I’ve been a fan of Ayn Rand for three years. Atlas Shrugged and the Fountainhead are among my favorite books. I’ve read every published work of fiction by Rand but never delved into her non-fiction, or Objectivism.
From the outside, Objectivism appears to be an extremely clear philosophy. From Atlas Shrugged, you pick up on a lot of it, but it is through the medium of a story, so there are aspects that are easy to miss.
Recently, to continue my education in philosophy, I’ve begun reading Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand by Leonard Peikoff.
A former colleague of mine, who identifies as an Objectivist, and who runs a popular Objectivist forum, recommended the book to me. In his words, it is the best place to gain a full understanding of the philosophy.
In my orbiting of Objectivism, something I have found interesting is that almost every Objectivist I meet has solid understanding and criticism of opposing world views. Finding your way into a less popular school of thought means that you have to have a lot of basic discussions and arguments with people who disagree with your conclusions. It helps you build a stronger foundation for your knowledge because it is challenged and you have to learn to communicate your arguments clearly.
On the other side, I have yet to meet someone who is well educated on more popular, or conventional philosophy who has solid arguments against Objectivism. Or that has even read any Objectivist books.
Their arguments are about surface level misunderstandings of concepts Rand used, or taking the term Objectivism and simply arguing about objective vs. subjective.
So as I’ve orbited the ideas I’ve been more and more drawn to believe that there is something to objectivism, and something flawed with the critics who are so afraid of engaging with it.
Objectivism points out three fundamental axioms. These are self-evident and inescapable facts about life.
- Existence
- Consciousness
- Identity
Existence
Rand states this simply, “existence exists.” Our sensations tell us that something exists. It is not nothingness because nothingness cannot be sensed. Our senses may not give us a completely accurate view of what exists. There are some things that we can only sense with the use of tools, but those things still exist.
Consciousness
We are conscious because we are conscious of what exists. There is no consciousness if nothing exists. Consciousness is presupposed by any act of living.
Identity
Aristotle taught the law of identity in it’s most simple form, “A is A”. Things are what they are.
This has always confused me. I’ve never really understood what it meant because I wasn’t thinking about this as a statement about concepts. For example, squares and circles are two concepts that we use to describe things. There are attributes and characteristics about a thing. A thing without those characteristics is necessarily not that thing.
Something with the characteristics of a circle is a circle, no matter what you wish to call it. Something without the characteristics of a circle is not a circle. A square circle is the equivalent of a non-circle circle. It is possible to say, but it doesn’t mean anything.
Peikoff describes the difference between existence and identity as, existence is something vs. nothing, identity is something vs. something.
We can use words the play tricks about what things are, tree is just a word after all, but it doesn’t change the fact that the thing we describe as a tree exists, that we are conscious of it, and that it is different from the thing we call a whale.
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