Meaning of "self-evident"?

In Objectivism, the phrase "self-evident" refers to a certain kind of truth, that is, a certain kind of statement that identifies a fact of reality. Example statements about reality are:
- This table is brown.
- My computer is a Mac-mini.
- Most dogs bark.
- To survive and flourish, man requires freedom in society.
- Existence exists.

Which of these statements are self-evident? Ayn Rand observes: "The layman's error, in regard to philosophy, is the tendency to accept consequences while ignoring their causes--to take the end result of a long sequence of thought as the given and to regard it as 'self-evident' or as an irreducible primary, while neglecting its preconditions. [...] As a philosophical detective, you must remember that nothing is self-evident except the material of sensory perception."[1]

In the philosopy of Objectivism, there are no self-evidencies except philosophical axioms. An example axiom is: "Existence exists."[2] You look around, and you see things that are. Proof, in the form of an argument, is required to validate all other ideas.

An axiom is the widest of all abstractions, but it requires no further validation than sense-perception. The same rule applies, I would suggest, to particular, sense-perceptible concretes. An example is: "This table is brown." The fact that this particular table exists and is brown is self-evident to me. Not self-evident are what it is, in all its characteristics (weight, dimensions, and so forth); how it works (screws hold it together); and how much value it has for me (resale, very little).[3]

CONCLUSION. "Self-evidency" refers to the fact that sense-perception--and only sense-perception--is cognitively self-justifying, requiring no proof. "Self-evident" applies only to (1) philosophical axioms, which are validated by reference to sense-perception, and (2) the existence (but not the nature) of individual sense-perceptible entities. So, ironically, "self-evident" applies only to particular, sense-perceptible concretes and to the widest of abstractions.

Burgess Laughlin
Author, The Power and the Glory: The Key Ideas and Crusading Lives of Eight Debaters of Reason vs. Faith

[1] Ayn Rand, "Philosophical Detection," Philosophy: Who Needs It?, p. 15. I assume "sensory perception" here includes introspection of mental concretes. (For mental concretes: Ayn Rand, Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, 2nd ed., p. 156.)
[2] Leonard Peikoff, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, p. 8.
[3] In informal discussion, an objective speaker might loosely say something like this: "The conclusion is self-evident." What he would mean is: "You who are listening to me have all the information you need. Draw a conclusion. And there is only one conclusion you can draw logically within the limits of our shared knowledge."