Objectivism -1

My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.

—Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged 35th anniversary edition

Ayn Rand characterized Objectivism as a philosophy for living on earth, grounded in reality, and aimed at defining man's nature and the nature of the world in which he lives. Rand presented her philosophy through her novels The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged, and other works. She elaborated on her ideas in The Objectivist Newsletter, The Objectivist, The Ayn Rand Letter, Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, and other non-fiction books.

Objectivism derives its name from its conception of knowledge and values as objective: neither intrinsic nor subjective. According to Rand, concepts and values are not intrinsic to external reality, nor are they merely subjective (by which Rand means "arbitrary" or "created by [one's] feelings, desires, 'intuitions, or whims"; like wishful thinking). Rather, valid concepts and values are, as she wrote, "determined by the nature of reality, but to be discovered by man's mind.

Rand chose Objectivism as the name of her philosophy because her ideal term to label a philosophy based on the primacy of existence,

Existentialism, had already been adopted to describe the philosophy of Kierkegaard and later Sartre. The name is capitalized to distinguish it from other philosophical positions to which the term "objectivism" has sometimes been applied

Rand's philosophy is based on three axioms: the Axiom of Existence, the Law of Identity, and the Axiom of Consciousness. Rand defined an axiom as "a statement that identifies the base of knowledge and of any further statement pertaining to that knowledge, a statement necessarily contained in all others whether any particular speaker chooses to identify it or not.  (…continued Next week)

(Contributed by Padma )

 

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