Philosopher
Ayn Rand
Overview
Alice O'Connor (born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum; February 2 [O.S. January 20], 1905 – March 6, 1982), better known by her pen name Ayn Rand ( ), was a Russian and American writer and philosopher. She is known for her fiction and for developing a philosophical system which she named Objectivism.
Born and educated in Russia, she moved to the United States in 1926. After two early novels that were initially unsuccessful and two Broadway plays, Rand achieved fame with her 1943 novel The Fountainhead. In 1957, she published her best-selling work, the novel Atlas Shrugged. Afterward, until her death in 1982, she turned to non-fiction to promote her philosophy, publishing her own periodicals and releasing several collections of essays.
Rand advocated reason and rejected faith and religion. She supported rational and ethical egoism as opposed to altruism and hedonism. In politics, she condemned the initiation of force as immoral and supported laissez-faire capitalism, which she defined as the system based on recognizing individual rights, including private property rights. Although she opposed libertarianism, which she viewed as anarchism, Rand is often associated with the modern libertarian movement in the United States. In art, she promoted romantic realism. She was sharply critical of most philosophers and philosophical traditions known to her, with a few exceptions.
Rand's books have sold over 37 million copies. Her fiction received mixed reviews from literary critics, with reviews becoming more negative for her later work. Although academic interest in her ideas has grown since her death, academic philosophers have generally ignored or rejected Rand's philosophy, arguing that she has a polemical approach and that her work lacks methodological rigor. Her writings have politically influenced some right-libertarians and conservatives, although she also criticized them. The Objectivist movement circulates her ideas, both to the public and in academic settings.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Works by Ayn Rand you can read
Philosophers who discussed Ayn Rand
- Friedrich Nietzsche
- Max Stirner
- Harry Binswanger
- George H. Smith
- Tibor Machan
- Murray Rothbard
- Christopher Hitchens
- Robert A. Heinlein
- Leonard Peikoff
- Nikolay Chernyshevsky
- John Hospers
- David Kelley (philosopher)
- Tara Smith (philosopher)
- Andrew Bernstein (philosopher)
- Allan Gotthelf
- Norman P. Barry
- Nikolay Lossky
Ideas Ayn Rand discusses
- Cult
- Globe Pequot Publishing Group
- Austrian school of economics
- Friedrich Nietzsche
- Yale University Press
- Ayn Rand Institute
- Vladimir Lenin
- Fascism
- Faith
- Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Harry Binswanger
- Free market
- American Philosophical Association
- Anarchism
- Philosophical realism
- Hedonism
- Sidney Hook
- Immanuel Kant
- Private property
- Cato Institute
- Atheism
- Statism
- Greenwood Publishing Group
- John Locke
Place in the tradition
Part of American philosophy.