Objectivist philosophy

Objectivism is the philosophy developed by Russian-born American philosopher and author Ayn Rand. In short, Objectivism holds that there is an independent reality, of which human beings are conscious of through their senses, in which reason is the only way of gathering knowledge and only the individual rational mind can process these data, in which the proper moral purpose of one's life is to pursue one's own rational self-interest, and in which the only moral social system is full laissez-faire capitalism with a government strictly limited to courts, police, and a military, because it is the only system where humans are barred from initiating the use of physical force upon each other (either within or outside the structure of said government).

Response to Objectivist philosophy

Although many academics ignore Objectivism, some have published in academic journals on various aspects of Objectivism. Rand published most of her non-fiction essays in her own newsletter and earlier in the journal she edited, in which only those who largely agreed with Objectivism were published. She did not publish in conventional academic journals. Much of the non-fiction Objectivist corpus is available only in the form of audio recordings.

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Academic institutional support for Objectivism has increased in recent years. Cambridge University Press is publishing Dr. Tara Smith's The Virtuous Egoist: Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics. There are or have been Objectivist programs and fellowships at the University of Pittsburgh (Dept. of History and Philosophy of Science), University of Texas/Austin, University of North Carolina/Chapel Hill, and several other universities. And there are some 50 members of The Ayn Rand Society, an affiliated group with the American Philosophical Society, Eastern Division. Leonard Peikoff published a comprehensive presentation of Objectivism entitled '. Other works have been directed at academic audiences, such as Viable Values by Tara Smith, The Evidence of the Senses by David Kelley, and The Biological Basis of Teleological Concepts by Harry Binswanger. An academic journal, the Journal of Ayn Rand Studies has been publishing interdisciplinary scholarly essays on Rand and Objectivism since 1999. Whether this new scholarship and institutional support will result in a dialogue between mainstream academic philosophy and Objectivism remains to be seen.

Related Topics:
University of Pittsburgh - University of Texas - University of North Carolina

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For detailed summaries of specific responses to Objectivism, see bibliography of work on Objectivism.

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To critics, in simplest terms, the name and the philosophy mean, "Be objective - look at it my way." To access the facts of this objective reality, of course, one has to read the works of Ayn Rand.

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"Randroid"

Randroid is a portmanteau of Rand's name with the word android, referring to those who profess Rand's philosophy in a robot-like manner, reciting what they read without questioning it. Among some critics of Rand's ideas, therefore, Randroid is used as a pejorative term for the followers of Rand's philosophy. It is sometimes used by followers of Objectivism to describe others within the group who are new or express what they consider to be a shallow understanding of the concepts. Recently, usually in a way that mocks how silly the term is to them, some Objectivists who make a hobby of studying the philosophy as well as Rand's works have called themselves this. It should also be noted, however, that Objectivism has been frequently referred to as a cult by its critics http://www.2think.org/02_2_she.shtmlhttp://www.robertfulford.com/Randians.html.

Related Topics:
Portmanteau - Android - Robot - Cult

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Criticism of Rand's reading of the history of philosophy

Rand regarded her philosophical efforts as the beginning of the correction of a deeply troubled world, and she believed that the world has gotten into its present troubled state largely through the uncritical acceptance, by both intellectuals and others, of traditional philosophy.

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Especially in the title essay of her early work, For the New Intellectual, Rand levels serious criticisms of canonical historical philosophers, especially Plato, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, G. W. F. Hegel, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Herbert Spencer. In her later book, Philosophy: Who Needs It, she repeats and enlarges upon her criticisms of Kant, and she also accuses famed Harvard political theorist John Rawls of gross philosophical errors. Some have accused Rand of misinterpreting the works of these philosophers (see, e.g., Ayn Rand, Objectivists, and the History of Philosophy by Fred Seddon).

Related Topics:
Plato - David Hume - Immanuel Kant - G. W. F. Hegel - Karl Marx - Friedrich Nietzsche - Herbert Spencer - John Rawls

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Rand's interpretation and criticism of the views of Immanuel Kant, in particular, have sparked considerable controversy. Though Rand denigrates Kant's system as the absolute opposite of Objectivism, some writers have even suggested that Rand drew on Kantian ideas without realizing it. "She despised Immanuel Kant but then actually invokes 'treating persons as ends rather than as means only' to explain the nature of morality,"http://www.friesian.com/rand.htm argues Dr. Kelley Ross.

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Many critics take issue with Rand's interpretation of Kant's metaphysics: like early critics of Kant, Rand interprets Kant as an empirical idealist. It is a long-standing question of Kant scholarship whether this interpretation is correct; in the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant claimed that his transcendental idealism was different from empirical idealism. Contemporary philosophers such as Jonathan Bennett, James van Cleve, and Rae Langton continue to debate this issue.

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Other critics focus on Rand's reading of Kant's ethical philosophy. Rand alleges that Kantian ethics is a version of selflessness, an ethics of self-sacrifice. Kant's defenders claim that Kantian ethics is primarily an ethics of reason, because the categorical imperative amounts to a demand that the intent behind one's actions be logically consistent, or in Kantian terminology, that "the maxim of one's act be universalizable." In Rand's favor, Kant clearly does maintain (in his Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals) that an action motivated by inclination or self-interest is entirely lacking in moral worth. Still, fewer commentators have agreed with Rand's characterization of Kantianism as self-sacrificial. The contemporary philosopher Thomas E. Hill has explicitly defended Kant against this charge in his article, "Happiness and Human Flourishing in Kant's Ethics," in the anthology Human Flourishing.

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Another attack on Rand comes from her outright rejection of David Hume's ideas at the foundations of her philosophy. Hume famously maintained, "No is implies an ought," but Rand disagreed by arguing that values are a species of fact (see is-ought problem). She wrote, "In answer to those philosophers who claim that no relation can be established between ultimate ends or values and the facts of reality, let me stress that the fact that living entities exist and function necessitates the existence of values and of an ultimate value which for any given living entity is its own life. Thus the validation of value judgments is to be achieved by reference to the facts of reality. The fact that a living entity is, determines what it ought to do." Some have suggested that Rand's solution begs the question by assuming that life is the highest value as a hidden premise of the argument. See also Objectivist Metaethics, Controversy over Ayn Rand.

Related Topics:
David Hume - Is-ought problem - Objectivist Metaethics - Controversy over Ayn Rand

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