Other books on Rand and Objectivism

Last modified:d: July 3, 1996

In this book Dr. Peikoff offers the first systematic presentation of Objectivism. Intended for readers familiar with Rand's fiction, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand is an adequate introduction to Objectivism.

(From the jacket:) What is the proper denotation of teleological terms such as "goal," "function," and "for the sake of"? Can teleological concepts be validly applied to automatic, non-conscious biological processes -- i.e., "vegatative" processes, such as the heartbeat, plant growth, and cellular metabolism? Does the behavior of any inanimate objects, natural or man-made, qualify as teleological?

To resolve these issues, Harry Binswanger provides a unique approach combining factual and epistemological considerations. If human purposeful action is the paradigm case of teleology, then regarding a non-purposeful process as teleological means taking it to be causally similar to purposeful action. Accordingly, to determine the proper extent of telelogical concepts, Dr. Binswanger provides an analysis of purposeful action and a point-by-point comparison of the features of purposeful action to those of vegetative and inanimate processes. He concludes that to be essentially similar to purposeful action, a process must exhibit three features: "self-generation," "value-significance," and "goal-causation." By drawing on the principle of natural selection, he supports an exclusively biological teleology. Purposeufl action, he argues, is a sub-category of the wider class of goal-directed action: the conscious selection underlying purposeful action is simply an advanced form of the fundamental level of selection arising from the very nature of life.

Note: This book is published by The Ayn Rand Institute Press, and is available from Second Renaissance Books.

(From the jacket:) A prolific writer, best-selling novelist, and world-renowed philosopher, Ayn Rand defined a full system of thought -- from epistemology to aesthetics. Her writing is so extensive and the range of issues she covers so enormous that those interested in finding her discussions of a given topic may have to search through many sources to locate the relevant passage.

The Ayn Rand Lexicon brings together for the first time all the key ideas of her philosophy of Objectivism, organized alphabetically by topic.

Through excerpts culled from Ayn Rand's many articles, lectures, and books, this work presents the Objectivist view on some 400 topics in philosophy, politics, art, economics, and psychology. The Lexicon thus serves as a mini-encyclopedia of Objectivism, complete with a conceptual index and extensive cross-references.

The Lexicon is both an intriguing introduction for the newcomer and a comprehensive sourcebook for readers already familiar with Objectivist ideas. Begun under Ayn Rand's personal supervision, this unique volume is an invaluable guide to her philosophy of reason, self-interest, and laissez-faire capitalism -- the philosophy so brilliantly dramatized in her novels The Fountainhead, We the Living, and Atlas Shrugged.

(From the jacket:) In this remarkable work Leonard Peikoff maintains that the deepest roots of Nazism lie in three philosophic ideas -- the worship of unreason, the demand for self-sacrifice, and the elevation of society above the individual. Those ideas nutured a Nazi mentality in a small minority of Germans, while intellectually disarming the law-abiding majority and exposing them to the lures of dictatorship.

The same ideas are now influential in America, says Professor Peikoff, and have been for years. He argues that, as a result, America is moving toward the establishment of a Nazi-type dictatorship in the not-too-distant-future.