Ayn Rand Ran and Ran and Ran

Ayn Rand and her Objectivism enjoy perennial interest and deserves perennial pillory. She oddly insists Aristotle to be the greatest philosopher, but shows little evidence of his influence in her life or writings. She had a keen interest in his "organon," which remains brilliant for its and all time, but Aristotlean logic was long superceded by mathematical logic of the Boolen, Frege, Russell, & Whitehead kind. Only in the sense of "naive realism" of Aristotle's epistmology does she exhibit any Aristotlean markings. (Note: naive realism is also known as moderate realism and natural realism, what most of us understand as "commonsense.")

Any Rand's "philosophy," if one can call it that, is Objectivism. The more accurate description would be Egoism. But the "objectivist" nomenclature comes from her insistence that all sensory experience is "axiomatically valid." Here's where her idiocy shines the clearest. If she had claimed that all sensory experience is "axiomatically veridical" (that is, "true"), she would have been right. But, everyone can prove that sensory experience is never axiomatically valid. Validity is a necessary truth-condition for all percipients, and not all percipients have the "same" perception of the same object, situation, and or phenomenon. (For example, one percipient under the influence of intoxicants, another under the influence of hallucinogens, and a third under a sober disposition will each perceive veridically the same phenomenon differently). Would all there veridical perceptions be "valid" or "necessarily and always true?" Of course not!

She might have read more than Aristotle to find this important distinction. Perhaps the most searing indictment epistemological realism comes from Sextus Empiricus. And, it it is brutal. All reason ultimately rests upon endless regress, and all sensory perception ultimately is subjective; therefore, all epistemic claims must necessarily be "suspended" in favor of none, since neither our senses nor our reasoning can save our claims (see, Outlines of Pyrrhonism). It was not until Descartes circumlocutiously and, then, David Hume, who took Sextus' criticisms seriously! Apparently, Rand was unacquainted with both Descartes and Hume.

Rand used some of Aristotle's language from his Ethics, but seems to have expropriated more of it from Nietzsche for her own distorted sense of his ubermench (super-human). A charitable interpretation of Nietzsche's ubermench is the antithesis of the Hilterian Aryan ubermench, which seems closer to Rand's. For Nietzsche, the ubermench is the person whose will to act was just, equitable, honest, courageous, temperate, prudent as a holistic, dignified, integrated, and noble individual. The "super-human" was not more potent, nor more racially pure, nor more egoistically self-centered, nor more self-interested self-gratified, as is Rand's, but more overtly human in the fullest sense of being human, "turbocharged" in human fullness, like the Presocratics, not like a demigod.

That Nietzschean sense of ubermench is not Rand's. Neither are Aristotle's nor Nietzsche's ethics Rand's. Whatever phrase one choses, Overt Egoism is her code of conduct, definitely not ethics, much less morality, which she repudiates. She approved of racism, homophobia, xenophobia, and discrimination; for her, the individual was all that mattered, and "classes" of individuals had no standing -- not even classes of "political association" such as the state. Thus, Rand's type of thinking attracts skinheads, Libertarians, anarchists, counter-culture, Aryans, and similar bedfellows. Teens enjoy her rebellion against all authority figures, which is a healthy habit to develop.

Ayn Rand's apotheosis of the individual is at complete odds with Aristotle: "It is clear then that the state is both natural and prior to the individual" (Politics, 1253[a]25). And of the state, "the virtue of justice is a feature of a state; for justice is the arrangement of the political association, and a sense of justice decides what is just" (op. cit. 1253[a]38). The state, then, serves the collection of individuals justly so that each may humanly flourishing according to the dictates of his own reason, interests, pursuits, and pleasures. Rand is pure, simple, turbo-charged egoism, not merely self-interest.

Perhaps, Libertarian-cum-Liberal philosopher Robert Nozick of Harvard states his objections to Rand best:

In the essay "On the Randian Argument" by Harvard University philosopher Robert Nozick, which appears in his collection, Socratic Puzzles. Nozick is sympathetic to Rand's political conclusions, but he does not think her arguments justify them. In particular, his essay criticizes her foundational argument in ethics, which claims that one's own life is, for each individual, the only ultimate value because it makes all other values possible. Nozick says that to make this argument sound Rand still needs to explain why someone could not rationally prefer dying and having no values. Thus, he argues, her attempt to defend the morality of selfishness is essentially an instance of begging the question and her solution to David Hume's famous is-ought problem is unsatisfactory.

Nozick's academic diplomacy aside, she's a nut-cake. She cannot distinguish between fact and value -- a divide so wide it cannot be crossed -- and then predicates all value on individual egoism, not merely self-interest? No one takes Rand's thoughts seriously -- even if you agree with some of her conclusions, you balk at her specious means of argumentation. But, for Rand, the Ends always Justify the Means. The End = Individual. Therefore, any means, but especially by using Aristotelian syllogistic reasoning, justifies the Individual's self-interest is thus a good. Hitler thought so, too.

Postscript: Perhaps a dash of Hume, a little Popper, a little Hayek, and some Searle would have helped this poor anarchist soul. Moreover, syllogistic reasoning is no longer used. It's mathematical logic, not syllogistic logic, that philosophers use. More nonsense has filtered into the U.S. via Eastern Europe.