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Without a Prayer

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Summary

Full Title: Without a Prayer: Ayn Rand and the Close of Her System Author(s): John W. Robbins Year Published: 1997 Publisher: The Trinity Foundation Publication Type: Specialty ISBN: 0-940931-50-8 (hardcover) Description: Robbins, a conservative Christian and president of the Trinity Foundation, set out to "reply to Ayn Rand in the name of Jesus Christ." He first did this in 1974 in his book Answer to Ayn Rand. This book is part repetition, part expansion of that earlier work.

Contents

• Acknowledgements
• The Atheist's Creed
• Foreward

1. The Objectivist Canon
2. The Meanings of Reason
   • Rand's Humanism
   • The Autonomy of Reason
   • Reason and Force
   • The Plan of the Book
3. Imagining Truth: The Objectivist Epistemology
   • The Primacy of Epistemology
   • The Meanings of "Reason"
   • The Tabula Rasa Contradiction
   • Ignoring the Problem of the Senses
   • Skepticism and Empiricism
   • The Mystics of Muscle
   • The Senses
   • Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology
   • Measurement and Science
   • Popper on Science
   • Russell on Induction
   • Concept Formation
   • Abstraction
   • Ostensive Definition
   • Open-ended Concepts
   • Implicit Concepts
   • What Is Truth?
   • Essences
   • Axiomatic Concepts
   • Open-ended Concepts
   • Volitional Consciousness
   • Causality
   • The Self
   • A Confession of Epistemic Failure
4. Imagining Gods: Objectivist Theology
   • A Childish Atheism
   • Excursus on Rand's Attacks on Christian Doctrine
   • The Traditional Proofs for God
   • Objectivism's First God
   • Objectivism's Second God
   • Anthem
   • The War of the Gods
5. Imagining Values: Objectivist Ethics
   • Definitions
   • The Alternative
   • Suicide
   • Pleasure and Pain
   • Plants, Animals, and Men
   • Epistemology and Ethics
   • Volitional Consciousness
   • Free Will and Determinism
   • Man Qua Man
   • Excursus on Good and Evil
   • Conclusion
6. Imagining Justice, Peace, and Freedom: Objectivist Politics
   • The Incoherence of Natural Rights
   • The Initiation of Force
   • Retaliation and Self Defense
   • Excursus on the Initiation of Force in the Welfare State
   • The Crime of Punishment
   • The Consent of the Governed
   • The Depravity of Men
   • Taxation and Government Finance
   • Totalitarianism and the Doctrine of Forfeiture
   • Eating Babies for Breakfast
   • Life Unworthy of Living
   • Animal Rights
7. Ayn Rand and the Close of Her System
   • The Perennial Failure of Secular Philosophy
   • The Promise of Christianity
   • Solving the Epistemological Problem
   • Conclusion

• Appendices
  1. The Ominous Parallels by Leonard Peikoff
  2. Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand by Leonard Peikoff
  3. The Evidence of the Senses by David Kelley
  4. God and Logic
  5. Science and Truth
  6. Kant and Old Testament Ethics
  7. Christ and Civilization
  8. An Introduction to Gordon H. Clark
• Bibliography
• Index
• The Crisis of Our Time
• Intellectual Ammunition

Related Links

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Reviews, Criticism and Analysis

Links followed by this symbol are for documents in Adobe PDF (Acrobat) format, which requires Adobe Reader for viewing.

The following perspectives on this book are available online:

• By Richard Bacon in The Blue Banner
• By David Gordon in The Mises Review
• By Jack Kettler in Contra Mundum
• By Bryan Register in Navigator

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