Volume 14, No. 1 – July 2014 (Issue #27)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION: LIFE, DEATH, RENEWAL, pp. 1-4
This essay discusses the passing of two figures important to Ayn Rand studies: Allan Gotthelf and Barbara Branden. It also contextualizes some of the essays published in the current issue. [An excerpt from this introduction can be found here.]
BARBARA BRANDEN’S BIBLIOGRAPHY, pp. 5-9
This is an expanded, annotated bibliography of the work of the late Barbara Branden, who was Ayn Rand’s first biographer, and who made many contributions to the early Objectivist literature.
WHY JAMES TAGGART IS NO PRINCE CHARMING: AYN RAND AND FAIRY TALES, pp. 10-37
This article examines how and why Ayn Rand uses fairy tales as intertexts in her novels. It argues that she evokes and revises fairy tales to exemplify the metaphysical values that her novels resist. For Rand, fairy tales like “Cinderella” are problematic because they typically endorse conventionality over the truly heroic. She therefore associates them with secondhanders and villains. She rejects their message that mindless conformity leads to happily-ever-after, and she exposes how fairy tales can be formidable vehicles for promoting the senseless. She reinforces her point by contrasting them with her revisions of myths, which she associates with heroes.
THE PROBLEM WITH SELFISHNESS, pp. 38-54
Ayn Rand argued that “selfish” is the correct designation for a person living according to the Objectivist ethics and that selfishness is a virtue. The accuracy of this claim is examined along with the meaning of “selfish,” the wider implications for the Objectivist ethics, and ethics in general. Alternatives to the term are suggested.
PREFERENCE FORMATION, CHOICE SETS, AND THE CREATIVE DESTRUCTION OF PREFERENCES, pp. 55-74
RUSSELL S. SOBEL AND J. R. CLARK
Economic models are founded in the idea of taking individuals’ preferences as both known and given. This article explores the evolution of personal preferences, within a context of both entrepreneurial discovery and Objectivist philosophy. It begins by formalizing Ayn Rand’s theory of Objectivism applied to human values, and continues by modeling preference changes similar to Schumpeter’s theory of creative destruction — a process of self-discovery. Next the role of societal factors is examined in forming shared preference sets. Finally, the article describes how the strength of human preferences is used to narrow choice sets in the presence of greater consumption options.
REVIEWS
AYN RAND SOCIETY PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES, pp. 75-79
This essay reviews the first two works featuring essays derived from talks given before the Ayn Rand Society, an affiliated group of the American Philosophical Association, Eastern Division. The books are both edited by the late Allan Gotthelf (editor) and James G. Lennox (associate editor), each dealing with a different aspect of Ayn Rand’s philosophy. The first is a study in Ayn Rand’s normative theory (Metaethics, Egoism, and Virtue: Studies in Ayn Rand’s Normative Theory) and the second offers reflections on Rand’s theory of knowledge (Concepts and Their Role in Knowledge: Reflections on Objectivist Epistemology).
DISCUSSION
SYMPOSIUM ON ROBERT L. CAMPBELL’S ESSAY, “AN END TO OVER AND AGAINST” (THE JOURNAL OF AYN RAND STUDIES 13, NO. 1)
The following essays constitute a Symposium in response to Robert L. Campbell’s essay, “An End to Over and Against”, The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies 13, no. 1 (July): 46-68. We are proud to present replies from Jennifer Burns, author of Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right, Mimi Reisel Gladstein, author of numerous books and essays on Rand, and Anne Conover Heller, author of Ayn Rand and the World She Made. This is followed by a rejoinder from Robert L. Campbell.
REPLY TO ROBERT L. CAMPBELL: THOUGHTS FOR THE FUTURE, pp. 80-82
This essay replies to a review essay written by Robert L. Campbell, “An End to Over and Against” (The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, 13, no. 1), which discussed recent biographical and historical studies of Ayn Rand by Jennifer Burns (Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right) and Anne C. Heller (Ayn Rand and the World She Made). The main point of discussion is the way in which Ayn Rand and Nathaniel Branden engaged the ideas and practices of modern psychology.
REPLY TO ROBERT L. CAMPBELL: THE MAINSTREAMING OF AYN RAND, pp. 83-85
In her response to Robert L. Campbell’s review of two recent Rand biographies (“An End to Over and Against,” The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, July 2013), Gladstein adds further evidence to substantiate his claim that these two biographies, by non-Rand acolytes, are a sign that Rand is moving into the mainstream. Gladstein’s analysis emphasizes Campbell’s cataloging of how each biography has its own excellences and shortcomings.
REPLY TO ROBERT L. CAMPBELL: LANDSCAPES OVERLOOKED, pp. 86-87
This letter suggests that certain aspects of Rand’s life and work are overlooked by Robert L. Campbell, in his essay, “An End to Over and Against” (The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies 13, no. 1), which reviewed Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right by Jennifer Burns and Ayn Rand and the World She Made by Anne C. Heller.
REJOINDER TO JENNIFER BURNS, ANNE CONOVER HELLER, AND MIMI REISEL GLADSTEIN: PSYCHOLOGY, JEWISHNESS, AND NOTING AND WORKING AROUND, pp. 87-91
I offer a few thoughts in response to the comments on my review by Jennifer Burns, Anne Conover Heller, and Mimi Reisel Gladstein.
CONTRIBUTORS, pp. 92-95
CONTRIBUTOR BIOGRAPHIES
Roger E. Bissell is a professional musician and a writer on philosophy and psychology, specializing in aesthetics, logic and epistemology, and personality type theory. His work has appeared in a number of other publications, including Reason Papers, Objectivity, Journal of Consciousness Studies, Vera Lex, and ART Ideas. His mock transcription of a lecture by the fictional composer Richard Halley was published in Edward W. Younkins’s 2007 compilation, Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged”: A Philosophical and Literary Companion, and he supervised the transcription of Nathaniel Branden’s lectures for the 2009 publication of The Vision of Ayn Rand: The Basic Principles of Objectivism. Most recently, he published his first book, How the Martians Discovered Algebra: Explorations in Induction and the Philosophy of Mathematics, available from Amazon Kindle. He also frequently performs on recording sessions and jazz engagements, and his CDs feature his trombone playing, singing, musical arrangements, and original compositions.
Caroline Breashears, English Department, 102 Richardson Hall, St. Lawrence University, Canton, New York 13617, is an associate professor of English. She has taught courses on Ayn Rand, fairy tales, and British literature.
Jennifer Burns is an Assistant Professor of History at Stanford University. The author of Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right(Oxford, 2012), she has published articles on Rand, libertarianism, and conservative thought in Modern Intellectual History, Reviews in American History, The Journal of Policy History, and The Journal of Cultural Economy.
Robert L. Campbell is a professor of psychology at Clemson University. He is the author of “The Rewriting of Ayn Rand’s Spoken Answers,” which appeared in this journal in 2011.
J. R. Clark holds The Probasco Chair of Free Enterprise at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. He earned his Ph.D. in economics from Virginia Tech in 1974.
Marsha Familaro Enright, B.A. Biology, Northwestern University, M.A. Psychology, The New School for Social Research, is an education entrepreneur, writer, and psychotherapist. Her major project is the implementation of a new and innovative higher education program through The Reason, Individualism, Freedom Institute of which she is president, curriculum developer, and chief implementer through The Great Connections Seminar in Chicago and Buenos Aires. She has written for The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, The New Individualist, Montessori Leadership, Free Voices. She is the editor of Ayn Rand Explained. Among her many other educational and social projects and organizations: The New Intellectual Forum (founded by her in 1987), Council Oak Montessori School, ages 3-15 (founded by her in 1990), and Camp Indecon (Curriculum Developer and Lead Instructor from 1999-2007). Her interests are wide-ranging but always take a biopsychological bent.
Mimi Reisel Gladstein, a Professor of English and Theatre Arts at the University of Texas, El Paso, has been one of the most prolific writers in Rand studies. She wrote the trailblazing 1978 College English article, “Ayn Rand and Feminism: An Unlikely Alliance,” that ultimately inspired the provocative 1999 volume in the Pennsylvania State University Press book series, “Re-reading the Canon”: Feminist Interpretations of Ayn Rand, co-edited by Gladstein and Chris Matthew Sciabarra. The series currently sports thirty-five volumes, each covering a major thinker in the Western canon, from Plato, Aristotle, and Immanuel Kant to Hannah Arendt, Simone de Beauvoir, and Mary Daly. Gladstein’s Rand scholarship also includes The Ayn Rand Companion (1984) and its much more comprehensive second edition, The New Ayn Rand Companion (1999), each surveying the ever-growing literature on Rand — from the literary and biographical to the philosophic and cultural. She is also the author of a Twayne’s Masterwork Series book, “Atlas Shrugged”: Manifesto of the Mind (2000), and Ayn Rand (2009), part of the Continuum series on “Major Conservative and Libertarian Thinkers.” This is all in addition to her seminal work on John Steinbeck, which earned her the John J. and Angeline Pruis Award for Steinbeck Teacher of the Decade (1978-1987), and the Burkhardt Award for Outstanding Contributions to Steinbeck Studies (1996). She was recently named to the El Paso County Historical Society Hall of Honor and the El Paso Commission for Women’s Hall of Fame.
Anne Conover Heller is the author of Ayn Rand and the World She Made. She has been the managing editor of The Antioch Review, a fiction editor of Esquire and Redbook, the features editor of LEAR’S, and the executive editor of the magazine-development group at Condé Nast Publications. Her forthcoming biography on Hannah Arendt will be published in 2015 [Amazon/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt].
Chris Matthew Sciabarra received his Ph.D., with distinction, in political theory, philosophy, and methodology from New York University. He is the author of the “Dialectics and Liberty Trilogy,” which includes Marx, Hayek, and Utopia (State University of New York Press, 1995), Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995; expanded second edition, 2013), and Total Freedom: Toward a Dialectical Libertarianism (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000). He is also coeditor, with Mimi Reisel Gladstein, of Feminist Interpretations of Ayn Rand (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999), and a founding coeditor of The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies (1999–present). He has written over a dozen encyclopedia entries dealing with Objectivism and libertarianism, given over 50 interviews published in such periodicals as The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Boston Globe, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Village Voice, and The Economist, and published over 150 essays, which have appeared in publications as diverse as Critical Review, Reason Papers, Liberty, Reason, The New York Daily News, Film Score Monthly, Jazz Times, Just Jazz Guitar, and Billboard.
Fred Seddon currently holds adjunct professorships at Pennsylvania State University and Duquesne University. He was president of the West Virginia Philosophical Society from 1988-2010, and is an associate member of the Center for the Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh. He is an international scholar and the author of over 150 books, articles, book reviews and speeches, including such works as Ayn Rand, Objectivists and the History of Philosophy, An Introduction to the Philosophical Works of F. S. C. Northrop, and Aristotle and Lukasiewicz on the Principle of Contradiction.
Russell S. Sobel is a Visiting Scholar in Entrepreneurship in the School of Business Administration at The Citadel. He earned his Ph.D. in economics from Florida State University in 1994.
Volume 14, No. 2 – December 2014 (Issue #28)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CORPORATIONS ARE PEOPLE TOO: AN ARGUMENT FOR CORPORATE MORAL PERSONHOOD, pp. 97-123
This article applies Ayn Rand’s insights in metaphysics and epistemology to the question: What is a Corporation? Historically, there have been three main answers: the fictional entity theory, the aggregate theory, and the real entity theory. Drawing principally upon Rand’s discussion of the nature of entities in her epistemology workshops, this article proposes a fourth possibility. The preceding theories assume that if a corporation is an entity it must exist as a separate entity. The theory defended in this article challenges this assumption, and considers the implications for the moral and political status of corporations.
PHILOSOPHICAL AND LITERARY INTEGRATION IN AYN RAND’S ATLAS SHRUGGED, pp. 124-47
This expository essay relies on the views of scholars writing about Atlas Shrugged to make a case that it is a highly integrated work of imaginative literature. The article focuses on the ways in which integration is manifested in Atlas Shrugged. Part 1 examines the philosophical structure of the novel. Part 2 addresses literary structure. This is followed by a discussion of Rand’s techniques of characterization. An analysis of the speeches and the theme of mind-body integration concludes the discussion.
THE DIM ANTITHESIS, pp. 148-62
Leonard Peikoff’s DIM Hypothesis demonstrates that man’s cognitive need for integration is important historically. It reflects the motive power of philosophy, of man’s need to understand the world. But Peikoff’s theory lacks predictive power for America’s future. Today’s knowledge-based economy enables the average person to enjoy enhanced cognitive control over his or her life. Technology has transformed the American work experience in ways that teach one crucial connection: between the productive use of the mind (i.e., thinking, judgment) and human survival. This emerging cognitive self-confidence mitigates the philosophical void left by cultural nihilism and creates an intellectual barrier to authoritarianism.
RAND’S GENDER POLITICS: A POTENTIAL OF COGNITIVE DISSONANCE, pp. 163-70
Although Ayn Rand and her philosophy have influenced many nascent feminists, particularly those of the individualist inclination, Rand was openly hostile to the feminist movement and declared that she would not vote for a woman for president. The author analyzes Rand’s position and reasoning about a woman president, finding it contradictory to the rational principles Rand professed.
WHAT’S IN YOUR FILE FOLDER? RAND’S UNIT-PERSPECTIVE, THE LAW OF IDENTITY, AND THE FUNDAMENTAL NATURE OF THE PROPOSITION, pp. 171-274
The author contends that the Objectivist epistemology has lacked a viable model of propositional knowledge for nearly fifty years, due to neglect of Rand’s unit-perspective view of concepts. This pioneering insight, he says, not only is an essential building block of her concept theory, but also welds together the three levels of logical theory and provides the clearest X-ray picture of our multilayered conceptual knowledge. Using the unit-perspective to expand Rand’s theory of concepts, the author then devises a theory of the proposition, giving considerable attention to axioms and statements about nonexistent subjects.
REVIEWS
E-BOOK ENTHUSIASM, pp. 275-81
In this review, two significant works published in e-book format demand the attention of Rand scholars: Roger E. Bissell’s book How the Martians Discovered Algebra: Explorations in Induction and the Philosophy of Mathematics and Michelle Marder Kamhi’s Who Says That’s Art? A Commonsense View of the Visual Arts. Covering wildly different territory, the two works make an important contribution to the literature.
A LATTER-DAY JACOBIN WITH A LOT OF DATA, pp. 281-90
In Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Thomas Piketty underestimates the disposable income of the poor, while he overestimates the corresponding income of the rich, for systemic reasons. Recently, global income inequality has gone down. Piketty’s belief that in the long run the rate of return for capital will surpass economic growth is not plausible. Capital tends to disperse, and the creative powers of capitalism, leading to economic growth, should not be underestimated. Piketty is worried about the superrich, but he should rather be worried about the increased power of government. What will happen if the rich cease to create wealth, as described in Atlas Shrugged?
CONTRIBUTORS, pp. 291-93
INDEX, pp. 294-95
CONTRIBUTOR BIOGRAPHIES
Roger E. Bissell is a professional musician and a writer on philosophy and psychology, specializing in aesthetics, logic and epistemology, and personality type theory. His work has appeared in a number of other publications, including Reason Papers, Objectivity, Journal of Consciousness Studies, Vera Lex, and ART Ideas. His mock transcription of a lecture by the fictional composer Richard Halley was published in Edward W. Younkins’s 2007 compilation, Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged”: A Philosophical and Literary Companion, and he supervised the transcription of Nathaniel Branden’s lectures for the 2009 publication of The Vision of Ayn Rand: The Basic Principles of Objectivism. Most recently, he published his first book, How the Martians Discovered Algebra: Explorations in Induction and the Philosophy of Mathematics, available from Amazon Kindle. He also frequently performs on recording sessions and jazz engagements, and his CDs feature his trombone playing, singing, musical arrangements, and original compositions.
