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The Ideas of Ayn Rand

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Summary

Full Title: The Ideas of Ayn Rand Author(s): Ronald E. Merrill Year Published: 1991 Publisher: Open Court Publication Type: Academic ISBN-10: 0-8126-9157-1 (hardcover), 0-8126-9158-X (paperback) ISBN-13: Description: Provides an overview of Rand's work, including both her fiction and non-fiction, aimed primarily at non-academic readers. Merrill was a scientist, not a professional philosopher, but this book was one of the few sympathetic to Rand's ideas to be published by an academic press prior to the mid-1990s.

Contents

• Preface

1. The Controversial Ayn Rand
   • The Objectivist Movement
   • The 'Ayn Rand Cult': Fact and Fancy
   • The Great Schism
   • The Miracle of the Rose
   • The Resurrection of Ayn Rand
   • The Whole Rand
2. Rand's Life in Print
   • Rand's Thinking in Context
   • The Evolution of Objectivism
   • The Randian Style
3. The Nietzchean Period
   • The Nietzchean Vision
   • Literary Influences
   • Rand's Early Fiction
   • Red Pawn
   • Penthouse Legend
   • We the Living
   • The Theme
   • Trio for Heroes
   • A Cinematic Style
   • The Changes
   • The Failure of Nietzche
4. The Transition Period
   • The Enigma of Ideal
   • Think Twice
   • The Fountainhead
   • The Break with Nietzsche
   • A Traditional Antithesis
   • The Impossible Villain
   • Intellectual Snobbery
   • A Seamless Patchwork
   • Acquital Unsatisfactory
   • The Embryo of Objectivism
   • Anthem
   • 'The Simplest Thing in the World'
5. Full Integration
   • A Departure in Style
   • Judaic Symbolism
   • Plot, Plot, and Plot
   • The Technique of Philosophical Integration
   • Rand's Heroes: The Roots
   • Dagny Taggart and the Randian Women
   • Francisco D'Anconia
   • Hank Rearden
   • Who Is John Galt?
   • Bit-Part Heroes
   • The Villains
   • The Secondary Heroes
   • The Branden Critique
   • Rand and Repression
   • The Randian Lovers
   • Paradox Resolved
   • Beyond the Taggart Terminal
6. The Philosophical Period
   • Objectivism versus Academia
   • Metaphysical Roots
   • An Epistemological Radical
   • Rand's Theory of Concepts
   • The Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy
   • Epistemology in Practice
   • The Objectivist Ethics
   • Ethics and Values: Two Lines of Argument
   • The Randian Argument
   • Ends and Ends in Themselves
   • The Means Test
   • Rand and the Aristotelian Legacy
   • From Is to Ought: Is There Aught, or Is All for Nought?
   • What is the Meaning of Life, Anyway?
   • The Objections to Objectivist Ethics
   • Simple Misrepresentations
   • From Leaking Lifeboats to the Asteroid Test
   • The Galt-Like Golfer
   • Robert Nozick versus the Count of Monte Cristo
   • Human Nature and Its Consequences
   • The Ethics of the Future
   • From Theory to How-To
   • Objectivist Esthetics
   • Esthetic Difficulties and Definitions
7. The Political Period
   • A Political Odessey
   • The Radical for Capitalism
   • The Goldwater Debacle
   • Roots of the New Conservatism
   • Rand's Critique of Conservatism
   • The Evolution of Libertarianism
   • The Essence of Libertarianism
   • Roots of the Political Conflict
   • Objectivism versus Libertarianism: The Case for the Plantiff
   • Objectivism versus Libertarianism: The Case for the Defendant
   • Objectivism and the Theory of Government
   • Rand's View of Man and Society
   • The Final Decline
   • The Path Less Travelled
8. The Future of Objectivism
   • A Second Crusade?
   • Or the Ivory Tower?
   • The Schoolroom or the Polling Booth
   • Back to the Future
   • What Is to Be Done?
   • Life Support Systems
   • The Tactics of Sanction
   • The First of Their Return ...

• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index

Related Links

• Excerpt discussing Jewish symbols in Atlas Shrugged

Reviews, Criticism and Analysis

The following perspectives on this book are available online:

• Review by Neil DeRosa at the Atlasphere
• Review by Robert Wilfred Franson
• Review by Stephen Hicks for the IOS Journal

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