Talk:Ayn Rand

This article is a former featured article candidate. To see why the nominations failed, view the first discussion and the second discussion.

Archives
Archive 1: Oct 2002 – Aug 2004 Archive 2: Aug 2004 – Jun 2005 Archive 3: Jul 2005 – Feb 2006 Archive 4: Feb – Mar 2006 Archive 5: Mar 2006 Archive 6: Mar – Jun 2006 Archive 7: Jun 2006 Archive 8: Jul – Aug 2006

Rand on Kant

If this page ever gets opened up again for editing, a sentence we need to address is the following, from the section where Rand's dislike of Kant is discussed. " It is not in fact clear that Kant would have disagreed with such a weak formulation of realism." I think this is a rather weak representation of Kant's philosophy versus Rand's. If we are to be "balanced," given the savage nature of Rand's attack on Kant (calling him a monster, etc) it would be more NPOV to make it clear that Kant isn't exactly what Rand claims (or rather, thinks) that he is.

I have my own opinions as to why Rand is so anti-Kant (to me its pretty clear that she came to his philosophy through the German idealists, who Kant wasn't overly fond of, she hadn't read the primary sources, and she conflated the german term "kritik" with the english term "criticize)but my opinions as to the source of Rand's anti-Kantian bias are irrelevant. The fact of the matter is that Rand, in her works, misquotes and misargues Kant in a dreadful way, and that needs to be drawn out more. There's a lot of talk around here about citations, so here are some:

From Rand's "Philosophy: who needs it?"-

"I can't prove it, but I feel that it's true." You got it from Kant. Or: "It's logical, but logic has nothing to do with reality." You got it from Kant. Or: "It's evil, because it's selfish." You got it from Kant."

The problem with Rand's attack here on Kant is not that it lacks subtlety or misinterprets the philospher's meaning (as her attacks on Hume do), but that, it is simply untrue, or false at the root of it. I hate to use such an inflammatory word, but Rand here is lying. Kant never did, and never would, make the statements or express the toughts that Rand attributes to him. KAnt is, despite Rand's claims that he is anti-rational, to a great degree the father of modern rational inquiry.

Kant is a tough read. I know because I spent a great deal of time at University reading him, and he is perhaps, in terms of grammatical construction and whatnot, the most torturous and truly German of philosophers. Nevertheless, it does not excuse Rand from her duty of reading Kant before she criticizes him. It is very clear, from even a cursory examination of the Critique of Pure Reason, that Kant is not anti-rational. This is from the first paragraph of the work.

"Time was, when [Human Reason] was the queen of all the sciences; and, if we take the will for the deed, she certainly deserves, so far as regards the high importance of her object-matter, this title of honour."

Additionally, the word "critique" in the title does not mean "attack", but rather, the critical application of reason to the esamination of reason itself.

The most egregious of Rand's misquotations is the claim that Kant would say "I can't prove it, but I feel [italics added] that it's true. (cited from above work by Rand). Compare this to what Kant actually says in The Critique of Pure Reason:

"As regards certitude , I have fully convinced myself that, in this sphere of thought, opinion is perfectly inadmissible, and that everything which bears the least semblance of an hypothesis must be excluded, as of no value in such discussions. "

It doesn't get any clearer than this. And I think this must be brought out within the text of the main article. Rand's "Kant is a monster" contrasted witht he article's "Kant might not agree with Rand" is horribly weak.P97dav45 12:55, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Most of what is said above seems like original research to me.

"Rand's "Kant is a monster" contrasted witht he article's "Kant might not agree with Rand" is horribly weak."

I agree. On the other hand I don't see a simple solution to this problem unless someone has a scholarly criticism of Rand's treatment of Kant that can be referenced. 24.17.165.124 02:52, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Why so much controversy is not mentioned in the article?

