A Companion to Ayn Rand

[Boydstun]

Three of the authors in this book contributed also to Blackwell’s A Companion to Aristotle (2009): James Lennox, Robert Mayhew, and Fred Miller. Allan Gotthelf, co-editor of A Companion to Ayn Rand (CAR), was a leading Aristotelian scholar of recent decades. Contributor James Lennox, likewise.

CAR has a superb Index. Rand’s ITOE is indexed by Chapters. Indices to Rand’s fiction include index by Parts (and by Chapter for AS).

From the Index, the major philosophers dealt with significantly in CAR are, naturally: Plato, Aristotle, Locke, Hume, Kant, and Nietzsche. Some notice goes to Parmenides, Aquinas, Francis Bacon, Hobbes, Descartes, Spinoza, Hegel, and Comte.

Philosophic concepts salient with Rand and receiving a fair amount of attention in CAR (I’m slighting politics a bit):

Abstraction, Achievement, Altruism, Art, Axioms

Benevolence, Benevolent Universe Premise

Capitalism, Causality, Character, Characterization in Literature, Choice to Live, Choice to Think, Christianity, Civilization, Collectivism, Concepts, Conflicts of Interest, Consciousness

Definitions, Deontology, Desires, Determinism, Duty

Egoism, Emotions, Entities, Essence, Esthetic Judgment, Evasion, Evil, Existence

Facts, Faith, Fallacies, Focus, Force, Free Will

Government

Happiness, Hatred, Heroes, Honesty

Individualism, Integration, Integrity, Intrinsicism, Irrationality

Justice

Knowledge

Law, Learning, Life, Love

Malevolent Universe Premise, Man, Metaphysical Value Judgments, Mysticism

Nature

Objective vs. Intrinsic and Subjective, Objectivity

Perception, Plot, Power, Pride, Primacy of Consciousness, Primacy of Existence, Productiveness, Property, Psycho-Epistemology, Psychology, Purpose

Rationality, Reality, Reason, Rights, Romanticism

Sacrifice, Self-Esteem, Self-Interest, Selfishness, Sense of Life, Society, Statism, Subjectivism

Trade

Values, Virtue 

A Companion to Ayn Rand (CAR) is a companion to the study of her philosophy. It presents her philosophy, backed with citations to her texts. Leonard Peikoff's OPAR does that also, so what is the difference with CAR? The latter has about twenty times the number of words as the former. OPAR conveys more of the spirit of Rand's writing by its own style than does CAR, which is in the standard, precise, vapid scholarly style, which is to say, only quotations from Rand show her spirit in CAR.

CAR brings Rand’s thought on an issue into full context, with citations, of whatever she wrote anywhere. That is helpful. This Blackwell Companion to Philosophy differs from its volume on Aristotle not only because of the scale of Aristotle’s technical achievements, historical influence, and long line of commentators, but because Aristotle is often hard to interpret, and one needs help with that, which the Companions (Blackwell and Cambridge) provide. Rand’s meaning is most always clear. We her readers live in her own cultural setting(s), and we need little help in understanding her. Interpreting Rand is not nearly the scale of problem we have in interpreting Aristotle.

CAR is unlike the volume on Aristotle in that CAR is an apology for its subject. CAR is a defense of Rand, not only a presentation and companion. It takes up or tries to preempt a lot of the serious criticisms that have been made of Rand’s thought. As with its settings of Rand in relation to other philosophers, the apologetics of CAR aid in clarifications of Rand’s Objectivism. Of course, one has to reflect on how true to Rand’s texts is the apology. That is to say, the wise student will read Rand, not only CAR. That goes for any Companion. I should mention that CAR is like other Companions in that overwhelmingly it is just one “In Rand’s view . . .” after another, with her expressed reasons for the view, and the author makes no assessment of the view or reasons.

Part of the joint effort in CAR of putting the best intellectual face on Rand’s texts goes too far in what it does not say. After claiming (unfortunately without documentation) that Rand read a good deal of Kant, James Lennox says that “for the broad sweep of philosophy’s history she relied on classic presentations, such as B. A. G. Fuller’s A History of Philosophy: Ancient, Medieval and Modern.” Prof. Lennox neglects to mention that if Rand read Fuller’s fine representation of Kant’s philosophy, she spat out that representation and contrived her own.

