Introduction to Concepts and Propositions, The Atlas Society

David Kelley's new work presents a groundbreaking theory of propositions, based on the theory of concepts developed by Ayn Rand in her Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. As Rand noted, "The organization of concepts into propositions, and the wider principles of language...are outside the scope of this work." Thegoal of this paper is to develop an Objectivist theory of propositions.

Kelley’s paper focuses on two core issues about propositions:

Unity: A proposition has components put together in a certain structure. The proposition that dogs are animals is built from the concepts DOG and ANIMAL. But the proposition has a unity as the content of a complete thought, expressed in a grammatical sentence; and that unity goes beyond the mere combination of concepts. What explains the unity of a proposition?

Truth: Philosophers who hold that our knowledge is about reality typically say that truth means correspondence to facts. Yet the correspondence theory of truth has been notoriously difficult to defend, or even to state clearly, because of difficulties in accurate understanding of two concepts: facts as the things true propositions correspond to, and correspondence as a relation between true propositions and facts. How can this problem be overcome?

Kelley provides new answers to both questions, based on Rand’s theory of concepts and on her distinction between what exists intrinsically in reality apart from our minds; and what exists objectively, the identity of things as grasped through our cognitive processes.

Key Insights:

Cognition is inherently relational; it is of or about something. And that “something” is ultimately something in reality. Cognition is radically dependent on reality: it can only combine and integrate content derived from what’s real.

The objectivity of concepts derives from the fact that they are based on similarities and differences that do exist independently of us, in the things themselves; and from the fact that we process these similarities and differences in a manner required by the nature of our faculties.

As Rand says in IOE, “a very important part of my entire theory is what I call unit-economy: the substitution of one mental unit for an indefinite number of concretes of a certain kind. That is the essence of why we need concepts—that is the essence of what concepts do for us.” The concept of unit-economy applies to propositions as well.

The integration of subject and predicate into an assertion reflects the law of identity—in particular the fact that existence and identity are not distinct.

Grammar allows us to specify precisely what a proposition states. When a concept is used in the subject of a proposition, we can adjust the exact degree of universality we want through quantifiers and modification. And we can adjust the degree of abstractness with which the predicate specifies identity.

The ability to entertain a proposition without asserting it allows us to pose questions for inquiry; it guides the search for evidence that will establish whether the proposition is true and can be claimed as knowledge.

Truth is the identification of a fact, but facts are not intrinsic elements in reality; they are objective: aspects of things’ identities as grasped through our cognitive processes.

Concepts & Propositions paper