Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical (24 page)

PART TWO

THE REVOLT AGAINST DUALISM

5

BEING

N. O. Lossky (1951) once wrote: “
Philosophy
is a
science
and therefore, like every other science, it seeks to establish
truths
that have been strictly proved and are therefore binding for every thinking being and not only for a particular people or nation.” Operating at the highest level of generality, the philosopher traces the interconnections between the entities, elements, and aspects of reality. The philosopher must unite “two opposed and not easily combinable faculties: the highest degree of abstract thinking and a high degree of concrete contemplation of reality” (402). In Lossky’s view, however, people have not developed these faculties to the degree required for the truly stupendous tasks of the examined life. That many opposing schools of philosophy exist illustrates that philosophy is at a much more primitive level of development than either mathematics or physics (403). But for Lossky, philosophy was paving the way for a more unified, nondualistic conception of being and knowing.

Though Rand rejected much of the content of Lossky’s philosophy, her own system retained an exhaustive and
dialectical
form that reflected her Russian roots. Just as significant, however, was Rand’s profound respect for
philosophy
as essential to human being. Like her teacher, Rand perpetuated a distinctive tradition of philosophizing that stretched back to the days of the ancient Greeks. For Rand, it was the culture of classical antiquity that marked the beginning of humankind’s intellectual maturity. The classical thinkers contributed to humanity the very concept of philosophy as a secular discipline in which the mind strove to achieve “a comprehensive view of existence.” Rand believed that this authentic, nonreligious commitment
to the examined life was rarely duplicated in the history of thought: “The grandeur, the reverence, the exalted purity, the austere dedication to the pursuit of truth, which are commonly associated with religion, should properly belong to the field of philosophy. Aristotle lived up to it and, in part, so did Plato, Aquinas, Spinoza—but how many others?”
¹

Like her teacher, Rand argued that philosophy requires the greatest level of abstraction
and
concretization, “the integration of factual data, the maintenance of a full context, the discovery of principles, the establishment of causal connections and thus the implementation of a long-range vision” (108). Every aspect of Rand’s thought—from her social
ontology
to her politics—concentrates on the specifically
conceptual
nature and needs of human consciousness.

Like most systematic visions, Rand’s
Objectivism
cannot be fully appreciated until it is grasped as a totality. No totality, however, can be presented as such. Peikoff argues correctly that the whole can only be examined through the parts. Every part of a philosophical system implies both the whole and every other part.
²
Furthermore, Peikoff understands that Objec-tivism is structured as an
internally related
system, such that any “change in one element redounds throughout the network.” Indeed, for Peikoff, as for Rand, Objectivism mirrors the very interrelationships that are present in existence and knowledge. Peikoff maintains: “
Human knowledge on every level is relational.
Knowledge is
not
a juxtaposition of independent items; it is a
unity
… a total, a sum, a single whole.” The
relational
character of knowledge is a reflection of the metaphysical fact that “there is only one universe.” In the universe, “everything … is interconnected.” Peikoff writes:

Every entity is related in some way to the others; each somehow affects and is affected by the others. Nothing is a completely isolated fact, without causes or effects; no aspect of the total can exist ultimately apart from the total. Knowledge, therefore, which seeks to grasp reality, must also be a total; its elements must be interconnected to form a unified whole reflecting the whole which is the universe.
³

Peikoff stresses also that no mind can disregard the
relationships
among its contents because the discovery of such relationships is inherent in the identity of consciousness. Thus every tenet of a philosophy, just like every aspect of knowledge, “must be judged in the light of the total picture, i.e., of the full context.” Since every element of knowledge “is potentially relevant to the rest,” a genuinely integrated philosophy must transcend fragmentation and subdivision. Peikoff (1991b, 125) suggests that Rand’s achievement lies partially in her methodical consistency within the context of available knowledge.

Ultimately, then, one cannot analyze any of Rand’s isolated philosophical insights by disconnecting them from the corpus of her thought. Taken together, each part generates and is generated by the totality. Rand’s approach is so thoroughly integrated that her philosophical beginnings seem to presuppose the results of her entire system.
⁴

Yet, as I have demonstrated, Rand’s philosophy was not a mere deduction from first principles. It was a historical product of her revolt against formal
dualism
. Ironically, Rand has been criticized for the reverse evolution of her thought, for its movement from political to metaphysical themes.
William O’Neill
([1971] 1975) suggests, for instance, that Rand’s philosophy really began with ethics and terminated, as an afterthought, with a theory of truth and knowledge: “Her
epistemology
and her metaphysical assumptions—indeed, the vast bulk of her philosophy—are essentially an
a posteriori
rationalization for a fervent
a priori
commitment to the ethics of laissez-faire
capitalism
” (175).

In a certain sense, of course, O’Neill is correct. Rand’s literary project began with a political dynamic and concluded with ontological and epistemological themes. In
We the Living
, Rand focused on the central question of the
individual
against the state. By the time she had written
Atlas Shrugged
, she was examining the role of the mind in human existence and making explicit connections between epistemic and political themes.

But it is ahistorical for O’Neill to suggest that
any
thinker could develop a system of thought by merely deducing it from metaphysical principles. It is true that many
Objectivists
imply that the morality of capitalism flows logically from the law of identity. Rand herself wrote with such a polemical flair that many of her ontological and political insights seem self-evident. The fact is, however, that Rand’s system is less a rationalization of her belief in capitalism than it is an articulation of the underlying, interconnected ontological, epistemological, and ethical premises on which capitalism depends.

Rand could never have begun with metaphysics and merely deduced her political ideas. She did not emerge full-grown from the head of Zeus as a modern goddess of wisdom. Her entire philosophical project was a historical product from its genesis to its formal presentation. Indeed, Rand had to develop her thought quite extensively before she could present it as an organic
system
of philosophical integration.

