A Companion to Ayn Rand Now in Paperback – New Ideal

What does it look like to take Ayn Rand seriously? Leading scholars of Objectivism show us in the newly released paperback edition.

A Companion to Ayn Rand was first published in 2016. The volume is part of Wiley-Blackwells Blackwell Companions to Philosophy series. Typically for hardcover books from academic presses, the original price was a prohibitive $140 (the e-book was similarly priced). It is, therefore, a cause for celebration that late last year, the Companion became available in paperback with a drastically reduced price. (The e-book is now priced similarly, too.) This makes the Companion moreaccessible to anyone interested in deepening their understanding of Rands philosophy.

The Companion was conceived in the early 2000s by the late Allan Gotthelf, who coedited the volume with Gregory Salmieri. (Gotthelf passed away in 2013, leaving much of the editorial work to Salmieri.) The product of their effort contains sixteen chapters on every major area of Rands thought, plus a biographical chapter and an introduction to the study of Rand. Each chapter is written by authors who have made mastering Rands works and philosophy a significant part of their careers.

The publication of the Companion was a significant milestone in scholarship on Rand. Academic presses often publish edited collections to introduce students and scholars to important historical figures or fields of study. Wiley-Blackwells Companions to Philosophy series features volumes on Aristotle, Hobbes, Spinoza, Kant, and most of the traditional canon of Western thought. In 2016, Blackwell added A Companion to Ayn Rand to the series.

The book begins with An Introduction to Ayn Rand by Salmieri (available free online). Salmieri urges readers to take Ayn Rand seriously and offers the Companion as an aid in doing so. To take an author seriously means, he explains, to read her, not with an eye toward confirming ones prejudices (whether favorable or unfavorable), but simply with an eye to understanding what she thinks and why. Unfortunately, Salmieri has plenty of examples of commentators who recognize Rands influence but fail to take her seriously.

Salmieris advice, though, doesnt apply only to critics. He makes the case that even Rands fans have work to do to really take Rand seriously: if she strikes you as obviously correct with respect to an issue where you know many people find her views counterintuitive, it means working to identify the premises that you share with her and not with them, and then figuring out how to determine whether those premises are true.

The book promises to help readers live up to the demands of taking Rand seriously, and it delivers. As Salmieri explains in his introduction, part of what it means to take a philosopher seriously is to relate her views to their alternatives. Accordingly, much of the volume is devoted to such comparisons across the whole of Rands thought.

For example, Salmieris chapter, The Objectivist Epistemology, contrasts Rand with Enlightenment advocates of reason. In the chapters first section, Salmieri explains what Rand has in common with figures like Bacon and Locke. Each philosopher sees reason as essentially involving guidance for acquiring knowledge and seeks to give knowledge a solid foundation. But Rand offers different principles of guidance because she has a different view of how we form the building blocks of our knowledge, our abstract concepts. Locke returns later in the volume as a point of comparison in chapter 8 on political theory. Authors Fred Miller and Adam Mossoff contrast Rand with natural rights theorists and other advocates of individual rights.

READ ALSO: Objectivism Q&A with Aaron Smith and Mike Mazza

Another component of taking a philosophy seriously is evaluating how it responds to criticism. In chapter 7, Darryl Wright considers the objection that Rands advocacy of individual rights is incompatible with her egoism. Since Rand is an egoist, it is incumbent upon her to show that respecting the rights of others is in ones interest. The objection is that Rand fails to show this, leaving the obligation to respect the rights of others unsupported. Wrights reply clarifies several points in social philosophy by which Rand supports the need to respect rights. In doing so, he also explains Rands principle that each man is an end in himself and differentiates it from the Kantian principle with which many readers confuse Rands.

Seasoned Rand fans might expect a chapter on Rands political commentary to tread familiar water. However, chapter 15, by the late John David Lewis and Gregory Salmieri, contains, in my view, some of the books most original material. Titled A Philosopher on Her Times, Lewis and Salmieris subject is Rands political and cultural commentary following the publication of Atlas Shrugged. Our subject in this chapter is Rands distinctive view of the philosophical roots and meaning of the events of her time especially the events of the 1960s and 1970s when she was most active as a commentator on current events. The authors integrate twenty-five years worth of material to argue that Rands political writings have a unified theme. One significant value of this chapter, especially to younger Rand fans, is Lewis and Salmieris work contextualizing the historical events Rand is discussing.

When the book was first published, ARI conducted audio interviews with several contributors: Harry Binswanger, Adam Mossoff, Jason G. Rheins, Gregory Salmieri and Tara Smith.

A Companion to Ayn Rand is available now in paperback. The book is a must-have for any Rand fans library.

If you value the ideas presented here, please become an ARI Member today.

See original here:

A Companion to Ayn Rand Now in Paperback - New Ideal