Objectivist philosophy: Encyclopedia II - Objectivist philosophy - Response to Objectivist philosophy

Objectivist philosophy - Response to Objectivist philosophy

It is fair to say that, of people who are familiar with Objectivism, reactions are rarely neutral. Indeed, it is almost impossible to be neutral, because Objectivism holds itself to be factually valid, meaning that you either agree with it fully or contradict it. Rand's beliefs are often supported with great passion or derided with great disgust, with little in between. The general reaction of academia has been in the latter category, to the point where Objectivism is often not taken as a serious contribution to the field and therefore worthy of little more than dismissal. To be specific, critics in academia often conclude that many of the specific stances are demonstrably false rehashes of old errors, and even where the belief system happens to endorse true conclusions, it does so on a fallacious basis. For example, a number of philosophers who completely agree with Rand on the topic of atheism nonetheless find her basis for it laughable and embarrassing.

Although many academics ignore Objectivism, some have published in academic journals on various aspects of Objectivism. Rand published most of her non-fiction essays in her own newsletter The Objectivist and earlier in the journal she edited, in which only those who largely agreed with Objectivism were published. She did not publish in conventional academic journals. Much of the non-fiction Objectivist corpus is available only in the form of audio recordings.

Academic institutional support for Objectivism has increased in recent years. Cambridge University Press is publishing Tara Smith's The Virtuous Egoist: Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics. There are or have been Objectivist programs and fellowships at the University of Pittsburgh (Dept. of History and Philosophy of Science), University of Texas at Austin, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of Arizona and several other universities. And there are some 50 members of The Ayn Rand Society, an affiliated group with the American Philosophical Society, Eastern Division. Leonard Peikoff, Ayn Rand's legal heir, published a comprehensive presentation of Objectivism entitled Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand. Other works have been directed at academic audiences, such as Viable Values by Tara Smith, The Evidence of the Senses by David Kelley, and The Biological Basis of Teleological Concepts by Harry Binswanger. An academic journal, the Journal of Ayn Rand Studies has been publishing interdisciplinary scholarly essays on Rand and Objectivism since 1999. Whether this new scholarship and institutional support will result in a dialogue between mainstream academic philosophy and Objectivism remains to be seen.

For detailed summaries of specific responses to Objectivism, see bibliography of work on Objectivism.

Objectivist philosophy - Criticism of Objectivism

Some people who are not supporters of the beliefs and ideals of Ayn Rand do not describe her philosophy and writings using the allegedly biased terms of "Objectivism" and "Reason", which suggest that those beliefs and ideals are in fact objective and rational. Some of her critics do use those terms. They may also use the term "Randian" or "Randist", which to them does not make those assumptions (as they would call them;) they believe that the ties between the beliefs and their originator are so strong that following her philosophy is merely following her. As can be shown by this article itself, it can be difficult to separate Rand and Objectivism, though Objectivism and its dissidents would disagree on why. A standard insult used against supporters of Objectivism is randroid.

Some (such as Michael Shermer) see the philosophy as being a cult or having a cult-like mentality. Shermer stresses how members of the orthodox movement are expected to consider Ayn Rand "the greatest human being to ever live" and look at anyone that disagrees with Rand as "irrational." They consider this the opposite of an individualist philosophy and, ironically, similar to a collectivist one. Objectivists often respond to this by saying either that a) the claims are exaggerated, b) the cult-like practices were (unfortunately) irrational but do not disprove the philosophy, or c) such statements are justified because one's confidence in Rand is (or should be) based on reason and one's own individual, reality-oriented values. The defense is often a combination of (a) and (c). Rand herself saw some of this and, likely with irony, called her inner circle "The Collective".

Like other things associated with Rand, this topic is fiercely debated. The cult accusation is probably the most common attack on Rand and her philosophy, somewhat edging out dismissals of her as an 'intellectual light-weight' (most of her followers didn't have an interest in, or knowledge of, philosophy until reading her work). Rand's defenders assert that the cult accusation distracts people from actually analyzing the philosophy itself. To this, Rand's critics reply with a denial of there being any cohesive philosophy to study, considering it instead a collection of reactions by Rand against popular ideas she opposed. This characterization of Objectivism as a lowbrow anti-philosophy is particularly common among those with academic backgrounds in philosophy. Objectivists equate this not with rational criticism, but with Objectivism's radical difference with contemporary philosophy.

Some contemporary physicists dispute the Objectivist Law of Causality because it appears to allow certainty of prediction, whereas the uncertainty principle establishes that nothing can be predicted with certainty, at the quantum-mechanical level (which controls atomic and nuclear physics, and chemistry.) Furthermore, according to chaos theory, many classical (non quantum-mechanical) systems are unpredictable beyond a short time. These reservations would seem to apply as well to the Law of Identity, because things do not have fixed natures. For example, in neutrino oscillations, one kind of neutrino changes into another, and the other can change into a third kind or back to the first. In fact, the neutrinos are produced in "flavor states" (link) but propagate in "energy states." Objectivists dispute this critique of Rand, arguing that something not being knowable with certainty does not imply it is not objective.

It should be noted that being critical of Rand does not, according to many, mean disagreeing with her on every point. If anything, those most critical often agree with her on a number of points, which makes them particularly bothered by both the path she takes to arrive at these conclusions and the other conclusions that they feel she gets entirely wrong. Fundamentally, Rand's philosophy is considered an all-or-nothing proposition, yet many people only agree with parts. It is not uncommon for those who agree with her on either the matter of rationalism and atheism or Libertarianism and egoism to disagree strongly on the other.

Objectivist philosophy - Criticism of Ayn Rand’s reading of the history of philosophy

Rand regarded her philosophical efforts as the beginning of the correction of a deeply troubled world, and she believed that the world has gotten into its present troubled state largely through the uncritical acceptance, by both intellectuals and others, of traditional philosophy.

Especially in the title essay of her early work, For the New Intellectual, Rand levels serious criticisms of canonical historical philosophers, especially Plato, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, G. W. F. Hegel, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Herbert Spencer. In her later book, Philosophy: Who Needs It, she repeats and enlarges upon her criticisms of Kant, and she also accuses famed Harvard political theorist John Rawls of gross philosophical errors. Some have accused Rand of misinterpreting the works of these philosophers (see, e.g., Ayn Rand, Objectivists, and the History of Philosophy by Fred Seddon).

Rand's interpretation and criticism of the views of Immanuel Kant, in particular, have sparked considerable controversy.

Many critics take issue with Rand's interpretation of Kant's metaphysics: like early critics of Kant, Rand interprets Kant as an empirical idealist. It is a long-standing question of Kant scholarship whether this interpretation is correct; in the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant claimed that his transcendental idealism was different from empirical idealism. Contemporary philosophers such as Jonathan Bennett, James van Cleve, and Rae Langton continue to debate this issue.

Other critics focus on Rand's reading of Kant's ethical philosophy. Rand holds that Kantian ethics improperly takes self-interest out of ethics: "What Kant propounded was full, total, abject selflessness: he held that an action is moral only if you perform it out of a sense of duty and derive no benefit from it of any kind, neither material nor spiritual; if you derive any benefit, your action is not moral any longer...It is Kant's version of altruism that people, who have never heard of Kant, profess when they equate self-interest with evil." Kant's defenders claim that Kantian ethics is primarily an ethics of reason, because the categorical imperative amounts to a demand that the intent behind one's actions be logically consistent, or in Kantian terminology, that "the maxim of one's act be universalizable." Though Rand denigrates Kant's system as the absolute opposite of Objectivism, some writers have even suggested that Rand drew on Kantian ideas without realizing it. "She despised Immanuel Kant but then actually invokes 'treating persons as ends rather than as means only' to explain the nature of morality,"[7] argues Dr. Kelley Ross. In Rand's favor, Kant clearly does maintain (in his Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals) that an action solely motivated by inclination or self-interest is entirely lacking in moral worth. Still, fewer commentators have agreed with Rand's characterization of Kantianism as self-sacrificial. The contemporary philosopher Thomas E. Hill has explicitly defended Kant against this charge in his article, "Happiness and Human Flourishing in Kant's Ethics," in the anthology Human Flourishing.

Another attack on Rand comes from her outright rejection of David Hume's ideas at the foundations of her philosophy. Hume famously maintained, "No is implies an ought," but Rand disagreed by arguing that values are a species of fact (see is-ought problem). She wrote, "In answer to those philosophers who claim that no relation can be established between ultimate ends or values and the facts of reality, let me stress that the fact that living entities exist and function necessitates the existence of values and of an ultimate value which for any given living entity is its own life. Thus the validation of value judgments is to be achieved by reference to the facts of reality. The fact that a living entity is, determines what it ought to do." Some have suggested that Rand's solution begs the question by assuming that life is the highest value as a hidden premise of the argument. See also Objectivist Metaethics, Controversy over Ayn Rand.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Response to Objectivist philosophy", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki