! Implicit knowledge, since it has not been identified, cannot be challenged. * INDEPENDENCE AS-1019 PSE-219 A commitment to one's own perception of reality as an absolute standard of thought and action. The acceptance of intellectual responsibility for one's own existence. * INDIVIDUALISM 62/Apr/13 As an ethical-political concept it upholds the supremacy of individual rights. The principle that man is an end in himself not a means to the ends of others. As an ethical-psychological concept it holds that man should think and judge independently, valuing nothing higher than the sovereignty of his intellect. Feb86-9 * INDUCTION IOE-30 The process of observing the facts of reality and of integrating them into concepts. * INFATUATION 68/Jan/3 Selectively focusing on one or two aspects of a total personality while ignoring or being oblivious to the rest and responding as though the person were only those particular aspects. * INFLATION HPD-29 An increase in money substitutes above the stock of real money in storage. The counterfeiting of paper money. * INSANITY AS-567 A state where a person can't tell what's real. * INSIGHT like something beautiful boiling up inside me. * INSTINCT See Chapter 3 * INTEGRITY AS-1019 63/Feb/6 is the policy of acting in accordance with one's values - of expressing, upholding and translating them into practical reality. PSE-219 Loyalty in action to the judgement of one's consciousness. Heinlein: Your agreement with yourself to abide by your own rules. * INTELLECTUAL AMMUNITION Verbal bullets for Objectivists who want to shoot their mouths off. * INTELLIGENCE 70/Aug/6 The ability to deal with a broad range of abstractions. IOE-27 33 The standard of measurement that differentiates one type of consciousness from another is its range. It is a measurement of the range of their consciousness: the extent to which they are able to be conscious of the facts of reality, and able to form and manipulate concepts. * IRRATIONALISM 69/Oct/2 The doctrine that reason is not a valid means of knowledge nor a proper guide to action. * IRRATIONALITY 62/Jan/3 The relationship of cognition and evaluation - of reason and emotion - is that of cause and effect. Irrationality consists of the attempt to reverse this relationship: to let one's emotions - one's wishes or fears - determine one's thinking. To judge what is true or false by the standard of what is "pleasant" or "unpleasant." Philosophically this attempt is the cause of mysticism; psychologically it is the cause of neurosis. * IRRELEVANCY A topic not subsumed by the principle that underlies (explicitly or implicitly) the discussion. * JOLLY DK How you feel when you have just spent half an hour listening to the music of Scott Joplin. * JUDGE 62/Apr/15 To evaluate a given concrete by reference to an abstract principle or standard. * JUSTICE PSE-219 IOE-49 AS-737,1019 The practice of identifying men for what they are and treating them accordingly. The practice of recognizing causality and individual responsibility in social behavior. The law of causality and/or the law of Identity applied to human behavior. Maximizing virtue within the limits of human judgement. Notions of justice or injustice don't apply to the results of an impersonal process, only to the general rules that are enforced. * KNOWLEDGE 67/Aug/11 Correct identification of the facts of reality. Acquired not by logic apart from experience or by experience apart from logic but by the application of logic to experience. All truths are the product of a logical identification of the facts of experience. DK The content of a mind which corresponds to truth. * TRUTH IOE-46 The product of the recognition (i.e. identification) of the facts of reality. Basic1 The recognition of reality. An aspect of reality as perceived by a mind. * LANGUAGE 65/Apr/15 A code of visual-auditory symbols that serves the psycho-epistemological function of converting abstractions into concretes, or more precisely into the psycho-epistemological equivalent of concretes: to a manageable number of specific units. (Can be either a tool for identifying and understanding reality or a tool for manipulating one's social environment.) * LAW Basic13 A rule of action pertaining to the relationships of men inhabiting the same country. Tonie Nathan: Enunciations of principles of justice. An operative definition: Law is what government builds to assure its perpetuity. * LAW OF IDENTITY Basic3 Law of Identity: A is A. Law of Contradiction: a thing cannot be A and notA. Law of Excluded Middle: a thing is either A or notA. * LEADER * RULER There is a distinction to be made between a leader and a ruler. A leader is the lady who goes ahead with a torch, lighting the way for those who follow. A ruler is the man who comes behind with a whip, driving them onward. * LIBERTARIANISM is the statement of a political principle. As John Hospers described it: "a philosophy of personal liberty - the liberty