What are Concepts and Propositions? with David Kelley and Richard Salsman

[00:00:03] Speaker A: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the 278th episode of objectively Speaking. I'm Lawrence Olivo, senior Project Manager here at the Atlas Society. Jennifer Grossman has the week off, but I'm very excited because I have Atlas Society founder and Senior Scholar David Kelly alongside Senior Scholar Richard Salzman with me today for a special webinar exploring day David's new publication, Concepts and Propositions, which can be read on our website or purchased as a booklet on Amazon. And you can find the links to both of those places in the description section below. Now, if you have any questions, please feel free to ask them in the comments section, but with that, I'll step aside and I'll pass things over to Richard. [00:00:48] Speaker B: Thank you, Lawrence. And can we see David? I hope we can see David. I can't right now. [00:00:58] Speaker A: I believe we might be experiencing a momentary technical difficulty. Let me take a look here and see. While I try to get that on our end, why don't you just go ahead and provide your intro? Intro. [00:01:16] Speaker B: Let me do that. I am interviewing tonight David Kelly, a longtime, very accomplished philosopher, Objectivist scholar. David got his degree at Princeton in the 70s, taught at Vassar College for many years. Philosophy at. At Vassar College. And before we go into tonight's topic, which is a discussion of his newest paper, an amazing new paper called Concepts and Propositions, I wanted to give you some background as to David's writings specifically on this topic. He's written on many things over the years, but he's primarily an epistemologist. And as far back as 1984, he wrote in a technical journal a theory of abstraction, which was a contribution to the Objectivist theory of concepts, which was first laid out by Ayn rand in the 70s in Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. And there David provided a theory of abstraction, the way in which we abstract from particulars to more general concepts. And tonight the discussion will be how do we get from there to propositions in a valid way? But that was an important contribution early on. And then the book the Evidence of the Senses, if you haven't read it, the Evidence of the Senses, 1986, is a fabulous book, subtitled A Realist Theory of Perception. There David defended the validity of our senses, our five senses and perception. If you don't have that, you don't have a basis for concept formation. And if you don't have a basis of concept formation, you don't have a basis for valid propositions, which will be the topic tonight. He introduced, he provided an introduction to logic in a book called the Art of Reasoning, which is now in its fifth edition, but the first edition was 1988. It is a fabulous and widely used logic book. As again in 2021, the fifth edition of that came out. So look for that. The Art of Reasoning. He's written other things, but more recently, like on political philosophy, the welfare state, truth and toleration, stuff about the Objectivist movement and whether it's open and closed. But a more interesting recent pamphlet, the 7 Habits of Highly Objective People, which is a great essay. So that's from 2019. This pamphlet or essay is available now on Amazon since October, is called Concepts and Propositions. And that's what we'll be discussing tonight with David Lawrence. Do we have David yet? [00:03:43] Speaker C: There we go. I think we do. [00:03:46] Speaker B: Can you hear me, David? [00:03:47] Speaker C: I can, yes. Thanks, Richard. [00:03:49] Speaker B: I just gave you a laudable laudatory introduction and I promise I didn't lie about anything. It was all. Did you hear any of that? It was all accurate and it was all amazing. And I was mostly highlighting the work you had done in epistemology over the years. And from a theory of abstraction, man. That was 1984, David, to the Art of Reasoning, now in its fifth edition. But the first edition, I think my first edition I got was in 1988, and I was telling the audience about Evidence of the Senses, which I read when it came out in 86. Just a fabulous book. But this pamphlet. Congratulations, first of all, David, on this new paper. This pamphlet's in pamphlet form now. I have my own right here. It looks fabulous. From the Atlas Society Press and available on Amazon. And David, I thought you're the specialist here. I've read it two or three times and every time I read it, I get something more out of it. And I want to interview you. We have a discussion. Conversation here, but I really want to interview you and get your. First of all, let's start with your overall purpose here, the overall context of writing this, why you're writing it. We can get into the nitty gritty details after this, but I thought we'd start high 10,000, 20,000ft. And you tell the audience, you know how this fits in with the long work you've done over the years and where we. Especially where it might be situated in contemporary philosophy. [00:05:24] Speaker C: Yes, thank you, Rich, and thanks for that wonderful introduction. It's all true, but it's very nice to hear and I very much appreciate it. This is a paper that has been gestating in my mind for decades. Its origin really was back in the 90s. I did a. We had a. Something called the Cyber Seminar at the time, time that it was kind of like the. Our current research workshop. We, a bunch of people very knowledgeable about Objectivism, picked a topic and we did some readings. I organized the readings and one, one academic year, it was on propositions. And then I lectured at that. At our old summer seminar that year, and that's where I started. But it always nagged me that, you know, this is in. I think this is a missing part of the Objectivist theory. And speaking of which, Ayn Rand herself, in her great work, Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, said that she had not. She developed a theory of concepts there, but did not extend that and hadn't extended it yet to how concepts are combined into propositions, statements. So I thought about it. Since the 90s, I've been thinking about this off and on when I can, and reading a lot. And I wrote a paper, actually, the work that is current called Concepts and Propositions took me. I mean, it took me a good year to Write. It's only 50 some pages, but so it's. And it's kind of a culmination of things. But when Ayn Rand, you know, said, well, I haven't developed a theory of propositions, and she never came back to that issue in full, I thought, well, that's an open invitation and it's in my field. And so let me give it a shot. And I'm really happy that I did. The overall two questions that are posed at the beginning of the paper, and we can go into each of these, what they mean and why they're important, Richard, as we go along. But one is propositions have a kind of unity that is, you know, you take an individual concept like man, it doesn't say anything. It classifies, it names a certain category of animals, ourselves, but it doesn't say anything about us like that we're rational, that we're. We can be nasty sometimes and benevolent other times, anything like that. It doesn't say anything, you know, in grammar school or at some point in. Along our educational path. I hope this is true for everyone. It's certainly just through my day you learn that if you're writing English, you should use complete sentences, not sentence fragments, not run on sentences, if that is. I don't know. Education has changed a lot since my day. But anyway, that is a complete