Ayn Rand (1905–1982)

Jenny A. Heyl

pp. 207-224

in: Contemporary women philosophers, 1900-today, Berlin, Springer, 1995

Abstract

Few, if any, women philosophers have garnered both the adulation and scorn that Ayn Rand received during her lifetime and even since her death. This, perhaps, is how she would have chosen it as she intended to be a revolutionary and to create a system that would allow man to rescue himself from moral bankruptcy.¹ Her intention at the age of nine was to become a writer. She would write four novels, two of which, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged have become classics. Her philosophic movement, Objectivism, was often to be called a cult, she abhorred this term because it implied a religious connotation and Rand was staunchly atheistic. Rand also eschewed academic philosophy, believing that the true test of the value in philosophy is its ability to affect the lives of the common man. In her view, "If all philosophers were required to present their ideas in novels, to dramatize the exact meaning and consequences of their philosophies in human life, there would be far fewer philosophers — and far better ones."²

Cited authors

Rand Ayn