Ayn Rand (Alissa Rosenbaum) (1905-1982)

Encyclopedia Entries

Rand, Ayn  The Penguin Biographical Dictionary of Women
Rand, Ayn Columbia Encyclopedia
Rand The Window - Philosophers
Ayn Rand  - Wikipedia, 

 

Questions of 

Selfishness,  maximizing individual freedom - minimizing government, unbridled capitalism, cults

Readings:

Ayn Rand: The Virtue of Selfishness  (Timmons)

who was Ayn Rand? - a biography, Playboy interview, 1964

Writings

For the New Intellectual (1961)
Philosophy: Who Needs It (1982)
The Voice of Reason: Essays in Objectivist Thought (1988)
Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology (Second Edition, 1990)
The Virtue of Selfishness (1964)
Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (1966)
The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution (1971)
The Romantic Manifesto (1975)

Commentaries

Ayn Rand Snapshot

Ayn Rand, Anti-Communism, & the Left
... Ayn Rand (1905-1982). Ayn Rand (born Alice Rosenbaum) is a fascinating person and an inspiring advocate of freedom but a very mixed blessing philosophically. ...
www.friesian.com/rand.htm

Critiques Of Libertarianis

Quotes

"Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men." Ayn Rand [The Fountainhead]

Poverty is not a mortgage on the labor of others - misfortune is not a mortgage on achievement - failure is not a mortgage on success - suffering is not a claim check, and its relief is not the goal of existence - man is not a sacrificial animal on anyone's altar nor for anyone's cause - life is not one huge hospital. Ayn Rand, "Apollo 11," The Objectivist

The basic principle of altruism is that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the only justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, virtue and value.

Do not confuse altruism with kindness, good will or respect for the rights of others. These are not primaries, but consequences, which, in fact, altruism makes impossible. The irreducible primary of altruism, the basic absolute, is self-sacrifice - which means: self-immolation, self-abnegation, self-denial, self-destruction - which means: the self as a standard of evil, the selfless as a standard of the good. Ayn Rand, "Faith and Force: The Destroyers of the Modern World," Philosophy: Who Needs It

Geographical and Historical Situation

 

Websites