Customer Reviews

Objectivism and the Corruption of Rationality: A Critique of Ayn Rand's Epistemology

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Objectivism's intellectual bankruptcy has led to there being few worthwhile critiques. This book is about as good as I've seen, even though it does at times devolve into psychobabble and ad hominem. These are fine techniques within the sphere of objectivism, but in the wider world it's not enough. Even so, I'd recommend it before moving on to the other options.

I bought this book with the hope of descovering an interesting and innovative view of Ayn Rand. But after reading it, and researching Ryan on the web, I can find no reason to recommend this book to anyone, novice or advanced practioner.

Rather than a critical analysis of the work of a great author and philosopher, Ryan seems intent on anihilating every aspect of her life, or as a previous writer coments, deconstructing Ayn Rand. Even more, I found his mocking, disrespectful tone toward Ayn Rand to be unnecessary and childish, and his use of the omniscient voice--in replication of Rand--to be without the requisite talent, ability, and great experience she had in the world.

Further more, he attempts to defeat Rand by use of the negative, which I find very revealing in a psychological sense--one choosing to spend so much time trying to expose negatives rather than creating a positive vision of one's own. Also, by not identifying with her fight against the prevailing culture, he doesn't seem to understand what she was trying to do in the world, and doesn't understand the entirely hostile culture she had to fight against and the enormity of the battle, something that would effect anyone at anytime.

Yes, Ayn Rand made mistakes, and when you accept that, one can appreciate the world-moving vision she gave the world, and her unrelenting defense of the individual's right to live his or her life by their own rational vision. Like many libertarians, Ryan refuses to accept the need for a philosophical foundation for a free society, and his attempted defense of altruism by defining it, as helping others, shows a reluctance to understand what Ayn Rand was saying in regards to altruism as the foundation for communism, fascism, and religious fanaticism, as we see with Al Queda.

One of the big problems with this book, is that Ryan is very hard to understand. Unlike Ayn Rand, who writes clearly and distinctly, Ryan lacks a concrete and graphic style, and tends to use abstract terms that are open to different interpretations so as to leave the reader, many times, not sure of what he is referring to.

Then, too, ironically like many orthodox Objectivists to whom he refers to contemptuously, he tends to conceptualize, not from the facts of reality, but from his own need to prove Ayn Rand or wrong, and thus misinterprets much of what she says. This comes to light with his treatment of Ayn Rand's essay, "The Metaphysical Versus The Man Made." Here, Ryan misinterprets what she says, offers his own version of her words, and then goes on to argue his point, using his misinterpretation rather than what Ayn Rand was saying.

Along with this Ryan states that Ayn Rand often reified her views of the world, meaning she transformed abstracts into concretes--one's conceptualizations of events into metaphysical concretes. I find no problem with this assessment, but then so what?--Ryan repeatedly does the exact same thing in his writings, especially with Ayn Rand, going as far as to refer to her as a "looter and a speed freek" in one of his comments on Amazon, as well as to make undeserved and contemptuous comments about people associated with the traditional school of Objectivism.

Furthermore, I have to be skeptical of anyone who leaves out the benevolent and very positive aspects of Ayn Rand's life and philosophy. She was a giant of a women who achieved great things in the world, and blazed a frontier path for all those who want to live in the world. To Ryan, it is all negativity, and he oftens falls into the trap of comparing the philosophy of Objectivism with some of the less than positive behavior of people who practice the philosophy of Objectivism, two very different concepts. As with all great social movements that challenge the world, people make mistakes, and people are wounded and damaged, and Objectivism is no exception. Yet, in Ryan's view there is no room for acclaim and respect, nor does he give space to the great amount of independent people, who live their own lives in the way they see fit, but yet have enormous respect and admiration for Ayn Rand.

Mr. Ryan says he admires Brand Blanshard. In an online article he chides Ayn Rand fans to learn about graciousness from Blanshard. He does not emulate Blanshard with this book. He is the opposite of gracious to Ayn Rand. The book is full of derisive remarks like "Rand failed to consider ... ", "she carelessly thought ...", "she wasn't entitled to think ...", and all her ideas simply stem from a "fear of religion." He regularly and ungraciously misrepresents her, e.g. having her perceive an abstraction (p. 48). Witness the title. It's not 'Objectivism and Rationality'.

Much of the book is about the theory (or problem) of universals. Ryan brings up the topic repeatedly, beyond annoyance. He claims it is an ontological, not an epistemological problem. Wrong, it's both. He asserts Rand is a nominalist in ontology but a moderate realist in epistemology. How can that be if the theory of universals is, as he says, only ontological? I offer two reasons. First he confuses the two aspects. Second, he portrays her that way to try to make her look ridiculous. He calls Ayn Rand's solution an "optical illusion."

He claims Rand didn't understand the problem. Given what Ryan writes about it, she understood it better than he does. He says he agrees with Blanshard on universals. However, Blanshard's position is far from Ryan's own confused one he calls "realist", and Ryan's use of "generic universals" and "specific universals" does not match Blanshard's. I think Ryan fails to understand Blanshard's theory.

Blanshard rejected the Platonic theory and the Aristotelian theory, both realist. He rejected "generic universals" (Reason and Analysis, IX, 28, 29, 34) and non-specific, qualitative universals for lack of sameness (RA, IX, 14). Ryan does not. Blanshard endorsed specific, qualitative universals, based on identity (sameness). Blanshard: "By a generic universal, I mean one whose instances are individual things or persons, for example, man, horse, or stone. By a qualitative universal I mean one whose instances are qualities or characters of one kind, for example, colour, sound, or shape. By a specific universal I mean a quality or character that is incapable of sub-division into kinds, for example, this shade of red or this degree of loudness in a sound" (RA, IX, 14). Note that Blanshard's distinction rests on different instances -- entities and generic attributes (like color or number, but not red or three) versus specific attributes (like red or three, but not color or number). Ryan's does not.

Blanshard largely agreed with John Locke about generic and nonspecific qualitative universals, based on resemblance (RA, IX, 34). Locke's theory is usually regarded as a conceptualist, resemblance one. It is anti-realist (contra Plato and Aristotle and Ryan). Indeed, it is much like Rand's. Strongly related to universals in nearly all accounts except Ryan's is essence, which he barely mentions.

Chapter 8 is about two views of reason. He starts with some quotes from Rand. Included are two versions:
1. Reason is the faculty that perceives, identifies and integrates the material provided by his senses.
2. Reason is the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by man's senses.

Ryan exploits this difference. I believe Rand was a bit sloppy including "perceives" in the first one. Her perceptual/conceptual division and other common ones like senses/intellect and sensation/reflection justify its exclusion.

He describes Blanshard's view of reason and judges it far better. He says somebody may judge the two views have a lot in common, but Ryan insists such a judgment is far amiss. His arguments are flimsy. One is that Blanshard wrote more than 200 pages on perception and Rand very little! The key element in Blanshard's view is to grasp necessary connections. Ryan sees hardly anything in common between Blanshard's "grasp necessary connections" and Rand's "identify and integrate". Indeed, Ryan's book barely recognizes Rand's frequent use of "integrate" (and its cognates) and the great importance she gave to integration.

Ryan devotes Chapter 11 to "primacy of existence" versus "primacy of consciousness." Throughout he treats it as only an ontological question -- the existence of God, idealism versus materialism, and the mind-reality connection. But Rand also presented it as a choice regarding a person's mental functioning, as a person's epistemological orientation. Ryan even extensively quotes Rand to that effect on p. 267. Even more can be found in Rand's writing to support said orientation that Ryan does not include. Ryan's commentary evades all of them. Contra the evidence that Rand's position on primacy of existence is far more than atheism versus theism, Ryan claims it is simply "fear of religion." I suggest the reader consider the opposite -- Ryan's philosophical motivation is simply "fear of atheism."

One more awful attribute of this book is it lacks an index. This is compounded by Ryan often referring to what he writes elsewhere without saying where or even indicating what he allegedly said.

I reluctantly say I did agree with Ryan infrequently, e.g. on measurement omission and some on the analytic-synthetic dichotomy. Most of the latter is based on an essay by Leonard Peikoff, not Rand herself, but I guess they pretty much agreed.

Unfortunately, I will be condemned by the general readers of this book for disagreeing with it. The truth of the matter, however, is that this book is simply opinion backed up by the will to believe, and is not rational.

Ryan attempts to insert a metaphysical argument into the thematic countering of Rand's philosophy, which is akin to violating the "Rule of Negation." Simply put, since Ryan's own definitions of rationality, reason, and objectivism can not be "disputed" by rational argument, they can not be used to judge anything.

Summed up, Ryan is just saying "Man, I don't like libertarians or what they stand for, so let me tell them how their beliefs don't fit MY definitions." No [kidding], Jack. You may as well choose to define words such as kind, good, nice, and bad, then tell readers how certain acts do not qualify as one or the other because they do not fit your definition.

The book is very well written, very well studied, very well researched, unfortunately the premise is simply flawed. Mr. Ryan's personal definitions are created to serve his purpose.

It seems the key concept of the book is that our absolute reality and perceptions of absolute reality are dependant on each other. It is stated very clearly in the Afterword. I think that if you read this book with the understanding the Ryan discounts the fundamental belief that reality exists in and of itself and all of our perceptions, categorizing, abstracting, formulations, etc. do not change that fundamental fact, then you will get some interesting arguements out of the book. It is very tiresome though to continually hear that the belief that reality exists trivializes any philosopher that believes in it. Once you argue that your mental constructs are part of reality you are free to build just about any complex architecture you want. This, then, allows you to create mental constructs that are nearly incoherant when matched with a real perceivable world but, if you don't believe that world actually either exists without your construct or can be perceived accurately and therefor discounted, you can look like a great thinker. Since it's complex, some people think it is then automatically smarter. Ok, your free to your thoughts. I believe the simplest answers are most likely the truest and I certainly do not believe that my thinking is somehow superior to reality. Reality is, my job as a rational person, is to figure out how to make sense of that which is there regardless of my sense of it.
There are some interesting challenges Ryan would make to whomever thinks Ayn Rand was infallible. She does seem to have an almost fanatical obsession with casting as many behaviors as possible in the light of self interest only. "I don't want you to think I'm giving this to you for your benefit, it's for my benefit only", "I wouldn't accept it if I thought that". A little over the top, but it does make a point and her characters are clearly characterizations in the same way artists enhance Obama's ears and Jay Leno's chin. I might take heat for that from both sides but it sure seems that way to me.
Anyway the book has interest, but before you start, I think you need to remember to stay watchful of arguements based on A is no neccessarily A (or: maybe reality is understandable, but maybe not)

What bizarre reviews appear on this page! If they are genuine reviews at all, they have surely been submitted by disgruntled Objectivists who don't want this book to be read.

No wonder, either. Mr Ryan has delivered a powerhouse philosophical critqique of Objectivism in this work. I'm not at all surprised that Rand's followers are having trouble refuting it (in part because it's written well over their heads; Ryan is considerably more expert in real philosophy than Rand was, let alone her acolytes).

Ryan demonstrates consistently, time after time, that Rand's explicit philosophy depended implicitly on unacknowledged premises that were at odds with it. In summary, and with an irony not at all lost on Ryan, Objectivism itself is a huge "stolen concept."

Ryan is not Rand's enemy; on the contrary, he expressly states that he enjoys much of her fiction and agrees broadly with her political philosophy. He just doesn't think she was much of an epistemologist. Any unbiased reader of this book will come to agree, after watching Ryan deconstruct and decimate her theories on page after page of careful exposition and analysis.

There aren't very many competent philosophical critiques of Objectivism in print. This is one of the best. Its detractors either don't know what they're talking about, or just don't want you to read it, or (most likely) both. Don't let them turn you away.

I do not share in the underlying philosophical position Mr. Ryan adopts as his own. He is an admirer of Hegel, Royce, and other thinkers in that tradition, notably Blanshard, and those thinkers leave me cold. I am an individualist pragmatist in the manner of William James. There exists a wonderful old photo of James and Royce, who were friends, sitting on a stone wall together. James has his mouth open and his hand is in the air gesturing. A letter from the period explains that James said "Damn the Absolute!" just as the shot was taken.

I say all this as foundation for my real reason for writing. One can learn from Ryan without agreeing with him. I certainly did, and don't. One can come to admire the thoroughness of the demolition job he does on Randian pretensions here, without accepting his alternative views.

My fellow Jamesians will be interested in Ryan's dissection of Ayn Rand's over-hyped effort at philosophy, not just because his references to his Hegelian point of view will remind us of the James/Royce quarrel, but because Ryan's focus upon Rand's philosophy is chiefly devoted to showing that she didn't understand the issues that she thought she was settling, and this he does quite well, rescuing the good name of epistemological reasoning from this low-rent version.

