A few years ago, Anoop Verma shared an article on Facebook from his Verma Report titled Is Ayn Rand’s Objectivism a Philosophy? The article is no longer available. But Verma’s preamble indicates hostility toward Objectivism:
My honest view of Ayn Rand's objectivism:
"There is more than one excuse for being an Ayn Rand, but there is no excuse whatsoever for being an objectivist."
I posted this comment:
Rand is to philosophy what Pavarotti is to opera. Pavarotti brought opera out of the highbrow world of the Italian elites to the enjoyment of the popular “masses”. Rand brought philosophy out of the Ivory Tower and made it a practical life guide for the average person.
I’ll leave it to “philosophers” to debate how many angels (or straw men) can dance on the head of a pin. Objectivism has given me valuable insights and principles, in clear and understandable terms, that has helped me navigate life and make sense of the world. As a practical philosophy, Objectivism is invaluable.
A comment thread ensued, which is available here. Following are two replies of mine responding to others’ comments.
I'm with you, Rich. Any belief system, whether or not it fits some technical definition of a philosophy, can be treated as a dogma. I have found that Objectivism, when applied diligently, works against dogmatism. But you always have to be on guard against the temptation of dogmatism, even with Objectivism.
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Philosophically, rationalism is a belief in innate knowledge divorced from observation or experience. Peikoff has a book, “Objective Communication,” that has a whole chapter on rationalism. The Objectivist position holds that “Knowledge is . . . the integration of logic and experience, not an either-or situation.”
Sean, I’m not sure what you mean by “the Peikoff brigade” a while back. He used the analogy of the spiral, with the top of the spiral being abstraction, and the bottom representing concrete reality. The point is to keep one’s abstractions grounded in reality, even as one draws out the abstract principles involved. I found it quite helpful.
Related Reading:
Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand by Leonard Peikoff
1 comment:
Philosophy is a recap, or summary, at any point in one's life, of his life up to that point, and of human life and of existence in general. There are as many philosophies as there are people. They all have differences and they all have similarities and are even, in some ways, identical.
The philosophy of very few, if of any, has been thoroughly consistent within itself, and they usually have inconsistencies which are anti human life, anti the maintenance and improvement of human life. To the extent that they are anti human life, they are pseudo-philosophies. But, to the extent that they are consistent with human life they are, indeed, philosophies.
Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism is the most philosophical of philosophies. I know of nothing in it which is inconsistent with human life, nothing pseudo- about it. I think it is truly a total philosophy, probably the only one ever.
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