Reason

Emotions are not inexplicable demons, though they become that if a man holds
contradictions and does not identify his ideas explicitly.

She holds that man can live exclusively by reason. He can do it because emotions
are consequences generated by his conclusions.
And mans conclusions have this kind of generative power because they are not
revelations or inventions detached from the arena of physical action.
Concepts (including evaluations) are mans form of integrating percepts.

Reason as Mans Only Means of Knowledge

Reason is a faculty of awareness; its function is to perceive that which exists by

organizing observational data. And reason is a volitional faculty; it has the power
to direct its own actions and check its conclusions, the power to maintain a
certain relationship to the facts of reality.
Emotion, by contrast, is a faculty not of perception, but of reaction to ones
perceptions. This kind of faculty has no power of observation and no volition; it
has no means of independent access to reality, no means to guide its own course,
and no capacity to monitor its own relationship to facts.

Emotions are automatic consequences of a minds past conclusions, however that mind
has been used or misused in the process of reaching them.

Feelings or emotions are not part of the method of logic; they are not evidence for
a conclusion. The fact that a man has a certain feeling means merely that, through
some kind of process, he earlier reached a certain idea, which is now stored in his
subconscious; this leaves completely open the question of the ideas relationship
to reality. To identify this relationship, one needs a process of validating ideas,
i.e., a process of reason.

Although reason and emotion by their nature are in harmony, the appearance of
conflict between them, as we have seen, is possible; the source of such appearance
is a contradiction between a mans conscious and subconscious conclusions in regard
to an evaluative issue. When this occurs, the conscious ideas may be correct and
the subconscious ones mistaken. Or the reverse may be the case: a man may
consciously uphold a mistaken idea while experiencing a feeling that clashes with
it, one that derives from a true subconscious premise. In both kinds of case,
however, the real clash is between the two ideas. And the only way to resolve the
conflict, to know which side is correct, is to submit both ideas to the bar of
reason.

Even if its intellectual root happens to be true, a feeling cannot know this fact;
it cannot judge cognitive status. Only the mind can decide questions of truth.

When a person declares that reason is not mans only means of knowledge, he ends
up, admittedly or not, counting on emotion as his means of knowledge.
Emotion is the only function left to guide human consciousness once one sets aside
the minds sensory and conceptual activities.

If a man seeks to think rationally, he must grasp the

distinction between reason and emotion. He must learn, then methodically observe,
the
difference between thought and feelingbetween logic and desirebetween percepts
and concepts on the one hand, and hopes, wishes, hates, loves, fears on the other.
By
continuous self-monitoring, he must ensure that during any cognitive activity,
feeling is
set to the sidethat it is not allowed to direct the course of the inquiry or
affect its
outcome. A rational inquiry is one directed not by emotion, but by thought, one
that
accepts as evidence not any species of passion, but only provable, objective fact.

The above is not an anti-emotion viewpoint. Emotions play an essential role in

human life, and in this role they must be felt, nourished, respected. Without such
a
faculty, men could not achieve happiness or even survival; they would experience no
desire, no love, no fear, no motivation, no response to values. The epistemological
point,
however, remains unaffected: the role of emotions, though essential, is not the
discovery
of reality. One casts no aspersion on eating or breathing if one denies that they
are
means of cognition. The same applies to feeling.

Objectivism is not against emotions, but emotionalism. Ayn Rands concern is not
to uphold stoicism or abet repression, but to identify a division of mental labor.
There is
nothing wrong with feeling that follows from an act of thought; this is the natural
and
proper human pattern. There is everything wrong with feeling that seeks to replace
thought, by usurping its function.

If an individual experiences a clash between feeling and thought, he should not

ignore his feelings. He should identify the ideas at their base (which may be a
timeconsuming
process); then compare these ideas to his conscious conclusions, weighing
the conflicts objectively; then amend his viewpoint accordingly, disavowing the
ideas he
judges to be false. What he should seek is not escape through repression, but full
identification and then rational analysis of his ideas, culminating in a new,
noncontradictory integration. The result will be the reestablishment in his
consciousness
of emotional harmony.

Reason is the fundamental faculty of human consciousness, the existence-oriented

faculty.
Emotion is a derivative, which must be treated as such.

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The alternative is the attempt to invert the relationship by making the sequence:
emotion as a primary, reason and reality as derivatives. To such a person, an
emotion,
regardless of its source, is the guiding absolute, which takes precedence over
thought
and to which facts are expected to conform. This is the policy of placing an I
wish
above an It is. The people who do it, Ayn Rand writes,
take their emotions as a cause, and their mind as a passive effect. They
make their emotions their tool for perceiving reality. They hold their
desires as an irreducible primary, as a fact superseding all facts. An
honest man does not desire until he has identified the object of his
desire. He says: It is, therefore I want it. They say: I want it,
therefore it is.
Epistemologically, this inversion means the rejection of objectivity.
Metaphysically, it means the primacy of consciousness and thus the rejection of
reality.
Psychologically, it is what underlies the process of evasion. Ethically, therefore,
it is the
root of all evil.
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Certainty as Contextual

In turning to the question: does reason lead man to certainty? I must begin by
reaffirming that human knowledge is limited. At every stage of conceptual
development,
a man has a specific cognitive context; he knows something, but not everything.
Only on
the basis of this delimited information can he gain new knowledge.

Logical processing of an idea within a specific context of knowledge is necessary

and sufficient to establish the ideas truth.

The point is that one cannot demand omniscience. One cannot ask: How do I
know that a given idea, even if it has been proved on the basis of all the
knowledge men
have gained so far, will not be overthrown one day by new information as yet
undiscovered? This plaint is tantamount to the declaration: Human knowledge is
limited; so we cannot trust any of our conclusions. And this amounts to taking the
myth
of an infinite God as the epistemological standard, by reference to which mans
consciousness is condemned as impotent.
Consciousness has identity, and epistemology is based on the recognition of this
fact. Epistemology investigates the question: what rules must be followed by a
human
consciousness if it is to perceive reality correctly? Nothing inherent in human
consciousness, therefore, can be used to undermine it.

Man is a being of limited knowledgeand he must, therefore, identify the

cognitive context of his conclusions. In any situation where there is reason to
suspect
that a variety of factors is relevant to the truth, only some of which are
presently known,
he is obliged to acknowledge this fact.
The implicit or explicit preamble to his
conclusion must be: On the basis of the available evidence, i.e., within the
context of
the factors so far discovered, the following is the proper conclusion to draw.
Thereafter,
the individual must continue to observe and identify; should new information
warrant it,
he must qualify his conclusion accordingly.

Certainty is a contextual assessment, and in countless situations the context

permits no other. Despite the claims of skeptics, doubt is not the human fate, with
cognition being an unattainable ideal. Doubt, rationally exercised, is a temporary,
transitional state, which is applicable only to (some) higher-level questionsand
which
itself expresses a cognitive judgment: that the evidence one has is still
inconclusive. As
such, doubt is made possible only by a vast context of knowledge in the doubters
mind.
The doubter must know both facts and logic; he must know the facts known so farand
also the means by which in principle his doubt is eventually to be removed, i.e.,
what
else is required to reach full proof.
Doubt that is not arbitrary or pathological is a self-limiting condition, both in
scope and in duration. It is not the norm of the mind but, at most, a frequent
stage on the
road to the norm, which, when reached, ends it.
Is man capable of certainty? Since man has a faculty of knowledge and
nonomniscience is no obstacle to its use, there is only one rational answer:
certainly.

Mysticism and Skepticism as Denials of Reason

Ayn Rand defines knowledge as a mental grasp of a fact(s) of reality, reached

either
by perceptual observation or by a process of reason based on perceptual
observation.11
This definition, which the discussion so far has validated, can serve as a summary
of the
Objectivist epistemology. It also indicates our rejection of two widespread
viewpoints.
Contrary to skepticism, the definition affirms that man can grasp reality.
Contrary to
mysticism, it affirms that such grasp is achieved only by observation and/or
reason.

If mysticism advocates the promiscuous acceptance of ideas, skepticism

advocates their promiscuous doubt. The mystic just knows whatever he wants to
believe; the skeptic just doesnt know whatever he wants not to believe. The
operative
term and guiding force here is wants, i.e., feeling. Both viewpoints reduce to
emotionalism; both represent the reliance on feeling as a cognitive guide. Both
represent
a denial of mans need of logic and an enshrinement of the arbitrary.

A process of proof commits a man to its presuppositions and implications. It thus

commits him to an entire philosophic approachto the validity of sense perception,
the
validity of reason, the need of objectivity, the method of logic, the processes of
conceptual knowledge, the law of identity, the absolutism of reality. This approach
is
incompatible with the ideas of mystics and skeptics alike.

A God susceptible of proof would wither and starve the spirit of mysticism. Such
an entity would be finite and limited; it would be one thing among others within
the
universe, a thing bound by identity and causality, capable of being integrated
without
contradiction into mans cognitive context, incompatible with miracles,
revelations, and
the other paraphernalia of unreason. Such an entity would not be an ineffable
mystery
transcending nature and science. It would be a part of nature to be studied by
science,
and it would be of no use whatever to a mystic. When Pascal cried: Not the God of
the
philosophers, but the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob! he knew whereof he spoke.

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What makes a man an emotionalist is the criterion by which he accepts an idea; to
him, it is not the ideas logical support that counts, but its emotional
congeniality.
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This is precisely the criterion that governs the so-called middle-of-the-roader.
Such a man may very well invoke the recital of evidence; but when he does, it is
not an expression of the principle of objectivity.
It is a sham, a social ritual without cognitive significance.

In regard to such a mentality, the skeptic claims are true: the emotionalist is
cognitively impotent and cannot fully trust even his better ideas.
He has no way to know which conclusions are better or worse, because he has
jettisoned the human means of knowledge.

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To deny the absolutism of reason is not a harmless indulgence, like having
chocolates on a diet.
It is more like taking arsenic three times a day as the essence of ones nutrition.
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Mystics often say that, by enabling men to escape from the prosaic world of
nature, they make life exciting. Skeptics often say that, by undermining all strong
convictions, they make life safe. The facts belie these promises. In actuality,
since both
groups work to undercut mans mind, both lead to a single kind of result and always
have done so. They lead to helplessness, terror, dictatorship, and starvation.

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Whenever a man promises to lead you to a value, remind yourself of the fact that
remaining in contact with reality is a requirement of achieving values, This will
help you
to resist the philosophic hustlers. It will tell you that the precondition of
values is the use
and absolutism of reason.
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