 Objectivism and the Nature of Living Organisms
by Luke Setzer
This article stands alone and also lays the foundation for a forthcoming series of articles explaining how to experience Objectivism through the tools of the popular Franklin Covey training company. (Read more...)
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Food for Thought: The Connection between Objectivist Ethics and Diet
by Jana Beck
Is the choice between eating a Twinkie or an apple an ethical one? About six months ago I had an experience that helped me answer this question. (Read more...)
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Ayn Rand's Value Theory
by Edward W. Younkins
To be a value means to be good for someone and for something. Life is one’s fundamental value because life is conditional and requires a particular course of action to maintain it. Something can be good or bad only to a living organism, such as a human being, acting to survive. Man’s life is the ultimate value and the standard of value for a human being. (Read more...)
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Of Brains, Vats and Stolen Concepts
by Cameron Pritchard
The whole brain in the vat argument is based on fallacious reasoning that refutes itself. With good philosophical tools in our hands, life is made so much easier. So long as we know how to use these tools, there are so many arguments we barely even have to refute because they do the job for us themselves. (Read more...)
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Where TOC Shines
by Adam Reed
TOC's presentation of what it purports to present as "Objectivism" to the general public is abysmal. On the other hand, TOC's Advanced Seminar, and Will Thomas' presentations of his original work at the regular TOC Summer Seminar, are a fabulously productive venue for fruitful technical exploration of new and forgotten aspects of Objectivism. (Read more...)
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Rand and Hume: An Analysis
by Daniel M. Ryan
The same test to spot a false dichotomy that Leonard Peikoff used on Immanuel Kant’s analytic-synthetic dichotomy is used in this paper to evaluate David Hume’s division of knowledge into Relations of Ideas and Matters of Fact. This test reveals a certain truth to Hume’s dichotomy, but also reveals Hume’s epistemological system to be a kind of humanist empiricism. Reconstruction of Hume’s four principles of association of ideas shows that Rand and Hume have more in common than previously suspected (Read more...)
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TOC, SOLO ... and KASS
by Lindsay Perigo
The future of western civilisation rests with Objectivism. The future of Objectivism rests with us, the non-religious bearers of the torch. "TOC, SOLO ... and KASS" is not just a cute title. It bespeaks *our* rendezvous with history. (Read more...)
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Ayn Rand and Evolution
by Neil Parille
Ayn Rand discusses evolution a few times, but never mentioned Charles Darwin. Two major summaries of Rand’s thought, The Ayn Rand Lexicon and Leonard Peikoff’s Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, are silent. This essay will review some of Rand’s references to evolution and suggest reasons for Rand’s apparent hesitancy. (Read more...)
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Fraud
by Joseph Rowlands
Fraud does not involve putting a gun to someone's head and demanding money. It's a soft, quiet form of theft. (Read more...)
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Complicated Concepts
by Joseph Rowlands
What concepts should be formed in the first place? There are an infinite number of potential concepts we could choose to create and retain, so we have to have a way of selecting. What kind of criteria do we use? How do we filter out bad candidates? Or do we need to at all? (Read more...)
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 Of Fundamentals & Fidelity, Revisited
by Lindsay Perigo
SOLO does not seek to "rewrite Objectivism." It does seek to change the culture of Objectivism that the ARI has imposed for too long now. Nietzsche said that one must forgive a philosopher his [her] first generation of disciples. It's hard to forgive the ARI for its bullying, its intimidation, its malevolence, its dishonesty, its blackballing of Titans like Sciabarra & Machan & Kelley & Walsh & Reisman, its cultivation of subservience & mediocrity ... (Read more...)
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In Praise of Hijacking
by Chris Matthew Sciabarra
Chris Matthew Sciabarra reviews The Hijacking of a Philosophy: Homosexuals vs. Ayn Rand’s Objectivism by Reginald Firehammer, a book that constitutes a reply to Sciabarra's own SOLO monograph, Ayn Rand, Homosexuality, and Human Liberation. (Read more...)
