Concepts are neither beyond the world nor merely in the mind. Concepts, for Rand, refer to facts, and so the structure reason gives to concepts generate knowledge. Rand also has a theory of knowledge, or epistemology, which she understands primarily in terms of reason, which takes sensory experience and organizes it according to its conceptual structure. In both these aspects she follows Aristotle, who she considered history's greatest philosopher. Further, she believes that the oft-discussed dichotomy between body and soul is false, arguing instead that the human being is a compound of form and matter. On Rand's view, the universe is mind-independent: it does not rely on consciousness for its existence. She believes that the world exists and that there are objective, true or false claims that can be made about it. Rand understands her primary metaphysical view as one of metaphysical realism. It is particularly in the last book that she makes her philosophical commitments clear. Rand published her two most famous books, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged in 19 respectively. Rand has become famous from her novel sales but particularly due to the ideas that she placed at the core, ideas she tied together in a system she called Objectivism. She was widely seen as an important social philosopher. Originally, Russian, she not only wrote novels, but plays and movies as well. Ayn Rand, whose real name was Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum (1905-1982) was one of the 20th century's great American novelist.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |