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dialectics requires the examination of the whole both systemically (or “synchronically”) and historically (or “diachronically”). From a synchronic perspective, it grasps the parts as systemically interrelated, as both constituting the whole, and constituted by it. For example, a dialectical thinker would not disconnect any single theoretical issue, such as the problem of free will, from its broader philosophic context. He or she would necessarily examine a host of connected issues, including the efficacy of consciousness, the nature of causality, and the reciprocal relationships between epistemology, ethics, and politics.

      Diachronically, dialectics grasps that any system emerges over time, that it has a past, a present, and a future. Frequently, the dialectical thinker examines the dynamic tensions within a system, the internal conflicts or “contradictions” that require resolution. He or she refuses to disconnect factors, events, problems, and issues from one another or from the system they jointly constitute. He or she views social problems not discretely but in terms of the root systemic conditions they both reflect and sustain.

      The dialectical thinker seeks not merely to understand the system, but to alter it fundamentally. Hence, a dialectical analysis is both critical and revolutionary in its implications. A dialectical thinker would not analyze a specific racial conflict, for example, without examining a host of historically constituted epistemic, ethical, psychological, cultural, political, and economic factors that both generate racism and perpetuate it. In such a view, it is the system that permits racism that must be transcended.

      The dialectical sensibility is readily apparent in every aspect of Rand’s project, in her literary credo, philosophic approach, and social analysis.

      From a literary standpoint, Rand recognized her own novels as organic wholes in which every event and character expresses the central theme. Moreover, her fiction was integral to the evolution of her grand philosophic synthesis.

      Philosophically, Rand recognized Objectivism as a coherent, integrated system of thought, such that each branch could not be taken in isolation from the others. Her theories provide a basis for both critical analysis and revolutionary social transformation.

      And from the perspective of social theory, Rand’s analysis of contemporary society was multidimensional and fully integrative. Rand focused on relationships of power, examining their historical genesis and their long-term deleterious effects on the stability and cohesiveness of the social order. She refused to view societal problems as separate from one another, and proposed a resolution that was comprehensive and fundamentally radical in its implications.

      Thus Rand’s dialectical method was dynamic, relational, and contextual. It was dynamic because it viewed specific factors in terms of their movement over time. It was relational because it traced the interrelations between and among factors. It was contextual because it related these factors to their wider context. In a strictly formal sense, such a method has been employed to various degrees by thinkers as diverse as Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Solovyov, Lossky, and those in the hermeneutic and analytic traditions.⁴⁶

      I did not discover any historical evidence that would suggest that Rand was influenced methodologically or substantively by modem hermeneutic or analytic philosophers. Indeed, in her lifetime, Rand did not read much formal philosophy except while she attended the University of Leningrad. There she would have been exposed to many thinkers in the Russian dialectical tradition, the most prominent of whom was N. O. Lossky. It was Lossky who first engaged Rand in the serious study of philosophy. And it was under Lossky’s tutelage that Rand was most probably introduced to a formal, dialectical method of thinking, even if she did not characterize it as such.

      Significantly, it was Lossky who introduced Rand to the work of Aristotle. If Aristotle was the father of dialectical inquiry, as Marx, Lenin, and Engels maintained, then Rand was profoundly correct to view her own system as the heir to Aristotelianism. Ultimately, it might be said that her debt to Aristotle concerns both the form and the content of her thought.

      Nevertheless, if it is true that Rand and her Russian predecessors shared a dialectical revolt against formal dualism, it would be very difficult to dismiss such an affinity as pure coincidence. One could infer legitimately, and independently of Rand’s own explicit self-descriptions, that there are important connections between her thought and the ideas and methods of her Russian teachers. In the context of any other thinker in intellectual history, such a claim seems innocuous. That someone might be influenced by his or her teachers is a rather uncontroversial thesis. Yet when placed within the context of Rand scholarship, this thesis has been criticized by some who believe that the mere consideration of Rand’s possible predecessors constitutes an assault on her originality.⁴⁷

      I strongly disagree with such sentiment. By placing Rand’s thought in its proper historical and intellectual context, we can better appreciate its most distinctive characteristics. Although I cannot substantiate all of my historical claims beyond any reasonable doubt, I believe that herein I offer the best explanation yet published for the origins of Rand’s unique approach to philosophic and social analysis.

      I must reject also the criticism that I have reconstructed Rand’s Objectivism by utilizing categories and distinctions foreign to it. True, my terminology sometimes differs from Rand’s own, but this does not erase the fact that dialectics is her essential mode of inquiry. And even though she formulated most of her philosophical contributions relatively late in life,⁴⁸ her dialectical sensibility informed her earliest writings. On many methodological and substantive issues, Rand’s approach converges with the Russian synthesis and with other dialectical traditions as well.

      In addition, I must reject the criticism that I have linked Rand to her Russian ancestors on the basis of a characteristic that is “nonessential” to Objectivism. Although it is certainly true that the use of dialectical method is not distinctive to Rand’s approach, one could argue too, that the content of Rand’s Objectivism taken in its separable parts, is not distinctive either.⁴⁹ Other thinkers have defended comparable doctrines of epistemological realism, ethical egoism, individual rights, and libertarian political theory. What must be recognized here is that Rand’s use of dialectical method was as essential to her historic formulation of Objectivist principles, as was her original synthesis in the realm of content. In constructing a philosophy, every philosopher develops a certain content through the use of a specific method. In the seamless conjunction of a realist-individualist-libertarian content with a radical, dialectical method, Rand forged a new system of thought worthy of comprehensive, scholarly examination. In many significant ways, she was fully justified to characterize herself as a veritable “radical for capitalism.”⁵⁰

      This is not to deny the dialectical savvy of other non-Marxist social thinkers.⁵¹ But Rand’s perspective is unique—both in its historical roots and in its political implications. Rand proposed a fully integrated defense of capitalism and of the constituent epistemological, psychological, ethical, social, cultural, political, and historical conditions required for its emergence and survival.

      Nietzsche once observed that some writers are prone to muddy the waters to make them appear deep.⁵² One can easily read the work of Ayn Rand and emerge with a clear sense of her polemical abilities. As an artist and an essayist, Rand painted in broad strokes. In her exposition of Objectivism, she traced connections between seemingly unrelated events, institutions, and cultural forces as if these links were self-evident. Underlying her “popular” style and stark presentation was a mode of analysis based on the conviction that all social phenomena are interrelated.

      My discussion of Rand’s ideas and the ideas of those whom she has influenced is much less colorful. I do not intend to muddy the waters of Ayn Rand’s crystalline ocean by reconstructing her words in the style of academic jargon; rather, I hope to show just how deep that ocean actually is.

PART ONE

       THE PROCESS OF BECOMING

1

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