MIND / BODY DICHOTOMY © Susan Fleck

		What the dichotomy (difference, opposition) is about & Rand’s view
spirit	matter	(A dual-universe worldview.) There are spiritual entities apart from natural (nature’s) entities—spiritual in a religious sense would be supernatural; there is a spiritual realm apart from the natural world, and a man’s spirit is immaterial. Spiritual entities are superior to things of mere matter. Rand: (A non-dual universe worldview.) There is only that which exists in the single realm of the universe. There are mental entities (mental states, thoughts, emotions, etc.) that are not material per se, but that require a physical brain. The term ‘spirit’ for Rand denotes one’s mind: spiritual needs are needs of one’s consciousness.
heaven	earth	Similar to ‘spirit/matter:’ heaven (or hell or purgatory, etc.) are actual places, or realms, apart from the world in which we live. Heaven is the ideal and far superior place compared to earth. Rand: a non-dual universe worldview. Existence exists.
soul	body	Same theme: One’s soul is immaterial and immortal. One’s body is inferior, and many believe, is the source of sin and depravity. One’s aim in life is to nurture and protect one’s soul in preparation for an ideal existence forever after life on earth. Rand: life after death is an oxymoron. This life in this world’s reality of existence is of utmost importance for each individual. Rand equate’s one’s “mind” with the word “soul.” (See below “mind / body” for her view on this fundamental dichotomy.)
mind	body	There is long-standing thinking, from Plato to the present, that considers activities involved in human survival as mindless, perceptual-level, or “materialistic,” while extolling reason as a “spiritual” faculty concerned with “pure” contemplation (of God, of the Beautiful, the Good, etc.). Rand: Man is not a battlefield of contending dimensions, spiritual and physical. He is an indivisible entity, an integrated unit of two attributes: of matter and consciousness. Consciousness in his case takes the form of mind, i.e., a conceptual faculty; matter, of a certain kind of organic structure. Each of these attributes is indispensable to the other and to the total entity. The mind acquires knowledge and defines goals; the body translates these conclusions into actions.
faith	reason	Faith: Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, an idea, or a thing. Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence. Reason: The capacity for logical, rational, and analytic thought. Rand’s definitions [Faith and Force essay]: Mysticism [an expanded concept of faith] is the acceptance of allegations without evidence or proof, either apart from or against the evidence of one’s senses and one’s reason. Mysticism is the claim to some non-sensory, non-rational, non-definable, non-identifiable means of knowledge, such as “instinct,” “intuition,” “revelation,” or any form of “just knowing. Reason is the faculty which perceives, identifies and integrates the material provided by man’s senses. Reason integrates man’s perceptions by means of forming abstractions or conceptions, thus raising man’s knowledge from the perceptual level, which he shares with animals, to the conceptual level, which he alone can reach. The method which reason employs in this process is logic—and logic is the art of non-contradictory identification. Reason is the perception of reality, and rests on a single axiom: the Law of Identity. Mysticism is the claim to the perception of some other reality—other than the one in which we live—whose definition is only that it is not natural, it is supernatural, and is to be perceived by some form of unnatural or supernatural means.
religion	science	This dichotomy is essentially the same as faith / reason. Science entails the use scientific methodology which uses inductive and deductive reasoning in coming to conclusions about the nature of existence (reality). Religion ultimately requires faith in revealed truths, scriptures, doctrines, etc. Rand: If her whole philosophy had to be summed in two words, it would be “follow reason.”
reason	emotion	The mind-body dichotomy has dominated the West ever since Plato, where he expressed that matter is a principle of imperfection, inherently in conflict with the highest ideals of the spirit. In this context the dichotomy is expressed as reason versus emotion. According to this dichotomy, reason deals with abstractions and is thus “pure” and “non-materialistic.” Emotions are “bodily and worldly”—a factor independent of man’s mind and non-rational. One element (intellect) urges man upward to the eternal; the other (passion) pulls him down into the muck of action and the physical. We empathize with St. Paul’s plaint (Romans 7:14): For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Rand claims that man can live exclusively by reason: emotions can be in harmony with reason. Emotions are consequences generated by man’s conclusions (based on reason which is based on reality). When there is a conflict between conscious conclusions (reason) and the subconscious (emotion) regarding an evaluative issue (emotion is caused by both bodily and intellectual, evaluative steps), then one must identify the real clash, which is a clash between two ideas, one held subconsciously.
nurture	nature	Is a child's development influenced (determined) primarily by genetics and biological predisposition? Or, could the majority of influence be found in the child's environment? Both sides of the nature/nurture argument present evidence of how each factor impacts development. Today, it is commonly accepted that most aspects of a child's development are a product of the interaction of both nurture and nature. Rand: This is another twist to the false reason-emotion dichotomy which is essential to most variants of determinism. Determinism in any variant is invalid. This is fundamentally a theory of human impotence. The Heredity School treats emotions as a product of innate (genetic) structures; one’s genes ultimately determine one’s character and feelings. Innately set emotions imply innate concepts and value-judgments, i.e., innate ideas—this is false theory. It implies that biology creates conceptual content in an individual’s consciousness, then, by implication, man is a helpless byproduct of matter. The Environment School says that society molds an individual through his experiences—e.g., parents and teachers, etc., create and individual’s conceptual content. Then, by implication, man is a helpless byproduct of others’ minds. (This is a more complicated theory, but also false.) Rand’s view is that man is the opposite of the feeble creature imagined by theologians and behaviorists alike; this applies to every individual with a rational faculty, whatever the degree of his intelligence. Man qua man is a hero—if he makes himself into one.
Rationalism	Empiricism	Rationalism: The theory that the exercise of reason (deductive reasoning), rather than the acceptance of empiricism, authority, or spiritual revelation, provides the only valid basis for action or belief, and that deductive reasoning is the prime source of knowledge and of spiritual truth. Empiricism: The view that experience, especially of the senses, is the only source of knowledge. Rand [from Kant Versus Sullivan essay, in referring to the philosophers’ division into two camps]—“those who claimed that man obtains his knowledge of the world by deducing it exclusively from concepts, which come from inside his head and are not derived from the perception of physical facts (the Rationalists)—and those who claimed that man obtains his knowledge from experience, which was held to mean: by direct perception of immediate facts, with no recourse to concepts (the Empiricists). To put it more simply: those who joined the Witch Doctor, by abandoning reality—and those who clung to reality, by abandoning their mind.” I.e., this is a false dichotomy!
a priori	a posteriori	a priori knowledge is knowledge known without having to investigate it; Relating to or denoting reasoning or knowledge that proceeds from theoretical deduction rather than from observation or experience. a posteriori: Relating to or denoting reasoning or knowledge that proceeds from observations or experiences to the deduction of probable causes. Rand: This is just another version of Rationalism / Empiricism.
(true) nature primary qualities	appearance secondary qualities	The idea that man cannot ever know the true nature of anything in the world because of how any thing appears to man’s senses. This is not about the argument whether our senses are fallible or not, but, rather, that to other creatures (animal or alien to this world) things must appear different than they appear to humans. Rand: This is an attack on man’s consciousness and on the consciousness of any creature. It is attacking man’s sensory faculties for being man’s means of perceiving and grasping objects. The fact that things appear to man the way that they do does nothing to change reality. Other types of living beings merely have a different form of perceiving the same real objects. The task of identifying the nature of physical objects as they are apart from man’s form of perception belongs to physics and chemistry, not to philosophy. If the “ultimate” ingredients of the universe become known (e.g. ‘puffs of energy, let’s say)—there is no philosophical significance to this: There still would be the world as we perceive it, with all of its objects and their qualities, from bugs to men to stars. A thing may not be condemned as unreal on the grounds that it is “only an effect” which can be given a deeper explanation: One does not subvert the reality of something by explaining it.
noumenon pl: noumena	phenomenon pl: phenomena	noumenon: an Object that can be intuited only by the intellect and not perceived by the senses; an object independent of intellectual intuition of it or of sensuous perception of it; also called thing-in-itself; In the philosophy of Kant, an object cannot be known through perception (other than its phenomena), although its existence can be demonstrated. Rand: This is Kant’s dichotomy of the same dichotomy above – ‘true’ nature versus appearance
pure reason theory	practical reason practice	This is based on Kant’s first two Critiques: The Critique of Pure Reason and the Critique of Practical Reason. In Pure Reason he argues that “it can be readily understood that the form of all appearances can be given prior to all actual perceptions, and so exist in the mind a priori.” This is the basis of his “categories of the understanding” that he holds is innate in humans—i.e., that our brain is pre-wired with these categories such that we perceive things the way that we do, and therefore cannot know ‘things-in-themselves.’ The limitation of “pure” reason to reach knowledge about God, freedom, and immortality, is mitigated with his Critique of Practical Reason—his theory of ethics. For Kant, “practical reason is the faculty for determining the will, which operates by applying a general principle of action to one’s particular situation.” Rand: There is no dichotomy between theory and practice. If something is true in reality (but considered theory), then it will ‘work’ in practice. I.e., if one says “it may be good in theory but it won’t work in reality,” then something is wrong with the theory! (Political theory is a good example of this: communism versus capitalism—which one has proven to work in reality?)
altruism	self-interest	altruism: unselfish concern for the welfare of others; selflessness. Ethical theory that regards the good of others as the end of moral action; by extension, the disposition to take the good of others as an end in itself. Pure altruism consists of sacrificing something for someone other than the self, with no expectation of any compensation or benefits, either direct, or indirect (e.g., receiving recognition, or just feeling good about the act). Self-interest: Moral agents (persons) ought to do what is in their own self-interest. Rand: This dichotomy pits the self as a standard of evil (“selfishness” is a bad word!), and the selfless as a standard of the good. The irreducible primary of altruism, the basic absolute, is self-sacrifice. Her ethical theory is best called Rational Egoism or Ethical Egoism. It is best summarized by the oath one has to take before becoming a member of the community of Galt’s Gultch in Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged: “I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.” That is the “Trader Principle” inherent in her philosophy.