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Showing content with the highest reputation on 05/11/18 in Posts

  1. gio

    Ayn Rand and the French

    I just started a Youtube channel. I have a terrible accent and I probably make a lot of mistakes in English. I hope it's understandable. I devoted a video to the following topic: What do the French (in general) think about Ayn Rand? I would be glad to have your feedback.
    2 points
  2. Boydstun

    Ayn Rand and the French

    Gio, Do you hear in France today anything of the French philosopher Jean-Marie Guyau? Especially, do you know anything of his book Esquisse d'une Morale sans Obligation, ni Sanction? Nietzsche got the first edition hot off the press in 1885. I like some of Guyau's ideas in that book. Nietzsche, Guyau, and Rand all made moral theories based on biological human nature, they were all moral individualists, opposed to utilitarianism and to Kantian ethics and to Schopenhauer's pessimism. All three were completely secular, not theistic. The three had different conceptions of what was the basic nature of life per se, and this was harmonious with their three different moral conceptions. Guyau's moral theory was not an egoistic one. I like his theory better than Nietzsche's predominant congealing view from about 1883 forward. Rand's moral view is more developed and systematic than either of those other two. Guyau was more friendly towards modern capitalistic society than was Nietzsche. Rand had read some Nietzsche in Russia before coming to the US, but those were not good translations into Russian. One of her biographers here has mentioned to me that a course on Guyau was offered at Rand's university in Russia during her college years, but that she did not take that course. This book of Guyau's was translated into English by an American near the end of the 19th Century. Guyau died young. As I recall, he had some influence on Bergson (and perhaps a bit on Nietzsche), but my impression has been that he was known best in late 19th and early 20th century. There is an American philosopher of that era named Josiah Royce who had some appreciation of Guyau. --S
    1 point
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