Volume 4, No. 1 – Fall 2002 (Issue #7)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
REASON, EMOTION, AND THE IMPORTANCE OF PHILOSOPHY, pp. 1-23
Davis uses his theory of happiness to clarify and deepen Rand’s theory of emotion. He distinguishes belief from knowledge, volitive from appetitive desire, and occurrent thinking from believing. He suggests that values in Rand’s sense are things we volitively desire. Happiness is defined in terms of the sum of the products of the degree of belief and (volitive) desire functions over all thoughts. Davis then evaluates such Randian maxims as that happiness cannot be achieved by the pursuit of irrational whims, and that emotions are not tools of cognition, but products of one’s premises — one’s philosophy.
IF “EMOTIONS ARE NOT TOOLS OF COGNITION,” WHAT ARE THEY? AN EXPLORATION OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN REASON AND EMOTION, pp. 25-67
The author discusses the commonly accepted view in Objectivism that “emotions are not tools of cognition,” i.e., that one cannot and should not use emotions in one’s reasoning process. Ayn Rand’s views on emotions are extensively examined and evaluated in light of common experience and current scientific evidence. The author draws on neuropsychological as well as other scientific evidence to more precisely define the relation between reason and emotion, and she examines Rand’s premises in light of the evidence.
RAND ON OBLIGATION AND VALUE, pp. 69-86
Rasmussen examines, in this revised and extended version of his 1990 address to the Ayn Rand Society, whether Rand’s ethics are best interpreted as dependent on a “pre-moral” choice. He argues that such an interpretation undercuts Rand’s claim to provide a rational foundation for ethics. He suggests an alternative, neo-Aristotelian interpretation of Rand’s ethics, which treats “man’s survival qua man” as the telos of human choice and takes the obligation to achieve this ultimate end as the result of its being the good for human beings.
A REVIVAL OF THE ANCIENT TRADITION IN ETHICS: ARISTOTLE VERSUS RAND, pp. 87-122
Walsh argues that, despite Rand’s affection for Aristotle, her ethics is more in the modern, rather than the Aristotelian, tradition. Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics was never intended as a prescriptive normative treatise; rather, it offered an ontology of human excellence. Viewing that work through modern assumptions, Rand and others have misinterpreted its significance. A comparison of Aristotelian and Randian notions of happiness shows that the former is more philosophically profound than the latter.
CONCEPTUALISM IN ABELARD AND RAND, pp. 123-40
The author provides textual evidence that calls into question Ayn Rand’s characterization of conceptualism as simply a kind of nominalism, as well as her claim that her theory of knowledge is a sui generis “Objectivism” rather than a form of conceptualism.
THE LIBERTARIAN MINIMAL STATE?: A CRITIQUE OF THE VIEWS OF NOZICK, LEVIN, AND RAND, pp. 141-60
Block discusses publications by Robert Nozick, the unjustifiably ignored Michael Levin, and Ayn Rand, each of whom has criticized anarcho-capitalism, the system that takes laissez-faire capitalism to its logical extension: here, all goods and services, particularly including courts, police, and armies would be provided by competing private firms and individuals. This paper considers their arguments (for Nozick, that anarcho-capitalism would naturally evolve into minarchism or limited government free enterprise without violating the libertarian nonaggression axiom; for Levin, that the philosophy of Hobbes is correct and requires a government for protection; for Rand, that anarcho-capitalism is incoherent) and rejects them.
REVIEWS
AYN RAND IN THE SCHOLARLY LITERATURE II: RAND, RUSH, AND ROCK, pp. 161-85
Sciabarra surveys discussions of Ayn Rand in the literature on Progressive rock music. He examines critically Edward Macan’s Rocking the Classics: English Progressive Rock and the Counterculture, Paul Stump’s The Music’s All That Matters: A History of Progressive Rock, Carol Selby Price and Robert M. Price’s Mystic Rhythms: The Philosophical Vision of Rush, Bill Martin’s Listening to the Future: The Time of Progressive Rock, 1968-1978 (1998), and Durrell S. Bowman’s essay on the rock band Rush in Kevin Holm-Hudson’s Progressive Rock Reconsidered. He argues that the authors show varying degrees of understanding of Rand’s brand of “redemptive politics.” [html version available]
A NEGLECTED SOURCE FOR RAND’S AESTHETICS, pp. 187-204
Bissell reviews the full-length, taped version of Rand’s “The Esthetic Vacuum of Our Age,” calling attention to its importance as a foundational document for Rand’s later essays on art and to the numerous gems omitted from the much briefer published version.
DISCUSSION
REPLY TO WILLIAM DWYER: COMPATIBILISM AND EVOLUTION, pp. 205-13
Lyons criticizes as essentially rationalistic both the Objectivist concept of free will in Tibor Machan’s Initiative: Human Agency and Society, and William Dwyer’s determinism (The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, Fall 2001) in the compatibilist tradition derived from Hobbes. He draws attention to the general problem of compatibilism in modern philosophy. He focuses on how such scientific theorists as Daniel C. Dennett have gone beyond the ideas of Hobbes, in considering the complexities of action in evolutionary processes discovered by Darwin.
REPLY TO WILLIAM DWYER: FREE WILL RECONSIDERED, pp. 215-20
Machan argues that William Dwyer’s review of his book, Initiative: Human Agency and Society (The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, Fall 2001), assumes that compatibilism is coherent. Machan argues that compatibilism is simply hard determinism with some soft edges but as such it is not coherent. In light of this, the agent-causation-based thesis of human initiative (or freedom of the human will) that Machan defends is superior to its alternatives.
REJOINDER TO GEORGE LYONS AND TIBOR R. MACHAN: FREE WILL AND DETERMINISM, pp. 221-30
Dwyer responds to the comments of George Lyons and Tibor R. Machan on his review of Machan’s Initiative (The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, Fall 2001). Dwyer reiterates points in his initial review, stressing the need to understand choice within a larger causal context.
REPLY TO LELAND B. YEAGER: RHETORICAL INCORRECTNESS?, pp. 231-34
James Arnt Aune responds to Leland B. Yeager’s criticisms of Selling the Free Market (“Economic Incorrectness,” The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, Fall 2001). Yeager fails to understand that the art of rhetoric is more than a matter of persuasive “tricks.” Aune compares radical libertarians to Chomsky-style leftists as ideologues and America-haters and expresses regret that Yeager did not respond either to specific arguments against Rand’s work or to the analysis of specific aspects of libertarian policy rhetoric.
REJOINDER TO JAMES ARNT AUNE: ON “RHETORICAL INCORRECTNESS?”, p. 235
Yeager replies to James Arnt Aune’s good-natured response to his review of Selling the Free Market: The Rhetoric of Economic Correctness, which appeared in the Fall 2001 issue of The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies.
REPLY TO JONATHAN JACOBS: CONTESTING A REVIEW, pp. 237-39
Kelley responds to Jonathan Jacobs’ review of his The Contested Legacy of Ayn Rand: Truth and Toleration in Objectivism (“A Contest of Wills,”)The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, Spring 2002). He argues that his goal was not to provide a technical treatise on Objectivism, but to focus on a debate within Objectivism. Toward the former end, he provides a brief bibliography of relevant technical treatments of Objectivist epistemology and ethics.
CONTRIBUTOR BIOGRAPHIES
James Arnt Aune is an Associate Professor, Department of Speech Communication, 102 Bolton Hall, Texas A & M University, College Station, Texas 77843-4234. He is a member of the Program in Presidential Rhetoric at the George Bush School of Government and Public Affairs. He is the author of the books Rhetoric and Marxism (Westview Press, 1994) and Selling the Free Market: The Rhetoric of Economic Correctness (Guilford Press, 2001), as well as a number of scholarly articles on the history of rhetoric and on public controversy over legal and economic issues.
Roger E. Bissell is a professional musician and graduate student at California Coast University. He is also a writer on psychology and philosophy. His work has appeared in a number of publications, including Reason Papers, Objectivity, Journal of Consciousness Studies, Vera Lex, and ART Ideas. He is currently working on a scholarly monograph on the Objectivist view of art as “microcosm.”
