ChrisTS:
I’m trying to decide how much of it/which parts of it to assign for a seminar on utopianism.I’m thinking of just saying “read the speech,’ because I cannot bear rereading it all to pick selections. (And, no, I would never require them to read the whole thing.)

You may find that the Tramp’s Speech (on the collapse of the utopian experiment at Twentieth Century Motors) is both shorter and more accessible.

ChrisTS: John Donohue & David Kilmer:I do not think being a ‘philosopher’ necessarily requires being credentialed as such. I do think one must be well-versed in the tradition (at least western or eastern), skilled in logical and critical thinking, and open-minded in the ordinary sense of not being fanatically attached to any ideas — least of all one’s own. And, while one can be philosophical in any conversation, with any group of people, those of us who have spent years devoting ourselves to the study of the discipline not surprisingly object to having the term ‘philosopher’ applied to anyone someone else regards as ‘deep.’ 

So then you do have a motive for excluding people from using the title “philosopher” whom you deem unworhthy, because they have not spent years devoting themselves to the study of the discipline.

What does “fanatically attached to any ideas” mean? I am fanatically attached to the idea that murder is wrong and that people have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Strength of conviction for ideas is not an indictment against a charge of being un-philosophical.

BTW, its Don not David. And thank you for your comments.

Anatid: What amazed me most was Rand’s approach to relationships, specifically polyamory.She genuinely seemed to believe that reason and logic could overcome mankind’s innate tendency towards jealousy.Look how well that turned out for her.

Re Jealousy and other irrational impulses: http://ryeberg.com/curated-videos/love-ayn-rand/

1. Rand had no problem with Dexedrine. She took a tiny amount daily (they even continued to give it to her when she was in the hospital).

2. Both the Heller and the Burns view of her character and personality is wrong: she was a fully rational person, as well as a gracious and charming one. The breaks she made with people were well deserved by them (I knew all the details in most of the cases.) I only wish she had broken with Greenspan.

3. She was very well versed in the history of philosophy, although more through secondary sources for the philosophers she disagreed with. Her knowledge of the history of philosophy is amply displayed in the title essay of her book For the New Intellectual. I’m a professional philosopher (not currently in academia, but I have taught graduate philosophy at U Texas/Austin), and I’m awestruck by the incisiveness of her presentation of the history of philosophy (presented in a highly condensed, masterfully essentialized form) in that essay. Oh, here’s another data point. A couple of years ago, the Ayn Rand Society of the American Philosophical Association had a meeting on her view of Aquinas, and one of the world’s leading authorities on Aquinas (not at all an Objectivist) stated that he was surprised to learn that she got Aquinas’ theory of universals right, as opposed to the claim of a lesser paper-presenter at the session arguing that she got it wrong.

You probably won’t be (and shouldn’t be) convinced by my mere assertions, but I wanted to go on record as giving a diametrically opposite view. You can pretty much judge for yourself by reading what she wrote, and as to her personality, read Letters of Ayn Rand–a fascinating look at her whole life through her letters. Also, highly recommended is the very short book by another of her close friends (Mary Ann Sures, who typed the manuscript of Atlas Shrugged in Rand’s apartment): Facets of Ayn Rand.

I did not mean “neo-Platonic” as an insult as in “sort of” or “minor version of”. I meant it as “new manifestation of,” more of an honor, really, from that side of the world. Hopefully you don’t think Kant was not a Platonist.

By that phrasing, Ayn Rand is a neo-Aristotelian.

Without addressing the other points you made, I will just focus on the idea that there are other Aristotelean endorsers and Rand is not alone. This would include yourself. How did they — and you — come to reject Plato?

Or do you think one can be an Aristotelian and still credit Plato’s world view as true?

I do not think being a ‘philosopher’ necessarily requires being credentialed as such. I do think one must be well-versed in the tradition (at least western or eastern), skilled in logical and critical thinking, and open-minded in the ordinary sense of not being fanatically attached to any ideas – least of all one’s own.

And, while one can be philosophical in any conversation, with any group of people, those of us who have spent years devoting ourselves to the study of the discipline not surprisingly object to having the term ‘philosopher’ applied to anyone someone else regards as ‘deep.’

As to philosophers and Platonists. Whitehead’s comment about western philosophy as a series of footnotes to Plato was neither a joke nor an endorsement. Rand was certainly not the only Aristotelian devotee. I have no idea how much she actually read; I might look at one of the biographies.

But to suggest that she was uniquely Aristotelian in a universe of Platonists is either to display a lack of familiarity with the history of thought or to be a blinkered disciple (or, both).

If the universe were to be divided into Platonists and Aristotelians, as one of my most limited grad professors claimed, Kant would certainly fall into the former camp. But, to characterize even the first Critique as nothing other than a ‘neo-platonist’ work shows, again, a deficient knowledge of the history of philosophy. That she and her young man ‘chewed’ through only the 1st Critique, if that is the case, would be further damning.

And, to suggest that a work must be ‘Objectivist’ for Rand to have read means that it would have to be of her own works or that of one of her disciples.

By the way, if the universe is divided into Platonists and Aristotelians, I am firmly and proudly in the latter camp.

neurodoc: The “famous Boston asylum for the rich” wouldn’t have been MacLean, would it?

YES! I knew it was something of a ‘Mc/Mac’ sort. What a memory I have. :-}

ChrisTS: Hmm. C.T.‘s comment has helped me to recall more of the interview.Heller said that Rand’s characters were signatories for ideas, rather than people. Heller thinks that explains some of the problems in Rand’s writing. I think that makes some sense. On the other hand, I don’t see how this explains the astonishingly turgid character of her prose. Ideas can be excitingly portrayed, after all.

Yup, “turgid,” that was the word I used to characterize her writing in a previous comment.

ChrisTS: Mark N, Byomtov, Zarkov:My father ended up in ..ach, a famous Boston asylum for the rich .. at the end of law school because he got fried on dexedrine. I did know it was not considered ‘bad’ in those days. I had just never heard that Rand was a user.

The “famous Boston asylum for the rich” wouldn’t have been MacLean, would it?

A. Zarkov: The mathematician Paul Erdős also used amphetamines. He was able to work productively into his 80s proving theorems. Yep he was a nut, but number theory does that to some people. By the standards of the field, he was close to normal.

A homeless “nut”/genius who lived out of a suitcase, staying with fellow mathematicians while they collaborated with him on papers. I wonder what the wives of those colleagues thought of him, but then they had chosen to marry mathematicians, so they must have been on notice. (The wives didn’t even get their own Erdos numbers for their troubles.)

Mark N.: It apparently used to be common and legal to use it as a casual stimulant, like coffee. Benzedrine in particular was only made prescription-required in 1959, and has a long list of famous users, especially among intellectual and political figures. Not that this negates it having a negative effect on her personality, but it’s a less surprising revelation than it might be if a famous intellectual today were a regular user of amphetamines.

Like JFK?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Jacobson

The philosophical orthodox establishment is thoroughly Platonic. They even joke about it: “All of Western Philosophy can be seen as a footnote to Plato.”

This includes all religion. All religion is Platonic.

Rand was not a Platonist. She is arguably the first completely consecrated Aristotelian since, perhaps, Aristotle. I mean absolutely Aristotelian. Not Thomastic, not Lockean, but completely of the metaphysics of “Primacy of Existence” with reason as an absolute. She understood Platonism very well, seeing it without the affliction of being inside it. She did not participate in its presuppositions.

She did enough due diligence. She and Leonard Peikoff did a digestion of the most important neo-Platonic book ever written, namely Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. Piekoff would read sections, then look up various translations and concordances (you need help trying to even parse Kant). Then they would go over the material together and get to the essentials. They read every word. we call this “chewing” the material. The above was elucidated by Peikoff himself on his radio show in the 90s.

Remember, this would be two Aristotelians “going over” Kant, not two Kantians. There is a huge difference.

Rand read other intellectuals, economists, etc., who were on her side of the line. She longed for others to read and mentioned it many times.

So, if you wish Miss Rand to read your philosophical treatise, establish in the abstract section that you are are completely Aristotelian, or even better Objectivist, and you may get her attention.

ChrisTS: lgm:Thanks for putting philosophy in scare quotes. Rand was a very, very poor ‘philosopher,’ not least because she did not bother to study the history of [,even, western] Philosophy. And, not least because she had such a closed mind.

You criticize Rand for two sins: (1) Closed mind, and (2) not really being a philosopher because she didn’t read other philosophers.

The closed mind critique doesn’t make historical sense. She was advocating capitalism during a time when socialism was all the rage. She championed strong female characters who were journalists and engineers during a time when women were expected to be nurses and teachers, if they had careers outside of wife/mother. And her notions on the sexual liberation of women would similarly seem to undercut any allegation of a closed mind. If you want to say she held strong views about her conclusions and defended them vigorously, it would agree.

But closed minded, what is your evidence?

On the issue of her membership in some kind of club/society of philosophers, I think you are even more mistaken. Your citicism, if correct, is that she was a poor student of the history of philosophy.

But as far as I am aware, one need only have a love of wisdom and a dispassionate desire to discover and explore universal truths to gain the title “philosopher.” I am as happy to talk philosophy with truck drivers, waitresses and mechanics as I am to argue with professional, usually academic (and usually state employed) philosophers.

You may disagree, and if you do, then please name your criteria for being a philosopher.

Marx wasn’t right about much of anything

Said by someone who obviously never read Marx. Marx was an extremely perceptive social critic, whose anti-slavery writings (among others) were both helpful in molding British opinion and true. He was also right about a great many other things. Your comment is too flip.

there wouldn’t be “political power” in a “society based on Rand ideas.”

I’m curious as to why you think this.

From both Heller and Burns, I get the impression that Rand did not read widely in the works of other political thinkers, even libertarian ones

Not surprising, since Rand was not a libertarian and in fact detested libertarians.

David Nieporent says:

Marx wasn’t right about much of anything, …

Fair enough.

… and in particular, that makes no sense; there wouldn’t be “political power” in a “society based on Rand ideas.”

The Rand vision has a government that does little more than enforce contracts.

Nor is there any reason to believe there would be “concentrated economic power.”

Of course there would be. Some people would do better than others. Without government anti-trust regulations, Microsoft would have become even more dominant than it is now. Every sector of the economy would be controlled by monopolists.

The point realized by Marx is that the Rand utopia is unstable (That’s a technical term meaning that small perturbations that inevitably arise grow until the system changes completely. A pencil balanced on its point is in unstable equilibruim.) Economic power would lead to political power.

I’m not a Marxist. The Marxian utopia is unstable too. But he was right about pure capitalism.

lgm: By most “Judeo-Christian” standards, Rand was a bad person. Her personal life left much do be desired. Her “philosophy” was a sort of amorality. It valued personal gain above all else.

No.

A society based on Rand ideas would degenerate quickly into dictatorship of the rich. Concentrated economic power would lead to concentrated political power. Marx was right about this.

Marx wasn’t right about much of anything, and in particular, that makes no sense; there wouldn’t be “political power” in a “society based on Rand ideas.” Nor is there any reason to believe there would be “concentrated economic power.”

Not true, at least not if personal gain is defined as material wealth. In fact, she believed that the highest good was living in accordance with reason and self-interest defined in accordance with rationality. She also, of course, believed that people have an absolute duty to respect the rights of others to life, liberty and property and that such rights could not be violated even if doing so would yield personal gain for the rights violator. There are many flaws in Rand’s philosophy, but valuing personal gain above all else wasn’t one of them.

Her depression was caused by belief things had gotten so bad in the culture that she was too late.

Wow, she sounds like a tragic character in an aspirational, yet flawed, novel.

However, this was not because she needed validation of her philosophy, personal approval, wealth or fame. It was because she was aware this book could save Western Civilization, or at least America. Her depression was caused by belief things had gotten so bad in the culture that she was too late.

Miss Rand erred. It was not a failure. It just took time.

However, this was not because she needed personal approval, wealth or fame. It was because she was aware this book could save Western Civilization, or at least America. Her depression was caused by belief things had gotten so bad in the culture that she was too late.

Miss Rand erred. It was not a failure. It just took time.

Not to mention the XXX rated sex scenes. A writer should only do so much at one time.

C.T.: That reminds me: I’ve got a copy of Atlas Shrugged out in the truck. Think I’ll have some Jim Beam and thumb through it for old times’ sake. Granted it seems a little silly now, but there was a time. . .

I’m trying to decide how much of it/which parts of it to assign for a seminar on utopianism. I’m thinking of just saying “read the speech,’ because I cannot bear rereading it all to pick selections. (And, no, I would never require them to read the whole thing.)

Heller’s book does have a wealth of fascinating material for those readers whose primary interest is in Ayn Rand as such

Shouldn’t this be “readers whose primary interest is Ayn Rand qua Ayn Rand”?

Granted it seems a little silly now, but there was a time. . .

Heller said that Rand’s characters were signatories for ideas, rather than people. Heller thinks that explains some of the problems in Rand’s writing.

I think that makes some sense. On the other hand, I don’t see how this explains the astonishingly turgid character of her prose. Ideas can be excitingly portrayed, after all.