A Companion to Ayn Rand

Gotthelf, Allan / Salmieri, Gregory (Editor)

Blackwell Companions to Philosophy

1. Edition February 2016
538 Pages, Hardcover
Wiley & Sons Ltd

ISBN: 978-1-4051-8684-1

John Wiley & Sons

Short Description

This expansive Companion to Ayn Rand's writings provides vital orientation and context for scholars and educated readers who grapple with the unique and controversial output of this prolific thinker and writer. The first volume to offer a serious scholarly treatment ranging across the whole of Rand's often marginalized corpus, it covers her four novels, the essays in which she expounded her philosophy of Objectivism, and her commentary on the political and cultural events of her time. Featuring original research on unpublished material from the Rand archives in California, it offers the most comprehensive scholarly analysis to date of one of the 20th century's most original and iconoclastic thinkers.

Further versions

The first volume to offer a comprehensive scholarly treatment of Rand's entire corpus (including her novels, her philosophical essays, and her analysis of the events of her times), this Companion provides vital orientation and context for scholars and educated readers grappling with a controversial and understudied thinker whose enduring influence on American (and world) culture is increasingly recognized.
* The first publication to provide an in-depth scholarly treatment ranging over the whole of Rand's corpus
* Provides informed contextual analysis for scholars in a variety of disciplines
* Presents original research on unpublished material and drafts from the Rand archives in California
* Features insightful and fair-minded interpretations of Rand's controversial positions

Notes on Contributors ix

Acknowledgments xii

A Note on Abbreviations and References xiv

Part I Context 1

1 An Introduction to the Study of Ayn Rand 3
Gregory Salmieri

2 The Life of Ayn Rand: Writing, Reading, and Related Life Events 22
Shoshana Milgram

Part II Ethics and Human Nature 47

3 The Act of Valuing (and the Objectivity of Values) 49
Gregory Salmieri

4 The Morality of Life 73
Allan Gotthelf
(completed by Gregory Salmieri)

5 A Being of Self-Made Soul 105
Onkar Ghate

6 Egoism and Altruism: Selfi shness and Sacrifice 130
Gregory Salmieri

Part III Society 157

7 "A Human Society": Rand's Social Philosophy 159
Darryl Wright

8 Political Theory: A Radical for Capitalism 187
Fred D. Miller, Jr. and Adam Mossoff

9 Objective Law 209
Tara Smith

10 "A Free Mind and a Free Market are Corollaries": Rand's Philosophical Perspective on Capitalism 222
Onkar Ghate

Part IV The Foundations of Objectivism 243

11 Objectivist Metaphysics: The Primacy of Existence 245
Jason G. Rheins

12 The Objectivist Epistemology 272
Gregory Salmieri

Part V Philosophers and Their Effects 319

13 "Who Sets the Tone for a Culture?": Ayn Rand's Approach to the History of Philosophy 321
James G. Lennox

14 Ayn Rand's Evolving View of Friedrich Nietzsche 343
Lester H. Hunt

15 A Philosopher on Her Times: Ayn Rand's Political and Cultural Commentary 351
John David Lewis and Gregory Salmieri

Part VI Art 403

16 The Objectivist Esthetics: Art and the Needs of a Conceptual Consciousness 405
Harry Binswanger

17 Rand's Literary Romanticism 426
Tore Boeckmann

Coda 451

18 Hallmarks of Objectivism: The Benevolent Universe Premise and the Heroic View of Man 453
Allan Gotthelf and Gregory Salmieri

Annotated Bibliography of Primary and Quasi-Primary Sources 463

Index 471

Allan Gotthelf (1942-2013) was Anthem Foundation Distinguished Fellow at Rutgers University, USA, emeritus Professor of Philosophy at The College of New Jersey, Secretary of the Ayn Rand Society (a professional group affiliated with the American Philosophical Association), and the primary editor of its Philosophical Studies series. Between 2003 and 2012, he was visiting professor of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh. His influential papers on Aristotle are collected in Teleology, First Principles, and Scientific Method in Aristotle's Biology (2012).

Gregory Salmieri teaches at Rutgers University, is a philosophy fellow at the Anthem Foundation, and has held teaching and research positions at The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (2008-12) and Boston University (2012-14). He is co-secretary of the Ayn Rand Society and co-editor of its Philosophical Studies series. In addition to his work on Rand, he has published on various issues in Aristotle's philosophy and is editor of the forthcoming Knowing and Coming to Know: Essays on Aristotle's Epistemology.

A. Gotthelf, University of Pittsburgh; G. Salmieri, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill