Novels & Works ^ofAyn Rand

Ayn Rand called her philosophy “Objectivism” because central to it is a new conception of objectivity. Traditionally, objectivity has meant the attempt to efface the knower out of existence, so that consciousness can “mirror” or “copy” reality, “untainted” by any processing. Skeptics then bewail the possibility of man knowing reality, since any attempt to do so must make use of his senses and/or rational faculty, both of which engage in processing.

Rand challenges this whole approach. The “satisfaction of every need of a living organism,” she writes, “requires an act of processing by that organism, be it the need of air, of food or of knowledge.” Objectivity consists in a mind grasping the facts by the correct mental processes. As Peikoff formulates her view: “To be objective in one’s conceptual activities is volitionally to adhere to reality by following certain rules of method, a method based on facts and appropriate to man’s form of cognition.”

According to Ayn Rand, explains Leonard Peikoff, man conceptualizes the requirements of human survival by forming principles. A moral principle “is a type of scientific principle, identifying the relationship to man’s survival of the various basic human choices.”

One who acts on moral principle, therefore, is “neither a martyr, a zealot, nor a prig; he is a person guided by man’s distinctive faculty of cognition. For a rational being, principled action is the only effective kind of action. To be principled is the only way to achieve a long-range goal. . . . In the Objectivist view, moral principles are not luxuries reserved for ‘higher’ souls or duties owed to the supernatural. They are a practical, earthly necessity to anyone concerned with self-preservation.”

And the importance of principled action extends far beyond moral issues. “Every science and every field of thought,” Peikoff states, “involves the discovery and application of principles.”

“Philosophy is a human need as real as the need of food,” Leonard Peikoff writes in explaining Ayn Rand’s view. “It is a need of the mind, without which man cannot obtain his food or anything else his life requires. To satisfy this need, one must recognize that philosophy is a system of ideas.”

In modern times, the very idea of a philosophic system has fallen into disrepute, even among philosophers. But according to Peikoff, a systematic approach is not an option that can be dispensed with. “All philosophic questions are interrelated,” he states. “One may not, therefore, raise any such questions at random, without the requisite context. If one tries the random approach, then questions (which one has no means of answering) simply proliferate in all directions.”

In this book, Peikoff not only identifies the principles of Objectivism but also explains how they form an integrated system.

The issue of man’s free will has occupied philosophers for centuries. In the debate over free will vs. determinism, Objectivism holds that determinism is self-contradictory, undercutting the validity of all knowledge.

But what is the nature of free will? Rand’s view, summarized here by Peikoff, is that man’s primary choice is “the one that makes conceptual activity possible,” namely, “the choice to focus one’s consciousness.”

“In regard to thought, as to vision, the same alternative exists: clear awareness or a state of blur, haze, fog, in which relatively little can be discriminated.” The difference is that in the case of thought one’s particular state of consciousness is willed, ranging on a spectrum from a mental state akin to a “drunk who has not yet passed out” to the “active mind intent on understanding whatever it deals with.”

Focus identifies “a quality of purposeful alertness,” Peikoff writes, “the state of a goal-directed mind committed to attaining full awareness of reality.”

In the conclusion of the book, Leonard Peikoff places Ayn Rand’s philosophy in historical context. In his epilogue, “The Duel Between Plato and Aristotle,” Peikoff argues that philosophy is the prime mover of history, and that the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle have shaped Western civilization.

To Plato’s influence he ascribes the rise of mysticism, the Dark Ages and the growth of virulent statism in modern times. To Aristotle’s influence he ascribes the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution and the United States of America.

Just as Plato’s premises found their purest expression in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, Aristotle’s find their purest expression in the philosophy of Ayn Rand. “Kant’s philosophy is Platonism without paganism,” Peikoff writes. “Ayn Rand’s philosophy is Aristotelianism without Platonism.”

Mankind’s future hangs in the balance: “The only man who can stave off another Dark Ages,” Peikoff writes, “is the Father of the Enlightenment.”