 

Edited March 9, 2016 by Boydstun

[StrictlyLogical]

Thanks Boydstun!

 

Published Feb 23, 2016!

Have you had a chance to read it in its entirety?  Do you highly recommend this work?

[EDIT:  Done and DONE.  Ordered from Amazon.  So excited!!]

Edited March 9, 2016 by StrictlyLogical

[Boydstun]

I've read only a couple of chapters so far, but from those and dipping in here and there, Yes, I recommend it highly. Hope you find much helpful there in this first read and continuing as a reference through the years.

[Boydstun]

I mentioned earlier that “CAR brings Rand's thought on an issue into full context, with citations, of whatever she wrote anywhere.” I spoke too soon. That merit applies by and large to CAR, but not always. I’ll give an example in a moment. I mentioned also earlier that CAR “takes up or tries to preempt a lot of the serious criticisms that have been made of Rand’s thought.” I see now that the ways in which that is sometimes done in this book should count as demerits. I’ll give an example in which text of Rand and of Branden that gives rise to tension in an area is not shown nor even mentioned, though one pole of the tension is summarily denied. This omission is fortunately taken up in an endnote of a later chapter of the book, but there not portrayed as a tension unresolved in Rand's philosophy as she left it. In another area of philosophy, text of Rand’s with tension is displayed, but CAR takes no notice of the tension and indeed misinterprets the text.

These sorts of defects seem to be exceptions, rather than the rule for CAR. Readers long-steeped in Rand’s writings naturally tend, like me and most readers here, to not mention specifically the successes in representation on straightforward views of Rand in secondary literature such as CAR. For that is settled old pavement to such readers (although CAR’s pointing out of interconnections within Rand’s works, as well as connections and contrasts with other thinkers, adds some interest in such smooth, well-trod areas). That understood, I say infidelity to the tensions and full richness of a thinker is a flaw for this sort of work, and it also makes Rand’s views a bit less complex and intellectually honest and a bit less interesting than they are.

First, the tension-case I take for misinterpretation by CAR of Rand’s text: Allan Gotthelf writes (or perhaps this is a supplementation by Greg Salmieri) as follows. “Love and the less intense forms of affection are selfish, according to Rand, in that the person one loves is valuable to one because he fulfills (a survival-based) psychological need and produces a great deal of pleasure. It should be clear that this explanation does not imply that what one really values is one’s own pleasure or the satisfaction of one’s psychological needs, rather than the person one loves. What Rand’s theory is meant to explain is the specific need a person has for certain other people and the reason why he takes such pleasure in their company. These factors make those specific people valuable to him, and thereby make their welfare a part of his self-interest. ‘The practical implementation of friendship, affection and love consists of incorporating the welfare (the rational welfare) of the person involved into one’s own hierarchy of values, then acting accordingly’. (‘The Ethics of Emergencies’ VOS 53)” (89)

No. Rand’s talk of incorporation into the hierarchy of one’s values is here, as ever, talk of instrumental value, existential or psychological. She expresses her purely instrumentalist, purely egoistic model of right positive relations to others, the well-acquainted and the stranger, in places in both Atlas and Fountainhead. That she has relationships and behaviors of protagonists at odds with such a theory is only a tension in her own full view of good human relationships. It is a failure of the model she sets forth in theoretical analysis. Her model does indeed not imply that one does not really value loved ones. But the theory, the analysis, her pure egoism and the way she conceives of the end-in-itself of persons, leaves the value of loved ones in one’s life as purely instrumental ultimately to one’s self, one’s needs and pleasures.

Now to my case in which a CAR rugged-over tension eventually gets some attention, though not squarely. Onkar Ghate writes: “The choice to ‘think or not’ is not man’s only choice, according to Rand: it is his primary choice. This choice sets a mind’s regulating goal. Sub-choices then arise to the extent that there is such a goal, and are the means of implementing it. . . . As Branden puts this point: ‘The primary choice to focus, to set one’s mind to the purpose of cognitive integration . . . is the highest regulator in the mental system; it is subject to man’s direct, volitional control. In relation to it, all other choices and decisions are sub-regulators’. (TO 5(2) 23)”

Why does Dr. Ghate make that first statement about Rand’s view, the statement before the colon? He does not say, but I’ll say. It’s because in 1957 Rand had written: “That which you call ‘free will’ is your mind’s freedom to think or not, the only will you have, your only freedom, the choice that controls all the choices you make and determines your life and character” (AS 1017). I repeat: “your only freedom.” The text Ghate quotes from Branden is from the latter’s 1966 “The Objectivist Theory of Volition.” I repeat from Branden there: “direct, volitional control.” He says also there that the choice to focus “is a first cause in a man’s consciousness. On the psychological level, this choice is causally irreducible.” Rand’s “your only freedom” had not been dropped as of 1966, and it remained as if it were the only really free choice that human beings have, which is in considerable tension with the depictions of the protagonists in her fiction as well as with the experience of every reader.

In Jason Rheins’ contribution “The Primacy of Existence,” there is a short and superb summary of the Objectivist view of free will. To that section is attached endnote 46, in which Prof. Rheins remarks that it could be inferred from Branden’s expression of Rand’s position that she regarded “the primary choice of whether or not to think (i.e., be in a state of ‘focus’) as the only absolutely free choice, with all other choices being more or less determined by the primary choices [think or not, focus or not].” Rheins neglects to note Rand’s own 1957 statement to the same effect. He acknowledges that such statements have been given various interpretations, and his own is that in the Rand/Branden view secondary choices are also free, but would not be free were the standing primary choice not free. That is an interesting interpretation, and I encourage the reader to read the note in full. But I think that as presented this interpretation transmutes a real tension in Rand’s thought, likewise Branden’s thought, into merely poor expression.

[StrictlyLogical]

2 hours ago, Boydstun said:

It should be clear that this explanation does not imply that what one really values is one’s own pleasure or the satisfaction of one’s psychological needs, rather than the person one loves.

Just to confirm, your disagreement with the author specifically is the above, right?

 

At first I had trouble with what seems like a "strawish man" or a "false dichotomy" here... I did not notice it upon my first reading (I also am past this point).

It turns out that the negative language might be its saving grace (as is explained below).

How can one distinguish WHAT one "really" values in a causal chain of values?  If another person has value to me by virtue of satisfaction of psychological need, and my capacity for happiness, then BOTH the person and the happiness are values.  If happiness leads to efficacy which supports life then happiness and efficacy are still values, as is life, the ultimate value.  An indirect value is not a non-value just because it gives rise to more primary or more fundamental value in the hierarchy leading back to life itself. 

The "rather than" seems to imply that the possibilities are ONLY that EITHER a person OR happiness is the so-called "real" value.  BUT, to assume away all subordinate values as not being "real" because they enable other "values" would eviscerate ALL Objectivist values in the value hierarchy leaving ONLY LIFE as the single ultimate value.

I do note that the negative language "does NOT imply" (A rather than B), can suffice to dispel both the false "either or" and the particular (or either) single choice.

So it seems to me, although he is not explicitly saying Rand held persons and happiness both as values, he is saying Rand did not claim people are not values, only the effects they have are values (which, being nonsensical Rand would actually never say).

 

So I think the negative language saves this.  Is there another potential error by the author here I am missing?

 

Can you elaborate on what you are getting at here?

2 hours ago, Boydstun said:

Rand’s talk of incorporation into the hierarchy of one’s values is here, as ever, talk of instrumental value, existential or psychological. She expresses her purely instrumentalist, purely egoistic model of right positive relations to others, the well-acquainted and the stranger, in places in both Atlas and Fountainhead. That she has relationships and behaviors of protagonists at odds with such a theory is only a tension in her own full view of good human relationships. It is a failure of the model she sets forth in theoretical analysis. Her model does indeed not imply that one does not really value loved ones. But the theory, the analysis, her pure egoism and the way she conceives of the end-in-itself of persons, leaves the value of loved ones in one’s life as purely instrumental ultimately to one’s self, one’s needs and pleasures.

 

Edited March 25, 2016 by StrictlyLogical

[StrictlyLogical]

2 hours ago, Boydstun said:

Why does Dr. Ghate make that first statement about Rand’s view, the statement before the colon? He does not say, but I’ll say. It’s because in 1957 Rand had written: “That which you call ‘free will’ is your mind’s freedom to think or not, the only will you have, your only freedom, the choice that controls all the choices you make and determines your life and character” (AS 1017). I repeat: “your only freedom.” The text Ghate quotes from Branden is from the latter’s 1966 “The Objectivist Theory of Volition.” I repeat from Branden there: “direct, volitional control.” He says also there that the choice to focus “is a first cause in a man’s consciousness. On the psychological level, this choice is causally irreducible.” Rand’s “your only freedom” had not been dropped as of 1966, and it remained as if it were the only really free choice that human beings have, which is in considerable tension with the depictions of the protagonists in her fiction as well as with the experience of every reader.

 

In Jason Rheins’ contribution “The Primacy of Existence,” there is a short and superb summary of the Objectivist view of free will. To that section is attached endnote 46, in which Prof. Rheins remarks that it could be inferred from Branden’s expression of Rand’s position that she regarded “the primary choice of whether or not to think (i.e., be in a state of ‘focus’) as the only absolutely free choice, with all other choices being more or less determined by the primary choices [think or not, focus or not].” Rheins neglects to note Rand’s own 1957 statement to the same effect. He acknowledges that such statements have been given various interpretations, and his own is that in the Rand/Branden view secondary choices are also free, but would not be free were the standing primary choice not free. That is an interesting interpretation, and I encourage the reader to read the note in full. But I think that as presented this interpretation transmutes a real tension in Rand’s thought, likewise Branden’s thought, into merely poor expression.

Excellent observation.  I also was struck by the reference to free will being applicable to sub-choices.  If in fact Rand had "expanded" her conception of free-will, was it something which was enduring, permanent?  Of does it only appear in the form of a transitory "approval" of Branden's analysis...

From what I gather from my readings/listenings of OPAR, and LPs history of philosophies, they imply Rand's view was only ever that free will consisted ONLY of the choice to focus or not.

Does anything resolve the tension?

[StrictlyLogical]

1 hour ago, StrictlyLogical said:

Just to confirm, your disagreement with the author specifically is the above, right?

 

At first I had trouble with what seems like a "strawish man" or a "false dichotomy" here... I did not notice it upon my first reading (I also am past this point).

It turns out that the negative language might be its saving grace (as is explained below).

How can one distinguish WHAT one "really" values in a causal chain of values?  If another person has value to me by virtue of satisfaction of psychological need, and my capacity for happiness, then BOTH the person and the happiness are values.  If happiness leads to efficacy which supports life then happiness and efficacy are still values, as is life, the ultimate value.  An indirect value is not a non-value just because it gives rise to more primary or more fundamental value in the hierarchy leading back to life itself. 

The "rather than" seems to imply that the possibilities are ONLY that EITHER a person OR happiness is the so-called "real" value.  BUT, to assume away all subordinate values as not being "real" because they enable other "values" would eviscerate ALL Objectivist values in the value hierarchy leaving ONLY LIFE as the single ultimate value.

I do note that the negative language "does NOT imply" (A rather than B), can suffice to dispel both the false "either or" and the particular (or either) single choice.

So it seems to me, although he is not explicitly saying Rand held persons and happiness both as values, he is saying Rand did not claim people are not values, only the effects they have are values (which, being nonsensical Rand would actually never say).

 

So I think the negative language saves this.  Is there another potential error by the author here I am missing?

 

Can you elaborate on what you are getting at here?

 

PS:  I want to add I fully agree with your emphasis on Rand's definition of Value, that they ARE instrumental.  I am not purporting to distinguish between types of values some instrumental some not, values are values or they are not. 

I only raise the issue as one of "direct" versus "indirect" values, or derivative verses foundational values, in a chain of values leading back to life, the ultimate value. 

 

PPS The "ends in themselves" concept, has a meaning of "ends in themselves to themselves" does it not?  After all what would "ends in themselves... to me" even mean? (assuming the avoidance of any claim to intrinsic value)