# 1999/3/1

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# Axiomatic Concepts #
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1. Ayn Rand states (ITOE, Chapter 6)

	An axiomatic concept is the identifification of
	a primary fact of reality, which cannot be analyzed,
	i.e., reduced to other facts or broken into component
	parts.  It is implicit in all facts and in all knowledge.
	It is the fundamentally given and directly perceived
	or experienced, which requires no proof or explanation,
	but on which all proofs and explanations exist.

	The first and primary axiomatic concepts are
	"existence", "identity" (which is a corollary of
	"existence") and "consciousness".  One can study
	what exists and how consciousness functions; but
	one cannot analyze (or "prove") existence as such,
	or consciousness as such.  These are irreducible
	primaries.  (An attempt to "prove" them is self-
	contradictory: it is an attempt to "prove" existence
	by means of non-existence, and consciousness by means
	of unconsciousness.)

2. In essence, I agree with Ayn Rand.  However, I think that
her choice of primary axiomatic concepts obscures the issues
because it omits too much of the context.  My choice for
primary axiomatic concepts is

	existent, entity, relation,
	man, identify, knowledge

where (using KR, my knowledge representation language)

	existent is either entity or relation
	man, knowledge isa entity
	knowledge := man do identify existent

I claim that the use of these six concepts clarifies the notion of
identification -- the product, subject, action, and object --
and thus gives a clear idea of what "existence", "identity" and
"consciousness" really mean.  Although Rand uses these three
concepts in several different senses, I think her main sense of
meaning is

	existence is identity is existent
	consciousness is identify

3. There are six secondary axiomatic concepts which are
too important to go unmentioned:

	action, space, time
	choose, purpose, view

Action is the characterization of change;
space and time are the attributes which measure change.
Man chooses a purpose, which guides his choice of actions
and his view of knowledge in a given context.