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36 - Ayn Rand and Objectivism

from Part VI - Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries: Intellectual and Artistic Currents

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 September 2021

Michael Ruse
By
James G. Lennox
Edited by
Stephen Bullivant
Michael Ruse
Affiliation:
Florida State University
Stephen Bullivant
Affiliation:
St Mary's University, Twickenham, London
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Summary

Unlike those rationalists in the history of philosophy – from Plato, through Augustine and Descartes, to modern idealists – who define reason in opposition to perception, Rand stands in the Aristotelian tradition, according to which reason is based on perception and forms concepts inductively, from the materials provided by the senses, allowing human beings “to identify and integrate an unlimited amount of knowledge, a knowledge extending beyond the immediate concretes of any given, immediate moment” (Rand 1970, 19).

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The Cambridge History of Atheism , pp. 647 - 665
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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References

Primary Sources

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Ayn Rand Interview by Barbara Branden. New York, NY. December, 1960–May, 1961.Google Scholar
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Rand, A. 1957. Atlas Shrugged. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Rand, A. 1961. For the New Intellectual. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Rand, A. 2005 [1967]. Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, centennial edition. New York: Signet.Google Scholar
Rand, A. 1970. The Romantic Manifesto: A Philosophy of Literature. New York: World Publishing.Google Scholar
Rand, A. 1982 [1984]. Philosophy: Who Needs It. New York: Bobbs-Merrill.Google Scholar
Rand, A. 1990a. The Voice of Reason: Essays in Objectivist Thought. New York: Penguin.Google Scholar
Rand, A. 1990b. Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, 2nd edition. New York: Penguin.Google Scholar
Rand, A. 1961. “For the new intellectual,” in For the New Intellectual. New York: Random House, 3–58.Google Scholar
Rand, A. 1990 [1962]. “Introducing objectivism,” in The Voice of Reason: Essays in Objectivist Thought. New York: Penguin, 3–5.Google Scholar
Rand, A. 2015 [1966]. “Conservatism: an obituary,” in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, centennial edition. New York: Signet, 340–65.Google Scholar
Rand, A. 2015 [1967]. “Requiem for man,” in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, centennial edition. New York: Signet, 340–65.Google Scholar
Rand, A. 1990 [1968]. “On living death,” in The Voice of Reason: Essays in Objectivist Thought. New York: Penguin, 46–53.Google Scholar
Rand, A. 1970. “Philosophy and sense of life,” in The Romantic Manifesto: A Philosophy of Literature. New York: World Publishing, 31–41.Google Scholar
Rand, A. 1970. “The psycho-epistemology of art,” in The Romantic Manifesto: A Philosophy of Literature. New York: World Publishing, 17–29.Google Scholar
Rand, A. 1997. “The moral basis of individualism,” in Harriman, D. (ed.), Journals of Ayn Rand. New York: Dutton, 243–310.Google Scholar
Toffler, A. and Rand, A. 1964. Playboy’s interview with Ayn Rand. (Reprint of Alvin Toffler’s interview originally in the March 1964 issue of Playboy.)Google Scholar

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