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the “ultimate stuff” of the universe is, it will have identity—it will be something definite. To this extent, ontology is metascientific. Rand seeks the reconciliation of philosophy and science. Philosophy cannot depend on a changing physics for its ontological foundations. Rand argues, however, that genuine science must depend on philosophy to validate its modes of inquiry.

      But the relationship between philosophy and science is not one of logical dependence. It is not a strictly causal relationship. It is an internal relationship in which there is some reciprocity between elements, even though the relation is fundamentally skewed toward the primary element.¹⁶ This asymmetric internality preserves both hierarchy and interdependence, and prevents vicious circularity. As Harry Binswanger (1990) explains:

      Some empirical content is and must be contained in philosophical theories. On the other hand, philosophical theories should not be subject to the rise and fall of purely scientific hypotheses, since those hypotheses may come to be rejected in the light of new evidence. Moreover, since science builds upon basic philosophical principles (e.g., the basic axioms, the law of causality, the principles of logic), there is the danger of employing circular reasoning in using science to support philosophical conclusions. (174)

      Since knowledge is rooted in the evidence of the senses, all of the principles of philosophy and science must ultimately depend on observation and inference. Even though Rand’s metaphysical axioms can be grasped implicitly by the mind of the infant and the adult alike, they are conceptually identified as primary facts of reality, embracing the entire field of human awareness. As such, the axiomatic concepts serve as the foundation of ontology, epistemology, logic, objectivity, and science itself.

      Rand’s metaphysic then is both highly abstract and extremely narrow. It is summed up in the axiomatic propositions of identity and causality. For Rand, “Philosophy tells us only that things have natures, but what these natures are is the job of specific sciences. The rest of philosophy’s task is to tell us the rules by which to discover the specific natures.”¹⁷

      Thus it is not the task of philosophy to validate the theory of natural selection or to hypothesize about the evolutionary origins of consciousness (Peikoff 1980T, lecture 8). Philosophy is concerned with the broad nature of existence. It must leave to science the assessment of the ultimate nature of life, the ultimate relationship between matter and consciousness, mind and body. Even if Rand assumed an organic unity of elements within the totality of a single universe, she refused to reflect on the basis of the interrelationships of these elements. Such cosmological speculation depends on an imaginary omniscient standpoint. As Peikoff emphasizes, Rand’s Objectivism makes a distinction between metaphysics and fantasy.¹⁸ There can be no purely deductive attempt to reveal the ultimate substances of reality (Peikoff 1972T, lecture 10).

      Philosophy, then, begins with the knowledge of everything-in-general. It begins with that which exists. Physics, by contrast, requires greater particularity. Like all theories, the hypotheses of physics may change with the growing context of knowledge. Even the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle leaves Rand undaunted. For Rand, the inability to predict a subatomic event does not prove that causality does not apply to subatomic particles. Our current inability to measure the simultaneous position and momentum of subatomic particles does not show that in reality such events are causeless. Epistemological ignorance does not disprove ontology. In Rand’s view, scientific explanation (or the lack thereof) does not erase the reality it seeks to explain.¹⁹

      Thus Rand’s Objectivism accommodates all scientific theories.²⁰ Furthermore, although Rand criticized some of the epistemic foundations of contemporary “pseudo-science,”²¹ she did not feel threatened by the nearly anarchic variation within modern theoretical science. As Tibor Machan (1992) notes, Rand’s Objectivism is based on “an open-minded ontological pluralism, and an (almost) anything goes, (almost) Feyerabendian, laissez-faire attitude toward the methods of empirical investigation” (53).

      AXIOMATIC CONCEPTS

      For Rand, ontology must begin with much more basic, prescientific, fundamental propositions about existence, axioms that can be grasped even implicitly by primitive peoples (“Appendix,” 247–48). Rejecting cosmology, Rand argues that reality is what it is independent of what people think or feel and that consciousness is the faculty of perceiving and understanding reality. As her protagonist John Galt exclaims in Atlas Shrugged: “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” (1015).

      Existence and consciousness are axioms at the base of knowledge. Such axioms are contained in every fact, perception, observation, statement, proof, explanation, and utterance of any human being, whether it is formally acknowledged or not. An axiom is not a meaningless tautology; it identifies “a primary fact of reality, which cannot be analyzed, i.e., reduced to other facts or broken into component parts” (Introduction, 55). An axiom is so fundamental that even those who refuse to recognize its veracity must “accept it and use it in the process of any attempt to deny it” (Atlas Shrugged, 1040).

      By articulating the axioms of existence and consciousness, Rand did not embrace a dualistic perspective on reality.²² She merely identified the foundations that lie at the base of all philosophical inquiry. As Peikoff (1991b) explains, these axioms “cannot be sundered. There is no consciousness without existence and no knowledge of existence without consciousness” (149–50). And yet, as a philosophical realist, Rand emphasized the primary axiom of existence. She affirms the primacy of existence. In a sense, existence and consciousness are internally, but asymmetrically related.

      Existence exists; it does not depend upon consciousness and would continue to exist if every last form of conscious life were obliterated from the universe. The universe simply is; there is nothing outside, prior to, or at the culmination of existence. Existence cannot be derived from any prior certainty of consciousness, nor is it the product of divine will. There is no first cause or teleological design. There is only existence as such.

      By contrast, consciousness is radically dependent on existence for its contents. It is metaphysically passive and, as Kelley (1986) explains, “radically noncreative” (27). This metaphysical passivity does not imply epistemological passivity. People are capable of creativity; they are able to selectively reorganize the mind’s contents and to project imagination. The radical noncreativity of consciousness refers to the fact that the mind does not create or constitute the objects it perceives. They exist independent of consciousness. Consciousness as such is purely relational, and what it relates to is objective reality. In Rand’s view, “A consciousness conscious of nothing but itself is a contradiction in terms: before it could identify itself as consciousness, it had to be conscious of something” (Atlas Shrugged, 1015). Every phenomenon of consciousness derives from an awareness of existence. Rand writes:

      Some object, i.e., some content, is involved in every state of awareness. Extrospection is a process of cognition directed outward—a process of apprehending some existent(s) of the external world. Introspection is a process of cognition directed inward—a process of apprehending one’s own psychological actions in regard to some existent(s) of the external world, such actions as thinking, feeling, reminiscing, etc. It is only in relation to the external world that the various actions of a consciousness can be experienced, grasped, defined or communicated. Awareness is awareness of something. A content-less state of consciousness is a contradiction in terms.²³

      Rand’s emphasis on the primacy of existence is equally a recognition of the fundamentality of ontology in the hierarchy of philosophy. In this regard, Rand may have learned much from her Marxist professors at Petrograd University, who emphasized the primacy of existence over consciousness. The “objectivist” strain in Marxism was particularly apparent in the Leninist worldview, which dominated early Soviet intellectual life. Rand’s metaphysic echoes the Marxist preoccupation with “the world as it is,” what Scott Meikle (1985) has described as “the recognition of the primacy of ontology over epistemology” (174).

      Marx also rejected cosmology and

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