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Ayn Rand was a thinker of the first rank and a genius that comes along once every 1000 years. Most people have a superficial view of her ideas and that she was
by dmfdmf 8y ago
Ayn Rand was a thinker of the first rank and a genius that comes along once every 1000 years. Most people have a superficial view of her ideas and that she was primarily an advocate of capitalism in politics and selfishness as a virtue in ethics. While true, these ideas both follow from her more fundamental work in epistemology and her epochal achievement was solving the problem of universals, i.e. how do concepts work, thus validating and defending reason against the mystics and skeptics.
Without going into all the details, the history of Western thought can be summarized as a battle between Plato/Kant and Aristotle/Rand or the Primacy of Consciousness versus the Primacy of Existence, respectively.
- ahmaman 8y agoHaven't really read any of her work. Do you have any recommendation regarding some of her books? Wonder what are some of today's thinkers important thoughts are just lost due to the noise!
- dmfdmf 8y agoI recommend starting with "Philosophy:Who Needs It" which is only indirectly about her philosophy but more about why everyone needs and has some kind of philosophy (i.e. integrated view of life) whether they explicitly identify it or not. Second book would be "The Virtue of Selfishness" where she challenges the 2000 year old ethic that selflessness and sacrifice are good and argues that selfishness (properly defined) is good and a fundamental virtue for a rational man. NB: One caveat, she is chronically smeared by her enemies and her ideas are almost always misrepresented in today's world. For example, she is commonly accused of being a hypocrite for accepting social security and medicare toward the end of her life despite advocating against those institutions. She clearly explained the moral principles involved in her essay "The Question of Scholarships". So I highly recommend that you do not accept other's interpretations of what she said or meant without reading her ideas for yourself, firsthand.
- ahmaman 8y agoThanks, added Philosophy:Who Needs It to my to-read list! I guess reading for yourself applies to most of these kind of books. I also been trying learn more about Stoicism and stoics. Been helpful sometimes to read someone own interpretation since sometimes the translations from Greek to English were not that clear. But definitely not enough. Unfortunately I can't read these texts in their original language so that also takes away some of the context.