# What contribution, if any, did Ayn Rand make to philosophy? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 21, 2002, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contribution-if-any-did-ayn-rand-make-to-philosophy/120084 "2002-07-21T13:07:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2002, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contribution-if-any-did-ayn-rand-make-to-philosophy/120084/81 "2002-07-26T01:47:02Z")
In the few philosophy courses I took-Philosophy 101 and Ethics, I don’t think Rand ever came up. Not once. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2002, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contribution-if-any-did-ayn-rand-make-to-philosophy/120084/82 "2002-07-26T02:31:37Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Libertarian \* > \*\* > You’re not saying that she’s nonexistent, and I’m not saying that she’s the be-all and end-all. Perhaps we could meet in the middle where the truth lies and say that she is an important minor philosopher, much like Ockham or Popper, who merits at least mention in a college level philosophy program. \*\* Well, here’s the big question for you, or any other Rand defenders (I hope you’re paying attention, **erislover**!), to answer. _Why_ does she merit mention in college level philosophy programs? ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2002, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contribution-if-any-did-ayn-rand-make-to-philosophy/120084/83 "2002-07-26T03:31:48Z")
Uh, how about because she was a philosopher whose work was immensely influential in the 20th century? You don’t have to agree with her, but she at least deserves a footnote. Frankly, I think she doesn’t get mentioned for the same reason that Von Mises doesn’t get mentioned, and why Marx gets far more attention than his pathetic meanderings deserved - because the faculty of most universities has a liberal viewpoint, and tends to discredit philosophers and economists on the right. ---
**Author:** ![Abe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f1d935/32.png) [@Abe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Abe)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2002, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contribution-if-any-did-ayn-rand-make-to-philosophy/120084/84 "2002-07-26T03:44:03Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Libertarian \* > I reckon it all depends on who taught you philosophy (and certainly on whether you made any attempt to learn anything on your own). Well **Libertarian** , we’ve gone over this before. We all know that if you look hard enough you can always find someone who supports some concepts or the other, and it’s no different with crackpot concepts. Your list of references is as impressive as the above quoted comment is snide, but I wonder if these Rand people represent any sort of significant group and if their arguments are valid, or are simply more assertion through equivocation. Apart from that, I find that **Alex B** ’s objections already addressed the relevance of the references very well. > [@](#): > > Despite the head-in-the-sand culture that you find yourselves in, Rand is admired by many people, from Hillary Clinton to Alan Greenspan (who read _Atlas Shrugged_ in the original manuscript before publication). All this outright bragging about never having heard of her is the most remarkable thing I’ve ever seen. Easy there. It seems to me the head-in-the-sand people are the ones who insist on Rand’s greatness in the face of the evidence; she has not contributed one original thought to philosophy. Head-in-the-sand culture I would describe as believing that people like Hillary Clinton or Alan Greenspan are reliable indicators of the value of a philosophy. > [@](#): > > Maybe if you inquire around that vast and important philosophical culture in England you might find one or two who’ve heard of her. Apart from the basic obnoxiousness of this response, this kind of (typical Lib) reaction simply leads me to believe, as I said earlier, that Rand is an American phenomenon and little else. Sure, people a bit all over the world have read her books, but so what? Does that mean Stephen King belongs in the canon of literature? No, it means King’s (and Rand’s) books have popular appeal. **Erislover** , I already explained (as did others) that it is not possible to attack Rand’s philosophy without attacking her to some degree. But I would settle for an answer to **Lamia** ’s most recent question, that is why do you think that Rand’s work merits mention? My main objection earlier was that the majority of her work is lifted from other philosophers, and dumbed down considerably (leaving the Rand persona entirely out of it, difficult as it is with such a mania-driven philosophy). I may be wrong–I’m no expert on Rand–so if you disagree please support your claim that Rand’s philosophy is so and so, and that her work therefore _does_ have relevance and originality in philosophical thought. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2002, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contribution-if-any-did-ayn-rand-make-to-philosophy/120084/85 "2002-07-26T04:59:51Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Sam Stone \* > Frankly, I think she doesn’t get mentioned for the same reason that Von Mises doesn’t get mentioned, and why Marx gets far more attention than his pathetic meanderings deserved - because the faculty of most universities has a liberal viewpoint, and tends to discredit philosophers and economists on the right. You of course are entitled to your opinion. I should note though that Martin Feldstein, Milton Friedman, Taylor, Barro, Lucas and Sargent all receive far more attention in mainstream economics departments than Karl Marx or Kenneth Galbraith. The example of Milton Friedman is illustrative. His views on the Phillips curve and indeed other aspects of macroeconomic policy have become conventional wisdom among economists. Monetarism was once taken very seriously (though it was thought perhaps to be a little rigid); it has since suffered a loss of confidence due to Goodheart’s Law (an empirical generality). In short, he received a great deal of respect due to both his empirical work and his testable theoretic work. The material that extends outside of those methods of inquiry, as displayed in his popular and advocacy work, was treated less seriously. The example of Bertrand Russell comes to mind. **As for the Austrian School (including Mises, Hayek, etc.)…** Permit me to quote Bruce Caldwin in _Beyond Positivism_ (1984), p. 124 > [@](#): > > Austrians are derided because they try to insulate their theories from criticism by refusing to test their theories and by claiming that their assumptions are a priori true; Institutionalists, with their ‘story telling’ or holistic ‘pattern models’ and an emphasis on explanation rather than prediction, similarly protect their theories by refusing to make risky predictions; and Marxists, who do at least make some predictions, spend most of their time concocting ad hoc additions to their theories to same them when their predictions are disconfirmed. Proponents of these alternative systems may believe that mainstream economists reject their program on ideological grounds, and that is doubtless true in some cases. But I think that it is equally true that economists trained in a tradition that insists on the importance of hypothesis testing cannot help but view alternative systems that eschew testing with, at best, bemused curiosity, and at worst, utter disdain. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2002, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contribution-if-any-did-ayn-rand-make-to-philosophy/120084/86 "2002-07-26T05:02:17Z")
> [@](#): > > _Libertarian claims_ > If you had studied under John Hospers, professor emeritus of Philosophy at USC, you would have heard of Ayn Rand. He wrote An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis, featuring Rand’s development of Objectivism as the archetypal model for philosophical thought. My copy of that text (2nd ed., 1967) has no listing for “objectivism” in the index and has a total of 11 page references to Ms Rand (the largest section spanning 4 pages). All of the references are in the last of 9 chapters. I don’t know what you mean by “archetypal model”. Personally, I think Rand was discussed in Hosper’s work largely because she was contemporary. But that’s a WAG, in all honesty. ---
**Author:** ![RexDart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b77776/32.png) [@RexDart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RexDart)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2002, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contribution-if-any-did-ayn-rand-make-to-philosophy/120084/87 "2002-07-26T05:44:24Z")
> [@](#): > > ## \*Originally posted by flowbark \* \*\*Um, I hate to break it to you, Libertarian, but most US economics majors are unfamiliar with von Mises: IMO, most have never heard of the guy. That said, most economics majors do not take a course in the history of economic thought. Just as most biologists don’t study the history of biological thought. > > \*\* And that’s really too bad. As a history major with a philosophy minor (and I was about two classes away from making that a major too), I always considered it a part of any science to know the history of that science. It’s too bad this has gone away. Personally, I think every economics student needs to read some of the work of the Chicagoans/Austrians. If Bohm-Bawerk and his refutation of Marxist economic theory is lost to the academic world of economics, then Keynes has really won, and that’s the saddest prospect of them all. > [@](#): > > \*\* > > I hear that J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye is still popular among high school students. It is ranked #107 at Amazon; Atlas Shrugged comes in at #258. \*\* Yeah, and Salinger’s was always a book written not to actually represent any system of belief. He probably realized his book would be read by ignorant high school students who would think “yeah, the world really _is_ run by a bunch of phonies.” His book is a great representation of what the pseudo-intellectual 17 year old kid really thinks, and by the time people are into their twenties they recognize the novel for what it was. Atlas Shrugged is still popular among high school students for many reasons. Frankly, any high school student interested in the climate of collegiate study will have noticed the horrifying take-over of modern universities by the dastardly postmodernists, and Atlas Shrugged speaks straight to that continuing dilemma. Additionally, Atlas Shrugged represents a viewpoint rarely seen nor heard in modern pop culture, a refutation of the collectivism that populates the thought of most high school students interested in politics/philosophy. Atlas Shrugged represents another line of thinking by which high school students can explore their ideology, while they dwell amongst the bleeding heart common crowd who chants nothing more than the inane slogans of radical socialists. When the closest thing you get to intellectual thought in a high school is some modern-day hippie with absolutely no training in ecology whining “Save the Rainforests”…well, it’s no wonder that students inclined towards realism and anti-collectivism look for another voice in the crowd. At every high school I’ve attended (and I went to three) and every high school my brothers have attended (at least three), there was a resident follower of Ayn Rand, the kid that carried Atlas Shrugged around in his back pack all year. Rand has no doubt made a significant impact on thought. At my graduation high school, our salutatorian’s speech included numerous references to Rand. I see the book read all over campus. Our philosophy TA for the 20th century course took time to briefly discuss Rand, even though he dismissed her utterly, because he knew she had influence on students. Frankly, compared to the idiot anti-realists like Hilary Putnam, Goodman, Derrida, and thier foul ilk, Rand certainly did contribute something to the landscape of 20th century thought. All Putnam did was give us a five-year-old’s solution to skepticism. At least Rand was going somewhere with her philosophy. She was trying to stem the tide of the anti-realists and collectivists and perspecitivists, she was trying to show the common reader that there was indeed another way to think. Her popularity continues, while almost nobody has heard of Hilary Putnam unless they looked into brain-in-the-vat analogies on Google after watching “The Matrix.” ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2002, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contribution-if-any-did-ayn-rand-make-to-philosophy/120084/88 "2002-07-26T06:40:32Z")
\*Personally, I think every economics student needs to read some of the work of the Chicagoans/Austrians. \* ## Picking an important nit: The Chicagoans are heavily represented in most economics curricula. The Austrians (different school) are not. But you probably knew that. Incidentally, I’ll note that this discussion might usefully be continued in another thread, although I lack the expertise necessary to pose a followup question. That is to say, the answer to the question, “What influence did Ayn Rand have on professional philosophers?”, is, “very little”. ---
**Author:** ![RexDart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b77776/32.png) [@RexDart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RexDart)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2002, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contribution-if-any-did-ayn-rand-make-to-philosophy/120084/89 "2002-07-26T06:57:31Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by flowbark \* > \*\*\*Personally, I think every economics student needs to read some of the work of the Chicagoans/Austrians. \* > > ## Picking an important nit: The Chicagoans are heavily represented in most economics curricula. The Austrians (different school) are not. But you probably knew that. > > \*\* Indeed. The differences have been discussed from time to time in the magazines I regularly read, “Reason” and “Liberty”. I feel both schools should be represented, but I can say that from what I know from these publications that the two schools of thought are still quite related to each other. > [@](#): > > \*\* > > Incidentally, I’ll note that this discussion might usefully be continued in another thread, although I lack the expertise necessary to pose a followup question. That is to say, the answer to the question, “What influence did Ayn Rand have on professional philosophers?”, is, “very little”. \*\* I think a thread about economists and their historical perspective would be excellent. I hope it happens. As for “professional philosophers”, they have to deal with the reality of what has influenced the people they teach or write towards. People are influenced by Ayn Rand, so philosophers have had to respond to her. They ignore her at their peril, because readers/students will still think of her works when they hear these philosophers. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2002, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contribution-if-any-did-ayn-rand-make-to-philosophy/120084/90 "2002-07-26T08:13:14Z")
Well both the Austrians and the Chicago boys are conservative. A key difference between them is that the latter are not adverse to empirical investigation and are therefore firmly part of mainstream economics. The former might be characterized as, “fringy”, though some may find their conclusions amenable. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2002, 9:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contribution-if-any-did-ayn-rand-make-to-philosophy/120084/91 "2002-07-26T09:39:42Z")
> [@](#): > > As for the Austrian School (including Mises, Hayek, etc.)… > Permit me to quote Bruce Caldwin in Beyond Positivism (1984), p. 124 … Austrians are derided because they try to insulate their theories from criticism by refusing to test their theories and by claiming that their assumptions are a priori true… Funny, Hayek didn’t seem so insulated from the Nobel committee in 1974. It lauded him, along with Gunnar Myrdal, for “pioneering work in the theory of money and economic fluctuations and for their penetrating analysis of the interdependence of economic, social and institutional phenomena.” That even Nobel Laureates are summarily ignored lends ample support to Sam Stone’s theory. And RexDart is right. The only way you can ignore the influence of both Mises and Rand is to shut your eyes and close your ears while screaming “I can’t hear you!” ---
**Author:** ![Abe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f1d935/32.png) [@Abe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Abe)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2002, 10:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contribution-if-any-did-ayn-rand-make-to-philosophy/120084/92 "2002-07-26T10:49:23Z")
Or simply admitting that there is a difference between solid, erudite contributions to a field and the bland, unoriginal assertions of pop authors. ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2002, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contribution-if-any-did-ayn-rand-make-to-philosophy/120084/93 "2002-07-26T14:41:40Z")
**Why does Rand deserve a mention in modern philosophy classes?** Because she represents a modern attempt at Aristotlean realist philosophy (even if she denies realism; she didn’t like the notion of “essences” that A. had and in typical fashion went beserk on the topic), she levels what I think is a good attack on the analytic/synthetic distinction (almost a mantra among some philosophers), it could be said that she would have appreciated philosophy and psychology to go hand in hand, and for that you would need a rational, realist perspective that wasn’t bogged down on the imponderables of language (though, terribly, she got quite a bit wrong about psychology itself). She was, in many respects, a modern Marx, who asks (well, demands) that we take another look at what she saw as the science of man’s mind: philosophy (whose intersection with psychology was, unfortunately, never fleshed out). **Did she contribute anything original?** How the hell do I know? I don’t know all of philosophical thought so I can’t say. I’ve never understood the analytic/synthetic distinction, and so I liked what she had to say on the matter. I had never heard it before, but I’m not the most well-read chap around. I like the way she attacked _a priori_ knowledge as special in some way (which, as far as I can tell, she didn’t think it was special, or even existed as such). I’ve never heard a philosopher other than Rand say that before we can come up with the idea for _a priori_ knowledge, we already have to have a whole slew of concepts. Before we can talk about whether something is analytically true or synthetically true, we must have already _synthesized_ a whole slew of concepts. The closest she came to accepting _a priori_ knowledge was in accepting some axioms, like “existence exists”, but for her they weren’t analytic tautologies, they were clear consequences of a rational mind at work on the concepts it had gained to that point, for as she went on to say, “…and the act of grasping that statement implies two corollary axioms: that something exists which one perceives and that one exists possessing consciousness, consciousness being the faculty of perceiving that which exists.” Messy, but it would be silly to think of this in terms of Berkeley’s idealism, for example, that reality is all in the mind. Restated for hopeful clarity: “Existence exists—and **the act of grasping that statement implies** two corollary axioms: **that something exists which one perceives and that one exists possessing consciousness, consciousness being the faculty of perceiving that which exists.** ” Existence exists isn’t meant to be an analytic truth, a synthetic one, a “foundation of reason”: it is an underlying fact of perception. In perceiving, perceiver and that which is perceived are assumed to exist. I think this is the most abused statement of Rand’s philosophy, though I must sheepishly admit I never dove into Piekoff’s derivative work or some other guy who tries (tried?) to teach “objectivism + tolerance”. Kelley? Can’t remember his name. Anyway. You come to Rand with philosophy on the brain and you’ll think she’s an idiot. You come to Rand without preconception and you’ll want to reread all your philosophy. Rand made mistakes like her antithesis, Marx, in all areas of her thought. But she made, IMNSHO, an important contribution to philosophy. I would call it, “Get your head out of the clouds” and “quit gazing at your navel.” All of reality was penetrable by science, and in her estimation, no accurate science had been formed to study man’s mind. This was because the defenders of man’s mind—philosophers—had all retreated into various modes of denial; denial of existence, of knowledge, of truth, and so on. I am not aware of what she would have thought of Popper’s work, though I suspect that he demanded too much of truth (since he defined empirical truth as non-existent) which to Rand (and me, for all that) was absurd. There is no “manness” in men, she said on the topic of universals, much like there is no “_a_ness” in 1000 (considering an algebraic equation with “a” as a variable). Now, I think she got the problem of universals wrong, and I wish I could sit down and talk to her about it, but alas I cannot, and so here I am speculating on what can be said from her works. Universals, as such, are concepts. They are universal because specific measurements are omitted. One can easily say, “But what about _the measurements themselves?_” What about them? If you asked here whether hydrogen existed she would say, “Of course”. If you asked her whether “red” existed she would probably say “as any attribute exists”. Is that an answer to the question? I don’t know. If it was measurable, I think she would say it exists. Is this an original way to tackle the problem? I doubt it. Is it a reaction to popular thought, a perversion of it, or a rehash of a poorly understood concept? I don’t know. Her detractors here are numerous, and have _again_ offered me no means with which to defend objectivist thought, so I am stabbing at the dark here. **Abe** > [@](#): > > she has not contributed one original thought to philosophy. You keep saying that, and I hope the philosopher in you realizes it is an impossible statement to back up given the limitations of this message board. I will ask you a second time: _what is a contribution to philosophy?_ I will also ask you, _is there something in particular I can defend besides blanket assertions?_ Again, I don’t mind failing. Give me a chance. I don’t do this because I love Rand or objectivism, but because she is scorned for reasons which appear reactionary rather than fleshed out. I _have_ read attacks on Rand’s philosophy. If you find any you are partial to, for example, I can attempt to respond to them as best as I can (if I can at all). If you wish, I can cite and quote relevant portions of her works for supporting evidence, or you can accept my good faith intent on interpreting her work. I don’t care either way, honestly, only that a clear attack is leveled which can be reasonably defended on an internet message board. > [@](#): > > Or simply admitting that there is a difference between solid, erudite contributions to a field and the bland, unoriginal assertions of pop authors. _sigh_ I don’t have a problem with you, **Abe** , but I won’t ask a third time. You can take that as an objective fact or a subjective wish, I do not care. But it it tiresome to prepare reasearch only to find your opponents failing to actually say anything. Do not do yourself this disservice. ---
**Author:** ![\_shaolin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/_/9de053/32.png) [@\_shaolin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/_shaolin)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2002, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contribution-if-any-did-ayn-rand-make-to-philosophy/120084/94 "2002-07-26T14:53:57Z")
I’m sorry, but I had to post [this…](http://www.villainsupply.com/miscevil.html) …look about 2/3 the way down the page. Apologies for any offence my levity may cause. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2002, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contribution-if-any-did-ayn-rand-make-to-philosophy/120084/95 "2002-07-26T17:17:29Z")
This thread never ceases to astound me. I wish I had seen that someone said Ayn Rand contributed nothing original to philosophy. That’s the most ignorant remark I’ve ever heard yet. Since someone obviously isn’t reading books, I found a quick online reference at [The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy](http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/r/rand.htm) (hosted by the University of Tennessee). > [@](#): > > Ayn Rand is a major intellectual of the twentieth century… Rand’s philosophy is in the Aristotelian tradition, with that tradition’s emphasis upon metaphysical naturalism, empirical reason in epistemology, and self-realization in ethics. Her political philosophy is in the classical liberal tradition, with that tradition’s emphasis upon individualism, the constitutional protection of individual rights to life, liberty, and property, and limited government. > > […] > > Traditional ethics has always been suspicious of self interest, praising acts that are selfless in intent and calling amoral or immoral acts that are motivated by self interest. A self-interested person, on the traditional view, will not consider the interests of others and so will slight or harm those interests in the pursuit of his own. > > Rand’s view is that the exact opposite is true: self-interest, properly understood, is the standard of morality and selflessness is the deepest immorality. > > […] > > The impact of Rand’s ideas is difficult to measure, but it has been great. All of the books she published during her lifetime are still in print, have sold more than twenty million copies, and continue to sell hundreds of thousands of copies each year. A survey jointly conducted by the Library of Congress and the Book of the Month Club early in the 1990s asked readers to name the book that had most influenced their lives: Atlas Shrugged was second only to the Bible. Excerpts from Rand’s works are regularly reprinted in college textbooks and anthologies, and several volumes have been published posthumously containing her early writings, journals, and letters. Anyone who takes the time to read the cited paper will see that the assertions that she contributed nothing original and that she is unimportant are bunk. ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2002, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contribution-if-any-did-ayn-rand-make-to-philosophy/120084/96 "2002-07-26T17:45:42Z")
Ah, David Kelley. I knew I knew his name! Also, I think that is a recent addition to the IEP. I have browsed that quite frequently and do not recall seeing a reference to Rand in that. ---
**Author:** ![TVAA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TVAA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVAA)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2002, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contribution-if-any-did-ayn-rand-make-to-philosophy/120084/97 "2002-07-27T03:21:36Z")
I’m not sure that it really even matters whether or not Rand contributed something truly new. How many philosophers have had _really_ new ideas in the first place? Genuinely unprecedented ideas are exceedingly rare. I think Rand can be considered to have made a contribution if she restated old ideas in new and accessible forms. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2002, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contribution-if-any-did-ayn-rand-make-to-philosophy/120084/98 "2002-07-27T04:32:06Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by RexDart \* > **Frankly, any high school student interested in the climate of collegiate study will have noticed the horrifying take-over of modern universities by the dastardly postmodernists … Additionally, Atlas Shrugged represents a viewpoint rarely seen nor heard in modern pop culture, a refutation of the collectivism that populates the thought of most high school students interested in politics/philosophy. Atlas Shrugged represents another line of thinking by which high school students can explore their ideology, while they dwell amongst the bleeding heart common crowd who chants nothing more than the inane slogans of radical socialists. When the closest thing you get to intellectual thought in a high school is some modern-day hippie with absolutely no training in ecology whining "Save the rainforests"** So Rand is popular because everyone who disagrees with her is an “idiot”? I’m glad we got that cleared up. Just out of curiosity, I don’t suppose that you’d be willing to provide a cite to back this stuff up, would you? Concerning Marx being read in school: this may shock you, but there were several attempt to create societies based on his ideas during the 20th century. Some of them still exist today. In other words, Marx had a big influence on history, and thus an understanding of his work is necessary if we want to understand the world we live in. Also, the neverending attempts by conservatives to misrepresent his works only make it more necessary. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2002, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contribution-if-any-did-ayn-rand-make-to-philosophy/120084/99 "2002-07-28T00:09:36Z")
**Libertarian** : I should note that Caldwell has taken over as editor of The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek, so he doesn’t have it in for the guy. I confess that I am not familiar with Hayek’s monetary overinvestment theory, developed in 1929, 1931, 1939 and 1941. While I trust that it is of Nobel quality, I suspect that much of it has been absorbed into Friedman’s perspective, which I have a little familiarity with. But these are just guesses. Regardless, this work is kind of old. I see no evidence that it has been repressed however. Then again, I see little evidence in it of the sort of anti-empirical stance that Mises (about 1960) apparently put foward. It is the latter which mainstream economists find bewildering. Friedman, in contrast, is a bit of a legend (though Kenneth Arrow is considered the economist’s economist). Ref: [http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/essays/cycle/moneycycle.htm](http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/essays/cycle/moneycycle.htm) ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2002, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contribution-if-any-did-ayn-rand-make-to-philosophy/120084/100 "2002-07-28T00:54:03Z")
**Eris** : Speaking as one ignoramus to another 😉 , let me suggest why Rand doesn’t deserve a mention in philosophy classes. 1. There’s been a lot of work on the philosophy of the mind in recent years. WAG: Rand hasn’t been particularly influential among those thinkers. So the psychology/philosophy link isn’t going to work. 2. The point that there is more to philosophy than a study of language was best refuted by Rawls (1971) by way of example. I’ll let somebody else handle the, “get your head out of the clouds” argument. With all due respect though, it sounds more like polemic than philosophy to this amateur. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contribution-if-any-did-ayn-rand-make-to-philosophy/120084.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contribution-if-any-did-ayn-rand-make-to-philosophy/120084.md?page=6)