sentence is an expression of a proposition. It has a subject and a predicate which are unified in a certain way to make that statement. And so one question is, what is the Unity, like, I mean, let's dig down beneath the surface into epistemological functioning and see what that's about. So that's one issue. The other one is propositions are true or false or unknown. I mean, but the truth or falsity applies to them. If we don't know what, whether a proposition is true or false, we can ask is it true or false? And go and find out. Now, we're all. Unlike perception. You see something and that's it. I mean, it's there. There are very few perceptual, quote, unquote falsehoods. I wouldn't call them falsehoods. They're illusions or whatever and they're easily explained. But by and large, we trust our senses. However, at the conceptual level, people form all kind of invalid concepts and they form, make statements that are, you know, if you've spent any time on social media, you've been a watch in false statements or in fact. [00:10:07] Speaker B: Or in faculty lounges. [00:10:10] Speaker C: Or in faculty lounges. Yes. Thank you. [00:10:13] Speaker B: Also possible, very possible. [00:10:15] Speaker C: Or in legislation, the chambers of Congress sessions. Yes. The news. [00:10:20] Speaker B: I mean, it's just State of the Union addresses. [00:10:23] Speaker C: We're surrounded in all these statements expressing propositions that, yeah, we know, can't be true. So. Or are at best speculative. [00:10:33] Speaker B: And David, the more complex, maybe and strung out, if you will, the more tenuous they may be if not locked into concepts and percepts. Right. So it's one thing to say a dog is an animal, but that's a proposition. But yeah, you know, capitalism is the optimal social system for human flourishing. Oh, my God. [00:10:53] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:10:54] Speaker B: All the concepts that are in there. Well, that might be true or false, but that's an issue too. Right. The length of our reasoning from percepts. [00:11:02] Speaker C: Absolutely, yeah. I mean, everything beyond the. That's a dog or dogs or animals, which a baby learns early on if they have dogs. But, you know, up to that statement, like, you know, free market or capitalism is the optimal habitat. My God. Every concept has to be formed. Every. And the. Then how you put them together into a statement, you're opposed to socialism, you're opposed to fascism. [00:11:31] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:11:31] Speaker C: You're opposed to much, much of what that the US government is doing today. So, yeah, it's, it's highly complex and we live our lives and, you know, this has. Both of the examples I was giving were mainly political. But think of the personal issues. Yeah. You know, does she love me or not? You know, how would she feel about a date? How, how, how am I, Am I doing okay? Is my self Esteem, it feels a little rocky right now. And so, you know, all of our thought takes place in that medium. And so the issue of truth and falsity is a vital one. And we kind of know what truth is. Most of us know. Yeah. Or, and what falsehood is that? You know, we, we easily say, that's, oh, I agree with that, that's true, that's false. But what makes a statement actually true or false is another, is a long standing epistemological problem. So that is the other thing. And so let me leave it there, that unity and truth and falsity are the two big issues that I deal with in the paper. Yes. [00:12:56] Speaker B: And is it fair to say that one of the reasons you're doing this, I, I love how, by the way, most of the paper is just positively presenting what you believe is the true theory. There's not a lot of polemics in here, but there is enough to, there's hints and suggestions of where philosophy is going wrong or has gone wrong. I mean, at one point you said, since the Greeks, I suppose in there you mean realism, not in the good sense, but in the intrinsic sense. So what I was going to ask is before we leave unity, we don't want to leave unity here. And truth and falsehood. Is there something in contemporary philosophy, David, where they're questioning whether propositions have unity or they're misunderstanding the extent to which they have unity, or they see simple ones having unity, but when they become more complex, they lose the plot, so to speak, as we say today. And same thing on false or true. This one seems even more controversial, is the contemporary philosophy view more like we cannot say one way or another that there's truth or falsehood. I noticed you mentioned in some sections there's an identity and an epistemic theory of truth. There's a correspondence theory of truth. This is in academia, this is in contemporary philosophy, which I think you take issue with. So is that why you're highlighting unity and truth? Because our opponents, so to speak, are not getting that right, they're getting it wrong in some way. [00:14:26] Speaker C: Fair to say in some ways. But it's not just their views. A lot of academic philosophy, and I felt this for a long time is just barking up the wrong tree. And these are very intelligent people, but they're, they're immersed in this highly technical approach to philosophy. And so they, they, you know, I remember back when I was teaching advanced and one of my colleagues said, sort of takes my breath away, how abstract you can, how abstract your arguments are. And that's that's, you know, that's how I think philosophy is. You start, you lay a broad framework and including your assumptions. But a lot of philosophers dive in and they'll ask a question like Harry Benzweger, whom I mentioned the paper years ago. I told. He said, typical analytic philosopher says. Writes an article called the Three Senses of Hip and Hip Hip Array. And that's about. That's a nice parody. It. They'll. They'll jump into a complicated sentence and, and begin to, you know, worry. [00:15:46] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:15:47] Speaker C: Which parts are unified. And they, they bring in a lot of technical information from logic, linguistics and so forth, which is all in principle relevant when you, if you have an overarching theory that gives you a framework. And I, you know, in, in the fullness of time, either I, or more likely someone else will hopefully do that for my, my approach and fill in a lot of the more specifics. But. So it's, it's. But it's not a stark difference of opinion many philosophers believe in. But, you know, there is a reality and it's a, it's out there objective. And the question is how we, how we know it. And so they're, they're in the right. I mean, they're in the right ballpark, so to speak, as opposed to. There are people, skeptics and doubters or outright subjectivists who. [00:16:55] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:16:55] Speaker C: The postmodern nurse. [00:16:57] Speaker B: Yeah, but they're not the, they're not the majority problem, it sounds like you're saying. [00:17:02] Speaker C: Right. [00:17:03] Speaker B: If they take. What's interesting about your essay, David, in addition to this analysis, this very trenchant analysis of the unity and the truth, truthfulness, call it, of propositions, you do discuss, because you have to discuss in propositions, the subject, predicate relationship. You necessarily get into grammar and you just brought up grammar. You know, our teachers. I don't know if they do this anymore, but our teachers taught us how to parse a statement. But the point is, I think what you're saying, valid propositions are comprised of valid concepts, but they're also organized in a particular way. Otherwise the sentence doesn't make sense. But it's like these contemporary philosophers are taking the sentence as given and chopping it up and slicing it up. And they're not caring so much about whether the concepts are tied to reality or whether what there's logical consistency in the proposition. But they do sense that there's something going on with philosophy and words. But like, words are what the final thing we attach to the concept we form. We do need words. Right. As tools of cognition. And I think what you're saying in this paper so beautifully is we also need propositions, units. Just as words are held in units. Water runs downhill, you know, once we understand the underlying process, it becomes automatized in our minds that principle, say, or that proposition, because it becomes as automated as water itself as a concept. So not to get too much into the polemics, but that's the positive thing. You seem to be saying grammar is legit. There are rules of grammar, there are objective rules of grammar, but they too seem to reflect or mirror the underlying proper epistemology. [00:18:52] Speaker C: Yes, absolutely. Grammar. I want to say this because there's many people, including I think some people who are otherwise on the right track, hold that grammar is more or less arbitrary. It differs language from one language to another. And that, of course is true. There are many variations that are just alternative ways of accomplishing the same goal as, as. As in the grammar of English, which is the only language I really speak or understand. But the. But grammar does have a core function that is objective, that's real, that's a necessity of mental functioning. And the subject predicate distinction is one of them. I mean, it was formulated long ago by Aristotle, who did not speak English, he spoke Greek, and he's the first. [00:19:46] Speaker B: To identify that basic structure. David, Subject, predicate. [00:19:51] Speaker C: I'm not sure, but he built his logic, the logic of the syllogism. All mrp, all srm. [00:20:02] Speaker B: All men are mortal. Socrates is man. So Socrates is mortal. [00:20:06] Speaker C: Exactly. Each. Each of those premises is proposition composed of a subject and predicate. [00:20:12] Speaker B: Right. So the subject is man or. Or Aristotle or Socrates, who's the proper name. And then the. The predicate is modifying, or it's like the adjective. Right. Well, what is he? [00:20:21] Speaker A: Mortal? [00:20:23] Speaker B: The dog is small. That. Something as simple as that. That's a proposition. [00:20:28] Speaker C: Right. [00:20:28] Speaker B: The subject is dog and the predicate is small or furry. Yeah, so, but you reminded me, I mean, as you're talking about in the paper. Nouns. Well, that's the subject. Adjectives. They describe the subject. [00:20:43] Speaker A: Verbs. [00:20:44] Speaker B: The subject is doing something. These are action, concepts, Adverb. How quickly is he running? Yeah, I know my grammar, but I have never. I don't think until I read this. Connected. What do you mean? These all connect. These words we know from grammar connect to matters of epistemology. [00:21:04] Speaker C: Exactly. [00:21:05] Speaker B: The laws of logic. It has to flow a certain way. Or the sentence is. We call it gibberish. Yeah, those are words I've heard before, but it's gibberish. Why do we say that? There's still words, right. [00:21:18] Speaker C: You know, gibberish, even if you're speaking complete sentences. Like. [00:21:21] Speaker B: Right. [00:21:22] Speaker C: I used to watch a TV show called the Office and the Boss. I forget the actor who played it would go. Would do a whole paragraph. [00:21:31] Speaker B: Carell. [00:21:31] Speaker C: Yeah, Steve Carell. Yeah. He was great. And it didn't add up to anything. It was a word salad. But it was actually fairly grammatical. But the, the thing is, you know, take the concept of dog. I mean, the concept names the species of animal. It has different words in different languages. Right. [00:22:00] Speaker B: Yeah, right. [00:22:01] Speaker C: The difference between saying dog and saying this is my dog or dogs are. Are animals. [00:22:08] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:22:08] Speaker C: Is between simply naming a species and saying something about it. And that's why we have the. I mean, the more. The outward expression of that is we. We write in complete sentences and try to speak in complete sentences, you know, with some exceptions. Like, say, you know, if. If I'm in someone's home and we're both looking at the dog, I say pretty small. [00:22:37] Speaker B: Right. Leaving out things that are implied. Yeah. That that dog or your dog is. Well, we don't talk that way. Yeah. But we truncate it. But it's still this. A proposition. [00:22:46] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. So there's an implicit proposition. And, you know, there's an interesting issue about child. Childhood development of language. It's been a while since I looked at the literature, but it. Children learn, you know, words. Doggy, mommy, daddy, and. But at some point they're still vocalizing only words, but it's. It's seems like there's. They're uttering propositions implicitly. Oh, that's Mommy or that's a dog. [00:23:21] Speaker B: Yeah, that woman is mommy or something. [00:23:23] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. So, but anyway, and, you know, we know that's not, that's. That's not too much of a stretch to know how that's possible because we have all kinds of linguistic shortcuts, but they're, they're shortcuts on those long path, which is subject and a predicate. And that ties in nicely with the theory of concepts because, you know, you take a subject term like say, with dogs in a proposition, the grammar allows you to say all dogs, some dogs, no dogs. You can modify how universal it is to what extent you're talking about the whole category or only a part. [00:24:08] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:24:08] Speaker C: And with the predicate, the predicate usually states the nature of whatever it is you're referring to in the subject. And so. And that, that is, you apply abstractions, but you can apply them at different levels of abstractness. [00:24:26] Speaker B: Right. [00:24:27] Speaker C: Like, for example, my Paper is you can say Tom, you know, Tom is tall. [00:24:31] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:24:33] Speaker C: And then you could say you limit that further by saying he's 6ft 3. [00:24:38] Speaker B: Right. Which is more, less abstract, more concrete. [00:24:41] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. [00:24:43] Speaker B: Yeah. You said both actually in the, in the paper you say brilliantly. You say you can expand or contract the abstraction level and then you, I think the word extend or let the universality of it. You've got two dimensions there. [00:24:58] Speaker C: Right. [00:24:58] Speaker B: That permit us to do such a wide range of propositions. [00:25:04] Speaker C: And that was a real kind of insight to me because I thought, well, I've long known that concepts are one. What enables concepts to do their job for us is that they're both universal and abstract. [00:25:23] Speaker B: Yeah, right. You hadn't thought of that as applied to propositions till. While you've been doing this for years. Year. So it's not like you did it last week. [00:25:30] Speaker C: Yeah, but you. [00:25:32] Speaker B: Yeah, but interesting. [00:25:34] Speaker C: Holy cow. This unifies same. [00:25:37] Speaker B: The same applies and all. Also what about the open. You know we talk about the open endedness of concept. [00:25:46] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:25:47] Speaker B: You know, I think of something like in the Constitution it says the US shall provide national defense. And it said army and navy. I think it says that in there. Well, they hadn't thought of an air force yet. When we get an air force, is that included in national defense? Yes, but the original proposition is not false. It's still national defense. But here's just a new form of it. [00:26:10] Speaker C: Right. [00:26:11] Speaker B: That's true of concepts. I don't know if that's a very good example or not. Is that also true of propositions? Because I think at one point you said that when a proposition modifies something and it's really concrete, that that's about as far as you can go. It's not like that is, it's not that it's not open ended. The whole point of a predicate is to identify more specifically what is this subject. Is it Tom, is it a tall man, is it a 6 foot 2 man, is it an old man? Right. That's not, that's not so much the open endedness but the beauty of. I think you're saying a proposition with their universality is they, they can be extended, they can become more and more complex. Like, like we talked about not just a dog as an animal, but these broad concepts like you know, this, the true system of justice requires, you know, equal protection of the laws. Those kind of propositions are. That's not the open endedness of propositions, is it? It's just an extending them. I don't want To I want you use. [00:27:10] Speaker C: It can propositions are. Are open ended. I think in the, in somewhat like the way way concepts are this with the concept like take any species, stay with dogs if you want. You know, we learn if the child has one isolates, you know the category of dog and that's correct. But he knows very much, doesn't know much about them. An adult knows more veterinary and knows a way a lot more. But they're all talking about the same things. So dogs are for example, an adult might say no, no, that dogs are descended from. Evolved from wolves, which I think is pretty well established. [00:28:00] Speaker B: Yeah. They've been domesticated. Yeah. [00:28:03] Speaker C: But someone is someone who knows, you know, you know, you know, a biologist or ecologist or whatever might, might have much more detailed understanding of how that evolution worked and what it was that allowed dogs, what it was in the dog nature to be. Allow them to be domesticated. [00:28:22] Speaker B: Right. [00:28:23] Speaker C: Whereas, you know, no one has domesticated tigers. Right, right. Yeah. So that's an extension of the. I mean that we're dealing with the same concept but also the same proposition. Dogs are descended from wolves. But my lay understanding which is, you know, I trust the knowledge that I learned in from books and an expert would know a ton more about that. [00:28:58] Speaker A: But. [00:28:58] Speaker C: But it's about this, the evidence for the same proposition. [00:29:01] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:29:03] Speaker C: Now whether that's an expansion of the concepts or the propositions, you could argue that. I'm not sure what I'd say. And although I take it the very question means concepts and propositions are made for each other. [00:29:20] Speaker B: Yeah. That's good. [00:29:21] Speaker C: Yeah, they there you couldn't have one without the other. [00:29:29] Speaker B: Well, this came up in the Q A of Ayn Rand's session where she had philosophers come in and ask her questions about introduction to Objectivist epistemology. And one of the questions was if concepts are the building blocks of propositions. But when you think about it, if you look up a concept in the dictionary like 10 table, there are a whole bunch of propositions in there. Right. David? So this is what you mean maybe what this is what you mean about. Oh, they go so nicely together. And she said something like yes, but not simple prop. Not really first level concepts. When you think about it, they're more ostensive. [00:30:04] Speaker A: What does that mean? [00:30:05] Speaker B: Like pointing. [00:30:06] Speaker C: Yes. Right. [00:30:07] Speaker B: Or things like taste. Who can describe what a banana tastes like? You can't. Why? Because it's. Oh, there's no proposition that says bananas taste like what bananas. It's self referential but fair to say there that. Yeah, you have to get concepts right. The concepts are the building blocks of propositions. That's fair. That's not too far a stretch to say that. Right. So if you get your concepts wrong, you're likely to get your propositions wrong. But even if you get your concepts right, you have the example in the essay of water runs uphill. Now if someone says, you know what water is? I got water, right. I know what water is. I know what running is, movement. I know what uphill versus downhill. So the proposition is false. You would say, right. Not because the concepts are made up like centaur or unicorn. [00:30:55] Speaker C: Right. [00:30:56] Speaker B: If I said unicorn, I don't know, runs uphill, maybe they can't. But the point is there. It's a problem because there's no such thing as unicorn. So what do you make of that? That is that okay, the proposition is wrong because of the way you combine the concepts and you don't know the nature of what these concepts are. You're just using them nominally, so to speak, without anger. You're not seeing water has certain properties and one of them is not that it runs uphill. So that's why the proposition is wrong. Fair to say. [00:31:26] Speaker C: That's fair to say. But if you just look at a bucket of water or a little pool after the rain on the hillside, you have to learn something to know which way it's going to run. If it spills up or downhill, left or right? [00:31:47] Speaker B: Right, yeah. [00:31:48] Speaker C: You know, if it's, if it's a gas, it's going to rise. Yeah. Water doesn't do that. So you. There's evidence behind this. Evidence from experience, from observation, in this, this case, or more generally, this can also be the route to understanding that proposition. You may find anything that has weight and is not blocked or supported by something else will move down by the force of gravity. Oh, that must apply to water. So if I was bucket on the hillside, it's going to run downhill. So there are many propositions that are, as you say, more complicated, more complex that we can establish either by inductive, direct observation, if that's possible, or by deduction to. From more broader principles. Like a favorite example of mine is rent controls. I mean, you're an economist, so I would say, you know, I would say, you know, I'm not an economist. So what I do is I'm. But I read a lot, so I've heard a lot about a lot of cities that, that just destroy their housing stock by having rent controls. New York, San Francisco, until I can generalize. Rent controls. [00:33:20] Speaker B: Yes, Are good. [00:33:21] Speaker C: But you can put that in the framework of price theory and supply and demand and say, well, if you, you know, any kind of price control is going to cause shortages. Oh, rents are prices. So guess what? Yeah, that's a deductive step. So. [00:33:44] Speaker B: Applying a general principle to a specific. [00:33:46] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. And that's what we do all the time. That's. That's a huge benefit of having abstract principles, is that you can apply them. I mean, think of what the. Think