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667; or, How Objectivists Are Not Materialists
by Rodney Rawlings
Some thinkers have charged that Objectivism is a materialist philosophy in spite of itself, since it sees the world exclusively in terms of reason. In a thread titled “The Number of the Beast,” the poster “Citizen Rat” put forth an articulate version of this viewpoint. He also suggested that to escape such a soulless, deterministic worldview Objectivists should leave open the possibility of God’s existence and recognize that toleration of religious principles can be expedient in moving us all closer to a capitalistic society. The present essay addresses the charge of materialism with a special focus on various aspects of Citizen Rat’s argument. (Read more...)
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Honesty and the Arbitrary
by Joseph Rowlands
The more lies you try to maintain, the bigger the mental burden is. You'd eventually get crushed by the weight of the lies. It's not surprising that when the truth comes out, often the liar is relieved. He no longer has to live in a state of constant anxiety, spending every ounce of energy he's got on keeping his lies straight. (Read more...)
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Value Judgments vs. Emotions
by Joseph Rowlands
Objectivist epistemology rejects emotions as a form of cognition. In other words, you may feel something, but that doesn’t provide you with any knowledge except that you feel it. (Read more...)
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Aristotle: Ayn Rand's Acknowledged Teacher
by Edward W. Younkins
Aristotle heralds the role of reason in a proper human life. He examines the nature of man and his functions and sees that man survives through purposeful conduct which results from the active exercise of his capacity for rational thought. The ability to reason separates man from all other living organisms and supplies him with his unique means of survival and flourishing. It is through purposive, rational conduct that a person can achieve happiness. (Read more...)
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A Fortress Against Objectivism
by Adam Reed
Donway's article is an attempt to disinterr and resurrect the zombie of an old dichotomy between "bourgeois individualism" and "romantic individualism". This is the same dichotomy that Rand killed and buried by presenting a new, integrated, coherent vision of individualism in "The Fountainhead." (Read more...)
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An Objectivist Statement of Resolves
by G. Stolyarov II
A formal explication of all the ideas held in common by Objectivists, and an endeavor to focus attention on these principles for the sake of their cultural propagation. (Read more...)
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Human Needs
by Joseph Rowlands
If you ask people what they need to live, they might say something like "Well, we only need food and water". (Read more...)
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Borderlines
by Joseph Rowlands
One of the topics in Objectivist epistemology is the method of concept-formation. It discusses how it is we can take different entities in reality, and create a useful mental abstraction. How do we go from individual trees to the concept 'tree'? How do we go from instances of the color blue, to the concept 'blue'? ... (Read more...)
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Not Enough Justice?
by Joseph Rowlands
A common type of question Objectivists get involves some horrific action a person can take that is technically not a violation of anyone's rights. This may include the torture of animals, a guy is emotionally abusive to his girlfriend, parents who refuse to educate their children, or a wife who insists on cooking vegetarian dishes. All of them travesties of justice, and yet the law is not allowed to remedy them. (Read more...)
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Objectivity and Art
by Joseph Rowlands
One of the central principles of Objectivism, as well as one of the more powerful tools, is the concept of objectivity. (Read more...)
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Ayn Rand, Objectivism, and Religion (Part 4 of 4)
by Neil Parille
"RELIGION AND ITS ROLE IN HISTORY" continued, "CONCLUSION", and "REFERENCES". (Read more...)
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Ayn Rand, Objectivism, and Religion (Part 3 of 4)
by Neil Parille
"RELIGION AND ITS ROLE IN HISTORY" and the first part of "WHAT IS WRONG WITH RELIGION?" (Read more...)
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Ayn Rand, Objectivism, and Religion (Part 2 of 4)
by Neil Parille
The rest of the "ATHEISM, RELIGION, AND MYSTICISM" section. (Read more...)
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