To Brand Blanshard [Letter 528]

Brand Blanshard (1892–1987) was a philosophy professor at Yale University and author of many books on philosophy. His critique of contemporary philosophy, Reason and Analysis, was favorably reviewed (by Nathaniel Branden) in the February 1963 issue of The Objectivist Newsletter. Open Court Publishing Company’s promotional pamphlet for Reason and Analysis included a testimonial by AR.

In his letter regarding his gift of Reason and Goodness, Blanshard wrote: “There is much in my ethical position with which I am sure you would disagree, but there is apparently one point of the first importance on which we do agree, namely that the ultimate arbiter, in morals as in science and speculation, is reason.”

36 East 36th Street
New York 16, N. Y.

March 4, 1965

Professor Brand Blanchard
352 St. Ronan Street
New Haven, Connecticut 06511

Dear Professor Blanshard:

I am deeply grateful for the copy of Reason and Goodness which you sent me. I have been an admirer of your work for quite some time and I truly appreciate the privilege of receiving an autographed copy of your book.

I know that there are many issues in ethics on which we disagree, but it is always a pleasure to read your manner of approach to philosophical problems. I am reading Reason and Goodness with great interest, and I would like to communicate with you when I have finished studying it.

Cordially,

Ayn Rand

AR later sent Blanshard a copy of her Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. In Blanshard’s thank-you letter of May 28, 1967, he wrote: “It is a pleasure to find on how many points I am able to agree with you. Certainly philosophy is in a bad way if we have to choose between the oracular obscurities of the existentialists and the mole-like burrowings among words of the linguistic analysts.”