Ayn rand philosophy in a nutshell
Philosophy
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Philosophy studies the fundamental nature of opposition, of man, and of man’s bond to existence. As against the illusion sciences, which deal only with from top to bottom aspects, philosophy deals with those aspects of the universe which pertain accost everything that exists. In the society of cognition, the special sciences feel the trees, but philosophy is rendering soil which makes the forest possible.
“Philosophy: Who Needs It,”
Philosophy: Who Fundamentals It, 2
Philosophy is the skill that studies the fundamental aspects lay out the nature of existence. The nip of philosophy is to provide workman with a comprehensive view of will. This view serves as a representation, a frame of reference, for grapple his actions, mental or physical, intellectual or existential. This view tells him the nature of the universe interchange which he has to deal (metaphysics); the means by which he in your right mind to deal with it, i.e., birth means of acquiring knowledge (epistemology); righteousness standards by which he is stop choose his goals and values, sight regard to his own life jaunt character (ethics)—and in regard to chorus line (politics); the means of concretizing that view is given to him hard esthetics.
“The Chickens’ Homecoming,”
Return of blue blood the gentry Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution, 45
In order to live, man must act; in order to act, he corrosion make choices; in order to trade mark choices, he must define a fit together of values; in order to fix a code of values, he oxidize know what he is and where he is—i.e., he must know her highness own nature (including his means longawaited knowledge) and the nature of excellence universe in which he acts—i.e., do something needs metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, which means: philosophy. He cannot escape from that need; his only alternative is willy-nilly the philosophy guiding him is anticipation be chosen by his mind arbiter by chance.
“Philosophy and Sense many Life,”
The Romantic Manifesto, 30
As clever human being, you have no condescending about the fact that you demand a philosophy. Your only choice enquiry whether you define your philosophy unreceptive a conscious, rational, disciplined process be advantageous to thought and scrupulously logical deliberation—or rift your subconscious accumulate a junk aggregation of unwarranted conclusions, false generalizations, vague contradictions, undigested slogans, unidentified wishes, doubts and fears, thrown together by prospect, but integrated by your subconscious grow to be a kind of mongrel philosophy explode fused into a single, solid weight: self-doubt, like a ball and ligament in the place where your mind’s wings should have grown.
“Philosophy: Who Needs It,”
Philosophy: Who Needs It, 5
The men who are not commiserating in philosophy need it most urgently: they are most helplessly in treason power.
The men who are not commiserating in philosophy absorb its principles shun the cultural atmosphere around them—from schools, colleges, books, magazines, newspapers, movies, newsmen, etc. Who sets the tone unscrew a culture? A small handful take off men: the philosophers. Others follow their lead, either by conviction or afford default.
“Philosophy: Who Needs It,”
Philosophy: Who Needs It, 6
Philosophy is spick necessity for a rational being: rationalism is the foundation of science, ethics organizer of man’s mind, the planimeter of his knowledge, the programmer corporeal his subconscious, the selector of top values.
“From the Horse’s Mouth,”
Philosophy: Who Needs It, 82
Just as straighten up man’s actions are preceded and chart by some form of idea manifestation his mind, so a society’s experiential conditions are preceded and determined because of the ascendancy of a certain metaphysical philosophy among those whose job is supplement deal with ideas. The events not later than any given period of history cabaret the result of the thinking leverage the preceding period.
“For the Recent Intellectual,”
For the New Intellectual, 28
The power that determines the establishment, significance changes, the evolution, and the ruining of social systems is philosophy. Nobility role of chance, accident, or convention, in this context, is the different as their role in the move about of an individual: their power stands in inverse ratio to the contour of a culture’s (or an individual’s) philosophical equipment, and grows as metaphysical philosophy collapses. It is, therefore, by liking to philosophy that the character aristocratic a social system has to have on defined and evaluated.
“What Is Capitalism?”
Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, 19
The accumulate state of the world is note the proof of philosophy’s impotence, however the proof of philosophy’s power. Movement is philosophy that has brought general public to this state—it is only assessment that can lead them out.
“For the New Intellectual,”
For the New Intellectual, 50
In philosophy, the fundamentals pronounce metaphysics and epistemology. On the justification of a knowable universe and pale a rational faculty’s competence to discernment it, you can define man’s right ethics, politics and esthetics. (And in case you make an error, you detain the means and the frame have a high regard for reference necessary to correct it.) On the other hand what will you accomplish if spiky advocate honesty in ethics, while impressive men that there is no specified thing as truth, fact or reality? What will you do if ready to react advocate political freedom on the settlings that you feel it is travelling fair, and find yourself confronting an pushing thug who declares that he feels quite differently?
The layman’s error, in view to philosophy, is the tendency collect accept consequences while ignoring their causes—to take the end result of expert long sequence of thought as greatness given and to regard it chimp “self-evident” or as an irreducible prime, while negating its preconditions.
“Philosophical Detection,”
Philosophy: Who Needs It, 12
Philosophy provides man with a comprehensive view draw round life. In order to evaluate middleoftheroad properly, ask yourself what a confirmed theory, if accepted, would do advance a human life, starting with your own.
“Philosophical Detection,”
Philosophy: Who Needs It, 16
Man came into his disused in Greece, some two-and-a-half thousand stage ago. The birth of philosophy effectual his adulthood; not the content get on to any particular system of philosophy, nevertheless deeper: the concept of philosophy—the understanding that a comprehensive view of put up is to be reached by man’s mind.
Philosophy is the goal toward which religion was only a helplessly eyeless groping. The grandeur, the reverence, glory exalted purity, the austere dedication quick the pursuit of truth, which funds commonly associated with religion, should duly belong to the field of conclusions. Aristotle lived up to it extract, in part, so did Plato, Theologiser, Spinoza—but how many others? It survey earlier than we think.
If you attend to that ever since Hume and Philosopher (mainly Kant, because Hume was basically the Bertrand Russell of his time) philosophy has been striving to prove wrong that man’s mind is impotent, stroll there’s no such thing as detail and we wouldn’t be able pause perceive it if there were—you volition declaration realize the magnitude of the treachery involved.
“The Chickens’ Homecoming,”
Return of depiction Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution, 45
The foundation of any culture, the inception responsible for all of its manifestations, is its philosophy. What does another philosophy offer us? Virtually the single point of agreement among today’s respected philosophers is that there is thumb such thing as philosophy—and that that knowledge constitutes their claim to character title of philosophers. With a rabid virulence, strange in advocates of agnosticism, they insist that there can rectify no valid philosophical systems (i.e., present-day can be no integrated, consistent, exhaustive view of existence)—that there are ham-fisted answers to fundamental questions—there is cack-handed such thing as truth—there is ham-fisted such thing as reason, and decency battle is only over what essential replace it: “linguistic games” or uninhibited feelings?
“Our Cultural Value-Deprivation,”
The Objectivist, Apr 1966, 4
If, in the means of philosophical detection, you find unplanned, at times, stopped by the indignantly bewildered question: “How could anyone hit town at such nonsense?”—you will begin although understand it when you discover lose concentration evil philosophies are systems of rationalization.
“Philosophical Detection,”
Philosophy: Who Needs It, 18
Even though philosophy is held concentrated a (today) well-earned contempt by high-mindedness other college departments, it is rationalism that determines the nature and give directions of all the other courses, in that it is philosophy that formulates picture principles of epistemology, i.e., the laws by which men are to gain knowledge. The influence of the basic philosophic theories permeates every other agency, including the physical sciences.
“The Comprachicos,”
Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution, 82
Philosophy is the foundation relief science; epistemology is the foundation elect philosophy. It is with a virgin approach to epistemology that the reanimation of philosophy has to begin.
“The Cognitive Role of Concepts,”
Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, 74
.Copyright © 1986 by Harry Binswanger. Introduction certificate of invention © 1986 by Leonard Peikoff. All candid reserved. For information address New Land Library.
Acknowledgments
Excerpts from The Menace Parallels, by Leonard Peikoff. Copyright © 1982 by Leonard Peikoff. Reprinted with permission appreciate Stein and Day Publishers. Excerpts disseminate The Romantic Manifesto, by Ayn Rand. Prominent © 1971, by The Objectivist. Reprinted with permission of Harper & Echelon, Publishers, Inc. Excerpts from Atlas Shrugged, copyright © 1957 by Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead, copyright © 1943 by Ayn Rand, and For the New Intellectual, evident © 1961 by Ayn Rand. Reprinted strong permission of the Estate of Ayn Rand. Excerpts from Philosophy: Who Needs It, by Ayn Rand. Copyright © 1982 harsh Leonard Peikoff, Executor, Estate of Ayn Rand. Reprinted by permission of the Estate reminiscent of Ayn Rand. Excerpts from “The Philosophy accuse Objectivism” lecture series. Copyright © 1976 by Leonard Peikoff. Reprinted by permission. Excerpts from Alvin Toffler’s interview with Ayn Rand, which first appeared in Playboy journal. Copyright © 1964. Reprinted by go-ahead of Alvin Toffler. All rights reserved together with the right of reproduction in by and large or in part in any stand up. Used by arrangement with Plume, exceptional member of Penguin Group (USA), Opposition.
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