Volume 23, Numbers 1 & 2 – July 2023 (Issues #45 & #46)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION, pp. v–vi
CHRIS MATTHEW SCIABARRA
The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies concludes its twenty-three-year journey with a grand finale that celebrates its history as the only interdisciplinary, scholarly, double-blind peer-reviewed periodical devoted to the critical discussion of Ayn Rand and her times.
WHAT SHE LEFT BEHIND, pp. 1–84
This essay sheds additional light on the biographies and fates of Ayn Rand’s closest relatives in the Soviet Union and abroad after young Alissa Rosenbaum left the “country of workers and peasants” in 1926 for the pursuit of a new life in the United States. Previously unknown facets of her relatives’ lives were intertwined with the complex and often tragic historical events of the first half of the twentieth century. Among these relatives are victims of the German blockade of Leningrad, a musical teacher, a European bacteriologist, a doctor who was twice a refugee, and a Soviet Medical Service Corps officer.
AYN RAND’S YEARS IN THE STOYUNIN GYMNASIUM, pp. 85–122
ANASTASIYA VASILIEVNA GRIGOROVSKAYA
The essay offers a detailed analysis of archival documents from the Stoyunin Gymnasium Foundation. The young Ayn Rand (born Alissa Rosenbaum) was a pupil of this gymnasium (1914–1918). A range of documents published for the first time include lists of the first and second grades (1914–1915 and 1915–1916), a fragment of the class register (1915–1916), member lists of the Stoyunin gymnasium pedagogical council and of class trips (1915–1916), and a table of school hours allocation. The essay also discloses the names of Alissaʼs teachers and the Russian philology lessons taught at the gymnasium.
EPISTEMLOGY ACCORDING TO RAND AND HAYEK, pp. 123–53
Ayn Rand’s Objectivist epistemology is the foundation of an impressive, comprehensive, and integrated system of political philosophy, psychology, art, and literature. Friedrich Hayek’s operational system of epistemology and his analysis of the psychology of perception (presented primarily in The Sensory Order) is not as clearly integrated with his economics and political philosophy—and many have debated their consistency with one another. This paper engages in a comparative analysis of Rand’s and Hayek’s epistemology.
CHECK YOUR PRESUPPOSITIONS! A NEW KIND OF FOUNDATIONALISM IN OBJECTIVISM, pp. 154–217
Ayn Rand’s Objectivism holds a foundationalist view of knowledge—that knowledge is hierarchical, with the less basic supported by inference from the more basic, which is known directly. But two very different forms of foundationalism (deductive and presuppositional) are observable in Objectivism, and vestiges of deductivism, which Rand explicitly rejected, can be found in attempts to systematize her philosophy. This article attempts to resolve conflicts between the two approaches. It endorses presuppositional foundationalism and suggests that Rand’s view be modified accordingly.
LIFE IS NOT A MACHINE OR A GHOST: THE NATURALISTIC ORIGIN OF LIFE’S ORGANIZATION AND GOAL-DIRECTEDNESS, CONSCIOUSNES, FREE WILL, AND MEANING, pp. 218–79
Due to a widespread belief in mechano-reductionism, most intellectuals reject the idea that nonconscious living beings act toward goals. Proposing otherwise is mostly rejected as unscientific anthropomorphizing or necessitating appeals to a supernatural power. This false dichotomy has stymied biology and its related sciences. Herein, I present a new naturalistic gestalt on the nature of life—one based on facts and evidence. It incorporates Ludwig von Bertalanffy’s and Arthur Koestler’s theories of systems and hierarchies with the ideas of Aristotle, Hans Jonas, and Ayn Rand, to identify fundamental formulations on the nature of life, consciousness, free will, and meaning.
HOW WE LIVE: A DIALECTICAL EXAMINATION OF HUMAN EXISTENCE, pp. 280–313
The author endeavors to show how dialectical methods can reveal and clarify Ayn Rand’s philosophy from the two vital perspectives of the lives of individual human beings in relation to the world and in relation to other people and the social institutions under which they live. In so doing, he applies Chris Matthew Sciabarra’s Tri-Level Analysis model of social relations (derived from Rand’s social commentaries) and relates Rand’s metaphysical value-judgments to the cardinal values and virtues of her ethics.
AYN RAND’S NOVEL CONTRIBUTION: ARISTOTELIAN LIBERALISM, pp. 314–27
The author argues Ayn Rand made a genuinely novel, but often overlooked and underappreciated, contribution in her synthesis of Aristotelianism and liberalism. Aristotelianism, a philosophy of flourishing, and liberalism, a politics of freedom, have been viewed throughout history as largely incompatible doctrines, often understandably so. The author discusses the history of these concepts, especially their tensions, as a backdrop to further explore and contextualize the work of Rand, who argued that Aristotelian ideas about flourishing and liberal ideas about freedom are natural allies, and in fact strengthen each other. Rand’s “Aristotelian liberalism” is a fruitful synthesis.
REVIEWS
ON GROUNDING ETHICAL VALUES IN THE HUMAN LIFE FORM, pp. 328–40
DOUGLAS B. RASMUSSEN AND DOUGLAS DEN UYL
Benjamin Lipscomb (The Women Are Up to Something) and Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachel Wiseman (Metaphysical Animals) have written books discussing the same four women philosophers—Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, Mary Midgley, and Iris Murdoch—and their rise to prominence in the almost exclusively male-dominated academies of Oxford and Cambridge Universities. This review focuses on these philosophers’ intellectual contributions, with special attention given to the Aristotelian character of their views in the face of an opposing philosophical regimen. We conclude with a brief reflection on Ayn Rand’s moral philosophy in light of the contributions made by these four women philosophers.
FREEDOM’S THREE FURIES, pp. 340–43
Timothy Sandefur’s book, Freedom’s Furies, discusses the profound impact on libertarian thought of the work of Isabel Paterson, Rose Wilder Lane, and Ayn Rand. The book is essential reading for any person interested in the origins of modern libertarianism.
RETAKING AMERICA’S UNIVERSITIES, pp. 343–47
In Retaking College Hill: The Adults are Back, Walter Donway takes us on a tour of a university that has been consumed by low standards and cancel culture. The dean is attempting to protect the university’s standards but is being opposed at every turn, and there is a plot to fire him. A small group of his supporters try to help him. They face opposition of multiple types, including violence, each step of the way and must skillfully manage the situation. This is a novel of ideas—showing us how philosophy got the university into this mess, and how clear thinking and powerful ideas—such as those of Ayn Rand—can help reverse the trend.
AYN RAND AND RUSSIAN NIHLISM REVISTED, pp. 348–50
AARON WEINACHT
Ayn Rand and the Russian Intelligentsia by Derek Offord deals both with the origins and the influence of Rand’s thought. On the former, Offord places Rand squarely and persuasively within the Russian intelligentsia tradition. On the latter, and less convincingly, the author discusses Rand as an “icon” of an American “Right” that remains largely undefined.
AYN RAND, FASCISM, AND DYSTOPIA, pp 350–56
This article reviews the book Ayn Rand e il fascismo eterno. Una narrazione distopica, by Diana Thermes. This is the first Italian book specifically devoted to Rand’s thought and novels. Thermes has conducted her study in a remarkably original way, profusely interrelating Rand’s fiction works with the long-standing tradition of dystopian literature and her analysis of collectivism with the most significant contributions on the nature and causes of totalitarianism, as well as illustrating the relevance of Rand’s ideas in the face of present-day challenges.
POSTMODERN RAND, TRANSATLANTIC RAND, p. 356–73
Neil Cocks’s collection Questioning Ayn Rand: Subjectivity, Political Economy, and the Arts engages Rand’s ideas from a standpoint that is philosophically postmodernist and politically adversarial; while the contributors occasionally make illuminating connections, their obscurantist style, superficial engagement with Rand, and an impatience borne of hostility render the result disappointing. Claudia Brühwiler’s Out of a Gray Fog: Ayn Rand’s Europe, by contrast, provides a fascinating look at Rand’s European connections, her complex attitudes toward European culture, and the European reception of her ideas, which serves as a useful corrective to the conventional narrative of Rand’s hostility to Europe and Europe’s hostility to Rand.
INDEX TO VOLUME 23, pp. 374-75
MASTER AUTHOR INDEX (VOLS. 13–23), pp. 376-90
CONTRIBUTOR BIOGRAPHIES
David Beito is professor emeritus in the History Department of the University of Alabama. He is the author of Taxpayers in Revolt: Tax Resistance during the Great Depression (1989), From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State: Fraternal Societies and Social Services, 1890–1967 (2000), and coauthor, with Linda Royster Beito, of Black Maverick: T. R. M. Howard: Doctor, Entrepreneur, Civil Rights Pioneer (2018). He also edited The Voluntary City: Choice, Community, and Civil Society (2002). His forthcoming books include The New Deal’s War on the Bill of Rights: The Untold Story of FDR’s Concentration Camps, Censorship, and Mass Surveillance (2023) and an edited collection of Rose Wilder Lane’s articles for the Pittsburgh Courier, an African American Newspaper.
Roger E. Bissell is an independent scholar living in Dickson, Tennessee. A research associate with the Molinari Institute and the Associate Editor of The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, he has edited no fewer than ten books and is the author of more than three dozen scholarly essays in philosophy and psychology, as well as four books, including How the Martians Discovered Algebra: Explorations in Induction and the Philosophy of Mathematics and What’s in Your File Folder? The Nature and Logic of Propositions. A lifelong professional musician, he has an MA in music performance and literature (University of Iowa) and a BS in music theory and composition (Iowa State University). He has written extensively on aesthetics and logic and dialectical method and applies this unusual background in an essay on the Great American Songbook, published in The Dialectics of Liberty: Exploring the Context of Human Freedom, a volume that he co-edited with Chris Matthew Sciabarra and Edward W. Younkins (2019). Currently, he and Vinay P. Kolhatkar are co-authoring Modernizing Aristotle’s Ethics: Toward a New Art and Science of Self-Actualization, to be published in September 2023 by Ethics International Press, and he is also nearing completion of The Care and Feeding of “Chops”: Helpful Hints for Brass Players (and Others), to be self-published by Amazon as book one of a projected series, “What They Didn’t Teach Me in Music School.”
Douglas J. Den Uyl is Vice President emeritus of educational programs at Liberty Fund in Indianapolis. He has published essays or books on Spinoza, Smith, Shaftesbury, Mandeville and others. Among his books are The Virtue of Prudence (1991), The Fountainhead: An American Novel (1999), and God, Man and Well-Being: Spinoza’s Modern Humanism (2008). With Douglas B. Rasmussen, he has coauthored/coedited the anthology The Philosophic Thought of Ayn Rand (1984), as well as Liberty and Nature: An Aristotelian Defense of Liberal Order (1991), Liberalism Defended: The Challenge of Post-Modernity (1998), Norms of Liberty: A Perfectionist Basis for Non-Perfectionist Politics (2005), The Perfectionist Turn: From Metanorms to Metaethics (2016), and The Realist Turn: Repositioning Liberalism (2020). He was a founder of the North American Spinoza Society and the International Adam Smith Society, and he co-founded (with Douglas Rasmussen) the American Association for the Philosophic Study of Society. He taught Philosophy and was Department Chair and Full Professor at Bellarmine College (now Bellarmine University) before coming to Liberty Fund.
Marsha Familaro Enright, BA Biology, Northwestern University, MA Psychology, The New School for Social Research, is an educational entrepreneur, teacher, and writer. Her interests are wide-ranging but always take a biopsychological bent. She has published a wide variety of articles in places such as The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, Montessori Leadership, Real Clear Markets, The New Individualist, and Objectivity. These include research papers and articles concerned with psychology, neuropsychology, philosophy, education, and aesthetics, such as “Montessori: The Liberator of Children,” “The Habit of Hope” and “The Evolutionary Neuropsychology of Music.” She has also written cultural commentary and literary reviews, such as “Capitalism: The Crucial Protector of the Smallest Minority,” “Cameron Hawley and the Romance of Business,” and “What Vision Do Young People Need?” available at marsha-familaro-enright.com. She is the editor of Ayn Rand Explained: From Tyranny to Tea Party (Open Court, 2013). In 1990 she founded the highly regarded Council Oak Montessori School, which serves children ages 3 to 14. She was school head for 27 years. In 2005 she founded the Reason, Individualism, Freedom Institute (RIFI) to develop a new college, using an innovative curriculum and methods. Its aim is help young people become deeply informed graduates capable of thinking for themselves and putting thought into action to live as free persons: entrepreneurs of their own lives. For 16 years, RIFI has sponsored weekend and weeklong seminars using these principles and content, resulting in astounding transformations for its students. Now, RIFI is working to open Reliance College.
ANASTASIYA VASILIEVNA GRIGOROVSKAYA
Anastasiya Vasilievna Grigorovskaya is a Doctor in Philology, an associate professor in the Department of Russian and Foreign Literature at Tyumen State University, and a specialist in Russian and foreign literature, especially in utopian studies. Her doctoral thesis, Ayn Randʼs Anthropological Utopia: The Interaction of Russian and American Tradition (2022), analyzes Randʼs philosophy and literary work as a complex combination of Russian and American national traditions. She is an author of the first Russian monograph on Rand’s connections with Russian literature and culture Ayn Rand’s Fiction in a Russian Context (2020; in Russian) and more than thirty essays about Rand’s art and philosophy (in Russian and in English). She has also lectured several times at the Ayn Rand Memorial Conference in Saint Petersburg (2017, 2019, 2021). She received a grant from the European University in Saint Petersburg for the project The Transformation of Ayn Randʼs Ideas of Objectivism (The Center of Modernization Studies, 2022). Her aim is to revive Rand’s reputation under today’s conditions of globalization and to promote future investigations of Rand’s Russian origins.
Roderick T. Long, Professor, Department of Philosophy, Auburn University, is the author of Reason and Value: Aristotle versus Rand (2000), Rituals of Freedom: Libertarian Themes in Early Confucianism (2016), and Wittgenstein, Austrian Economics, and the Logic of Action: Praxeological Investigations (forthcoming), as well as coeditor (with Tibor R. Machan) of Anarchism/Minarchism: Is a Government Part of a Free Country? (2008) and (with David M. Hart, Gary Chartier, and Ross Miller Kenyon) of Social Class and State Power: Exploring an Alternative Radical Tradition (2018). He has also taught at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Michigan. His chief research interests include ethics, political philosophy, Greek philosophy, philosophy of action, and philosophy of social science. He blogs on philosophy, politics, and science fiction at Austro-Athenian Empire.
Cory Massimino is an independent scholar. He serves as a Fellow and Mutual Exchange Coordinator at the Center for a Stateless Society. His research focuses on virtue ethics, market process economics, and anarchist political theory. His essay “Two Cheers For Rothbardianism” appears in the Routledge Handbook of Anarchy and Anarchist Thought. His writings have also appeared in outlets such as The Guardian, The Independent, and Playboy. Cory lives in Florida with his wife and their four cats.
Luca Moratal Roméu received his PhD in law from the University of Bologna in 2021. He teaches civil law and legal philosophy at Atlantico Medio University in Gran Canaria (Spain). He is the author of La filosofía política de Ayn Rand (Dykinson, 2022).
Robert F. Mulligan has published books on entrepreneurship, executive compensation, and financial fraud, and over sixty academic articles. He is from Long Island, New York, and attended the Illinois Institute of Technology where he received his BS in civil engineering. He received his PhD in economics from the State University of New York at Binghamton. He taught economics for almost twenty years at Western Carolina University in North Carolina.
Raymond Raad is a General and Forensic Psychiatrist and founder of RIVIA Mind, a mental health practice. He is author of several articles on medical ethics, and is interested in a range of issues at the intersection of psychology and philosophy, including free will, and the nature of emotions.
Douglas B. Rasmussen is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Philosophy, St. John’s University, NYC, and Senior Affiliated Scholar at the Institute for Economic Inquiry, Creighton University, Omaha, Nebraska. He has authored numerous articles in scholarly anthologies and in journals such as: American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, American Philosophical Quarterly, International Philosophical Quarterly, The New Scholasticism, The Personalist, Public Affairs Quarterly, Social Philosophy & Policy, Reason Papers, The Review of Metaphysics, and The Thomist. He has co-authored and co-edited several books with Douglas J. Den Uyl. He was a visiting scholar at Liberty Fund (1998–1999) and at Bowling Green State University’s Social Philosophy and Policy Center (2001, 2008, 2011), and was a visiting professor at the Université Panthéon-Assas in Paris (2002). He co-founded (with Den Uyl) the American Association for the Philosophic Study of Society (AAPSS), and he has served on the Steering Committee of the Ayn Rand Society and as a member of Executive Council of the American Catholic Philosophical Association (ACPA). His areas of research interest are epistemology, ontology, ethics, and political philosophy, and he has received numerous research fellowships and grants as well as several awards for outstanding teaching and scholarly achievement.
CHRIS MATTHEW SCIABARRA
NOTABLOG
Chris Matthew Sciabarra is a founding coeditor of The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies. He is the author of the “Dialectics and Liberty Trilogy”: Marx, Hayek, and Utopia (1995) Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical (1995; second edition, 2013) and Total Freedom: Toward a Dialectical Libertarianism (2000). He is the coeditor, with Mimi Reisel Gladstein, of Feminist Interpretations of Ayn Rand (1999) and, with Roger E. Bissell and Edward W. Younkins, of The Dialectics of Liberty: Exploring the Context of Human Freedom (2019). His future work will expand on this dialectical research project and its implications for human freedom and personal flourishing.
Pavel Solovyev is a scholar currently living in Europe. He received a PhD in Organic Chemistry in 2009 from Moscow State Academy of Fine Chemical Technology and has worked as an analytical chemist for over fifteen years. He has published several academic papers and reviews in his field, but also in the history of science and made a debut in The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies in 2021. Apart from the main occupation, his hobby is history and genealogy, and he has over ten years of experience with online and offline archives around the world, which was of great significance in writing this essay.
David Tyson, email: kamau@bestweb.net, is a retired teacher of philosophy in college and science in high school. He majored in philosophy at Williams College and then Columbia’s School of General Studies for a BS in 1965. He received an MA in philosophy from New York University, finishing ABD toward his PhD in philosophy around 1970. He also received an MA in Science Education from Columbia Teachers College in 1972. In retirement, he has spent much time researching and writing a book about the hierarchy of knowledge: What Comes First?
Aaron Weinacht is Professor of History at the University of Montana Western, and author of Nikolai Chernyshevskii and Ayn Rand: Russian Nihilism Travels to America.
The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies 