What contribution, if any, did Ayn Rand make to philosophy?

Great Debates
61

No, I know she isn’t listed, I do have that book. I was speculating whether she would. As far as philosophers go, that book was meant to outline the impact philosophy had on history. Has Ayn Rand had an impact on history? Again, speculation, not insight. I think the number of her followers, whether you consider them cultish or not, says something at least.

Rand considered objectivity in concept formation thusly (I just read ItOE again to confirm what I’ve been saying): she found it obvious that man was not born with an innate knowledge of how to eat intelligently, healthy, and so on, but had to learn to do this. It was not a subjective matter whether human need iron in their diet, or that eating only fat will eventually cause problems. Why then, she wondered, would anyone assert that when it came to “feeding man’s mind”, to learning how to think about the world and understand it and man’s interaction in it, would anyone throw their hands in the air, declare a veil of ignorance (good one, flowbark), and say that so much is subjective, there are no absolutes, and so on. She saw that as prima facie absurd (and, on the surface, it is absurd to me, too) and concluded that there was a subtle and not-so-subtle attack on man’s mind.

As no fan of strict empiricism I can see why she might think so. But then, I’m a paranoid bastard anyway. :stuck_out_tongue:

62

I have never read Rand myself – her work is on my mental list of things I feel I should have a look at just so that I may consider myself well-read, but it’s pretty far down on this list because I strongly suspect I won’t enjoy it. However, if Ayn Rand made any significant contributions to philosophy then I believe these have yet to be widely recognized by experts in the field. My second major is in philosophy, and Rand has never come up in my required or recommended reading. She has not been included, or even mentioned, in any philosophy text I am familiar with. In fact, I do not recall ever having encountered her name in an academic setting at all.

I suppose it is possible that Rand’s contributions are unrecognized instead of merely unimportant, but since she is relatively widely read I think this is unlikely.

Philosophy hijack:

From context it seems that you are referring to Rawls’s concept of “the veil of ignorance”, as mentioned by flowbark, and not using the term in some other way. If this is the case, then I think you have badly misunderstood Rawls. Rawls felt that the best principles and rules to govern society would be those that rational, self-interested beings would choose for themselves if they were behind a “veil of ignorance” that prevented them from knowing what their place in society would be.

63

That is incredible beyond belief. It would be like an economics major never encountering Ludwig von Mises. I don’t question your veracity, but I suggest that you should question your instructors.

64

Lamia, in that sense, I led you astray (and probably others, too, in this 20/20 hindsight). I was referring to phenomenology, and Kant’s/Hume’s/Husserl’s/etc (popular philosophy) assertions/observations about perception. The phenomenological barrier, one might say. I have never read Rawls, I just thought that term matched well. Apologies.

65

I’ve never studied economics at all, so I’m afraid that went right over my head. Anyway, I didn’t say I’d never encountered Rand. I’ve certainly encountered plenty of people lugging around copies of Atlas Shrugged. But her name has never come up in any class, lecture, symposium, or conference that I’ve attended, not just on philosophy but on any subject at all. I do admittedly attend a small school with a small philosophy department, but she apparently was not taught at taggert’s university either, so this cannot be a singular state of affairs.

**

I would not hesitate to do so if I believed that Rand were an important, or even a significant, figure in the field of philosophy. However, I have seen nothing to suggest that this is so. It is my impression that she is excluded from the philosophy canon for pretty much the same reasons that Stephen King is excluded from the English literature canon. Perhaps I am wrong. But if I am, I would have expected to see a more compelling and convincing defense of her work here than I have.

66

Lamia, I am certainly willing to defend it in some respects. I just don’t know against what. By my understanding of the term “philosopher” she was a philosopher. By my understanding of “contributing to philosophy”, she contributed to it. Was anything new?—I don’t really want to turn this into a debate about what philosophy is, so I can’t even begin here. I don’t think the notion that we can’t really know what is going on in people’s heads is, or ever was, new or stunning in any way, for instance.

Some help from the detractors as to what they would like, any specific angles, and I will do what I can from my armchair. My armchair’s background includes Hume, some Sartre, second-hand Kant (from the Friesians), pretty much all of Wittgenstein (about ten pages to go in in Philosophical Investigations, though I’ve never read the blue and brown books (which were just notebooks of his lectures as I understand it)). I have read into Leviathan, own a great deal of works from Spinoza, Descartes, and also have some general philosophy books for 17th and 16th century, as well as Russell’s History of Western Philosophy to draw on. Again, an armchair philosopher, but hopefully more read than Joe Average on the topic. And I will do what I can.

So long as I have something to work with.

67

Lamia

Rand established the philosophy of Objectivism, whose ethic is a form of rational egoism (self-interest), whose epistemology is a form of rationalism (reason), and whose metaphysic is a form of presuppositional ontology (objective reality). She’s ordinarilly considered to be a minor philosopher along with people like Ockham and Popper, but she is certainly significant enough to merit study in a college program on philosophy. If you truly have an interest in philosphy beyond mere qualification for a major, I recommend at least reading Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. I promise that if you love philosophy, you’ll be enriched.

68

You can find a blurb about her and her work at the Philosophy Pages.

69

I did a degree in Philosophy at the UCL, part of the University of London, including three years of politics lectures, and I never heard mention of Rand once. London has a large and influential philosophy community and spans both left and right political views. Whatever else she may have done, she never impressed any philosophers (nor anyone else that I’ve ever met) in the UK.

That is all.

Alex

70

What a bizarre thing to say, particularly when phrased in a rhetorical tone almost approaching boastfulness — well, we know the main stuff, and that’s all we need to know. :smiley:

71

Whether or not Rand had a big influence on academic philosophy, it cannot be denied that she has had a HUGE impact on the world. ‘Atlas Shrugged’ routinely makes it onto lists of the most influential books, and for a long time college students throughout North America, when polled, said that it was THE most influential book they had read. The book stills sells huge numbers of copies.

Rand is partially responsible for the resurgence of ‘modern’ conservativism in the 50’s and 60’s, culminating in Barry Goldwater’s nomination. She influenced writers like Robert Heinlein, who in turn influenced several generations of people. The Libertarian movement owes a debt to her, although she hated them.

Oh, and let’s not forget Alan Greenspan… Not only was he a follower of her philosophy, he was a close friend and a member of her ‘inner circle’ of true believers.

She has to rank as one of the top 10 most influential political writers of this century, I would think.

72

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.

Substantiation: Case & Fair as well as Samuelson make no mention of the him. McClosky’s old intermediate text does -once- in a single footnote.

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.

I found a reference to Rand in a philosophy text originally written in the 1950s (Hosper, 2nd ed 1966?). It referred to Rand as a contemporary philosopher and novelist and used her to motivate egoism, one of three broad categories of goodness. (The other 2 are based on Kant and utilitarianism). (Oh, and Lamia is correct about Rawls and the veil of ignorance).

I confess I was disappointed that her generalizations about human nature appeared to have little anthropological (that is to say empirical) foundation. But I must stress that the summary of her work only spanned 2-5 pages or so. So I really have no basis for evaluating her work. (Libertarian policies OTOH, those I can address.)

Eris asks: *Has Ayn Rand had an impact on history? *
Flowbark answers, I dunno, has Nietzsche had an impact on history? The analogy isn’t exact, but it seems that we are dealing with 2 charismatic intellectuals (/nutjobs?), the first (Nietzsche) blatantly non-systematic, the 2nd not sufficiently rigorous by modern analytic standards, if some of the viewpoints in this thread are accurate.

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.

73

Perhaps Rand is more of an American phenomenon than anything else, judging by the examples given so far, particularly the last post by Sam. In spite of repeated assertions that she is this and that, what did she contribute? “Objectivism” is nothing but a low-brow hodge-podge of recycled concepts jumbled together in a manner best-fitting the various problems of its creator.

I thought Lamia made an excellent point about Stephen King and the canon of literature. Just because someone is popular and has a huge following does not mean he/she is automatically worthy of inclusion in the ranks of philosophy or literature. It’s a little bit more than a popularity contest, even if Greenspan was a member of her silly “inner circle”.

We know that Rand’s fiction hardly qualifies as great literature, and we still haven’t established that she contributed anything original to philosophy. What remains, that I can see, is her considerable influence, discussed by a number of folks in recent messages. I don’t know if I would call influence a contribution, particularly when it comes from a writer who systematically stole, dumbed down, and painted over the ideas of others.

So yes, we can be astonished at her influence, but being influential and popular doesn’t mean she was a contributor. Her influence and popularity were likely a result of the simplicity of the concepts and packaging of “her” philosophy, which is so basic that even someone with no knowledge of the field could understand it fairly easily (and have no idea that she ripped a dozen others in the process).

74

Flowbark

Sadly, in this instance you’re not telling me something I don’t know, and that’s why I mentioned Mises. I had already encountered an economics student [sic] who had never heard of Human Action. Do they teach about Hayek?

75

Well, Abe, I’ll ask you directly. What would you consider a contribution to philosophy? It is easy to attack Rand when you offer no criteria with which to respond. I have asked a few times for means to respond. I don’t mind failure, but give me a chance, please. Also, try and hint whether you want to attack Objectivism or Rand herself.

flowbark, I think that Rand vs Objectivism would be an interesting topic to tackle. I can seperate Hume’s life from Treatise on Human Nature, and show him that he ducks when I throw a rock at his head even though the idea never formed that I did such a thing, and then ask him whether he knows about cause and effect or not. :wink:

Can anyone substantiate the claim I heard once that Atlas Shrugged was ranked second as the book that influenced your life the most (after the christian bible)?

76

I reckon it all depends on who taught you philosophy (and certainly on whether you made any attempt to learn anything on your own).

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.

If you had studied under Tibor Machan, professor emeritus in the Department of Philosophy at Auburn University, you would have heard of Ayn Rand. He wrote Individuals and their Rights, and states that “Ayn Rand is now a recognized ‘player’ on the philosophical field. Her essays are often reprinted in collections used in ethics, political philosophy, and other courses.”

If you had studied under Bertell Ollman, professor of Politics at New York University, you would have read Alienation and Dialectical Investigations, a fascinating case study comparison between Ayn Rand and Karl Marx.

If you had studied under Dr. Douglas B. Rasmussen, professor of Philosophy at St. John’s University, you would be familiar with The Philosophic Thought of Ayn Rand, a thought provoking examination of how objectivism compares to other Aristotlean philosophies.

Studying under Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal, professor of European intellectual history at Berkely, you would have read Nietzsche in Russia, and would have taken extensive notes on Rand’s Russian heritage and its influence on her philosophy.

If you had studied under Princeton University alumnus, George Walsh, who authored The Role of Religion in History and co-translator of Alfred Schutz’s Phenomonology of the Social World, you would know of his delight with Sciabarra’s analysis of Rand’s thought in dialectical terms.

And speaking of Sciabarra, when you do your circulations among the academe, look him up at New York University where he is a Visiting Scholar and where he earned his Ph.D. in political philosophy. You can discuss his controversial views from his book, Ayn Rand, the Russian Radical.

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.

Maybe if you inquire around that vast and important philosophical culture in England you might find one or two who’ve heard of her.

77

I don’t know about anyone else, but I was simply stating the facts. I never said I hadn’t heard of her, only that she wasn’t a part of the syllabus at my university. I never said no one had heard of her, only that her philosophy wasn’t considered to be worth teaching to undergraduate philosophy students. The OP asked to what extent Rand had an influence on philosophy, and the answer is that in many parts of the world she has had no influence at all.

If you had studied, ooh, anywhere outside the US you might realise that 20th century American political thought is not the be-all-and-end-all of contemporary philosophy.

I think Rand’s philosophy is comparable to the theological musings of CS Lewis: popular, but not penetrating the international academic philosophy community to any great extent.

Alex

78

I wonder if you would say the same thing about Hume fourty years after he published his Treatise, Alex. [note: I am not comparing Rand to Hume]

79

Alex

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.

80

Bill Goldstein congratulates Greenspan for maturing out of his libertarian fascination. NY Times registration is free; don’t worry.