He demonstrates that if she had understood the implications of her theory of measurement-omission in connection with the issue of universals, she would have attained not the wonderful novelty her acolytes attribute to her, but the re-invention of a theory expounded some years before her by Roy Wood Sellars, a moderate version of nominalism (much like the views on conceptualization and universals expounded in the conception chapter of James' classic on psychology, although Ryan doesn't mention that).

Ayn Rand claimed to be the most rational of thinkers. Her followers are more explicit: Ayn Rand (they love to use both names for some reason) provided a stunningly original explanation and defense of human reason. Yet is her philosophy -- called "Objectivism" -- in fact rational? Is it even original? In OBJECTIVISM AND THE CORRUPTION OF RATIONALISTY Scott Ryan discusses Objectivism, its claims, and its place in the history of philosophy.

By way of background, Mr. Ryan's primary intellectual debts are to Spinoza and Brand Blanshard. He describes his philosophy as "rational objective idealism." Mr. Ryan's focus here is Rand's epistemology; however, he discusses her ethics in detail (and has a few well-directed barbs against her politics and aesthetics).

Mr. Ryan's approach is comprehensive. He takes a position of Rand's, explains it, discusses its place within the history of philosophy, and critiques it. The critique is in the spirit of Blanshard (although he doesn't follow Blanshard uncritically). Even if one doesn't agree with Mr. Ryan's rationalism, one must admit that he has done yeoman's work in explaining Objectivism and putting it in historical context. Mr. Ryan says that his critique can be appreciated by anyone interested in Rand, regardless of philosophical orientation, and he is certainly correct.

This book is 400 pages long, so I'll discuss only a couple of topics Mr. Ryan hits on. Take the "problem of universals." Rand proposed her solution in INTRODUCTION TO OBJECTIVISM EPISTEMOLOGY. Her theory of measurement-omission is considered her greatest achievement by her followers. Rand starts by comparing her view to other schools, rejecting both nominalism and realism. However, as Mr. Ryan shows, the problem of universals falls within metaphysics, not epistemology. Not only that, but Rand's solution is really a form of moderate nominalism. Indeed, it isn't particularly original since a similar approach was advocated some years before by Roy Wood Sellars (although there is no proof that Rand read Sellars).

As another example, consider the validity of the senses. Rand attempted to refute skepticism by her axiom that "existence exists." Likewise, one-time follower Nathaniel Branden argues that skeptics use the "stolen concept": they attack the possibility of knowledge, but implicitly concede that something must be known when uttering any claim advocating skepticism. Again, this isn't particularly original or profound. (Ryle employed a version of the stolen concept argument years before Branden when noted "not all coins of the realm can be false.") Yes, skepticism is self-refuting. But the fact that we have some knowledge doesn't prove that the senses are generally reliable, or tell us how to distinguish true from false beliefs.

What is most impressive is Mr. Ryan's mastery of the relevant literature. Rand wasn't particularly well read in philosophy, and perhaps she can be excused for failing to develop her arguments with sufficient rigor. So Mr. Ryan supplements his critique of Rand's views with refinements offered by Leonard Peikoff, Alan Gotthelf, and David Kelley. Sometimes they follow and elaborate on Rand, other times they take surprisingly different approaches.

Scott Ryan has provided the best critique of Ayn Rand in print. For a discussion of Rand's philosophy from a more sympathetic perspective, see Chris Sciabarra's AYN RAND: THE RUSSIAN RADICAL.

I own many hundreds of books and have never written a review before. If I could give this book a negative score, I would. It's not that this book contains well-thought-out discussions of controversial issues, it's that it's poorly written and nonsensical. Scott Ryan is a theist, specifically, a pantheist whose primary loyalties are to Judaism (this is nearly a direct quote from Mr. Ryan, see page 390).

If this book represents his genuine attempt to debate the relative merits of Objectivism vs. some alternative, it's a colossal failure. It's full of equivocations and apparent misreadings of both those philosophers he likes and dislikes. It alternates between large blocks of quoted materials and smaller out-of-context quotes mingled with irrelevant minutiae. It's terrible.

This book is as incoherent as Scott Ryan's own apparent beliefs. If you want to learn about Objectivism or pantheism, or Judaism, or anything else -- don't buy this book.

Say what you must about Ayn Rand, but her writings in defence of reason are considered authoritative by quite a few people, especially many of her followers, and some admirers who do not think she was quite right about anything else.

Scott Ryan's criticism of Rand is important in my opinion, not because it will command general assent (I agree with Ryan's minimal, epistemological idealism or perceptual subjectivism, but I do not quite share his intuitions about how they generate metaphysical idealist commitments, though I think I understand them and agree completely with the Spinozistic/Blanshardian world view he presents), but because it shows the subtlety and sophistication required to practice philosophy seriously.

Brand Blanshard, one of Ryan's heroes, is my favorite philosopher because Blanshard entered empathetically into an opponent's view, trying to develop the view to some degree before refuting it. And Scott Ryan exemplifies this practice of Blanshard to a great degree in this volume.

Ryan often takes a question, and tries to see what Rand's position on it is based on her writings. If this question is not answered by Rand, Ryan looks to Rand's disciples. Ryan tries to show the adequacies and inadequacies of Objectivist answers, and he shows in the process how subtle a field philosophy is, and why it is important to get right what your opponent is saying before rejecting it. He also shows that on many pregnant philosophical questions, Objectivism, like many other philosophies that are quasi-religious and dogmatic, doesn't have any answers. Sometimes, as in the case of egoism vs. altruism, or determinism vs. indeterminism, this is done by defining away the opponent's view or totally misconceiving it.

People who think that a harmonious society can be built on Rand's view of human beings and ethics need to read this volume, especially chapter 12, which is a 60 page critique of the spiritually deleterious nature of the Objectivist ethics and the problem with Objectivist denials of "intrinsic value". And Ryan's polemics, while they might sound abrasive to fawning objectivists, are really quite fairly written. One might not like Ryan's position, but I think it is quite difficult for someone to accuse him of misrepresenting Rand deliberately. It has been fairly clear to many philosophers that altruism can be rational, and in a sense that doesn't ultimately reduce to self-interest (though self-interested considerations can enter into whether it is wise to be altruistic or not in a specific situation). And moreover, some deontological principle is required to recognize this respect for the rights and welfare of others if one wants to morally justify a just-society. We can argue as to what means best serve this ends, but we must not pervert our moral claims to deny that some ends are not noble just because some people think (quite erroneously) that these ends are achievable by state paternalism.

Moreover, I think that Ryan has posed a lot of pregnant questions for Randian (and I think to some degree, Rothbardian) individualists about the adequacy of some of their justifications for libertarian rights. I have often noticed that many libertarians (and one of the biggest and best opponents of this trend in the Libertarian movement that I know is probably John Hospers) try to disregard cost-benefits analysis of certain issues and sometimes argue as if it is an incontrovertible axiom that government can never get anything right, or that arguments for government inefficiency are so powerful that there cannot be other considerations for the possibility of state paternalism in specific cases, or that there can't be specific realistic scenarios where the libertarian solution has some demerits. Some of these arguments are related to denials of intrinsic value.

While I consider myself a libertarian, I would like to make it clear that the approach to many issues of acting like your opponents are not saying anything worth listening to is going to hurt the libertarian movement for as long as libertarians are under the idea that intrinsic values (and people should read Ryan's account of it, which is fairly well-developed) do not in some sense precede their subjective (and objective) apprehension by individuals. Please do not naively interpret my words - read Ryan's account for some of the details on a topic that a 1000-word book review cannot do justice to. Ryan also argues that the utilitarian nature of intrinsic value does not commit one to utilitarianism - rightness, in his view, is not (always) reducible to the maximization of goodness.

Quite a bit of Rand's "originality" will be exploded by a careful reading of this book. I cannot recommend this book enough. The main problem with this book is that it is often technical and one might need to read Blanshard's "Reason and Analysis" (or some other philosophical work with traditional and contemporary relevance) to get some perspective on some of these issues.

Another minor problem is that because the book is mostly philosophical, and Ryan is not a materialist, he doesn't present the great amount of biological evidence that would refute the Objectivist claims about the "tabula rasa" (at birth) mind. He doesn't totally neglect this evidence (as his citation of Morris Cohen in his discussion of the tabula rasa mind shows), but I feel that many of the strongest criticisms against Marxism and Objectivism are their perversions of the biological nature of human beings (and this is also what Marxism and Objectivism have in common). However, some libertarians also rely on these perversions and do not want to discuss them because of a fear of (biological) determinism. Libertarians should start coming to terms with the implications of the findings of genetics on human nature and see if their libertarian claims about social organization make sense in the face of such findings.

Investing your mental energies in this book shall be rewarded with a broadened understanding of traditional philosophy. This is a good thing - an understanding of philosophy is one of those private goods that characterizes a cultured man. Highly recommended.