Why do people consider Ayn Rand a philosopher?

Question

She didn't contribute anything to Philosophy, and most of her ideas were as idiotic as Freud's 'Opidus Complex', so, how then, is she a philoshipher?

Answer 1

Because there's an army of Objectivist flakes who prove their heroic individuality and ability to think for themselves by mindlessly babbling the Gospel of Ayn. I tried to read a couple of her books, but they were so damned boring I couldn't finish them.



I also saw the 1949 Warner Bros. movie based on The Fountainhead and thought it was stupid, even taking into account the dumbing-down nature of Hollywood. If the movie is any reflection of Rand's personality, she seems to have a strong fetish for whips and face-slapping...

Answer 2

If you don't know what philosophy is, then you're probably doomed to think something like "Philosophical Objectivism" philosophy. I'd say that Americans, by and large, don't know what philosophy is. (Note: all the people in the Yahoo! answers philosophy page asking "What is the meaning of life?" or "Do you think luck exists?" or "What's your magical number?" These people need a chicken coop, not a forum for philosophical discussion.)



I guess I come here for the occasional REAL question. And, failing that, I'm always up for some nice Ayn Rand- bashing



;-)

Answer 3

Ayn Rand was deeply torn between her reality as a 'moocher' and a 'parasite' (her vocabulary) and the anti-government fetish she developed growing up in cold-war era Russia. Unable to distinguish between good and bad government, her works are a) an extended expression of the composition/division, black & white and genetic fallacies, and b) an NPG fantasy in which Rand (in the guise of her heroines) has herself ravaged by fictional male counterparts in the image of her idealized self.



The only connection with reality of type of literature is as a masturbation prompt for adolescent boys, who imagine themselves as thwarted entrepreneurial James Bonds, oblivious to the fact that the they are the first beneficiaries of the governments that have evolved to mitigate savage capitalism. It is a measure of just how sick our society is when we have allowed grown men to use pulp fiction as a platform for acting out their narcissism, mistaking their good fortune pr predatory nature for innate virtue and hypocritically using hate speech to elevate themselves and diminish those less fortunate, or with different values.



Rand's self-appointed status as the heir to Aristotle is a measure of her arrogance, rooted in profound insecurity. And she hated Kant because Kant used the same ideas but arrived at a completely different conclusion. But Kant's work is not some orgiastic exaltation of a fantasy version of himself and the women of his dreams. Nor were his ideas propelled into the popular consciousness by self-serving predators who made billions externalizing costs onto ordinary taxpayers. Philosophy deals with the TRUTH (correpondent, coherent and practical) of who we really are, where we really come from and where we're really going. Look at our country today. Do you blame that on philosophy? Now ask yourself: Is Ayn Rand a philosopher?

Answer 4

"My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of 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."



This was Aristotle's "qua Man."



Any idea that tells you the purpose of morality is your own happiness but NOT at the expense of any other human--is automatically, epistemologically sound, as well as being metaphysically enlightening. I call THAT philosophy.



"I know not if this earth on which I stand is the core of the universe or if it is but a speck of dust lost in eternity. I know not and I care not. For I know what happiness is possible to me on earth."



That is the best refutation for "all we are is dust in the wind" that I've ever heard, and I'll bet you believe that THAT is philosophy.



"Your self is your mind; renounce it and you become a chunk of meat ready for any cannibal to swallow."



You are the cannibal. I refuse to be your meat.



"I stand here on the summit of the mountain. I lift my head and I spread my arms. This, my body and spirit, this is the end of the quest. I wished to know the meaning of things. I am the meaning. I wished to find a warrant for being. I need no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant and the sanction."



That was Stoicism at its Aristotilean best. THAT is the best defense of individualism as spiritualism. No one believes Rand was spiritual, but everything she wrote was of the spirit of "qua Man," an idea of Aristotle's.



The Stoics were great spiritualists, as well. Read Marcus Aurelius.



If her ideas came from Aristotle, was Aristotle also NOT a philosopher?



Oh, and by the way, if she contributed NOTHING to philosophy, who do all the authors listed in this link have anything to say about her? Do you wish to count the authors? I certainly do not. Look at their names and you will not discount all of them.



You might even find some on the list you already appreciate.

http://enlightenment.supersaturated.com/essays/essays.html

Answer 5

Because generations of self-consciously bright adolescents have been drawn to her by the slightly-scandalous novels, and then found themselves in the grip of the ideas.



It is a tight system of ideas that allows its adherents to feel superior at very little cost -- to use the language of philosophers without really grappling with what any of it means.

Answer 6

Ayn Rand is generally ignored with the help of maximum philosophers for here motives: a million. She made her political comments nicely accepted, and commented many times on them. between professional philosophers, politics is named something of a pedestrian exercising. 2. She substitute into firmly anti-business enterprise, fairly interior the sector of philosophy, as she held modern philosophy in finished dismiss. and he or she substitute into no longer modest in her grievance of them, the two. 3. She did no longer positioned up artwork to work out reviewed journals, all of her artwork substitute into completed commercially, and interior of a small enclave of acquaintances and thinkers. present day mainstream western philosophy is likewise accepted as "continental philosophy", because it describes assorted philosophical traditions strongly prompted with the help of specific nineteenth and twentieth century philosophers from mainland Europe. The traditions comprising continental philosophy contain German idealism, phenomenology, existentialism and its antecedents, hermeneutics, structuralism, positioned up-structuralism, French feminism, and the intense concept of the Frankfurt college and another branches of western Marxism. it is not stressful to work out how philosophers of this faculty may be disinclined to settle for Ayn Rand, and additionally, it is not stressful to work out why she ignored them. even in spite of the undeniable fact that, it'd be unwise to count variety Ayn Rand between the ineffective in simple terms yet. there's a gradually turning out to be scholarly interest in her artwork. -assorted fellowships for the learn of Ayn Rand's innovations are being based in universities around the country - the mag of Ayn Rand analyze is a substantial inroad into academic territory. that's a scholarly, peer reviewed mag committed to the learn of Ayn Rand - specially her philosophic artwork. that's non-partisan and accepts the two favorable and serious interpretations of her works. -the yank Philosophy association has a very energetic financial disaster committed to Ayn Rand, many times giving lectures and publishing works I often attempt to no longer choose others with the help of zeitgeist and recognition on my own. i might infrequently call her a mainstream logician, yet I additionally comprehend that if her innovations have been as loopy and dismissable as some human beings say they're, her innovations might have died out many years in the past.

Answer 7

Are you kidding me?? Ayn Rand's phiolsophy is Objectivism.



Metaphysics: Objective Reality

Epistemology: Reason

Ethics: Self-interest

Politics: Capitalism