of what virtues do. Think of the morality of virtues, understand why rationality is a virtue. So in a complicated situation, I say, I'm not being rational right now. Come on. Not good. You can do better or. I'm not being fully honest here, so. [00:34:21] Speaker B: This is a bit of a detour, but I am so intrigued by footnote. I think it's nine. And you just brought up this issue of the virtues, David. [00:34:31] Speaker C: Yes. [00:34:32] Speaker B: I never knew that. There's a guy named Miller who wrote the magical number seven plus or plus or minus two. And I, I know that Ayn Rand had seven virtues that she presented. I myself wrote an essay. I don't know why I lighted upon seven, but maybe I had her in mind. Seven common caricatures of self interest. You know, cartoonish caricatures of seven. So I came up with seven of them. Does this have anything to do with the Crow epistemology, propositions, the. Some kind of ideal at risk, esteem, golden mean, or something like that? What is it about seven principles or seven main things or seven virtues? We know there's more than, say, seven virtues. You wrote about benevolence as a virtue. [00:35:20] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:35:21] Speaker B: I never went and read the Miller citation that you have there, but you do bring it up, so I thought I would just ask you quickly. Did that interest you because it related to your theory of propositions or. [00:35:32] Speaker C: Yeah, it's an early statement of the Crow epistemology. [00:35:36] Speaker B: Okay. [00:35:36] Speaker C: Before Rand, or maybe, you know, she thought independently. [00:35:41] Speaker B: For us, three is too few. Five, not quite seven when we started getting up into 11. Third. I don't know why. It's an odd number. It's an interesting principle. [00:35:51] Speaker C: Yeah. I don't know what it is about this, the number seven. There's a seven deadly virtues. The seven. Seven sins. Seven virgins. [00:35:59] Speaker B: I know, they're all over the place. [00:36:01] Speaker C: So seven and lucky seven. I mean, it's just, I know, kind of numerology at work in the. In the back of our minds. [00:36:11] Speaker B: But now when you're in your section on truth, David, you say. I'm quoting here now. Philosophers who hold that our knowledge is about reality typically say that truth means correspondence to facts. Everyone wants to, you know, be a fact checker and a. Follow the facts and follow the science. I think that's actually a pretty good admonition these days. I'm not sure everybody does it, but what you say here about facts is very interesting. You say, 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 relationship between true propositions and facts. How can this problem be overcome? Can you speak a little more about that? Because most people usually venerate facts and say, hey, I'm fact based, not faith based. I'm giving you the real, real thing here. But you seem to be suggesting that there's some problem with our understanding of what's meant by facts. The fact of the matter, you say at one point. Notice how we say, well, the fact of the matter is. [00:37:23] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:37:24] Speaker B: What do you. Okay. Elaborate on that, if you would. [00:37:27] Speaker C: Sure. You know, the, the standard understanding of truth is that I say. So what I say is true if it states a fact of reality. Iran often said the facts of reality, and, you know, many of us do likewise. But as anything in epistemology, you have to step back and say, what is a fact? Sorry, I'm wearing a black glove because I burned my hand the other day on a hot stove. Of all things, I should know better. [00:38:03] Speaker B: Predicate. Hot. Yes. [00:38:05] Speaker C: Yeah. Actually, my reflexes applied that concept very, very quickly and I dropped the pain. Okay, So. But the. [00:38:20] Speaker B: Yeah. Facts of reality. We use that phrase. Yeah. [00:38:23] Speaker C: But what is the fact? I. I say Richard, Richard is an economist, an economics professor. Is that a fact? Of course it is. [00:38:33] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:38:34] Speaker C: Right. And it's. The statement that I just uttered is true. And. But the fact is about you. My statement is, you know, my doing. But you're the economist. And. But when you think about it, that fact that Richard is an economist uses the word economist. [00:38:56] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:38:57] Speaker C: And economist meaning suggesting there are many more, which of course there are. And that you have a body of knowledge and interest in. In. In economic. In the economy and how it functions. So the fact is, it. The fact is itself, as we stated, the fact that Richard is in a comms that is abstract. It involves abstractions. [00:39:25] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:39:26] Speaker C: So I mean, if we want to get really concrete, we'd have to say things like, well, I can't even do it because he's. We speak in sentences which are always Abstract to some extent. But I'd have to go down to. Okay. On this day, Richard went to a place where he had some papers and then he went to a room with a lot of younger people in it and began bring. So I'm still using concepts. I'm trying to make it as concrete and observe. I can. But. Yeah. So the fact. And the example I used in my car was. In my paper was an old car I had which was white. Yeah. So my car was white. Is white. I could say that now. I can say it was white. Yeah. But the. [00:40:20] Speaker B: Even that you could say is too abstract because you have to talk about the pigmentation. [00:40:25] Speaker C: Right. [00:40:25] Speaker B: There are many different shades of white and there's a. On metal versus on wood versus. So are you saying facts are really these very concrete, almost sensational level, perceptual level things? And when we say something like David Kelly is a great philosopher, that's a fact. But you're saying it's too abstract. Are you saying that? [00:40:48] Speaker C: Well, I'm saying. Yeah, thank you for that. I, I would, I would say it when you say the fact. [00:40:59] Speaker B: Yes. [00:41:00] Speaker C: That David Kelly. [00:41:01] Speaker B: Yes. [00:41:02] Speaker C: Just take the philosopher part. Is a philosopher. That is not a concrete statement. Right. That the abstraction philosopher. [00:41:14] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:41:15] Speaker C: And also verbal way we have of referring to people by first and last name. So. [00:41:21] Speaker B: Right. [00:41:22] Speaker C: It's conceptual. It's. It. What I. So the, the view I came to is that a fact is what we grasp when we utter something. True. The utterance is up here or you know. [00:41:40] Speaker B: Yes. [00:41:40] Speaker C: It metaphysically, it has its status of being subjective. It. It's on the subject side, but the fact is out there. But it's out there in a way that is conceptualized by means of humans. So I think one of the clearest examples is one that Alexander Cohen gave me when we talked about my paper. The penny under the table. [00:42:06] Speaker B: Yes. [00:42:06] Speaker C: Can't see it, but I know it's either head or tails, but I don't know which. Right. So is it exposed its heads? Is that a fact? Yes, because anyone, I mean it's there waiting for anyone to. Who can see it, to recognize it as the heads. So that, that, that's way why facts are independent of us, but not, not fully. They're independent in the way objective contents are in the way that in the case of concepts, we say that a property like redness. Okay, there's