The Return of the Arbitrary: Peikoff's Trinity, Binswanger's Inferno, Unwanted Possibilities—and a Parrot for President

Leonard Peikoff brought into Objectivist epistemology the doctrine that what is asserted arbitrarily (without adequate evidence) cannot be true or false. In 2008 the author gave a detailed critique of the doctrine; it has not received a published response. But there have been restatements by Harry Binswanger, Ben Bayer, and Gregory Salmieri. Their re-presentations do not refute any old arguments; their new arguments make the doctrine worse. The doctrine is being used to justify ignoring known possibilities, and to "prove" that the current president of the United States has a parrot's mind in a human body. Its public retraction is overdue.