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Introduction to Objectivism: Epistemology Introduction to Objectivism: Ethics Introduction to Objectivism: Politics |
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Author -- Ayn Rand. Objectivism |
Ayn Rand is the author of Atlas Shrugged, philosophically the most challenging bestseller of its times. Her first novel, We The Living, was published in 1936. With the publication of The Fountainhead, she achieved a spectacular and enduring success. The fundamentals of Ms.Rand's unique philosophy, Objectivism, are put forth in three nonfiction books: For the New Intellectuals, The Virtue of Selfishness, and Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.And then there is the magnificent statement of her artistic credo, The Romantic Manifesto.
In her novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, and in nonfiction works such as Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, Ayn Rand forged a systematic philosophy of reason and freedom. Rand was a passionate individualist. She wrote in praise of "the men of unborrowed vision," who live by the judgment of their own minds, willing to stand alone against tradition and popular opinion. Her philosophy of Objectivism rejects the ethics of self-sacrifice and renunciation. She urged men to hold themselves and their lives as their highest values, and to live by the code of the free individual: self-reliance, integrity, rationality, productive effort. Objectivism celebrates the power of man's mind, defending reason and science against every form of irrationalism. It provides an intellectual foundation for objective standards of truth and value. Upholding the use of reason to transform nature and create wealth, Objectivism honors the businessman and the banker, no less than the philosopher and artist, as creators and as benefactors of mankind. Ayn Rand was a champion of individual rights, which protect the sovereignty of the individual as an end in himself; and of capitalism, which is the only social system that allows people to live together peaceably, by voluntary trade, as independent equals. Millions of readers have been inspired by the vision of life in Ayn Rand's novels. Scholars are exploring the trails she blazed in philosophy and other fields. Her principled defense of capitalism has drawn new adherents to the cause of economic and political liberty. The mission of the Institute for Objectivist Studies is to advance Objectivism as a basis for theoretical knowledge, social progress, and individual happiness. Since 1990 the Institute has offered programs for students, scholars, and the public at large. As an educational organization based on a philosophy of reason, the Institute encourages the discussion of ideas in an atmosphere of free and open inquiry. 'The Fountainhead', Ayn Rand's hugely controversial novel, tells the story of the battle waged by architect Howard Roark, whose integrity was as unyielding as granite... of Dominique Francon, the exquisitely beautiful woman who loved Roark passionately but married his worst enemy... of the fanatic denunciation unleashed by an enraged society against a great creator. Its theme is one of the most challenging ideas ever presented in a work of fiction- that man's ego is 'The Fountainhead' of human progress.
Is our life ever to have any reality? Are we going to live on the level? Or is life always something else, something different from what it should be? A real life, simple and sincere, and even naïve, is the only life where all the potential grandeur and beauty of human existence can really be found. Are there real reasons for accepting the alternative, that which we have today? No one has really shown [today’s] life as it really is, with its real meaning and its reasons. I’m going to show it. If it’s not a pretty picture- what is the substitute?
Ayn Rand, from her original private notes in Leonard Peikoff's afterword to 'The Fountainhead.'
I have received many letters about how Objectivism is directly opposed to any of the present religions, as we know them. And then some mail had so hard content that they literally made me laugh. Some of them claimed that there are few people interested in these things anyway and so sites like this one will make no difference.
If you take the time to look at the counter for this site it would be pretty obvious that sites like these are not popular. But here I would like to make it very clear that I don't care about the numbers. I am not after quantity but after quality. I do care about the few people that do admire rational aspect of life and do come here. Those are the very few that do make the difference.
Well, here I would like to quote Ayn Rand. This is what she tells in the 'Foreword' to 'The Fountainhead:'
It is not in the nature of man- nor of any living entity- to start out by giving up, by spitting in one's own face and damning existence; that requires a process of corruption whose rapidity differs from man to man. Some give up at the first touch of pressure; some sell out; some run down by the imperceptible degrees and lose their fire, never knowing when or how they lost it. Then all of these vanish in the vast swamp of their elders who tell them persistently that maturity consists of abandoning one's mind; security, of abandoning one's values; practically of losing self-esteem. Yet a few hold on and move on, knowing that that fire is not to be betrayed, learning how to give it shape, purpose and reality. But whatever their future, at the dawn of their lives, men seek a noble vision of man's nature and of life's potential. There are very few guiding posts to find. 'The Fountainhead' is one of them. This is one of the cardinal reasons of The Fountainhead's lasting appeal; it is a confirmation of the spirit of youth, proclaiming man's glory, showing how much is possible. It does not matter that only a few in each generation will grasp, and achieve the full reality of man's proper stature- and that rest will betray it. It is those few that move the world and give life it's meaning- and it those few that I have always sought to address. The rest are no concern of mine; it is not me or 'The Fountainhead' that they betray: it is their own souls.
Ayn Rand.
New York, May 1968.
The founder of Objectivism, Ayn Rand (neé Alissa Zinovievna Rosenbaum), was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, on February 2, 1905. Ayn Rand attended Petrograd (Leningrad) University from 1921 to 1924 in the tumultuous period following the Revolution, where she majored in history, and took a minor in philosophy. In early 1926, Ayn Rand fled the Soviet Union and arrived in New York City, during the "Roaring Twenties." It was her relatives in Chicago who made it possible for her to leave the Soviet Union, and with whom she first stayed after arriving in the U.S. After changing her name to Ayn Rand, she left Chicago for Hollywood, and eventually found work as a reader at Cecil B. DeMille's studio. On the set of DeMille's King of Kings, she spied a tall, handsome man named Frank O'Connor--and they were married in 1929. During the Depression, Rand began to focus on her writing, producing several short stories and plays (these early works are collected in The Early Ayn Rand) as well as Night of January 16th ("Penthouse Legend" on Broadway), We the Living (Macmillan, 1936) and the dystopic Anthem (1938), written as a side project while working on The Fountainhead. Ayn Rand's first major commercial success, The Fountainhead was published by Bobbs-Merrill in 1943 after being rejected by a dozen publishers as too intellectual. It is the story of an architect of fierce integrity who will permit nothing to compromise his creative vision or his sense of justice. In an exchange of letters from the spring of 1944, the great architect Frank Lloyd Wright wrote to Miss Rand: I've read every word of The Fountainhead. Your thesis is the great one. Especially at this time. So I suppose you will be set up in the marketplace and burned for a witch." Rand replied: ... I can't be "burned for a witch," because I think I am made of asbestos."* The book was made into a full-length film and released by Warner Brothers in 1949, starring Gary Cooper as Howard Roark, Patricia Neal as Dominique Francon, and Raymond Massey as Gail Wynand. The film garnered luke-warm reviews at best, despite (or because of) Rand's full control over the screenplay, as well as superb sets and soundtrack. Perhaps Rand's best screenplay was not based on her own work but was her screen adaptation of Love Letters (1944), starring Jennifer Jones and Joseph Cotten. This is the archetype of "those great old black & white movies." We the Living was also released as a full-length film in Italy in 1943, though when the Fascists finally figured out that the anti-communist message of the film was implicitly anti-fascist as well, it was banned by Mussolini. The book was re-issued in 1959 with minor editorial changes. Ayn Rand's magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged (Random House, 1957) is arguably the most important work of fiction of the twentieth century. This 1168-page novel dramatizes the premises of her philosophy, which she named "Objectivism." Atlas Shrugged secured a place in history for its author, and forty years after its publication, has sold over 5 million copies. It is still selling well over 100,000 copies per year. In a poll conducted in 1991 by the Book of the Month Club, Atlas Shrugged was listed as the book that had changed readers' lives more than any other book, except The Bible. For information and on-line ordering of these books, visit: Episteme Links Bookstore For more books, audiotapes and videotapes on Objectivism, visit: IOS: Principle Source Laissez Faire Books Around 1960, Miss Rand turned her attention to non-fiction, writing dozens of essays and delivering many public lectures on subjects traversing the entire domain of philosophy. Most of her essays originally appeared in The Objectivist Newsletter, The Objectivist and The Ayn Rand Letter, along with several articles by Nathaniel Branden, and were republished as anthologies (by New American Library).
These included:
The Virtue of Selfishness (1964)
Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (1967)
The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution (1971)
The Romantic Manifesto: A Philosophy of Literature (1971)
Two more collections of essays and addresses were published posthumously by Leonard Peikoff:
Philosophy: Who Needs It (1982)
The Voice of Reason: Essays in Objectivist Thought (1988)
Ayn Rand died in New York City in March 1982. Biographical Sources Berliner, Michael, ed. Letters of Ayn Rand. New York: Dutton, 1995, pp. xix-xxi. Branden, Barbara. The Passion of Ayn Rand. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1986. Branden, Barbara. "Who is Ayn Rand?" In Who Is Ayn Rand? edited by Nathaniel Branden. New York: Random House, 1962. Branden, Nathaniel. Judgment Day: My Years with Ayn Rand. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1989. Sciabarra, Chris Matthew. "Ayn Rand." In American Writers: A Collection of Literary Biographies, Supplement IV, Part 2 - Susan Howe to Gore Vidal, edited by A. W. Litz and M. Weigel, 517-536. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1996. Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995.
(Courtesy: www.fullcontext.org)
Anyone who wants to gain a deeper understanding of philosophy, history, politics and contemporary culture must become familiar with Objectivism. Knowing who Ayn Rand was and what Objectivism is are becoming part of what it means to be culturally literate in America. There is no other writer who could more readily cut through to the essence of an issue, explain it, resolve it, and impress the reader with the urgency that everyone understand it. She could show, like no one else, how and why philosophical ideas matter--and matter everywhere ... in our personal lives, in movie theaters, book stores and art museums, in parliament or Congress.
This notes is quite inadequate and in no way is the final draft for the introduction to Objectivism. I would add more to this soon.
Ayn Rand's fiction depicted man "as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute." The Objectivist vision of the possibilities for the future is vivid and compelling, as is Objectivism's critique of contemporary politics and culture. For millions of her readers, Rand's work has provided them with the spiritual and intellectual guidance they sought in Christianity, Judaism, or in other secular philosophical systems, but never found. For them, reading Atlas Shrugged and Ayn Rand's other works has been a transformative experience.
In order to justify her secular individualistic view of man and morality, Ayn Rand elaborated a system of thought--"Objectivism"--that addressed issues in technical branches of philosophy usually left to advanced students and academics. Objectivism is routinely dismissed by academic scholars, however, for a few reasons. Rand's prose reflects the dramatic sensibilities of her fictional writing: it is direct, uncompromising, essentialistic, and wrought with emotion; it is therefore usually lacking in scholarly rigour. Rand eschewed the apparatus and dry style of scholarly writing, and was never published by an academic press. As well, Objectivism, as a philosophical system, is technically incomplete in many areas.
Despite the neglect of Objectivism by academicians, their studies, too, can benefit from serious consideration of the arguments Ayn Rand sketched. (Those who have discovered this attend IOS' Summer Seminars, the Ayn Rand Society meetings of The American Philosophical Association, or subscribe to one of the several lists on the the internet that discuss her ideas at an advanced level.) Objectivism is a motherlode awaiting a philosophical gold rush, the vanguard of the Second Enlightenment.
(Courtesy: www.fullcontext.org)