of each person to live according to his own choices, provided that he does not attempt to coerce others and thus prevent them from living according to their choices. Libertarians hold this to be an inalienable right of man; thus, libertarianism represents a total commitment to the concept of individual rights." It is a political philosophy, concerned with the appropriate use of force. It asks one question: Under what conditions is the use of force justified? And it gives one answer: only in response to the prior use of force. This political principle is implemented through the social institution of * ANARCHY. See Chapter 3 and Chapter 7 * STATISM 65/May/19 The opposite of libertarianism is statism, the principle that it is proper for the community (or a selected subgroup thereof) to compel the behavior of its individual members. This political principle is implemented through the social institution of government. * STATEOLATRY The stateolatrist is a devout statist who views (usually implicitly) government as an object of religious worship. He regards government as being the ultimate foundation of morality and ethics, and as an absolute prerequisite to civilized human existence. * GOVERNMENT 63/Dec/45 Capitalism The Unknown Ideal pg 46 An institution that holds the exclusive power to enforce certain rules of social conduct in a given geographical area. Think8 A social agency that performs the task of formulating and enforcing the laws of a country. DK The strongest gang of agressors in a particular area at a particular time. Government should be defined as an institution that SEEKS exclusive power, not as one that HOLDS exclusive power. Just as a business is a profit-seeking firm, not necessarily a profit-making firm. * LIFE 63/Apr/13 The process of achieving values. Isaac Asimov: The ability to effect a temporary and local decrease in entropy by means of chemical reactions which are controlled by nucleic acid molecules. * LIQUIDATION HPD-179 Normally, the sale of a property. With regard to recessions and depressions it refers to the acceptance of losses and the closing of businesses that existed only because of the miscalculations caused by inflation. * LOGIC The art of non-contradictory identification of the facts of reality. * LOVE 62/Jan/3 65/Aug/37 Man's emotional response to that which he values. Desire is the consequence of love. PSE-129 Romantic Love is the highest expression of the most intense union of pride and admiration. Its celebration is sex. The psycho-somatic response to the integral of the behaviors that make the shared ecstasy of sex possible. * LUCK See Chapter 3 * MATURITY 65/Nov/53 Psychological maturity pertains to the successful development of man's consciousness; the ability to conceptualize. * MEASUREMENT IOE-13 The identification of a quantitative relationship by means of a standard that serves as a unit. * MEDIATION involves impartial third persons who help the parties in dispute reach agreement. * ARBITRATION involves impartial persons who are given authority to determine the outcome of the dispute. Mediators generally work toward a compromise, but arbitrators reach decisions based on the merits of the case. * ADJUDICATION is the clarification of existing property rights. * MEDIOCRITY WAR-67 85 AS-358 70/Oct/2 An average intelligence that resents and envies its betters. See THE COMPLETE SHERLOCK HOLMES, 773. * MENTAL HEALTH 64/May/20 No clash between perception of reality and peservation of self-esteem. 67/Feb/11 PSE-94 The capacity for unobstructed cognitive functioning and the exercise of this capacity. Mental illness is the impairment of this capacity. * METAPHYSICS 65/Apr/16 The science that deals with the fundamental nature of reality. DK The study of the fundamental nature of the universe as epistemologically inferred rather than as existentially deduced. Metaphyscs is not the science of any particular thing; it is the science of everything. As such, it can have only very minimal principles because all the details have to be discovered on their own, each being a matter of scientific specialization. * MIGHT MAKES RIGHT 63/Jun/21 When "might" is opposed to right the concept of "might" can have only one meaning: the power of brute physical force which in fact is not a "power" but the most hopeless state of impotence; it is merely the "power" to destroy; it is the "power" of a stampede of animals running amok. * MINE is to extract a resource that is not replenished. To * HARVEST is to extract a resource that you then replenish. * MONEY HPD-10,12,15 A commodity accepted in exchange by an individual who intends to trade it for something else. The final argument is that you can always use the nails SOMETIME in the future; they won't lose their value. And if YOU don't use them SOMEONE will. If the money commodity didn't have a separate value you couldn't confidently accept it in trade for what you have produced for you wouldn't know the