no redness per se out there. They're just things that are red, different shades of red. But we form the concept red to cover a certain spectrum, part of the Spectrum. And that is the property is what we talk about when I say this. Right. I'm changing this, the example. Change it. Describe my car as red. But. That is. That has an. What I call an objective status as opposed to an intrinsic status. It's not intrinsic in the thing. All that's intrinsic is the actual color. It has this very specific. [00:43:25] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:43:25] Speaker C: Shade of wavelength that it's reflecting. Yeah. And because our, any. Our access to facts, it's grasping of something in reality. In the form of our capacities. [00:43:45] Speaker B: Yes. [00:43:46] Speaker C: In the form that they need to use, which is conceptual and propositional. So I ended up thinking that coming to the conclusion that if you say truth means correspondence to facts. Well, that's true. But it's a tautology. [00:44:04] Speaker B: Yes. [00:44:05] Speaker C: Because facts and statements are. [00:44:08] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:44:09] Speaker C: The fact is, in a sense, the externalization. Externalization of the statement. [00:44:15] Speaker B: Yep. One of the earlier discussions we had offline, so to speak, which I love this. I said to you because I'm a naive economist who doesn't know much enough about. I said, I said, what about acts? I'm reading this now. What about axioms, principles, hypotheses, theories, laws? By laws I meant not legislative. Remember we talked about law of gravity. You mentioned in the book, you discussed the paper, the third law of thermodynamics. I think of say's law, the law of supply and demand, even constants like E equals MC squared. And I don't want to say what you said. Did you say something like. Those are still propositions, Richard. They're just applied to particular fields. You want to elaborate on that yet those aren't, Those aren't like higher level propositions, which is the way I was thinking about it. Like, are you, are you marching me from percepts to concepts to propositions and a couple of essays from now you'll tell me about principles and law. And you said, no, no, no, I'm done. Or something like that. You're like, no, it's done. Elaborate on that, David, if you would. [00:45:25] Speaker C: Yeah. There is a lot to say. I'm sorry, there's a helicopter going over my building. Okay. We can hear you, though not for me, fortunately. So, yeah, all of those terms you mentioned have a, you know, a real function in epistemology. For example, principles in the, In a book that Will Thomas and I did years and years ago called all the Logical Structure, logical sorts of objectivism. We, we, we. We actually had to think about this for quite a while, but we came up with the idea that a principle is an abstract proposition that unifies A certain domain of knowledge. [00:46:15] Speaker B: Wow. [00:46:17] Speaker C: So the principle is they're all. They are propositions, but they're highly. They're distinguished by the fact that they're fairly abstract and they, they have a fundamentality in relationship. Other. In relation to other propositions. [00:46:31] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:46:31] Speaker C: That are part of the field. Like, say's law is a principle of economics. [00:46:36] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:46:37] Speaker C: Economics and law. I think you could probably say much the same thing about law. Principle and law are. Laws tend to be a little more even fundamental than that. Fundamental. Covering a wider scope. [00:46:51] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:46:51] Speaker C: Like the law of gravitation. Man. Think about it. [00:46:55] Speaker B: Everything from physics. [00:46:56] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, physics to, you know, our human motion. [00:47:02] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:47:03] Speaker C: You know, we live in gravity. [00:47:04] Speaker A: We. [00:47:05] Speaker C: We pay attention to it. We don't like falling very far. And the, the way the, you know, the moon rotates around the earth and the Earth around the sun. I mean, all of that is amazing. And that's, that's, that's just the beginning of what physicists know under the heading of. Yeah. The law of gravity. [00:47:28] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:47:31] Speaker C: And axioms are very special propositions in that they, they lie at the very foundations of all knowledge. [00:47:42] Speaker B: Right. Yeah. The whole structure falls if you reject them at the base. [00:47:48] Speaker C: Right. [00:47:50] Speaker B: But there's also axioms in math. Mathematical axioms and stuff. Yeah, but at the. They're at the base. The foundation root. Is that how you put it? [00:48:00] Speaker C: Yeah, the axioms are at the foundation. And. And, you know, math has its axioms. And that goes back, you know, to the. The Greek mathematicians. And I have no objection to calling them axioms if it's understood that they're axioms of mathematics or, you know, of geometry or arithmetic or whatever. [00:48:27] Speaker B: A couple of other things. David. Representationalism. My memory of this was in epistemology. It was. Someone said. I guess some of the empiricists would say this. We don't really see the apple. We see an image of the apple, a representation of it. There's some kind of intermediate broker or things. And that can be. That can be distorted. I'm so sick today of people saying, I see things through a different lens. It's the lens thing we always have. We all have a different lens. And I'm thinking to myself, what lens is this? Are you referring to the same lens? No. We all have bad eyesight, so we, we must have bad conceptual. Of course, we're not going to agree on things. And then agreement among minds becomes the standard of truth, which of course is not. No, no, you want to say something about that? Because I know it has to do with concepts but do you think it also has to do with going wrong on propositions? [00:49:24] Speaker C: It can that. I mean, it's a common experience for all of us who are involved in discussion or debate about, you know, topics like philosophy or economics or policy, whatever. One of the most important things I, you know, I, I've learned over the years and you know, practice maybe 50 of the time is you. Before you object to what someone else is saying, you should understand exactly what they're saying that's so important. [00:49:57] Speaker B: Yes. [00:49:58] Speaker C: Yeah. I mean it's, it's also, you know, it's a way to keep the conversation going because, you know, I'm, I'm fully prepared to jump down someone's throat as they're speaking. [00:50:11] Speaker B: I'm doing this now. I just did it. I just did it to you. I interrupted you. As they're speaking, we're thinking of, what am I gonna say? So one, one method of self discipline is to ask them to elaborate. Like if someone says something and it's, it's like you, you want to really refute it, you follow up with, what do you mean by that? Do you mean that. Yeah, heaven saying another, like get them to say it twice. They don't think you're running down their throat. Oh, I'm sorry, I just interrupted you, David, go ahead. [00:50:40] Speaker C: Well, there are two questions that you would ask. One of them is exactly what you said. What do you mean by that? Which means what is, what is your understanding of the concept of. [00:50:51] Speaker B: Yes. [00:50:53] Speaker C: Freedom. Take