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Ayn Rand. Chris Matthew Sciabarra
Читать онлайн.Название Ayn Rand
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9780271063744
Автор произведения Chris Matthew Sciabarra
Жанр Философия
Издательство Ingram
THE PUBLIC PHILOSOPHER
After Atlas Shrugged, Rand turned toward a more systematized presentation of her philosophy in essays, books, and lectures. As early as 1958, a year after the publication of the novel, she was planning a book on her philosophy, which she had named Objectivism.54 Its subtitle was to be “A Philosophy for Living on Earth.” In her journal, Rand wrote: “The purpose of this book is to make its sub-title redundant.”55 Though Rand never authored such a systematic formal treatise, much the same could be said about the subtitles of her anthologies, particularly The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism, and Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. Rand sought to make these books’ subtitles redundant too. She labored for many years as the champion of both “rational selfishness” and “laissez-faire capitalism.” Her concept of egoism conjoined the adjective “rational” to the noun “selfishness” in such a way to collapse their distinctions. Human beings are most selfish when they are pursuing their own rationally defined values and interests. Human beings are most rational when their values and interests are self-motivated. Likewise, Rand sought to collapse the distinction between the adjective “laissez-faire” and the noun “capitalism.” Capitalism was an unknown ideal for Rand, because it had yet to be discovered in its purest and only legitimate form.
It could be said that for Rand, the notion of rational self-interest was internal to the concept of egoism; the notion of laissez-faire was internal to the concept of a genuinely capitalist social system. She and others explored many of these principles with increasing breadth and depth in such publications as The Objectivist Newsletter (1962–65), The Objectivist (1966–71), and The Ayn Rand Letter (1971–76). Important essays from these periodicals were anthologized in such nonfiction works as The Virtue of Selfishness (1964), Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (1967), The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution (1971), The Romantic Manifesto (1971), Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology (1979), and Rand’s posthumously published works, Philosophy: Who Needs It (1982) and The Voice of Reason (1989). However, Rand’s first nonfiction work to appear in book form was the lead essay of For the New Intellectual, which presented philosophical passages culled from the body of Rand’s fiction. Rand’s harsh and polemical tone, coupled with her caricaturing of many philosophers, led Sidney Hook to denounce the book for its sloganeering: “This is the way philosophy is written in the Soviet Union. In a free culture there must always be room for vigorous polemic and controversy but civility of mind is integral to the concept of a civilized society.”56
Despite pinpointing a very real lack of civility in Rand’s exposition, Hook did not realize that Rand’s impulse toward synthesis was indeed the way philosophy had been written in Russia for many generations. Rand provoked the wrath of academicians partially because, like her Russian philosophical ancestors, she was an outcast, a social critic writing with a passionately immoderate tone that was far more accessible to the general public and far less considerate of scholarly give-and-take.
As her sales increased, so did her impact. She electrified audiences on television and radio, and in newspapers and magazines. With the establishment of the Nathaniel Branden Institute (N.B.I.), Rand’s philosophy was mass marketed through the rental of taped courses. Rand made personal appearances at Columbia, Princeton, Harvard, Yale, New York University, and other college campuses across the country. On 2 October 1963, she received an honorary degree, Doctor of Humane Letters (L.H.D.), from Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon, in recognition of her growing influence (Gladstein 1984, ii).
But in 1968, the Objectivist movement was torn asunder in a schism between Rand and two of her closest friends and associates, Nathaniel and Barbara Branden. In later years, it became apparent that the schism was inextricably tied to a collapsing love affair between Rand and Nathaniel Branden.57 Even though Rand continued to publish and lecture in the ensuing years, her fractured movement disintegrated under the weight of charges and countercharges. Eventually, Rand’s disillusionment with the state of the world led to her virtual retirement from public life.
Ayn Rand died on 6 March 1982 and was buried in Valhalla, New York.
In the years since her death, Objectivist philosophy has emerged as a veritable tradition of thought.
Flowing almost directly from what remained of Rand’s inner circle are the “orthodox” Objectivists, led by Leonard Peikoff. The orthodox school consists of thinkers such as Harry Binswanger, Edwin Locke, Edith Packer, George Reisman, John Ridpath, and Peter Schwartz, among others.
Leonard Peikoff received his doctorate in philosophy at New York University in 1964 under the direction of Sidney Hook. Peikoff’s dissertation was titled “The Status of the Law of Contradiction in Classic Logical Ontologism.”58 His mentor criticized him as a “monist” and a “Hegelian,” but this did not deter Peikoff from his Objectivist predilections.59 Yet like a genuine Hegelian, Peikoff argues that no philosophic problems can be resolved in a vacuum, since all issues are interconnected.60 Admitting to a tendency toward rationalism, Peikoff never tires of quoting Hegel’s dictum that “The True is the Whole.”61 He repeats this credo in his books, articles, and courses, warning of the danger of “one-sided distortions” (1983T, lecture 7). His presentation has always been more deductive than inductive, more synthetic than analytic.62 But in many ways, the Peikoff-Rand link parallels the relationship between Engels and Marx. Like Engels, Peikoff has continued to publish and edit many of his mentor’s previously unavailable writings. He has also made an important contribution to the formalized presentation of Rand’s philosophy in his 1991 book, which derives from both the written and oral tradition of Objectivism.
In contrast to the Randian orthodoxy, there are those neo-Objectivist thinkers who are generally associated with the Atlas Society (formerly the Institute for Objectivist Studies), an organization headed by David Kelley. Kelley’s Evidence of the Senses is a realist defense of perception in the Objectivist tradition. Other thinkers who have spoken at Atlas forums or written for its periodicals, include Joan and Allan Blumenthal, Stephen Hicks, the late George Walsh, and the late Kay Nolte Smith.
There is also a group of “libertarian” neo-Objectivists, consisting of such theorists as Tibor Machan, Eric Mack, Douglas Den Uyl, and Douglas Rasmussen. This group of thinkers relates Rand’s work to the Aristotelian, classical liberal, and modern libertarian traditions.
Finally, one cannot discount the contributions of Nathaniel Branden and Barbara Branden. Despite leaving Rand’s inner circle in 1968, the Brandens have each moved in the direction of “revisionism.”63 Nathaniel Branden in particular has emerged from his years with Rand as an important theorist and practitioner of “biocentric” psychology. As the so-called father of the self-esteem movement, Branden has emphasized the role of self-esteem in nearly every aspect of human life. His books include The Psychology of Self-Esteem (1969), The Disowned Self (1971), The Psychology of Romantic Love (1980), Honoring the Self (1983), and The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem (1994). Even though he departs from some of Rand’s formulations, he continues to build on the Objectivist approach.64
N. O. Lossky (1951) once wrote: “Philosophy