A: Absolutely. Even more than J.D. Salinger, possibly more than John Gray.
Q: Was Ayn Rand influential within the discipline of philosophy?
A: Well no, not particularly. This is not because of academia’s conservative bias, as Nozick was highly respected. Those who claim otherwise must explain how this advocate of a minimal state earned such praise. Searle represents another example a respected conservative philosopher.
Still let’s face it. Philosophers aren’t exactly the arbiters the utility of various ideas.
The previous objections are, in a nutshell, my original problem to the inflated claims of Rand’s philosophical greatness. She may be popular and even influential among some groups, but to date I don’t see any evidence that she contributed significantly to the body of philosophy (leaving out pop philosophy).
Restating existing philosophies can be a worthy analytical and didactic exercise, however Rand didn’t so much restate as recycle in a confusing and often uncrediting manner–making her work at least partly vulnerable to the accusation of plagiarism.
BTW, I came across a book, The Ayn Rand Cult, in a bookstore yesterday. I didn’t get to read it, but the author clearly had some disparaging things to say about Rand’s attempts at philosophy.
I dug up this link, which summarizes the 1991 survey asking people, “to name a book that had made a difference in their lives.” (Note slightly different wording than, “…book which was most influential in your life”.) http://lcweb.loc.gov/loc/cfbook/bklists.html
May I have the envelope please?
1 - The Bible**
2 - Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand
3 - The Road Less Traveled, by M. Scott Peck
4 - To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
5 - The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien
6 - Gone With the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell
7 - How to Win Friends and Influence People, by Dale Carnegie
8 - The Book of Mormon
Five titles were tied for the next place:
The Feminine Mystique, by Betty Friedan
A Gift from the Sea, by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Man’s Search for Meaning, by Victor Frankl
Passages, by Gail Sheehy
When Bad Things Happen to Good People, by Harold S. Kushner
** A large gap exists between the #1 book and the rest of the list.
Now, be honest, I didn’t say that did I? I said that alot of the people who casually align themselves with various issues are pretty much braindead and never actually think about those issues. It just so happens that in modern high schools it’s much easier to be a leftist if you don’t care about intellectually exploring the things you advocate. There are of course leftists who do search for the intellectual justifications behind their beliefs, but if you just wanna avoid any thought at all it’s pretty easy to say “Save the rainforests, man!” It’s popularly accepted, it doesn’t stand out, so it’s easy. I proposed that a reason for Rand’s high school popularity may be that she represents an alternative viewpoint that is thought-inspiring in the high school climate.
Now this is just bloody ridiculous. I use a post to tell about my experiences in high school, as pertains Ayn Rand. I go on to offer an explanation. Now you want a cite?? For crying out frickin’ loud, I’m pretty dang sick of “cite please?” I think some people around here would hear someone say “I really like cheese” and respond with “um, cite please?”
What do you want me to do, cite to the neurons in my brain? It’s my bloody idea. You are aware that people sometimes form their own ideas, right? Ideas that aren’t conveniently in place on the internet for people on message boards to hyperlink to? You are aware that these ideas are no less credible just because somebody else hadn’t written them down somewhere first, right? What did you expect, I’d pull out a study by some fancy-schmancy institute on why Ayn Rand is popular in high schools???
You bloody well knew I was offering up my own explanation, you knew there was nothing one could reasonably cite to regarding that, but you put that flippant remark in there anyways. Cite please doesn’t defeat an argument, got it? If I say (and I’m pulling this out of thin air) “56% of high school students have read Atlas Shrugged” you can ask for and get a citation. If I offer up my explanation, you can argue against it if you want, dismiss it as merely one person’s opinion if you must, but don’t just write “cite, please” like that’s supposed to accomplish anything.
flowbark, re: philosophy/psychology… there has been an awful lot of thought on the mind since forever, though I admit it has reached a fevered pace since the advent of computers and the promise of artificial intelligence. No, I don’t think she directly contributed anything here, but I think philosophers go wrong when they try to envision knowledge as somehow distinct from concepts and concept formation, which is what Rand was all about. She got her priorities straight, her psychology wrong, IMO. This will forever brand her as worthless? Eh. All I can say is: she made a philosophical contribution to my life.
Re: 2) “The point that there is more to philosophy than a study of language was best refuted by Rawls (1971) by way of example.” Fascinating, and I’d love to read that. Was it done so in a published book? Not a philosophy journal of some kind I hope. I would absolutely love to read that. I’ll do some searching online for it.
Then I have done a disservice. But no one has presented me with an avenue to pursue sticking up for obj/Rand so I have been reduced to offering little blurbs.
I should note that we haven’t really discussed the substance of Rand’s ideas in this thread (which is ok, IMO, since such a discussion would be beyond the scope of the OP).
[hijack?] If there is a single article by Ayn Rand available on the web that Eris thinks is worth a read, let me know. [/hijack?]
Rawls (1971) is a book entitled A Theory of Justice. It extends a Lockian framework and thereby generates liberal conclusions. Very liberal in some ways. Nonetheless, I suspect that you would be able to appreciate the edifice, if perhaps not the end point.
Apropos nothing, I prefer articles because they are shorter.
Rawls advances 2 versions of his argument. The simpler version has the virtue of, um, simplicity, but also has some fairly obvious holes in it. The more convoluted argument plugs those holes, at the cost of, um, convolution.
This amateur is not aware of any significant work done along Rawlsian lines since 1971, either in philosophy, the social sciences or political discourse.
*It just so happens that in modern high schools it’s much easier to be a leftist if you don’t care about intellectually exploring the things you advocate. *
That really depends upon the high school, right Rex? In some high schools I trust that lazy conservatism (of the religious kind or even of the business-driven sort) is de rigour. Just a qualification.
I doubt anyone would have a problem with that statement. I have a low opinion of Rand’s works, but, as I said earlier, it has had quite a large influence. I just have a problem equating influence and popularity with contributions to the field of philosophy. The work of Konrad Lorenz, for example, made a philosophical contribution to my life, but I can’t use that angle to support the claim that Lorenz contributed significantly to the field of philosophy.
That you like Rand is entirely your business and not anyone else’s; and we have established that, owing to Rand’s popularity, she has had influence over quite a few Americans who have read her works. But that is not an argument in support of the claim that Rand contributed to the field of philosophy. She was an amateur philosopher with strong populist appeal; she did not, however, contribute anything original of substance to the field that I am aware of. As mentioned earlier, even if we take the view that she was “restating” existing work, she did so quite poorly (and I don’t think that would count as a contribution to the field anyway).
JThunder’s book link contains some interesting commentary by reviewers and readers.
Abe, I just don’t know what else to say. I can’t enumerate everything Rand has said to see whether any of it is new, because I also cannot enumerate everything all other philosophers have said and compare it. So I cannot conclusively demonstrate whether or not she offered anything new. You, similarly, cannot enumerate everything she ever said and show that it was derivative or wrong (in the scope of this message board, surely!), and so here we are.
I say if she influenced anyone philosophically, she made a contribution to philosophy. You disagree, but give no criteria that can be met for a counter.
If you don’t start contributing to the discussion I’m not even going to pay you the respect of reading your posts in this thread anymore. You offer repitition of phrases I cannot counter, yet without suport for them at all. You ignore explaining how, exactly, a philosopher contributes to philosophy in general. And then you repeat yourself again without support.
Stop doing that. Please. If what you say is so obvious you should have no problem leveling a devestating attack on Rand. I do not doubt that it can be done, but no one seems willing to do it. Why is this? If she is so worthless it should be trivial, and here we are on page three already and all we know is that she isn’t popular among academics.
flowbark, I’ll do some hunting. I have a few articles in mind. As far as Rawls goes, I noticed that book when searching on “Rawls+language+1971” but somehow I can’t see that the title has anything to do with reducing philosophy to semantics. Worth a purchase anyway, I think.
Also, re; Noziak, he is conservative as far as that goes, yes, but his important contributions to that side of philosophy were later “withdrawn” by him in that he no longer supports his thesis. At least, as far as Anarchy, State, and utopia goes. But this is typical, honestly, after hearing many of the attacks that were leveled on it. People are much more strict in their skepticism of others than they are in the presentation of their own arguments. I think this is almost universally true, and in philosophy it is especially salient when the majority opinion is one where all knowledge and truth and such are relative to begin with.
As the great Cecil once said, if you start with the premise that a miracle occurred you can prove anything.
Rawls was a moral philosopher. I’m not aware of any work that he did on language.
Let me restate. Certain hardcore analytic philosophers once implied that good philosophy was a matter of understanding language.
Then Rawls came along. Others pointed out that 1) Rawls was a good philosopher and 2) he wasn’t writing about language. Ergo 3) good philosophy doesn’t have to be a matter of language.
I wasn’t aware that Nozick retracted his claims in Anarchy State and Utopia. (So I don’t know which claims he retracted and which claims he maintained). I suppose that one could argue that Nozick was accepted because he retracted some of his claims, though that is not my opinion. (Indeed, I’m not certain that his retractions are highlighted when A-S&U are presented in most college curricula.) Hm. It seems that Searle (Serle?), Disraeli (not a philosopher), and Alasdair MacIntyre will have to be my fallback examples.
Separately, to say that a philosophic theory is false is not necessarily all that awful. Far worse is to assert that it is meaningless or nonsensical.
Re: Eris’ comment directed at Abe. Again, I will assert (IMHO) that substantive issues are best left for another thread. (Though frankly, methinks that they may extend beyond the scope of a generalist bulletin board, if one is not skillful.)
Eris objects to Abe: *You ignore explaining how, exactly, a philosopher contributes to philosophy in general. *
Hold on. Flowbark the amateur answered that (with examples) - you provide a framework that is newish yet withstands casual scrutiny by a philosopher. (I assume that you must also address the sort of opposing arguments that most philosophers would be familiar with.)
For myself, Philosophical Explanations by Nozick (there’s that name again!) defines good philosophy. It also represents rather heavy sledding for me, though more technical work is easy to find.
:smack: Curse this slow board. Eris’ smilies didn’t download, so I missed the jesting in his previous post. Apologies for my obtuseness concerning Rawls.
Erislover, can you actually support your claim as to why Rand ought to be considered a great contributor to field of philosophy? Claiming that being influential is tantamount to contributing simply does not cut it, as we have gone over a number of times and as ought to be more than evident. Frankly I don’t care much for your comments about ignoring my posts, but don’t use the excuse of getting in a huff with me just because you have not expressed a concrete argument in support of Rand’s contributions.
If you don’t know how to support your claim, then why make it in the first place?
You accuse me of repeating myself, but systematic denial was a tactic employed by you in the last pages, and you still haven’t supported your assertion. I note, again, that in establishing Rand’s contributions and quality thereof the burden of proof is on you, particularly in a thread like this one. You can’t expect to make a claim and then have me set up arguments for it. If you are so convinced Rand contributed significantly just list out those contributions you think are worthy. Can you not as a reader, supporter, and person who has been deeply influenced by Rand, sketch out the salient points in her works that you consider important contributions?
Perhaps I have not made myself clear at all. I will attempt repeating myself again.
First, I do not recognize the notion that there is anything “new” in philosophy. Philosophy elucidates, it does not add to, knowledge. In my opinion. No one wins this, Rand or not, in my book. *** Knowing you might disagree with this opinion, I asked for what yours would be so I may respond to you instead of talk to myself.
Secondly, this makes contributing to philosophy a matter of finding people that appreciate the philosophical things you’ve said. *** Which, apparently, has nothing to do with making a contribution to philosophy. I think that takes a rather dim view of philosophy, but again, I am asking for your opinion on these matters so I may respond to you in the manner you would like a response in, knowing that we disagree. I thought it was rather nice of me to be prepared to swallow your criteria without argument, I guess I was just being stupid.
Thirdly, being a philosopher entails discussing things like morality, epistemology, ontology, and perhaps even cosmogony. *** By this count, Rand was a philosopher. No one yet has denied this, so it is worth mentioning in this, a color-by-numbers summary.
Fourthly, I explained what I feel was her opinion on the analytic/synthetic a priori/a posteriori distinction. I said I was not aware of anyone else who had rejected that for the reasons Rand did, then admitted that I was not that well read. I said this so that anyone who had different information could tell me otherwise, though no one has.
Fifthly, it is not my claim that Rand ought to be considered a great contributor, rather that the claim “Rand contributed nothing to philosophy” was false pretty much any way you looked at it. Admittedly, I wasn’t sure how you specifically looked at it, and so I asked multiple times so that I may address your concerns. As I had noted, by my criteria of “contributing to philosophy” she contributed to philosophy. You don’t agree, and so I wondered what your criteria were.
Sixthly, I am not aware that “being popular” was not considered a contribution, nor that we had “gone over it” a number of times already. All I noticed was repition of insults hurled at Rand and objectivism. Please show me where it was refuted that being popular is not a contribution, since no one here has defined what they even mean by “contribution”. flowbark has presented one, though you have not made it clear that you would agree with his criteria.
Seventh, I think I have pressented several lines of Rand’s thought which have gone completely ignored. If you wonder why I might be huffy, it is because I think this could be an interesting and enlightening discussion and instead it has simply circled around several posters saying vague, general things about Rand. Lib and I have gave several different leads for considering that Rand made a contribution to philosophy but have not really been responded to. If this is your idea of an argument concerning philosophy, then I will not pester you again for further discussion, and I apologize for any ill-will.
flowbark
I am confused now. I swore you said Rawls etc.
I presented a lead-in to Rand’s idea about knowledge consisting only of concepts, and that there was no special a priori or analytic distinction there. I provided a lead-in to explaining the near-mantra “existence exists” that she often said, and even tried to elucidate her explanation (which I feel many people misunderstand) by stressing different words. I even requested, from anyone, a favorite “Rand-critique” that I may respond to in order to demonstrate that Rand’s philosophy can stand. I believe it has some problems, and I have said as much. But to say she made no contribution is silly just because Searle doesn’t discuss her, and Lib has mentioned quite a few people who have thought her worthy of mention.
So I think Rand matches your criteria, it is just that (1) I don’t have time to summarize Piekoff’s 400+ page work on objectivism on the SDMB and (2) I’m not sure how to demonstrate it anyway for even popular philosophers. Casual scrutiny destroys the best summary.
I have mentioned the unpopularity of Hume when he published his now revered Treatise, not to compare Rand to Hume, but to give the impression that I don’t take much stock in what academic philosophers say unless I agree with them. I can make up my own mind.
Perhaps I have not made myself clear at all. I will attempt repeating myself again.
First, I do not recognize the notion that there is anything “new” in philosophy. Philosophy elucidates, it does not add to, knowledge. In my opinion. No one wins this, Rand or not, in my book. *** Knowing you might disagree with this opinion, I asked for what yours would be so I may respond to you instead of talk to myself.
Secondly, this makes contributing to philosophy a matter of finding people that appreciate the philosophical things you’ve said. *** Which, apparently, has nothing to do with making a contribution to philosophy. I think that takes a rather dim view of philosophy, but again, I am asking for your opinion on these matters so I may respond to you in the manner you would like a response in, knowing that we disagree. I thought it was rather nice of me to be prepared to swallow your criteria without argument, I guess I was just being stupid.
Thirdly, being a philosopher entails discussing things like morality, epistemology, ontology, and perhaps even cosmogony. *** By this count, Rand was a philosopher. No one yet has denied this, so it is worth mentioning in this, a color-by-numbers summary.
Fourthly, I explained what I feel was her opinion on the analytic/synthetic a priori/a posteriori distinction. I said I was not aware of anyone else who had rejected that for the reasons Rand did, then admitted that I was not that well read. I said this so that anyone who had different information could tell me otherwise, though no one has.
Fifthly, it is not my claim that Rand ought to be considered a great contributor, rather that the claim “Rand contributed nothing to philosophy” was false pretty much any way you looked at it. Admittedly, I wasn’t sure how you specifically looked at it, and so I asked multiple times so that I may address your concerns. As I had noted, by my criteria of “contributing to philosophy” she contributed to philosophy. You don’t agree, and so I wondered what your criteria were.
Sixthly, I am not aware that “being popular” was not considered a contribution, nor that we had “gone over it” a number of times already. All I noticed was repition of insults hurled at Rand and objectivism. Please show me where it was refuted that being popular is not a contribution, since no one here has defined what they even mean by “contribution”. flowbark has presented one, though you have not made it clear that you would agree with his criteria.
Seventh, I think I have pressented several lines of Rand’s thought which have gone completely ignored. If you wonder why I might be huffy, it is because I think this could be an interesting and enlightening discussion and instead it has simply circled around several posters saying vague, general things about Rand. Lib and I have gave several different leads for considering that Rand made a contribution to philosophy but have not really been responded to. If this is your idea of an argument concerning philosophy, then I will not pester you again for further discussion, and I apologize for any ill-will.
flowbark
I am confused now. I swore you said Rawls etc.
I presented a lead-in to Rand’s idea about knowledge consisting only of concepts, and that there was no special a priori or analytic distinction there. I provided a lead-in to explaining the near-mantra “existence exists” that she often said, and even tried to elucidate her explanation (which I feel many people misunderstand) by stressing different words. I even requested, from anyone, a favorite “Rand-critique” that I may respond to in order to demonstrate that Rand’s philosophy can stand. I believe it has some problems, and I have said as much. But to say she made no contribution is silly just because Searle doesn’t discuss her, and Lib has mentioned quite a few people who have thought her worthy of mention.
So I think Rand matches your criteria, it is just that (1) I don’t have time to summarize Piekoff’s 400+ page work on objectivism on the SDMB and (2) I’m not sure how to demonstrate it anyway for even popular philosophers. Casual scrutiny destroys the best summary.
I have mentioned the unpopularity of Hume when he published his now revered Treatise, not to compare Rand to Hume, but to give the impression that I don’t take much stock in what academic philosophers say unless I agree with them. I can make up my own mind.
I think Rand wanted to get the philosophers out of philosophy. she viewed philosophy as another natural science, not as angels-on-pins. She was not an important philosopher, but I do not feel she should be dismissed.
Nor do I have any training in philosophy, beyond the introductory level.
It shouldn’t be too difficult to guess at Rand’s influence among contemporary philosophers. That influence appears to be low.
There are many possible reasons for #3. The explanation that the philosophical community is simply prejudiced against conservatives can be falsified with the examples of Searle, etc.
5a) It is plausible that Rand generated a number of defendable ideas, but did not do a particularly good job constructing a sufficiently tight argument for an audience that is (overly?) familiar with previous attempts at the problems.
5b) It is also plausible that Rand may have provided a misleading presentation of past philosophers. (For example, holding up Aristotle as a precursor to egoism would be an odd claim --not that I’m saying that Rand did this.)
Regardless, the validity of some of the general positions taken by Rand (egoism, etc.) is a separate issue from how skillful a philosopher she was, as measured by modern analytic conventions.
7a) IMHO (others disagree) this thread is about Rand’s influence among that small collective known as academic philosophers. This question has been answered (IMHO).
7b) Future threads might address, for example, the a priori/analytic distinction. (But, again IMHO, such substantive issues extend beyond the scope of this generalist message board.)
7c) Point 6) deserves emphasis.
[End Diplomatic Section]
[Rand] viewed philosophy as another natural science…
A certain segment of the intellectual community views Rand-fans with a certain level of amusement. Such a segment might consider the preceding POV to be somewhat wacky. That segment might also judge the following to be the words of a blowhard:
And those who disagree with her are ipso facto unreasonable (or inconsistent appliers of the same)?
Flowbark, Rand certainly fell victim to her own sense of self-satisfaction. But just because Rand thought she couldn’t be wrong doesn’t mean that reason isn’t the end-all, be-all of existence, the proper way to live.
It would be nice if later objectivists had made the distinction between reason qua reason and reasonable, which is another matter entirely.
If your assessment of the OP’s intent is correct in (7a) then I think Lib has addressed it. Apart from that, there are many pHD philosophers associated with the Ayn Rand Institute. If she contributed nothing to philosophy I would think they wouldn’t be working there. Perhaps my opinion of philosophers is too high, though.
Let me rephrase your first three points using a different subject.
Point the first. I have never listened to the music of Black Sabbath.
Point the second. I know very little about music.
Point the third. Since Brittany Spears and N’Sync are the best selling bands in the world Black Sabbath’s influence in the world of music must be low. (BTW, feel free to substitute Black Sabbath with Bach. The point is the same)
As far as your other points go you are, in your own words, ignorant about Rand’s ideas.
You are making your case based, as you admitted, on your own ignorance.
While you state that
you admit that you have no standing in that community and therefore your statement is hearsay at the best.
At the same time I can find a ‘certain segment’ of the intellectual community that thinks Pol Pot was a nice guy.
Flow you need to make a valid arguement, not baseless statements when you admit you do not know anything about the subject.
Well it’s difficult to argue against that position, but I’ll note that several Objectivists claim that Rand’s work in epistemology is groundbreaking – a claim that is often, in my experience, poorly-supported. As an interesting note, the drive behind her epistemology and ethics discussions appears to be the removal of all theistic concepts entirely, going as far as saying that she wanted to be known as the “greatest enemy of religion”. This would be a controversial but justified position if only she hadn’t based her work on Western religious traditions of goodness and the spiritual. Her argument is that man, unlike the animals, is a form of matter wherein the spirit is triumphant over the matter–which is of course something that most forms of Western theistic belief have been teaching for ages. She feels she can do away with god, but then launches into discussions that make extensive use of theistic beliefs and rationales to prove a point (often fallaciously).
Whenever a writer’s motivation shows through in a piece of alleged philosophy, the reader should beware and take it as a possible indication that selective argument is taking place. Rand’s motivation is atheistic, and her reasoning flows from that preconception. According to The Passion of Ayn Rand, by Barbara Branden, Rand became an atheist at age 13–that’s a little bit young to have evaluated thousands of years worth of arguments for and against theism. Still according to that book, Rand’s reasons for her position are:
“I had decided that the concept of God is degrading to men. Since they say that God is perfect, and man can never be that perfect, then man is low and imperfect and there is something above him – which is wrong” (she said this later)
“no proof of the existence of God exists”
It should be fairly simple to observe that #1 is a bunch of steaming cagal that relies on reason last of all. This is selective “thinking” motivated by a desire to exalt humanity in general as a vehicle and herself in specific as the object. Furthermore, she does not take into account that even if humans are inferior to god, that does not render them “low”, merely “lower than God”. Further, I don’t see why, unless she starts out with some a priori human supremacy notion, this is in any way “wrong”. Regardless, Rand, who spent a lifetime trying to promote herself as a paragon of reason, became an atheist on (she believed) moral grounds, that on closer inspection are diametricaly opposed to objective reasoning.
#2 happens to be true, but it’s telling to note that it’s her secondary reason. And, given her weak grasp on philosophy, I wouldn’t rely on Rand’s assessment of the evidence and arguments for or against God, as I mentioned earlier. I don’t believe in God, but I also don’t believe in rationalizing bias ad hoc with idiotic reasoning!
What is Rand’s basic epistemology then? We start out by the argument that all knowledge depends on and is input by sensory perception; the faculty of reason then integrates what the senses provide. This is a sensible approach and one of the items that Rand’s admiring readers sometimes cite as an expression of genius and clarity–but it’s just standard-issue empiricism. The problem I have with the average Rand fan is that they read a couple of her books and are misled into thinking that she originated a slew of original concepts and clarified a lot of murky waters, which is not the case.
The buddy-club system. That’s like saying that contributing to literature or history consists of finding people to appreciate your work: to an extent it’s true, since all the arts are subjective to some degree, and commercial success certainly depends on it; but in practice you have to submit a product that meets a certain standard of quality before you can be taken seriously. Even in the arts there are standards, and being a popular bestseller does not mean one is a gifted writer or important contributor.
Please leave out the victim routine. You haven’t provided a refutation to, for example, the fact that much of Rand’s work is simply unoriginal rehashing of other philosophers (some of whom she even claims to dislike) and even religious traditions. I know these are broad statements, but Rand’s problems are, well, broad.
This is a rather simplistic approach to philosophy, and by that definition not only is Rand among the great philosophers, but so are thousands of people on this board merely by dint of their SDMB discussion topics. It’s not what you discuss, but how you discuss it; the tools you employ, the soundness of your reason, the knowledge and awareness of previous philosophers’ work as well as integrations, refutations, critiques and so on of such work.
Therer isn’t even reason to believe that Rand read most philosophers, never mind understood them. Look at the way she mangles the problem of Universals!
Isn’t it Peikoff who did most of the work on the analytic/synthetic a priori/a posteriori questions? He attempted to straighten out the mess Rand made. But anyway:
You prefaced your argument thus: “I’ve never understood the analytic/synthetic distinction, and so I liked what she had to say on the matter.” Seems like hardly a good criterion by which to judge elements of a particular philosophy. You followed a bit later with this statement: “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.” Well, if by “philosophy on the brain” and “preconceptions” you mean a basic functional knowledge of the field of philosophy, I have to agree with you, a lot of Rand’s stuff will sound novel and groundbreaking.
For example, Rand makes the claim that there is no a priori knowledge, which is really interesting considering that she incorporates a priori knowledge into her model of perception (let’s not mention that there isa priori knowledge, such as logic and mathematics).
On axioms Rand doesn’t seem to do too well. She attempts to establish a pattern for concept-formation based on measurement differences (commensurable characteristics), and denies the existence of a priori knowledge. But she claims that axiomatic concepts (consciousness, identity, extistence, etc.) have no contraries and/or alternatives, and thus they may not be differentiated by commensurable characteristics. Since her theory of concept-formation requires isolating groups of characteristics, it is a mystery how axiomatic concepts of (e.g.) identity and existence, which may not be differentiated from anything else, can exist at all given Rand’s denials of real abstractions, a priori knowledge, etc.
In other words a lot of her talk on axioms is Rand pulling herself up by her bootstraps. Add to this her garbled meanderings on the nature of pre-conceptual knowledge and her inconsistencies, and you have a recipe for a large headache (“existence exists” does not equal “there is a physical world”; existence is existent, existence includes but does not specify the physical world, but if the physical world exists then the axiomatic concept of existence should mean the physical world; Rand makes exceptions for at least some axiomatic concepts, usually depending on how tenable her reasoning is).
Indeed, it’s ridiculous that Rand depends on a priori justification for concepts that supposedly set up her foundations of reasons.
Rand contributed nothing of substance I am aware of to the field of philosophy. That has been my position in this thread. Earlier in this message I noted why I don’t think your criteria of “contributing to philosophy” are valid.
Been going on about that for several days and posts now. Popularity does not equal anything except popularity itself. If you try to make the argument that being popular necessarily means one has made significant contributions to a field (or anything else), please demonstrate how. Bestseller lists are ample demonstration that the number of an item sold is in no way directly proportional to quality, veracity, and reason of the item. I have already agreed that Rand is influential (in the US), but that admission does not imply she must have made significant valid contributions to the field of philosophy.
Worth a purchase anyway, I think.