An irrational and ungrammatical statement by Ayn Rand from “Philosophy Who Needs It? Chapter 2: Philosophical Detection” (excerpt):
“…if nobody can be certain of anything, then everybody can be certain of everything he pleases…[1]”
Seeing Rand’s logical error is easy by replacing the adverbial clause: “If nobody is anywhere, then everybody is nowhere” would be correct. “If nobody is anywhere, then everybody is everywhere” would be incorrect. Try to imagine everybody everywhere at the same time nobody is anywhere. Not possible.
In the same way, when Rand makes “everybody can be certain of everything” out of “nobody can be certain of anything”, she is committing a logical and grammatical mistake. “If nobody can be certain of anything, then everybody can be certain of nothing” would be correct.
Her irrational statement is part of an irrational paragraph, which will be presented in the next post.
[1] “Philosophy Who Needs It? Chapter 2: Philosophical Detection” pg 14. Signet, Penguin Books, 1984.