In the few philosophy courses I took-Philosophy 101 and Ethics, I don’t think Rand ever came up. Not once.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.”
*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”.
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.
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.
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.
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!”
Or simply admitting that there is a difference between solid, erudite contributions to a field and the bland, unoriginal assertions of pop authors.
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 “aness” 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
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.
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.
I’m sorry, but I had to post this…
…look about 2/3 the way down the page.
Apologies for any offence my levity may cause.
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 (hosted by the University of Tennessee).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
Eris:
Speaking as one ignoramus to another 
, let me suggest why Rand doesn’t deserve a mention in philosophy classes.
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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.
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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.