One thing that is not mentioned in the article is why Rand and her _______ (fill in whatever you like: sect, or philosophy, or whatever) are the subject of so much disagreement and controversy among so many? Just look at this discussion page for proof. I mean, in a certain sense she at least had the power to create something that has us here disagreeing about her. Relative to what she achieved while alive, compared to other famous (or infamous) people, I find a bit surprising the amount of passion she can still stir both from the pro and from the anti camps. Shouldn't we mention this in the article? Anagnorisis 00:29, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

It would be interesting to mention, but it would count as original research if all we have to back it up is this talk page. Outside sources are what counts in adding content. -- LGagnon 01:08, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

But of course! I am not suggesting to use this page as support for mentioning that in the article. I am only using it to try better conveying here what my point was. I think this page is just representative of the strong passions or convictions that Rand generates in both directions (supporters and opponents). Now, digressing a bit, if something is obvious and nobody disputes it, do we need an outside source? I mean, there is no source in the day article to support the statement that a day is 24 hours long. Anagnorisis 01:25, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Amusing

Rand advocated the individual as the final arbiter of reality, so I find it quite humorous when an organization such as Wikipedia, based on encyclopedic concepts of multitudes of individuals, has such a hard time defining (outlining, delineating, etcetera) her and her philosophy. It is a resounding indictment of her success in forming her ideas. I think Rand would be happiest (if somehow miraculously still alive) if this organization abstained from defining her and her work any other way than leaving the names of her books under her name, possibly a picture and dates of birth and death. Of course, most others will not agree with me as the beloved majority rule must be observed. ~RJM

Reply: We are not amused. Ayn Rand advocated the exact opposite of the amusing nonsense: "the individual as the final arbiter of reality." Rand's unique philosophic motto is: "Existence exists." That is, independent of any individual(s). Just as we need to flesh out criteria, criterion by criterion, in debating specific issues in Rand, we need to refer to Rand's actual text, specific piece for piece, in terms of running commentary. Too many clearly seem not to know anything of Rand's actual text. AOluwatoyin 08:25, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Finally you admit sources count. Now, could you please use actual MLA citations to point them out instead of the Rand-esque, academically weak "see this piece for more info"?

Also, I'd like to note that "existence exists" is hardly a unique phrase. Any idiot could throw two similar words side by side. All of Rand's supposedly brilliant short anti-thoughts ("Existence exists", "A is A", etc) were far from profound, only showing her disdain for actual thought, as all of them essentially said "don't think about anything deeply; what you see is all you get". -- LGagnon 17:28, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

"'Reply: Re: We are not amused'" If the individual does not decide (arbitrate) what is presented by existence existing, who will? A corollary of existence existing is that each existing informed mind must think for itself. So, perhaps you thought I meant that the individual is the final 'creator' of reality. This is not so. Regardless of how fleshed out your criteria becomes, criterion by criterion, I must still have to agree with the content of this organizations decisions on who Rand is and what she left to posterity. If I didn't do so, acting as the final arbitrator of my existence (or my interaction within reality) who will? Existence and existents hold the validity (or lack thereof) of my perceptions, my concepts, my decisions, consequences of my ethics, etc. Not Wikipedia. Certainly not you who thinks such a thought nonsense. And I have all her texts, I'm quite aware of her ideas. Making assumptions without checking on premises is what landed Rand's page in this editing nightmare. Also, Rand didn't form the thought Existence exists (existence qua existence) or A is A, Aristotle did. She resurrected the import of the phrase and logically extended the consequences. Its been fun. ~RJM

Warning and Reply to LGagnon: I don't know what you mean by "sources." Again, Rand is unique in demanding rigorous, objective standards. "Sources" are not made equal.

I am going to issue a warning to you in terms of how you continually employ ugly juvenile terms like "idiot" in the context of academic discourse. I hereby warn you to cease and desist with regard to such unprofessional, personal language. Being a freshman is no excuse for foul language. Avoid vulgarian modes of response. Reply strictly to the issue. Let this be your actual, last warning in this regard. AOluwatoyin 08:30, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Reply to ~RJM and further reply to LGagnon: Existence exists is not merely Aristotelian. It extends and deepens the genre. It is a call to metaphysical primacy ("A is A" is not merely logical for Rand) that does not reduce to primacy of the senses (empiricism). We must not confuse "tools of cognition," how we come to know, with what we come to know and that we do come to know.

Rand goes beyond the matter of who comes to know (rational men). Her focus is on how rational men ratiocinate, the symbiotics of perception and conception. AOluwatoyin 08:30, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

First of all, do not mess with my comment; that is poor ettiquette of you to delete and/or change part of it. If you had gone any further, I'd report you for vandalism.

Second, I referred to Rand as an idiot, not you. Sorry, but I don't see how "for example, see the works of Hegel and Kant" counts as the type of citation a supposed professional philosopher would give.

And once again you resort to a personal attack by calling me a "freshman" (I'm actually almost done with my second degree, for your info). You're getting reported again. -- LGagnon 20:44, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

For some strange reason, the "is she or is she not a philosopher" issue managed to get sorted out satisfactorily on the main "Objectivism" page, though not without similar discussion. Just to repeat: if the question is about the content of the texts, as opposed to some group's perception of them, there is no question that she is a philosopher. I don't even think that most academic philosophers would disagree with that classification. What they would say is that she's not a very good philosopher. We ought not to use "real" and "good" as synonyms, even implicitly. The best characterization I've seen anywhere by an objective source is Richard Posner in Public Intellectuals, A Study in Decline, where he classifies her as a nonacademic public intellectual (and claims that she is one of the four most influential of such since WW2, with Betty Friedan, Rachel Carson and William F. Buckley, none of whom I would describe as philosophers). An argument could be made that partitions AS into fiction, FNI into intellectual history (tricky, since it is philosophy's history), and all the other essays into political advocacy or cultural criticism. But that would still leave ITOE and the first essay in VOS. They are nothing if not philosophy: what nonphilosophical genre discusses the problem of universals in Plato and Aristotle? Or the Is-Ought problem in ethics? There's no escaping it by any reasonable standard. And the proof is that Nozick refuted her take on the latter in an academic philosophy journal article, "On the Randian Argument." How is it possible to be a professor of philosophy at Harvard, refute a philosophical argument in a philosophical journal, and not be talking about philosophy? And if it is philosophy, wouldn't that make the author a philosopher? Seems like a no-brainer to me. Bad does not equal nonexistent. Routledge Encyc. Phil. put it this way: she's in, she has an entry, and the entry says she's no good. That, BTW, is about as standard standard reference material can get, yes?

And BTW, if you want to really get the edit wars started, list "Marx" as an influence. I would (and have the credentials to be a reputable source if uncloaked), and so would one of the leading (damn near only) published academic press Rand scholars, Chris Sciabarra. The parallels are extensive. And, BTW, most would classify Marx as a philosopher, though I think that such a classification raises exactly the same problems to the same extent as here.

As for the LeVay thing, I don't know if we're past it, but if it stays, I'm heading over to the Hegel entry and adding "Mussolini" as "influenced by", which is also true, and ever so helpful in all sorts of unspoken ways. I appreciate LGag's efforts a lot--we need balance--but what I want is balanced balance, not this endless teeter-tottering between what seems to me contrary POVs. Agent Cooper 17:23, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

As one source pointed out (it was either in this talk page or another Rand-related one), there are academics who do consider her work to be pseudophilosophy. This, at the very least, should be mentioned. And given that such varying views exist, would it not be POV to assert that, beyond a shadow of a doubt, she is a philosopher? I do not intend to remove any and all claims that she is one, but to balance the article by showing that there is a dispute over whether or not she deserves the title. You may find some sources that consider her merely a bad philosopher, but other sources will claim she doesn't even deserve that. I think that these opinions deserve to be balanced, not treated in a way that makes the article contradictory. -- LGagnon 14:00, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Now we're getting somewhere. Yes, you can say that some people say that she's not a real philosopher; again, sourcing this is going to be difficult in the same way that sourcing the general academic lack of enthusiasm was difficult (though we got there in the end!). Most academic philosophers have a kind of tacit idea of what is and is not philosophy, though none can define it, and most proposed definitions would be rejected. There are clear cases: I think that almost all academic philosophers would say that Conversations With God is not philosophy. There are certain areas where for historical or political reasons, something may be included that would otherwise not be included--for example, in the past decade or so, some introductory philosophy classes have begun to add Native American religious texts. Almost no academic philosophers would regard these as philosophical texts if they were written by anyone other than who they are written by. But that aside, I think that there is very little disagreement about what is in and what is out. Now there is a secondary phenomenon which is not uncommon, in which, for example, Analytics may say about some instance of Continental philosophy that it isn't really philosophy (though oddly, this is seldom reciprocated--the response is more like "Analytic philosophy is shallow"). But in almost every prominent instance, there will also be people saying that the figure is a philosopher, is good and is important. I think that everyone understands that when these kinds of discussions go on, the upshot is that everyone agrees that the figure is doing something that resembles something another "canonical" figure has done, but that they are disagreeing on whether it is being done well or importantly. In these kinds of cases, however, the horse is out of the barn and there is a debate over whether someone should go fetch the horse. The Rand situation is different. First, the amount of discussion is dead minimal--despite some change on this front, the presence of Rand on campus is mostly due to students. To the extent that there is non-Objectivist talk about Rand, though, I think that Rachels is probably representative: he knows that some of his students will be Objectivists, and he knows that they have views and arguments which are philosophical in character, but which prevent them from being receptive to anything else, so these arguments must be rebutted early or else no further teaching can happen. So he rebuts the arguments, in a standard philosophy textbook. Now that's not by itself dispositive, because I will admit that that kind of phenomenon involves a kind of shading off into darkness--a textbook will sometimes address an argument widely accepted but SO bad that philosophers won't see it as something to *discuss* so much as to warn against. I think I would characterize Intelligent Design this way: almost no one in science thinks that it reaches the starting gate of being worthy of consideration qua science, but feel that because it gets considered by students and the public anyway, there needs to be a hygenic discussion to undo its influence. And yet very few people would say that ID is *therefore* science because a scientist discusses it in his professional capacity.

So my question is: how should Rand be thought of? How is Rand thought of? And I guess if I'm talking only about perceptions and not what I personally think, I guess I'd say that it's closer to indeterminate--the response by analytic philosophers is akin to their response to continentals whom they themselves concede are philosophers but not their sort. But the response of continentals is that she's just pro-capitalist ideology akin to the writings of Newt Gingrich. And the response of the faculty who must do duty with intro ethics courses is that she's something akin to ID--you don't quite want to say that it is in but bad, but you don't quite want to say it's out and hence not relevant. And there there's the very small handful who think that all these responses are just biased, that she has something interesting and different to say worth considering. I think my comments have been *normative*--I think that she should be treated exactly the same way that many Continentals are because objectively, she's no worse than most of them, but that she doesn't because of the Left bias of Continentals. Conversely, if the Analytic way of thinking her beyond the pale prevails, well pretty much all Continental philosophy has to go too (which to me is a kind of reductio).

But our problem, now that I see more clearly where you are coming from, is ambiguous. I think it's a *fact* that she's a philosopher, and *maybe* a fact that most academics view her as somewhere in between being not a philosopher and being a philosopher so bad that you don't want to deal with her except hygenically with undergrads. And my first claim makes me think that we just say that in articles because isn't the reporting of fact what is at issue? Whereas you, I take it, are saying that for me to say that is something akin to violating the "original research" rule, and that we must start from the social consensus about how to classify her because in effect that is what we are reporting when we report that she is or is not a philosopher. Here's a possible analogy. There are Southerners who believe that the the 14th Amendment was never properly ratified. Most people think they are loony-tunes, no one agrees, no one will ever agree. Suppose that on closer examination, we see that all reasonable people would have to agree that it really wasn't ratified. But this observation goes nowhere because our whole system of government presupposes that it was, and no one dares even say that it wasn't out loud. And then we're working on an article that contains a sentence "the 14th Amendment says that..." and our imaginary Southerner says "this is a factual error, because it was never really ratified," and you say "well, the reference stays in but we can add a section called "Ratification Controversy" if you like. And they say "well great, but we still can't refer to the 14th Amendment because actually, there isn't one." This would be something of a pickle, because usually expert and consensus opinion is pretty close to the truth.

So I'm actually at something of a loss here, in part because I don't know how to think about Wikipedia's own intentions. I want to say that because it is a fact that she is a bad philosopher widely rejected by academia for her badness, we should just *say* that. But I realize that that is perhaps not quite how the academic consensus would characterize things, and that some, but not all, would probably say that she's not really a philosopher any more than UFO abduction stories are science. And if we ever sorted all *that* out (good luck!) then there's the source problem: as an inside observer, I know exactly what goes down and why, but no one is on *record* about what goes down, so it's damned difficult to get anywhere near even the truth about the disagreement without there too straying into original research.

That's all I have for now. Agent Cooper 18:57, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Just wanted to say that this is an impressively substantive analysis, and fits well with what I see from the inside also. I think it's also sad that the article is now locked and littered with loud tags at the top. I appreciate LGagnon's efforts to make the article NPOV -- my own main contribution to the article has been writing and defending the Philosophical Criticism section -- but I think this needs to be done in a less militant way. Otherwise there is no positive revision going on. :-(. Can we consider going forward and calming down a little bit so that the article can actually improve? --Wilanthule 16:23, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Reply to LGagnon: Please note that throughout I corrected neither your appalling grammar nor your disgraceful typos. That is not a personal comment, but a fact I can demonstrate, entry for entry. Any deletions or the like would have been accidental in the process of responding to entries. This should be immediately obvious.

I made no reference to Hegel or Kant. You provide no specific citation from Rand. Once again, you conflate my view with someone else's entry.

I referred to foul freshman language, as employed by anyone. I referred to unprofessional language. Please familiarize yourself with figures of speech as with parts of speech. With regard to the unsolicited, personal information you volunteered, I take no personal interest in your lengthy struggle to finish a degree.

I made it clear that I had in fact provided you with a final warning in regard to these personal angles and unprofessional language. Now with your unsubstantiated accusation of a personal attack, you bear false witness. Accordingly, I will seek appropriate, serious sanctions against you. AOluwatoyin 03:02, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Whatever. With all the personal attacks you make (including the ones in the above comment), I doubt you'll be able to convince an admin that you are acting civil and I am not. They'll likely take action against you instead.

As a word of advice, read up on ad hominem, as well as WP:NPA; they might help make your claim to be a professor of logic look more realistic. More importantly, they'll teach you how to avoid making personal attacks.

And the quote about Hegel and Kant was from one of Rand's books. That is what she assumes, in her considerably poor scholarship, to be an appropriate citation (even though she'd be laughed out of academia if she tried to get that published with them). As for the citation, I'll give one appropriate to Randism: "See the works of Ayn Rand". -- LGagnon 14:11, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Reply to LGagnon: "See the works of Ayn Rand" is not a citation. Please see any of many Basic Manuals of Style (UC, etc.) that we recommend for Freshman philosophy students. AOluwatoyin 21:15, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

It's called sarcasm and parody. And honestly, you are pushing it by using another personal attack right after you got back from being banned for one. -- LGagnon 00:23, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Reply to Agent Cooper. Please do not conflate "influenced by" with "influenced." That Rand was influenced by Marx is no more problematic than that she was influenced by Nietzsche. Or, Kant, for that matter. AOluwatoyin 03:02, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

You've completely lost me. Karl Marx died before Ayn Rand was born. How have I confused before with after? I don't even know what you're talking about. Once we get that sorted out, I meant that she was influenced by in the more specific sense of "indebted to, learned from and as a result has similar ideas as." But you knew that. Agent Cooper 15:31, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Reply to Agent Cooper: Again, "influenced by" is not problematic. Again, Rand readily acknowledges "influenced by" (e.g; Nietzsche) so long as this does not intimate "agrees with."

"Influenced" is a problem, precisely because it non-cognitively, (some scholars would argue, cognitively) intimates agreement or some sort of "shared" core belief/view, as opposed to something that could be as weak (loose generic) as "shared opposition to institutional theism." AOluwatoyin 21:15, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Factual Error On Page

The page says "courses" offered by ARI are accredited. This is not what the source says. The source says one course is accredited. Huge difference methinks. Agent Cooper 17:30, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Under the heading Gender, Race, and Sex is a reference to a line in Atlas Shrugged: "In Atlas Shrugged, Rand writes that the 'band on the wrist of [Dagny's] naked arm gave her the most feminine of all aspects: the look of being chained.' (One must note that this description is from the character Lillian Rearden, whose views certainly are not intended to reflect those of Ayn Rand.)" This is erroneous. The passage is Rand's narrative and is most assuredly NOT Lillian Reardon's dialogue.````Fourchette

That quote reads a lot like origional reasearch and probably ought to be removed anyhow. 24.17.165.124 19:37, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Minor technicality

In what is currently footnote 86 in section 7.2, the template {{cite book}} is called with parameter "coauthor", which should be "coauthors". Sciabarra's name doesn't show up until this is corrected. --LA2 18:39, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

No mention of her drug use?

Considering it was prescribed by her doctor according to the source I read? I'm also interested in the source of this. I know it's in Passion of Ayn Rand by Barbara Branden, but I wondered if anyone else mentioned it.

Humorous

I find it endlessly funny that, when I go to see what the page of long-debated Ayn Rand looks like, I find three huge warnings when I get to the page: "this is biased" "this is wrong" and "this page is locked untill a dispute can be settled." Fitting, no? I think she's smiling...155.45.81.25 22:34, 13 September 2006 (UTC)Con.

From reading this page it seems most of you guys forget that this is not a forum where one discusses personal views. Discuss the article and how to improve it. Thanks. Anagnorisis 05:20, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Grammatical Errors

The opening sentence of the third paragraph reads:

"The express goal ..."

That is grammatically sound English. —Centrx→talk • 23:16, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Protection

There doesn't seem to be any real attempt to fix any specific problems with this page right now. Further, I honestly don't see that this page is so terrible that it needs to be under protection. Unless somebody who is opposed to the content of the current version wants to make some specific argument the page should be unprotected and the neutrality and contradiction tags should be removed--at least temporarily.

This page isn't really much worse than most of the other philosophically focused articles on the Wiki. 24.17.165.124 20:20, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Page is now unprotected... I might suggest that we all try to be reasonable enough to figure out how to get rid of any neutrality and contradiction issues. If you have specific complaints about the current version of the article say so (under a new heading) now. 24.17.165.124 05:35, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Given that nobody seems to have any major complaints about the current version of the article I am pulling the neutrality and contradiction tags. If you feel the need to replace the tags feel free to do so but offer specific reasons, please. 24.17.165.124 19:51, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Protagonist with flaws.

In the literary criticism section there are a few examples of protagonists which are, contrary to assumed conceptions, flawed. This is the excerpt:

"Further, defenders of Rand's novels have noted that many of her heroes are far from flawless, and that not all are wealthy. They note that Rearden, the Wet Nurse, and Fred Kinnan suffer due to either moral flaws or errors in reasoning [4]; further, they point out that not all of the villains in Rand's novels are weak and pathetic: Ellsworth Toohey is portrayed as a masterful communicator, critic, and manipulator, while Robert Stadler is a brilliant scientist."

I think that Eddie Willers should be added into this evidence; however, he isn't included in the source from which the other examples are. It'd be possible to list him separately from the others, with the citation being a specific quote from Atlas Shrugged. The quote is in a dialog between Francisco d'Anconia and, IIRC, Hank Rearden. Francisco states that Eddie does not have the ability or competence to achieve what others have, but he has no sense of entitlement, and tries his hardest to adhere to similar Objectivist principles as Francisco and Rearden.

In essence this dialog portrays Eddie as a flawed being, with no implied inferiority to the speakers.

I'm having a bit of trouble locating the quote, could anyone help?

The usual bias

I still haven't heard a good explaination for why we keep on removing Alan Greenspan, Anton LaVey, Terry Goodkind, and Steve Ditko from the Influenced list. It seems very biased to remove LaVey, as this has been proven before to have been removed because of disgust amongst Randists at his beliefs. The others I'm not sure why they were removed, but no good explaination has been given yet. -- LGagnon 18:04, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Based on the edit summary, the reason was to keep the list confined to philosophers. This is reasonable, but it is perhaps an artificial distinction in the case of, e.g., Alan Greenspan who is an intellectual who writes about and acts in areas that would be affected by his own personal philosophy, but, for example, the guitarist who was in the list long ago certainly did not belong. —Centrx→talk • 18:42, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

While I personally feel that this particular list should be reserved for philosophers only, I don't think it is something to get into an edit war over again. Let's just drop the LaVey issue. -- 24.220.246.20

Why drop it? Is LaVey any less of a philosopher than Rand? Is Rand any more of a philosopher than LaVey? And why philosophers only? That seems to push the idea that Rand is only a philosopher, and that she is definitely one beyond dispute. -- LGagnon 12:43, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Then have writers she influenced too, but influenced as writer. Just because some later author happens to agree with the philosophy does not mean it is prominent in their work or that her writing style is found to influence his work. —Centrx→talk • 03:56, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

You'll find that some of those writers (Ditko in particular) used her ideas quite a bit in their work. -- LGagnon 12:57, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

I say put LaVey back in. Who care's if he is the head of the Church of Satan? As an Objectivist I expect people to make up their own minds, so if he says he was influenced by Rand, let people judge for themselves. The others should go back in as well.Ethan a dawe 16:52, 29 September 2006 (UTC) Ethan Dawe

What I meant, LGagnon, is that the individuals who have made a case for keeping LaVey's name in the article have done so well, and that's all that's important. I personally don't consider LaVey a philosopher, but objectivity must take precedence. -- 24.220.246.20

Philosopher template- whom do we include?

Can we get consensus about whether the template should mention non-philosopher influences? Lazlo seems to think it shouldn't. However, it isn't at all clear to me why it shouldn't. What matters is who her ideas influenced and who she inspired not whether or not they are technically philosophers. Thoughts? JoshuaZ 02:46, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

anton levay was a philosopher just as much so as ayn rand. he definitely needs to be on the list. i'll consider the others later, though.

"Lay" philosopher

That is ridiculous. Not all philosophers have to be professors; actually, the overwhelming majority of philosophers throughout history wasn't. Some acclaimed philosophers also eschewed academy, see Schpenhauer. Besides, Rand used to give lectures for several Universities.Xemoi 14:16, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

why is it an issue, there are professional philosophers and lay philosophers. she is not a professional philosopher, so she is a lay philosopher. it is purely a matter of clarity. yes, many literary figures give lectures at universities, that doesn't make them philosophers in any sense of the word. why isn't she a lay philosopher? it seems to be a clear categorization to me. it isn't derogatory like pop-philosopher, which is really more appropriate in some ways. --Buridan 14:22, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Look up "lay philosopher" on google. You will find naïf writers, self-help authors, folk tale tellers, internet bloggers, but nothing like Rand. Besides, the very notion of "professional philosopher" is disputable. In Plato's view, people who made money from their philosophy (e.g. Sophists) weren't worth of the title of "philosopher" at all.Xemoi 14:35, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

how are they different from rand? --Buridan 14:38, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

If being university-educated and having a doctorate are necessary qualifications for being a "philosopher", I might as well go to the Socrates article and label him a lay philosopher. Or maybe I'll just label his ideas an "ideology." Please. This is getting so ridiculous. -- 24.220.246.20

no, it is a question of what you actually do for a living. if you are primarily paid to be a philosopher or make your living through philosophy then you are a professional philosopher, if you make your living primarily in other ways then you are a lay philosopher. they are both philosopher, but of which sort. for instance, George Orwell is a lay philosopher as was Dostoyevsky.--Buridan 14:38, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

ok, well if one's income is the standard, then Rand profitted immensely from her non-fiction publications, her lectures at institutions such as Yale and Harvard, and her public forums and debates.

Are you performing your own original research? Please give a link to Ayn Rand as a lay philosopher (as opposed to the more usual non-academic philosopher.) Why do you choose to create your own non-standard category? I have added Category:Non-academic Philosophers to the Rand list of categories. Not the plural - most categories for philosophers are plural75.18.119.242 20:46, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

order of professions

the argument that i'm making in the lines is this, presenting rand as primarily a philosopher is disputed even on her own page in footnotes. as best as we have been able to determine in the philosophy discussions, she is more widely recognized as a novelist or literary figure than as a philosopher. to present her either primarily as a novelist or primarily as a philosopher is to present something that is not neutral, therefor to be neutral, we should choose a way of listing her professions that is neutral. there are two that come to mind, one is alphabetical, and the other is by income. her novels greatly outsell her philosophical works, and it is likely that her screenwriting/playwriting also earned more money, though we would need to do the research. due to lack of research, alphabetical is the way left to be neutral.--Buridan 15:15, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

costume manager

Why is costume manager in list of professions, where is a reference that she spent any significant time managing costumes? Should all actors references also have waiter added?