Empowering ideas

Great book.

A well organized and manifested polemic against totalitarian thought.
This book handles ideas as the best weapon against
Irrationality.
It is a Fight against archangels of misery and decadence.

A great collection of essays that I'd keep going back to. It was a rewarding experience to have gone through the entire set of essays along with Angel Walker Werth from the Objective Standard Institute and her insightful questions.

Would recommend to those wanting clear thoughts on the why? "Why does one need philosophy?" and its answers through the prism of 1970s culture and state of affairs in America.

This book is not a collection or compendium of philosophy as written by other " philosophers " but is much more effective as it clarifies rather than confounds. It brings philosophy back to Earth and Man over mystical unknowables.

Excellent book

While this doesn't necessarily acheive the same level as the novels, and at times is predictable, it does encourage one to think about the facets of any political belief. A reccomended next step is Walter Block's "Defending the Undefendable" (available as a free pdf on the Mises Institute website).

This book changed my life! The first work I read by novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand, (author of "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead") is the stunningly clear rationality I’d always been searching for in her philosophy of Objectivism.

Objectivism, according to Miss Rand is: "the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute."

Rand's ability to reduce the most complex of issues to simple-to-understand fundamentals is unparalleled in history, except for perhaps, Aristotle.

This particular book focuses on proving the crucial need of philosophy in everyone’s lives, of the necessity of a reality-based philosophy knowable by reason, and that regardless of whether or not one has a conscious philosophy that everyone operates by some kind of philosophy. Reading this book was the most important thing I’ve ever done, and I can’t recommend it more highly.

By far, Ayn Rand's best nonfiction book for making the case for objectivism as a serious branch of philosophy that embraces the nontheological portions of Saint Thomas Acquinas's Aristotlean school of thought. Every libertarian should read this book, because here is where Ayn Rand definitively rejects portions of the libertarian creed. In this book, she effectively dismantles libertarians' disdain for all limits on the individual's behavior as immoral, because if, say, speed limits were eliminated, then when scaled up to large populations (which is the main theme of this book as a way of fighting Kant's altruism) the roadways become so dangerous as to eventually guarantee death by automobile wreck; unwanted death is the ultimate ripping away of liberty of the individual.

Slowly chipped away it and I’m glad that I did. Each essay is well written and deserves to be fully understood. A great book that is extremely informative and well written. Ayn Rand is both a great writer of fiction and of nonfiction.

The philosophy of Ayn Rand changed my entire mindset when I first read Atlas Shrugged. For that reason, I enjoy all her non-fiction writing: it shows how it works in the real world. It also shows the power that philosophy of any kind has over every aspect of existence. As Rand says, we need it to deal with our daily lives. As she further explains, we can't help but have a philosophy, we can only choose to make it ourselves, or to let it self-assemble inside our subconscious. The later choice (or default) will inevitably result in contradictions and errors which will, in turn, follow us into our daily life.
Philosophy has always been my favorite subject, but before Rand, I did not identify it as such. I called it "mind set," and the term was vague and full of contradictions. she helped me build a stable, consistent, PRACTICAL "mind set." In the process, she challenged almost every belief I ever had. I didn't just build a philosophy, I REBUILT one.
This is the book I would most recommend to people who do not especially like Ayn Rand. At the very least, it will tell you that you need A philosophy, even if Objectivism isn't the one you choose. People, and hence the world, could benefit greatly from consistent thinking, and from knowing WHY they think certain things. Even if you don't agree with her, you can agree to that much.

I have been an avid reader of Mrs. Rand for a few years. I do not take objectivism as a philosophy, and there are several areas that I strongly disagree with. But I like how Ayn Rand exposes his ideas and argues them.

"Philosophy: who needs it" shows however many of the contradictions in Rand's thinking. She often claims against Chauvinism as a representation of collectivism, but she argues as a Jacobin in several of the chapters. She falls in cliches and generalizations that she frequently rejects.

The letter addressed to the West Point Military Academy is a particular flagrant example. I do believe she is conveying a message to a particular audience and telling what they want to listen, thus loosing credibility and coherence in her philosophy. This book does not retract for a general reading of Ayn Rand bibliography. As I see it, it proofs that any thinking school has its gaps and holes.

Not my favorite book for Ayn Rand, but does not detract reading other of her prime novels (I am thinking here of "Fountainhead" and "The Virtue of Selfishness")

اسم الكتاب: #الفلسفة_من_الذي_يحتاج_إليها
لـ #آين_راند | عدد الصفحات : ٣٠٤ صفحة

“ويظهر تاريخ الفلسفة أن مهمتها تتمثل ببساطة في التوسّط بين العلم والدين. إنها تسعى إلى توحيد المعرفة والإيمان، وبهذه الطريقة تسعى إلى استعادة وحدة الحياة العقلية.”

وسط تلك الأسئلة الوجودية الأكثر تعقيدًا لدى الإنسان، وسعيه المستمر للحصول على اجوبتها الحقيقية. تقوم آين راند ببسط جناح الفلسفة ومدى اهميتها في حياة الفرد عن طريق عدد من المقالات التي تناولت الفلسفة من عدة نواحٍ.

“إن عملية التفكير هي وسيلة الإنسان الأساسية للبقاء على قيد الحياة. هي أعمق متعة ممكنة للبشر، وهي حاجتهم العميقة، وفقًا لأيّ مستوى من الذكاء، كبيرًا كان أو صغيرًا.”

يركز الكتاب بشكل كلي على إثبات الحاجة الملحة للفلسفة في خيار الإنسان. تلك الفلسفة المستمدة من الواقع ويمكن ادراكها بواسطة العقل.

تقول الكاتبة بأن بالضرورة أن يعيش الإنسان وفقًا لفلسفة ما سواء كان يدرك ذلك ام لا، فتنطلق معها في رحلة فهم أهمية معرفة الفلسفة التي تحيا بها وتؤثر على قراراتك بشكل مباشر.

“العقلانية بمثابة شاشة لإخفاء السبب الحقيقي لخوفه من نفسه، وهو السبب الذي لا يجرؤ على مواجهته.”

اشارت الكاتبة في عدة مواضع في الكتاب عن روايتها (اطلس متململًا) مما شجعني لقراءتها.

“واذا كنتم ترغبون في الاستمرار في العيش، فما عليكم الآن هو عدم العودة إلى الأخلاق، ولكن اكتشافها.”

لا انكر أنني لم افهم بعض النقاط التي تناولتها الكاتبة مما اصابني بشيء من الاحباط والملل.


Instagram: @sara_reader2

(The answer is, of course, YOU DO!) A collection of lectures and essays from about 1960 to 1974, and still HIGHLY pertinent to present day life and issues. Well worth reading AT LEAST once. I'm already re-reading some of them. I particularly liked: 6. An Open Letter to Boris Spassky, 7. Faith and Force: The Destroyers of the Modern World, 12. Egalitarianism and Inflation, 16. Fairness Doctrine for Education, and 17. What Can One Do? (SPEAK!). I thought she gave B. F. Skinner wayyyy too much time in 13. The Stimulus and the Response, though he definitely deserved the astute tongue-lashing and dissection of his book BEYOND FREEDOM AND DIGNITY.