She begins with
ontology
and epistemology, breaking up the world into humanly knowable, relational units. This analytical moment of Rand’s method encapsulates a process of intellectual “chewing,” of breaking down the whole into graspable elements. By tearing these elements apart, Rand makes them intellectually digestible (Peikoff 1983T, lecture 1). Her mode of inquiry traces the interconnections between these units on a social scale,
reconstructing the totality as an organic whole. Her ethics and her politics are grounded in her teleological and biological insights. Though Rand is known for her polemics, she was quite adept at theoretical integration, expanding and
synthesizing
the units of her analysis to encompass the whole of reality.

A central aspect of Rand’s exposition is her ability to trace the
dialectical
relationships between apparent opposites. Rand was never misled into accepting her opponents’ definition of a specific philosophical or social problem. She aimed to “go to the root of the issue,” claiming that the essential aspects of any question often could not be grasped by relying on the static premises and traditional frames of reference in mainstream thought (N. Branden 1989, 215).

Toward this end, Rand analyzed the antinomic “paradoxes” in modern philosophy. For Rand, a paradox had the appearance of a
logical
contradiction
, which is at root, impossible (Peikoff 1974T, lecture 2). Hence, it was incumbent upon her as a dialectical thinker, to trace the links between apparent opposites, to show that the alternatives offered by contemporary schools of thought were false.
⁵

Though Rand aimed to document the fundamental links uniting such opposites, she also attempted to show that many contemporary thinkers had merely settled for embracing reductionist
monism
rather than finding a remedy for the various forms of dualism. They emphasized one pole of a duality as a means of reconciling opposition. In Rand’s view, dualism could not be conquered through the absorption of one polar principle by another. Just as Rand’s philosophy attempts to
transcend
alleged polarities as a means of providing an integrated view of human existence, so her critique of opposing traditions in Western thought seeks to uncover the fundamental errors they share. In most cases, Rand shows that each of the opposing schools of philosophy is half right
and
half wrong.

Since Rand discovered value in many of the philosophies she analyzed, some critics have attempted to tie
Objectivism
to such traditions as
rationalism
,
materialism
, or
existentialism
.
⁶
What her critics failed to grasp was that she was working toward a new synthesis, which required that she use established categories in the process of transcending them. She both accepted and rejected significant principles within each of the polar traditions which she analyzed. Consequently, by abstracting particular aspects from the totality of her thought, one can see elements of rationalism
and
empiricism, idealism
and
materialism, liberalism
and
conservatism. Rand explains: “Most men hold mixed premises; most schools of thought are full of contradictions. One may find some elements of value, of truth and of rationality in many people and schools. This does not make them Objectivist.”
⁷

Part 2
examines the distinctiveness of
Objectivism
, even as it traces significant parallels between Rand’s thought and others in the history of
philosophy
. But in dissecting the content of Objectivism, much of the following discussion may sometimes obscure the broad fundamentals of Rand’s worldview. Rand herself was once asked to identify the central
tenets of
her system. Her identification, in each of the major branches of philosophy, is worth recalling:

1.
Metaphysics
: Objective Reality. 2.
Epistemology
: Reason. 3.
Ethics
: Self-interest. 4.
Politics
:
Capitalism
. If you want this translated into simple language, it would read: 1. “Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed” or “Wishing won’t make it so.” 2. “You can’t eat your cake and have it, too.” 3. “Man is an end in himself.” 4. “Give me liberty or give me death.”
⁸

THE REJECTION OF COSMOLOGY

Rand’s revolt against formal dualism first manifested itself in the realm of metaphysics or
ontology
.
⁹
Metaphysics, for Rand, refers to that branch of philosophy which “deals with the fundamental nature of reality.”
¹⁰
Metaphysics involves the widest abstractions pertaining to existence as such.
¹¹
Whereas the special
sciences
separate a part of existence and investigate it thoroughly, metaphysics is concerned with the ultimate context of reality and knowledge, that is, “being qua being.”

Rand’s approach to the ontological foundations of philosophy was minimalist. In fact, beyond the general axiomatic proposition of existence, Rand refused—on principle—to commit herself to any a priori judgments about the ultimate constituents of reality. She believed that epistemology was the crux of philosophy because it related to the means of knowledge and was the base of all special sciences. Rand herself considered ontology and epistemology inseparable, and argued that each therefore implied the other (Peikoff 1976T, lecture 4). Thus her axioms serve as the foundation for her
theories
both of being and of knowing.

Having been schooled in ancient
philosophy
by Lossky, Rand was well acquainted with the classical Greek thinkers. In the area of
ontology
, she generally celebrated the accomplishments of antiquity, most particularly the works of
Aristotle
. But she viewed the inclusion of
cosmology
in ancient metaphysics as an error that had had disastrous effects throughout intellectual history. Cosmology sought to define the
specific
nature of the universe. For Rand, the specific nature of the universe was a scientific
question. The legitimacy of philosophy depended on its ability to provide the ontological and logical foundations for all forms of inquiry. Philosophy was metascientific.

Rand identified
Thales
, the father of Western thought, as the first philosopher to define the nature of the universe in cosmological terms. Even though Thales was groping toward a unified view of existence and knowledge, he argued that the universe consisted of water, air, and fire. By concluding “that water was the primary metaphysical (or cosmological) element,” Thales pretended to an
omniscience
that was impossible to the human mind. Such an approach was profoundly rationalistic because it dogmatized science by reifying the available knowledge into a self-sufficient whole. It made metaphysics dependent upon “every new discovery of physics.”