Walter Block is the Harold E. Wirth Eminent Scholar Endowed Chair in Economics at Loyola University, New Orleans, Louisiana 70118. He is also Adjunct Scholar at the Mises Institute and at the Hoover Institution. He has previously taught at the University of Central Arkansas, Holy Cross College, Baruch (C.U.N.Y.) and Rutgers Universities, and has worked in various research capacities for the Fraser Institute, the National Bureau of Economic Research, the Tax Foundation, The Financial Post, and Business Week magazine. Having earned his Ph.D. in economics from Columbia University, he has published numerous popular and scholarly articles on economics. An economic commentator on national television and radio, he lectures widely on public policy issues to university students, service, professional and religious organizations. He is the editor of a dozen books and is the author of seven more (the most famous of which is Defending the Undefendable). He has served as editor for The Journal of Labor Economics, Cultural Dynamics, The Review of Austrian Economics, The Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, The Journal of Accounting, Ethics and Public Policy and The Journal of Libertarian Studies. He has contributed over 160 articles and reviews to these and other refereed journals. He was converted to libertarianism by Nathaniel Branden and Ayn Rand, whom he first met when the latter lectured at Brooklyn College, where he was an undergraduate.
Wayne A. Davis is a Professor and Chair, Philosophy Department, Georgetown University, Washington, D. C. 20057, and received his Ph.D. from Princeton in 1977. He previously taught at UCLA, Rice, and Washington University. He is the author of An Introduction to Logic (Prentice-Hall, 1986),Implicature (Cambridge, 1998), Meaning, Expression, and Thought (Cambridge, 2003) and articles on logic, philosophy of science, philosophical psychology, and philosophy of language in Philosophical Review, Mind, American Philosophical Quarterly, Linguistics and Philosophy and other journals. Editorial board member: Philosophical Studies and Philosophical Inquiry.
William Dwyer, 26119 Parkside Drive, Hayward, California 94542, earned his B.A. in Philosophy from University of California, Berkeley, in 1973. His early contributions to Rand scholarship were among the first to be featured in a philosophical journal: The Personalist. These include such published articles as: “The Contradiction of ‘The Contradiction of Determinism'” (Winter 1972); “A Reply to David Bold” (Summer 1973); “The Argument against ‘An Objective Standard of Value'” (Spring 1974); “Criticisms of Egoism” (Spring 1975); and “Egoism and Renewed Hostilities” (Summer 1976). Dwyer is currently working towards a Masters in Economics at California State University at Hayward.
Marsha Familaro Enright, 9400 S. Damen Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60620-5637, B.A. Biology, Northwestern University, M.A. Psychology, The New School for Social Research. She is a writer, educator and psychotherapist. She has been involved in the following educational and social organizations: The New Intellectual Forum (founder and club leader since 1987), Council Oak Montessori Elementary School (founder and Executive Director since 1990), The Fountainhead Institute (founder and lead instructor since 1999) and Camp Indecon (curriculum developer and instructor since 1998). She has written on many psychological and educational topics, including two articles for Objectivity: “Why Man Needs Approval” and “Con Molto Sentimento: On the Evolutionary Neuropsychology of Music.” She lectures frequently at the Summer Seminar of The Objectivist Center and elsewhere. Her interests are wide-ranging but always take a psychological bent.
David Kelley is the Executive Director, The Objectivist Center, 11 Raymond Avenue, Suite 31, Poughkeepsie, New York 12603. He is the author of The Evidence of the Senses, The Art of Reasoning, A Life of One’s Own, and numerous other articles, monographs, and reviews.
Tibor R. Machan is the Distinguished Fellow and Professor at the Leatherby Center of Chapman University, Argyros School of Business and Economics, Orange, California 92866. He is also Professor Emeritus at Auburn University’s Department of Philosophy and Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution (Stanford, California). He has written, among other works, Ayn Rand (Peter Lang, 1999), Generosity: Virtue in the Civil Society (Cato Institute, 1998), and Classical Individualism: The Supreme Importance of Each Human Being (Routledge, 1998). He is editor of the series “Philosophic Reflections on a Free Society” at the Hoover Institution Press.
Douglas B. Rasmussen, Professor of Philosophy, Department of Philosophy, St. John’s University, 8000 Utopia Parkway, Jamaica, New York 11439, received his doctorate from Marquette University in 1980. In his dissertation, “Logical Possibility and Necessary Truth: The Viewpoint from an Intentional Logic,” he argued against logico-linguistic accounts of necessary truth and in favor of a neo-Aristotelian account of natural necessity. This work integrated the insights of Henry B. Veatch, H. W. B. Joseph, and E. H. Madden with themes from Ayn Rand’s Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. He is coeditor with Douglas Den Uyl of The Philosophic Thought of Ayn Rand (University of Illinois Press, 1984) and with Tibor Machan of Liberty for the Twenty-First Century (Roman & Littlefield, 1995). He is coauthor with James Sterba of The Catholic Bishops and the Economy: A Debate (Social Philosophy and Policy Center and Transaction Books, 1987) and with Douglas Den Uyl of Liberty and Nature: An Aristotelian Defense of Liberal Order (Open Court, 1991) and Liberalism Defended: The Challenge of Post-Modernity (Edward Elgar, 1997). He was also guest editor of the January 1992 issue of The Monist, on the topic “Teleology and the Foundation of Value.” Rasmussen has published over eighty articles in various professional journals and books dealing with issues in epistemology, philosophy of language and logic, ethics, and political philosophy. A teacher of philosophy for nearly twenty-five years, he is currently coauthoring a book in political philosophy, tentatively titled, Human Flourishing and the Right to Liberty: A Perfectionist Basis for Non-Moralistic Politics, and providing a foreword and annotated bibliography for the Liberty Fund Press publication of Henry B. Veatch’s classic, Rational Man: A Modern Interpretation of Aristotle’s Ethics.
Peter Saint-Andre received a B.A. in philosophy and classics from Columbia University but now works full-time on Jabber, an open-source Internet infrastructure project. He is active as a poet, musician, translator, and essayist. He edits a literary webzine and has published a well-regarded online dictionary of philosophy. His essays have appeared in Full Context, Liberty, Objectivity, Reason Papers, and Summa Philosophiae.
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), 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). His articles and letters on popular culture and music have appeared in publications as diverse as the New York Daily News, Billboard, Film Score Monthly, Just Jazz Guitar, Jazz Times, and The Free Radical.
Darrin Walsh is an independent scholar living in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, on the Canadian prairies, studied Mathematics, English and Philosophy at the University of Saskatchewan, in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. His interest in Ayn Rand began in high school when he read The Fountainhead. His favorite philosophers include Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Kant and Spinoza.
Leland B. Yeager, Department of Economics, College of Business, Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama 36849-5242, is Paul Goodloe McIntire Professor of Economics Emeritus at the University of Virginia and Ludwig von Mises Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Economics at Auburn University. His most recent book is Ethics as Social Science: The Moral Philosophy of Social Cooperation (Edward Elgar, 2001).
Volume 4, No. 2 – Spring 2003 (Issue #8)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
OBJECT-ORIENTED PROGRAMMING AND OBJECTIVIST EPISTEMOLOGY: PARALLELS AND IMPLICATIONS, pp. 251-84
Reed finds that the architectures of knowledge representation in Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) and in Ayn Rand’s Objectivist epistemology are exactly isomorphic, and were first proposed at about the same time. These similarities did not result from mutual influence, but from the need to represent knowledge, in both systems, in accordance with the same facts of reality. Thanks to the isomorphism of knowledge representation in the two systems, logical techniques developed in the context of OOP, such as scope-tracking and inheritance, are directly usable and useful in objective logic based on Objectivist epistemology.
ZAMYATIN AND RAND, pp. 285-304
Saint-Andre explores the possible literary and intellectual influence on Ayn Rand of the Russian writer and theorist Yevgeny Zamyatin, author of the dystopian novel, We.
A CRITIQUE OF OBJECTIVIST METAETHICS, pp. 305-20
Parrish critiques Tara Smith’s defense of Objectivist metaethics. He argues that Smith fails to provide a successful defense of the Objectivist ethics and its standard of life as the ultimate value. Her theories lead to strongly counter-intuitive results and suggest larger problems for the Objectivist metaethics in general.
REVIEWS
BUSINESS PRACTICE: APPLIED MORAL PHILOSOPHY, pp. 321-26
Hicks reviews Ayn Rand and Business. He argues that management professors Donna Greiner and Theodore Kinni have written a fine, short volume integrating Ayn Rand’s moral theory with management theory and practice. This book will be useful to professionals seeking an introduction to the relevance of Objectivism’s ethics to successful business practice.
PHILOSOPHY, WEALTH-CREATION, AND SELF-ESTEEM: OBJECTIVIST WRITINGS ON BUSINESS, pp. 327-59
One of the effects of the growth economy throughout much of the 1990s is a resurgence in the popularity of books related to business — many from fields not often associated with the genre. In this review essay, three books, which highlight the intersection of philosophy, business, and psychology, are assessed: an Ayn Rand Institute anthology, Why Businessmen Need Philosophy, Edwin Locke’s The Prime Movers: Traits of the Great Wealth Creators, and Nathaniel Branden’s Self-Esteem at Work: How Confident People Make Powerful Companies.
NYQUIST CONTRA RAND, pp. 361-72
Seddon provides a chapter by chapter examination of Greg Nyquist’s Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature. Nyquist gives a detailed exploration of all of the major branches of Rand’s philosophy as well as Rand’s philosophy of history and her philosophical anthropology.
AYN RAND IN THE SCHOLARLY LITERATURE III: AYN RAND LITERARY CRITICISM, pp. 373-94
Gladstein charts the trajectory of the breakthrough in critical attention to Ayn Rand as a literary artist. Gladstein explores the paucity and negative character of early critical reaction in the context of some similarities to other writers, such as Faulkner and Steinbeck, who, like Rand, challenged the thinking and mores of their communities and times. Like some authors who experience popularity with a wide audience, Rand was ignored by the academic establishment. However, the breakthrough in recent attention exhibits a variety and scope that bodes well for positioning Rand in the canon of twentieth-century fiction.
DISCUSSION
REPLY TO D. BARTON JOHNSON AND GENE H. BELL-VILLADA: THE SILENCE OF SYNTHESIS, pp. 395-404
Yoder continues the discussion of odd Ayn Rand-Vladimir Nabokov couplings from the “strange bedfellow” designation applied by D. Barton Johnson (The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, Fall 2000) and Gene H. Bell-Villada’s (Fall 2001) response to it. Yoder places additional emphasis upon issues of parricide, gaming, engineered structure, and the “brain drain” in her examination.
REPLY TO CAROLYN RAY: HOW NOT TO READ A BOOK, pp. 405-10
Porter replies to a review of Ayn Rand’s Theory of Knowledge by Carolyn Ray (“Porter’s Rand: A Commentary,” The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, Fall 2001). He argues that Ray misunderstands his book because she assumes it needn’t be read from the beginning.
REJOINDER TO TOM PORTER: SECOND THOUGHTS, p. 411
Ray reiterates her view that Tom Porter’s book, Ayn Rand’s Theory of Knowledge, is incoherent.
REPLY TO THE AESTHETICS SYMPOSIUM: WHAT “RAND’S AESTHETICS” IS, AND WHY IT MATTERS, pp. 413-89
The author offers an in-depth response to The Aesthetics Symposium (Spring 2001). In addition to answering many of the contributors’ objections to What Art Is: The Esthetic Theory of Ayn Rand, she offers a critique of their own theses — in particular, Barry Vacker’s claim that chaos theory is implicit in Rand’s aesthetics, Jeff Riggenbach’s argument that much of Rand’s theory was anticipated by Susanne Langer and Stephen Pepper, and Roger Bissell’s suggestion that the concept of a microcosm be applied to Rand’s view of the function of art.
CONTRIBUTOR BIOGRAPHIES
Mimi Reisel Gladstein, a Professor of English and Theatre Arts, University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, Texas 79968-0526, is former Chair of the English and Philosophy Departments and former Associate Dean of Liberal Arts at her college. She currently serves as Chair of the Department of Theatre Arts and Film. She is the author of The New Ayn Rand Companion (Greenwood Press, 1999), Atlas Shrugged: Manifesto of the Mind (Twayne, 2000), and co-editor of Feminist Interpretations of Ayn Rand. Author of The Indestructible Woman in Faulkner, Hemingway, and Steinbeck, Gladstein has won international recognition for her work on John Steinbeck, including the Burkhardt Award for Outstanding Contributions to Steinbeck Studies in 1996.
Stephen R. C. Hicks, Department of Philosophy, Rockford College, Rockford, Illinois 61108, is a Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Honors Program in Liberal Arts at Rockford College. He is the co-editor, with David Kelley, of Readings for Logical Analysis (W. W. Norton, 1998), the author of the article on Ayn Rand for the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, and the author of the forthcoming book, The Postmodern Mind: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault.
Michelle Marder Kamhi is an independent scholar and critic. She is co-author of What Art Is: The Esthetic Theory of Ayn Rand (2000), and co-editor of Aristos, an online review of the arts — successor to the journal of the same name that she co-edited from 1984 to 1997. A graduate of Barnard College, she earned an M.A. in Art History at Hunter College, City University of New York. Prior to her association with Aristos, she edited scholarly books, and also conceived and produced Books Our Children Read, a documentary educational film on literature in the school curriculum.
Lisa D. McNary, an Assistant Professor, Business Division at LaGrange College, 601 Broad Street, La Grange, Georgia 30240-2999, is the owner of DISC Consulting, Ltd. She received her B.A. from Louisiana State University, her M.S. from Lamar University, her Ph.D. at University of New Mexico, and completed post-doctoral study at The Ohio State University. She has over fifteen years of experience in industry, government, and academia in such areas as Human Resources, Quality, Labor, and Training. Her work is strongly influenced by her doctoral mentor, Dr. W. Edwards Deming, the founder of Quality Management.
Stephen E. Parrish, Librarian and Asssistant Professor of Philosophy, Concordia University, 4090 Geddes Road, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 48105, is the author of God and Necessity: A Defense of Classical Theism (University Press of America, 1997), and the co-author (with Francis J. Beckwith) of See the gods Fall (College Press, 1997), and The Mormon Concept of God: A Philosophical Analysis (Edwin Mellen Press, 1991).
Tom Porter has a B.A. in philosophy from UCLA. He did three years of graduate work in philosophy at UCLA and USC, and then 2 years of mathematics at CSUN. He is currently pursuing a J.D. at Southwestern University.
Carolyn Ray, 2698 Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, California 92037, obtained her Ph.D. and M.A. in philosophy at Indiana University, and her B.A. in philosophy at Hollins College. Author of a doctoral dissertation on “Identity and Universals,” she specializes in epistemology and applied ethics. She is currently engaged in research on the theory of mind and artificial intelligence. She practices philosophical consulting, landscape consulting, and web programming in La Jolla, California and on the Internet. She also heads Enlightenment, an organization that promotes Objectivist scholarship.
Adam Reed is an Associate Professor of Information Systems, California State University, Los Angeles, California 90032-8123. He studied electrical engineering, computer science and neurophysiology as an undergraduate and graduate student at MIT. He completed his doctorate in mathematical psychology at the University of Oregon and did postdoctoral research in neural networks at Rockefeller University. Before joining Cal State LA, he spent 18 years at Bell Labs, working in artificial intelligence and software engineering. He is the author of 15 research articles and 3 patents.
Peter Saint-Andre received a B.A. in philosophy and classics from Columbia University but now works full-time on Jabber, an open-source Internet infrastructure project. He is active as a poet, musician, translator, and essayist. He edits a literary webzine and has published a well-regarded online dictionary of philosophy. His essays have appeared in Full Context, Liberty, Objectivity, Reason Papers, and Summa Philosophiae.
Fred Seddon currently holds adjunct professorships at three universities in South Western Pennsylvania. He has been president of the West Virginia Philosophical Society since 1988 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 100 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.
Jane Yoder earned her B.A. degree in philosophy in 1952 and an M.Ed. in 1972 from Rutgers University. Retirement from corporate clerical endeavors makes possible a return to more studious activities and pleasures. Continuing education takes place in the Galt’s Gulch state of Colorado and on the Internet. She is enrolled in advanced age adult study through a program sponsored by Denver University. In 2002, she taught a course on Ayn Rand and Objectivism.
The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies 