Stolen Concept

Rory E. Kraft, Jr.

God works in ways which are mysterious to us. We cannot understand His plan.

Variation of Isaiah 55:8-9

The fallacy of the stolen concept - sometimes referred to as stealing the concept - is most closely associated with the works of novelist Ayn Rand and those who find her philosophy persuasive.

The defining characteristic of the fallacy is “the act of using a concept while ignoring, contradicting or denying the validity of the concepts on which it logically and genetically depends” (Branden 1963, 4). This means that when one uses some higher-order concept - one derived from a simpler concept - to refute a lower-order concept, one is using the concept while denying it. This is not merely a contradiction, because the connection between the two concepts may not be immediately apparent, but is instead its own fallacy.

Branden’s example throughout his article is Pierre-Joseph Proudhon’s “All property is theft.” The phrase derives from Proudhon’s 1840 essay, translated in 1874, as “What Is Property?” and is more accurately translated as “Property - it is robbery!” To objectivists like Rand and Branden, theft is a derivative concept that only makes sense in the context of property.

This is to say that without having the existing concept of property, it would not make sense to understand the unethical or unlawful taking of something belonging to another. Thus, to proclaim that all property is an unethical taking of property is to desire proper ownership (i.e., non-theft) while decrying all ownership itself.

In Atlas Shrugged, Rand has the character John Galt give a speech explain­ing his theory or morality. Throughout the speech there are several moments that imply the move that Branden would later call stealing the concept.

“We know that we know nothing,” they chatter, blanking out the fact that they are claiming knowledge. “There are no absolutes,” they chatter, blanking out the fact that they are uttering an absolute. “You cannot prove that you exist or that you’re conscious,” they chatter, blanking out the fact that proof presupposes existences, consciousness and a complex chain of knowledge: the existence of something to know, of a consciousness able to know it, and of a knowledge that has learned to distinguish between such concepts as the proved and the unproved. (965)

Here we see the difference between the first two “chattering” claims, which are more clearly contradictions, and the third (proof of existence), which attempts to steal the concept. For Rand, proof is something that is only pos­sible from the vantage point of an existant. Non-existing objects cannot act (put another way, verbs always require nouns), thus the claim that existence cannot be proven is to steal the existence one needs to exist in order to prove (or claim) existence or non-existence. Rand here is relying upon a line of reasoning quite similar to Descartes’s cogito but does so here by asserting physical existence, not merely Descartes’s mental existence.

Other examples of stolen concepts would be in play when encountering arguments for the existence of a creator (god) because of the rational order of the world. Rationality is a marker of what is understandable by reason and logic. To utilize rationality to assert the existence of some thing or entity that is not understandable is to utilize reason to defend the unreasonable. Perhaps ironically, defenses of a deity’s existence that rely upon our lack of ability to reason (i.e., “God works in ways which are mysterious to us. We cannot understand His plan.”) also steal the concept of rationality by asking us to accept as reasonable that some things are beyond reason.

In his review of Rupert Sheldrake’s The Science Delusion, John Greenback (2012) accuses Sheldrake of stealing concepts from science while arguing against them, specifically by borrowing higher-order science concepts to refute the notion of a scientific worldview itself: “Sheldrake makes an irra­tional conceptual leap to an alternative outlook by stealing the concepts ‘morphic’ and ‘resonance’ from their legitimate backgrounds, in biology and physics respectively” (41).

It should be noted that just as Rand’s objectivism is not widely accepted in academia, the observation of the fallacy’s occurring is not common in academic texts. One of the rare exceptions is Risto Pitkanen’s (1976) critique of David Wiggins in his article titled, “Content Identity.” Pitkanen accuses Wiggins of stealing the concept of colour-spot-moment in his discussion of merelogical entities. Wiggins’s supposed theft here involves taking the concepts in order to prove them, which may be more of a circularity than the fallacy normally indicates.

To the extent that one could be said to use a fallacy intentionally, it is more likely to occur when there is a failed attempt to point to a contradic­tion. The more subtle forms of the fallacy occur at a level that is not as blatant, such as an attempt to use advanced mathematics to “disprove” basic addition. In the failed-contradiction approach, the aim is to display that a concept is flawed, and through the basic law of contradiction, any­thing could be proven. For example:

(1) Bobby plays song X every Sunday as an encore.

(2) The encore on April 2, 2017, (a Sunday) was song Y.

(3) The encore on April 2, 2017, was both X and Y.

Here, perhaps P1 is a hasty generalization, but it establishes that a par­ticular song is at the same time two different songs. From this, anything can be proven:

(4) Either the moon is made of green cheese or Bobby played song X.

(5) Bobby played song Y. (see Premise 2)

(6) The moon is made of green cheese.

(7) Either the moon is made of green cheese or Bobby played song Y.

(8) Bobby played song X. (see Premise 1, Conclusion)

(9) The moon is made of green cheese.

This is an appropriate manner of arguing, but it is distinct from the stolen concept:

(1) All property is theft.

(2) Theft is taking something from an owner without permission.

(3) All property is taking something from an owner without permission.

(4) Property is possible only because of ownership.

(5) All ownership is taking something from an owner without permission.

The second conclusion here can be restated as “All ownership is non-owner­ship.” This is both a contradiction, which seems to be the intent of the method, and also the stealing of the concept.

The easiest way to avoid stealing concepts is to ensure that contradictions are instituted at the same conceptual level or utilizing a lower-order concept to contradict a higher-order one. When higher-order concepts are used to refute the truth of a lower-order concept, we have the fallacy.

References

Branden, Nathaniel. 1963. “The Stolen Concept.” Objectivist Newsletter (2): 1-4. Greenback, John. 2012. Review of Rupert Sheldrake’s The Science Delusion.

Philosophy Now (93): 40-42.

Pitkanen, Risto. 1976. “Content Identity.” Mind (85): 262-268.

Proudhon, Pierre-Joseph. 1874. What Is Property: An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government, translated by Benjamin R. Tucker. Princeton, NJ: Tucker Publishing.

Rand, Ayn. 1957. Atlas Shrugged. New York, NY: Random House.