Companion to Ayn Rand

Allan Gotthelf (1942-2013) was Anthem Foundation Distinguished Fellow at Rutgers University, USA, emeritus Professor of Philosophy at The College of New Jersey, Secretary of the Ayn Rand Society (a professional group affiliated with the American Philosophical Association), and the primary editor of its Philosophical Studies series. Between 2003 and 2012, he was visiting professor of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh. His influential papers on Aristotle are collected in Teleology, First Principles, and Scientific Method in Aristotle’s Biology (2012).Gregory Salmieri teaches at Rutgers University, is a philosophy fellow at the Anthem Foundation, and has held teaching and research positions at The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (2008-12) and Boston University (2012-14). He is co-secretary of the Ayn Rand Society and co-editor of its Philosophical Studies series. In addition to his work on Rand, he has published on various issues in Aristotle’s philosophy and is editor of the forthcoming Knowing and Coming to Know: Essays on Aristotle’s Epistemology.

• Notes on Contributors ixAcknowledgments xiiA Note on Abbreviations and References xivPart I Context 11 An Introduction to the Study of Ayn Rand 3 Gregory Salmieri2 The Life of Ayn Rand: Writing, Reading, and Related Life Events 22Shoshana MilgramPart II Ethics and Human Nature 473 The Act of Valuing (and the Objectivity of Values) 49Gregory Salmieri4 The Morality of Life 73Allan Gotthelf (completed by Gregory Salmieri)5 A Being of Self-Made Soul 105Onkar Ghate6 Egoism and Altruism: Selfishness and Sacrifice 130Gregory SalmieriPart III Society 1577 “A Human Society”: Rand’s Social Philosophy 159Darryl Wright8 Political Theory: A Radical for Capitalism 187Fred D. Miller, Jr. and Adam Mossoff9 Objective Law 209Tara Smith10 “A Free Mind and a Free Market are Corollaries”: Rand’s Philosophical Perspective on Capitalism 222Onkar GhatePart IV The Foundations of Objectivism 24311 Objectivist Metaphysics: The Primacy of Existence 245Jason G. Rheins12 The Objectivist Epistemology 272Gregory SalmieriPart V Philosophers and Their Effects 31913 “Who Sets the Tone for a Culture?”: Ayn Rand’s Approach to the History of Philosophy 321James G. Lennox14 Ayn Rand’s Evolving View of Friedrich Nietzsche 34Lester H. Hunt15 A Philosopher on Her Times: Ayn Rand’s Political and Cultural Commentary 351John David Lewis and Gregory SalmieriPart VI Art 40316 The Objectivist Esthetics: Art and the Needs of a Conceptual Consciousness 405Harry Binswanger17 Rand’s Literary Romanticism 426Tore BoeckmannCoda 45118 Hallmarks of Objectivism: The Benevolent Universe Premise and the Heroic View of Man 453Allan Gotthelf and Gregory SalmieriAnnotated Bibliography of Primary and Quasi-Primary Sources 463Index 471