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Anton LaVey
Anton Szandor LaVey (April 11, 1930 – October 29, 1997), born Howard Stanton Levey, was the founder of the Church of Satan as well as a writer, occultist, and musician. He was the author of The Satanic Bible and the founder of LaVeyan Satanism, a synthesized system of his understanding of human nature and the insights of philosophers who advocated materialism and individualism, for which he claimed no supernatural or theistic inspiration.
LaVey was born as Howard Stanton Levey in Chicago, Illinois. His father, Michael Joseph Levey, was a liquor distributor from Omaha, Nebraska. His grandfather, Leon Levy, was born in Paris, France and emigrated to the United States in 1886, settling in Douglas County, Nebraska, where he married Louisville-native Emma Goldsmith, who was of German Jewish ancestry, two years later. Lavey's mother, Gertrude Augusta Coultron, was born to a Russian father and Ukrainian mother who had immigrated to Ohio in 1893; both became naturalized American citizens in 1900. According to his biography, however, his ancestry includes Georgian,French, Russian, Ukrainian,Alsatian, German, and Romanian.
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Broadway theater
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City. Along with London's West End theatre, Broadway theatre is widely considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English-speaking world.
The Broadway theatre district is a popular tourist attraction in New York. According to The Broadway League, Broadway shows sold approximately $1.081 billion worth of tickets in calendar year 2011, compared with $1.037 billion for 2010. Attendance in 2011 was 12.13 million.
New York did not have a significant theatre presence until about 1750, when actor-managers Walter Murray and Thomas Kean established a resident theatre company at the Theatre on Nassau Street, which held about 280 people. They presented Shakespeare plays and ballad operas such as The Beggar's Opera. In 1752, William Hallam sent a company of twelve actors from Britain to the colonies with his brother Lewis as their manager. They established a theatre in Williamsburg, Virginia and opened with The Merchant of Venice and The Anatomist. The company moved to New York in the summer of 1753, performing ballad operas and ballad-farces like Damon and Phillida. The Revolutionary War suspended theatre in New York, but thereafter theatre resumed in 1798, the year the 2,000-seat Park Theatre was built on Chatham Street (now called Park Row). The Bowery Theatre opened in 1826, followed by others. Blackface minstrel shows, a distinctly American form of entertainment, became popular in the 1830s, and especially so with the arrival of the Virginia Minstrels in the 1840s.
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Charles Taze Russell
Charles Taze Russell (February 16, 1852 – October 31, 1916), or Pastor Russell, was a prominent early 20th century Christian restorationist minister from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, and founder of what is now known as the Bible Student movement, from which Jehovah's Witnesses and numerous independent Bible Student groups emerged after his death.
Beginning in July, 1879 he began publishing a monthly religious journal, Zion's Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence. The journal is now published by Jehovah's Witnesses on a semi-monthly basis under the name, The Watchtower Announcing Jehovah's Kingdom. In 1881 he co-founded Zion's Watch Tower Tract Society and in 1884 the corporation was officially registered, with Russell as president. Russell wrote many articles, books, tracts, pamphlets and sermons, totaling approximately 50,000 printed pages. From 1886 to 1904, he published a six-volume Bible study series originally entitled Millennial Dawn, later renamed Studies in the Scriptures, nearly 20 million copies of which were printed and distributed around the world in several languages during his lifetime. (A seventh volume was commissioned by his successor as society president, Joseph Rutherford, and published in 1917.) The Watch Tower Society officially states that it ceased publication of Russell's writings in 1927, though his books continue to be published by several independent groups.
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Chicago, Illinois
Chicago (
i/ʃɪˈkɑːɡoʊ/ or /ʃɪˈkɔːɡoʊ/) is the largest city in the US state of Illinois and the third most populous city in the United States after New York City and Los Angeles. The city has around 2.7 million residents. Its metropolitan area, sometimes called "Chicagoland", is the third largest in the United States, with an estimated 9.8 million people. Chicago is the county seat of Cook County, though a small portion also extends into DuPage County.
Chicago was incorporated as a city in 1837, near a portage between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River watershed. Today, Chicago is listed as an alpha+ global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network, and ranks seventh in the world on the 2012 Global Cities Index. The city retains its status as an international hub for finance, industry, telecommunications and infrastructure, with O'Hare International Airport being the second busiest airport in the world in terms of traffic movements. In 2008[update], the city hosted 45.6 million domestic and overseas visitors. Among metropolitan areas, Chicago has the 4th largest Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the world, ranking just behind Tokyo, New York City, and Los Angeles. Chicago is one of the most important Worldwide Centers of Commerce and trade.
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Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is an American private Ivy League research university located in New York City, New York, United States. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution. Today the university operates seven Columbia Global Centers overseas in Amman, Beijing, Istanbul, Paris, Mumbai, Santiago and Nairobi.
The university was founded in 1754 as King's College by royal charter of George II of Great Britain. After the American Revolutionary War, King's College briefly became a state entity, and was renamed Columbia College in 1784. The University now operates under a 1787 charter that places the institution under a private board of trustees, and in 1896 it was further renamed Columbia University. That same year, the university's campus was moved from Madison Avenue to its location in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, where it occupies more than six city blocks, or 32 acres (0.13 km2). The university encompasses twenty schools and is affiliated with numerous institutions, including Teachers College, Barnard College, and the Union Theological Seminary, with joint undergraduate programs available through the Jewish Theological Seminary of America as well as the Juilliard School.
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Crimea
Crimea (
/kraɪˈmiːə/), or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea (Ukrainian: Автономна Республіка Крим, Avtonomna Respublika Krym; Russian: Автономная Республика Крым, Avtonomnaya Respublika Krym; Crimean Tatar: Qırım Muhtar Cumhuriyeti, Къырым Мухтар Джумхуриети), is a sub-national unit, an autonomous republic, of Ukraine. It is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea, occupying a peninsula of the same name. It was often referred to with the definite article, as the Crimea, until well into the 20th century.
The territory of Crimea was conquered and controlled many times throughout its history. The Cimmerians, Greeks, Scythians, Goths, Huns, Bulgars, Khazars, the state of Kievan Rus', Byzantine Greeks, Kipchaks, Ottoman Turks, Golden Horde Tatars and the Mongols all controlled Crimea in its early history. In the 13th century, it was partly controlled by the Venetians and by the Genovese; they were followed by the Crimean Khanate and the Ottoman Empire in the 15th to 18th centuries, the Russian Empire in the 18th to 20th centuries, Germany during World War II and the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and later the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, within the Soviet Union during most of the rest of the 20th century.
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Epcot
Epcot is a theme park in the Walt Disney World Resort, located near Orlando, Florida. The park is dedicated to the celebration of human achievement, namely international culture and technological innovation. The second park built at the resort, it opened on October 1, 1982 and was initially named EPCOT Center. In 1994, the "Center" was dropped from the park's name, and by 1996, the park was simply named Epcot. In 2010, Epcot hosted approximately 10.83 million guests, ranking it the third most visited theme park in the United States, and fifth most visited theme park in the world.
EPCOT is an acronym of Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, which was the name originally given by Walt Disney to a conceptual Utopian city of the future that he had wanted to build on the site that is now Walt Disney World. Disney's original vision of EPCOT was for a model community, home to twenty thousand residents, which would be a test bed for city planning and organization. Disney's vision was not realized as funding and permission to start work on his Florida property would not be granted until he agreed to build the Magic Kingdom first. Disney died before the Magic Kingdom opened and the Walt Disney Company decided that it did not want to be in the business of running a city.
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Harvard University
Harvard University is an American private Ivy League research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation (officially The President and Fellows of Harvard College) chartered in the country. Harvard's history, influence, and wealth have made it one of the most prestigious universities in the world.
Harvard was named after its first benefactor, John Harvard. Although never formally affiliated with a church, the college primarily trained Congregationalist and Unitarian clergy. Harvard's curriculum and students became secular throughout the 18th century and by the 19th century had emerged as the central cultural establishment among Boston elites. Following the American Civil War, President Charles W. Eliot's forty year tenure (1869–1909) transformed the college and affiliated professional schools into a centralized research university, and Harvard became a founding member of the Association of American Universities in 1900.James Bryant Conant led the university through the Great Depression and World War II and began to reform the curriculum and liberalize admissions after the war. The undergraduate college became coeducational after its 1977 merger with Radcliffe College. Drew Gilpin Faust was elected the 28th president in 2007 and is the first woman to lead the university. Harvard has the largest financial endowment of any academic institution in the world, standing at $32 billion as of September 2011.
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Israel
Coordinates: 31°N 35°E / 31°N 35°E / 31; 35
Israel, officially the State of Israel ( /ˈɪzriːəl/ or /ˈɪzreɪəl/; Hebrew: מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, Medīnat Yisrā'el, IPA: [me̞diˈnät jisʁäˈʔe̞l] (
listen); Arabic: دَوْلَة إِسْرَائِيل, Dawlat Isrāʼīl, IPA: [dawlat ʔisraːˈʔiːl]), is a parliamentary republic in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan and the West Bank in the east, Egypt and the Gaza Strip on the southwest, and the Gulf of Aqaba in the Red Sea to the south, and it contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area. Israel is defined as a Jewish and Democratic State in its Basic Laws and is the world's only Jewish-majority state.
Following the adoption of a resolution by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 29 November 1947 recommending the adoption and implementation of the United Nations plan to partition Palestine, on 14 May 1948 David Ben-Gurion, the Executive Head of the World Zionist Organization and president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, declared the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz Israel, to be known as the State of Israel, a state independent from the British Mandate for Palestine. Neighboring Arab states invaded the next day in support of the Palestinian Arabs. Israel has since fought several wars with neighboring Arab states, in the course of which it has occupied the West Bank, Sinai Peninsula, Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights. Portions of these territories, including east Jerusalem, have been annexed by Israel, but the border with the neighboring West Bank has not yet been permanently defined.[neutrality is disputed] Israel has signed peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, but efforts to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict have so far not resulted in peace.
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Kensico Cemetery
Kensico Cemetery, located in Valhalla, Westchester County, New York, was founded in 1889, when many New York City cemeteries were becoming full, and rural cemeteries were being created near the railroads which served the city. Initially 250 acres (1.0 km2), it was expanded to 600 acres (2.4 km²) in 1905, but reduced to 461 acres (1.9 km²) in 1912, when a portion was sold to the neighboring Gate of Heaven Cemetery.
Many entertainment figures of the early twentieth century, including the Russian born Sergei Rachmaninoff, were buried here. The cemetery has a special section for members of the Actors' Fund of America and the National Vaudeville Association, some of whom died in abject poverty.
Sharon Gardens is a 76-acre (31 ha) section of Kensico Cemetery, which was created in 1953 for Jewish burials.
Mayer tumulus
Egyptian Sphinx Tomb
The Kane Lodge sphere
Pinkney Pyramid
Mecca Temple
The tomb of Phineas Lounsbery
The Ayer statue
Grave of Lou Gehrig
Tomb of J. Gordon Edwards with minaret
Entrance to Sharon Gardens
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Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States of America, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in four buildings in Washington, D.C., as well as the Packard Campus in Culpeper, Virginia, it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and number of books. The head of the Library is the Librarian of Congress, currently James H. Billington.
The Library of Congress was instituted for Congress in 1800, and was housed in the United States Capitol for most of the 19th century. After much of the original collection had been destroyed during the War of 1812, Thomas Jefferson sold 6,487 books, his entire personal collection, to the library in 1815. After a period of decline during the mid-19th century the Library of Congress began to grow rapidly in both size and importance after the American Civil War, culminating in the construction of a separate library building and the transference of all copyright deposit holdings to the Library. During the rapid expansion of the 20th century the Library of Congress assumed a preeminent public role, becoming a "library of last resort" and expanding its mission for the benefit of scholars and the American people.
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Manhattan
Manhattan (/mænˈhætən/) is the most densely populated and the oldest of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the U.S. state of New York. The borough and county consist of Manhattan Island and several small adjacent islands: Roosevelt Island, Randall's Island, Wards Island, Governors Island, Liberty Island, part of Ellis Island,Mill Rock, and U Thant Island; as well as Marble Hill, a very small area on the mainland bordering the Bronx. The original city of New York began at the southern end of Manhattan, expanded northward, and then between 1874 and 1898, annexed land from surrounding counties.
The New York County is the most densely populated county in the United States, and one of the most densely populated areas in the world, with a 2010 population of 1,585,873 living in a land area of 22.96 square miles (59.5 km2), or 69,464 residents per square mile (26,924/km²), more dense than any individual American city. It is also one of the wealthiest counties in the United States, with a 2005 per capita income above $100,000. Manhattan is the third-largest of New York's five boroughs in population, and its smallest borough in land area.
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New York Harbor
New York Harbor refers to the waterways of the estuary near the mouth of the Hudson River that empty into New York Bay. It is one of the largest natural harbors in the world. Although the U.S. Board of Geographic Names does not use the term, New York Harbor has important historical, governmental, commercial, and ecological usages. Originally used to refer to the Upper New York Bay, the term is also used to describe the Port of New York and New Jersey, the port district for New York-Newark metropolitan area, under the jurisdiction of the Port Authority.
The aboriginal population of the 16th century New York Harbor, the Lenape, used the waterways for fishing and travel. In 1524 Giovanni da Verrazzano anchored in what is now called The Narrows, the strait between Staten Island and Long Island that connects the Upper and Lower New York Bay, where he received a canoe party of Lenape. A party of his sailors may have taken on fresh water at a spring called "the watering place" on Staten Island — a monument stands in a tiny park on the corner of Bay Street and Victory Boulevard at the approximate spot — but Verrazzano's descriptions of the geography of the area are a bit ambiguous. It is fairly firmly held by historians that his ship anchored at the approximate location where the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge touches down in Brooklyn today. He also observed what he believed to be a large freshwater lake to the north (apparently Upper New York Bay). He apparently did not travel north to observe the existence of the Hudson River. In 1609 Henry Hudson entered the Harbor and explored a stretch of the river that now bears his name. His journey prompted others to explore the region and engage in trade with the local population.
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Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States.
It is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution. Princeton provides undergraduate and graduate instruction in the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences and engineering. Princeton does not have schools of medicine, law, divinity, or business, but it does offer professional degrees through the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, the Princeton University School of Engineering and Applied Science and the School of Architecture.
Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, as the College of New Jersey, the university moved to Newark in 1747, then to Princeton in 1756 and was renamed Princeton University in 1896. The present-day College of New Jersey in nearby Ewing, New Jersey, is an unrelated institution. Princeton was the fourth chartered institution of higher education in the American colonies. Princeton had close ties to the Presbyterian Church, but has never been affiliated with any denomination and today imposes no religious requirements on its students.
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Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg (Russian: Санкт-Петербург, tr. Sankt-Peterburg; IPA: [sankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk] (
listen)) is a city and a federal subject (a federal city) of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. In 1914 the name of the city was changed to Petrograd (Russian: Петроград; IPA: [pʲɪtrɐˈgrat]), in 1924 to Leningrad (Russian: Ленинград; IPA: [lʲɪnʲɪnˈgrat]) and in 1991 back to Saint Petersburg.
In Russian literature, informal documents, and discourse, the "Saint" (Санкт-) is usually omitted, leaving Petersburg (Петербург, Peterburg). In common parlance Russians may drop "-burg" (-бург) as well, leaving only Peter (Питер, Russian: [ˈpʲitʲɪr]).
Saint Petersburg was founded by Tsar Peter the Great on May 27 [O.S. 16] 1703. From 1713 to 1728 and from 1732 to 1918, Saint Petersburg was the Imperial capital of Russia. In 1918 the central government bodies moved from Saint Petersburg (then named Petrograd) to Moscow. It is Russia's second largest city after Moscow with almost 5 million inhabitants. Saint Petersburg is a major European cultural center, and also an important Russian port on the Baltic Sea.
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Soviet Union
The Soviet Union (Russian: Советский Союз, tr. Sovetsky Soyuz), officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR; Russian: Сою́з Сове́тских Социалисти́ческих Респу́блик, tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik; IPA: [sɐˈjus sɐˈvʲetskʲɪx sətsɨəlʲɪˈstʲitɕɪskʲɪx rʲɪsˈpublʲɪk] ( listen); abbreviated СССР, SSSR), was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991.
The Soviet Union was a single-party state ruled by the Communist Party from its foundation until 1990. A union of 15 subnational Soviet republics, the Soviet state was structured under a highly centralized government and economy.
The Russian Revolution of 1917 caused the downfall of the Russian Empire. Following the Russian Revolution, there was a struggle for power between the Bolshevik party, led by Vladimir Lenin, and the anti-communist White movement. In December 1922, the Bolsheviks won the civil war, and the Soviet Union was formed with the merger of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic.
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Valhalla, New York
Valhalla is an unincorporated hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) that is located within the town of Mount Pleasant, New York, in Westchester County. Its population was 3,162 at the 2010 U.S. Census. The name of the community was inspired by a fan of the opera composer Richard Wagner, and the celebrated status of this hamlet comes primarily from its location as the burial places of the remains of numerous well-known people. This name is appropriate, as Valhalla is a heavenly abode in Norse mythology. It is a well known fact that Valhalla is often visited by Thor Odinson and his buddies.
Valhalla gained its name when it was necessary to name a new U.S. post office in the 19th century, due to the flooding of a pre-existing town and post office, Kensico, which is now underneath the lake created by the Kensico Dam (a part of the New York City water supply system). According to local historians and published works, the wife of a postmaster was a devoted fan of the works of the composer Richard Wagner, and she shared that composer's interest in Norse mythology. Her preference led to the choice of the name "Valhalla", after the heavenly paradise of slain warriors in that mythology. It is most generally agreed that Mr. Xavier Reiter, a French horn player with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, a Wagner devotee, suggested that the post office name of "Valhalla" be adopted. The village still maintains its association with death through noted people who were buried in its cemeteries.
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Yale University
Yale University is an American private Ivy League research university located in New Haven, Connecticut. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States.
Incorporated as the "Collegiate School," the institution traces its roots to 17th-century clergymen who sought to establish a college to train clergy and political leaders for the colony. In 1718, the College was renamed "Yale College" to honor a gift from Elihu Yale, a governor of the British East India Company. In 1861, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences became the first U.S. school to award the PhD. Yale became a founding member of the Association of American Universities in 1900. Yale College was transformed, beginning in the 1930s, through the establishment of residential colleges: 12 now exist and two more are planned. Yale employs over 1,100 faculty to teach and advise about 5,300 undergraduate and 6,100 graduate and professional students. Almost all tenured professors teach undergraduate courses, more than 2,000 of which are offered annually.
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Adam Smith
Adam Smith (baptised 16 June 1723 – 17 July 1790 [OS: 5 June 1723 – 17 July 1790]) was a Scottish social philosopher and a pioneer of political economy. One of the key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, Smith is the author of The Principles Which Lead and Direct Philosophical Enquiries, Illustrated by the History of Astronomy, prior to 1758, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, 1759, and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, 1776. The latter, usually abbreviated as The Wealth of Nations, is considered his magnum opus and the first modern work of economics. It earned him an enormous reputation and would become one of the most influential works ever published. Smith is widely cited as the father of modern economics and capitalism and is still among the most influential thinkers in the field of economics today. In 2009, Smith was named among the 'Greatest Scots' of all time, in a vote run by Scottish television channel STV.
Smith studied social philosophy at the University of Glasgow and at Balliol College in the University of Oxford, where he was one of the first students to benefit from scholarships set up by his fellow Glaswegian John Snell. After graduating, he delivered a successful series of public lectures at Edinburgh, leading him to collaborate with David Hume during the Scottish Enlightenment. Smith obtained a professorship at Glasgow teaching moral philosophy, and during this time he wrote and published The Theory of Moral Sentiments. In his later life, he took a tutoring position that allowed him to travel throughout Europe, where he met other intellectual leaders of his day. Smith then returned home and spent the next ten years writing The Wealth of Nations, publishing it in 1776. He died in 1790 at the age of 67.
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Alain Badiou
Alain Badiou (French pronunciation: [alɛ̃ badju] (listen) (help·info); born 17 January 1937 in Rabat, Morocco) is a French philosopher, professor at European Graduate School, formerly chair of Philosophy at the École Normale Supérieure (ENS).
Badiou has written about the concepts of being, truth and the subject in a way that, he claims, is neither postmodern nor simply a repetition of modernity. Politically, Badiou is committed to the far left, and to the communist tradition.
Slavoj Žižek has written of Badiou that he is "a figure like Plato or Hegel walk[ing] here among us".
Badiou was a student at the Lycée Louis-Le-Grand and then the Ecole Normale Supérieure (1957–1961). He taught at the lycée in Reims from 1963 where he became a close friend of fellow playwright (and philosopher) François Regnault, and published a couple of novels before moving to the University of Paris VIII (Vincennes-Saint Denis) in 1969. Badiou was politically active very early on, and was one of the founding members of the Unified Socialist Party (PSU). The PSU was particularly active in the struggle for the decolonization of Algeria. He wrote his first novel, Almagestes, in 1964. In 1967 he joined a study group organized by Louis Althusser, became increasingly influenced by Jacques Lacan and became a member of the editorial board of Cahiers pour l’Analyse. By then he "already had a solid grounding in mathematics and logic (along with Lacanian theory)", and his own two contributions to the pages of Cahiers "anticipate many of the distinctive concerns of his later philosophy".
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Albert Camus
Albert Camus (French pronunciation: [albɛʁ kamy] ( listen); 7 November 1913 – 4 January 1960) was a French author, journalist, and philosopher. His views contributed to the rise of the philosophy known as absurdism. He wrote in his essay "The Rebel" that his whole life was devoted to opposing the philosophy of nihilism while still delving deeply into individual freedom.
Although often cited as a proponent of existentialism, the philosophy with which Camus was associated during his own lifetime, he rejected this particular label. In an interview in 1945, Camus rejected any ideological associations: "No, I am not an existentialist. Sartre and I are always surprised to see our names linked..."
In 1949, Camus founded the Group for International Liaisons within the Revolutionary Union Movement, which was opposed to some tendencies of the Surrealist movement of André Breton.
Camus was awarded the 1957 Nobel Prize for Literature "for his important literary production, which with clear-sighted earnestness illuminates the problems of the human conscience in our times". He was the second-youngest recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature, after Rudyard Kipling, and the first African-born writer to receive the award. He is the shortest-lived of any Nobel literature laureate to date, having died in an automobile accident just over two years after receiving the award.
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Alex Chadwick
Alex Chadwick is an American journalist best known for his work on National Public Radio, and as a former co-host of the radio newsmagazine Day to Day. He was a part of the development of NPR's Morning Edition in the 1970s and was an on-air personality on All Things Considered and Weekend Edition. Chadwick has also worked with ABC and CBS.
In January 2009, NPR laid off Chadwick. He was one of 64 employees terminated as part of NPR's response to a budget shortfall.
Chadwick continues to do a video blog for Slate V called "Interviews, 50 cents."
Chadwick received the Sigma Delta Chi Award for investigative journalism, two Lowell Thomas Awards from the Overseas Press Club for foreign reporting, and was part of the CBS News team that produced the Emmy- and Peabody-Award-winning documentary, In the Killing Fields of America.
Chadwick was married to Radio Expeditions executive producer Carolyn Jensen, who died in 2010.
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Alexander Kerensky
Alexander Fyodorovich Kerensky (Russian: Алекса́ндр Фёдорович Ке́ренский, IPA: [ɐlʲɪˈksandr ˈkʲerʲɪnskʲɪj]; 4 May [O.S. 22 April] 1881 – 11 June 1970) was a major political leader before and during the Russian Revolutions of 1917.
Kerensky served as the second Prime Minister of the Russian Provisional Government until overthrown in the October Revolution. He died in exile.
Alexander Kerensky was born in Simbirsk (now Ulyanovsk) on the Volga River into the family of a secondary school principal. His father, Fyodor Kerensky, was a teacher. His mother, Nadezhda Adler, who was partly Jewish, was the daughter of a nobleman, Alexander Adler, head of the Topographical Bureau of the Kazan Military District. Her mother, Nadezhda Kalmykova, was the daughter of a former serf who had bought his freedom before serfdom was abolished in 1861, allowing him to become a wealthy Moscow merchant.[unreliable source?]
Kerensky's father was the headmaster of Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin) at a secondary school for boys in Simbirsk, and members of the Kerensky and Ulyanov families were friends. In 1889, when Kerensky was eight, his family moved to Tashkent, where his father had been appointed the main inspector of public schools (superintendent). Kerensky graduated with honors from a Tashkent secondary school in 1899. The same year he entered St. Petersburg University, where he studied history and philology in his first year. The next year he switched to the Law Department and received a law degree in 1904, getting married in the same year to the daughter of a Russian general. He worked as a legal counsel to victims of government violence in early December 1905. At the end of the month he was jailed on suspicion of belonging to a militant group. Afterwards he gained a reputation for his work as a defence lawyer in a number of political trials of revolutionaries.
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Allan Gotthelf
Allan Gotthelf (born Brooklyn NY, 1942) is an American philosopher, and a recognized authority on the philosophies of both Aristotle and Ayn Rand.
Gotthelf received his masters degree in mathematics from Pennsylvania State University, and his masters and PhD in philosophy from Columbia University in 1975, where he studied under professors such as the noted Aristotelian scholar John Herman Randall, Jr.. An essay based on his doctoral dissertation (both titled Aristotle's Conception of Final Causality) won first prize in the Dissertation Essay Competition of The Review of Metaphysics and was published in that journal in December 1976. He began his teaching career at Wesleyan University in Connecticut.
He is an emeritus professor of philosophy at The College of New Jersey, a life member of Clare Hall, Cambridge University, and visiting professor of the history and philosophy of science at the University of Pittsburgh, where he has held the university's Fellowship for the Study of Objectivism since 2003. He was one of the founders of the Ayn Rand Society (founded in 1987), affiliated with the American Philosophical Association, Eastern Division, and has held the position of secretary of the Society and chairman of its Steering Committee since 1990.
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Andrew Bernstein
Andrew Bernstein (born 1949) is a proponent of Ayn Rand's Objectivism, an author, and a professor of philosophy.
Bernstein holds a PhD in philosophy and is the author of The Capitalist Manifesto: The Historic, Economic, and Philosophic Case for Laissez-Faire,Capitalism Unbound: The Incontestable Case for Individual Rights and Objectivism in One Lesson, as well as a novel, Heart of a Pagan. He also authored the CliffsNotes for Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, and Anthem, and has contributed essays to volumes such as Essays on Ayn Rand's Anthem and Essays on Ayn Rand's We the Living. His op-eds have appeared in publications such as The San Francisco Chronicle, The Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun, The Atlanta Constitution, The Washington Times, The Los Angeles Daily News and The Houston Chronicle. Bernstein has lectured at Harvard University, Duke University, Yale University, Stanford University, the United States Military Academy, Founders College, the University of Southern California, and elsewhere. He currently teaches at Marist College and at SUNY Purchase where, in 2004, he was voted "Outstanding Faculty Member" by the student body. He is affiliated with the Ayn Rand Institute and the New York Heroes Society, and is known for his public defense of Objectivism and laissez faire capitalism.
