Ayn Rand Bookstore Catalog

[Cross-Posted at Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature]

My copy of The Ayn Rand Bookstore 2008 Catalog arrived the other day. The ARB is owned by the ARI, so you can be sure that you are getting your Objectivism straight-up. The catalog is 74 pages and well produced. It contains lectures, books, coffee mugs, t-shirts and just about everything else needed to make you a passionate valuer of all things Randian.

What is most striking about the catalog is how prominently Leonard Peikoff is featured. On page 2, right after “Who was Ayn Rand?”, there is “Who is Leonard Peikoff?” He is, of course, “the preeminent authority on Objectivism.” In fact, Peikoff’s works come before Rand’s. ARB even sells a documentary on Peikoff. “The life of Leonard Peikoff is a heroic one. From his early years as a precocious student tortured by the dichotomy of the ‘moral’ vs. the ‘practical’ . . . to his . . . already-classic books . . . .”

The catalog also contains the odd disclaimer that “the inclusion of Leonard Peikoff’s materials . . . does not imply that he agrees with the content of other items herein.” No such disclaimer is given for associates of Ayn Rand such as Harry Binswanger or Allan Gotthelf. I guess Peikoff doesn’t call himself Rand’s “intellectual heir” for nothing.

You can purchase lectures by Peikoff on subjects big and small, from his “Induction in Philosophy in Physics” where he solves the problem of induction (thus completing “in every essential respect, the validation of reason”) to “Poems I Like—and Why.” This doesn’t come cheap: $205.00 for the former and $47.00 for the latter (plus $27.00 shipping). And why is it that none of the material in the catalog is available to download to your MP3 players? Wouldn’t downloads be cheaper for the ARB to produce (no need to make CDs) and save customers the rather hefty shipping costs?

The ARB offers several courses and lectures by David Harriman, ARI’s resident expert on physics and philosophical issues related thereto. Readers of ARCHNBlog won’t be surprised to learn that modern physics has been “corrupted” by Kant. Space is even a “chimera” (why not an anti-concept?) and we should return to “the relational view held by Aristotle.”

There are many lectures that would be of interest to anyone critical or sympathetic to Objectivism. If you want to know the Objectivist take on numerous topics not addressed by Rand, there is a dearth of published sources. I’d be willing to pony up some of my hard earned cash to learn what Objectivists think of Karl Popper, or how the Objectivist theory of concepts differs from other theories, but these lectures are just a bit too expensive. And given the bluster that Official Objectivists often direct toward non-Objectivists, I expect to be disappointed.

There’s truly something for everyone in the catalog. Psychologists Edwin Locke and Ellen Kenner even offer a course on sex containing role-playing dialogues “suitable for . . . same-sex couples.” One wonders what Rand would have thought.