# 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:** 17\ **Page:** 9
**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:** [August 8, 2002, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contribution-if-any-did-ayn-rand-make-to-philosophy/120084/161 "2002-08-08T00:51:31Z")
I regret to inform the team that Ayn Rand is not part of Harold Bloom’s Western Canon. [http://www.literarycritic.com/bloom.htm](http://www.literarycritic.com/bloom.htm) Nor is M. Scott Peck, Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird), J.R.R. Tolkien, Margaret Mitchell (Gone With the Wind), or Dale Carnegie. The Bible makes the cut. ---
**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:** [August 8, 2002, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contribution-if-any-did-ayn-rand-make-to-philosophy/120084/162 "2002-08-08T01:01:56Z")
Hm. Hypocrites. Rings a bell. Vaguely. From the reviews on the web, I think I would like it. Weber’s The Hypocrites (1915) is available on video and reportedly compares well with D.W. Griffith’s work by the same name (which I haven’t seen either). If it’s not too much to ask Lib (and it may be), I would be interested in your views of both films. (This assumes that D.W. Griffith’s work is available on video). ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2002, 10:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contribution-if-any-did-ayn-rand-make-to-philosophy/120084/163 "2002-08-08T10:06:34Z")
They’re very similar. Both are preachy allegories of the authors’ religious views, and both involve drawing parallels between historical periods and the then modern day. Weber’s film mixes them up, though, and Griffith’s cuts between them. The influence of Weber on Griffith (and a whole slew of other directors, like John Ford) is unmistakable. For example, in _Intolerence_, Griffith uses the same time-lapse photography technique that Weber pioneered. Simply from the perspective that hers is original innovation, and she is the one who influenced others, I’ve assigned her film as more “important”. As you’ll see in the thread, importance is determined by three criteria: innovation, influence, and controversy. Innovation involves a director’s trail-blazing technical mastery, influence is a measure of the film’s impact on filmmaking, and controversy is a reflection of the film’s impact on society. All those make Weber’s film more important than Griffith’s. You don’t really have to see either of them to deduce that. ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2002, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contribution-if-any-did-ayn-rand-make-to-philosophy/120084/164 "2002-08-08T17:57:34Z")
**JThunder** > [@](#): > > What I said is that the mere statement that some Ph.D.'s take Rand seriously is unimpressive, in light of the claptrap that often passes for modern philosophy. If academic philosophy majors cannot be counted on as an authority on philosophy, then I am at a loss to wonder about this entire conversation, and whether anyone here rejects Rand on any standard whatsoever. > [@](#): > > There are philosophers who I think every student of philosophy must study because their work is so important in the field, but it is a very short list: Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant. So when you read Hume, do you come to it with Descartes on the brain? Did you learn about existence from Descartes, or did you learn about what Descartes thought he knew about existence? I don’t ask this to be rude, I ask this because many of these philosophers are diametrically opposed on many topics. Many topics, in fact, that they woul dhave considered to be of fundamental importance. I ask you this because I can find an academic philosopher (as I define them) which can critique some point or other of all of these men. Which makes them all at least partially wrong. And then I would ask, even if they were wrong, can they still contribute to philosophy _in their wrongness_? I cannot say that any two philosophers can both be correct. I can say that if I accept their premises, then most of their conclusions follow. If I ignore Hume’s epistemological concerns and limits, I can understand a rationalist like Descartes. If I discount Descartes, I can follow Hume. But every critique of Rand I have found attacks Rand based on _other philosopher’s (or philosophers’) works!_ Which is fine, of course, if you think that (for example) Hume was absolutely right, or at least, was never wrong. But I cannot even follow Kant unless I am willing to discount Hume. I cannot follow Russell’s conception of positivism unless I am willing to discount all sorts of empiricists and rationalits alike. People say Rand abused and misuderstood the problem of universals. Her point about universals were that they were an epistemological distinction used to understand ontological truths about objective reality. She directly said that caution should be used in such talk, because it would be haphazard thinking to automatically grant metaphysical existence to universals based on _our_ (human) methods of gaining knowledge. Wittgenstein would say (if he agreed with Rand) that the question “Does length exist?” that the question was not well-formed. By the time we come to ask whether length exists we have already used our conception of length to understand other things. I rely on L.W. a lot because, as I say, he is currently my favorite philosopher. But apart from his bold (and deliberately non-sensical) assertions in the Tractutus, he said many things which I have also found to be true in my own ponderings. And, as a philosopher (by my understanding of philosophers) he has elucidated many things which I have already known but never formalized or expressed clearly. But Rand has as well. The only way Rand did that was by coming to Rand as I would come to any other philosopher: with as open of a mind as I can, and with as little preconception of things as I could. Did I just not understand Hume because I know that causality is a fact? Or was Hume just wrong? Hume might be one of the greatest contributers to the philosophy of science for his musings on inductive learning and its inherent incompleteness. So if I reject Hume, am I forced to also reject science? If I reject Kant, am I forced to reject deontological morality? If i accept deontological morality, _must have I of done so because of Kant_? I appreciate your list, **Lamia** , though I remain unclear on why _these people specifically_ warrant speedy or necessary mention. Do they warrant mention because you feel they were all _right_? That they represent a historical progression of philosophical thought? Spinoza is no academic philosopher by your previous discussion, and I thought Hume was _very_ readable. I’ve heard Kant was terribly dry, but I haven’t gotten to him yet. Descartes wasn’t impossible to read, and neither was Hobbes (though I note with interest he didn’t make this list). I would definitely call these works _accessible_ provided one has a passing interest in philosophy in the first place. But of course, that requires that you believe I already can understand these gentlemen, which you have implied I do not or have not understood them. Is it because I mischaracterize arguments, or because I disagree with long-standing historical traditions? I will say it: there is no knowledge that can be gained independent of experience. I am prepared to defend that statement against any assault you care to mount. I always thought the notion of _a priori_ knowledge was murky, but Rand’s ideas clarified them for me. I said this earlier in the thread, and I suspect it is far more appropriate to mention now. In disagreeing with philosophers one often finds themselves being accused of not understanding the concepts. I say this not as a dig on philosophers per se, but as a statement of fact that people who agree with certain philosophers on some subject think that it is because they have developed a point greatly. Though I call Rand an immanent realist, I do so because she talks just like one, with the only exception being she doesn’t grant the same existence to universals as she does to the objects which have those universals. She does so because she doesn’t wish to make the ontological assertion based on our method of cognition. I think that is a fair call. As far as I can tell she didn’t misunderstand the problem. I believe she feels that universals exist in the same way that “left” exists. A cube does not have a “leftness” to it, though we understand things like “the left side of the cube is white.” Some would question whether it is valid to distinguish ontological objects yet know them epistemologically; that is, if whiteness (or length or hardness) doesn’t exist, then how can we distinguish them in the first place, which is to say, how are our conepts valid? Which almost seems like a legitimate question, right up until you see that in order to reject our concepts, we must have concepts in the first place with which to judge the others, and if we came to understand the concept _this_ (the ultimate ontological quantifier of identity) only after differentiating objects based on our perception, then there is no way to reject, wholesale, our method of cognition. To do so undermines the very argument used to undermine cognition and is an absurdity. Some would like to say that we know smoething if our belief of something corresponds to external reality. This is the definition of a fact I encounter most often. But the second clause of the definition requires standards of measurement and judgement, which is to say, a whole slew of concepts, at the base of which stands, unshaken even by contrary evidence, that we can understand the world in the first place. To Rand, a concept is a reference to a class of objects with specific measurements omitted, whatever _can_ be omitted. A philosopher keen on looking for “manness” in men, like Aristotle, or like other immanent realists, would then try to seperate qualities a man had but didn’t need to have in order to be called a man, from qualities one needs to be considered, rightly, a man. This sort of follows smoothly from the existence of universals in their own right (even if they can only exist in discrete objects). But Rand said that this was _not_ the case: everything we have abstracted went into our concept. There _are_ no “unnecessary” qualities. All qualities we perceived created (and continue to affect) our concept of “man”. They are thus _all_ necessary because they all contributed to our concept (all of my experience with men goes into my concept of “man”). And it must be remembered that this is an empistemological distinction based on our method of perception, not an assertoric statement about the existence or non-existence of universals! The problem of universals exists (to Rand) only because people are trying to understand their concepts by breaking them down. But the concept, as a unit, is not formed solely through integration of experience and not solely though differentiation of experience, and so though it can be dissected into parts, those parts are either integrated and differentiated on their own, they are atomic concepts, or they no longer make much sense. Whiteness, per se, is a universal. It is a concept of the concept of color. We may break our concept of color up to examine what differentiates white from blue. But before we could even have white or blue we needed a sort of container concept—the integration—of color. And color came as a differentiation (something I perceive here that is now what I perceive there) and an integration (though these are both similar in some other respect). Each new color I learn or see (sepia) not only adds itself to the container concept, but adjusts the concept of the container itself. At least, that is what a reasonable person would do (according to Rand), but it is possible to _evade_ our own method of cognition. The evasion consists of consciously refusing to integrate or differentiate new experiences as they come, to insist, for example, that once I have a concept of color it is what it is and it is right or wrong (it is a fact) and that’s that. So when we ask a question like, “Does color exist?” we must try and take apart our container, and we find perception at its root. You’ll note a distinct notion of phenomenology here, only without the messiness of trying to talk beyond it and saying that we can know nothing about things in themselves because we had to perceive in the first place. If all there is is perception, and we clearly exist (in some capacity or other), then it seems a rather large leap of logic to say that we can or cannot know anything beyond our senses. Our senses are how we know in the first place! Which is to say, by the time we reach a reading of works of a phenomenologist or two, he might ask us to consider that our senses are not telling us anything about reality per se, that our senses are a _limit_, no, not a limit, a _shield_ which prevents us from accessing reality “as it exists”. But where does this assertion come from, and once it is made, what has it done to all the concepts that went into it in the first place? If you wish to invalidate our entire conception of existence with a sweep of the hand, how can you say that anything is “as it exists”? What the heck does that even mean? It almost isn’t the question, to Rand, of whether or not we _can_ know about reality through our senses, but that _to_ know anything we must use our senses, so any other question is (to use Wittenstein again) not well-formed in the first place. If we have a concept of knowledge _at all_, we must have gotten it through a series of integration and differentiation on percepts. There is no sense in which we can uproot that. Which isn’t to say we cannot be mistaken. But when we recognize a mistake, we do so through cognition as well, specifically through perception. Suppose I were looking for my keys in the morning and I ckeck my pants pocket only to find it empty. I set the pants down, light a cigarette, wait for a minute, and then check again in the same pocket. This is a direct application of saying that I can never know with certainty empirical facts. Does anyone do this that we consider, as a society, to be mentally healthy? And Rand, in saying that there is an objective reality, that we know reality because it is all there is to know, allows you _philosophically_ to put your pants down and check over by your bedroom dresser. Keys do not simply vanish and then reappear. This is the application of your concept of “existence” and “keys” and all sort of other things to volitional behavior. This is how your senses indicate things, there is no obvious evidence to the contrary, and we all behave that way, and this is how our language works, and so on. Pardon me for saying it again, but I would consider that a contribution. If any philosopher anywhere has contributed anything, I think we must accept that Rand did as well. Unless, again, I am misunderstanding everything. ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2002, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contribution-if-any-did-ayn-rand-make-to-philosophy/120084/165 "2002-08-09T07:55:44Z")
—I’ve heard Kant was terribly dry, but I haven’t gotten to him yet.— Kant is not so much dry as he is very stingy with his use of periods. Perhaps there are translations of him that remedy this, but I find the main problem in reading him is not that what he is _saying_ is dry and uncompelling, but rather that it sometimes takes him a page or so before he finishes a complete thought. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2002, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contribution-if-any-did-ayn-rand-make-to-philosophy/120084/166 "2002-08-09T11:20:47Z")
Amen. As an example from _Critique of Pure Reason_, I’ll embolden his point: > [@](#): > > This property of quantities, according to which no part of them is the smallest possible (no part simple), is called their continuity. Space and time are quanta continua, because no part of them can be given, without enclosing it within boundaries (points and moments), consequently, this given part is itself a space or a time. Space, therefore, consists only of spaces, and time of times. Points and moments are only boundaries, that is, the mere places or positions of their limitation. But places always presuppose intuitions which are to limit or determine them; and we cannot conceive either space or time composed of constituent parts which are given before space or time. Such quantities may also be called flowing, because synthesis (of the productive imagination) in the production of these quantities is a progression in time, the continuity of which we are accustomed to indicate by the expression flowing. > > All phenomena, then, are continuous quantities, in respect both to intuition and mere perception (sensation, and with it reality). In the former case they are extensive quantities; in the latter, intensive. When the synthesis of the manifold of a phenomenon is interrupted, there results merely an aggregate of several phenomena, and not properly a phenomenon as a quantity, which is not produced by the mere continuation of the productive synthesis of a certain kind, but by the repetition of a synthesis always ceasing. For example, if I call thirteen dollars a sum or quantity of money, I employ the term quite correctly, inasmuch as I understand by thirteen dollars the value of a mark in standard silver, which is, to be sure, a continuous quantity, in which no part is the smallest, but every part might constitute a piece of money, which would contain material for still smaller pieces. If, however, by the words thirteen dollars I understand so many coins (be their value in silver what it may), it would be quite erroneous to use the expression a quantity of dollars; on the contrary, I must call them aggregate, that is, a number of coins. And as in every number we must have unity as the foundation, so a phenomenon taken as unity is a quantity, and as such always a continuous quantity (quantum continuum). > > Now, seeing all phenomena, whether considered as extensive or intensive, are continuous quantities, the proposition: “All change (transition of a thing from one state into another) is continuous,” might be proved here easily, and with mathematical evidence, were it not that the causality of a change lies, entirely beyond the bounds of a transcendental philosophy, and presupposes empirical principles. For of the possibility of a cause which changes the condition of things, that is, which determines them to the contrary to a certain given state, the understanding gives us a priori no knowledge; not merely because it has no insight into the possibility of it (for such insight is absent in several a priori cognitions), but because the notion of change concerns only certain determinations of phenomena, which experience alone can acquaint us with, while their cause lies in the unchangeable. But seeing that we have nothing which we could here employ but the pure fundamental conceptions of all possible experience, among which of course nothing empirical can be admitted, we dare not, without injuring the unity of our system, anticipate general physical science, which is built upon certain fundamental experiences. > > Nevertheless, we are in no want of proofs of the great influence which the principle above developed exercises in the anticipation of perceptions, and even in supplying the want of them, so far as to shield us against the false conclusions which otherwise we might rashly draw. > > If all reality in perception has a degree, between which and negation there is an endless sequence of ever smaller degrees, and if, nevertheless, every sense must have a determinate degree of receptivity for sensations; no perception, and consequently no experience is possible, which can prove, either immediately or mediately, an entire absence of all reality in a phenomenon; in other words, **it is impossible ever to draw from experience a proof of the existence of empty space or of empty time**. For in the first place, an entire absence of reality in a sensuous intuition cannot of course be an object of perception; secondly, such absence cannot be deduced from the contemplation of any single phenomenon, and the difference of the degrees in its reality; nor ought it ever to be admitted in explanation of any phenomenon. For if even the complete intuition of a determinate space or time is thoroughly real, that is, if no part thereof is empty, yet because every reality has its degree, which, with the extensive quantity of the phenomenon unchanged, can diminish through endless gradations down to nothing (the void), there must be infinitely graduated degrees, with which space or time is filled, and the intensive quantity in different phenomena may be smaller or greater, although the extensive quantity of the intuition remains equal and unaltered. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2002, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contribution-if-any-did-ayn-rand-make-to-philosophy/120084/167 "2002-08-09T14:47:15Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Apos \* > \*\* > Kant is not so much dry as he is very stingy with his use of periods. Perhaps there are translations of him that remedy this, but I find the main problem in reading him is not that what he is _saying_ is dry and uncompelling, but rather that it sometimes takes him a page or so before he finishes a complete thought. \*\* Amen to that. Back when I was taking Intro to Early Modern Philosophy, we always had to write a summary of the day’s assigned reading for our homework. Pages and pages of Kant often ended up being reduced to three sentences. But no philosopher ever made me wish for an improved translation more than Locke. . .and I’m a native English speaker. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2002, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contribution-if-any-did-ayn-rand-make-to-philosophy/120084/168 "2002-08-09T15:32:27Z")
😃 ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2002, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contribution-if-any-did-ayn-rand-make-to-philosophy/120084/169 "2002-08-09T18:00:20Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by erislover \* > **JThunder If academic philosophy majors cannot be counted on as an authority on philosophy, then I am at a loss to wonder about this entire conversation, and whether anyone here rejects Rand on any standard whatsoever.** Once again though, you are misrepresenting my statement. Gravely misrepresenting it, in fact. I’m not saying that you _can’t_ count on philosophy majors as authorities. They are not, however, a monolithic group with equal qualfications and attention to detail. That is why _merely_ having a doctorate does not make one’s word definitive. This is ESPECIALLY true in fields like Philosophy, where different Ph.D.'s often espouse mutually exclusive (and sometimes self-refuting!) views. And for the **third** time, I’d like to remind you that there’s a huge difference between saying “I take Ayn Rand seriously” and “I think that Ayn Rand’s views have merit, and constitute valid contributions to philosophy.” Once again, if you are going to defend the eminence of Ayn Rand’s work, I think you need a much stronger defense than just “Well, there are _some_ Ph.D.'s out there who take her seriously.” ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2002, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contribution-if-any-did-ayn-rand-make-to-philosophy/120084/170 "2002-08-09T18:11:42Z")
Why is that defense any weaker than the offense that there are some Ph.D.'s who don’t? ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2002, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contribution-if-any-did-ayn-rand-make-to-philosophy/120084/171 "2002-08-09T18:31:27Z")
Well, **JThunder** , given two of my monsterous posts on objectivism, the number of PhD philosophers mentioned, and the various interpretations of what it means to contribute to philosophy, I think I have made as decent of a case as can be had on a message board barring actual responses to my case which are few and far between. I don’t agree with Rand on the subject of universals. I am definitely an immanent realist. I don’t agree with Rand on the nature of objective reality, which is to say, I don’t agree that objective systems of judgement necessarily correspond to objective ontological existents. But I think she presented her views well enough, I think they are more or less internally consistent if we accept her premises, and I think that she deserves merit based on that alone. Like **Lib** , I also agree that she isn’t a fantastic example of a philosopher. I am not aware of why **Lib** feels so exactly, but for me it is because I do not feel she devoted enough effort into fleshing out her system and left it for others to do, which has since created two seperate schools of objectivism, one spearheaded (now) by Binswanger and the other by Kelley, and from what I have read of both of them they both find support from Rand’s statements in their interpretations of it. I find it to be both a reasonable system in that it does serve to explain human behavior and certainly seems to support how scientific and semantic conventions come about, rather than esoteric commentaries on the impossibility of certain types of knowledge (why you would call impossible knowledge “knowledge” yet eludes me, but that is ok if that is what you want to do). That’s why I don’t think Rand was a navel-gazer, and that’s why I said she wanted people’s heads out of the clouds. I don’t say that because I think she was simplistic. And, what **Lib** said. If some people have presented the argument that academic philosophers don’t like Rand, I presented some who do. Then the counter-assertion would be that they aren’t true scotsman—I mean, true academic philosophers—or that support of academic philosophers are not a sufficient condition for contributing to philosophy, and here are additional criteria etc., which you, **erl** have failed to meet. I have no problem being wrong. In some respects it would be nice to be wrong, as I’ve previously mentioned. I do not believe I am wrong; hence, pages two through four of this debate. ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2002, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contribution-if-any-did-ayn-rand-make-to-philosophy/120084/172 "2002-08-09T18:34:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by erislover \* > \*\*But every critique of Rand I have found attacks Rand based on _other philosopher’s (or philosophers’) works!_ \*\* I am astounded that you’re saying that. _In this very forum_, we have people criticizing Rand’s work on entirely different bases – her erroneous, strawman definition of “altruism,” for example, and her pathetic caricatures of communist and capitalist societies. > [@](#): > > \*\* > And Rand, in saying that there is an objective reality, that we know reality because it is all there is to know, allows you _philosophically_ to put your pants down and check over by your bedroom dresser. \*\* Rand, in saying that there is an objective reality – and making such a big deal of it – is regurgitating a tired, well-established concept that has existed for centuries. By itself, there’s nothing wrong with that. To proclaim this as the lynchpin of her so-called “philosophy” though – even going so far as to name her worldview “Objectivism” – merely demonstrates the shallowness of her alleged philosophizing. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2002, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contribution-if-any-did-ayn-rand-make-to-philosophy/120084/173 "2002-08-09T20:06:01Z")
Shallowness? I don’t believe that I’ve ever seen a more shallow, superficial, and ill-informed understanding of Rand’s metaphysic. It reminds me of Em Griffin’s take on her ethic: > [@](#): > > Egoist writer Ayn Rand dedicated her novel The Fountainhead to “the exultation of man’s self-esteem and the sacredness of his happiness on earth… Despite the pervasive nature of egoism, most ethical thinkers denounce the selfishness of the principle as morally repugnant. How can one embrace a philosophy which advocates terrorism as long as it brings joy to the terrorist?” There is not one molecule of comprehension of Objectivism’s ethic in Griffin’s monumentally irrelevant interpretation. And “strawman definition of ‘altruism,’”? It’s like talking about Kant’s strawman definition of “synthetic”. Just simply weird. ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2002, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contribution-if-any-did-ayn-rand-make-to-philosophy/120084/174 "2002-08-09T20:36:07Z")
> [@](#): > > In this very forum, we have people criticizing Rand’s work on entirely different bases… And I am suggesting she made contributions elsewhere. > [@](#): > > To proclaim this as the lynchpin of her so-called “philosophy” though – even going so far as to name her worldview “Objectivism” – merely demonstrates the shallowness of her alleged philosophizing. There is nothing in this statement with which to validate your opinion. As long as my understanding of concepts is not given the benefit of the doubt, I will not grant the same to my opponents; and, furthermore, since I have actually presented the case, I will expect my opponents to do so. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2002, 10:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contribution-if-any-did-ayn-rand-make-to-philosophy/120084/175 "2002-08-10T10:53:28Z")
Eris You are morphing into Spiritus right before our eyes! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2002, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contribution-if-any-did-ayn-rand-make-to-philosophy/120084/176 "2002-08-12T13:24:30Z")
Well, hey, someone has to try to take up the slack he left behind. I have spoken with him, FWIW, and everything is ok on his end. He’s just in a non-SDMB phase. I think we can all relate. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2002, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contribution-if-any-did-ayn-rand-make-to-philosophy/120084/177 "2002-08-12T14:14:01Z")
It’s good to hear that he’s okay. There is no intellect that I respect more than his. I hope we hear from him soon. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-contribution-if-any-did-ayn-rand-make-to-philosophy/120084.md?page=8)