that. Yeah, yeah. [00:50:56] Speaker B: What do you mean by freedom? Or liberalism or progressive. [00:50:58] Speaker C: Yes, exactly. And so that's, that is asking to clarify a concept. But the other question you can ask is why do you think that. Ah, elaborate on their right. On, on the evidence for that proposition they're, they're asserting. And okay, if you can understand what they mean by a certain concept and why they are, why they believe in a certain promises. Yeah. You have a clue to, you know, how to answer. I mean, one of my favorite old jokes and really old is, you know, a little kid named, named Johnny comes to his parents and say, where did we come from? They said, okay, we knew this, this was coming. Facts of life. Let's see. Okay, let's, let's do this right. Yeah, they've been to parental education and this is a kid. So they explained the whole thing. And Johnny's eyes are glazing over and glazing over and he finally says, oh, well, Tommy said they come from Toledo. [00:52:12] Speaker B: That's the best answer. True. It's a true answer. [00:52:15] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [00:52:16] Speaker B: What context is that to the point? [00:52:18] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:52:20] Speaker B: Another good example. Another good example these days might be conspiracy theories, David. [00:52:25] Speaker C: Yes. [00:52:26] Speaker B: Like this. The Jews are running the blah, blah, blah. Or capitalists are exploiting the labor, immigrants are, are. Fill in the blank. All politicians are corrupt. Lots of propositions there. We could, a rational theory of propositions could help there. Or the follow up question, like, where did you get that idea? Like, why do you think that's the case? If you see the subsequent follow up kind of dissipate and as a mist in the air. Well, I don't really have anything for you. Okay. But the original version is so strong, you know, certainly this is how happening. We don't want to be skeptics about it and just knock it down because we don't believe in anything. But there has to be a basis for believing something. [00:53:08] Speaker C: Yeah. And there, there usually is. And you know, even, I mean, conspiracy theories are one of the outliers here because they tend to be a whole ne nest of propositions that are, someone holds in mind. And you know, I, there's no way to deal with that because if they, you know, they can generate explanations or you know, you ask about, well, what about this? It doesn't seem to fit. They'll come up with an explanation on the site. And I used to play a game with my logic students when I was a teacher. I would say, okay, I'm, I'm the conspiracy theory and you've got to refute me. Okay, yeah, let's see how you do. I am, I think you are all conspiring to give me a low score on the teacher evaluations. I think you're all conspiring it. You're, you're all, that's your plan. You, you're all on the, on board with that. Okay, no, no, we, how, how could we have done that or something? How could we have the agreement of it Every, all the 30 people in this room? And I'd say, well, you know, you have a lot of time on your hands after a couple of those. I would say, look, I can make up false false statements that seem explanatory faster than you can come up with right. Back against objections. And so don't, don't fall into the trap of trying to argue with someone who's really committed to a conspiracy theory. [00:54:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:54:50] Speaker C: So. [00:54:52] Speaker B: Here'S a question I have for you and a little, a little bit technical, but the subjective and objective and intrinsic trichotomy, if you will, and Ayn Rand discussed actually in capitalism, the unknown ideal when she was talking about prices and objective value. And prices, but clearly referring also to concepts, say, or values. You know, are values objective or are we just making them up or do we get them intrinsically, say, as a commandment from God? Yeah, I had a question, David, whether that trichotomy, the way I. What does that apply to concepts as well as propositions? Yes, you could say that proposition is true or false, but can you also say, you know, that proposition sounds intrinsic or it's not objective or it's purely subjective? Same, that same application, you think? [00:55:44] Speaker C: Well, objective is, is. You know, there are certain terms we use with the epistemological meaning like false or justified or unjustified for. Supported by evidence or not. [00:55:59] Speaker B: Yeah, right. [00:56:00] Speaker C: But then there's also the. I would call them metaphysical, but it's about just what is the status of certain things that are involved in knowledge. And in that sense, I can say, you know, the. I, the, the concept in my mind is subjective because it, it's, it's on. I'm the subject, right. And there's the object out there. So the object isn't thinking. Thinking at all. So what I'm doing is the objective. The problem is that people think. Well, there's the, there's reality and there's a mind. That's it. [00:56:43] Speaker B: Right. [00:56:44] Speaker C: And so knowledge, you know, I mean, a lot of people, barring skeptics and subjectivists, but a lot of people would say, yeah, our knowledge is of reality. So, okay, what is it about reality? What is it in reality that we are. That our minds are locking onto and trying to understand. And they get into all the kinds of difficulties with false propositions because false, false propositions have meaning. They mean something. Yeah, but they don't. They don't name facts. Right. So, and that's where one of the, One of the reasons where the objectivist inside. It's a real. Inside. I think that we have to distinguish what's intrinsic out there, intrinsic in reality, apart from any human consciousness, any consciousness at all. And, and what is. Are something that pertaining to our method of grasping reality, which is affected by what's out there, but also by the way our senses work and our conceptual faculty works. So that when I say, to go back to one of my examples, my car was white. It was white. That's an absolutely true statement. But he. It's. It, it's true. Because the intrinsic thing that was my old, My old car actually had a color that belongs within the range of measurement of white. Okay, now that is putting it. Making the conceptual identification, explicit, implicit. I'm saying it falls within the range of omitted measurements. Well, apart from minds. Apart from human minds, actually. Nothing omits measurements. Things to have them. They are what they are, still exist. [00:58:53] Speaker B: Yeah. It strikes me, it strikes me as. We only have a minute or two here, David, as a wrapping up. I just want to know your thoughts on this. It strikes me that if we get concepts. Right, right. And then we get propositions. Right. And then something like your essays is a series of propositions. We have, we have subsections and chapters of essays and books. We have whole books which are themselves a unit. You know, when I say to you, what's the theme of the Fountainhead? Wow. It's a 740 page book. But you and I could name the sentence. We won't. But we could. [00:59:28] Speaker C: Right. [00:59:29] Speaker B: And the communication of knowledge across society, across generations, across epics. We're reading Aristotle and his insights. It strikes me that you're really, you're working on something that if this isn't done right, we can't do any of those things. We can't communicate intelligently with one another. We can't stand on the shoulder of giants and come