Hannes H. Gissurarson, a professor of political theory at the University of Iceland, is the author of more than fifteen books in Icelandic, English, and Swedish. His 1985 doctoral dissertation at Oxford University was on F. A. Hayek’s political theory, and he received the first prize in the 1984 Mont Pelerin Society Claude R. Lambe essay competition on Hayek’s Road to Serfdom. He was the R. G. Collingwood Scholar at Pembroke College in 1984-85. A member of the Mont Pelerin Society since 1984, he was on its Board of Directors from 1998 to 2004, organizing a regional meeting in Iceland in 2005. He has been a visiting professor or scholar at Stanford University, UCLA, George Mason University, and universities in Italy and Japan. He was also a member of the Overseeing Board of Iceland’s Central Bank from 2001 to 2009. He is the academic research director of an Icelandic think tank, RNH (Rannsoknarsetur um nyskopun og hagvoxt), where he has overseen and edited the publication in Icelandic translations of Ayn Rand’s three major novels, We the Living, The Fountainhead, and Atlas Shrugged. His most recent books include a history of the Icelandic communist movement (2011) and a treatise on taxation and income distribution (2009). At present he is working on a report on the foreign factors in the 2008 Icelandic bank collapse.
Mimi Reisel Gladstein, a professor of English and Theatre Arts, University of Texas at El Paso, where she has chaired the English and Philosophy Departments twice, was the first director of Women’s Studies, associate dean of Liberal Arts, and chair of Theatre, Dance, and Film. She has written three books on Ayn Rand and co-edited one, Feminist Interpretations of Ayn Rand. A co-edited volume on the Chicano artist and writer José Antonio Burciaga won an American Book Award, a Southwest Book Award, and a Latino Book Award. Her work in Steinbeck studies has been recognized with the Burkhart Award for Research and the Pruis Award for teaching. In 2011, she was inducted into the El Paso Commission for Women Hall of Fame and the El Paso County Historical Society Hall of Honor.
Dennis C. Hardin is an Objectivist writer and psychotherapist. From 1987 to 1990, he was the co-leader of a popular Los Angeles discussion group, the Forum for the New Intellectual. In 2002, he created and presented his own self-help seminar, “The Ethics of Personal Achievement.” He is the author of The Living Image a novel about the sanctity of human happiness.
Fred Seddon currently holds adjunct professorships at Pennsylvania State University and Duquesne University. He was president of the West Virginia Philosophical Society from 1988 to 2010 and is an associate member of the Center for the Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh. He is an international scholar and the author of over 150 books, articles, book reviews, and speeches, including such works as Ayn Rand, Objectivists and the History of Philosophy, An Introduction to the Philosophical Works of F. S. C. Northrop, and Aristotle and Lukasiewicz on the Principle of Contradiction.
Robert White is an assistant professor of philosophy and chair of the Department of Business at the American University in Bulgaria, where he teaches business ethics. His doctorate on Ayn Rand’s ethics was completed at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. His work has been published in The Free Radical, The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, and Ethical Perspectives. He has a chapter on Rand’s ethics in Mad Men and Philosophy, published as part of the Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture series.
Edward W. Younkins, Professor, Department of Business, Wheeling Jesuit University, 316 Washington Avenue, Wheeling, West Virginia, 26003, is the author of numerous articles in accounting and business journals. In addition, his many free-market-oriented articles and reviews have appeared in a variety of publications. He is the author of Capitalism and Commerce: Conceptual Foundations of Free Enterprise (Lexington Books, 2002) and Champions of a Free Society: Ideas of Capitalism’s Philosophers and Economists (Lexington Books, 2008). He is the editor of Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged”: A Philosophical and Literary Companion (Ashgate, 2007). His newest two books are Flourishing and Happiness in a Free Society: Toward a Synthesis of Aristotelianism, Austrian Economics, and Ayn Rand’s Objectivism (University Press of America, 2011) and Exploring Capitalist Fiction: Business through Literature and Film (Lexington Books, 2014).
The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies 