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INTRODUCTION

Ayn Rand is one of the most widely read philosophers of the twentieth century. Yet despite the sale of nearly thirty million copies of her works, and their translation into many languages (Landrum 1994, 302),¹ there have been few book-length, scholarly examinations of her thought. This is hardly surprising since academics have often dismissed her “Objectivist” ideas as “pop” philosophy.² As a best-selling novelist, a controversial, flamboyant polemicist, and a woman in a male-dominated profession, Rand remained outside the academy throughout her life. Her works had inspired passionate responses that echo the uncompromising nature of her moral vision. In many cases, her audiences were either cultish in their devotion or savage in their attacks. The left was infuriated by her anticommunist, procapitalist politics, whereas the right was disgusted by her atheism and civil libertarianism.

Since her death in 1982, interest in her thought has not abated. Respondents to a joint Library of Congress–Book of the Month Club survey of “lifetime reading habits” indicated that Atlas Shrugged was second only to the Bible in its significant impact on their lives.³ Rand’s influence on American political thought has been acknowledged by Martin Anderson, Reagan’s chief domestic and economic adviser; Hillary Rodham Clinton; Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve; John Hospers, philosopher and one-time Libertarian Party presidential candidate; perennial GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul; Charles Murray, author of Losing Ground; Robert Nozick, Harvard philosopher and National Book Award winner; and Clarence Thomas, associate justice of the Supreme Court. Most important, there has been a steady growth in Rand scholarship. In the past decade, a number of collections of her writings were published for the first time, as were several studies of her career and impact.⁴ The number of reference guides and journals dedicated to the examination of Objectivist ideas continues to grow.⁵ Discussions of her thought and excerpts from her essays appear regularly in journals and college textbooks.⁶ In addition, several professional scholarly organizations have been founded to promote the serious study of Rand’s philosophy.⁷ A new generation of thinkers schooled in the Objectiv-ist, classical liberal, and libertarian traditions has extended and refined the Randian legacy. They include Leonard Peikoff, heir to the Estate of Ayn Rand, who continues to lecture and write on Objectivism; Nathaniel Branden, who despite his separation from Rand in 1968, continues to develop the interconnections between neo-Objectivist philosophy and psychology; David Kelley, who has presented a sophisticated realist theory of perception based largely on Rand’s epistemological contributions; Douglas Den Uyl and Douglas Rasmussen, who have combined Randian and Aristotelian insights in their own unique defense of a free society; and Tibor Machan, whose many books reflect a deep appreciation of Rand’s philosophy.

Nevertheless, the growth in Rand scholarship and influence has generated few comprehensive, book-length examinations of her thought (rather than her life and cultural impact). Three earlier attempts at extended critique, by Albert Ellis (1968), William F O’Neill ([1971] 1977), and John W. Robbins (1974), were published eight to twelve years before Rand’s death and, hence, did not assess her full contribution. The Philosophic Thought of Ayn Rand, edited by Den Uyl and Rasmussen (1984), is an important anthology of essays written by several scholars who examine aspects of Rand’s epistemology, ethics, and politics, from different perspectives. Peikoff’s Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (1991b) is the first systematic statement of Rand’s philosophy, albeit from an orthodox, noncritical vantage point. And Ronald Merrill’s Ideas of Ayn Rand (1991)—recently updated by Marsha Familaro Enright (Merrill and Enright 2013)—presents some original theses, though with a broader cultural orientation.

This book is the first scholarly attempt to trace Rand’s roots and assess her place in intellectual history. My central theme is captured by the title: Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical, for in this book I address two questions:

1. In what sense can Rand’s philosophy be understood as a response to her Russian past?

2. In what sense can Rand’s philosophy be understood as a contribution to twentieth-century radical thought?

The answers to these questions provide a new interpretation of Rand’s Objectivism in terms of its intellectual origins and its significance for the history of social theory. I contend that Rand achieved a unique synthesis by rejecting—and absorbing—key elements in the Russian tradition. She rejected the Marxist and religious content of Russian thought. She accepted the dialectical revolt against formal dualism. Her distinctive integration of a libertarian politics with a dialectical method forges a revolutionary link. She projected a dialectical sensibility while formulating a fundamentally non-Marxist, radical critique of statism.

In this book, I do not focus on Ayn Rand’s personal life or on the controversial movement she inspired. I reconstructed certain biographical elements, especially concerning Rand’s Russian education, in an effort to trace her early intellectual development. In a few instances, I could not ignore circumstances in Rand’s public and private life, particularly those events which divided sympathetic and critical commentators alike and led to interpretive modifications, or distortions, of her overall project. It is my hope that this book will contribute to a much-needed scholarly appreciation of Rand’s profoundly original theoretical system.

RAND SCHOLARSHIP: PROBLEMS AND PERSPECTIVES

I must admit that Rand’s deeply controversial public persona has left for the present generation of scholars two major, related problems: (1) the need to distinguish Rand’s personality from her philosophical legacy; and (2) the task of determining what (and who) defines Objectivism as a distinct school of thought.

The first problem is not peculiar to Rand scholarship. It is a truism that in studying any philosophy, one must never lose sight of the personal, cultural, and historical context of the originating philosopher. Yet the study of philosophy cannot be reduced to exploring this or that philosopher’s idiosyncrasies. That would be psychologism at its worst. One should not judge Schopenhauer’s philosophy by his penchant for sleeping with loaded pistols or Nietzsche’s by the fact that he died insane. Similarly, one should not judge Rand’s philosophy by her intolerance toward dissenters, her penchant for moralizing, her style of polemical exposition, or the “cult of personality” that she inspired.

Perhaps even more than her status as an iconoclastic thinker, a novelist, or a woman, Rand’s truculent temperament and cultic following severely hampered serious scholarship on her work. Indeed, the fledgling Objectivist movement in the 1960s contributed to a second major problem: the difficulty in pinpointing the “genuine” representatives of her philosophy. Echoing the sectarianism and authoritarianism within the left academy, Objectivists have tended to engage in philosophical “purges” and personal disputes that have led some to disavow the contributions of others still working largely within the broad framework defined by Rand. The first such schism occurred in 1968, when Rand ended her personal and professional relationship with her chief associate, psychologist Nathaniel Branden.⁸

In my view, there are distinctions between the “orthodox” interpreters of Rand’s thought and those who can be termed “neo-Objectivists.” The orthodox thinkers see Rand’s philosophy as closed and complete. The neo-Objectivists accept certain basic principles, while expanding, modifying, or revising other aspects of Rand’s thought. The “neo-Objectivist” label is not employed critically; for history, I believe, will describe all these thinkers simply as “Objectivists.” Nevertheless, Rand did not sanction all of the developments proceeding from her influence. In the case of Nathaniel Branden, for instance, although Rand enthusiastically approved his theoretical work while he was her associate, she repudiated his subsequent efforts.⁹ A later dispute between Leonard Peikoff and David Kelley centered on the question of what precisely constitutes the philosophy of Objectivism.

Adopting an orthodox, “closed-system” approach, Peikoff (1991b) has stated: “‘Objectivism’ is the name of Ayn Rand’s philosophy as presented in the material she herself wrote or endorsed” (xv). Peikoff excludes from “official Objectivist doctrine” both his own work after Rand’s death and Rand’s unedited, unpublished lectures and journals, since she “had no opportunity to see or approve” of the material.¹⁰

Peikoff follows Rand’s own pronouncements. At the time of the Branden schism, Rand maintained (in 1968) that she was a theoretician of Objectivism, which she characterized as “a philosophical system originated by me and publicly associated with my name.”¹¹ She claimed that it was her “right and responsibility” to defend the system’s integrity, and she renounced any “organized movement” in her name.

Twelve years after this “statement of policy,” when a magazine called The Objectivist Forum was established, Rand approved the journal as “a forum for students of Objectivism to discuss their ideas, each speaking only for himself.” Rand stated that the magazine was neither the “official voice” of her philosophy nor her “representative” or “spokesman.”

Rand explained further that those who agree with certain tenets of Objectivism but disagree with others should give proper acknowledgment “and then indulge in any flights of fancy [they] wish, on [their] own.” Anyone using the name of “Objectivism” for his own

philosophical hodgepodge … is guilty of the fraudulent presumption of trying to put thoughts into my brain (or of trying to pass his thinking off as mine—an attempt which fails, for obvious reasons). I chose the name “Objectivism” at a time when my philosophy was beginning to be known and some people were starting to call themselves “Randists.” I am much too conceited to allow such a use of my name.¹²

Upholding the consistency of her system as one of its virtues, Rand opposed the practice of those philosophers who “regard philosophy as a verb, not a noun (they are not studying or creating philosophy, they are ‘doing’ it)” (2). Thus Peikoff’s interpretation of Objectivism as a “closed system” clearly mirrors Rand’s own view.

By contrast, David Kelley (1990) views Objectivism as an “open system”: “A philosophy defines a school of thought, a category of thinkers who subscribe to the same principles. In an open philosophy, members of the school may differ among themselves over many issues within the framework of the basic principles they accept” (57).

The evolution of academic Marxist thought illustrates Kelley’s point clearly. In defining the essence of contemporary Marxism, it is impossible to disconnect the statements of Karl Marx from the multiple interpretations constructed over the past century. These interpretations are as much a logical development of Marx’s methods and theories as they are a reflection of the particular historical, social, and personal contexts of his interpreters. The interpretations also reflect different periods in Marx’s own development. Some scholars stress the earlier, more “humanistic” Marx, whereas others argue for an economistic interpretation based on his mature works. Most scholars would agree, however, that one cannot detach Marx’s unpublished writings from the corpus of his thought. Indeed, the great bulk of Marx’s work was issued posthumously. For example, Marx’s Grundrisse, composed of seven unedited workbooks, was first published in the twentieth century. It provides a cornucopia of material from which one can reconstruct his method of inquiry as a distinct “moment” (or aspect) of his dialectical approach. The Grundrisse is an essential complement to and reflection on Marx’s published exposition in Capital.

In addition, a Marxist scholar cannot neglect the plethora of interpretive twists resulting from the combination of Marx’s theories with compatible approaches in psychology, anthropology, and sociology. What has emerged is a scholarly industry that must take account of structuralist, phenomenological, critical, and analytical approaches, to name but a few. Finally, we have been presented with different philosophical interpretations of the “real” Karl Marx: the Aristotelian Marx, the Kantian Marx, the Hegelian Marx, and the Leninist Marx.¹³

None of these developments alter the essential body of theory that Marx proposed in his lifetime. One can empathize with the innovative theorist who, jealously guarding his discoveries, aims to protect the “purity” of the doctrine. Ironically, Rand suggests a spiritual affinity with Marx on this issue. She remembers that upon hearing the “outrageous statements” made by some of his “Marxist” followers, Marx exclaimed: “But I am not a Marxist.”¹⁴

Nevertheless, although one can debate whether a particular philosophy is “closed” or “open,” scholarship must consider the many theoretical developments emerging over time directly or indirectly from the innovator’s authentic formulations. Much of current intellectual history focuses not on the ideas of the innovator, but rather, on the evolution of the ideas and on the context in which the ideas emerged and developed. As W. W. Bartley argues, the affirmation of a theory involves many logical implications that are not immediately apparent to the original theorist. In Bartley’s words, “The informative content of any idea includes an infinity of unforeseeable nontrivial statements.” The creation of mathematics for instance, “generates problems that are wholly independent of the intentions of its creators.”¹⁵

In this book, I have adopted a similarly hermeneutical approach. The principles of this scholarly technique were sketched by Paul Ricoeur in his classic essay, “The Model of the Text.”¹⁶ Ricoeur maintains that a text is detached from its author and develops consequences of its own. In so doing, it transcends its relevance to its initial situation and addresses an indefinite range of possible readers. Hence, the text must be understood not only in terms of the author’s context but also in the context of the multiple interpretations that emerge during its subsequent history.

I do not mean to suggest that Rand’s ideas lack objective validity, that is, validity independent of the interpretations of others. Ultimately, one must judge the validity of any idea by its correspondence to reality and/or its explanatory power. But to evaluate the truthfulness of a philosophic formulation is not the only legitimate task of scholarship. Indeed, my primary purpose in this study as an intellectual historian and political theorist is not to demonstrate either the validity or the falsity of Rand’s ideas. Rather, it is to shed light on her philosophy by examining the context in which it was both formulated and developed.

In this book I attempt to grasp Rand’s Objectivism as a text developing over time. As a concept, “Objectivism” is open-ended; it contains its history and its future. It must be understood in terms of both its historical origins and its post-Randian evolution. The existential conditions from which it emerged and to which it speaks are in large part what give it its very significance. So, too, its meaning continues to unfold through a clash of interpretations offered by followers and critics alike. By clarifying these conditions and factors, I hope to provide an enriched appreciation of Rand’s contributions.

Such an assertion might imply that I claim to have grasped the implications of Objectivism even more thoroughly than did Rand herself.¹⁷ Although I would never presume to such intellectual hubris, it is true, nonetheless, that Rand could not have explored the full implications of her philosophy in her lifetime. Such a task is reserved necessarily for succeeding generations of scholars.

First and foremost then, this is a book about ideas. I discuss Rand’s ideas as she expressed them in her published and unpublished works, in her written essays and spoken lectures, from the earliest available material to the last. I consider all these sources important to a comprehensive understanding of her thought and legacy. Unfortunately, because Rand never wrote an exhaustive treatise, her system must be pieced together from her novels, essays, and lectures. Furthermore, many of Rand’s journals and private papers are not yet available to the scholarly community. Since Rand agreed to place these papers with the Library of Congress, it is hoped that future scholars will have more information at their disposal than I have had.¹⁸

I also discuss Rand’s thought as it has been interpreted, modified, or extended by those she influenced. This book is as much an analysis of the tradition that Rand’s philosophy has sparked as it is of the ideas she herself expressed, and I include substantive analysis of work by Barbara Branden, Nathaniel Branden, Douglas Den Uyl, David Kelley, Tibor Machan, Leonard Peikoff, Douglas Rasmussen, George Walsh, and others. Even for those works not officially sanctioned by Rand, there is significant textual evidence to support their continuity and consistency with Objectivism. Some of these authors in fact, have written more for a scholarly than for a popular audience. Hence, their alternative formulations of Objectivist positions are characterized by scholarly rigor and precision appropriate to that context. I do not hesitate to use these materials, although this must be done with care, always remembering that the best source for evaluating their consistency is the writing of Rand herself. Ultimately, I argue that there is an essential unity in Rand’s legacy and that this unity is both philosophical and methodological.

Before proceeding, however, I feel compelled to assert that Rand’s philosophy should be taken seriously and treated with respect. The mere mention of Ayn Rand’s name in academic circles can evoke smirks and a rolling of the eyes. Most often she is dismissed, without discussion, as a reactionary, a propagandist, or a pop-fiction writer with a cult following. The fact that her work often appeals to the young seems proof that her ideas are immature or simplistic.

From my own experience, I can attest that Rand’s work does inspire youthful admiration. I was first exposed to her ideas when I was a senior in high school. Captivated by the starkness of her essays and the benevolent heroism of her fictional protagonists, I consumed all of Rand’s available works. I gradually discovered a rich classical liberal and libertarian literature that provided a fundamental alternative to mainstream social science.

Although my interest in Rand never abated during my college years, I was far removed from the dogmatic, cult-like devotion of fans who seemed to worship her every pronouncement. Moreover, I witnessed the hostile reaction to her work by many academic professionals. Although Rand provided an insightful, moral defense of capitalism, I found it difficult to imagine that she could ever gain scholarly acceptance.

Not until I was in graduate school did I discover something else in Rand’s work. As a doctoral student, I was engaged in a comprehensive study of dialectical method with two distinguished scholars of the left academy, Bertell Ollman and Wolf Heydebrand. Much to my amazement, I discovered provocative parallels between the methods of Marxian social theory and the philosophic approach of Ayn Rand. Both Marx and Rand traced the interconnectedness of social phenomena, uncovering a startling cluster of relations between and among the institutions and structures of society. Both Marx and Rand opposed the mind-body dichotomy, and all of its derivatives. But unlike Marx, Rand was virulently anticommunist. Unlike Marx, Rand viewed a genuinely capitalist social system as a necessary condition for the achievement of truly integrated human being. Paradoxically, Rand seemed to embrace a dialectical perspective that resembled the approach of her Marxist political adversaries, even while defending capitalism as an “unknown ideal.”

In 1984, recognizing these parallels and distinctions, I was encouraged by Ollman and Heydebrand to undertake my first systematic study of the dialectical aspects of Rand’s philosophy. In the process, I rediscovered elements in Objectivism that challenged my entire understanding of that philosophy and its place in intellectual history.

Rand was notorious for maintaining that her intellectual debt to other thinkers was very limited. And yet in my own research, I discovered similarities between Rand’s approach and the dialectical approach of Hegelians and Marxists. Rand would have vehemently denied such a link. She viewed Hegel and Marx as heirs to the destructive Platonic and Kantian philosophic traditions. I grew certain, however, that at some point in her intellectual development, Rand had absorbed, perhaps unwittingly, crucial dialectical methods of analysis. My preliminary study compelled me to look further.

THE STUDY IN BRIEF

Rand was born and reared during a revolutionary period in Russian history. That context is the key to understanding the peculiar character of her Objectivism, her essentially dialectical mode of inquiry, and her radical critique of contemporary society. By the time she graduated from the University of Leningrad in 1924,¹⁹ she had been exposed to a dialectical revolt against formal dualism that would profoundly influence her literary craft and philosophical project.

In this book, I explore Objectivism on three distinct levels: (1) its intellectual roots, (2) its formal structure, and (3) its radical social implications.

All too often, Rand’s philosophy is presented as a deductive formulation from first principles. This approach prevails in the work of both her followers and her detractors. Objectivism is defined in a logically derivative manner: Rand allegedly begins with an ontological view of the law of identity and then proceeds to enunciate a doctrine of epistemological realism, ethical egoism, individualist-libertarian-capitalist social philosophy, and a “Romantic-Realist” literary credo. Each of these branches is integrated in a hierarchy of interrelated abstractions.

I do not deny that such a relational structure exists within Objectivism as a formal totality, but I depart from established perspectives by exploring Rand’s philosophy as a phenomenon with a history and as a system.

From a historical vantage point, I examine Rand’s philosophy in “the process of its becoming.” I approach Objectivism diachronically, as an evolved response to the dualities that Rand confronted in Soviet Russia. Although she rejected both the mysticism of Russia’s religious traditions²⁰ and the secular collectivism of the Russian Marxists, she nonetheless remained a profoundly Russian thinker. Rand’s Russian nature was not reflected merely in her heavy foreign accent or in the length of her novels. She was Russian in more fundamental ways. In the sweeping character of her generalizations, and in her passionate commitment to the practical realization of her ideals, Rand was fully within the Russian literary and philosophic tradition. Like most of Russia’s great literary figures, she was an artist, social critic, and nonacademic philosopher who constructed a broad synthesis in her battle against the traditional antinomies in Western thought: mind versus body, fact versus value, theory versus practice, reason versus emotion, rationalism versus empiricism, idealism versus materialism, and so on. And like most of Russia’s indigenous philosophers, she presented an exhaustive, all-encompassing theoretical totality. Her system is as much defined by what she accepted in Russian thought as by what she rejected. In her intellectual development, Rand reflects the very Hegelian Aufhebung she ridiculed as a violation of the law of identity. In her intellectual evolution, Rand both absorbed and abolished, preserved and transcended, the elements of her Russian past.

I do not mean to imply that Rand’s ideas can be wholly explained by—or reduced to—the context from which they emerged. People have free will; innovation and creativity are possible. But free will does not mean that people can step outside of their own skin. No human being can adopt a perspective on the whole that is external to all personal, cultural, social, or historical context. We are as much the creatures of history as its creators. Though Rand used genuinely inductive and deductive techniques in fashioning her unique synthesis, she also responded to real, concrete circumstances. Abstracting Rand’s philosophy from this context damages our understanding of its historical importance.

Part One partially recovers the lost world of revolutionary Russia and evokes the oppressive conditions that prompted Rand to emigrate to the United States. I concentrate on the intellectual traditions that dominated Russian culture during Rand’s formative years. Living in Russia during its celebrated Silver Age, she witnessed a burst of Nietzschean and neo-Hegelian thought: the Symbolist movement, Russian Religious Renaissance, and Russian Marxism each attempted the resolution of various forms of dualism. I focus in greater detail on the contributions of Nicholas Onufrievich Lossky, Rand’s philosophy teacher at Petrograd University. Lossky, who encapsulated many of the significant dialectical methods prevalent in Russian thought, was the most significant of Rand’s professors and perhaps the one who most influenced her early intellectual development. I explore the historical connection of Rand and Lossky. As the dean of contemporary, pre-Bolshevik, Russian philosophy,²¹ Lossky viewed the world as an organic totality in which each part is internally related to every other. This dialectical conception reappears in many forms in the writings of Lossky’s student, Ayn Rand. I conclude Part One, with a developmental study of Rand’s intellectual maturation from the moment of her arrival in the United States until her death in 1982. My focus here is not on Objectivism as an integrated system, but on Rand’s intellectual groping toward synthesis.

Historically, Rand’s revolt against dualism animated her project.²² In Part Two, I switch from the historical to the synchronic. I reconstruct Rand’s system to show how it is an inherently dialectical and nondualistic formulation that differs considerably from conventional alternatives.

Since the hierarchical structure of Objectivism cannot be ignored, I present the basic tenets of Rand’s perspective in a logically progressive manner to emphasize their more specific applications. It would be an error, for example, to begin with Rand’s politics and proceed to her ontology. Because each branch and principle depend on their antecedents, one must first enter the lofty domain of metaphysics and work methodically toward Rand’s epistemology, philosophical psychology, aesthetics, ethics, and politics.

In Part Three, I show how Rand’s mode of analysis culminates in a radical assessment of the nature of power as manifested in all social practices and institutions. I scrutinize her attempt to trace the interrelationships of culture, education, sex, race, and the neofascist welfare-warfare state. I also examine her theory of history, her vision of the Objectivist society, and her communitarian impulse.

In this book I also make explicit comparisons and distinctions between Rand and other social thinkers. This is often a difficult task, owing partly to Rand’s myopia concerning both her intellectual debts and her assessment of other philosophers. In bravura fashion, Rand once said that in the history of philosophy, she could only recommend the “3 A’s”—Aristotle, Aquinas, and Ayn Rand.²³ According to Barbara Branden’s biography, Rand’s formal study of philosophy was limited to just a few college courses. She studied Plato, Aristotle, and Nietzsche in some depth, but read only excerpts from—or summaries of—the work of other key figures. She often learned about different schools of thought in conversation with friends and colleagues who were themselves students of philosophy.²⁴ Though Rand recognized some positive elements in the thought of Nietzsche, Spinoza, the classical liberals (such as Locke), and the Founding Fathers, though she celebrated the work of such twentieth-century individualists as Ludwig von Mises, John T. Flynn, and Isabel Paterson, she failed to see that many of the philosophers whom she attacked shared a similarly integrated perspective.

Nathaniel Branden (1982T) has observed that her wholesale rejection of other viewpoints was a by-product of her theatrical, emotional, and abrasive style. According to Branden, Rand did little to build bridges to those who operated in different intellectual contexts. As a polemicist, she often dismissed her opponents on moralistic or psychologistic grounds. Moreover, her broad generalizations often lacked the rigor of scholarly analysis.²⁵ Branden does not fault Rand for this; he argues that it was not Rand’s goal to work out the details of a full philosophical system. Rand offered important ideas in perception, epistemology, metaethics, politics, and aesthetics, but left it to her followers to defend Objectivism in the realm of technical philosophy (N. Branden 1989, 417–18).

This is not to deny the sophistication or originality of Rand’s thought. But an enriched appreciation of her philosophy cannot emerge unless we compare her ideas to the ideas of the thinkers she celebrated or disparaged. Rand’s place in intellectual history will very much depend upon how effectively she responded to these other traditions and to the central problems with which they have grappled. These comparisons are essential. As Robert Hollinger suggests, we can utilize contrasting doctrines to enhance our understanding of Rand’s project, “even if they come from the pens of people whom Rand would consider anathema.”²⁶

I do not make these comparisons either to challenge Rand’s originality or to bolster her credentials as a grand social theorist. Rand synthesized a number of elements in her philosophic system that have been explored previously by other thinkers. She is neither qualified nor disqualified as a serious thinker simply because what she says about any particular issue resembles what other thinkers have said about that issue in the past. The integrity and seriousness of her work cannot be established by merely pointing out its similarity to or difference from the works of more “respected” philosophers such as Aristotle, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Lossky, Hayek, or Habermas.

Comparison promotes confrontation and communication not merely between those who celebrate Rand and those who criticize her but also between the traditions that are being engaged. As Richard Bernstein (1971) puts it, “The provincialism that is so fashionable among ‘true believers’ of different philosophic orientations can blind us to a serious, sympathetic understanding of other philosophers who are working in different idioms” (4). The dialogue that may result can help us to comprehend not only the perspectives of those we oppose but the implications of our own beliefs as well.

For many reasons, such a dialogue has been slow to develop with Objectivism. Nathaniel Branden, Barbara Branden, and David Kelley all suggest that the Objectivist movement of the 1960s fostered a cult-like reverence toward Rand. Ironically, a movement dedicated to freedom and individual autonomy engendered disputes over ideological purity.²⁷ Some devout followers attempted to model themselves on Rand’s fictional characters. If John Galt, the protagonist of Atlas Shrugged, smoked cigarettes, this behavior was to be emulated. If Rand’s heroines had a penchant for rough and explosive sex, this was also to be admired.²⁸ Many of Rand’s disciples accepted each of her pronouncements as if they were intrinsic to the system of Objectivism. If Rand equated horror movies with depravity, or argued against electing a woman president on principle, or expressed distaste for the music of Beethoven, the works of Shakespeare, or the paintings of the Impressionists, or abhorred the practice of homosexuality, or disliked facial hair,²⁹ her personal, aesthetic, and sexual preferences were elevated to the status of dogma.

Kelley (1990) writes that many of Rand’s followers failed to distinguish between the ideas essential to her philosophy and those that were not. For Kelley, Rand offers “the foundation and outline of a system” within which different interpretations are likely to develop (61).

Nevertheless, one cannot simply dismiss the authoritarian, sometimes downright foolish, aspects of the organized Objectivist movement. That these aspects exposed Rand’s philosophy to ridicule and caricature cannot be denied. Of course, from the vantage point of intellectual history, Rand has no monopoly on folly. Of greater importance, however, is the charge that authoritarianism is inevitable in any grand system of philosophy. Since Rand posits a cultural revolution as necessary to the establishment of a genuinely free society, she seems to mimic the totalistic approach of the Marxists. In the twentieth century, Marxist ideology linked its organic, integrative methodology with its sanction of the total state. Hence, it is legitimate to examine the connection between what Karl Popper has called political and methodological totalitarianism. According to Popper ([1962] 1971), the totalistic attempts by Hegel and Marx to transcend the dualism of facts and standards underlies the inexorable totalitarianism of their worldviews. Popper argues that the fact-value distinction is a necessary one, for it bars people from attempting to enforce their own normative prescriptions on society as if these values were divinely dictated. Popper’s “open society” is liberal and capitalist; it opposes totalistic central planning, but sanctions limited social engineering.

And yet by identifying dialectics with Marxism and dualism with capitalism, Popper agrees with Marx. Marx argued that dualism was both essential and historically specific to the capitalist mode of production. For Marx, capitalism both reflected and generated the dualities in the modem world. His historical project points toward a communist society that would transcend these dualities and the capitalist system on which they depend.

Rand proposes a resolution transcending the Popperian and Marxian alternatives. She links her defense of capitalism to a strong, dialectical sensibility. Her vision of the free society rejects traditional antinomies, but embraces the morality and practicality of the capitalist system. Given the collapse of Marxism as a theoretical paradigm and political force, Rand’s alternative is particularly compelling. In many ways, it redeems the integrity of dialectics as a radical method by rescuing it from its mystical, collectivist, and statist incarnations.

DIALECTICS AND DUALISM

Yet Rand would have been the first to deny her status as a “dialectical” thinker. Rand’s own view of “dialectics” was based on her experiences in the Soviet Union. In Rand’s mind, the very word “dialectics” must have raised a “red flag” of sorts. In 1959, she saw Nikita Khrushchev on American television. As she later recounted, he recited “the credo of dialectic materialism in the exact words and tone in which I had heard it recited at exams, in my college days, by students at the University of Leningrad.”³⁰ This credo was branded into the minds of students as an ideological tool of Soviet repression. Barbara Branden (1986) writes that Rand “understood the theory of dialectical materialism—and had on her body and spirit the scars of its practice” (42). For Rand, “dialectics” was pure Heraclitean nonsense; it was the view “that contradictions are the law of reality, that A is non-A.”³¹ In this sense, Rand, like Popper, interprets dialectics as an endorsement of logical contradiction, embodying a view of the universe based on nonidentity.³²

Certainly dialectical language at times obscures a strictly logical understanding of contradiction and identity. Some writers are guilty of claiming that dialectical “logic” transcends the so-called formal, static, or one-dimensional logic of Aristotle.³³ The question is, in part, one of semantics. Unless I clarify my own understanding of “dialectics,” I am vulnerable to at least two criticisms: (1) that in reconstructing Objectivism, I utilize categories and distinctions foreign to Rand’s own system (Kelley, 20 August 1989C); and (2) that, in focusing on “dialectics” as a key component of the Objectivist approach, I have linked Rand to her Russian predecessors on the basis of a nonessential characteristic (Kelley in Kelley 1993T).

I reject both criticisms as follows:

Throughout the history of philosophy the term “dialectics” has been used in many different senses. Aristotle recognized dialectic and rhetoric as counterparts of each other; for him, rhetoric was the art of public speaking, or the “faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion,” whereas dialectic was the art of logical discussion and argumentation.³⁴ In dialectic, the interlocutor proceeds from accepted (or specific) propositions and argues toward a more basic (or general) conclusion.³⁵ Although mastery of this dialectic technique was the hallmark of Socratic and Platonic philosophy, Aristotle argued that it was insufficient for establishing scientific truth.³⁶ Nevertheless, he valued the dialectic because it demanded the study of questions from multiple vantage points. It is for this reason, perhaps, that Marx, Engels, and Lenin recognized Aristotle as the father of dialectical inquiry. Engels, in fact, called Aristotle “the Hegel of the ancient world,” who “had already analyzed the most essential forms of dialectic thought.”³⁷ And Lenin argued that within Aristotle lies “the living germs of dialectics and inquiries about it.”³⁸

More than two thousand years after Aristotle’s death, Hegel developed a conception of dialectics as an ontological and historical process. Hegel’s dialectical method affirms the impossibility of logical contradiction and focuses instead on relational “contradictions” or paradoxes revealed in the dynamism of history. For Hegel, opposing concepts could be identified as merely partial views whose apparent contradictions could be transcended by exhibiting them as internally related within a larger whole. From pairs of opposing theses, elements of truth could be extracted and integrated into a third position.³⁹ Other philosophers saw this form of dialectics as a triadic movement in which the conflict of “thesis” and “antithesis” is resolved through “synthesis.”⁴⁰ Dialectical materialists placed this process on an economic foundation and used it as the basis for a philosophy of history.

