Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. - book reviews

National Review, April 30, 1990 by Allen Randolph

Whittaker Chambers observed in his review of Atlas Shrugged [NR, Dec. 28, 1957] that her fiction serves [Ayn] Rand to get her customers inside the tent, and as a soapbox for delivering her Message." What Mr. Chambers saw was someone who was so immersed in the self that she gradually was becoming a challenge to her own credibility. The movement that was born out of the fiction of Ayn Rand was objectivism. As William F. Buckley Jr. wrote in his obituary of Miss Rand [NR, April 2, 19821, "the philosophy she sought to launch [is] dead; it was in fact stillborn." Nonetheless, it has a stubborn afterlife, as there is now a second edition of the Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology (New American Library, 336 pp., hardeover: $19.95; paperback: $9.95).

This book represents the persistent effort to establish objectivism in the annals of respectable philosophy, where it is not likely ever to be welcome. Objectivism is based on the worship of the self-there is no reality prior to the individual's understanding of it. All relationships are dependent on the interpretation of the individual, and naked self-interest is a positive virtue. There is no place for the JudaeoChristian ethic; self-sacrifice is out of court, and every emotion is to be accounted for and quantified. These principles represent the breaking point between Randianism and conservatism.

Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology has been received as a bible" of Randianism. It describes the thought processes of Ayn Rand and her followers in painstaking detail. It is Ayn Rand on her "soapbox." The editors, Leonard Peikoff and Harry Benswanger, effectively use Miss Rand's texts to present a complete view of the objectivist philosophy, but somehow it still falls flat. I daresay that part of the problem is the authoritarian, condescending tone Miss Rand assumes in conversing with "a select group of professionals." There is a difference between self-assured rebuttals and sharp rebukes. Miss Rand tends strongly toward the latter, giving the impression that she suffers from an overactive defense mechanism.

For whom could such a work hold interest? the life and fiction of Ayn Rand intrigue many people, including many on the Right, and this may be enough to draw some to its pages. But if you fit into this category, be forewarned: this is strictly a philosophical study. It does not touch on the life and times of Ayn Rand, nor are there any comparisons drawn between her philosophy and her fiction. There may be a certain appeal for those who want to be assured of the validity of self-interest as a motivation, but for most readers, there is nothing to get them "into the tent." At bottom, the only ones likely to be satisfied by this book are the few remaining acolytes of the objectivist faith who crave a book that explicates the philosophy of the goddess of self-worship. For those few, it is still "the bible."