worth of what you received. Heinlein: The universal symbol for value received. DK: A medium for the measured exchange of wealth. * MONEY SUBSTITUTES Money receipts and demand deposits that are used in exchanges in place of real money. * MONOPOLY 62/Jun/23 COERCIVE: A grant of special privilege by the State reserving a certain area of production to one particular individual or group. The exclusive control of a given field of production so that those in control are able to set arbitrary production policies and charge arbitrary prices, immune from the law of supply and demand. Such a monopoly entails more than the absence of competition; it entails the impossibility of competition. Every coercive monopoly that has ever existed anywhere was created and made possible only by an act of government. NON-COERCIVE: May exist on the free market but is bound by the law of supply and demand (such as a small town with one drug store which is barely able to survive). No commodity can be indispensable to an economy regardless of price. It can be only relatively preferable to other commodities. * MYSTICISM A system of belief which attempts to show that a Supreme Deity is revealed through quiet contemplation and not through an attempt to understand philosophy and theology. The true mystic rejects reason and authority as a basis of the search for truth, employing only tuition and emotion. Basic3 The claim to a non-sensory non-rational form of knowledge. * NATIONALISM A devotion to the social institutions of some particular nation, often coupled with a desire that the favored nation should conquer all other nations militarily, and always coupled with a degree of indifference or even hostility to the social institutions of other nations. * CITIZENSHIP An attitude, a state of mind, an emotional conviction that the whole is greater than the part... and that the part should be willing to sacrifice itself that the whole may live. * NEED PSE-18 62/Mar/11 In order to maintain that something is a physical or psychological need one must demonstrate that it is a causal condition of the organism's survival and wellbeing. * NEUROSIS DS 90 An attempt to protect one's self-esteem and preserve one's survival by self-destructive means. * PSYCHOSIS Basic5 Loss of volitional control over one's rational judgement. * NONSENSE See Chapter 3 * NUMBER IOE-58 A mental symbol that integrates units into a single larger unit (or subdivides a unit into fractions) with reference to the basic number of "one" which is the basic mental symbol of "unit." * OBJECTIVE Basic1 Independent of consciousness. Reality is the OBJECT of consciousness. * OBJECTIVITY 65/Feb/7 Metaphysically it is the recognition of the fact that reality exists independent of any perceiver's consciousness. Epistemologically it is the recognition of the fact that a perceiver's consciousness must acquire knowledge of reality by certain means (reason) in accordance with certain rules (logic). * OBSCENITY 65/Oct/47 AS-901 A peculiar kind of embarrassment when witnessing a grossly inappropriate human performance, such as the antics of an unfunny comedian. It is a depersonalized, almost metaphysical embarrassment at having to witness so undignified a behavior on the part of a member of the human species. * ORIGINAL SIN AS-1025 To hold as man's sin a fact not open to his choice is a mockery of morality. To hold man's nature as his sin is a mockery of nature. To punish him for a crime he committed before he was born is a mockery of justice. To hold him guilty in a matter where no innocence exists is a mockery of reason. To destroy morality, nature, justice and reason by means of a single concept is a feat of evil hardly to be matched. * OWNERSHIP DK The rightfully acquired ability to use and dispose of property. An individual justly owns whatever he has acquired without violating the principles of justice in acquisition and justice in transfer. * PROPERTY 64/Apr/13 Any material element or resource which, in order to become of use or value to men, requires the application of human knowledge and effort should be private property by the right of those who apply the knowledge and effort. * PAPER MONEY HPD-179 Receipts for real money in storage. * PERCEPTS VOS-19 IOE-11 A group of sensations automatically retained and integrated by the brain. PSE-27 Through the stimulation of his various sensory receptors man receives information which travels to his brain in the form of sensations (primary sensory inputs). These sensory imputs as such do not constitute knowledge; they are only the material of knowledge. Man's brain automatically retains and integrates these sensations thereby forming percepts. Percepts constitute the starting point and base of man's knowledge: the direct awareness of entities, their actions and their attributes. * PERFECT - Feb81-3 Flawlessly complete satisfaction of a standard of value. The best possible in a given context. A perfect sphere is a sphere that is flawless in the context of man's form of perception. All concepts are derived from the perceptual level of man's awareness, and all standards of perfection must be consistent with this fact. * PHILOSOPHY FNI-18 An integrated view of life. FNI-22 An integrated view of man, of existence, and of the universe. 70/Jun/4 The science that studies the fundamental aspects of the nature of existence, the fundamental, universal principles of existence. DK A set of principles which provides a consistent and comprehensive frame of reference from which to judge entities and actions. * PITY The Fountainhead 583 The awareness of a man without worth or hope. A sense of finality; of the not to be redeemed. There was shame in this feeling - his own shame that he should have to pronounce such judgment upon a man and that he should know an emotion which contained no shred of respect. * PLEASURE DK The manifestation in consciousness of certain patterns of stimulation of the nervous system. * POLITICS 70/JUN/4 The study of the principles governing the proper organization of society. * PRAXEOLOGY History is a chronological continuum, not a logical one. Cause and effect are in the sequence, however the immediate post hoc effect is often the actual effect of an earlier more distant cause - hence causes and effects are often confused, particularly by those who take a short term perspective. Praxeology (the science of the basic motivations, nature and consequences of human action) is a logical continuum, not a chronological one. It accounts for and ranks the causal forces at work in human history and provides a logical system for anticipating their overlapping, often delayed effects. * PRECEDENT Precedent is merely the assumption that somebody else, in the past with less information, nevertheless knows better than the man on the spot. * TRADITION means to do things in the same grand style as your predecessors; it does not mean to do the same things. * PRESUPPOSE means that you cannot hold concept A unless you have first grasped concept B. * PRIDE 67/May/9 PSE-220 AS-1020 The pleasure a man takes in himself on the basis of and in response to specific achievements or actions. Self-esteem is "I can do." Pride is "I have done." * SELF-ESTEEM 64/May/17 67/Mar/1 67/Dec/1 It is the integrated sum of self-confidence and self-respect. It is the conviction that one is competent to live and worthy of living. AS-1057 Reliance on one's power to think. Pseudo self-esteem is an irrational pretense at self-value. * PRINCIPLE 64/Jan/1 A fundamental primary or general truth on which other truths depend. It is not the role of principle to provide particularized concretes for each individual but to enable their discovery. DK The fundamental distinguishing characteristic not of an object but of a set of interconnected actions. * PROBABILITY See Chapter 3 * PRODUCTIVENESS PSE-219 AS-1020 The act of bringing knowledge or goods into existence. 65/Nov/52 Production is the application of reason to the problem of survival. Combining his personal forces with the forces of nature in such a way that the cooperation leads to some particular desired arrangement of material. The transformation of naturally existing entities into material that enables the achievement of human values. The result of this act is * WEALTH * PROFIT The result of helping yourself (which entails self- responsibility). Those who hate profit hate the idea of self-betterment. They are anti-life. * PROOF Basic3 A process of inference. It establishes that a proposition is true by deriving it from previous knowledge. DK Demonstrate a correspondence between an idea and an observed fact. * PROPOSITION 67/Jun/7 A combination of concepts. * PSYCHO-EPISTEMOLOGY 64/Oct/41 The study of the mental operations that are possible to and that characterize man's cognitive behavior. 69/Jul/4 The study of man's cognitive processes from the aspect of the interaction between the conscious mind and the automatic functions of the subconscious. WAR-154 One's method of using his consciousness and considering intellectual issues. * PSYCHOLOGICAL VISIBILITY PSE-186 67/Dec/6 PRL-77 Man needs the experience of self-awareness that results from perceiving his self as an objective existent. He is able to achieve this experience through interaction with the consciousness of other living entities. As for social metaphysicians it is not visibility they seek from others but identity. * PSYCHOLOGY PSE-3,5 The science that studies the attributes and characteristics which certain living organisms possess by virtue of being conscious. The science that studies the attributes and characteristics which man possesses by virtue of his rational faculty. * RACISM 63/Sep/33 The notion of ascribing moral, social or political significance to a man's genetic lineage. The notion that a man's intellectual and characterological traits are produced and transmitted by his internal body chemistry. A man is to be judged not by his own character and actions but by the characters and actions of a collective of ancestors. * RATIONALIZE Basic6 To pick some random explanation to justify one's feelings and stick to it regardless of reason, logic, evidence or argument. Think 6 To attempt to justify conclusions that have already been accepted on the basis of one's feelings. * REASON 62/Jan/3 62/Mar/11 The faculty that perceives, identifies and integrates the evidence of reality provided by man's senses. PSE-4 Man's ability to extend the range of his awareness beyond the perceptual concretes immediately confronting him. PSE-5 To project a chain of inference that is independent of immediate sensory stimuli. * RATIONAL 65/Dec/55 Derived from the facts of reality and validated by a process of reason. * RATIONALITY PSE-219 The unreserved commitment to the perception of reality, to the acceptance of reason as an absolute - as one's only guide to knowledge, values and action. * RECESSION HPD-179 The liquidation period following an inflation. * REDUCTION Dec86-4 The means of connecting an advanced concept to reality by traveling backwards through the hierarchical logical structure involved in the formation of that concept. * REFERENCES See Chapter 3 * REFLEX PSE-22 An automatic involuntary action which occurs as a consequence of a stimulus to a receptor. It does not involve the faculty of consciousness. * REPRESSION 66/Aug/8 A subconscious mental process that forbids entry into conscious awareness of certain ideas, memories, identifications and evaluations. An automatized avoidance reaction. * REVOLUTION A violent transfer of power from one faction to another faction within the same class is called a * COUP, and this changes nothing. A transfer of power from one class to another is called a revolution, and this does change things - although the changes are not necessarily the ones the revolutionaries sought. Revolutions are always violent, for tyrants will always kill to retain power. * RIGHT TO WORK LAWS 63/Jun/23 Forbid employers and unions from contractually agreeing to an all-union workplace. * RIGHTS 62/Feb/7 63/Apr/13 63/Jun/21 64/Apr/13 64/May/19 VOS-97 AS-1061 WAR-43 See Chapter 5 of my book Rights are the conditions of social existence required by man's nature for his proper survival. * ROMANTICISM 69/May/1 WAR-73 A category of art based on the recognition of the principle that man possesses the faculty of volition. * SACRIFICE Surrender of a higher value in favor of a lower value or of a non-value. * SCHIZOPHRENIA Basic6 Inability to hold the mind focused on a single purpose. No logical relationship between one thought and the next. Definition by non-essentials. DS-128 Oriented exclusively to the internal world of his own experience and disconnected from the external world. Said of Buckminster Fuller's speech: Non-linear endless improvisation. * SCIENCE PSE-2 The rational and systematic study of the facts of reality. Physics discovers what is; engineers turn this knowledge into things that have never been. * SELFISHNESS Concern with one's own well-being. See CHAPTER 1 for a discussion of this concept. * SENSATION VOS-18 The product of the automatic reaction of a sense organ to a stimulus from the outside world. * SENSE OF LIFE 65/Mar/10 A pre-conceptual equivalent of metaphysics. A subconsciously integrated appraisal of man's nature and the nature of reality, summing up one's view of man's relationship to existence. 66/Feb/1 3 The integrated sum of man's basic values. * SERVICE 63/Mar/12 Work offered for trade on a free market to be paid for by those who choose to buy it. The altruist definition is: unrewarded self- sacrificial unilateral giving while receiving nothing in return. * SIMILARITY IOE-18 The relationship between two or more existents which possess the same characteristic(s) but in different measure or degree. * SOCIAL METAPHYSICS 65/Feb/5 The psychological syndrome that characterizes an individual who holds the consciousnesses of other men, not objective reality, as his ultimate psycho-epistemological frame-of-reference. * SOCIAL SYSTEM 65/Nov/54 A set of ethical-political-economic principles embodied in a society's laws, institutions and government which determine the relationships - the terms of association - among the men living in a given geographical area. * SOCIALISM 62/Dec/53 65/May/19 A theory or system of social organization which advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production - capital, land etc. - in the community as a whole. * SOCIETY 62/Feb/7 For a New Liberty pg 37 A group or number of individual men who live in the same geographical area and who deal with one another. Society is not a separate entity endowed with some sort of autonomous existence apart from the individual men of whom it is composed. Society as such does not exist; only individual men exist. 63/Apr/14 A civilized society is one in which physical force is banned from human relationships and in which the government, acting as a policeman, may use force ONLY in retaliation and ONLY against those who initiate its use. * SOUL 66/FEB/3 A mind and its basic values. Aristotle: The inner meaning of the body's movement. See AS-858 for a discussion of the Soul-Body dichotomy. * SOVEREIGNTY The independent prerogative to determine your own values, actions, goals, thoughts and convictions. * SPIRITUALITY, The reverence one feels at the sight of a great accomplishment. The value a person places on the symbolic expression of the importance of purpose in human life. * STANDARD vs PURPOSE See Chapter 3 * SUBJECTIVE Basic1 Dependent on consciousness. Reality is the SUBJECT of consciousness. * SUBJECTIVISM 63/Jun/21 65/Feb/7 The belief that reality is not a firm absolute but a fluid indeterminate realm which can be altered in whole or in part by the consciousness of the perceiver i.e. by his feelings, wishes or whims. Pure subjectivism does not recognize the concept of identity i.e. the fact that man or the universe or anything possesses a specific nature. * SUICIDE 62/Sep/39 To save the life of a loved one (her death is the price). Fighting for freedom (slavery is the price). If life can have nothing more to offer him at that price then his dying is not a sacrifice. 64/Apr/15 He knows what human existence is and he will not accept anything less. He is unwilling to endure a non-human state of being with escape from death, not the achievement of life, as the best he can hope for. * TAUTOLOGY 67/May/13 Analytic truths represent concrete instances of the Law of Identity therefore are tautologies i.e. a proposition that repeats the same thing: 2+2=4. * TELEOLOGY IOE-34 The study of goal-directed behavior. * THINK PSE-38 39 A man is in focus when and to the extent that his mind is set to the goal of awareness, clarity, and intelligibility with regard to the object of his concern. To sustain that focus with regard to a specific issue or problem is to think. To be in focus is to set one's mind to the purpose of active cognitive integration. To focus is to move from a lower level of awareness to a higher level. To be in focus means that one must know what one's mind is doing. AS-1038 The process of defining identity and discovering causal connections. Leonard Reed: when you shut your mouth and your head begins talking to itself. * THINKING IN PRINCIPLES - Jun87-6 - To abstract the essence of a series of concretes, then identify, by an appropriate use of logic, the necessary implications or result of this essence. You thereby reach a fundamental generalization, a Principle, which subsumes and enables you to deal with an unlimited number of instances. * TIME 62/May/19 Time is a measurement of motion. Motion presupposes entities that move. If nothing existed there could be no time. Time is "in" the universe; the universe is not "in" time. See "On The Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies" Part 1 for Einstein's view of simultaneity. To grasp the concept of Motion you have to grasp a change of spatial relationships among entities. If you see some stationary objects and one object that is moving, you grasp the fact that it is moving by seeing the changed relationship between it and the other objects, and that gives you the concepts of Time and Space. * TIME DEPOSIT HPD-180 The lending of your money to a bank not to be available for a specified period of time for which you receive a fee (interest). * TO BE See Chapter 3 * TOTALITARIANISM The deliberate use of institutionalized coercion. * UNIT IOE-12 An existent regarded as a separate member of a group of two or more similar members. Things viewed by a consciousness in certain existing relationships. * UNREAL AS-1017 That negation of existence which is the content of a human consciousness when it attempts to abandon reason. * VALUE VOS-15 That which one acts to gain or keep or defend. See AS-1018 for a presentation of the supreme values of Reason, Purpose and Self-esteem. Basic values are abstractions - qualities such as rationality, independence, self-esteem, etc. Particular values are the actual people or entities one values. Something has intrinsic value when it is a direct source of pleasure. It has instrumental value when the pleasure is consequential. Value presupposes a valuer, and some purpose. It is only in relation to some valuer and purpose that something can be said to have value. * VIRTUE 67/Mar/4 AS-1012 1018 The action by which one gains and keeps a value. If you believe that you can have a value without there being an action involved, then you have been effectively deprived of that value. * VIBES DK Good vibes are when your perceptions correspond to your mental construct of what an enjoyable situation should be. Bad vibes are dissonant. * WHIM VOS-14 A desire experienced by a person who does not know and does not care to discover its cause.