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Kantian Evil and Aristotelian Misunderstandings : Randian Readings of Great Philosophers
Type
conference paper
Date Issued
2014-01-30
Author(s)
Abstract
In 1972, William F. O'Neill observed that: "Writing about Ayn Rand is a treacherous undertaking. In most intellectual circles, she is either totally ignored or simply dismissed out of hand, and those who take her seriously enough to examine her point of view frequently place themselves in grave danger of guilt by association."
While this is still very much the case in the United States, and may have even worsened due to Rand's rising status in the wake of the Tea Party movement, one usually profits from a less biased continental European audience. Here, Rand is still very much unknown, which is why I would like to briefly introduce her to you and maybe cast some light on the question why she is so hated and despised in the United States: Ayn Rand was born as Alisa Rosenbaum in pre-revolutionary Russia, but emigrated at the age of 21 to the United States. There, she hoped to become a successful screen writer, and eventually saw her first novel published in 1936. Her third novel, The Fountainhead, published in 1943, brought her to national attention; not so much because critics praised it - in fact, they did not - but because readers responded so well to it. The novel celebrates stark individualism, resistance to the needs of society and it divides the world neatly into creators and second-handers. These themes are further developed in Atlas Shrugged, published in 1957, the tale of, as Rand put it, the man who stopped the engine of the world because the latter did not appreciate what its most creative minds offered to it. Rand became a sought-after speaker and political commenter who would no longer write fiction, but focus on the dissemination of her philosophy, called "Objectivism."
As you can tell from the introductory quote, though, Rand was never part of the intellectual and/or academic debate of her time. The New Republic ranked her as one of the most over-rated thinkers in 2011, and voiced frustration with Rand's lasting influence: "Despite the fact that Rand's worldview is a crackpot Manicheanism, in which the world is divided between virtuous, productive individuals and lazy parasites, Rand's hold on American conservatism continues to grow, as if real thinking ever is compatible with a cult." Apart from her exchanges with philosopher John Hospers and one appearance at a conference, she was merely a bystander who blamed the philosophers of her time for problems too numerous to be discussed here. This does not mean, however, that she developed her own ideas in a complete philosophical vacuum. In her essays, she frequently referred to a selection of philosophers, mainly Friedrich Nietzsche, Immanuel Kant, Aristotle, and Auguste Comte. This paper suggests that her references to these thinkers were not attempts at a systematic discussion, but rather part of what sociologist Dominik Bartmanski calls a "charisma process." Specifically, I argue that Rand's philosophic critiques are only serving acts of symbolic association or disassociation and of intellectual disambiguation.
While this is still very much the case in the United States, and may have even worsened due to Rand's rising status in the wake of the Tea Party movement, one usually profits from a less biased continental European audience. Here, Rand is still very much unknown, which is why I would like to briefly introduce her to you and maybe cast some light on the question why she is so hated and despised in the United States: Ayn Rand was born as Alisa Rosenbaum in pre-revolutionary Russia, but emigrated at the age of 21 to the United States. There, she hoped to become a successful screen writer, and eventually saw her first novel published in 1936. Her third novel, The Fountainhead, published in 1943, brought her to national attention; not so much because critics praised it - in fact, they did not - but because readers responded so well to it. The novel celebrates stark individualism, resistance to the needs of society and it divides the world neatly into creators and second-handers. These themes are further developed in Atlas Shrugged, published in 1957, the tale of, as Rand put it, the man who stopped the engine of the world because the latter did not appreciate what its most creative minds offered to it. Rand became a sought-after speaker and political commenter who would no longer write fiction, but focus on the dissemination of her philosophy, called "Objectivism."
As you can tell from the introductory quote, though, Rand was never part of the intellectual and/or academic debate of her time. The New Republic ranked her as one of the most over-rated thinkers in 2011, and voiced frustration with Rand's lasting influence: "Despite the fact that Rand's worldview is a crackpot Manicheanism, in which the world is divided between virtuous, productive individuals and lazy parasites, Rand's hold on American conservatism continues to grow, as if real thinking ever is compatible with a cult." Apart from her exchanges with philosopher John Hospers and one appearance at a conference, she was merely a bystander who blamed the philosophers of her time for problems too numerous to be discussed here. This does not mean, however, that she developed her own ideas in a complete philosophical vacuum. In her essays, she frequently referred to a selection of philosophers, mainly Friedrich Nietzsche, Immanuel Kant, Aristotle, and Auguste Comte. This paper suggests that her references to these thinkers were not attempts at a systematic discussion, but rather part of what sociologist Dominik Bartmanski calls a "charisma process." Specifically, I argue that Rand's philosophic critiques are only serving acts of symbolic association or disassociation and of intellectual disambiguation.
Language
English
Keywords
Ayn Rand
Aristotle
Immanuel Kant
Auguste Comte
Friedrich Nietzsche
charisma process
iconization
Objectivism
HSG Classification
contribution to scientific community
HSG Profile Area
SHSS - Kulturen, Institutionen, Maerkte (KIM)
Refereed
No
Book title
Political Theory
Publisher
none
Start page
9
Event Title
2014 Annual Conference of the Swiss Political Science Association (SVPW)
Event Location
Bern
Event Date
30.-31.01.2014
Subject(s)
Eprints ID
228968