up with new insights and. Right. Because these are the building blocks, if you will. But you know, that sounds so childish, doesn't it? The building blocks of blah, blah, blah. It sounds childish, but so, so crucial. I'll give you the last word. That's my feeling about the whole thing. I just love this. [01:00:10] Speaker C: Well, it is crucial. I mean, human beings can do a lot with the faculties they've got, even if they're not philosophers or don't have the exact. I mean, you know, this is a, you know, you mentioned earlier, this is a. The discussion and the issues are at 20,000ft. I mean, what we're doing is climbing a very steep and icy peak to that get to that 20,000. And you know, I wouldn't ask it of everyone, but. Yeah, but, but on the other hand, human children will learn to speak. How they do it is amazing. And the fact that they can acquire multiple languages up within a certain range bracket and then after that it becomes hard. But we, with very few exceptions, people know, know how to speak at least some, some language and know how to, you know, identify things. There are many, many speculative claims and falsehoods and beating around the bush, but there's certain things like, you know, we all know that there was, there were philosophers in ancient Greece, Aristotle being one of them, or that, you know, we now know that the, the moon goes around The Earth. And the Earth goes around the sun. We didn't maybe a thousand years ago, but we do now, even if we're not astrophysicists. And so knowledge, There's a lot that we know by various means and sources. Education. That's one of the beautiful things about the conceptual level and the propositional level is that I can only see what my eyes look. Are looking at. I can only hear what my ears are tuned to. [01:02:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:02:06] Speaker C: But I can know a lot about you, about Aristotle, about the United States, about the sun and the moon, because people have communicated this knowledge. Yeah. [01:02:17] Speaker B: In proposition. [01:02:19] Speaker C: With proposition and propositions. Yes. I mean it. I talk at the end of the paper a little bit about unit economy and how that's a family or concept, that idea that Rand came up with in regard to concepts. Yeah. And. But I think it also applies to propositions. And you know what I sometimes think, you know, I watch my cat or my. Or a dog or something. I think, you know, I love these little guys, but I can't talk to them. [01:02:56] Speaker B: No, I know. [01:02:58] Speaker C: Can't tell me what it's like or. [01:03:01] Speaker B: I know the most. [01:03:02] Speaker C: The most. [01:03:03] Speaker B: The most I can do. Lisa and I laugh about this because there are words, you know, like pee or poop or eat or din din, but it's only like 25 of them. And then beyond that, they probably have three. They'll react. Right. But no, there's no sentences involved, you know, and when we use sentences, we're just kidding ourselves. We're having fun with it. But last thought on. We did speak earlier about here you are extending, I would say, beautifully, objectivist epistemology in ways that, as you say, she invited. It is called An Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, which sounds like the beginning, start of it. More to be done, more to do. Do you think of yourself as doing that? And that's okay. And that's legitimate. And this isn't a closed system. But it can't. Like proposition. It can't be gibberish. You've got to add something, Kelly, that's actually true, which I think you have. But it is new and true. How do you classify it in that context? I don't want to get too much into the controversy of open and closed. But you've added something, haven't you? [01:04:08] Speaker C: Yes, I think so. I mean, others have. Like Harry Benzrier, whom I quote in the. He had a chapter in his book How We Know Know that dealt with propositions. A theory of propositions. Right. And I haven't looked at it. Lately. But I think he's. He's very careful to say, this is my theory. It's not Ayn Rands, or it's not Objectivism. [01:04:26] Speaker B: Yeah, he does say that. [01:04:28] Speaker C: I, I don't. I don't worry about that. I just. I. The primary question, is it true? [01:04:33] Speaker B: Is it true? [01:04:34] Speaker C: And, you know, I'm just putting this out now so it's subject to discussion and debate, and I may have to take back some things I said or modify them or something. I doubt it, but. Because I'm pretty careful. But the. But is it Objectivism? Yeah, I would say it is. It's based on Ayn Rand's approach, not just her theory of concepts, but the broader whole view of epistemology. So it sounds ridiculous to call it Kellyism or just positions. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't object to that if anyone wants to do it, but it's. It's. It's like bending over backwards. Not, not to sound presumptuous, but, I mean, look, I got into philosophy because I was interested in this subject, and all along I thought, well, my ambition would be to, you know, understand and ideally create some new insights in the field. And, I mean, I've said this many times before, but when. When I said Objectivism, after all, is an open philosophy, this was 35 years ago, I. I thought that was a throwaway line everyone would agree with. It was like, you know, you could have blown me over with a feather when I peek off, said, no. So I, I appreciate this issue of open versus closed objectivism, but, you know, I. I've made my case for that, and, you know, I don't worry about it anymore. I just do my work. [01:06:19] Speaker B: And this work, I think, is like just a perfect illustration of just doing it, just as. What do they say in Nike? Just do it. Just do it. Kelly has done it. You've done it, David. This is a fabulous work. I'm encouraging all the listeners, viewers to look at it, take a look at it. Thank you, David, for a wonderful discussion. We could do three hours of this. I could. I could do three hours. So I'm gonna thank you again, David. Thank you. Thank you, thank you. Turn it over to Lawrence to get us out of here. Sorry we're a little late, Lawrence. [01:06:51] Speaker C: All right, I gotta thank you, Richard, for really heads on questions and great discussion. So thank you. Thank you, Lawrence. [01:07:01] Speaker A: Yeah, big thanks to you both for we. Again, this could have gone on for many hours, but I think you all covered some really important points in this. And again, I want to remind everyone who is watching, even though we didn't get to your questions, if you want, if you haven't read it already. Again, I've the links are in the description and in the chat. You can read concepts and propositions for yourself either on our website or order your own physical copy through Amazon. So we are closing out this week. I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving up. There you go. We've got the book right there with Richard. [01:07:34] Speaker C: Yeah, right. [01:07:35] Speaker A: So there we go. Very nice cover. So again, thank you for being here. Hope you enjoy your Thanksgiving. If you do, if you are in the States and you enjoy it. And be sure to join us next next week when Jennifer Grossman will return with returning guest Johan Noberg. He's been on several times now and he's got a new book out, peak Human what We Can Learn From History's Greatest Civilizations. So thanks again and we'll see you all next week. Take care, everyone. [01:08:05] Speaker B: Thank you all. Thanks, David. Thanks, Lawrence. [01:08:07] Speaker C: Thanks, everyone. Thanks, Lawrence.