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For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand
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Manufacturer: Signet
Author: Ayn Rand
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Our Price: $7.99
You Save: $ ( % )
Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Signet
Author: Ayn Rand
Publisher: Signet
Average Customer Rating:
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For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand Description
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 190
EAN: 9780451163080
ISBN: 0451163087
Label: Signet
Manufacturer: Signet
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 224
Publication Date: 1963-12-01
Publisher: Signet
Studio: Signet
Dewey Decimal Number: 190
EAN: 9780451163080
ISBN: 0451163087
Label: Signet
Manufacturer: Signet
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 224
Publication Date: 1963-12-01
Publisher: Signet
Studio: Signet
Editorial Review of For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand
Customer Reviews of For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: A new philosophical highway vs. old philosophical cul-de-sacs
Review: Ayn Rand presents her philosophy as an alternative to the two philosophical cul-de-sacs, which have dominated the field and every other branch of knowledge in modern times. This book opens with a fifty-page essay, which delineates the two most prevalent approaches in the history of western philosophical thought to the nature of man (ethics) and social organization (political philosophy).
These old approaches can ultimately be traced back to the dual leadership roles of the warrior chieftain and the witch doctor in pre-historic tribal times. Recently, they have taken on new clothing, but remain essentially the same.
In modern times, these approaches divide along the mind/body dichotomy initiated by Descartes. As in tribal eras, however, both approaches are still steeped in collectivism. Indeed, they are two sides of the same counterfeit coin.
Ayn Rand shows how these two approaches with their corresponding epistemologies are rooted in a philosophical archetype, which predates the forking point in Descartes. Indeed, even the severing of the forms from the sensible world in Plato is in full concert with this bifurcation.
Ayn Rand aptly names these archetypes the Witch Doctor and Attila, thus illuminating their essential qualities. The Witch Doctor communes with alleged forces beyond this world. Attila relies on brute force to control men and society. Both are united against their common nemesis--the producer.
The producer recognizes the inviolability of nature and reality and seeks to understand both through reason. It is on the producers that the Attilas and the Witch Doctors depend and against whom both unite in envy and hatred and their desire to rule.
The remainder of the book contains excerpted (philosophically relevant) passages from her novels.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: An introduction...
Review: As introductions go, this was fair. The book is a compilation of an essay and excerpts from Rand's fiction. Her philosophy of Objectivism, developed somewhat in her fiction, is obviously in its infancy in this essay. But the pure nature of it is visible.
If you are unsure about Rand and picked up one of her books and were a bit overwhelmed at its depth, this is a good place to skim the surface and get a sampling of her fiction and her non-fiction work that followed.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Way better than her fiction
Review: The problem with Objectivism is that Ayn Rand used fiction as a vehicle for its presentation.
The result of this (The Fountainhead) is artistically bankrupt and incredibly frustrating to read. Her two-dimensional characters are nothing but mouthpieces for her moralizing vitriol or crude strawmen of her opponents, and lengthy author-talking speeches like John Galt's in Atlas Shrugged are mockeries towards real creative writers.
Fortunately, FTNI excises the polemic passages from her fiction writings, meaning that the reader gets the gist of Objectivist beliefs without having to labor through thousands of pages of terrible storytelling.
While it's by no means an exhaustive system, Objectivism is good for getting oneself motivated and maintaining a feeling of superiority towards everyone else.
It's definitely worth spending a day or two reading, but probably not going back for seconds.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Not the best place to start
Review: This was Rand's first work of nonfiction, and it is supposed to be an introduction to her philosophy of Objectivism. But it is certainly not the best place to start. The book consists of one rather lengthy essay, followed by excerpts from her four novels. As expected, more pages are devoted to excerpts from Atlas Shrugged than to any of the other novels - in fact, than to all of the others put together. Galt's seventy-plus page speech is included in its entirety.
Unfortunately, the excerpts aren't as interesting outside the context of the novels. Even worse, the title essay is probably the weakest Rand ever wrote. In it, Rand attempts to explain all of history in terms of the two types of men who have dominated it, Attila and the Witch Doctor. Attila represents those who have ruled men by force, whereas the Witch Doctor represents the irrational mystics who have controlled men's minds. The whole thing is just plain ridiculous.
If you want to know what Rand thought, you'd be better off starting with The Virtue of Selfishness, followed by Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Rand's Worst
Review: In 1957 Ayn Rand published ATLAS SHRUGGED, her epic novel of individual freedom versus the mass state. ATLAS SHRUGGED contained "Galt Speaks," a lengthy speech in which John Galt (the protagonist of the novel) sets forth the basics of Rand's philosophy, known as Objectivism. FOR THE NEW INTELLECTUAL (FTNI) contains "Galt Speaks" and philosophical portions from her fiction. It also includes a lengthy essay explaining Rand's philosophy of history, which will be the focus of my review.
Rand starts FTNI with two characters she believes define most of history: the Witch Doctor and Attila. Attila rules by force and the Witch Doctor is his "ideas man." History is largely the influence of the Witch Doctor on Attila. The supreme Witch Doctor of the ancient world was Plato; the chief Witch Doctor of the modern era was Immanuel Kant. Their antipode is Aristotle, the philosopher of reason and the real world, whose philosophy unfortunately contained elements of Plato's otherworldliness. Through most of history the Witch Doctor has been calling the shots. However, Aristotle's philosophy hasn't been completely forgotten and emerged, due to Thomas Aquinas, in the Renaissance and in the founding of the United States. Ayn Rand purged Aristotle's thought from its remnants of Platonism. With the publication of ATLAS SHRUGGED a core of new intellectuals is being formed, ready to save the world from irrationalism. "Aristotle, Aquinas and Ayn" as Rand once put it. Or, as one Objectivist thinker said: "The big three [Plato, Aristotle and Kant] are now the big four" adding, you guessed it, Ayn Rand to the list.
FTNI follows the Attila/Witch Doctor description with an analysis of the history of philosophy. Rand critiques numerous philosophers and their influence on history: Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, Hume, Kant, Comte, Spencer and others. She gives little evidence that she has read any of these thinkers, much less understood them. For example, she says of Kant: "An action is moral, for Kant, only if one has no desire to perform it . . . (p. 32)." Where, Miss Rand, does Kant say this? Or, "[t]he prelude to the Renaissance was the return of Aristotle via Thomas Aquinas (p. 23)." Doesn't she know of Aristotle's influence on theologians who influenced Aquinas, such as Albertus Magnus? Moreover, in her praise of the Renaissance (which she claims was essentially Aristotelian) she is oblivious to the fact that the many important Renaissance thinkers were Platonists.
There isn't much good I can say about FNTI. While reading it may encourage you to take an interest in philosophy, the hatchet job she does on individual philosophers, schools of philosophy, and their influence on history is likely to set your study of philosophy back by years. Sure it's exciting to think you know something about history that hardly anyone else has knows, even those with doctorates in philosophy. That's probably why FTNI and ATLAS SHRUGGED were the most exciting things I read in high school (with the possible exception of WORLDS IN COLLISION, where I learned that Earth almost collided with Mars and that Venus was a comet shot out from Jupiter).
Review Summary: A new philosophical highway vs. old philosophical cul-de-sacs
Review: Ayn Rand presents her philosophy as an alternative to the two philosophical cul-de-sacs, which have dominated the field and every other branch of knowledge in modern times. This book opens with a fifty-page essay, which delineates the two most prevalent approaches in the history of western philosophical thought to the nature of man (ethics) and social organization (political philosophy).
These old approaches can ultimately be traced back to the dual leadership roles of the warrior chieftain and the witch doctor in pre-historic tribal times. Recently, they have taken on new clothing, but remain essentially the same.
In modern times, these approaches divide along the mind/body dichotomy initiated by Descartes. As in tribal eras, however, both approaches are still steeped in collectivism. Indeed, they are two sides of the same counterfeit coin.
Ayn Rand shows how these two approaches with their corresponding epistemologies are rooted in a philosophical archetype, which predates the forking point in Descartes. Indeed, even the severing of the forms from the sensible world in Plato is in full concert with this bifurcation.
Ayn Rand aptly names these archetypes the Witch Doctor and Attila, thus illuminating their essential qualities. The Witch Doctor communes with alleged forces beyond this world. Attila relies on brute force to control men and society. Both are united against their common nemesis--the producer.
The producer recognizes the inviolability of nature and reality and seeks to understand both through reason. It is on the producers that the Attilas and the Witch Doctors depend and against whom both unite in envy and hatred and their desire to rule.
The remainder of the book contains excerpted (philosophically relevant) passages from her novels.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: An introduction...
Review: As introductions go, this was fair. The book is a compilation of an essay and excerpts from Rand's fiction. Her philosophy of Objectivism, developed somewhat in her fiction, is obviously in its infancy in this essay. But the pure nature of it is visible.
If you are unsure about Rand and picked up one of her books and were a bit overwhelmed at its depth, this is a good place to skim the surface and get a sampling of her fiction and her non-fiction work that followed.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Way better than her fiction
Review: The problem with Objectivism is that Ayn Rand used fiction as a vehicle for its presentation.
The result of this (The Fountainhead) is artistically bankrupt and incredibly frustrating to read. Her two-dimensional characters are nothing but mouthpieces for her moralizing vitriol or crude strawmen of her opponents, and lengthy author-talking speeches like John Galt's in Atlas Shrugged are mockeries towards real creative writers.
Fortunately, FTNI excises the polemic passages from her fiction writings, meaning that the reader gets the gist of Objectivist beliefs without having to labor through thousands of pages of terrible storytelling.
While it's by no means an exhaustive system, Objectivism is good for getting oneself motivated and maintaining a feeling of superiority towards everyone else.
It's definitely worth spending a day or two reading, but probably not going back for seconds.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Not the best place to start
Review: This was Rand's first work of nonfiction, and it is supposed to be an introduction to her philosophy of Objectivism. But it is certainly not the best place to start. The book consists of one rather lengthy essay, followed by excerpts from her four novels. As expected, more pages are devoted to excerpts from Atlas Shrugged than to any of the other novels - in fact, than to all of the others put together. Galt's seventy-plus page speech is included in its entirety.
Unfortunately, the excerpts aren't as interesting outside the context of the novels. Even worse, the title essay is probably the weakest Rand ever wrote. In it, Rand attempts to explain all of history in terms of the two types of men who have dominated it, Attila and the Witch Doctor. Attila represents those who have ruled men by force, whereas the Witch Doctor represents the irrational mystics who have controlled men's minds. The whole thing is just plain ridiculous.
If you want to know what Rand thought, you'd be better off starting with The Virtue of Selfishness, followed by Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Rand's Worst
Review: In 1957 Ayn Rand published ATLAS SHRUGGED, her epic novel of individual freedom versus the mass state. ATLAS SHRUGGED contained "Galt Speaks," a lengthy speech in which John Galt (the protagonist of the novel) sets forth the basics of Rand's philosophy, known as Objectivism. FOR THE NEW INTELLECTUAL (FTNI) contains "Galt Speaks" and philosophical portions from her fiction. It also includes a lengthy essay explaining Rand's philosophy of history, which will be the focus of my review.
Rand starts FTNI with two characters she believes define most of history: the Witch Doctor and Attila. Attila rules by force and the Witch Doctor is his "ideas man." History is largely the influence of the Witch Doctor on Attila. The supreme Witch Doctor of the ancient world was Plato; the chief Witch Doctor of the modern era was Immanuel Kant. Their antipode is Aristotle, the philosopher of reason and the real world, whose philosophy unfortunately contained elements of Plato's otherworldliness. Through most of history the Witch Doctor has been calling the shots. However, Aristotle's philosophy hasn't been completely forgotten and emerged, due to Thomas Aquinas, in the Renaissance and in the founding of the United States. Ayn Rand purged Aristotle's thought from its remnants of Platonism. With the publication of ATLAS SHRUGGED a core of new intellectuals is being formed, ready to save the world from irrationalism. "Aristotle, Aquinas and Ayn" as Rand once put it. Or, as one Objectivist thinker said: "The big three [Plato, Aristotle and Kant] are now the big four" adding, you guessed it, Ayn Rand to the list.
FTNI follows the Attila/Witch Doctor description with an analysis of the history of philosophy. Rand critiques numerous philosophers and their influence on history: Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, Hume, Kant, Comte, Spencer and others. She gives little evidence that she has read any of these thinkers, much less understood them. For example, she says of Kant: "An action is moral, for Kant, only if one has no desire to perform it . . . (p. 32)." Where, Miss Rand, does Kant say this? Or, "[t]he prelude to the Renaissance was the return of Aristotle via Thomas Aquinas (p. 23)." Doesn't she know of Aristotle's influence on theologians who influenced Aquinas, such as Albertus Magnus? Moreover, in her praise of the Renaissance (which she claims was essentially Aristotelian) she is oblivious to the fact that the many important Renaissance thinkers were Platonists.
There isn't much good I can say about FNTI. While reading it may encourage you to take an interest in philosophy, the hatchet job she does on individual philosophers, schools of philosophy, and their influence on history is likely to set your study of philosophy back by years. Sure it's exciting to think you know something about history that hardly anyone else has knows, even those with doctorates in philosophy. That's probably why FTNI and ATLAS SHRUGGED were the most exciting things I read in high school (with the possible exception of WORLDS IN COLLISION, where I learned that Earth almost collided with Mars and that Venus was a comet shot out from Jupiter).