Martin Luther

Objectivists and others often criticize Martin Luther for his attacks on reason. (There is a quote from Luther heading Douglas Rasmussen's articles in the lastest issue of JARS.) Luther is known, for example, for referring to "that whore reason." One thing to consider about Luther is that he had a peasant's sense of humor and exaggeration, which explains some of his outrageous statements.

Some of Luther's diatribes at reason were directed at what he felt was an over-confident Scholastic belief in reason. This is discussed in R.C. Sproul's book Classical Apologetics.

Here is an article that discusses Luther's view of science.

Ayn Rand and Judaism

Don't know what to make of this critique.

Are Supporters of the ARI Open Minded?

Supporters of the Ayn Rand Institute ("ARIans") often claim that allegations of closed-mindedness are inaccurate. Here are the reasons that are given --

1. ARIans associate with the Ayn Rand Society.

2. ARIans publish in Reason Papers, which is broadly libertarian.

3. ARIans have publicly debated socialists and communists.

4. Peikoff criticized Gotthelf's book On Ayn Rand.

Some comments:

1. ARIans are correct about the ARS. I should note that this seems to be the only exception to the unwritten rule about associating with non-ARI Objectivists and people influenced by Rand.

2. True, although other than Tara Smith I'm not sure which ARIan has contributed to Reason Papers.

3. True, but that isn't the point.

4. True, but I'm not sure what this is supposed to mean. Has anyone said that Peikoff approves of everything that an ARIan has written?

Why Is Ayn Rand Ignored By Professional Philosophers?

Here is a discussion of this question by professional philosophers Edward Feser and William Vallicella. It looks like the link to the article by Keith Burgess-Jackson that started the debate is dead.

I would add another reason -- professionals dislike nonspecialists, particularly those of the "interdisciplinary" type. In this respect Rand reminds me of her fellow Russian Jew Immanuel Velikovsky. Velikovsky was a psychiatrist who had the audacity to write about mythology, ancient history, astronomy and other stuff.

Objectivism and Libertarianism

Official Objectivists often claim they aren't libertarians. The idea seems to be that libertarianism claims that one can have any (or no) foundation for a theory of rights. As someone said, this is like arguing that Objectivists aren't atheists because atheists disagree on the basis of their atheism.

Consider also the types of people who call themselves "individualists":

1. Objectivists

2. John Dewey (pragmatist and socialist)

3. Milton Friedman (positivist and free market advocate)

4. Ludwig von Mises (utilitarian and laissez-faire advocate)

5. Murray Rothbard (Aristotelian and anarcho-capitalist)

A fairly diverse lot, both in terms of ethical commitments and politics.

Ayn Rand, the Renaissance and the Enlightenment

Rand had a very negative view of the history of philosophy. She did praise the Renaissance, but other than making a few general claims about it, never discussed any Renaissance thinkers in detail (or even at all from what I can tell).

Starting with Leonard Peikoff, Objectivists have argued that the Enlightenment was actually the West's rebirth of reason. Some even argue that it was "essentially Aristotelian." If you consult The Ayn Rand Lexicon, all of the entries for "Enlightenment" are from Peikoff's Ominous Parallels.

Ayn Rand and Richard Weaver

In the course of a review of Scott Ryan's book on Rand, Greg Nyquist makes an interesting suggestion that Rand's view of "the problems of universals" may have originated with Richard Weaver. I quote in part:

Rand's decision to regard the problem of universals as central to philosophy and Western Civilizations remains, even at this late date, twenty years after her death, a bit of mystery. Given that she had no clear understanding of its historical background, it is odd that she should have considered it the main source of modernity's problems. Where did she ever come up with such a notion?
My guess is that she got it, second or third hand, from Richard Weaver, the great conservative philosopher and literary critic. In 1948, Weaver published what is still probably the most important contribution to conservative philosophy in America, a slender volume entitled Ideas Have Consequences. In the book, Weaver argues that the "dissolution of the West" is the consequence of "the fateful doctrine of nominalism." "Like MacBeth, Western man made an evil decision, which has become the efficient and final cause of other evil decisions," wrote Weaver. "It occurred in the late fourteenth century, and what the witches said to the protagonist of this drama was that man could realize himself more fully if he would only abandon his belief in the existence of transcendentals. The powers of darkness were working subtly, as always, and they couched this proposition in the seemingly innocent form of an attack upon universals. The defeat of logical realism in the great medieval debate was the crucial event in the history of Western culture; from this flowed those acts which issue now in modern decadence." [2-3]
Weaver regarded William of Occam as the prime culprit in the nefarious attack on universals. "It was William of Occam who propounded the fateful doctrine of nominalism, which denies that universals have a real existence. . . . The practical result of nominalist philosophy is to banish the reality which is perceived by the intellect and to posit as reality that which is perceived by the senses. With this change in the affirmation of what is real, the whole orientation of culture takes a turn, and we are on the road to modern empiricism." [3]
In the late forties and early fifties, Rand still traveled in conservative circles. She probably heard about Weaver's book from her conservative acquaintances; and although she would have violently disagreed with Weaver's platonist interpretation of the issue, the suggestion that the crisis of the West stemmed from the old scholastic controversy between those who regarded universals as "real" and those who did not appears to have borne fruit in Rand's own philosophy.