The best way to understand the dialectical impulse is to view it as a technique to overcome formal dualism and monistic reductionism. Dualism attempts to distinguish two mutually exclusive spheres, though it often leads theorists to emphasize one sphere to the detriment of another. Thus one can differentiate between genuine philosophical dualists, who see two coequal principles at work, and philosophical monists, who accept the dichotomies defined by dualists and reduce one polarity to an epiphenomenon of the other.⁴¹ Wolf Heydebrand (1981) explains that these dualistic forms can be found in nearly every branch of philosophy: in ontology, in the radical separation of body and mind, or matter and consciousness; in epistemology, in the radical separation of the real object and the datum present to the knowing mind; in ethics, in the radical distinction between good and evil (92).

Dialectical method is neither dualistic nor monistic. A thinker who employs a dialectical method embraces neither a pole nor the middle of a duality of extremes. Rather, the dialectical method anchors the thinker to both camps. The dialectical thinker refuses to recognize these camps as mutually exclusive or exhaustive.⁴² He or she strives to uncover the common roots of apparent opposites. He or she presents an integrated alternative that examines the premises at the base of an opposition as a means to its transcendence. In some cases, the transcendence of opposing points of view provides a justification for rejecting both alternatives as false. In other cases, the dialectical thinker attempts to clarify the genuinely integral relationship between spheres that are ordinarily kept separate and distinct.⁴³

In Rand’s work, this transcendence of opposites is manifest in every branch of philosophy. Rand’s revolt against formal dualism is illustrated in her rejection of such “false alternatives” as materialism and idealism, intrinsicism and subjectivism, rationalism and empiricism. Rand was fond of using what Thorslev has called a “Both-And” formulation in her critique of dualism.⁴⁴ Typically, Rand argues that Both X And Y share a common premise, Z. Her characteristic expression is: “Just as X depends upon Z, so too does Y depend upon Z.” Moreover, Rand always views the polarities as “mutually” or “reciprocally reinforcing,” “two sides of the same coin.” This is not merely an expository technique. Rand was the first to admit that a writer’s style is a product of his or her “psycho-epistemology” or method of awareness.⁴⁵ By her own suggestion, one can infer that such an expository style reflects a genuinely dialectical methodology.

It must be emphasized, however, that Rand does not literally construct a synthesis out of the debris of false alternatives. Rather, she aims to transcend the limitations that, she believes, traditional dichotomies embody. In some instances, Rand sees each of the opposing points of view as being half-right and half-wrong. Consequently, at times, her resolution contains elements from each of the two rejected positions.

Rand’s dialectical approach is also illustrated in her recognition of such integral relationships as that between mind and body, reason and emotion, fact and value, theory and practice. For Rand, these factors are distinctions within an organic unity. Neither can be fully understood in the absence of the other, since each is an inseparable aspect of a wider totality.

It is this emphasis on the totality that is essential to the dialectical mode of inquiry. Dialectics is not merely a repudiation of formal dualism. It is a method that preserves the analytical integrity of the whole. Although it recommends study of the whole from the vantage point of any part, it eschews reification, that is, it avoids the abstraction of a part from the whole and its illegitimate conceptualization as a whole unto itself. The dialectical method recognizes that what is separable in thought is not separable in reality.

Moreover, dialectics requires the examination of the whole both systemically (or “synchronically”) and historically (or “diachronically”). From a synchronic perspective, it grasps the parts as systemically interrelated, as both constituting the whole, and constituted by it. For example, a dialectical thinker would not disconnect any single theoretical issue, such as the problem of free will, from its broader philosophic context. He or she would necessarily examine a host of connected issues, including the efficacy of consciousness, the nature of causality, and the reciprocal relationships between epistemology, ethics, and politics.

Diachronically, dialectics grasps that any system emerges over time, that it has a past, a present, and a future. Frequently, the dialectical thinker examines the dynamic tensions within a system, the internal conflicts or “contradictions” that require resolution. He or she refuses to disconnect factors, events, problems, and issues from one another or from the system they jointly constitute. He or she views social problems not discretely but in terms of the root systemic conditions they both reflect and sustain.

The dialectical thinker seeks not merely to understand the system, but to alter it fundamentally. Hence, a dialectical analysis is both critical and revolutionary in its implications. A dialectical thinker would not analyze a specific racial conflict, for example, without examining a host of historically constituted epistemic, ethical, psychological, cultural, political, and economic factors that both generate racism and perpetuate it. In such a view, it is the system that permits racism that must be transcended.

The dialectical sensibility is readily apparent in every aspect of Rand’s project, in her literary credo, philosophic approach, and social analysis.

From a literary standpoint, Rand recognized her own novels as organic wholes in which every event and character expresses the central theme. Moreover, her fiction was integral to the evolution of her grand philosophic synthesis.

Philosophically, Rand recognized Objectivism as a coherent, integrated system of thought, such that each branch could not be taken in isolation from the others. Her theories provide a basis for both critical analysis and revolutionary social transformation.

And from the perspective of social theory, Rand’s analysis of contemporary society was multidimensional and fully integrative. Rand focused on relationships of power, examining their historical genesis and their long-term deleterious effects on the stability and cohesiveness of the social order. She refused to view societal problems as separate from one another, and proposed a resolution that was comprehensive and fundamentally radical in its implications.

Thus Rand’s dialectical method was dynamic, relational, and contextual. It was dynamic because it viewed specific factors in terms of their movement over time. It was relational because it traced the interrelations between and among factors. It was contextual because it related these factors to their wider context. In a strictly formal sense, such a method has been employed to various degrees by thinkers as diverse as Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Solovyov, Lossky, and those in the hermeneutic and analytic traditions.⁴⁶

I did not discover any historical evidence that would suggest that Rand was influenced methodologically or substantively by modem hermeneutic or analytic philosophers. Indeed, in her lifetime, Rand did not read much formal philosophy except while she attended the University of Leningrad. There she would have been exposed to many thinkers in the Russian dialectical tradition, the most prominent of whom was N. O. Lossky. It was Lossky who first engaged Rand in the serious study of philosophy. And it was under Lossky’s tutelage that Rand was most probably introduced to a formal, dialectical method of thinking, even if she did not characterize it as such.

Significantly, it was Lossky who introduced Rand to the work of Aristotle. If Aristotle was the father of dialectical inquiry, as Marx, Lenin, and Engels maintained, then Rand was profoundly correct to view her own system as the heir to Aristotelianism. Ultimately, it might be said that her debt to Aristotle concerns both the form and the content of her thought.

Nevertheless, if it is true that Rand and her Russian predecessors shared a dialectical revolt against formal dualism, it would be very difficult to dismiss such an affinity as pure coincidence. One could infer legitimately, and independently of Rand’s own explicit self-descriptions, that there are important connections between her thought and the ideas and methods of her Russian teachers. In the context of any other thinker in intellectual history, such a claim seems innocuous. That someone might be influenced by his or her teachers is a rather uncontroversial thesis. Yet when placed within the context of Rand scholarship, this thesis has been criticized by some who believe that the mere consideration of Rand’s possible predecessors constitutes an assault on her originality.⁴⁷

I strongly disagree with such sentiment. By placing Rand’s thought in its proper historical and intellectual context, we can better appreciate its most distinctive characteristics. Although I cannot substantiate all of my historical claims beyond any reasonable doubt, I believe that herein I offer the best explanation yet published for the origins of Rand’s unique approach to philosophic and social analysis.

I must reject also the criticism that I have reconstructed Rand’s Objectivism by utilizing categories and distinctions foreign to it. True, my terminology sometimes differs from Rand’s own, but this does not erase the fact that dialectics is her essential mode of inquiry. And even though she formulated most of her philosophical contributions relatively late in life,⁴⁸ her dialectical sensibility informed her earliest writings. On many methodological and substantive issues, Rand’s approach converges with the Russian synthesis and with other dialectical traditions as well.

In addition, I must reject the criticism that I have linked Rand to her Russian ancestors on the basis of a characteristic that is “nonessential” to Objectivism. Although it is certainly true that the use of dialectical method is not distinctive to Rand’s approach, one could argue too, that the content of Rand’s Objectivism taken in its separable parts, is not distinctive either.⁴⁹ Other thinkers have defended comparable doctrines of epistemological realism, ethical egoism, individual rights, and libertarian political theory. What must be recognized here is that Rand’s use of dialectical method was as essential to her historic formulation of Objectivist principles, as was her original synthesis in the realm of content. In constructing a philosophy, every philosopher develops a certain content through the use of a specific method. In the seamless conjunction of a realist-individualist-libertarian content with a radical, dialectical method, Rand forged a new system of thought worthy of comprehensive, scholarly examination. In many significant ways, she was fully justified to characterize herself as a veritable “radical for capitalism.”⁵⁰

This is not to deny the dialectical savvy of other non-Marxist social thinkers.⁵¹ But Rand’s perspective is unique—both in its historical roots and in its political implications. Rand proposed a fully integrated defense of capitalism and of the constituent epistemological, psychological, ethical, social, cultural, political, and historical conditions required for its emergence and survival.

Nietzsche once observed that some writers are prone to muddy the waters to make them appear deep.⁵² One can easily read the work of Ayn Rand and emerge with a clear sense of her polemical abilities. As an artist and an essayist, Rand painted in broad strokes. In her exposition of Objectivism, she traced connections between seemingly unrelated events, institutions, and cultural forces as if these links were self-evident. Underlying her “popular” style and stark presentation was a mode of analysis based on the conviction that all social phenomena are interrelated.

My discussion of Rand’s ideas and the ideas of those whom she has influenced is much less colorful. I do not intend to muddy the waters of Ayn Rand’s crystalline ocean by reconstructing her words in the style of academic jargon; rather, I hope to show just how deep that ocean actually is.