There are two upcoming events that are likely to be of interest to Ayn Rand Society members.
The first eventâthe one not put on by the ARSâis a panel at next weekâs conference of the British Society for the History of Philosophy.
The Ayn Rand Society will be holding a session on âAristotle and Rand on Axiomsâ at the upcoming APA Eastern Division meeting in Philadelphia on Friday, January 10 from 7:00 to 10:00pm. James Lennox (Professor Emeritus of the History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh and the co-secretary of the ARS) will be presenting his paper âAyn Rand and Aristotle: Axioms and their Validation,â and Michail Peramatzis of Oxford University will be presenting a comment.
While on vacation in California the November 3rd and 10th issues of The Economist arrived in the mail, which I thus read more or less simultaneously upon my return.
My usual practice is to turn to the ‘Science and Technology’ and ‘Book Review’ sections first, and two reviews, in particular, caught my eye, one of John Grayâs Seven Types of Atheism (Nov.
On Wednesday January 9th from 7:00 to 10:00pm, the Ayn Rand Society will have a session in New York City as part of the American Philosophical Society’s (APA)Â Eastern Division Meeting.
This year our topic is the virtue of integrity, and the panel is built around a new paper by Carrie-Ann Biondi (Marymount Manhattan College) on âBeing Integrated: A Labor of Self-Love.â
The paper will be followed by comments by Christian Miller (Wake Forest University) and me.
I gather that there is a scandal in Denmark concerning some private parties took advantage of some provisions in the Danish tax codes that enabled them to somehow reap tax revenues and these parties cited Ayn Rand’s moral philosophy as justifying their actions. I recently had a brief correspondence with a Danish journalist writing about the case, and was quoted in his story about it. Since I don’t read Danish, I’m not in a position to comment on the story itself.
Stephen Hicks has a new piece in the Encyclopedia of Concise Concepts by Women Philosophers titled “Self-interest in Ayn Rand.” The Encyclopedia, which seems to be in its early days, is part of a project at Paterborn University called History of Women Philosophers and Scientists.
It is nice to see both that Rand is being included in projects on the history of philosophy, and that the editors of this project found someone knowledgeable about Rand to write the piece.
Skye Cleary (with whom I’ve had a few brief and pleasant interactions in her capacity as the editor of the APA’s blog) recently wrote a piece at Aeon encouraging philosophers who are disturbed by what they take to be the “pernicious” effects of Rand’s ideas to “treat the Ayn Rand phenomenon seriously,” because “ignoring it won’t make it go away.”
Vilifying Rand without reading the detail, or demonising her without taking the trouble to refute her, is clearly the wrong approach.
I couldn’t agree more.
The members of the ARS’s Steering Committee serve three year terms, and 2017 marked the end of Darryl Wright (Harvey Mudd) and Jason Rheins’ (Loyola, Chicago) terms on the Committee. To replace them, Robert Mayhew (Seton Hall)and Carrie-Ann Biondi (Marymount Manhatten) have joined the Committee.
Recently the Institute for Humane Studies’ “Learn Liberty” site featured a debate between Matt Zwolinski (University of San Diego) and Stephen Hicks (Rockford University), both of whom have been participants in past sessions of the Ayn Rand Society. Notably, past ARS contributor Harry Binswanger (the Ayn Rand Institute) has also weighed into the debate in the comments section.
Zwolinski leads off the debate by raising critical points about Rand’s ethical egoism, the consistency of her egoism with her theory of rights, and her view of property and value-creation.
On his popular blog, Brian Leiter (U Chicago) recently posted a link to another blog post by Robert Paul Wolff (UNC, Chapel Hill). Leiter’s tongue-in-cheek title, “The Profundity of Ayn Rand,” is one of many dismissive treatments of Rand he’s posted over the years.
Even so, Leiter has not always been dismissive of scholars of Rand.