Ayn Rand and Averroës

An article suggesting a link (scroll down).

Brangelina

On an unrelated issue, I find it particularly annoying how the media uses "cutesy" expressions such as "Brangelina." It is almost as annoying as "diva" being used for female celebrities, when the term refers to female opera singers.

Books on Liberty

David Gordon has an excellent list of Books on Liberty. He puts Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead on the list because of the "sense of life" advocated in these books, but not Rand's non-fiction. I've always been a bigger fan of Rand's non-fiction than her fiction.

Greg Nyquist's Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature

Is reviewed here by Fred Seddon (review was originally published in JARS).

Spring 2006 Journal of Ayn Rand Studies

Has been published. The articles on Rand's ethics look particularly intersting. Robert Campell's discussion of altruism in Comte looks interesting as well.

Reason Papers

Reason Papers is now on-line. This journal contains many articles of interest to Objectivists. For example, there is a defense of Rand's ethics against J. Charles King's critique in The Philosophy of Ayn Rand.

Ayn Rand Answers: The Best of Her Q & A (Review by Roger Donway)

A good review by Mr. Roger Donway. He draws attention to Rand's claim about raising people's IQs. (It jumped out at me when I read the book as well.)

"I'd prefer that people raise their IQ from 110 to 150. It can be done."

Rand was rather anti-egalitarian, but on this issue she seems to have have a very optimistic view of human nature common to the Left.

As Mr. Donway also notes, Robert Mayhew incorrectly attributed the essay "Counterfeit Individualism" to Rand rather than Nathaniel Branden. It appears that Prof. Mayhew isn't always the most careful writer (see here and here).

The New Individualist, January - February 2006

Is on-line. Looks like there are some interesting articles.

John Robbins: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand Refuted

I'm not a big fan of John Robbins' books on Ayn Rand, but given that there isn't much free audio concerning Rand on the web, I will link to this lecture.

Search Tara Smith's New Book

At amazon.com.

Walter Block's Reply to Peter Schwartz's Critique of Libertarianism

Walter Block's reply to Peter Schwartz's critique of libertarianism in on the web. I can't understand why Schwarz's piece is held in such high esteem by Objectivists.

Ayn Rand, Ludwig von Mises & Kant

Ayn Rand is often villified for her belief that Kant was "the most evil man in history." Interestingly, Ludwig von Mises (a Kantian of sorts) said the following about Kant's ethics --

"Engels called the German Labour Movement the heir to the German classical philosophy. It would be more correct to say that German (not only Marxian) Socialism represents the decadence of the school of idealist philosophy. Socialism owes the dominion it won over the German mind to the idea of society as conceived by the great German thinkers. Out of Kant's mysticism of duty and Hegel's deification of the State it is easy to trace the development of socialist thought; Fichte is already a socialist."

"In recent decades the revival of Kantian criticism, that much praised achievement of German philosophy, has benefited Socialism also. The Neo-Kantians, especially Friedrich Albert Lange and Hermann Cohen, have declared themselves socialists. Simultaneously Marxians have tried to reconcile Marxism with the New Criticism. Ever since the philosophical foundations of Marxism have shown signs of cracking, attempts to find in critical philosophy support for socialist ideas have multiplied."

"The weakest part of Kant's system is his ethics. Although they are vitalized by his mighty intellect, the grandeur of individual concepts does not blind us to the fact that his starting-point is unfortunately chosen and his fundamental conception a mistaken one. His desperate attempt to uproot Eudaemonism has failed. In ethics, Bentham, Mill, and Feuerbach triumph over Kant. The social philosophy of his contemporaries, Ferguson and Adam Smith, left him untouched. Economics remained foreign to him. All his perception of social problems suffers from these deficiencies."

Ayn Rand and the Curse of Kant

A good discussion of the Objectivist view of history by David Ramsay Steele. I think an Objectivist might plausibly argue that it may take a long time for certain ideas to work themselves out in history, so the turn to free market economics doesn't necessarily contradict the claim that philosophical ideas in the long run are determinent.