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Annie Laurie Gaylor
Annie Laurie Gaylor (born in Tomah, Wisconsin on 2 November 1955) is co-founder of the Freedom From Religion Foundation and, with her husband Dan Barker, is the current co-president. She is also editor of the organization's newspaper, Freethought Today, which is published ten times per year. She is a self-described feminist and liberal. She is the author of several books, including Woe to the Women: The Bible Tells Me So, Betrayal of Trust: Clergy Abuse of Children, and Women Without Superstition: "No Gods — No Masters." She is a 1980 graduate of the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Journalism.
Gaylor and her mother, Anne Nicol Gaylor, and the late John Sontarck, founded the Freedom From Religion Foundation in a meeting around the Gaylors' dining room table in 1978. She met Barker at The Oprah Winfrey Show in 1984. They began dating six months later and married in 1987. They have a daughter, Sabrina Delata.
Gaylor co-hosts a one hour weekly radio show with Barker. Freethought Radio was launched on October 6, 2007, on Air America.
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Anton LaVey
Anton Szandor LaVey (April 11, 1930 – October 29, 1997), born Howard Stanton Levey, was the founder of the Church of Satan as well as a writer, occultist, and musician. He was the author of The Satanic Bible and the founder of LaVeyan Satanism, a synthesized system of his understanding of human nature and the insights of philosophers who advocated materialism and individualism, for which he claimed no supernatural or theistic inspiration.
LaVey was born as Howard Stanton Levey in Chicago, Illinois. His father, Michael Joseph Levey, was a liquor distributor from Omaha, Nebraska. His grandfather, Leon Levy, was born in Paris, France and emigrated to the United States in 1886, settling in Douglas County, Nebraska, where he married Louisville-native Emma Goldsmith, who was of German Jewish ancestry, two years later. Lavey's mother, Gertrude Augusta Coultron, was born to a Russian father and Ukrainian mother who had immigrated to Ohio in 1893; both became naturalized American citizens in 1900. According to his biography, however, his ancestry includes Georgian,French, Russian, Ukrainian,Alsatian, German, and Romanian.
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Aristotle
Aristotle (Ancient Greek: Ἀριστοτέλης, Aristotélēs) (384 BC – 322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology. Together with Plato and Socrates (Plato's teacher), Aristotle is one of the most important founding figures in Western philosophy. Aristotle's writings were the first to create a comprehensive system of Western philosophy, encompassing morality, aesthetics, logic, science, politics, and metaphysics.
Aristotle's views on the physical sciences profoundly shaped medieval scholarship, and their influence extended well into the Renaissance, although they were ultimately replaced by Newtonian physics. In the zoological sciences, some of his observations were confirmed to be accurate only in the 19th century. His works contain the earliest known formal study of logic, which was incorporated in the late 19th century into modern formal logic. In metaphysics, Aristotelianism had a profound influence on philosophical and theological thinking in the Islamic and Jewish traditions in the Middle Ages, and it continues to influence Christian theology, especially the scholastic tradition of the Catholic Church. His ethics, though always influential, gained renewed interest with the modern advent of virtue ethics. All aspects of Aristotle's philosophy continue to be the object of active academic study today. Though Aristotle wrote many elegant treatises and dialogues (Cicero described his literary style as "a river of gold"), it is thought that the majority of his writings are now lost and only about one-third of the original works have survived.
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Auguste Comte
Isidore Auguste Marie François Xavier Comte (19 January 1798 – 5 September 1857), better known as Auguste Comte [oɡyst kɔ̃t], was a French philosopher. He was a founder of the discipline of sociology and of the doctrine of positivism. He may be regarded as the first philosopher of science in the modern sense of the term.
Strongly influenced by the Utopian socialist Henri Saint-Simon, Comte developed the positive philosophy in an attempt to remedy the social malaise of the French revolution, calling for a new social doctrine based on the sciences. Comte was a major influence on 19th century thought, impacting the work of social thinkers such as Karl Marx, John Stuart Mill, and George Eliot. His concept of sociologie and social evolutionism, though now outdated, set the tone for early social theorists and anthropologists such as Harriet Martineau and Herbert Spencer, evolving into Modern academic sociology presented by Émile Durkheim as practical and objective social research.
Comte's social theories culminated in the "religion of humanity", which was influential to the development of religious humanist and Secular Humanist organizations in the 19th century. Comte likewise coined the word "altruism".
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Augustine of Hippo
Augustine of Hippo ( /ɒˈɡʌstɨn/ or /ˈɔːɡəstɪn/;Latin: Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis; November 13, 354 – August 28, 430), also known as Augustine, St. Augustine, St. Austin,St. Augoustinos, Blessed Augustine, or St. Augustine the Blessed, was Bishop of Hippo Regius (present-day Annaba, Algeria). He was a Latin philosopher and theologian from Roman Africa. His writings were very influential in the development of Western Christianity.
According to his contemporary, Jerome, Augustine "established anew the ancient Faith." In his early years he was heavily influenced by Manichaeism and afterward by the Neo-Platonism of Plotinus. After his conversion to Christianity and baptism in AD 387, Augustine developed his own approach to philosophy and theology, accommodating a variety of methods and different perspectives. He believed that the grace of Christ was indispensable to human freedom, and he framed the concepts of original sin and just war.
When the Western Roman Empire was starting to disintegrate, Augustine developed the concept of the Catholic Church as a spiritual City of God (in a book of the same name), distinct from the material Earthly City. His thoughts profoundly influenced the medieval worldview. Augustine's City of God was closely identified with the Church, the community that worshipped God.
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Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand ( /ˈaɪn ˈrænd/; born Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum, February 2 [O.S. January 20] 1905 – March 6, 1982) was a Russian-American novelist, philosopher, playwright, and screenwriter. She is known for her two best-selling novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged and for developing a philosophical system she called Objectivism.
Born and educated in Russia, Rand moved to the United States in 1926. She worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood and had a play produced on Broadway in 1935–1936. After two initially unsuccessful early novels, she achieved fame with her 1943 novel The Fountainhead. In 1957, she published her best-known work, the philosophical novel Atlas Shrugged. Afterward she turned to nonfiction to promote her philosophy, publishing her own magazines and releasing several collections of essays until her death in 1982.
Rand advocated reason as the only means of acquiring knowledge and rejected all forms of faith and religion. She supported rational and ethical egoism, and rejected ethical altruism. In politics, she condemned the initiation of force as immoral and opposed all forms of collectivism and statism, instead supporting laissez-faire capitalism, which she believed was the only social system that protected individual rights. She promoted romantic realism in art. She was sharply critical of the philosophers and philosophical traditions known to her besides Aristotle.
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Barbara Branden
Barbara Branden (born Barbara Weidman, 14 May 1929, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada) is an American writer, editor, and lecturer, known for her relationship and subsequent break with novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand.
Barbara Weidman met Nathaniel Branden because of their mutual interest in Ayn Rand's works. They became personal friends of Rand in 1950, and when they married in 1953, Rand and her husband, Frank O'Connor, served as the matron of honor and best man. Barbara and Nathaniel Branden co-wrote Who Is Ayn Rand? in 1962. Barbara Branden's essay in the book was the first biography of Rand. When it was written, Rand considered Barbara Branden to be one of the most important proponents of Objectivism.
She served as the Executive Director of the Nathaniel Branden Institute, and gave a series of lectures on "Principles of Efficient Thinking."
In 1954, Nathaniel Branden began a romantic affair with Rand, a relationship which continued into the mid-1960s, according to Ms. Branden's later biography of Rand. Despite Barbara Branden's knowledge and nominal acceptance of the affair at the time, she now believes that it contributed to her eventual separation from Nathaniel Branden in 1965, although he had begun an affair with a third woman by that point.
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Baron d'Holbach
Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d'Holbach (8 December 1723 – 21 January 1789) was a French-German author, philosopher, encyclopedist and a prominent figure in the French Enlightenment. He was born Paul Heinrich Dietrich in Edesheim, near Landau in the Rhenish Palatinate, but lived and worked mainly in Paris, where he kept a salon. He is best known for his atheism and for his voluminous writings against religion, the most famous of them being the System of Nature (1770).
D’Holbach's mother Catherine Jacobina née Holbach (1684–1743) was the daughter of Johannes Jacobus Holbach († 1723) the Prince-Bishop's tax collector, or better for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Speyer. His father, Johann Jakob Dietrich, (with other notations: ger.: Johann Jakob Dirre; fr.: Jean Jacques Thiry) (1672–1756) was a wine-grower.
He was raised in Paris by his uncle Franz Adam Holbach, (or Adam François d’Holbach or Messire François-Adam, Baron d’Holbach, Seigneur de Heeze, Leende et autres Lieux) (approx. 1675–1753), who had become a millionaire by speculating on the Paris stock-exchange. With his financial support, d’Holbach attended the University of Leiden from 1744 to 1748 and went on to marry his second cousin, Basile-Geneviève d'Aine (1728–1754), on 11 December 1750. In 1753 both his uncle and his father died, leaving the 30-year-old d'Holbach with an enormous inheritance, such as Heeze Castle, Kasteel Heeze te Heeze.
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Barry Goldwater
Barry Morris Goldwater (January 2, 1909 – May 29, 1998) was a five-term United States Senator from Arizona (1953–1965, 1969–1987) and the Republican Party's nominee for President in the 1964 election. An articulate and charismatic figure during the first half of the 1960s, he was known as "Mr. Conservative".
Goldwater is the politician most often credited for sparking the resurgence of the American conservative political movement in the 1960s. He also had a substantial impact on the libertarian movement.
Goldwater rejected the legacy of the New Deal and fought through the conservative coalition to defeat the New Deal coalition. He mobilized a large conservative constituency to win the hard-fought Republican primaries. Goldwater's right-wing campaign platform ultimately failed to gain the support of the electorate and he lost the 1964 presidential election to incumbent Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson by one of the largest landslides in history, bringing down many Republican candidates as well. The Johnson campaign and other critics painted him as a reactionary, while supporters praised his crusades against the Soviet Union, labor unions, and the welfare state. His defeat allowed Johnson and the Democrats in Congress to pass the Great Society programs, but the defeat of so many older Republicans in 1964 also cleared the way for a younger generation of American conservatives to mobilize. Goldwater was much less active as a national leader of conservatives after 1964; his supporters mostly rallied behind Ronald Reagan, who became governor of California in 1967 and the 40th President of the United States in 1981.
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Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had never been any of these in any profound sense. He was born in Monmouthshire, into one of the most prominent aristocratic families in Britain.
Russell led the British "revolt against idealism" in the early 20th century. He is considered one of the founders of analytic philosophy along with his predecessor Gottlob Frege and his friend Ludwig Wittgenstein, and is widely held to be one of the 20th century's premier logicians. He co-authored, with A. N. Whitehead, Principia Mathematica, an attempt to ground mathematics on logic. His philosophical essay "On Denoting" has been considered a "paradigm of philosophy." His work has had a considerable influence on logic, mathematics, set theory, linguistics, computer science (see type theory and type system), and philosophy, especially philosophy of language, epistemology, and metaphysics.
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Bibek Debroy
Bibek Debroy (born 25 January 1955) is an Indian economist. Since March 2007, he has been professor at Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi.[citation needed] He has also been Visiting Honorary Senior Research Fellow for Institute for South Asian Studies in National University of Singapore from May 2009.[when?][citation needed]
Debroy studied at Ramakrishna Mission Narendrapur, Presidency College of the University of Calcutta, Delhi School of Economics and Trinity College, Cambridge.
His past positions include the Director of the Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies, Consultant to the Department of Economic Affairs of Finance Ministry (Government of India), Secretary General of PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Director of the project LARGE (Legal Adjustments and Reforms for Globalising the Economy), set up by the Finance Ministry and UNDP for examining legal reforms in India. Between December 2006 and July 2007, he was the rapporteur[clarification needed] for implementation in the Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor. Debroy has authored several books, papers and popular articles, has been the Consulting Editor of Indian financial and other newspapers. He has been a member of the National Manufacturing Competitive Council from November 2004.[citation needed]
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Bill Maher
William "Bill" Maher, Jr. ( /ˈmɑːr/; born January 20, 1956) is an American stand-up comedian, television host, political commentator, author, and actor. Before his current role as the host of HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher, Maher hosted a similar late-night talk show called Politically Incorrect originally on Comedy Central and later on ABC.
Maher is known for his political satire and sociopolitical commentary, which targets a wide swath of topics including religion, politics, bureaucracies of many kinds, political correctness, the mass media, greed among people and persons in positions of high political and social power, and the lack of intellectual curiosity in the electorate. He supports the legalization of marijuana and same-sex marriage, and serves on the board of PETA. He is also a critic of religion and is an advisory board member of Project Reason, a foundation to promote scientific knowledge and secular values within society. In 2005, Maher ranked at number 38 on Comedy Central's 100 greatest stand-up comedians of all time. Bill Maher received a Hollywood Walk of Fame star on September 14, 2010.
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Bob Barr
Robert Laurence "Bob" Barr, Jr. (born November 5, 1948) is a former federal prosecutor and a former member of the United States House of Representatives. He represented Georgia's 7th congressional district as a Republican from 1995 to 2003. Barr attained national prominence as one of the leaders of the impeachment of President Bill Clinton. Barr joined the Libertarian Party in 2006, and served on its National Committee. He was the Libertarian Party nominee for President of the United States in the 2008 election. He is noted for his austere demeanour.
Barr was born on November 5, 1948, in Iowa City, Iowa, to Bob and Beatrice Barr. His father, a West Point soldier, moved the family to various locations around the world while pursuing his career in civil engineering. The second of six children, Bob Jr. spent his boyhood in Malaysia, Pakistan, Panama, Peru, Baghdad in Iraq, and finally Tehran, Iran, where he graduated from Community High School in 1966.
Barr returned to the United States, attending the University of Southern California and joining the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity in 1967 (where as of 2011[update] he holds the position of Grand Epiprytanis on the fraternity's Grand Council). Barr also joined the Young Democrats of America and rallied against the Vietnam War. His parents disapproved, and threatened to cut off financial support if he continued his "flaming liberal" activities. During this time, Barr's mother introduced him to the work of Ayn Rand. This fostered a new-found appreciation for conservatism and prompted Barr to join the Young Trojan Republican Club. Barr completed his B.A., cum laude, from University of Southern California in 1970. Barr married his first wife while still in college. They divorced in 1976.
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Carl Sagan
Carl Edward Sagan ( /ˈseɪɡɪn/; November 9, 1934 – December 20, 1996) was an American astronomer, astrophysicist, cosmologist, author, science popularizer, and science communicator in astronomy and natural sciences. He published more than 600 scientific papers and articles and was author, co-author or editor of more than 20 books. He advocated scientifically skeptical inquiry and the scientific method, pioneered exobiology and promoted the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI).
Sagan is known for his popular science books and for the award-winning 1980 television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, which he narrated and co-wrote. The book Cosmos was published to accompany the series. Sagan wrote the novel Contact, the basis for a 1997 film of the same name.
Carl Sagan was born in Brooklyn, New York, to a Ukrainian Jewish family. His father, Sam Sagan, was an immigrant garment worker from Kamenets-Podolsk, Ukraine; his mother, Rachel Molly Gruber, a housewife. Carl was named in honor of Rachel's biological mother, Chaiya Clara, in Sagan's words, "the mother she never knew." Sagan graduated from Rahway High School in Rahway, New Jersey, in 1951.
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Carl Schmitt
Carl Schmitt (July 11, 1888 – April 7, 1985) was a German jurist, philosopher, political theorist, and professor of law.
Schmitt published several essays, influential in the 20th century and beyond, on the mentalities that surround the effective wielding of political power. His ideas have attracted the attention of numerous philosophers and political theorists, including Walter Benjamin, Leo Strauss, Jacques Derrida, Étienne Balibar, Hannah Arendt, Giorgio Agamben, Antonio Negri, Gianfranco Miglio, Paolo Virno, Slavoj Žižek, Alain Badiou, Jacob Taubes, Gillian Rose, Chantal Mouffe, Eric Voegelin, Reinhart Koselleck, Álvaro d'Ors, and Paul Gottfried. Much of his work, especially from the Weimar period, remains both influential and controversial today.
Schmitt, whose father was a minor businessman, was the son of Roman Catholic parents from the German Eifel region who settled in Plettenberg, Westphalia. He studied law in Berlin, Munich and Strasbourg and took his graduation and state exams in the then-German Strasbourg in 1915. He volunteered for the army in 1916. The same year, he earned his habilitation in Strasbourg. He taught at various business schools and universities - in Munich, Greifswald, Bonn, Berlin, and Cologne.
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Cecil B. DeMille
Cecil Blount DeMille (August 12, 1881 – January 21, 1959) was an American film director and Academy Award-winning film producer in both silent and sound films. He was renowned for the flamboyance and showmanship of his movies. Among his best-known films are Cleopatra; Samson and Delilah; The Greatest Show on Earth, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture; and The Ten Commandments, which was his last and most successful film.
DeMille was born in Ashfield, Massachusetts while his parents were vacationing there and grew up in Washington, North Carolina. While he is known as DeMille (his nom d'oeuvre), his family name was Dutch and is usually spelled "de Mil". His father, Henry Churchill DeMille (1853–1893), was a North Carolina-born dramatist and lay reader in the Episcopal Church, who had earlier begun a career as a playwright, writing his first play at age 15. His mother was Beatrice DeMille (née Samuel), whose parents were both of German Jewish heritage. She emigrated from England with her parents in 1871, when she was 18, where they settled in Brooklyn, New York. According to biographer Carol Easton, Beatrice grew up in a middle-class English household.
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Chandran Kukathas
Chandran Kukathas (born 12 September 1957) is a noted Malaysian-born Australian political theorist whose most famous contributions to the discipline have been in the debates concerning multiculturalism and liberalism. Kukathas currently holds a chair in Political Theory in the Department of Government, at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).
Professor Kukathas graduated from Australian National University with a BA and from University of New South Wales with an MA. He then went to University of Oxford to earn a DPhil in Politics.
Kukathas has taught at the Australian Defence Force Academy campus of the University of New South Wales, University of Oxford, and the Australian National University. He was the 1986-87 R.C.Hoiles Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute at George Mason University. He was from 2003-2007 the Neal A. Maxwell Professor of Political Theory, Public Policy and Public Service in the Department of Political Science at the University of Utah. He has held visiting positions at the Social Philosophy and Policy Center, Bowling Green State University (1991) and the Murphy Institute, Tulane University (2003). He is also a visiting professor in the departments of Political Science and Philosophy at the National University of Singapore.
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Charles Taze Russell
Charles Taze Russell (February 16, 1852 – October 31, 1916), or Pastor Russell, was a prominent early 20th century Christian restorationist minister from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, and founder of what is now known as the Bible Student movement, from which Jehovah's Witnesses and numerous independent Bible Student groups emerged after his death.
Beginning in July, 1879 he began publishing a monthly religious journal, Zion's Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence. The journal is now published by Jehovah's Witnesses on a semi-monthly basis under the name, The Watchtower Announcing Jehovah's Kingdom. In 1881 he co-founded Zion's Watch Tower Tract Society and in 1884 the corporation was officially registered, with Russell as president. Russell wrote many articles, books, tracts, pamphlets and sermons, totaling approximately 50,000 printed pages. From 1886 to 1904, he published a six-volume Bible study series originally entitled Millennial Dawn, later renamed Studies in the Scriptures, nearly 20 million copies of which were printed and distributed around the world in several languages during his lifetime. (A seventh volume was commissioned by his successor as society president, Joseph Rutherford, and published in 1917.) The Watch Tower Society officially states that it ceased publication of Russell's writings in 1927, though his books continue to be published by several independent groups.
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Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Eric Hitchens (13 April 1949 – 15 December 2011) was an English American author and journalist whose career spanned more than four decades. Hitchens, often referred to colloquially as "Hitch", was a columnist and literary critic for New Statesman, The Atlantic, The Nation, The Daily Mirror, The Times Literary Supplement and Vanity Fair. He was an author of twelve books and five collections of essays. As a staple of talk shows and lecture circuits, he was a prominent public intellectual, and his confrontational style of debate made him both a lauded and controversial figure.
Hitchens was known for his admiration of George Orwell, Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, as well as for his excoriating critiques of various public figures including Mother Teresa, Bill Clinton, Henry Kissinger and Diana, Princess of Wales. Although he supported the Falklands War, his key split from the established political left began in 1989 after what he called the "tepid reaction" of the Western left to the Rushdie Affair. The September 11 attacks strengthened his internationalist embrace of an interventionist foreign policy, and his vociferous criticism of what he called "fascism with an Islamic face." His numerous editorials in support of the Iraq War caused some to label him a neoconservative, although Hitchens insisted he was not "a conservative of any kind", and his friend Ian McEwan describes him as representing the anti-totalitarian left.
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Confucius
Confucius (551–479 BC) was a Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher of the Spring and Autumn Period of Chinese history.
The philosophy of Confucius emphasized personal and governmental morality, correctness of social relationships, justice, and sincerity. His followers competed successfully with many other schools during the Hundred Schools of Thought era only to be suppressed in favor of the Legalists during the Qin Dynasty. Following the victory of Han over Chu after the collapse of Qin, Confucius's thoughts received official sanction and were further developed into a system known as Confucianism.
Confucius is traditionally credited with having authored or edited many of the Chinese classic texts including all of the Five Classics, but modern scholars are cautious of attributing specific assertions to Confucius himself. Aphorisms concerning his teachings were compiled in the Analects, but only many years after his death.
Confucius's principles had a basis in common Chinese tradition and belief. He championed strong family loyalty, ancestor worship, respect of elders by their children (and in traditional interpretations of husbands by their wives), and family as a basis for ideal government. He espoused the well-known principle "Do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself", an early version of the Golden Rule.
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Dan Barker
Dan Barker (born June 25, 1949) is a prominent American atheist activist who served as a Christian preacher and musician for 19 years but left Christianity in 1984.
Barker received a degree in Religion from Azusa Pacific University and was ordained to the ministry by the Standard Community Church, California, in 1978. He served as associate pastor at a Religious Society of Friends (Quaker) church, an Assembly of God, and an independent Charismatic church. To this day, he receives royalties from his popular children's Christian musicals, "Mary Had a Little Lamb" (1977), and "His Fleece Was White as Snow" (1978), both published by Manna Music and performed in many countries. In 1984 he announced to his friends that he was an atheist.
A successful musician, Barker has composed over 200 songs that have been published or recorded. He is the current co-president with his wife Annie Laurie Gaylor of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, an American Freethought organization that promotes the separation of church and state. Barker is co-host of Freethought Radio, a Madison, Wisconsin based radio program for atheists, agnostics, and other freethinkers that has included interviews with Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Steven Pinker, Julia Sweeney, and Michael Newdow. His foundation published his book Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist, and he has written numerous articles for Freethought Today, an American freethought newspaper.
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Daniel Dennett
Daniel Clement Dennett (born March 28, 1942) is an American philosopher, writer and cognitive scientist whose research centers on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of science and philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relate to evolutionary biology and cognitive science. He is currently the Co-director of the Center for Cognitive Studies, the Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy, and a University Professor at Tufts University. Dennett is a firm atheist and secularist, a member of the Secular Coalition for America advisory board, as well as an outspoken supporter of the Brights movement. Dennett is referred to as one of the "Four Horsemen of New Atheism," along with Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and the late Christopher Hitchens.
Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Dennett spent part of his childhood in Lebanon, where, during World War II, his father was a covert counter-intelligence agent with the Office of Strategic Services posing as a cultural attaché to the American Embassy in Beirut. When he was five, his mother took him back to Massachusetts after his father died in an unexplained plane crash. His sister is the investigative journalist Charlotte Dennett.
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David Hume
David Hume (7 May [O.S. 26 April] 1711 – 25 August 1776) was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist, known especially for his philosophical empiricism and scepticism. He was one of the most important figures in the history of Western philosophy and the Scottish Enlightenment. Hume is often grouped with John Locke, George Berkeley, and a handful of others as a British Empiricist.
Beginning with his A Treatise of Human Nature (1739), Hume strove to create a total naturalistic "science of man" that examined the psychological basis of human nature. In stark opposition to the rationalists who preceded him, most notably Descartes, he concluded that desire rather than reason governed human behaviour, saying: "Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions." A prominent figure in the sceptical philosophical tradition and a strong empiricist, he argued against the existence of innate ideas, concluding instead that humans have knowledge only of things they directly experience. Thus he divides perceptions between strong and lively "impressions" or direct sensations and fainter "ideas", which are copied from impressions. He developed the position that mental behaviour is governed by "custom"; our use of induction, for example, is justified only by our idea of the "constant conjunction" of causes and effects. Without direct impressions of a metaphysical "self", he concluded that humans have no actual conception of the self, only of a bundle of sensations associated with the self.
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David Kelley
David Kelley (born June 23, 1949 in Shaker Heights, Ohio) is an American philosopher, author, and advocate of Objectivism. He is founder and senior fellow of The Atlas Society. He lives in Washington, D.C..
Kelley is trained as a philosopher. He received his BA and MA in philosophy from Brown University, where he studied with the American rationalist, Roderick Chisholm. He received his Ph.D. in 1975 from Princeton University, where his advisor was the American postmodernist Richard Rorty. He was an assistant professor of philosophy and cognitive science for 7 years at Vassar College. He then taught logic for a brief time at Brandeis University, while working as a freelance writer for Barron's Magazine and other publications.
A member of her circle, David Kelley read Ayn Rand's favorite poem, "If—", by Rudyard Kipling, at her funeral in 1982.
Leonard Peikoff's Ayn Rand Institute (ARI) declared Objectivism to be a "closed system" containing only the philosophic principles advocated by Rand herself.
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Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot (October 5, 1713 – July 31, 1784) was a French philosopher, art critic, and writer. He was a prominent person during the Enlightenment and is best known for serving as co-founder and chief editor of and contributor to the Encyclopédie.
Diderot also contributed to literature, notably with Jacques le fataliste et son maître (Jacques the Fatalist and his Master), which emulated Laurence Sterne in challenging conventions regarding novels and their structure and content, while also examining philosophical ideas about free will. Diderot is also known as the author of the dialogue, Le Neveu de Rameau (Rameau's Nephew), upon which many articles and sermons about consumer desire have been based. His articles included many topics of the Enlightenment.
Denis Diderot was born in Langres and began his formal education at the jesuitic Collège Louis-leGrand in Langres. In 1732 he earned a master of arts degree in philosophy. Then he entered at the Collège d’Harcourt in Paris. He abandoned the idea of entering the clergy and decided instead to study law. His study of law was short-lived however and in 1734 Diderot decided to become a writer. Because of his refusal to enter one of the learned professions, he was disowned by his father, and for the next ten years he lived a bohemian existence.
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E.E. Clive
Edward E. Clive (28 August 1879 - 6 June 1940) was a Welsh actor in the early 20th century.
Born in Monmouthshire, Clive studied for a medical career, having four years of medical course at St Bartholomew's Hospital before switching his focus to acting at age 22. Touring the provinces for a decade, Clive became an expert at virtually every sort of regional dialect in the British Isles. He moved to the U.S. in 1912, where after working in the Orpheum vaudeville circuit he set up his own stock company in Boston. By the 1920s, his company was operating in Hollywood; among his repertory players were such up-and-comers as Rosalind Russell.
He made his film debut as a rural police officer in 1933's The Invisible Man, then spent the next seven years showing up in wry bit roles as burgomeisters, butlers, reporters, aristocrats, shopkeepers and cabbies. Though he seldom settled down too long in any one characterization, E. E. Clive was a semi-regular as 'Tenny the Butler' in Paramount Pictures' Bulldog Drummond "B" series starring John Howard and in 1939, he appeared in The Little Princess as Mr. Barrows. He died on June 6, 1940, of a heart ailment, in his Hollywood home.
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Ed Snider
Edward M. Snider (born January 6, 1933, Washington, D.C.) is the chairman of Comcast Spectacor, a Philadelphia-based sports and entertainment company that owns the Philadelphia Flyers of the NHL, the Wells Fargo Center, the regional sports network Comcast SportsNet and Global Spectrum, an international facilities management company. He formerly owned the Philadelphia 76ers of the NBA.
Snider, the son of a successful grocery-store chain owner, attended the University of Maryland and earned his bachelor's degree. He would become a partner in Edge Ltd., a record company. When in financial trouble, Jerry Wolman helped him out.
After selling the company, Snider joined Jerry Wolman (builder) and his brother-in-law Earl Foreman (attorney) to buy the Philadelphia Eagles in 1964. He was given a 7 percent stake in the team, and served as vice president and treasurer.[citation needed]
Upon learning that the NHL was planning to expand, Snider made plans for a new arena—the Spectrum--to house both a hockey team and the 76ers. On February 8, 1966, the NHL awarded Philadelphia a conditional franchise, one which would eventually be named the Philadelphia Flyers and start playing in 1967. Snider assumed control of the Spectrum in 1971 taking over as Chairman of the Board. In 1974 Snider created Spectacor as a holding company for the Flyers and the Spectrum. Flyers became first NHL expansion team to win the Stanley Cup in 1974, and to repeat as champions in 1975.
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Edith Efron
Edith Efron (1922 – April 20, 2001) was American journalist and author.
Graduating from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where she studied under journalist John Chamberlain, her career began as a writer for the New York Times Magazine. In 1947, she married a Haitian businessman, with whom she had a child. After living in Haiti and working as a Central America correspondent for Time and Life magazines, she divorced and returned to New York City where she worked on the staff of television journalist Mike Wallace. After her return to New York, she also became part of Ayn Rand's circle, contributed to Rand's magazine, The Objectivist, and presented a lecture series on non-fiction writing at the Nathaniel Branden Institute in the 1960s, although the two women later parted ways.
She became a writer and, later, a senior editor of the widely circulated TV Guide magazine in the 1960s and 1970s, where she wrote celebrity profiles, political columns and editorials. In the 1970s, she was also ghostwriter for former Secretary of the Treasury William E. Simon's book A Time For Truth. In her editorials for TV Guide, Efron criticized what she saw as liberal bias in the media, and she defended conservative politicians Barry Goldwater, and Ronald Reagan. Efron and other columnists writing in TV Guide like Kevin Phillips and Pat Buchanan advocated the elimination of the Fairness Doctrine by the Federal Communications Commission, in order to permit conservative viewpoints greater access to the airwaves. The FCC would remove the policy in the late 1980s.
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Edmond Rostand
Edmond Eugène Alexis Rostand (1 April 1868 – 2 December 1918) was a French poet and dramatist. He is associated with neo-romanticism, and is best known for his play Cyrano de Bergerac. Rostand's romantic plays provided an alternative to the naturalistic theatre popular during the late nineteenth century. Another of Rostand's works, Les Romanesques, was adapted to the musical comedy, The Fantasticks.
Rostand was born in Marseille, France, into a wealthy and cultured Provençal family. His father was an economist and a poet, a member of the Marseille Academy and the Institut de France. Rostand studied literature, history, and philosophy at the Collège Stanislas in Paris, France.
His first play, a burlesque, Les romanesques was produced on 21 May 1894 at the Théâtre Français; it would be adapted in 1960 by Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt into the long-running American musical The Fantasticks. Another early play, La Princesse Lointaine, was based on the story of the troubadour Rudel and the Lady of Tripoli. This play opened on 5 April 1895 at the Théâtre de la Renaissance. The part of Melissande was created by Sarah Bernhardt, who also was the original Photine of La Samaritaine (Theatre de la Renaissance, 14 April 1897), a Biblical drama in three scenes taken from the gospel story of the woman of Samaria.
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Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke PC (12 January [NS] 1729– 9 July 1797) was an Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist and philosopher who, after moving to England, served for many years in the House of Commons of Great Britain as a member of the Whig party.
He is mainly remembered for his support of the cause of the American Revolutionaries, and for his later opposition to the French Revolution. The latter led to his becoming the leading figure within the conservative faction of the Whig party, which he dubbed the "Old Whigs", in opposition to the pro–French Revolution "New Whigs", led by Charles James Fox.
Burke was praised by both conservatives and liberals in the 19th century.[citation needed] Since the 20th century, he has generally been viewed as the philosophical founder of modern Conservatism, as well as a representative of classical liberalism.
Burke was born in Dublin, Ireland, to a prosperous solicitor father (Richard; d. 1761) of the Church of Ireland. It is unclear if this is the same Richard Burke who converted from Catholicism. His mother Mary (c. 1702–1770), whose maiden name was Nagle, was a Roman Catholic and came from an impoverished but genteel County Cork family. The Burke dynasty descended from an Anglo-Norman surnamed de Burgh (Latinised as de Burgo) who arrived in Ireland in 1185 following the Norman invasion of Ireland by Henry II of England in 1171.)
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Edward N. Zalta
Edward N. Zalta (born in 1952) is a Senior research scholar at the Center for the Study of Language and Information. He received his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Massachusetts - Amherst in 1980. Zalta has taught courses at Stanford University, Rice University, the University of Salzburg, and the University of Auckland. Zalta is also the Principal Editor of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Zalta's most notable philosophical position is descended from the position of Alexius Meinong and Ernst Mally, who suggested that there are many non-existent objects. On Zalta's account, some objects (the ordinary concrete ones around us, like tables and chairs) "exemplify" properties, while others (abstract objects like numbers, and what others would call "non-existent objects", like the round square, and the mountain made entirely of gold) merely "encode" them. While the objects that exemplify properties are discovered through traditional empirical means, a simple set of axioms allows us to know about objects that encode properties. For every set of properties, there is exactly one object that encodes exactly that set of properties and no others. This allows for a formalized ontology.
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Edwin A. Locke
Professor Edwin A Locke (born January 5, 1938) is an American psychologist and a pioneer in goal-setting theory. He is a retired Dean’s Professor of Motivation and Leadership at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, College Park. He was also affiliated with the Department of Psychology. The Association for Psychological Science has praised him, saying, "Locke is the most published organizational psychologist in the history of the field. His pioneering research has advanced and enriched our understanding of work motivation and job satisfaction. The theory that is synonymous with his name — goal-setting theory — is perhaps the most widely-respected theory in industrial-organizational psychology. His 1976 chapter on job satisfaction continues to be one of the most highly-cited pieces of work in the field."
Locke is a proponent of global capitalism, was personally acquainted with the philosopher Ayn Rand and is affiliated with the Ayn Rand Institute. In recent years, he has become an outspoken opponent of the animal rights movement, especially the organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. In a winter 2010 interview with Imagineer Magazine, he stated: "I don’t think PETA want all beings equal at all; I think they want man to suffer and die."
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Epicurus
Epicurus (Ancient Greek: Ἐπίκουρος, Epikouros, "ally, comrade"; 341 BCE – 270 BCE) was an ancient Greek philosopher as well as the founder of the school of philosophy called Epicureanism. Only a few fragments and letters remain of Epicurus's 300 written works. Much of what is known about Epicurean philosophy derives from later followers and commentators.
For Epicurus, the purpose of philosophy was to attain the happy, tranquil life, characterized by ataraxia—peace and freedom from fear—and aponia—the absence of pain—and by living a self-sufficient life surrounded by friends. He taught that pleasure and pain are the measures of what is good and evil, that death is the end of the body and the soul and should therefore not be feared, that the gods do not reward or punish humans, that the universe is infinite and eternal, and that events in the world are ultimately based on the motions and interactions of atoms moving in empty space.
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Erika Holzer
Erika Holzer is an American novelist and essayist who was a member of Ayn Rand's inner circle. Her novel Eye for an Eye was the basis for a major motion picture of the same name. She has also co-authored two nonfiction books with her husband, professor of law Henry Mark Holzer.
Erika and her husband "Hank," both lawyers, were students of Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism in New York City during the 1960s. In 1966 Erika and Rand, who was a best-selling novelist, began what would become a series of discussions about the art of writing. Henry Mark Holzer became Rand's personal attorney.
In the late 1960s, the Holzers managed to track down an original negative, thought to have been destroyed, of a 1942 Italian two-part film which had been adapted from Ayn Rand's first novel We the Living. Erika helped Duncan Scott restore the film, edit it under Rand's guidance, and write English subtitles for the 1986 re-release of the film.
Encouraged by Rand, Erika embarked upon a new career as a writer; her first novel, Double Crossing, received critical acclaim and was a finalist for the 1984 Prometheus Award for Best Novel. The plot revolves around the conflict between two brothers born in the Soviet Union, one becoming a powerful official in the Soviet police and the other secretly planning his escape from the Communist regime.
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Flannery O'Connor
Mary Flannery O'Connor (March 25, 1925 – August 3, 1964) was an American novelist, short-story writer and essayist. An important voice in American literature, O'Connor wrote two novels and 32 short stories, as well as a number of reviews and commentaries. She was a Southern writer who often wrote in a Southern Gothic style and relied heavily on regional settings and grotesque characters. O'Connor's writing also reflected her own Roman Catholic faith, and frequently examined questions of morality and ethics.
Her Complete Stories won the 1972 U.S. National Book Award for Fiction and was named the "Best of the National Book Awards" by internet visitors in 2009.
Flannery O'Connor was born on March 25, 1925, in Savannah, Georgia, the only child of Edward F. O'Connor and Regina Cline. O'Connor described herself as a "pigeon-toed child with a receding chin and a you-leave-me-alone-or-I'll-bite-you complex." When O'Connor was six, she experienced her first brush with celebrity status. The Pathé News people filmed "Little Mary O'Connor" with her trained chicken, and showed the film around the country. She said, "When I was six I had a chicken that walked backward and was in the Pathé News. I was in it too with the chicken. I was just there to assist the chicken but it was the high point in my life. Everything since has been anticlimax.” In 1937 O'Connor's father was diagnosed with the disease systemic lupus erythematosus. The disease led to his eventual death on February 1, 1941, and the 15-year-old Flannery was left devastated.
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Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche ( /ˈniːtʃə/;German pronunciation: [ˈfʁiːdʁɪç ˈvɪlhɛlm ˈniːtsʃə]; October 15, 1844 – August 25, 1900) was a German philosopher, poet, cultural critic and classical philologist. He wrote critical texts on religion, morality, contemporary culture, philosophy and science, displaying a fondness for metaphor, irony and aphorism.
Nietzsche's influence remains substantial within and beyond philosophy, notably in existentialism, nihilism and postmodernism. His style and radical questioning of the value and objectivity of truth have resulted in much commentary and interpretation, mostly in the continental tradition. His key ideas include the death of God, the Übermensch, the eternal recurrence, the Apollonian and Dionysian dichotomy, perspectivism and the will to power. Central to his philosophy is the idea of "life-affirmation", which involves an honest questioning of all doctrines that drain life's expansive energies, however socially prevalent and radical those views might be.
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Friedrich Schiller
Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller [ˈjoːhan ˈkʁɪstɔf ˈfʁiːdʁɪç fɔn ˈʃɪlɐ] (10 November 1759 – 9 May 1805) was a German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright. During the last seventeen years of his life (1788–1805), Schiller struck up a productive, if complicated, friendship with already famous and influential Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. They frequently discussed issues concerning aesthetics, and Schiller encouraged Goethe to finish works he left as sketches. This relationship and these discussions led to a period now referred to as Weimar Classicism. They also worked together on Xenien, a collection of short satirical poems in which both Schiller and Goethe challenge opponents to their philosophical vision.
Friedrich Schiller was born on 10 November 1759, in Marbach, Württemberg as the only son of military doctor Johann Kaspar Schiller (1733–96), and Elisabeth Dorothea Kodweiß (1732–1802). They also had five daughters. His father was away in the Seven Years' War when Friedrich was born. He was named after king Frederick the Great, but he was called Fritz by nearly everyone. Kaspar Schiller was rarely home during the war, but he did manage to visit the family once in a while. His wife and children also visited him occasionally wherever he happened to be stationed. When the war ended in 1763, Schiller's father became a recruiting officer and was stationed in Schwäbisch Gmünd. The family moved with him. Due to the high cost of living—especially the rent—the family moved to nearby Lorch.
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Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky (Russian: Фёдор Миха́йлович Достое́вский; IPA: [ˈfʲodər mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪtɕ dəstɐˈjefskʲɪj] ( listen); 11 November 1821 – 9 February 1881) sometimes translated as Dostoevsky, was a Russian writer of novels, short stories and essays. Dostoyevsky's literary works explore human psychology in the troubled political, social and spiritual context of 19th-century Russian society. A Slavophile, nationalist and monarchist, he criticised the bourgeois, pre-materialist West and nihilism in many of his works. Although Dostoyevsky wrote books in the mid-1850s which were influenced by realist and romanticist writers, most notably by Dickens, Gogol and Balzac, his best remembered work was done in his last years, including such masterpieces as Crime and Punishment, The Idiot and The Brothers Karamazov. Dostoyevsky overall wrote 11 complete novels, 3 novellas, 17 short novels and 3 essays. He is often acknowledged by critics as one of the greatest and most prominent psychologists in world literature.
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George Reisman
George Gerald Reisman (born January 13, 1937) is an American economist and Professor Emeritus of Economics at Pepperdine University. He is the author of The Government Against the Economy (1979), which was praised by both F. A. Hayek and Henry Hazlitt, and Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics (1996). He is known as an advocate of free market or laissez-faire capitalism.
Reisman was born in New York City and earned his Ph.D. from New York University under the direction of Ludwig von Mises, whose methodological work The Epistemological Problems of Economics Reisman translated from the German original into English. In the 1980s, with his wife, psychologist Edith Packer, J.D., Ph.D., he organized The Thomas Jefferson School of Philosophy, Economics, and Psychology, which held several conferences and seminars. Its lecturers included Leonard Peikoff, Edward Teller, Petr Beckmann, Hans Sennholz, Bernard Siegan, Anne Wortham, Robert Hessen, Allan Gotthelf, David Kelley, John Ridpath, Harry Binswanger, Edwin A. Locke, Walter E. Williams, Mary Ann Sures, Andrew Bernstein and Peter Schwartz. Attendees of these conferences include later Objectivist writers Tara Smith and Lindsay Perigo.
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Giovanni Gentile
Giovanni Gentile (Italian pronunciation: [dʒoˈvanni dʒenˈtiːle]; May 30, 1875 – April 15, 1944) was an Italian neo-Hegelian Idealist philosopher, a peer of Benedetto Croce. He described himself as 'the philosopher of Fascism', and ghostwrote A Doctrine of Fascism (1932) for Benito Mussolini. He also devised his own system of philosophy, Actual Idealism.
Giovanni Gentile was born in Castelvetrano, Sicily. He was inspired by Italian intellectuals such as Mazzini, Rosmini, Gioberti, and Spaventa from whom he borrowed the idea of autoctisi, “self-construction”, but also was strongly influenced by the German idealist and materialist schools of thought — namely Karl Marx, Hegel, and Fichte with whom he shared the ideal of creating a Wissenschaftslehre, theory for a structure of knowledge that makes no assumptions. Friedrich Nietzsche, too, influenced him, as seen in an analogy between Nietzsche's Übermensch and Gentile's Uomo Fascista.
He won the fierce competition and became one of the four exceptional students of the mythic Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, where he enrolled at the Faculty of Humanities.
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Gore Vidal
Gore Vidal ( /ˌɡɔr vɨˈdɑːl/; born October 3, 1925) is an American author, playwright, essayist, screenwriter, and political activist. His third novel, The City and the Pillar (1948), outraged mainstream critics as one of the first major American novels to feature unambiguous homosexuality. He also ran for political office twice and has been a longtime political critic.
Vidal was born Eugene Luther Gore Vidal in West Point, New York, the only child of 1st Lieutenant Eugene Luther Vidal (1895–1969) and Nina Gore (1903–1978). He was born in the Cadet Hospital of the United States Military Academy, where his father was the first aeronautics instructor, and was christened by the headmaster of St. Albans preparatory school, his future alma mater. According to "West Point and the Third Loyalty", an article Vidal wrote for The New York Review of Books (October 18, 1973), he later decided to be called Gore in honor of his maternal grandfather, Thomas Gore, Democratic senator from Oklahoma.
Vidal's father, a West Point football quarterback and captain, and an all-American basketball player, was director of the Commerce Department's Bureau of Air Commerce (1933–1937) in the Roosevelt administration, was one of the first Army Air Corps pilots and, according to biographer Susan Butler, was the great love of Amelia Earhart's life. In the 1920s and 1930s, he was a co-founder of three American airlines: the Ludington Line, which merged with others and became Eastern Airlines, Transcontinental Air Transport (TAT, which became TWA), and Northeast Airlines, which he founded with Earhart, as well as the Boston and Maine Railroad. The elder Vidal was also an athlete in the 1920 and 1924 Summer Olympics (seventh in the decathlon; U.S. pentathlon team coach).
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Guy Debord
Guy Ernest Debord (December 28, 1931 – November 30, 1994) was a French Marxist theorist, writer, filmmaker, member of the Letterist International, founder of a Letterist faction, and founding member of the Situationist International (SI). He was also briefly a member of Socialisme ou Barbarie.
Guy Debord was born in Paris in 1931. Guy's father, Martial, was a pharmacist who died due to illness when Guy was young. Guy's mother, Paulette Rossi, sent Guy to live with his grandmother in her family villa in Italy. During World War II, the Rossis left the villa and began to travel from town to town. As a result, Guy attended high school in Cannes, where he began his interest in film and vandalism. As a young man, Debord actively opposed the French war in Algeria and joined in demonstrations in Paris against it.
Debord joined the Letterist International when he was 19. The Letterists were led dictatorially by Isidore Isou until a widely agreed upon schism ended Isou's authority. This schism birthed several factions of Letterists, one of which was decidedly led by Debord upon Gil Wolman's unequivocal recommendation. In the 1960s, Debord led the Situationist International group, which influenced the Paris Uprising of 1968. Some consider his book The Society of the Spectacle (1967) to be a catalyst for the uprising.
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Hal Wallis
Hal B. Wallis (born Harold Brent Wallis; September 14, 1898 – October 5, 1986) was an American film producer. He is known for producing Casablanca, and other important films featuring actors such as Bette Davis, Errol Flynn, Katharine Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart, Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Elvis Presley, John Wayne, and many others.
Wallis was born in Chicago in 1898, the son of Eva (née Blum) and Jacob Walinsky, Eastern European Jews. His family moved in 1922 to Los Angeles, California, where he found work as part of the publicity department at Warner Bros. in 1923.
Within a few years, Wallis became involved in the production end of the business and would eventually become head of production at Warners. In a career that spanned more than fifty years, he was involved with the production of more than 400 feature-length movies.
Among the many significant movies he produced was Casablanca, one of the most honored movies in Hollywood history. Others include: Dark Victory, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Now, Voyager, The Maltese Falcon and Sergeant York. Wallis left Warner Bros. in 1944, after a clash with Jack Warner over Warner's acceptance of the Best Picture Oscar to Casablanca, to work as an independent producer, enjoying considerable success both commercially and critically. The first screenwriters he hired for his new enterprise were Ayn Rand and Lillian Hellman. Among his financial hits were the Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis comedies, and several of Elvis Presley's movies. He produced True Grit, for which John Wayne won the Academy Award for Best Actor of 1969, and its sequel. He also produced Mary, Queen of Scots, starring Vanessa Redgrave and Glenda Jackson, and Anne of the Thousand Days, starring Richard Burton and Genevieve Bujold.
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Harry Binswanger
Harry Binswanger (born 1944) is an American philosopher and writer. He is an Objectivist and was a long-time associate of Ayn Rand, working with her on The Ayn Rand Lexicon. His doctoral dissertation, in the philosophy of biology, presented a new theory of the goal-directedness of living action, in opposition to the views of one of his dissertation advisers, Ernest Nagel. The dissertation was later published as The Biological Basis of Teleological Concepts. He taught philosophy at CUNY's Hunter College from 1972 to 1979 and at other New York City schools as well as at the University of Texas, Austin for a semester in 2002. Since 1997, he has operated a fee-based email discussion group on Objectivism. Binswanger has spoken on Objectivist philosophy at over 30 universities, across the U.S., Canada, and abroad. His television appearances have included the Glenn Beck show, Geraldo at Large, C-SPAN panels, and CNBC's On the Money. He also appears in Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life, the Academy Award nominated documentary by Michael Paxton.
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Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817 – May 6, 1862) was an American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, and leading transcendentalist. He is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay Civil Disobedience, an argument for individual resistance to civil government in moral opposition to an unjust state.
Thoreau's books, articles, essays, journals, and poetry total over 20 volumes. Among his lasting contributions were his writings on natural history and philosophy, where he anticipated the methods and findings of ecology and environmental history, two sources of modern day environmentalism. His literary style interweaves close natural observation, personal experience, pointed rhetoric, symbolic meanings, and historical lore, while displaying a poetic sensibility, philosophical austerity, and "Yankee" love of practical detail. He was also deeply interested in the idea of survival in the face of hostile elements, historical change, and natural decay; at the same time he advocated abandoning waste and illusion in order to discover life's true essential needs.
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Henry Hazlitt
Henry Stuart Hazlitt (November 28, 1894 – July 9, 1993) was an American economist, philosopher, literary critic and journalist for such publications as The Wall Street Journal, The Nation, The American Mercury, Newsweek, and The New York Times, and he has been recognized as a leading interpreter of economic issues from the perspective of American conservatism and libertarianism.
A great-great-great nephew of British essayist William Hazlitt, Henry Hazlitt was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and raised in Brooklyn, New York. He grew up in relative poverty, his father having died when Hazlitt was an infant. His early heroes were Herbert Spencer and William James, and his first ambition was for an academic career in psychology and philosophy. He attended New York's tuition-free City College, but left after only a short time in order to support his twice-widowed mother.
Hazlitt started his career at The Wall Street Journal as secretary to the managing editor when he was still a teenager, and his interest in the field of economics began while working there. His studies led him to The Common Sense of Political Economy by Philip Wicksteed which, he later said, was his first "tremendous influence" in the subject. Hazlitt published his first book, Thinking as a Science, at the age of 21. During World War I, he served in the Army Air Service in Texas, after which he returned to New York, residing at Washington Square Park for many years.
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Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer (27 April 1820 – 8 December 1903) was an English philosopher, biologist, sociologist, and prominent classical liberal political theorist of the Victorian era.
Spencer developed an all-embracing conception of evolution as the progressive development of the physical world, biological organisms, the human mind, and human culture and societies. He was "an enthusiastic exponent of evolution" and even "wrote about evolution before Darwin did." As a polymath, he contributed to a wide range of subjects, including ethics, religion, anthropology, economics, political theory, philosophy, biology, sociology, and psychology. During his lifetime he achieved tremendous authority, mainly in English-speaking academia. "The only other English philosopher to have achieved anything like such widespread popularity was Bertrand Russell, and that was in the 20th century." Spencer was "the single most famous European intellectual in the closing decades of the nineteenth century" but his influence declined sharply after 1900; "Who now reads Spencer?" asked Talcott Parsons in 1937.
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Hugo Grotius
Hugo Grotius (10 April 1583 – 28 August 1645), also known as Huig de Groot, Hugo Grocio or Hugo de Groot, was a jurist in the Dutch Republic. With Francisco de Vitoria and Alberico Gentili he laid the foundations for international law, based on natural law. He was also a philosopher, theologian, Christian apologist, playwright, and poet.
Grotius's influence on international law is paramount, and is acknowledged by, for instance, the American Society of International Law, which since 1999 holds an annual series of Grotius Lectures. Additionally, his contributions to Arminian theology provided the seeds for later Arminian-based movements, such as Methodism and Pentecostalism and he is acknowledged as a significant figure in the Arminianism-Calvinism debate.
Born in Delft during the Dutch Revolt, Hugo was the first child of Jan de Groot and Alida van Overschie. His father was a man of learning, once having studied with the eminent Justus Lipsius at Leiden, as well as of political distinction, and he groomed his son from an early age in a traditional humanist and Aristotelian education. A prodigious learner, Hugo entered the University of Leiden when he was just eleven years old. There he studied with some of the most acclaimed intellectuals in northern Europe, including Franciscus Junius, Joseph Justus Scaliger, and Rudolph Snellius. At age sixteen he published his first book: a scholarly edition of the late antique author Martianus Capella's work on the seven liberal arts, Martiani Minei Felicis Capellæ Carthaginiensis viri proconsularis Satyricon, in quo De nuptiis Philologiæ & Mercurij libri duo, & De septem artibus liberalibus libri singulares. Omnes, & emendati, & Notis, siue Februis Hug. Grotii illustrati.
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Ibn Warraq
Ibn Warraq is the pen name of an author most famous for his criticism of Islam. He is the founder of the Institute for the Secularisation of Islamic Society (ISIS) and a senior research fellow at the Center for Inquiry, focusing on Quranic criticism. Warraq's commentary on Islam is considered by some to be overly polemical and revisionist, while others praise it as well-researched.
Warraq gathered world notice through his historiographies of the early centuries of the Islamic timeline and has published works which question mainstream conceptions of the period. The pen name "Ibn Warraq" (Arabic: ابن وراق, most literally "son of a papermaker") is used due to his concerns for his personal safety; Warraq stated, "I had fear to become the second Salman Rushdie." It is a name that has been adopted by dissident authors throughout the history of Islam. The name refers to 9th century skeptical scholar Muhammad al Warraq. Warraq adopted the pseudonym in 1995 when he completed his first book, entitled "Why I Am Not a Muslim".
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Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant (German pronunciation: [ɪˈmaːnu̯eːl ˈkant]; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher from Königsberg (today Kaliningrad of Russia), who researched, lectured, and wrote on philosophy and anthropology during the Enlightenment at the end of the 18th century. At the time, there were major successes and advances in the sciences (for example, Isaac Newton, Carl Friedrich Gauss, and Robert Boyle) applying reason and logic.
Kant’s major work, the Critique of Pure Reason (Kritik der reinen Vernunft, 1781), aimed to unite reason with experience to move beyond what he took to be failures of traditional philosophy and metaphysics. He hoped to end an age of speculation where objects outside experience were used to support what he saw as futile theories, while opposing the skepticism of thinkers such as Descartes, Berkeley and Hume.
He stated:
Kant proposed a ‘Copernican Revolution’ in reverse, saying that:
Kant published other important works on ethics, religion, law, aesthetics, astronomy, and history. These included the Critique of Practical Reason (Kritik der praktischen Vernunft, 1788) and the Metaphysics of Morals (Die Metaphysik der Sitten, 1797), which dealt with ethics. And the Critique of Judgment (Kritik der Urteilskraft, 1790), which looks at aesthetics and teleology. He aimed to resolve disputes between empirical and rationalist approaches. The former asserted that all knowledge comes through experience; the latter maintained that reason and innate ideas were prior. Kant argued that experience is purely subjective without first being processed by pure reason. He also said that using reason without applying it to experience only leads to theoretical illusions. The free and proper exercise of reason by the individual was both a theme of the Enlightenment, and of Kant's approaches to the various problems of philosophy.
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Ira Levin
Ira Levin (August 27, 1929 – November 12, 2007) was an American author, dramatist and songwriter.
Levin attended Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. In addition to attending Drake, Levin also attended the Horace Mann School, from which he graduated, and New York University, where he majored in philosophy and English.
After college, Levin wrote training films and scripts for radio and television. The first of these was "Leda’s Portrait", for Lights Out in 1951.
Levin's first produced play was No Time for Sergeants (adapted from the Mac Hyman novel), a comedy about a hillbilly drafted into the United States Air Force that launched the career of Andy Griffith. The play was turned into a movie in 1958, and co-starred Nick Adams., later developed into a 1964 television comedy series starring Sammy Jackson. No Time for Sergeants is generally considered the precursor to Gomer Pyle, USMC.
Levin's first novel, A Kiss Before Dying, was well received, earning him the 1954 Edgar Award for Best First Novel. A Kiss Before Dying was turned into a movie twice, first in 1956 and again in 1991.
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Isabel Paterson
Isabel Paterson (January 22, 1886, – January 10, 1961) was a Canadian-American journalist, novelist, political philosopher, and a leading literary critic of her day. Along with Rose Wilder Lane and Ayn Rand, who both acknowledged an intellectual debt to Paterson, she is one of the three founding mothers of American libertarianism. Paterson's best-known work, her 1943 book The God of the Machine, a treatise on political philosophy, economics, and history, reached conclusions and espoused beliefs that many libertarians credit as a foundation of their philosophy. Her biographer Stephen D. Cox (2004) believes Paterson is the "earliest progenitor of libertarianism as we know it today." Ayn Rand wrote in a letter in the 1940s that The God of the Machine "does for capitalism what Das Kapital does for the Reds and what the Bible did for Christianity."
Born Isabel Mary Bowler in rural Manitoulin Island, Ontario, she moved with her family to the west when she was very young. She grew up on a cattle ranch in Alberta. Paterson's family was quite poor and she had eight siblings. A voracious reader who was largely self-educated, she had brief and informal public schooling during these years: about three years in a country school, from the ages of 11 to 14. In her late teen years, Bowler left the ranch for the city of Calgary, where she took a clerical job with the Canadian Pacific Railway. As a teenager, she worked as a waitress, stenographer, and bookkeeper, working at one point as an assistant to future Canadian Prime Minister R. B. Bennett.
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Isaiah Berlin
Sir Isaiah Berlin OM, FBA (6 June 1909 – 5 November 1997) was a British social and political theorist, philosopher and historian of ideas of Russian-Jewish origin, thought by many to be the dominant scholar of his generation. He excelled as an essayist, conversationalist and raconteur; and as a brilliant lecturer who improvised, rapidly and spontaneously, richly allusive and coherently structured material. He translated works by Ivan Turgenev from Russian into English and, during the war, worked for the British Diplomatic Service. In its obituary of the scholar, The Independent stated that "Isaiah Berlin was often described, especially in his old age, by means of superlatives: the world's greatest talker, the century's most inspired reader, one of the finest minds of our time ... there is no doubt that he showed in more than one direction the unexpectedly large possibilities open to us at the top end of the range of human potential".
In 1932, at the age of 23, he was elected to a prize fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford. From 1957 to 1967, he was Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory at the University of Oxford. He was president of the Aristotelian Society from 1963 to 1964. In 1966, he played a crucial role in founding Wolfson College, Oxford, and became its first President. He was knighted in 1957, and was awarded the Order of Merit in 1971. He was President of the British Academy from 1974 to 1978. He also received the 1979 Jerusalem Prize for his writings on individual freedom. The annual Isaiah Berlin Lectures are held at the Hampstead Synagogue and both Wolfson College and the British Academy each summer. Berlin's work on liberal theory and on value pluralism has had a lasting influence.
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James Randi
James Randi (born Randall James Hamilton Zwinge; August 7, 1928) is a Canadian-American stage magician and scientific skeptic best known as a challenger of paranormal claims and pseudoscience. Randi is the founder of the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF). Randi began his career as a magician named The Amazing Randi, but after retiring at age 60, he began investigating paranormal, occult, and supernatural claims, which he collectively calls "woo-woo".
Although often referred to as a "debunker", Randi rejects that title owing to its perceived bias, instead describing himself as an "investigator". He has written about the paranormal, skepticism, and the history of magic. He was a frequent guest on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and was occasionally featured on the television program Penn & Teller: Bullshit!. The JREF sponsors The One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge offering a prize of US$1,000,000 to eligible applicants who can demonstrate evidence of any paranormal, supernatural or occult power or event under test conditions agreed to by both parties.
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Jean Baudrillard
Jean Baudrillard (27 July 1929 – 6 March 2007) (French pronunciation: [ʒɑ̃ bodʁijaʁ]) was a French sociologist, philosopher, cultural theorist, political commentator, and photographer. His work is frequently associated with postmodernism and specifically post-structuralism.
Baudrillard was born in Reims, northeastern France, on July 27, 1929. He told interviewers that his grandparents were peasants and his parents were civil servants. During his high school studies at the Reims Lycée, he came into contact with pataphysics (via the philosophy professor Emmanuel Peillet), which is said to be crucial for understanding Baudrillard's later thought. He became the first of his family to attend university when he moved to Paris to attend Sorbonne University. There he studied German language and literature, which led to him to begin teaching the subject at several different lycées, both Parisian and provincial, from 1960 until 1966. While teaching, Baudrillard began to publish reviews of literature and translated the works of such authors as Peter Weiss, Bertolt Brecht, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Wilhelm Emil Mühlmann.
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Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (/ˈsɑːtrə/; French pronunciation: [saʁtʁ]; 21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism, and one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy and Marxism. His work, in addition to being influential to existentialism and Marxism, has also influenced sociology, critical theory, and literary studies, and continues to influence these disciplines. Sartre has also been noted for his relationship with the prominent feminist theorist Simone de Beauvoir.
He was awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature but refused it, saying that he always declined official honours and that, "a writer should not allow himself to be turned into an institution."
Jean-Paul Sartre was born in Paris as the only child of Jean-Baptiste Sartre, an officer of the French Navy, and Anne-Marie Schweitzer. His mother was of Alsatian origin and the first cousin of Nobel Prize laureate Albert Schweitzer. (Her father, Charles Schweitzer, was the older brother of Albert Schweitzer's father, Louis Théophile.) When Sartre was only a year old, his father died of a fever. Anne-Marie moved back to her parents' house in Meudon, where she raised Sartre with help from her father, a professor of German, who taught Sartre mathematics and introduced him to classical literature at a very early age. When he was twelve, Satre's mother remarried, and the family moved to La Rochelle, where he was frequently bullied.
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Jeff Britting
Jeff Britting (born 1957) is an American composer, playwright, author, and producer.
His credits include associate-producing the 1997 Academy Award Nominee for Best Documentary Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life with director Michael Paxton, for which he also wrote the musical score. He is presently archivist at the Ayn Rand Institute. In 2004, he published an illustrated biography of Ayn Rand's life titled Ayn Rand.
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Jeff Riggenbach
Jeff Riggenbach (born January 12, 1947) is an American libertarian journalist, author, editor, broadcaster, and educator.
Riggenbach's first book, In Praise of Decadence (1998), argued that the baby boomers turned out to be far more libertarian in their personal philosophy than had been expected.
His second book, Why American History Is Not What They Say: An Introduction to Revisionism (2009), argued that political events and trends in late 20th Century America had led to a rebirth of popular interest in revisionist accounts of American history. In this study of American revisionists, Riggenbach identifies three distinct phases within American revisionism.
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Jeff Sharlet
Jeff Sharlet (born 1972) is an American journalist, bestselling author, and academic best known for writing about religious subcultures in the United States. He is a contributing editor for Harper's and Rolling Stone. His work has also appeared in Lapham's Quarterly, Oxford American, The Washington Post, Mother Jones, New York, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Columbia Journalism Review, New Statesman, The Nation, The New Republic Forward, Nerve, and The Baffler. He has taught at New York University and is presently Mellon Assistant Professor of English at Dartmouth College. He is the recipient of the Molly National Journalism Prize, the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission's Outspoken Award, The Military Religious Freedom Foundation's Thomas Jefferson Award, and the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association Award for Excellence in Feature Writing.
Sharlet is the co-creator of two online journals, Killing the Buddha, a literary magazine about religion now edited by Nathan Schneider, and The Revealer, a review of religion and media published by the New York University Center for Religion and Media, now edited by Ann Neumann, and the former editor-in-chief of Pakn Treger, a Jewish literary journal published by the National Yiddish Book Center. Sharlet's father is Jewish and his mother was Christian. His uncle, a prominent Vietnam war peace activist, was also named Jeff Sharlet.
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Jeremy Bentham
Jeremy Bentham ( /ˈbɛnθəm/; 15 February 1748 – 6 June 1832) was an English author, jurist, philosopher, and legal and social reformer. He became a leading theorist in Anglo-American philosophy of law, and a political radical whose ideas influenced the development of welfarism. He is best known for his advocacy of utilitarianism and animal rights, and the idea of the panopticon.
His position included arguments in favour of individual and economic freedom, usury, the separation of church and state, freedom of expression, equal rights for women, the right to divorce, and the decriminalising of homosexual acts. He argued for the abolition of slavery and the death penalty and for the abolition of physical punishment, including that of children. Although strongly in favour of the extension of individual legal rights, he opposed the idea of natural law and natural rights, calling them "nonsense upon stilts."
He has come to be considered the founding figure of modern utilitarianism, through his own work and that of his students. These included his secretary and collaborator on the utilitarian school of philosophy, James Mill; James Mill's son John Stuart Mill; John Austin, legal philosopher; and several political leaders, including Robert Owen, a founder of modern socialism. He has been described as the "spiritual founder" of University College London (UCL), though he played little direct part in its foundation.
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Jews
The Jews (Hebrew: יְהוּדִים ISO 259-3 Yhudim Israeli pronunciation [jehuˈdim]), also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and an ethnoreligious group, originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation.Converts to Judaism, whose status as Jews within the Jewish ethnos is equal to those born into it, have been absorbed into the Jewish people throughout the millennia.
In Jewish tradition, Jewish ancestry is traced to the Biblical patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the second millennium BCE. The modern State of Israel defines itself as a Jewish state in its Basic Laws, and Israel's Law of Return states: "Every Jew has the right to come to this country as an oleh." Israel is the only country where Jews are a majority of the population. Jews achieved political autonomy twice before in ancient history. The first of these periods lasted from 1350 to 586 BCE, and encompassed the periods of the Judges, the United Monarchy, and the Divided Monarchy of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah, ending with the destruction of the First Temple. The second was the period of the Hasmonean Kingdom spanning from 140 to 37 BCE. Since the destruction of the First Temple, most Jews have lived in diaspora. A minority in every country in which they live (except Israel), they have frequently experienced persecution throughout history, resulting in a population that has fluctuated both in numbers and distribution over the centuries.
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Jimmy Wales
Jimmy Donal "Jimbo" Wales ( /ˈdoʊnəl ˈweɪlz/; born August 7, 1966) is an American Internet entrepreneur best known as a co-founder and promoter of the online non-profit encyclopedia Wikipedia and the Wikia company. Wales was born in Huntsville, Alabama, United States, where he attended Randolph School, a university-preparatory school, then earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in finance. While in graduate school, he taught at two universities, but left before completing a PhD in order to take a job in finance and later worked as the research director of a Chicago futures and options firm. In 1996, he and two partners founded Bomis, a male-oriented web portal featuring entertainment and adult content. The company would provide the initial funding for the peer-reviewed free encyclopedia Nupedia (2000–2003) and its successor, Wikipedia.
On January 15, 2001, with Larry Sanger and others, Wales launched Wikipedia, a free, open content encyclopedia that enjoyed rapid growth and popularity, and as Wikipedia’s public profile grew, he became the project’s promoter and spokesman. He is historically cited as a co-founder of Wikipedia, though he has disputed the "co-" designation, declaring himself the sole founder. Wales serves on the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit charitable organization he helped establish to operate Wikipedia, holding its board-appointed "community founder" seat. In 2004, he co-founded Wikia, a for-profit wiki-hosting service. His role in creating Wikipedia, which has become the world’s largest encyclopedia, prompted Time magazine to name him in its 2006 list of the world’s most influential people.
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John A. Allison IV
John Allison was born on August 14, 1948, in Charlotte, North Carolina. He began his career with BB&T in 1971 following his graduation from the University of North Carolina with a degree in business administration. He also earned an MBA from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University in 1974, and since has received an honorary doctorate from East Carolina University and an honorary doctorate from Universidad Francisco Marroquín. He serves on the Board of Visitors of the Fuqua School of Business. He has a wife, Betty, and three children.
He is a major contributor to the Ayn Rand Institute and assigns Rand's Atlas Shrugged to all of his senior executives. Calling Atlas Shrugged "the best defense of capitalism ever written," Allison has seen to it that "the BB&T Charitable Foundation has given 25 colleges and universities several million dollars to start programs devoted to the study of Rand's books and economic philosophy."
In 2008, Allison was nominated by MorningStar as one of the best CEOs in 2008 calendar year.
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John Hospers
John Hospers (June 9, 1918 – June 12, 2011) was an American philosopher. In 1972 he was the first presidential candidate of the Libertarian Party, and the only minor party candidate to receive an electoral vote in the 1972 U.S. Presidential election.
Born in Pella, Iowa, Hospers graduated from Central College. Hospers earned advanced degrees from the University of Iowa and Columbia University. He conducted research, wrote, and taught in areas of philosophy, including aesthetics and ethics. He taught philosophy at Brooklyn College and at the University of Southern California (USC) Department of Philosophy, where for many years he was chairman of the philosophy department.
Hospers was professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of Southern California.
In 2002, an hour-long video about Hospers' life, work, and philosophy was released by the Liberty Fund of Indianapolis, as part of its Classics of Liberty series.
Hospers' books include: Meaning and Truth in the Arts (1946), Introductory Readings in Aesthetics (1969), Artistic Expression (1971), Law and the Market (1985), Introduction to Philosophical Analysis (now in the 4th edition, 1996), Human Conduct (now in its 3rd edition, 1995), Understanding the Arts (1982), and Libertarianism – A Political Philosophy for Tomorrow (1971). He was editor of three anthologies, and contributed to books edited by others. He authored about 150 articles in various scholarly and popular journals.
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John Locke
John Locke FRS ( /ˈlɒk/; 29 August 1632 – 28 October 1704), widely known as the Father of Classical Liberalism, was an English philosopher and physician regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers. Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social contract theory. His work had a great impact upon the development of epistemology and political philosophy. His writings influenced Voltaire and Rousseau, many Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, as well as the American revolutionaries. His contributions to classical republicanism and liberal theory are reflected in the United States Declaration of Independence.
Locke's theory of mind is often cited as the origin of modern conceptions of identity and the self, figuring prominently in the work of later philosophers such as Hume, Rousseau and Kant. Locke was the first to define the self through a continuity of consciousness. He postulated that the mind was a blank slate or tabula rasa. Contrary to pre-existing Cartesian philosophy, he maintained that we are born without innate ideas, and that knowledge is instead determined only by experience derived from sense perception.
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John Rawls
John Bordley Rawls (February 21, 1921 - November 24, 2002) was an American philosopher and a leading figure in moral and political philosophy. He held the James Bryant Conant University Professorship at Harvard University.
His magnum opus, A Theory of Justice (1971), was hailed at the time of its publication as "the most important work in moral philosophy since the end of World War II," and is now regarded as "one of the primary texts in political philosophy." His work in political philosophy, dubbed Rawlsianism, takes as its starting point the argument that "most reasonable principles of justice are those everyone would accept and agree to from a fair position." Rawls employs a number of thought experiments — including the famous veil of ignorance — to determine what constitutes a fair agreement in which "everyone is impartially situated as equals," in order to determine principles of social justice. He is one of the major thinkers in the tradition of liberal political philosophy.[citation needed] English philosopher Jonathan Wolff argues that "while there might be a dispute about the second most important political philosopher of the 20th century, there could be no dispute about the most important: John Rawls. His student Samuel Freeman says that Rawls’s work will be recognized 'for centuries to come.'"
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John Ridpath
John B. Ridpath, Ph.D. (born 1936) is a Canadian Objectivist intellectual historian and retired associate professor of economics and intellectual history at York University in Toronto. He also taught courses at Duke University. He attended Toronto's Upper Canada College (Head Prefect, 1955) and then later the University of Toronto, from which he received both an undergraduate degree in Engineering and an MBA, while also setting Canadian national swimming records and captaining the University of Toronto swim team. Although he obtained his doctorate in economics from the University of Virginia (1974), he works in the area of intellectual history, focusing on the power of philosophical ideas in Western social history. As an academic, despite receiving an award by the Ontario Council of University Faculty Associations for outstanding contribution to university teaching, he was nearly terminated in the early 1970s for his radical outspoken views and his avowed disdain of much of York University's faculty. However, with support from Nobel laureate Friedrich von Hayek, he was promoted rather than fired. Upon his retirement in 2001 he was named professor of the year by the university and honoured with a nomination for Canadian professor of the year.
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John Stossel
John F. Stossel (born March 6, 1947) is an American consumer reporter, investigative journalist, author and libertarian columnist. In October 2009 Stossel left his long time home on ABC News to join the Fox Business Channel and Fox News Channel, both owned and operated by News Corp. He hosts a weekly news show on Fox Business, Stossel, which debuted on December 10, 2009. The show airs in prime time every Thursday, repeating on both Saturdays and Sundays. Stossel also regularly provides signature analysis, appearing on various Fox News shows, including weekly appearances on The O'Reilly Factor, in addition to writing the Fox News Blog, "John Stossel's Take".
Stossel practices advocacy journalism, often challenging conventional wisdom. His reporting style, which is a blend of commentary and reporting, reflects a libertarian political philosophy and his views on economics are largely supportive of the free market.
In his decades as a reporter, Stossel has received numerous honors and awards, including nineteen Emmy awards and has been honored five times for excellence in consumer reporting by the National Press Club. John Stossel is doctor honoris causa from Universidad Francisco Marroquín. Stossel has written two books recounting how his experiences in journalism shaped his socioeconomic views, Give Me a Break in 2004 and Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity in 2007.
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John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill, FRSE (20 May 1806 – 8 May 1873) was a British philosopher, political economist and civil servant. He was an influential contributor to social theory, political theory, and political economy. He has been called "the most influential English-speaking philosopher of the nineteenth century". Mill's conception of liberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control. He was a proponent of utilitarianism, an ethical theory developed by Jeremy Bentham. Hoping to remedy the problems found in an inductive approach to science, such as confirmation bias, he clearly set forth the premises of falsification as the key component in the scientific method. Mill was also a Member of Parliament and an important figure in liberal political philosophy.
John Stuart Mill was born on Rodney Street in the Pentonville area of London, the eldest son of the Scottish philosopher, historian and economist James Mill, and Harriet Burrow. John Stuart was educated by his father, with the advice and assistance of Jeremy Bentham and Francis Place. He was given an extremely rigorous upbringing, and was deliberately shielded from association with children his own age other than his siblings. His father, a follower of Bentham and an adherent of associationism, had as his explicit aim to create a genius intellect that would carry on the cause of utilitarianism and its implementation after he and Bentham had died.
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Josiah Royce
Josiah Royce (November 20, 1855 – September 14, 1916) was an American objective idealist philosopher.
Royce, born in Grass Valley, California, grew up in pioneer California very soon after the California Gold Rush. He received the B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley (at that time located in Oakland) in 1875 where he also accepted an instructorship teaching English composition, literature, and rhetoric. After some time in Germany, where he came to admire Hermann Lotze, the new Johns Hopkins University awarded him in 1878 one of its first four doctorates, in philosophy. He taught a course on the history of German thought, which was “one of his chief interests” because he was able to give consideration to the philosophy of history (Pomeroy, 6). He then taught philosophy, first at the University of California, Berkeley, then at Harvard from 1882 until his death, thanks to the good offices of William James, who was at once Royce's friend and philosophical antagonist.
Royce stands out starkly in the philosophical crowd because he was the only major American philosopher who spent a significant period of his life studying and writing history, specifically of the American West, “As one of the four giants in American philosophy of his time […] Royce overshadowed himself as historian, in both reputation and output” (Pomeroy, 2). During his first three years at Harvard, Royce taught many different subjects such as English composition, forensics, psychology and philosophy for other professors. He finally received a position as a professor in 1892. During this time he suffered a breakdown and took a semester off during which he did most of his historical writing (Pomeroy, 3).
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Jürgen Habermas
Jürgen Habermas ( /ˈjɜrɡən/ or /ˈjʊərɡən ˈhɑːbərmɑːs/;German: [ˈjʏʁɡən ˈhaːbɐmaːs]; born June 18, 1929) is a German sociologist, geographer and philosopher in the tradition of critical theory and pragmatism. He is perhaps best known for his theory on the concepts of 'communicative rationality' and the 'public sphere'. His work focuses on the foundations of social theory and epistemology, the analysis of advanced capitalistic societies and democracy, the rule of law in a critical social-evolutionary context, and contemporary politics, particularly German politics. Habermas's theoretical system is devoted to revealing the possibility of reason, emancipation, and rational-critical communication latent in modern institutions and in the human capacity to deliberate and pursue rational interests. Habermas is known for his work on the concept of modernity, particularly with respect to the discussions of "rationalization" originally set forth by Max Weber. While influenced by American pragmatism, action theory, and even poststructuralism, many of the central tenets of Habermas' thought remain broadly Marxist in nature. Global polls identified him as one of the leading intellectuals of the present day.
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Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx (5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement. He published various books during his lifetime, with the most notable being The Communist Manifesto (1848) and Capital (1867–1894); some of his works were co-written with his friend and fellow German revolutionary socialist, Friedrich Engels.
Born into a wealthy middle class family in Trier, formerly in Prussian Rhineland now called Rhineland-Palatinate, Marx studied at both the University of Bonn and the University of Berlin, where he became interested in the philosophical ideas of the Young Hegelians. In 1836, he became engaged to Jenny von Westphalen, marrying her in 1843. After his studies, he wrote for a radical newspaper in Cologne, and began to work out his theory of dialectical materialism. Moving to Paris in 1843, he began writing for other radical newspapers. He met Engels in Paris, and the two men worked together on a series of books. Exiled to Brussels, he became a leading figure of the Communist League, before moving back to Cologne, where he founded his own newspaper. In 1849 he was exiled again and moved to London together with his wife and children. In London, where the family was reduced to poverty, Marx continued writing and formulating his theories about the nature of society and how he believed it could be improved, and also campaigned for socialism—he became a significant figure in the International Workingmen's Association.
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Karl Popper
Sir Karl Raimund Popper, CH FRSFBA (28 July 1902 – 17 September 1994) was an Austro-Britishphilosopher and professor at the London School of Economics. He is generally regarded as one of the greatest philosophers of science of the 20th century; he also wrote extensively on social and political philosophy.
Popper is known for his attempt to repudiate the classical observationalist/inductivist form of scientific method in favour of empirical falsification. He is also known for his opposition to the classical justificationist account of knowledge which he replaced with critical rationalism, "the first non justificational philosophy of criticism in the history of philosophy". In political discourse, he is known for his vigorous defence of liberal democracy and the principles of social criticism that he came to believe made a flourishing "open society" possible.
Karl Popper was born in Vienna (then in Austria-Hungary) in 1902, to upper middle-class parents. All of Karl Popper's grandparents were Jewish, but the Popper family converted to Lutheranism before Karl was born. Karl's father Simon Siegmund Carl Popper was a lawyer from Bohemia, and mother Jenny Schiff was of Silesian and Hungarian descent. After establishing themselves in Vienna, the Poppers made a rapid social climb in Viennese society: Simon Siegmund Carl became a legal partner[clarification needed] of Vienna's liberal mayor Raimond Grübl and, after his death in 1898, took over the firm (Karl received his middle name from the mayor).
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Kay Nolte Smith
Kay Nolte Smith (July 4, 1932 – September 25, 1993) was an American writer. She was for a time friendly with the philosopher-novelist Ayn Rand, who was her leading literary and philosophical influence.
Smith was born in Eveleth, Minnesota and grew up in Baraboo, Wisconsin. Smith launched her literary career after her separation from the Ayn Rand circle. Her first novel was the mystery story The Watcher. Smith's Catching Fire is set in the world of the New York theater, with an anti-trade union political stance.Mindspell centres on the conflict between science versus religion, with Nolte Smith stating this fiction was written "to challenge strongly the belief in the occult". Her novel Elegy for a Soprano is a roman a clef inspired by Rand, Nathaniel Branden, and the circle around them. Elegy for a Soprano also portrays the life of Jewish Holocaust survivors from Czechoslovakia and Norway. Two of her novels — Elegy for a Soprano and A Tale of the Wind — were nominated for Prometheus Awards in 1986 and 1992, respectively.
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L. Neil Smith
Lester Neil Smith III (born May 12, 1946), better known as L. Neil Smith, is a libertarian science fiction author and political activist. His works include the trilogy of Lando Calrissian novels: Lando Calrissian and the Mindharp of Sharu (1983), Lando Calrissian and the Flamewind of Oseon (1983), Lando Calrissian and the Starcave of ThonBoka (1983), and the Omnibus edition The Lando Calrissian Adventures. He also wrote the novels Pallas, The Forge of the Elders, and The Probability Broach, each of which won the Libertarian Futurist Society's annual Prometheus Award for best libertarian science fiction novel.
Smith was born in Denver, Colorado. His father was an Air Force officer, and his childhood was spent in various places including Waco, McQueenie, and Laporte, Texas; Salina, Kansas; Sacramento, California; and Gifford, Illinois (all before he completed 5th grade) and then St. John’s, Newfoundland and Ft. Walton Beach, Florida where he graduated from high school.
L. Neil Smith should not be confused with J. Neil Schulman, another Libertarian science fiction writer. Smith is aware of this occasional confusion, once humorously signing a letter to Samuel Edward Konkin III as "Neil (L., not J.)"[citation needed]
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Leo Strauss
Leo Strauss (September 20, 1899 – October 18, 1973) was a German-American political philosopher and classicist who specialized in classical political philosophy. He was born in Germany to Jewish parents and later emigrated to the United States. He spent most of his career as a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, where he taught several generations of students and published fifteen books.
Originally trained in the Neo-Kantian tradition with Ernst Cassirer and immersed in the work of the phenomenologists Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger, Strauss later focused his research on the Greek texts of Plato and Aristotle, retracing their interpretation through medieval Islamic and Jewish philosophy, and encouraged application of their ideas to contemporary political theory.
Leo Strauss was born in the small town of Kirchhain in Hessen-Nassau, a province of the Kingdom of Prussia (part of the German Empire), on September 20, 1899, to Hugo Strauss and Jennie Strauss, née David. According to Allan Bloom's 1974 obituary in Political Theory, Strauss "was raised as an Orthodox Jew," but the family does not appear to have completely embraced Orthodox practice. Strauss himself noted that he came from a "conservative, even orthodox Jewish home," but one which knew little about Judaism except strict adherence to ceremonial laws. His father and uncle operated a farm supply and livestock business that they inherited from their father, Meyer (1835–1919), a leading member of the local Jewish community.
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Leonard Peikoff
Leonard S. Peikoff (born October 15, 1933) is a Canadian-Americanphilosopher. He is an author, a leading advocate of Objectivism and the founder of the Ayn Rand Institute. A former professor of philosophy, he was designated by the philosopher Ayn Rand as heir to her estate. For several years, he hosted a nationally syndicated radio talk show.
Peikoff was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, to Samuel Peikoff, MD, a surgeon, and his wife Bessie, a band leader. He attended the University of Manitoba from 1950 to 1953 as a pre-med student, but following his early discussions with Rand, he transferred to New York University to study philosophy, where he received his BA, MA and PhD degrees in philosophy in 1954, 1957 and 1964, respectively. His doctoral dissertation adviser was the noted American pragmatist philosopher Sidney Hook, and his dissertation dealt with the metaphysical status of the Law of Non-Contradiction. He taught philosophy for many years at various colleges.
Peikoff first met Ayn Rand through his cousin Barbara Branden (then Barbara Weidman) in California when he was 17. He reports that this meeting with Rand made him aware of the profound importance of philosophy. When Rand later moved to New York City, Peikoff decided to study philosophy at New York University. While studying at NYU, he frequently discussed philosophy privately with Rand in depth across a range of issues.
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Liu Junning
Liu Junning (simplified Chinese: 刘军宁; traditional Chinese: 劉軍寧; pinyin: Liú Jūnníng, 1961- ) is a Chinese political scientist and one of the most prominent liberal voices inside Chinese academia. He was known for his studies on modern European classical liberalism as well as conservatism. He is currently a researcher of Institute of Chinese Culture, a subsidiary of China's Ministry of Culture.
Liu is an opponent of what are called Asian values, including the view that Asia should take a different route of political development outside of the tradition of liberal democracy, seen as a Western principle. Liu believes liberalism is not simply a Western value, but should be something universal. He is also an admirer of American philosopher Ayn Rand. He does not support direct democracy, and views Jean-Jacques Rousseau as its primary proponent.
In 2001, Liu penned an article calling for reform in China and was expelled from Chinese Academy of Social Science and prohibited from travelling abroad. In 2009 the authority of Communist Party of China gave warnings to Liu along with two other intellectuals for their political advocacy contrary to the current regime and their signature on Charter 08.
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Ludwig von Mises
Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises (German pronunciation: [ˈluːtvɪç fɔn ˈmiːzəs]; September 29, 1881 – October 10, 1973) was a philosopher, Austrian School economist, and classical liberal. He became a prominent figure in the Austrian School of economic thought and is best known for his work on praxeology. Fearing a Nazi takeover of Europe, Mises emigrated to the United States in 1940. Mises had a significant influence on the libertarian movement in the United States in the mid-20th century.
Ludwig von Mises was born to wealthy Jewish parents in the city of Lemberg, in Galicia, Austria-Hungary (now Lviv in Ukraine). The family of his father Arthur Edler von Mises had been elevated to the Austrian nobility in the 19th century, and was involved in building and financing railroads. Ludwig's mother, Adele (née Landau), was a niece of Dr. Joachim Landau, a Liberal Party deputy to the Austrian Parliament. Arthur was stationed there as a construction engineer with Czernowitz railway company. At the age of twelve Ludwig spoke fluent Yiddish, German, Polish, and French, read Latin, and could understand Ukrainian. Mises was the older brother of the famous applied physicist Richard von Mises, a member of the Vienna Circle. Another brother, Karl von Mises, died as a child from scarlet fever.[citation needed] When Ludwig and Richard were children, his family moved back to their ancestral home of Vienna.
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M. Stanton Evans
Medford Stanton Evans (born July 20, 1934) is an American journalist, author and educator. He is the author of eight books, including Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America's Enemies (2007).
Evans was born in Kingsville, Texas on July 20, 1934 to Medford Bryan Evans, a college professor, author, and United States Atomic Energy Commission official, and classics scholar Josephine Stanton Evans. He grew up in Chattanooga, Tennessee and the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.
Evans graduated magna cum laude from Yale University, Phi Beta Kappa, in 1955, with a B.A. in English, followed by graduate work in economics at New York University under Ludwig von Mises.
As an undergraduate, Evans was an editor for the Yale Daily News. It was at Yale that he read One Is a Crowd by Frank Chodorov. In The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945, George H. Nash writes:
Upon graduation, Evans became assistant editor of The Freeman, where Chodorov was editor. The following year, he joined the staff of William F. Buckley's fledgling National Review (where he served as associate editor from 1960 to 1973) and became managing editor of Human Events, where he is currently a contributing editor. He became a proponent of National Review co-editor Frank Meyer's "fusionism," a political philosophy reconciling the traditionalist and libertarian tendencies of the conservative movement. Evans argued that freedom and virtue are not antagonistic, but complementary:
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Mark Cuban
Mark Cuban (born July 31, 1958) is an American business magnate. He is the owner of the National Basketball Association's Dallas Mavericks,Landmark Theatres, and Magnolia Pictures, and the chairman of the HDTV cable network HDNet. He is also a "shark" investor on the television series Shark Tank. In 2011, Cuban wrote an e-book, How to Win at the Sport of Business, in which he chronicles his life experiences in business and sports.
Cuban was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and grew up in the Pittsburgh suburb of Mt. Lebanon, in a Jewish working-class family. His last name was shortened from "Chabenisky" when his Russian grandparents landed on Ellis Island. Cuban's father Norton was an automobile upholsterer. Cuban's first step into the business world occurred at age 12, when he sold garbage bags to pay for a pair of expensive basketball shoes. While in school, he held a variety of jobs, including bartender, disco dancing instructor, and party promoter. He paid for college by collecting and selling stamps, and once gained about $1,100 from starting a chain letter.
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Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist. He is most noted for his novels, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), the latter often called "the Great American Novel."
Twain grew up in Hannibal, Missouri, which would later provide the setting for Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. He apprenticed with a printer. He also worked as a typesetter and contributed articles to his older brother Orion's newspaper. After toiling as a printer in various cities, he became a master riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River, before heading west to join Orion. He was a failure at gold mining, so he next turned to journalism. While a reporter, he wrote a humorous story, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County", which became very popular and brought nationwide attention. His travelogues were also well-received. Twain had found his calling.
He achieved great success as a writer and public speaker. His wit and satire earned praise from critics and peers, and he was a friend to presidents, artists, industrialists, and European royalty.
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Marsilius of Padua
Marsilius of Padua (Italian Marsilio or Marsiglio da Padova; circa 1275 – circa 1342) was an Italian scholar, trained in medicine who practiced a variety of professions. He was also an important 14th century political figure. His political treatise Defensor pacis is seen by some authorities as the most revolutionary political treatise written in the later Middle Ages.
Marsillius was born in Padua, an important Italian city, circa 1275. He initially trained in medicine, but was employed in various professions, including that of a soldier. He went to the University of Paris in 1311. The reputation which he had gained in what were then called the physical sciences soon caused him to be raised to the position of rector of the university for the first term of the year 1313.
Marsilius wrote Defensor pacis in 1324. This treatise was created in the context of a power struggle between Pope John XXII and Louis of Bavaria (or Ludwig of Bavaria), the elected candidate for Holy Roman Emperor. Louis' policies in the Italian peninsula, where the Empire had important territories, threatened papal territorial sovereignty. In 1323 Louis had sent an army to Italy to protect Milan against the powerful Kingdom of Naples. Naples, along with France, was a powerful ally of John XXII. John excommunicated Louis and demanded that he relinquish his claim to the imperial crown. Louis responded to John XXII with fresh provocations.[citation needed]
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Max Stirner
Johann Kaspar Schmidt (October 25, 1806 – June 26, 1856), better known as Max Stirner was a German philosopher who was one of the forerunners in nihilism, existentialism, post-modernism, and anarchism, especially of individualist anarchism. Stirner's main work is The Ego and Its Own, also known as The Ego and His Own (Der Einzige und sein Eigentum in German, which translates literally as The Unique One and his Property). This work was first published in 1844 in Leipzig, and has since appeared in numerous editions and translations.
Stirner was born in Bayreuth, Bavaria. What little is known of his life is mostly due to the Scottish born German writer John Henry Mackay, who wrote a biography of Stirner (Max Stirner - sein Leben und sein Werk), published in German in 1898 (enlarged 1910, 1914), and translated into English in 2005.
Stirner was the only child of Albert Christian Heinrich Schmidt (1769–1807) and Sophia Elenora Reinlein (1778–1839). His father died of tuberculosis on the April 19, 1807 at the age of 37. In 1809 his mother remarried to Heinrich Ballerstedt, a pharmacist, and settled in West Prussian Kulm (now Chełmno, Poland).
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Michael Oakeshott
Michael Joseph Oakeshott (11 December 1901 – 19 December 1990) was an English philosopher and political theorist who wrote about philosophy of history, philosophy of religion, aesthetics, and philosophy of law. He is widely regarded as one of the most important conservative thinkers of the 20th century, although he has sometimes been characterized as a liberal thinker.
His father, Joseph Oakeshott, was a civil servant and a leading member of the Fabian Society. George Bernard Shaw was a friend. Michael Oakeshott attended St. George's School, Harpenden from 1912 to 1920. He enjoyed his schooldays, and the Headmaster Cecil Grant later became a friend.[citation needed]
In 1920 he went to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge to read history, obtaining his MA, and subsequently became a Fellow. While at Cambridge, he admired the British Idealist philosopher, J. M. E. McTaggart, and the medieval historian Zachary Nugent Brooke. The historian Herbert Butterfield was a contemporary and fellow member of the Junior Historians society.[citation needed]
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Michael Paxton
Michael Paxton (born March 29, 1957) is an American filmmaker whose feature documentary, Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life received an Academy Award nomination and a Golden Satellite Award for Best Feature Documentary of 1997.
In 1979, Paxton graduated from the State University of New York at Albany with a bachelor's degree in philosophy. He then attended New York University's Graduate Institute of Film and Television, where his thesis film, Forbidden Fruit, won awards for Best Screenplay and Best Editing at the 1988 NYU Film Festival.
In 1989, Paxton co-produced and directed the world premiere of Ayn Rand' play Ideal at the Melrose Theater in Hollywood. In 1991, he adapted and directed a dramatic presentation of Rand's futuristic novella, Anthem. In 1995 he was the Assistant Director on the live-action/animated feature, The Pagemaster, for Turner Pictures. In addition to his film and theater work, he has written four books: Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life (The Companion Book) and three children's books for Disney based on their classic animated features (Cinderella, The Rescuers Down Under and The Aristocats). He has also co-produced the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack to Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life and was a Visual Effects Supervisor on Stuart Little 2. He was the Associate Producer on The Lion King 1½ for Disney, Bionicle 3: Web of Shadows for Miramax, and Smallville Legends: Kara and the Chronicles of Krypton for The CW.
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Michael Shermer
Michael Brant Shermer, PhD (born September 8, 1954 in Glendale, California, USA) is an American science writer, historian of science, founder of The Skeptics Society, and Editor in Chief of its magazine Skeptic, which is largely devoted to investigating pseudoscientific and supernatural claims. The Skeptics Society currently has over 55,000 members. Shermer also engages in debates on topics pertaining to pseudoscience and religion in which he promulgates the need for scientific skepticism.
Shermer is also the producer and co-host of the 13-hour Fox Family (now ABC Family) television series Exploring the Unknown. Since April 2001, he has been a monthly columnist for Scientific American magazine with his Skeptic column. Shermer states he was once a fundamentalist Christian, but converted from a belief in God during his graduate studies, and has described himself as an agnostic,nontheist,atheist and advocate for humanist philosophy as well as the science of morality. He has expressed reservations about such labels, however, as he sees them being used in the service of "pigeonholing", and prefers to simply be called a skeptic.
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Michael Walzer
Michael Walzer (pronounced /ˈwɔːlzər/; March 3, 1935) is a prominent American political philosopher and public intellectual. A professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton, New Jersey, he is co-editor of Dissent, an intellectual magazine that he has been affiliated with since his years as an undergraduate at Brandeis University. He has written books and essays on a wide range of topics, including just and unjust wars, nationalism, ethnicity, economic justice, social criticism, radicalism, tolerance, and political obligation and is a contributing editor to The New Republic. To date, he has written 27 books and published over 300 articles, essays, and book reviews in Dissent, The New Republic, The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, The New York Times, "Harpers," and many philosophical and political science journals.
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Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault (French pronunciation: [miʃɛl fuko]), born Paul-Michel Foucault (15 October 1926 – 25 June 1984) was a French philosopher, social theorist and historian of ideas. He held a chair at the Collège de France with the title "History of Systems of Thought," and lectured at the University at Buffalo and the University of California, Berkeley.
Foucault is best known for his critical studies of social institutions, most notably psychiatry, social anthropology of medicine, the human sciences and the prison system, as well as for his work on the history of human sexuality. His writings on power, knowledge, and discourse have been widely influential in academic circles.
In the 1960s, he was associated with structuralism, a theoretical movement in social anthropology from which he later distanced himself. He also rejected the poststructuralist and postmodernist labels later attributed to him, preferring to classify his thought as a critical history of modernity rooted in Immanuel Kant. His project was particularly influenced by Nietzsche, his "genealogy of knowledge" being a direct allusion to Nietzsche's "genealogy of morality". In a late interview he definitively stated: "I am a Nietzschean."
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Milovan Đilas
Milovan Đilas (pronounced [mîlɔʋan dʑîlaːs], Serbian Cyrillic: Милован Ђилас; June 4, 1911, Podbišće (Mojkovac) – April 20, 1995, Belgrade) was a YugoslavCommunist politician, theorist and author from Montenegro. He was a key figure in the Partisan movement during World War II, as in the post-war government. A self-identified Democratic Socialist, Đilas became one of the best-known and prominent dissidents in Yugoslavia and the whole Eastern Bloc.
Born in Polje village (Kolašin municipality) in the Kingdom of Montenegro, he joined the Communist Party of Yugoslavia as a Belgrade University student in 1932. He was a political prisoner from 1933 to 1936. In 1938 he was elected to the Central Committee of the Communist Party and became a member of its Politburo in 1940.
In April 1941, as Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and their allies defeated the Royal Yugoslav army and dismembered the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Đilas helped Josip Broz Tito found the Partisan resistance, and was a guerilla commander during the war. Following Germany's attack on the Soviet Union on June 22 (Operation Barbarossa), the Communist Party of Yugoslavia's (KPJ) Central Committee decided that conditions had been created for armed struggle and on July 4 passed the resolution to begin the uprising.
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Murray Rothbard
Murray Newton Rothbard (March 2, 1926 – January 7, 1995) was an American economist, historian, and political theorist. He was a prominent exponent of the Austrian School of economics who helped to define libertarianism by theorising a form of free-market anarchism which he termed "anarcho-capitalism." Rothbard wrote over twenty books and is considered a centrally important figure in the American libertarian movement.
Building on the Austrian School's concept of spontaneous order, support for a free market in money production and condemnation of central planning, Rothbard advocated abolition of coercive government control of society and the economy. He considered the monopoly force of government the greatest danger to liberty and the long-term well-being of the populace, labeling the state as nothing but a "gang of thieves writ large"—the locus of the most immoral, grasping and unscrupulous individuals in any society.
Rothbard concluded that all services provided by monopoly governments could be provided more efficiently by the private sector. He viewed many regulations and laws ostensibly promulgated for the "public interest" as self-interested power grabs by scheming government bureaucrats engaging in dangerously unfettered self-aggrandizement, as they were not subject to market disciplines. Rothbard held that there were inefficiencies involved with government services and asserted that market disciplines would eliminate them, if the services could be provided by competition in the private sector.
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Nathaniel Branden
Nathaniel Branden (born 9 April 1930) is a Canadian psychotherapist and writer known for his work in the psychology of self-esteem. A former associate and one-time romantic partner of novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand, Branden also played a prominent role in the 1960s in promoting Rand's philosophy, Objectivism. Rand and Branden split acrimoniously in 1968, after which Branden focused on developing his own psychological theory and mode of therapy.
Nathaniel Branden was born Nathan Blumenthal in Brampton, Ontario, and grew up alongside three sisters, two older and one younger.
A gifted student, he became impatient with his studies during his first year of high school and skipped school often in favor of the library. After getting failing grades as a result, he convinced his mother to send him to a special accelerated high school for adults, and subsequently did well in that environment.
After graduating from high school, Branden went on to earn his BA in psychology from the University of California Los Angeles, an MA from New York University, and in 1973, a Ph.D. in psychology from the California Graduate Institute (CGI).
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Neil Peart
Neil Ellwood Peart ( /ˈpɪərt/; born September 12, 1952), OC, is a Canadian musician and author. He is the drummer and lyricist for the rock band Rush. Peart has received numerous awards for his musical performances, and is known for his technical proficiency and stamina.
Peart grew up in Port Dalhousie, Ontario (now part of St. Catharines). During adolescence, he floated from regional band to regional band in pursuit of a career as a full-time drummer. After a discouraging stint in England to concentrate on his music, Peart returned home, where he joined a local Toronto band, Rush, in the summer of 1974.
Early in his career, Peart's performance style was deeply rooted in hard rock. He drew most of his inspiration from drummers such as Keith Moon and John Bonham, players who were at the forefront of the British hard rock scene. As time passed, however, he began to emulate jazz and big band musicians Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich. In 1994, Peart became a friend and pupil of jazz instructor Freddie Gruber. It was during this time that Peart decided to revamp his playing style by incorporating jazz and swing components. Gruber was also responsible for introducing him to the products of Drum Workshop, the company whose products Peart currently endorses.
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Niccolò Machiavelli
Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (Italian pronunciation: [nikkoˌlɔ makjaˈvɛlli], 3 May 1469 – 21 June 1527) was an Italian historian, diplomat, philosopher, humanist and writer based in Florence during the Renaissance. A founder of modern political science, he was a diplomat, political philosopher, playwright, and a civil servant of the Florentine Republic. He also wrote comedies, carnival songs, and poetry. His personal correspondence is renowned in the Italian language. He was Secretary to the Second Chancery of the Republic of Florence from 1498 to 1512, when the Medici were out of power. He wrote his masterpiece, The Prince after the Medici had recovered power and he no longer held a position of responsibility in Florence, and is respectively interpreted by many as a satire of these powers.
Machiavelli was born in Florence, Italy, the first son and third child of attorney, Bernardo di Niccolò Machiavelli, and his wife, Bartolomea di Stefano Nelli. The Machiavelli family are believed to be descended from the old marquesses of Tuscany and to have produced thirteen Florentine Gonfalonieres of Justice, one of the offices of a group of nine citizens selected by drawing lots every two months, who formed the government, or Signoria. Machiavelli, like many people of Florence, was however not a full citizen of Florence, due to the nature of Florentine citizenship in that time, even under the republican regime.
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Nick Gaetano
Nick Gaetano created the 35th Anniversary Edition cover art for the works of Ayn Rand: Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, Anthem, We the Living, Philosophy: Who Needs It, Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal, For the New Intellectual, The Early Ayn Rand, The Romantic Manifesto, and The Virtue of Selfishness. He also created The Ayn Rand Postage Stamp.
In 2002, the original art for the Anniversary Editions of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged sold at auction for $118,000.
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Nick Gillespie
Nick Gillespie (born August 8, 1963) is the editor of Reason.com and Reason.tv and was the editor in chief of Reason magazine from 2000 to 2008. He has written articles or been a commentator for many media outlets and edited one anthology, Choice: The Best of Reason.
Gillespie hosts and anchors a number of the Reason TV offerings, and has become, along with Drew Carey, one of the most familiar faces of Reason TV.
Gillespie was born in Brooklyn, New York, and grew up in New Jersey. His educational history includes a B.A. in English and psychology from Rutgers University and a M.A. in English from Temple University, as well as a Ph.D. in English literature from the State University of New York at Buffalo. He has two sons, Jack Gillespie and Neal.
Prior to joining Reason, Gillespie worked at a number of small trade magazines and other journalistic outlets. He worked for several years at Teen Machine magazine, where he interviewed celebrities and ghost-wrote an advice column for actress Alyssa Milano.
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Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky (/ˈnoʊm ˈtʃɒmski/; born December 7, 1928) is an American linguist, philosopher,cognitive scientist, historian, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor (Emeritus) in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and a major figure of analytic philosophy. His work has influenced fields such as computer science, mathematics, and psychology.
Ideologically identifying with anarcho-syndicalism and libertarian socialism, Chomsky is known for his critiques of U.S. foreign policy and contemporary capitalism, and he has been described as a prominent cultural figure. His media criticism has included Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (1988), co-written with Edward S. Herman, an analysis articulating the propaganda model theory for examining the media.
According to the Arts and Humanities Citation Index in 1992, Chomsky was cited as a source more often than any other living scholar from 1980 to 1992, and was the eighth most cited source overall. Chomsky is the author of over 100 books. He is credited as the creator or co-creator of the Chomsky hierarchy, the universal grammar theory, and the Chomsky–Schützenberger theorem.
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O. Henry
William Sydney Porter (September 11, 1862 – June 5, 1910), known by his pen name O. Henry, was an American writer. O. Henry's short stories are known for their wit, wordplay, warm characterization and clever twist endings.
William Sidney Porter was born on September 11, 1862, in Greensboro, North Carolina. His middle name at birth was Sidney; he changed the spelling to Sydney in 1898. His parents were Dr. Algernon Sidney Porter (1825–1888), a physician, and Mary Jane Virginia Swaim Porter (1833–1865). They were married on April 20, 1858. When William was three, his mother died from tuberculosis, and he and his father moved into the home of his maternal grandmother. As a child, Porter was always reading, everything from classics to dime novels; his favorite works were Lane's translation of One Thousand and One Nights, and Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy.
Porter graduated from his aunt Evelina Maria Porter's elementary school in 1876. He then enrolled at the Lindsey Street High School. His aunt continued to tutor him until he was fifteen. In 1879, he started working in his uncle's drugstore and in 1881, at the age of nineteen, he was licensed as a pharmacist. At the drugstore, he also showed off his natural artistic talents by sketching the townsfolk.
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Pat Condell
Patrick "Pat" Condell (born 1949 or 1950), is an Irish-born English writer, political commentator, comedian and atheist internet personality. He performed alternative comedy shows during the 1980s and 1990s in the United Kingdom, and won a Time Out Comedy Award in 1991. He was also a regular panellist on BBC Radio 1's "Loose Talk".
From early 2007, he began posting short monologues denouncing religion to a number of video sharing websites, consequently receiving numerous death threats. His videos have been featured on many websites, including YouTube and LiveLeak. They have also been published to DVD, and also as a book of video transcripts. As of February 2012[update], Pat Condell's YouTube channel has over 169,000 subscribers and 38 million views.
In a video titled "Vote small, think big", uploaded a fortnight before the 2010 UK general elections, and on his website, Pat Condell expressed support for the UK Independence Party. He is an atheist activist, a strong proponent of free speech and critic of religion.
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Penn & Teller
Penn & Teller (Penn Jillette and Teller) are American illusionists and entertainers who have performed together since the late 1970s, and are known for their numerous stage and television shows. Their current Las Vegas show is an amalgam of illusion and comedy. Penn Jillette is a raconteur; Teller generally does not speak while performing, although his voice can occasionally be heard during their performance. They specialize in gory tricks, exposing frauds, and performing clever pranks. More recently they have become associated with atheism, scientific skepticism, and libertarianism, particularly through their television show Penn & Teller: Bullshit!.
Penn Jillette and Teller were introduced to one another by Weir Chrisimer, and they performed their first show together at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival on 19 August 1975. From the late 1970s through 1981, Penn, Teller, and Chrisimer performed as a trio called "The Asparagus Valley Cultural Society" which played in San Francisco at the Phoenix Theater. This act was sillier and less "edgy" than today's Penn & Teller act.[citation needed] Chrisimer helped to develop some bits that continued, most notably Teller's "Shadows" trick, which involves a single red rose.
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Plato
Plato ( /ˈpleɪtoʊ/; Greek: Πλάτων, Plátōn, "broad"; 424/423 BC – 348/347 BC) was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the foundations of Western philosophy and science. In the words of A. N. Whitehead:
The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. I do not mean the systematic scheme of thought which scholars have doubtfully extracted from his writings. I allude to the wealth of general ideas scattered through them.
Plato's sophistication as a writer is evident in his Socratic dialogues; thirty-six dialogues and thirteen letters have been ascribed to him. Plato's writings have been published in several fashions; this has led to several conventions regarding the naming and referencing of Plato's texts. Plato's dialogues have been used to teach a range of subjects, including philosophy, logic, ethics, rhetoric, and mathematics.
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Pola Negri
Pola Negri (3 January 1897 – 1 August 1987) was a Polish stage and film actress who achieved worldwide fame for her tragedienne and femme fatale roles from the 1910s through the 1940s during the Golden Era of Hollywood film. She was the first European film star to be invited to Hollywood, and became a great American star. She also started several important women's fashion trends. She is known for being one of the most popular stars of the silent film era, and her varied career included work as an actress in silent and talking films, theater, and vaudeville; as a singer and recording artist; as an author; and as a ballerina.
Negri was born Apolonia Chalupec (or Chałupiec) according to her birth record and autobiography in Lipno, Vistula Land, Russian Empire (present-day Poland). She was the youngest of three children, but because the first two died young, she grew up as an only child. Her mother, whose maiden name was Eleonora Kiełczewska, was reportedly impoverished Polish royalty, and her father, Jerzy Chalupec, was a Slovak immigrant tinsmith. After Chalupec's father was arrested by the Russian authorities for revolutionary activities and sent to Siberia, she and her mother moved to Warsaw, where they lived in extreme poverty.
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PZ Myers
Paul Zachary "PZ" Myers (born March 9, 1957) is an American scientist and biology professor at the University of Minnesota Morris (UMM) and the author of the Pharyngula science blog, hosted on both the Science Blogs and Freethought Blogs blog networks. He is currently an associate professor of biology at UMM, works with zebrafish in the field of evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo), and also cultivates an interest in cephalopods. He has published numerous research papers in Nature and other notable scientific journals.
He is a public critic of intelligent design (ID) and of the creationist movement in general and is an activist in the American creation–evolution controversy. He is widely regarded as a confrontationalist.
In 2006, the journal Nature listed his blog, Pharyngula, as the top-ranked blog written by a scientist. Additionally, PZ Myers was the recipient of the Humanist of the Year award in 2009, and the International Humanist Award in 2011.
Asteroid 153298 Paulmyers is named in his honor.
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Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore (Bengali: রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941), sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali polymath who reshaped his region's literature and music. Author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", he became the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. In translation his poetry was viewed as spiritual and mercurial; his seemingly mesmeric personality, flowing hair, and other-worldly dress earned him a prophet-like reputation in the West. His "elegant prose and magical poetry" remain largely unknown outside Bengal. Tagore introduced new prose and verse forms and the use of colloquial language into Bengali literature, thereby freeing it from traditional models based on classical Sanskrit. He was highly influential in introducing the best of Indian culture to the West and vice versa, and he is generally regarded as the outstanding creative artist of modern India.
A Pirali Brahmin from Calcutta, Tagore wrote poetry as an eight-year-old. At age sixteen, he released his first substantial poems under the pseudonym Bhānusiṃha ("Sun Lion"), which were seized upon by literary authorities as long-lost classics. He graduated to his first short stories and dramas—and the aegis of his birth name—by 1877. As a humanist, universalist internationalist, and strident anti-nationalist he denounced the Raj and advocated independence from Britain. As an exponent of the Bengal Renaissance, he advanced a vast canon that comprised paintings, sketches and doodles, hundreds of texts, and some two thousand songs; his legacy endures also in the institution he founded, Visva-Bharati University.
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Richard Dawkins
Clinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL (born 26 March 1941), known as Richard Dawkins, is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford, and was the University of Oxford's Professor for Public Understanding of Science from 1995 until 2008.
Dawkins came to prominence with his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, which popularised the gene-centered view of evolution and introduced the term meme. In 1982 he introduced an influential concept into evolutionary biology, presented in his book The Extended Phenotype, that the phenotypic effects of a gene are not necessarily limited to an organism's body, but can stretch far into the environment, including the bodies of other organisms.
Dawkins is an atheist, a vice president of the British Humanist Association, and a supporter of the Brights movement. He is well known for his criticism of creationism and intelligent design. In his 1986 book The Blind Watchmaker, he argued against the watchmaker analogy, an argument for the existence of a supernatural creator based upon the complexity of living organisms. Instead, he described evolutionary processes as analogous to a blind watchmaker. He has since written several popular science books, and makes regular television and radio appearances, predominantly discussing these topics. In his 2006 book The God Delusion, Dawkins contends that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and that religious faith is a delusion—"a fixed false belief." As of January 2010 the English-language version has sold more than two million copies and had been translated into 31 languages.
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Richard Salsman
Richard M. Salsman is an American economist and lecturer. His work incorporates Objectivist philosophy and supply-side economics. In particular, Salsman admires the ideas of economists such as Jean-Baptiste Say and Carl Menger, as opposed to more modern supply-siders such as Arthur Laffer. Salsman is most known for his support of the gold standard and free banking, his opposition to central banking, his critiques of the philosophy of Austrian economists such as Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek, his work on the causes and consequences of the Great Depression, and his homages to the ideas of Jean-Baptiste Say.
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Robert Hessen
Robert Hessen, Ph.D., is an American economic and business historian, a widely published author, a professor in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford, and a senior research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Among the books he has written are Steel Titan: The Life of Charles M. Schwab and In Defense of the Corporation, and he is the editor of the multi-volume series Hoover Archival Documentaries. He has featured shorter works in such diverse publications as The New York Times, Barron's, Business History Review, Labor History, The Hastings Law Journal and the Journal of Law and Economics. His essays defending capitalism and presenting a private-property-and-contractual model of corporations were published in the Fortune Encyclopedia of Economics (David R. Henderson, editor). He was associated with philosopher Ayn Rand for 25 years, contributed articles to two of her periodicals, as well as her book, Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal. He was a featured commentator on Milton Friedman's award winning PBS television documentary series, Free to Choose.
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Robert Nozick
Robert Nozick (November 16, 1938 – January 23, 2002) was an American political philosopher, most prominent in the 1970s and 1980s. He was a professor at Harvard University. He is best known for his book Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974), a libertarian answer to John Rawls's A Theory of Justice (1971). His other work involved decision theory and epistemology.
Nozick was born in Brooklyn, the son of a Jewish entrepreneur from the Russian shtetl who had been born with the name of Cohen. Nozick was married to the poet Gjertrud Schnackenberg. He died in 2002 after a prolonged struggle with stomach cancer. He is interred at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Nozick was educated at Columbia (A.B. 1959, summa cum laude), where he studied with Sidney Morgenbesser, and later at Princeton (Ph.D. 1963), and Oxford as a Fulbright Scholar (1963-1964).
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Roderick Long
Roderick Tracy Long (born February 4, 1964) is a professor of philosophy at Auburn University and libertarian blogger. He also serves as a senior scholar for the Ludwig von Mises Institute, an editor of the Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, director and president of the Molinari Institute, and an advisory panel member for the Center for a Stateless Society.
Long received a B.A. in philosophy from Harvard University and his Ph.D. from Cornell University. He has edited the book Anarchism/Minarchism: Is a Government Part of a Free Country?. His work has been debated by Robert Bidinotto and cited by Gene Callahan. Long served as the editor of the Journal of Libertarian Studies and was a member of the Liberty and Power group blog.
According to Long, he specializes in "Greek philosophy; moral psychology; ethics; philosophy of social science; and political philosophy (with an emphasis on libertarian/anarchist theory)." Long supports what he calls "libertarian anarchy", but avoids describing this as "capitalism", a term he believes has inconsistent and confusing meanings. He is an advocate of “build[ing] worker solidarity. On the one hand, this means formal organisation, including unionization—but I’m not talking about the prevailing model of ‘business unions' . . . but real unions, the old-fashioned kind, committed to the working class and not just union members, and interested in worker autonomy, not government patronage.”
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Rose Wilder Lane
Rose Wilder Lane (December 5, 1886, De Smet, Dakota Territory – October 30, 1968, Danbury, Connecticut) was an American journalist, travel writer, novelist, and political theorist. She is noted (with Ayn Rand and Isabel Paterson) as one of the founders of the American libertarian movement.
Rose Wilder Lane was the first child of Laura Ingalls Wilder and Almanzo Wilder (and their only child to survive into adulthood). Lane's early years were difficult ones for her parents, the result of successive crop failures, illnesses and chronic economic hardships. During her childhood, Lane moved with her family several times, living with relatives in Minnesota and then Florida, briefly returning to De Smet, South Dakota, before the family finally settled in Mansfield, Missouri, in 1894, where her parents eventually established a dairy and fruit farm. Lane attended high schools in Mansfield and Crowley, Louisiana, (where her father's sister, Eliza Jane Wilder Thayer, had settled), graduating in 1904. Her intellect and ambition were demonstrated by her ability to compress three years of Latin into one, and by graduating at the top of her high school class in Crowley. Despite this academic success, her parents' financial situation placed college out of reach and her formal schooling was over.
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Russell Kirk
Russell Kirk (October 19, 1918 – April 29, 1994) was an American political theorist, moralist, historian, social critic, literary critic, and fiction author known for his influence on 20th century American conservatism. His 1953 book, The Conservative Mind, gave shape to the amorphous post–World War II conservative movement. It traced the development of conservative thought in the Anglo-American tradition, giving special importance to the ideas of Edmund Burke. Kirk was also considered the chief proponent of traditionalist conservatism.
Russell Kirk was born in Plymouth, Michigan. He was the son of Russell Andrew Kirk, a railroad engineer, and Marjorie Pierce Kirk. Kirk obtained his B.A. at Michigan State University and a M.A. at Duke University. During World War II, he served in the American armed forces and corresponded with libertarian writer, Isabel Paterson, who helped to shape his early political thought. After the war, he attended the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. In 1953, he became the only American to be awarded the degree of Doctor of Letters by that university.
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Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War (25 October 1917 – October 1922) was a multi-party war in the former Russian Empire fought between the Bolshevik Red Army and the White Army, the loosely allied anti-Bolshevik forces. Many foreign armies warred against the Red Army, notably the Allied Forces and the pro-German armies. The Red Army defeated the White Armed Forces of South Russia in Ukraine and the army led by Aleksandr Kolchak in Siberia in 1919. The remains of the White forces commanded by Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel were beaten in the Crimea and were evacuated in the autumn of 1920. A number of independent countries – Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland – emerged from the war.
After the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, the Russian Provisional Government was established during the February Revolution of 1917.
In the wake of the October Revolution, the old Russian Imperial Army had been demobilized; the volunteer-based Red Guard was the Bolsheviks' main military force, augmented by an armed military component of the Cheka, the Bolshevik state security apparatus. In January, after significant reverses in combat, War Commissar Leon Trotsky headed the reorganization of the Red Guard into a Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, in order to create a more professional fighting force. Political commissars were appointed to each unit of the army to maintain morale and ensure loyalty.
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Russian-American
Russian Americans are primarily Americans who trace their ancestry to Russia. The definition can be applied to recent Russian immigrants to the United States, as well as to settlers of 19th century Russian settlements in northwestern America which includes today's Alaska, California, and Oregon.
Some Rusyn Americans identify as Russian American.[citation needed]
The Russian American population is reported to be 3.13 million.
Many Russian Americans do not speak Russian, having been born in the USA and brought up in English-speaking homes. In 2007, however, Russian was the primary spoken language of 851,174 Americans at home, according to the U.S. Census. According to the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard, 750,000 Russian Americans were ethnic Russians in 1990.
The New York City metropolitan area continues to be by far the leading metropolitan gateway for Russian immigrants legally admitted into the United States.
Sometimes Carpatho-Rusyns and Ukrainians who emigrated from Carpathian Ruthenia in the 19th century and the beginning of 20th century identify as Russian Americans. More recent emigres would often refer to this group as the 'starozhili', which translates to mean "old residents". This group became the pillar of the Russian Orthodox Church in America. Today, most of this group has become assimilated into the local society, with ethnic traditions continuing to survive primarily around the church.
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Sam Harris (author)
Sam Harris (born 1967) is an American author, public intellectual, and neuroscientist, as well as the co-founder and CEO of Project Reason. He is the author of The End of Faith, which was published in 2004 and appeared on The New York Times best seller list for 33 weeks. The book also won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award in 2005 for nonfiction. In 2006 Harris published his book Letter to a Christian Nation, a response to criticism of The End of Faith. This work was followed by The Moral Landscape published in 2010, his long-form essay Lying in 2011 and the short book Free Will in 2012.
Harris is a well-known contemporary critic of religion and proponent of scientific skepticism and the "New Atheism." He is also an advocate for the separation of church and state, freedom of religion, and the liberty to criticize religion. Harris has written numerous articles for the Huffington Post, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, New York Times, Newsweek, and the journal Nature. His articles touch upon a diversity of topics, including religion, morality, neuroscience, free will, and terrorism.
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Sidney Hook
Sidney Hook (December 20, 1902 – July 12, 1989) was an American philosopher of the Pragmatist school known for his contributions to the philosophy of history, the philosophy of education, political theory, and ethics. After embracing communism in his youth, Hook was later known for his criticisms of totalitarianism, both fascism, and Marxism–Leninism. A pragmatic social democrat, Hook sometimes cooperated with conservatives, particularly in opposing Communism. After World War II, he argued that members of such groups as the Communist Party USA and other Leninist conspiracies could ethically be barred from holding offices of public trust because they called for violent overthrow of democratic governments.
Born in Brooklyn to Jennie and Isaac Hook, who were Austrian-Jewish immigrants, Hook was a Socialist Party supporter during the Debs era when he was in high school. He earned his Bachelor's degree at the City College of New York in 1923, then his Ph.D. at Columbia University in 1927, where he was a student of the noted pragmatist philosopher John Dewey. Upon finishing his studies, Hook was hired by New York University, which employed him as a Professor of Philosophy until his retirement in 1972. From 1948 to 1969 he was head of the Department of Philosophy.
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Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud (German pronunciation: [ˈziːkmʊnt ˈfʁɔʏt]), born Sigismund Schlomo Freud (6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939), was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis. Freud's family and ancestry were Jewish. Freud always considered himself a Jew even though he rejected Judaism and had a critical view of religion. Freud's parents were poor, but ensured his education. Freud was an outstanding pupil in high school, and graduated the Matura with honors in 1873. Interested in philosophy as a student, Freud later turned away from it and became a neurological researcher into cerebral palsy, Aphasia and microscopic neuroanatomy.
Freud went on to develop theories about the unconscious mind and the mechanism of repression, and established the field of verbal psychotherapy by creating psychoanalysis, a clinical method for treating psychopathology through dialogue between a patient (or "analysand") and a psychoanalyst. Though psychoanalysis has declined as a therapeutic practice, it has helped inspire the development of many other forms of psychotherapy, some diverging from Freud's original ideas and approach. Freud postulated the existence of libido (an energy with which mental process and structures are invested), developed therapeutic techniques such as the use of free association (in which patients report their thoughts without reservation and make no attempt to concentrate while doing so), discovered the transference (the process by which patients displace on to their analysts feelings based on their experience of earlier figures in their lives) and established its central role in the analytic process, and proposed that dreams help to preserve sleep by representing as fulfilled wishes that would otherwise awake the dreamer. He was also a prolific essayist, drawing on psychoanalysis to contribute to the interpretation and critique of culture.
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Society
A society, or a human society, is a group of people related to each other through persistent relations, or a large social grouping sharing the same geographical or virtual territory, subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Human societies are characterized by patterns of relationships (social relations) between individuals who share a distinctive culture and institutions; a given society may be described as the sum total of such relationships among its constituent members. In the social sciences, a larger society often evinces stratification and/or dominance patterns in subgroups.
Insofar as it is collaborative, a society can enable its members to benefit in ways that would not otherwise be possible on an individual basis; both individual and social (common) benefits can thus be distinguished, or in many cases found to overlap.
A society can also consist of like-minded people governed by their own norms and values within a dominant, larger society. This is sometimes referred to as a subculture, a term used extensively within criminology.
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Socrates
Socrates ( /ˈsɒkrətiːz/; Greek: Σωκράτης, Ancient Greek pronunciation: [sɔːkrátɛːs], Sōkrátēs; c. 469 BC – 399 BC) was a classical Greek Athenian philosopher. Credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, he is an enigmatic figure known chiefly through the accounts of later classical writers, especially the writings of his students Plato and Xenophon, and the plays of his contemporary Aristophanes. Many would claim that Plato's dialogues are the most comprehensive accounts of Socrates to survive from antiquity.
Through his portrayal in Plato's dialogues, Socrates has become renowned for his contribution to the field of ethics, and it is this Platonic Socrates who also lends his name to the concepts of Socratic irony and the Socratic method, or elenchus. The latter remains a commonly used tool in a wide range of discussions, and is a type of pedagogy in which a series of questions are asked not only to draw individual answers, but also to encourage fundamental insight into the issue at hand. It is Plato's Socrates that also made important and lasting contributions to the fields of epistemology and logic, and the influence of his ideas and approach remains strong in providing a foundation for much western philosophy that followed.
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Sri Aurobindo
Sri Aurobindo (Bengali: শ্রী অরবিন্দ Sri Ôrobindo) (15 August 1872 – 5 December 1950), born Aurobindo Ghosh or Ghose (Bengali: অরবিন্দ ঘোষ Ôrobindo Ghosh), was an Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru, and poet. He joined the Indian movement for freedom from British rule and for a duration became one of its most important leaders, before developing his own vision of human progress and spiritual evolution.
The central theme of Aurobindo's vision was the evolution of human life into life divine. He wrote: "Man is a transitional being. He is not final. The step from man to superman is the next approaching achievement in the earth evolution. It is inevitable because it is at once the intention of the inner spirit and the logic of nature's process."
Aurobindo's writings synthesized Eastern and Western philosophy, religion, literature, and psychology. Aurobindo was the first Indian to create a major literary corpus in English.His works include philosophy; poetry; translations of and commentaries on the Vedas, Upanishads, and the Gita; plays; literary, social, political, and historical criticism; devotional works; spiritual journals and three volumes of letters. His principal philosophical writings are The Life Divine and The Synthesis of Yoga, while his principal poetic work is Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol.
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Steve Ditko
Stephen J. "Steve" Ditko (born November 2, 1927) is an American comic book artist and writer best known as the artist and co-creator, with Stan Lee, of the Marvel Comics heroes Spider-Man and Doctor Strange.
Ditko studied under Batman artist Jerry Robinson at the Cartoonist and Illustrators School in New York City. He began his professional career in 1953, working in the studio of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, beginning as an inker and coming under the influence of artist Mort Meskin. During this time, he then began his long association with Charlton Comics, where he did work in the genres of science fiction, horror, and mystery. He also co-created the superhero Captain Atom in 1960.
Ditko then drew for Atlas Comics, the 1950s forerunner of Marvel Comics. He went on to contribute much significant work to Marvel, including co-creating Spider-Man, who would become the company's flagship character. Additionally, he co-created the supernatural hero Doctor Strange and made important contributions to the Hulk and Iron Man. In 1966, after being the exclusive artist on The Amazing Spider-Man and the "Doctor Strange" feature in Strange Tales, Ditko left Marvel for reasons never specified.
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Terry Goodkind
Terry Goodkind (born in 1948) is an American writer and author of the epic fantasy The Sword of Truth series as well as the contemporary suspense novel The Law of Nines, which has ties to his fantasy series, and The Omen Machine, which is a direct sequel thereof. Before his success as an author Goodkind worked primarily as a painter, as well as doing carpentry and woodworking. Goodkind is a proponent of Ayn Rand's philosophical approach of Objectivism, with references to Rand's ideas and novels in his works.The Sword of Truth series sold twenty-five million copies worldwide and was translated into more than twenty languages. It was adapted into a television series called Legend of the Seeker, premiering November 1, 2008 but canceled after two seasons in May, 2010.
Goodkind was born in 1948, and his home town was Omaha, Nebraska. In 1983 Goodkind moved with his wife Jeri to a house he built in Maine, later making his residence on the coast of Lake Las Vegas, Nevada his primary home.
Goodkind has dyslexia, which initially dissuaded him from any interest in writing. Before starting his career as a writer, Goodkind built cabinets and violins and was a marine and wildlife artist, selling his paintings in galleries. In 1993, during the construction of his home on the forested Mount Desert Island off the coast of Maine with his wife Jeri, he began to write his first novel, Wizard's First Rule, and his writing career was launched with its publication in 1994.
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Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury (5 April 1588 – 4 December 1679), in some older texts Thomas Hobbs of Malmsbury, was an English philosopher, best known today for his work on political philosophy. His 1651 book Leviathan established the foundation for most of Western political philosophy from the perspective of social contract theory.
Hobbes was a champion of absolutism for the sovereign but he also developed some of the fundamentals of European liberal thought: the right of the individual; the natural equality of all men; the artificial character of the political order (which led to the later distinction between civil society and the state); the view that all legitimate political power must be "representative" and based on the consent of the people; and a liberal interpretation of law which leaves people free to do whatever the law does not explicitly forbid.
He was one of the founders of modern political philosophy. His understanding of humans as being matter and motion, obeying the same physical laws as other matter and motion, remains influential; and his account of human nature as self-interested cooperation, and of political communities as being based upon a "social contract" remains one of the major topics of political philosophy.
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Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine (January 29, 1737 (NS February 9, 1737) – June 8, 1809) was an English-American author, pamphleteer, radical, inventor, intellectual, revolutionary, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He has been called "a corsetmaker by trade, a journalist by profession, and a propagandist by inclination."
Born in Thetford, England, in the county of Norfolk, Paine immigrated to the British American colonies in 1774 in time to participate in the American Revolution. His principal contributions were the powerful, widely read pamphlet Common Sense (1776), the all-time best-selling American book that advocated colonial America's independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain, and The American Crisis (1776–83), a pro-revolutionary pamphlet series. Common Sense was so influential that John Adams said, "Without the pen of the author of Common Sense, the sword of Washington would have been raised in vain.”
Paine lived in France for most of the 1790s, becoming deeply involved in the French Revolution. He wrote the Rights of Man (1791), in part a defense of the French Revolution against its critics. His attacks on British writer Edmund Burke led to a trial and conviction in absentia in 1792 for the crime of seditious libel. In 1792, despite not speaking French, he was elected to the French National Convention. The Girondists regarded him as an ally. Consequently, the Montagnards, especially Robespierre, regarded him as an enemy. In December of 1793, he was arrested and imprisoned in Paris, then released in 1794. He became notorious because of The Age of Reason (1793–94), his book that advocates deism, promotes reason and freethinking, and argues against institutionalized religion in general and Christian doctrine in particular. He also wrote the pamphlet Agrarian Justice (1795), discussing the origins of property, and introduced the concept of a guaranteed minimum income.
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Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo (French pronunciation: [viktɔʁ maʁi yɡo]) (26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French poet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist[citation needed] and exponent of the Romantic movement in France.
In France, Hugo's literary fame comes first from his poetry but also rests upon his novels and his dramatic achievements. Among many volumes of poetry, Les Contemplations and La Légende des siècles stand particularly high in critical esteem, and Hugo is sometimes identified as the greatest French poet. Outside France, his best-known works are the novels Les Misérables and Notre-Dame de Paris (also known in English as The Hunchback of Notre-Dame).
Though a committed royalist when he was young, Hugo's views changed as the decades passed; he became a passionate supporter of republicanism[citation needed], and his work touches upon most of the political and social issues and artistic trends of his time. He is buried in the Panthéon.
Hugo was the third, illegitimate, son of Joseph Léopold Sigisbert Hugo (1774–1828) and Sophie Trébuchet (1772–1821); his brothers were Abel Joseph Hugo (1798–1855) and Eugène Hugo (1800–1837). He was born in 1802 in Besançon (in the region of Franche-Comté) and lived in France for the majority of his life. However, he decided to live in exile as a result of Napoleon III's Coup d'état at the end of 1851.
wn.com/Victor_Hugo -
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of South Vietnam, supported by the United States and other anti-communist countries. The Viet Cong (also known as the National Liberation Front, or NLF), a lightly armed South Vietnamese communist-controlled common front, largely fought a guerrilla war against anti-communist forces in the region. The Vietnam People's Army (North Vietnamese Army) engaged in a more conventional war, at times committing large units into battle. U.S. and South Vietnamese forces relied on air superiority and overwhelming firepower to conduct search and destroy operations, involving ground forces, artillery, and airstrikes.
The U.S. government viewed involvement in the war as a way to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam as part of their wider strategy of containment. The North Vietnamese government and Viet Cong viewed the conflict as a colonial war, fought initially against France, backed by the U.S., and later against South Vietnam, which it regarded as a U.S. puppet state. American military advisors arrived in what was then French Indochina beginning in 1950. U.S. involvement escalated in the early 1960s, with troop levels tripling in 1961 and tripling again in 1962. U.S. combat units were deployed beginning in 1965. Operations spanned international borders, with Laos and Cambodia heavily bombed. American involvement in the war peaked in 1968, at the time of the Tet Offensive. After this, U.S. ground forces were gradually withdrawn as part of a policy known as Vietnamization. Despite the Paris Peace Accords, signed by all parties in January 1973, fighting continued.
wn.com/Vietnam_War -
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (Russian: Владимир Ильич Ленин; IPA: [vlɐˈdʲimʲɪr ɪlʲˈjitɕ ˈlʲenʲɪn] ( listen); 22 April [O.S. 10 April] 1870 – 21 January 1924) was a Russian Marxist revolutionary, intellectual and politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years (1917–1924), as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a socialist economic system.
As a politician, Lenin was a persuasive and charismatic orator. As an intellectual his extensive theoretic and philosophical developments of Marxism produced Marxism–Leninism, a pragmatic Russian application of Marxism that emphasized the critical role played by a committed and disciplined political vanguard in the revolutionary process, while defending the possibility of a socialist revolution in less advanced capitalist countries through an alliance of the proletarians with the rural peasantry.
Lenin was born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Russian: Владимир Ильич Ульянов) on 22 April [O.S. 10 April] 1870 in the town of Simbirsk in the Russian Empire. Simbirsk, a rural town on the River Volga nearly 1,500 miles from the capital Saint Petersburg, would be renamed upon Ulyanov's death fifty-four years later as "Ulyanovsk" in his honour. That same year, Saint Petersburg itself would be renamed Leningrad after Ulyanov's better-known cadre name.
wn.com/Vladimir_Lenin -
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet de Voltaire (French pronunciation: [fʁɑ̃.swa ma.ʁi aʁ.wɛ]; 21 November 1694 – 30 May 1778), known by the pen name Voltaire (pronounced: [vɔl.tɛːʁ]), was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, freedom of expression, free trade and separation of church and state. Voltaire was a prolific writer, producing works in almost every literary form, including plays, poetry, novels, essays, and historical and scientific works. He wrote more than 20,000 letters and more than 2,000 books and pamphlets. He was an outspoken supporter of social reform, despite strict censorship laws with harsh penalties for those who broke them. As a satirical polemicist, he frequently made use of his works to criticize intolerance, religious dogma and the French institutions of his day.
Voltaire was one of several Enlightenment figures (along with Montesquieu, John Locke, Richard Price, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Émilie du Châtelet) whose works and ideas influenced important thinkers of both the American and French Revolutions.
wn.com/Voltaire -
Wendell Willkie
Wendell Lewis Willkie (/ˈwɛndl[unsupported input] ˈl[unsupported input]ɨs ˈwɪlki/; February 18, 1892 – October 8, 1944) was a corporate lawyer in the United States and a dark horse who became the Republican Party nominee for the president in 1940. A member of the liberal wing of the GOP, he crusaded against those domestic policies of the New Deal that he thought were inefficient and anti-business. Willkie, an internationalist, needed the votes of the large isolationist element, so he waffled on the bitterly debated issue of America's role in World War II, losing support from both sides. His opponent Franklin D. Roosevelt won the 1940 election with 55% of the popular vote and 85% of the electoral vote.
Afterward, Roosevelt found Willkie to be compatible politically with his plans and brought him aboard as an informal ambassador-at-large. Willkie criss-crossed the globe on the former army bomber The Gulliver, bringing home a vision of "One World" freed from imperialism and colonialism. "One World" was Willkie's travelogue of his travels and meetings of the then-Allies heads of state, as well as ordinary citizens and soldiers in regions such as Russia and Iran. His liberalism lost him supporters in the GOP and he dropped out of the 1944 race, then died of a heart attack. He never held political office.
wn.com/Wendell_Willkie -
Émile Durkheim
David Émile Durkheim (French pronunciation: [emil dyʁˈkɛm], [dyʁˈkajm]) (April 15, 1858 – November 15, 1917) was a French sociologist. He formally established the academic discipline and, with Karl Marx and Max Weber, is commonly cited as the principal architect of modern social science and father of sociology.
Much of Durkheim's work was concerned with how societies could maintain their integrity and coherence in modernity; an era in which traditional social and religious ties are no longer assumed, and in which new social institutions have come into being. His first major sociological work was The Division of Labor in Society (1893). In 1895, he published his Rules of the Sociological Method and set up the first European department of sociology, becoming France's first professor of sociology. In 1898, he established the journal L'Année Sociologique. Durkheim's seminal monograph, Suicide (1897), a study of suicide rates amongst Catholic and Protestant populations, pioneered modern social research and served to distinguish social science from psychology and political philosophy. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912), presented a theory of religion, comparing the social and cultural lives of aboriginal and modern societies.
wn.com/Émile_Durkheim
Rand, Ayn Filmography
- Atlas Shrugged II: The Strike (2012)
- Ayn Rand: In Her Own Words (2011)
- Atlas Shrugged: Part I (2011)
- In Search of Steve Ditko (2007)
- Ideal (2004)
- Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life (1997)
- We the Living (1986)
- Understanding Our World: An Interview with Ayn Rand (1961)
- The Fountainhead (1949)
- The Fountainhead (1949)
- You Came Along (1945)
- Love Letters (1945)
- Noi vivi (1942)
- Addio Kira! (1942)
- Night of January 16th (1941)
- The King of Kings (1927)
Famous quotes by Ayn Rand:
"Achieving life is not the equivalent of avoiding death."
"A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others"
"Why do they always teach us that it's easy and evil to do what we want and that we need discipline to restrain ourselves? It's the hardest thing in the world--to do what we want. And it takes the greatest kind of courage. I mean, what we really want."
"The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody had decided not to see."
"To say 'I love you' one must first be able to say the 'I.'"
"The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live."
"To achieve, you need thought. You have to know what you are doing and that's real power."
"The truth is not for all men, but only for those who seek it."
"The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me."
"From the smallest necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and everything we have comes from one attribute of man -- the function of his reasoning mind."
"The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody had decided not to see."
"Achieving life is not the equivalent of avoiding death."
"A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others"
"Why do they always teach us that it's easy and evil to do what we want and that we need discipline to restrain ourselves? It's the hardest thing in the world--to do what we want. And it takes the greatest kind of courage. I mean, what we really want."
"To say 'I love you' one must first be able to say the 'I.'"
"The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live."
"To achieve, you need thought. You have to know what you are doing and that's real power."
"The truth is not for all men, but only for those who seek it."
"The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me."
"From the smallest necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and everything we have comes from one attribute of man -- the function of his reasoning mind."
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Ayn Rand Mike Wallace Interview 1959 part 1
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 9:29
- Updated: 22 Dec 2012
In this engaging 1959 interview, her first on television, Ayn Rand capsulizes her philosophy for CBS's Mike Wallace. The discussion ranges from the nature of morality to the economic and historical distortions disseminated about the "robber barons." She also comments on her relationship with Frank O'Connor, provides some autobiographical information and gives her perspective on the future of America.
http://wn.com/Ayn_Rand_Mike_Wallace_Interview_1959_part_1
In this engaging 1959 interview, her first on television, Ayn Rand capsulizes her philosophy for CBS's Mike Wallace. The discussion ranges from the nature of morality to the economic and historical distortions disseminated about the "robber barons." She also comments on her relationship with Frank O'Connor, provides some autobiographical information and gives her perspective on the future of America.
Ayn Rand Phil Donahue Interview Part 1 of 5
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 7:54
- Updated: 22 Dec 2012
In her first public appearance since husband Frank O'Connor's death, we see a rare personal side of Rand—" As always, the ideas do shine through: the acknowledgement of achievement; the evils of altruism; American schools sacrificing the gifted for the less gifted; the nationalization of American oil interests in the Middle East; the fatal arguments for the existence of God;... and much more.
http://wn.com/Ayn_Rand_Phil_Donahue_Interview_Part_1_of_5
In her first public appearance since husband Frank O'Connor's death, we see a rare personal side of Rand—" As always, the ideas do shine through: the acknowledgement of achievement; the evils of altruism; American schools sacrificing the gifted for the less gifted; the nationalization of American oil interests in the Middle East; the fatal arguments for the existence of God;... and much more.
- published: 14 Oct 2007
- views: 481587
- author: hastelculo
Ayn Rand First Interview 1959 (Full)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 27:08
- Updated: 23 Dec 2012
In 1957, a 1168 page book by Ayn Rand, called Atlas Shrugged, was published. According to one source, Rand was alleged to be a mistress to Philippe Rothschild, who instructed her to write the book in order to show that through the raising of oil prices, then destroying the oil fields and shutting down the coal mines, the Illuminati would take over the world. It also related how they would blow up grain mills, derail trains, bankrupt and destroy their own companies, till they had destroyed the economy of the entire world; and yet, they would be so wealthy, that it would not substantially affect their vast holdings. The novel is about a man who stops the motor of the world, of what happens when "the men of the mind, the intellectuals of the world, the originators and innovators in every line of industry go on strike; when the men of creative ability in every profession, in protest against regulation, quit and disappear." If we are to believe that the book represents the Illuminati's plans for the future, then the following excerpts may provide some insight to the mentality of the elitists who are preparing us for one-world government. Thank you for watching.
http://wn.com/Ayn_Rand_First_Interview_1959_Full
In 1957, a 1168 page book by Ayn Rand, called Atlas Shrugged, was published. According to one source, Rand was alleged to be a mistress to Philippe Rothschild, who instructed her to write the book in order to show that through the raising of oil prices, then destroying the oil fields and shutting down the coal mines, the Illuminati would take over the world. It also related how they would blow up grain mills, derail trains, bankrupt and destroy their own companies, till they had destroyed the economy of the entire world; and yet, they would be so wealthy, that it would not substantially affect their vast holdings. The novel is about a man who stops the motor of the world, of what happens when "the men of the mind, the intellectuals of the world, the originators and innovators in every line of industry go on strike; when the men of creative ability in every profession, in protest against regulation, quit and disappear." If we are to believe that the book represents the Illuminati's plans for the future, then the following excerpts may provide some insight to the mentality of the elitists who are preparing us for one-world government. Thank you for watching.
- published: 25 May 2011
- views: 106648
- author: TruthTube1111
Ayn Rand - Liberty vs Socialism
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 7:05
- Updated: 23 Dec 2012
Mike Wallace interviews Ayn Rand regarding socialism and individual liberty. www.LibertyPen.com
http://wn.com/Ayn_Rand_Liberty_vs_Socialism
Mike Wallace interviews Ayn Rand regarding socialism and individual liberty. www.LibertyPen.com
- published: 17 Aug 2009
- views: 222367
- author: LibertyPen
Ayn Rand on Donahue 1979 (1/5)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 9:56
- Updated: 22 Dec 2012
Ayn Rand attacks altruism as evil and both defines and defends her philosophy of objectivism. Rand also explains how monopolies cannot exist unless they are supported by government erected barriers to competition. Playlist for all 5 videos: www.youtube.com Note: When comparing prices in different years you have to adjust for inflation! A dollar today doesn't have the same buying power as a dollar 30 years ago. data.bls.gov en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org gregmankiw.blogspot.com bpp.mit.edu
http://wn.com/Ayn_Rand_on_Donahue_1979_1_5
Ayn Rand attacks altruism as evil and both defines and defends her philosophy of objectivism. Rand also explains how monopolies cannot exist unless they are supported by government erected barriers to competition. Playlist for all 5 videos: www.youtube.com Note: When comparing prices in different years you have to adjust for inflation! A dollar today doesn't have the same buying power as a dollar 30 years ago. data.bls.gov en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org gregmankiw.blogspot.com bpp.mit.edu
- published: 17 Jun 2009
- views: 117817
- author: brittle13
Ayn Rand Interview with Tom Snyder, (1 of 3)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 9:53
- Updated: 23 Dec 2012
Seeing as how we only have a few other interviews with Rand up here on Youtube, I thought I'd add this one to the list. Lesser known then the Phill Donahue or Wallace ones, it is still a treat to see her in action.
http://wn.com/Ayn_Rand_Interview_with_Tom_Snyder,_1_of_3
Seeing as how we only have a few other interviews with Rand up here on Youtube, I thought I'd add this one to the list. Lesser known then the Phill Donahue or Wallace ones, it is still a treat to see her in action.
- published: 08 Nov 2008
- views: 234189
- author: Sarrisan98
AYN RAND ON JOHNNY CARSON part 1 of 2
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 13:25
- Updated: 23 Dec 2012
Ayn Rand on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson ( 1967 ) part 1 of 2
http://wn.com/AYN_RAND_ON_JOHNNY_CARSON_part_1_of_2
Ayn Rand on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson ( 1967 ) part 1 of 2
- published: 23 Jul 2012
- views: 63277
- author: warpicachu
Ayn Rand - Faith vs Reason
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 7:06
- Updated: 23 Dec 2012
Objectivist philosopher and atheist Ayn Rand discusses the dangers of faith, the meaning of death and her disbelief in God. Objectivism: www.aynrand.org Ayn Rand Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org Ayn Rand, two years before she died: 'What I've always thought was a sentence from some Greek philosopher -- I don't, unfortunately, remember who it was -- that I read at 16, and it's affected me all my life: "I will not die. It's the world that will end." And that's absolutely true.'
http://wn.com/Ayn_Rand_Faith_vs_Reason
Objectivist philosopher and atheist Ayn Rand discusses the dangers of faith, the meaning of death and her disbelief in God. Objectivism: www.aynrand.org Ayn Rand Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org Ayn Rand, two years before she died: 'What I've always thought was a sentence from some Greek philosopher -- I don't, unfortunately, remember who it was -- that I read at 16, and it's affected me all my life: "I will not die. It's the world that will end." And that's absolutely true.'
- published: 11 Jul 2008
- views: 184070
- author: thruthem
Ayn Rand on Israel and the Middle East
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:39
- Updated: 23 Dec 2012
(1979) Ayn Rand discusses Israel and the Middle East on Donahue. Playlist for the full video: www.youtube.com
http://wn.com/Ayn_Rand_on_Israel_and_the_Middle_East
(1979) Ayn Rand discusses Israel and the Middle East on Donahue. Playlist for the full video: www.youtube.com
- published: 28 Mar 2009
- views: 303584
- author: brittle13
William Buckley on Ayn Rand & Atlas Shrugged
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:43
- Updated: 22 Dec 2012
Talking to Rose, patron-saint of the conservative movement , Bill buckley chats about ayn and her magnum opus atlas shrugged. On atlas shrugged, WFB:"I had to flog myself to read it." On ayn, WFB : "Her scorn for charity,for altruism was such as to build up an unfeeling system"
http://wn.com/William_Buckley_on_Ayn_Rand_Atlas_Shrugged
Talking to Rose, patron-saint of the conservative movement , Bill buckley chats about ayn and her magnum opus atlas shrugged. On atlas shrugged, WFB:"I had to flog myself to read it." On ayn, WFB : "Her scorn for charity,for altruism was such as to build up an unfeeling system"
- published: 31 Oct 2010
- views: 279948
- author: MetrazolElectricity
Stephen Colbert vs Ayn Rand?
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:29
- Updated: 22 Dec 2012
When "The Colbert Report" took on the recent increase in the reported popularity of the late Ayn Rand's philosophy in "The Word" segment last week, it reminded me of my own rejection of Rand's "Virtue of Selfishness" back in my college days and made me think of how that value judgment affects our economic choices as epitomized by a remark from Pulitzer prize winning Washington Post economics reporter Steve Pearlstein on last week's "Real Time with Bill Maher." You can see the entire March 11, 2009, segment of "The Word" titled "Rand Illusion" from which I took the two short clips for my video on the Colbert Nation website at www.colbertnation.com And, although the March 13, 2009, broadcast is not available on the HBO website, you can find more information about HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" at www.hbo.com Finally, you can read my old college paper titled "The Vice of Selfishness" in which I reject Ayn Rand's philosophy at www.liberalviewer.com
http://wn.com/Stephen_Colbert_vs_Ayn_Rand?
When "The Colbert Report" took on the recent increase in the reported popularity of the late Ayn Rand's philosophy in "The Word" segment last week, it reminded me of my own rejection of Rand's "Virtue of Selfishness" back in my college days and made me think of how that value judgment affects our economic choices as epitomized by a remark from Pulitzer prize winning Washington Post economics reporter Steve Pearlstein on last week's "Real Time with Bill Maher." You can see the entire March 11, 2009, segment of "The Word" titled "Rand Illusion" from which I took the two short clips for my video on the Colbert Nation website at www.colbertnation.com And, although the March 13, 2009, broadcast is not available on the HBO website, you can find more information about HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" at www.hbo.com Finally, you can read my old college paper titled "The Vice of Selfishness" in which I reject Ayn Rand's philosophy at www.liberalviewer.com
- published: 17 Mar 2009
- views: 556947
- author: LiberalViewer
The Fountainhead - Howard Roark Speech (Ayn Rand)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:54
- Updated: 22 Dec 2012
From The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, Gary Cooper as Howard Roark delivers the memorable courtroom speech in self-defense for dynamiting Courtland.
http://wn.com/The_Fountainhead_Howard_Roark_Speech_Ayn_Rand
From The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, Gary Cooper as Howard Roark delivers the memorable courtroom speech in self-defense for dynamiting Courtland.
- published: 10 Aug 2006
- views: 454024
- author: Sidewinder77
Ayn Rand - Individual Rights
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 9:26
- Updated: 23 Dec 2012
Rand's brilliant explanation of the natural rights of man from "The Virtue of Selfishness." www.LibertyPen.com
http://wn.com/Ayn_Rand_Individual_Rights
Rand's brilliant explanation of the natural rights of man from "The Virtue of Selfishness." www.LibertyPen.com
- published: 03 Dec 2010
- views: 13379
- author: LibertyPen
AYN RAND's message to AMERICA
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:50
- Updated: 23 Dec 2012
Even more relevant than when she said it in 1961. Hopefully, we will see in our lifetimes a realignment of the GOP in favor of reason and individual rights and away from faith and tradition. Religion is a private matter. As the Tea Party movement takes hold- we're seeing the ugly specter of religious intolerance gaining strength to rip apart the coalition of patriots we've assembled. Commentator Glenn Beck has openly declared that religion is the only basis on which the movement can proceed. At the same time, he depends on Objectivist commentators and secular pro-capitalists to make his economic and ideological case. You can't use rational men and women's ideas and simultaneously damn them for being rational. For a statement of principle that ALL patriots can rally behind, visit www.PrincipledPatriots.us
http://wn.com/AYN_RAND's_message_to_AMERICA
Even more relevant than when she said it in 1961. Hopefully, we will see in our lifetimes a realignment of the GOP in favor of reason and individual rights and away from faith and tradition. Religion is a private matter. As the Tea Party movement takes hold- we're seeing the ugly specter of religious intolerance gaining strength to rip apart the coalition of patriots we've assembled. Commentator Glenn Beck has openly declared that religion is the only basis on which the movement can proceed. At the same time, he depends on Objectivist commentators and secular pro-capitalists to make his economic and ideological case. You can't use rational men and women's ideas and simultaneously damn them for being rational. For a statement of principle that ALL patriots can rally behind, visit www.PrincipledPatriots.us
- published: 18 Jul 2007
- views: 388584
- author: XCowboy2
Ayn Rand - In Defense of Capitalism
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 9:52
- Updated: 22 Dec 2012
Ayn Rand explains the necessity of capitalism to a free society. www.LibertyPen.com
http://wn.com/Ayn_Rand_In_Defense_of_Capitalism
Ayn Rand explains the necessity of capitalism to a free society. www.LibertyPen.com
- published: 11 Oct 2009
- views: 71567
- author: LibertyPen
Ayn Rand - Destroying Capitalism from Within
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 9:18
- Updated: 23 Dec 2012
Ayn Rand explains the destructive forces working against capitalism. More videos and information on issues of liberty are available at www.LibertyPen.com
http://wn.com/Ayn_Rand_Destroying_Capitalism_from_Within
Ayn Rand explains the destructive forces working against capitalism. More videos and information on issues of liberty are available at www.LibertyPen.com
- published: 27 Aug 2010
- views: 74916
- author: LibertyPen
Ayn Rand - Red Army, White Army
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:15
- Updated: 18 Dec 2012
Ayn Rand shares a lesson from her youth. www.LibertyPen.com Book Ayn Rand: The Voice Of Reason Publisher: Blackstone Audio Books Buy it: www.blackstoneaudio.com
http://wn.com/Ayn_Rand_Red_Army,_White_Army
Ayn Rand shares a lesson from her youth. www.LibertyPen.com Book Ayn Rand: The Voice Of Reason Publisher: Blackstone Audio Books Buy it: www.blackstoneaudio.com
- published: 02 Jan 2012
- views: 7508
- author: LibertyPen
Paul Ryan And Ayn Rand
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 6:28
- Updated: 22 Dec 2012
"The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand ." That's freshly minted GOP vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan talking -- statements he would eventually recant -- at a party celebrating what would have been the prolific author's 100th birthday...".* Did Rand, a libertarian darling, idolize serial killer Walter Edward Hickman? The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur breaks it down. *Read more here from Jan Frel in Alternet.org: www.alternet.org Support The Young Turks by Subscribing bit.ly Like Us on Facebook: www.fb.com Follow Us on Twitter: twitter.com Buy TYT Merch: theyoungturks.spreadshirt.com Find out how to watch The Young Turks on Current by clicking here: www.current.com
http://wn.com/Paul_Ryan_And_Ayn_Rand
"The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand ." That's freshly minted GOP vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan talking -- statements he would eventually recant -- at a party celebrating what would have been the prolific author's 100th birthday...".* Did Rand, a libertarian darling, idolize serial killer Walter Edward Hickman? The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur breaks it down. *Read more here from Jan Frel in Alternet.org: www.alternet.org Support The Young Turks by Subscribing bit.ly Like Us on Facebook: www.fb.com Follow Us on Twitter: twitter.com Buy TYT Merch: theyoungturks.spreadshirt.com Find out how to watch The Young Turks on Current by clicking here: www.current.com
- published: 14 Aug 2012
- views: 59966
- author: TheYoungTurks
Using Ayn Rand's Values to Create Competitive Advantage in Business (part 1 of 2)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 71:33
- Updated: 22 Dec 2012
John Allison, who as chairman and CEO made BB&T; Corporation the 10th largest financial institution headquartered in the United States, attributes the success of BB&T; to the concept of Principled Leadership, based on an uncompromising commitment to fundamental values. In this talk, he explains how Ayn Rand's ethical system can be used practically to create a competitive advantage in any organization.
http://wn.com/Using_Ayn_Rand's_Values_to_Create_Competitive_Advantage_in_Business_part_1_of_2
John Allison, who as chairman and CEO made BB&T; Corporation the 10th largest financial institution headquartered in the United States, attributes the success of BB&T; to the concept of Principled Leadership, based on an uncompromising commitment to fundamental values. In this talk, he explains how Ayn Rand's ethical system can be used practically to create a competitive advantage in any organization.
- published: 13 Jul 2011
- views: 7316
- author: AynRandInstitute
The 1959 Mike Wallace Ayn Rand Interview
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 27:03
- Updated: 21 Dec 2012
"In an effort to publicize [Atlas Shrugged], Ayn agreed to an interview with Mike Wallace, on his New York television show, 'Night Beat,' the hard-driving program that began his rise to prominence. They liked each other immediately, and were to visit together on a number of occasions over the following years. 'She was perfect grist for the mill of Night Beat,' Mike later said. 'She voiced provocative opinions, she was anti-establishment and utterly unexpected, with a kind of close reasoning and a clarity that one had to admire; it was a remarkable interview. And the calls and letters that poured in about it shook the rafters."
http://wn.com/The_1959_Mike_Wallace_Ayn_Rand_Interview
"In an effort to publicize [Atlas Shrugged], Ayn agreed to an interview with Mike Wallace, on his New York television show, 'Night Beat,' the hard-driving program that began his rise to prominence. They liked each other immediately, and were to visit together on a number of occasions over the following years. 'She was perfect grist for the mill of Night Beat,' Mike later said. 'She voiced provocative opinions, she was anti-establishment and utterly unexpected, with a kind of close reasoning and a clarity that one had to admire; it was a remarkable interview. And the calls and letters that poured in about it shook the rafters."
- published: 01 Nov 2011
- views: 29534
- author: justintempler
Paul Ryan Rejects Ayn Rand In Face Of Catholic Criticism
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:51
- Updated: 14 Dec 2012
Via Talking Points Memo: "Under fire from the powerful US Conference of Catholic Bishops for writing a budget that cuts deeply into programs that help the needy, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) defended his vision in a Thursday speech at Georgetown University...In a sign that the criticism bruised Ryan, he proceeded to label his well-documented affinity for Rand an "urban legend" in an interview with National Review published Thursday, saying he rejects her "atheist philosophy." He did not, however, comment on Rand's anti-government views that more closely reflect his political philosophy...".* Ben Mankiewicz and Michael Shure (host of TwenTYTwelve) discuss on The Young Turks. *Read more from Sahil Kapur: tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com Subscribe to The Young Turks: bit.ly Find out how to watch The Young Turks on Current by clicking here: www.current.com The Largest Online New Show in the World. Facebook: www.facebook.com Twitter: twitter.com Google+: www.gplus.to Pinterest: pinterest.com
http://wn.com/Paul_Ryan_Rejects_Ayn_Rand_In_Face_Of_Catholic_Criticism
Via Talking Points Memo: "Under fire from the powerful US Conference of Catholic Bishops for writing a budget that cuts deeply into programs that help the needy, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) defended his vision in a Thursday speech at Georgetown University...In a sign that the criticism bruised Ryan, he proceeded to label his well-documented affinity for Rand an "urban legend" in an interview with National Review published Thursday, saying he rejects her "atheist philosophy." He did not, however, comment on Rand's anti-government views that more closely reflect his political philosophy...".* Ben Mankiewicz and Michael Shure (host of TwenTYTwelve) discuss on The Young Turks. *Read more from Sahil Kapur: tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com Subscribe to The Young Turks: bit.ly Find out how to watch The Young Turks on Current by clicking here: www.current.com The Largest Online New Show in the World. Facebook: www.facebook.com Twitter: twitter.com Google+: www.gplus.to Pinterest: pinterest.com
- published: 28 Apr 2012
- views: 37871
- author: TheYoungTurks
Ayn Rand Interview with Tom Snyder, (2 of 3)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 9:55
- Updated: 22 Dec 2012
See description on part 1...
http://wn.com/Ayn_Rand_Interview_with_Tom_Snyder,_2_of_3
Ayn Rand in her first television interview, Part one
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 9:30
- Updated: 08 Dec 2012
Ayn Rand is interviewed by Mike Wallace in 1959.
http://wn.com/Ayn_Rand_in_her_first_television_interview,_Part_one
Ayn Rand is interviewed by Mike Wallace in 1959.
- published: 28 Dec 2008
- views: 12842
- author: truindep
photo: AP / Aijaz Rahi
22 Dec 2012
Tweet. 0 Email. Report. Photo 1 of 18. In 2009, ELLE Magazine named Mrs Assad the most stylish woman in world politics. She is an icon of fashion in her country. Credit. Aimee Kligman. In 2009, ELLE Magazine named Mrs Assad the most stylish woman in world politics. She is an icon of fashion in her country.In 2009, ELLE Magazine named Mrs Assad the most stylish woman in world politics ... Syrians detained by the Assad regime. 13 Photos ... 10 Photos ... ....(size: 6.3Kb)
photo: AP
23 Dec 2012
North Korea's launching of a rocket into space last week amounted to the test of a ballistic missile capable of carrying a half-ton payload over 10,000km, the South Korean defence ministry says. "Based on our analysis and simulation, the missile is capable of flying more than 10,000km with a warhead of 500-600kg," a defence ministry official told reporters on Sunday ... 415 Source.. Agencies. Share. Send Feedback. Featured on Al Jazeera. Jaws....(size: 18.8Kb)
photo: AP / Virginie Nguyen Huang
23 Dec 2012
Tweet. Moscow, Dec 23 (IANS/RIA Novosti) Chemical weapons in Syria are under the control of the government, which has consolidated them in one or two locations, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said. "As of right now, the (Syrian) government is doing all it can to safeguard those weapons," he said. "We are following all leads concerning chemical weapons," Lavrov said ... "My answer is very simple. Why use us as a postman ... pm/ ... ) .. ). ... . ....(size: 3.2Kb)
photo: AP / Eranga Jayawardena
22 Dec 2012
Salman Khan's Dabangg 2 has broken the record for the biggest non-holiday opener ... "Biggest opener [holiday] #EkThaTiger 32.92 cr ... Biggest opener [non-holiday] #RowdyRathore 15.1 cr ... ....(size: 0.9Kb)
photo: AP / Altaf Qadri
23 Dec 2012
A commission will be set up to probe the gang-rape and torture of a 23-year-old woman in Delhi and measures to ensure such crimes do not recur while laws will be amended to enhance punishment for rape, Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said . He also appealed the thousands of protesters on the capital’s streets, demanding justice for the victim, to withdraw ... “The government is serious on the issue. ... . . ....(size: 2.4Kb)
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
23 Dec 2012
CBC
22 Dec 2012
This week U.S ... Here are five stories from CBCNews.ca you may have missed.Teachers and the gun debate. The Dec. 14 school massacre in Newton, Conn., that left 20 children and six adults dead has renewed gun control debates in the United States ... Some U.S ... The latest U.S. debate ... "I think Scrooge is clearly misunderstood and used to vilify business," said Yaron Brook , president and executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute.Read the story....(size: 3.7Kb)
The Washington Times
22 Dec 2012
Joseph Cotto. Ask me a question. Video. ... In this first part of our discussion, Dr ... ... Erhard, of course, saw his teaching as some sort of holistic breakthrough, but the guy was merely Ayn Rand warmed over, and this vignette illustrates the “ethic” of narcissism pretty well ... Rand, and that the economy and society of the United States (not to mention the culture) revolves around the ideology of Me, Myself, and I....(size: 11.4Kb)
Bloomberg
21 Dec 2012
What's Project X, you ask? Randians (that's Ayn Rand to the uninitiated) will recall it from "Atlas Shrugged" as a sonic weapon of mass destruction being developed by the State Science Institute ... Without getting into the twists and turns of Rand's magnum opus, suffice it to say the government bureaucrats, struggling for control of Project ......(size: 2.6Kb)
CNBC
21 Dec 2012
The biggest economy in the U.S. is turning around, which could mean good news for the overall national economy. "About half all the new jobs created in the United States in the last year were in California," says Bill Lockyer, California's Treasurer ... In other good news, the state reduced its $30 billion deficit to just under $2 billion ... Related ... Related ... Ayn Rand Institute's Brook ... Related ... Stephen S ... Out of the Way, Says Ayn Rand's Brook. ....(size: 3.5Kb)
IMDb
21 Dec 2012
Blu-ray & DVD Release Date. Feb. 19, 2013. Price. DVD $22.98, Blu-ray $29.99. Studio ... Part II ... Part II, an adaptation of acclaimed author Ayn Rand‘s best-selling 1957 novel ... Atlas Shrugged ... ....(size: 1.1Kb)
CNBC
21 Dec 2012
As 2012 comes to a close, the U.S. housing market remains one of the bright spots of the economy. In November, existing home sales rose 5.9% to an annualized rate of 5 million, beating Wall Street expectations ... All of which is good news for the economic recovery." ... Josh Brown ... Out of the Way, Says Ayn Rand's Brook. ....(size: 1.9Kb)
CBC
21 Dec 2012
to tax the wealthy, even to avoid a so-called fiscal cliff ... "I think Scrooge is clearly misunderstood and used to vilify business," said Yaron Brook , president and executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, an organization named after the author whose books promoted individual rights and made the moral case for rational self-interest.'Scrooge is really a hero'. David N ... 'Mankind was my business!'Everybody prospers' ... ....(size: 5.9Kb)
Huffington Post
21 Dec 2012
On Thursday, when the incoming North Carolina Gov ... "So no one should be surprised." ... "The budget priorities of those folks are ... "He will try to give Gov ... A.F.P ... In the 1970s, he founded the state's Libertarian Party and states that he was heavily influenced by a summer program he attended at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank founded by the Koch brothers, for introducing him to the teachings of Ayn Rand and Friedrich Hayek ... Like....(size: 7.9Kb)
CounterPunch
21 Dec 2012
Teddy Roosevelt called their counterparts a century ago “malefactors of great wealth.” They tried to buy the 2012 election for Mitt Romney, and the Senate for the GOP. That was unwise, inasmuch as they have been getting all they could hope for from Barack Obama and the Democrats ... Their latest obsession ... Yes, there are pseudo-philosophers like Ayn Rand who think that they should, and there are plutocrats who embrace her ideas ... * * *....(size: 18.4Kb)
IMDb
21 Dec 2012
Years ago, when initial rumors began richocheting around stating Ayn Rand.s famous novel, Atlas Shrugged, would be brought to life onscreen, I was very excited to see how a movie ......(size: 0.9Kb)
CNBC
20 Dec 2012
Both sides have given up ground in the "Fiscal Cliff" negotiations in Washington, but the surprise tactic of the Republicans to put forth a "Plan B" has suddenly thrown the whole deal into doubt ... A stock market crash ... More from The Daily Ticker. ... Out of the Way, Says Ayn Rand's Brook. ....(size: 1.8Kb)
Indiewire
20 Dec 2012
. ... If anything, it will make the 'Shrugged' experience...louder.... If you're looking for a post-Valentine's Day gift for the humorless Ayn Rand-ian in your life, or the irritating Sean Hannity superfan in your office, "Atlas Shrugged Part Deux" will street on February 19th. ....(size: 2.0Kb)
Ayn Rand ( /ˈaɪn ˈrænd/;[1] born Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum, February 2 [O.S. January 20] 1905 – March 6, 1982) was a Russian-American novelist, philosopher,[2] playwright, and screenwriter. She is known for her two best-selling novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged and for developing a philosophical system she called Objectivism.
Born and educated in Russia, Rand moved to the United States in 1926. She worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood and had a play produced on Broadway in 1935–1936. After two initially unsuccessful early novels, she achieved fame with her 1943 novel The Fountainhead. In 1957, she published her best-known work, the philosophical novel Atlas Shrugged. Afterward she turned to nonfiction to promote her philosophy, publishing her own magazines and releasing several collections of essays until her death in 1982.
Rand advocated reason as the only means of acquiring knowledge and rejected all forms of faith and religion. She supported rational and ethical egoism, and rejected ethical altruism. In politics, she condemned the initiation of force as immoral and opposed all forms of collectivism and statism, instead supporting laissez-faire capitalism, which she believed was the only social system that protected individual rights. She promoted romantic realism in art. She was sharply critical of the philosophers and philosophical traditions known to her besides Aristotle.
Rand's fiction was poorly received by many literary critics,[3] and academia generally ignored or rejected her philosophy. The Objectivist movement attempts to spread her ideas, both to the public and in academic settings.[4] She is a major influence among libertarians and American conservatives.
Contents |
Life[link]
Early life[link]
Rand was born Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum (Russian: Алиса Зиновьевна Розенбаум) on February 2, 1905, to a bourgeois family living in Saint Petersburg. She was the eldest of the three daughters of Zinovy Zakharovich Rosenbaum and Anna Borisovna Rosenbaum, largely non-observant Jews. Rand's father was a successful pharmacist, eventually owning a pharmacy and the building in which it was located.[5] Rand was twelve at the time of the Russian Revolution of 1917, during which her sympathies were with Alexander Kerensky. Rand's family life was disrupted by the rise of the Bolshevik party under Vladimir Lenin. Her father's pharmacy was confiscated by the Bolsheviks, and the family fled to the Crimea, which was initially under the control of the White Army during the Russian Civil War. She later recalled that while in high school she determined that she was an atheist and that she valued reason above any other human attribute. After graduating from high school in the Crimea, at 16 Rand returned with her family to Petrograd (the new name for Saint Petersburg), where they faced desperate conditions, on occasion nearly starving.[6][7]
After the Russian Revolution, universities were opened to women, including Jews, allowing Rand to be in the first group of women to enroll at Petrograd State University,[8] where she studied in the department of social pedagogy, majoring in history.[9] At the university she was introduced to the writings of Aristotle and Plato,[10] who would form two of her greatest influences and counter-influences, respectively.[11] A third figure whose philosophical works she studied heavily was Friedrich Nietzsche.[12] Able to read French, German and Russian, Rand also discovered the writers Fyodor Dostoevsky, Victor Hugo, Edmond Rostand, and Friedrich Schiller, who became her perennial favorites.[13]
Along with many other "bourgeois" students, Rand was purged from the university shortly before graduating. However, after complaints from a group of visiting foreign scientists, many of the purged students were allowed to complete their work and graduate,[14] which Rand did in October 1924.[15] She subsequently studied for a year at the State Technicum for Screen Arts in Leningrad. For one of her assignments, she wrote an essay about the actress Pola Negri, which became her first published work.[16]
By this time she had decided her professional surname for writing would be Rand,[17] possibly as a Cyrillic contraction of her birth surname,[18] and she adopted the first name Ayn, either from a Finnish name or from the Hebrew word עין (ayin, meaning "eye").[19]
In the fall of 1925, Rand was granted a visa to visit American relatives. Rand was so impressed with the skyline of Manhattan upon her arrival in New York Harbor that she cried what she later called "tears of splendor".[20] Intent on staying in the United States to become a screenwriter, she lived for a few months with relatives in Chicago, one of whom owned a movie theater and allowed her to watch dozens of films for free. She then set out for Hollywood, California.[21]
Initially, Rand struggled in Hollywood and took odd jobs to pay her basic living expenses. A chance meeting with famed director Cecil B. DeMille led to a job as an extra in his film, The King of Kings, and to subsequent work as a junior screenwriter.[22] While working on The King of Kings, she met an aspiring young actor, Frank O'Connor; the two were married on April 15, 1929. Rand became an American citizen in 1931. Taking various jobs during the 1930s to support her writing, Rand worked for a time as the head of the costume department at RKO Studios.[23] She made several attempts to bring her parents and sisters to the United States, but they were unable to acquire permission to emigrate.[24]
Early fiction[link]
Rand's first literary success came with the sale of her screenplay Red Pawn to Universal Studios in 1932, although it was never produced.[25] This was followed by the courtroom drama Night of January 16th, first produced by E.E. Clive in Hollywood in 1934 and then successfully reopened on Broadway in 1935. Each night the "jury" was selected from members of the audience, and one of the two different endings, depending on the jury's "verdict", would then be performed.[26] In 1941, Paramount Pictures produced a movie version of the play. Rand did not participate in the production and was highly critical of the result.[27]
Rand's first novel, the semi-autobiographical We the Living, was published in 1936. Set in Soviet Russia, it focused on the struggle between the individual and the state. In a 1959 foreword to the novel, Rand stated that We the Living "is as near to an autobiography as I will ever write. It is not an autobiography in the literal, but only in the intellectual sense. The plot is invented, the background is not..."[28] Initial sales were slow and the American publisher let it go out of print,[29] although European editions continued to sell.[30] After the success of her later novels, Rand was able to release a revised version in 1959 that has since sold over three million copies.[31] Without Rand's knowledge or permission, the novel was made into a pair of Italian films, Noi vivi and Addio, Kira, in 1942. Rediscovered in the 1960s, these films were re-edited into a new version which was approved by Rand and re-released as We the Living in 1986.[32]
Her novella Anthem was written during a break from the writing of her next major novel, The Fountainhead. It presents a vision of a dystopian future world in which totalitarian collectivism has triumphed to such an extent that even the word 'I' has been forgotten and replaced with 'we'.[33] It was published in England in 1938, but Rand initially could not find an American publisher. As with We the Living, Rand's later success allowed her to get a revised version published in 1946, which has sold more than 3.5 million copies.[34]
[edit] The Fountainhead and political activism
See also: The Fountainhead and The Fountainhead (film)
During the 1940s, Rand became politically active. Both she and her husband worked full time in volunteer positions for the 1940 Presidential campaign of Republican Wendell Willkie. This work led to Rand's first public speaking experiences, including fielding the sometimes hostile questions from New York City audiences who had just viewed pro-Willkie newsreels, an experience she greatly enjoyed.[35] This activity also brought her into contact with other intellectuals sympathetic to free-market capitalism. She became friends with journalist Henry Hazlitt and his wife, and Hazlitt introduced her to the Austrian School economist Ludwig von Mises. Despite her philosophical differences with them, Rand strongly endorsed the writings of both men throughout her career, and both of them expressed admiration for her. Once von Mises referred to Rand as "the most courageous man in America," a compliment that particularly pleased her because he said "man" instead of "woman."[36] Rand also developed a friendship with libertarian writer Isabel Paterson. Rand questioned the well-informed Paterson about American history and politics long into the night during their numerous meetings and gave Paterson ideas for her only nonfiction book, The God of the Machine.[37]
Rand's first major success as a writer came with The Fountainhead in 1943, a romantic and philosophical novel that she wrote over a period of seven years.[38] The novel centers on an uncompromising young architect named Howard Roark and his struggle against what Rand described as "second-handers"—those who attempt to live through others, placing others above self. It was rejected by twelve publishers before finally being accepted by the Bobbs-Merrill Company on the insistence of editor Archibald Ogden, who threatened to quit if his employer did not publish it.[39] While completing the novel, Rand was prescribed the amphetamine Benzedrine to fight fatigue.[40] The drug helped her to work long hours to meet her deadline for delivering the finished novel, but when the book was done, she was so exhausted that her doctor ordered two weeks' rest.[41] Her continued use of the drug for a number of years may have contributed to what some of her later associates described as volatile mood swings.[42]
The Fountainhead eventually became a worldwide success, bringing Rand fame and financial security.[43] In 1943, Rand sold the rights for a film version to Warner Bros., and she returned to Hollywood to write the screenplay. Finishing her work on that screenplay, she was hired by producer Hal Wallis as a screenwriter and script-doctor. Her work for Wallis included the screenplays for the Oscar-nominated Love Letters and You Came Along.[44] This role gave Rand time to work on other projects, including a planned nonfiction treatment of her philosophy to be called The Moral Basis of Individualism. Although the planned book was never completed, a condensed version was published as an essay titled "The Only Path to Tomorrow", in the January 1944 edition of Reader's Digest magazine.[45]
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While working in Hollywood, Rand extended her involvement with free-market and anti-communist activism. She became involved with the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, a Hollywood anti-Communist group, and wrote articles on the group's behalf. She also joined the anti-Communist American Writers Association.[46] A visit by Isabel Paterson to meet with Rand's California associates led to a final falling out between the two when Paterson made comments that Rand saw as rude to valued political allies.[47] In 1947, during the Second Red Scare, Rand testified as a "friendly witness" before the United States House Un-American Activities Committee. Her testimony described the disparity between her personal experiences in the Soviet Union and the portrayal of it in the 1944 film Song of Russia.[48] Rand argued that the film grossly misrepresented conditions in the Soviet Union, portraying life there as being much better and happier than it actually was.[49] When asked about her feelings on the effectiveness of the investigations after the hearings, Rand described the process as "futile".[50]
After several delays, the film version of The Fountainhead was released in 1949. Although it used Rand's screenplay with minimal alterations, she "disliked the movie from beginning to end," complaining about its editing, acting, and other elements.[51]
[edit] Atlas Shrugged and Objectivism
After the publication of The Fountainhead, Rand received numerous letters from readers, some of whom it had profoundly influenced. In 1951 Rand moved from Los Angeles to New York City, where she gathered a group of these admirers around her. This group (jokingly designated "The Collective") included future Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, a young psychology student named Nathan Blumenthal (later Nathaniel Branden) and his wife Barbara, and Barbara's cousin Leonard Peikoff. At first the group was an informal gathering of friends who met with Rand on weekends at her apartment to discuss philosophy. Later she began allowing them to read the drafts of her new novel, Atlas Shrugged, as the manuscript pages were written. In 1954 Rand's close relationship with the much younger Nathaniel Branden turned into a romantic affair, with the consent of their spouses.[52]
Atlas Shrugged, published in 1957, was Rand's magnum opus.[53] Rand described the theme of the novel as "the role of the mind in man's existence—and, as a corollary, the demonstration of a new moral philosophy: the morality of rational self-interest."[54] It advocates the core tenets of Rand's philosophy of Objectivism and expresses her concept of human achievement. The plot involves a dystopian United States in which the most creative industrialists, scientists and artists go on strike and retreat to a mountainous hideaway where they build an independent free economy. The novel's hero and leader of the strike, John Galt, describes the strike as "stopping the motor of the world" by withdrawing the minds of the individuals most contributing to the nation's wealth and achievement. With this fictional strike, Rand intended to illustrate that without the efforts of the rational and productive, the economy would collapse and society would fall apart. The novel includes elements of mystery and science fiction,[55] and it contains Rand's most extensive statement of Objectivism in any of her works of fiction, a lengthy monologue delivered by Galt. Atlas Shrugged became an international bestseller, and in an interview with Mike Wallace, Rand declared herself "the most creative thinker alive."[56] Atlas Shrugged was to be Rand's last work of fiction; a turning point in her life, it marked the end of Rand's career as a novelist and the beginning of her role as a popular philosopher.[57] After completing the novel of more than one thousand pages, however, Rand fell into a severe depression that may have been aggravated by her use of prescription amphetamines.[58]
In 1958 Nathaniel Branden established Nathaniel Branden Lectures, later incorporated as the Nathaniel Branden Institute (NBI), to promote Rand's philosophy. Collective members gave lectures for NBI and wrote articles for Objectivist periodicals that she edited. Rand later published some of these articles in book form. Critics, including some former NBI students and Branden himself, have described the culture of NBI as one of intellectual conformity and excessive reverence for Rand, with some describing NBI or the entire Objectivist movement as a cult or religion.[59] Rand expressed opinions on a wide range of topics, including literature, music, sexuality, even facial hair, and some of her followers mimicked all her preferences, wearing clothes to match characters from her novels and buying furniture like hers.[60] Rand was unimpressed with many of the NBI students[61] and held them to strict standards, sometimes reacting coldly or angrily to those who disagreed with her.[62] However, some former NBI students believe the extent of these behaviors has been exaggerated, with the problem being concentrated among Rand's closest followers in New York.[63]
Later years[link]
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Rand developed and promoted her Objectivist philosophy through her nonfiction works and by giving talks to students at institutions such as Yale University, Princeton University, Columbia University,[64] Harvard University and MIT.[65] She received an honorary doctorate from Lewis & Clark College in 1963.[66] She also began delivering annual lectures at the Ford Hall Forum, responding afterward to questions from the audience.[67] During these speeches and Q&A sessions, she often took controversial stances on political and social issues of the day. These included supporting abortion rights,[68] opposing the Vietnam War and the military draft (but condemning many draft dodgers as "bums"),[69] supporting Israel in the Arab-Israeli War of 1973 as "civilized men fighting savages",[70] saying European colonists had the right to take land from American Indians,[71] and calling homosexuality "immoral" and "disgusting", while also advocating the repeal of all laws against it.[72] She also endorsed several Republican candidates for President of the United States, most strongly Barry Goldwater in 1964, whose candidacy she promoted in several articles for The Objectivist Newsletter.[73]
In 1964 Nathaniel Branden began an affair with the young actress Patrecia Scott, whom he later married. Nathaniel and Barbara Branden kept the affair hidden from Rand. When she learned of it in 1968, though her romantic relationship with Branden had already ended,[74] Rand terminated her relationship with both Brandens, which led to the closure of NBI.[75] Rand published an article in The Objectivist repudiating Nathaniel Branden for dishonesty and other "irrational behavior in his private life."[76] Branden later apologized in an interview to "every student of Objectivism" for "perpetuating the Ayn Rand mystique" and for "contributing to that dreadful atmosphere of intellectual repressiveness that pervades the Objectivist movement."[77] In subsequent years, several more of her closest associates parted company with her.[78]
Rand underwent surgery for lung cancer in 1974 after decades of heavy smoking.[79] In 1976 she retired from writing her newsletter and, despite her initial objections, reluctantly allowed Evva Pryor, a consultant from her attorney's office, to sign her up for Social Security and Medicare.[80] During the late 1970s her activities within the Objectivist movement declined, especially after the death of her husband on November 9, 1979.[81] One of her final projects was work on a never-completed television adaptation of Atlas Shrugged.[82]
Rand died of heart failure on March 6, 1982, at her home in New York City,[83] and was interred in the Kensico Cemetery, Valhalla, New York.[84] Rand's funeral was attended by some of her prominent followers, including Alan Greenspan. A six-foot floral arrangement in the shape of a dollar sign was placed near her casket.[85] In her will, Rand named Leonard Peikoff the heir to her estate.[86]
Philosophy[link]
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| Philosophy portal |
Main article: Objectivism (Ayn Rand)
Rand called her philosophy "Objectivism", describing its essence as "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."[87] She considered Objectivism a systematic philosophy and laid out positions on metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, political philosophy and esthetics.[88]
In metaphysics, Rand supported philosophical realism, and opposed anything she regarded as mysticism or supernaturalism, including all forms of religion.[89] In epistemology, she considered all knowledge to be based on sense perception, the validity of which she considered axiomatic,[90] and reason, which she described as "the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by man's senses."[91] She rejected all claims of non-perceptual or a priori knowledge, including "'instinct,' 'intuition,' 'revelation,' or any form of 'just knowing.'"[92] In her Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, Rand presented a theory of concept formation and endorsed the rejection of the analytic–synthetic dichotomy.[93]
In ethics, Rand argued for rational egoism (rational self-interest), as the guiding moral principle. She said the individual should "exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself."[94] She referred to egoism as "the virtue of selfishness" in her book of that title,[95] in which she presented her solution to the is-ought problem by describing a meta-ethical theory that based morality in the needs of "man's survival qua man".[96] She condemned ethical altruism as incompatible with the requirements of human life and happiness,[97] and held that the initiation of force was evil and irrational, writing in Atlas Shrugged that "Force and mind are opposites".[98]
Rand's political philosophy emphasized individual rights (including property rights),[99] and she considered laissez-faire capitalism the only moral social system because in her view it was the only system based on the protection of those rights.[100] She opposed statism, which she understood to include theocracy, absolute monarchy, Nazism, fascism, communism, democratic socialism, and dictatorship.[101] Rand believed that rights should be enforced by a constitutionally limited government.[102] Although her political views are often classified as conservative or libertarian, she preferred the term "radical for capitalism". She worked with conservatives on political projects, but disagreed with them over issues such as religion and ethics.[103] She denounced libertarianism, which she associated with anarchism.[104] She rejected anarchism as a naïve theory based in subjectivism that could only lead to collectivism in practice.[105]
Rand's esthetics defined art as a "selective re-creation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value-judgments." According to Rand, art allows philosophical concepts to be presented in a concrete form that can be easily grasped, thereby fulfilling a need of human consciousness.[106] As a writer, the art form Rand focused on most closely was literature, where she considered Romanticism to be the approach that most accurately reflected the existence of human free will.[107] She described her own approach to literature as "romantic realism".[108]
Rand acknowledged Aristotle as her greatest influence[109] and remarked that in the history of philosophy she could only recommend "three A's"—Aristotle, Aquinas, and Ayn Rand.[110] She also found early inspiration in Friedrich Nietzsche,[111] and scholars have found indications of his influence in early notes from Rand's journals,[112] in passages from the first edition of We the Living (which Rand later revised),[113] and in her overall writing style.[114] However, by the time she wrote The Fountainhead, Rand had turned against Nietzsche's ideas,[115] and the extent of his influence on her even during her early years is disputed.[116] Among the philosophers Rand held in particular disdain was Immanuel Kant, whom she referred to as a "monster",[117] although philosophers George Walsh[118] and Fred Seddon[119] have argued that she misinterpreted Kant and exaggerated their differences.
Rand said her most important contributions to philosophy were her "theory of concepts, [her] ethics, and [her] discovery in politics that evil—the violation of rights—consists of the initiation of force."[120] She believed epistemology was a foundational branch of philosophy and considered the advocacy of reason to be the single most significant aspect of her philosophy,[121] stating, "I am not primarily an advocate of capitalism, but of egoism; and I am not primarily an advocate of egoism, but of reason. If one recognizes the supremacy of reason and applies it consistently, all the rest follows."[122]
Reception and legacy[link]
Reviews[link]
During Rand's lifetime, her work evoked both extreme praise and condemnation. Rand's first novel, We the Living, was admired by the literary critic H.L. Mencken,[123] her Broadway play Night of January 16th was both a critical and popular success,[124] and The Fountainhead was hailed by a reviewer in The New York Times as "masterful".[125] Rand's novels were derided by some critics when they were first published as being long and melodramatic.[3] However, they became bestsellers largely through word of mouth.[126]
The first reviews Rand received were for Night of January 16th. Reviews of the production were largely positive, but Rand considered even positive reviews to be embarrassing because of significant changes made to her script by the producer.[124] Rand believed that her first novel, We the Living, was not widely reviewed, but Rand scholar Michael S. Berliner says "it was the most reviewed of any of her works," with approximately 125 different reviews being published in more than 200 publications. Overall these reviews were more positive than the reviews she received for her later work.[127] Her 1938 novella Anthem received little attention from reviewers, both for its first publication in England and for subsequent re-issues.[128]
Rand's first bestseller, The Fountainhead, received far fewer reviews than We the Living, and reviewers' opinions were mixed.[129] There was a positive review in The New York Times that Rand greatly appreciated.[130] The reviewer called Rand "a writer of great power" who wrote "brilliantly, beautifully and bitterly," and stated that "you will not be able to read this masterful book without thinking through some of the basic concepts of our time."[125] There were other positive reviews, but Rand dismissed most of them as either not understanding her message or as being from unimportant publications.[129] Some negative reviews focused on the length of the novel,[3] such as one that called it "a whale of a book" and another that said "anyone who is taken in by it deserves a stern lecture on paper-rationing." Other negative reviews called the characters unsympathetic and Rand's style "offensively pedestrian."[129]
Rand's 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged was widely reviewed, and many of the reviews were strongly negative.[3][131] In the National Review, conservative author Whittaker Chambers called the book "sophomoric" and "remarkably silly". He described the tone of the book as "shrillness without reprieve" and accused Rand of supporting a Godless system (which he related to that of the Soviets), claiming "From almost any page of Atlas Shrugged, a voice can be heard, from painful necessity, commanding: 'To a gas chamber—go!'"[132] Atlas Shrugged received positive reviews from a few publications, including praise from the noted book reviewer John Chamberlain,[131] but Rand scholar Mimi Reisel Gladstein later wrote that "reviewers seemed to vie with each other in a contest to devise the cleverest put-downs," calling it "execrable claptrap" and "a nightmare;" they said it was "written out of hate" and showed "remorseless hectoring and prolixity."[3] Author Flannery O'Connor wrote in a letter to a friend that "The fiction of Ayn Rand is as low as you can get re fiction. I hope you picked it up off the floor of the subway and threw it in the nearest garbage pail."[133]
Rand's nonfiction received far fewer reviews than her novels had. The tenor of the criticism for her first nonfiction book, For the New Intellectual, was similar to that for Atlas Shrugged,[134][135] with philosopher Sidney Hook likening her certainty to "the way philosophy is written in the Soviet Union",[136] and author Gore Vidal calling her viewpoint "nearly perfect in its immorality".[137] Her subsequent books got progressively less attention from reviewers.[134]
On the 100th anniversary of Rand's birth in 2005, Edward Rothstein, writing for The New York Times, referred to her fictional writing as quaint utopian "retro fantasy" and programmatic neo-Romanticism of the misunderstood artist, while criticizing her characters' "isolated rejection of democratic society".[138] In 2007, book critic Leslie Clark described her fiction as "romance novels with a patina of pseudo-philosophy".[139] In 2009, GQ's critic columnist Tom Carson described her books as "capitalism's version of middlebrow religious novels" such as Ben-Hur and the Left Behind series.[140]
Popular interest[link]
In 1991, a survey conducted for the Library of Congress and the Book-of-the-Month Club asked club members what the most influential book in the respondent's life was. Rand's Atlas Shrugged was the second most popular choice, after the Bible.[141] Rand's books continue to be widely sold and read, with 25 million copies sold as of 2007[142] and another 800,000 sold in 2008. (This includes approximately 300,000 copies distributed for free by the Ayn Rand Institute.)[143] Although Rand's influence has been greatest in the United States, there has been international interest in her work.[144]
Rand's contemporary admirers included fellow novelists, such as Ira Levin, Kay Nolte Smith and L. Neil Smith, and later writers such as Erika Holzer and Terry Goodkind have been influenced by her.[145] Other artists who have cited Rand as an important influence on their lives and thought include comic book artist Steve Ditko[146] and musician Neil Peart of Rush.[147] Rand provided a positive view of business, and in response business executives and entrepreneurs have admired and promoted her work.[148] John Allison of BB&T and Ed Snider of Comcast Spectacor have funded the promotion of Rand's ideas,[149] while Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, and John P. Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods, among others, have said they consider Rand crucial to their success.[150]
Rand and her works have been referred to in a variety of media. References to her have appeared on television shows including animated sitcoms, live-action comedies, dramas, and game shows.[151] She, or characters based on her, figure prominently (in positive and negative lights) in literary and science fiction novels by prominent American authors.[152] Nick Gillespie, editor in chief of Reason, has remarked that "Rand's is a tortured immortality, one in which she's as likely to be a punch line as a protagonist..." and that "jibes at Rand as cold and inhuman, run through the popular culture."[153] Two movies have been made about Rand's life. A 1997 documentary film, Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life, was nominated for the Academy Award for Documentary Feature.[154] The Passion of Ayn Rand, a 1999 television adaptation of the book of the same name, won several awards.[142] Rand's image also appears on a U.S. postage stamp designed by artist Nick Gaetano.[155]
Political influence[link]
See also: Libertarianism and Objectivism
Although she rejected the labels "conservative" and "libertarian,"[156] Rand has had continuing influence on right-wing politics and libertarianism.[157] Jim Powell, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, considers Rand one of the three most important women (along with Rose Wilder Lane and Isabel Paterson) of modern American libertarianism,[158] and David Nolan, one of the founders of the Libertarian Party, stated that "without Ayn Rand, the libertarian movement would not exist."[159] In his history of the libertarian movement, journalist Brian Doherty described her as "the most influential libertarian of the twentieth century to the public at large,"[141] and biographer Jennifer Burns referred to her as "the ultimate gateway drug to life on the right."[160]
She faced intense opposition from William F. Buckley, Jr. and other contributors for the National Review magazine. They published numerous attacks in the 1950s and 1960s by Whittaker Chambers, Garry Wills, and M. Stanton Evans. Nevertheless, her influence among conservatives forced Buckley and other National Review contributors to reconsider how traditional notions of virtue and Christianity could be integrated with support for capitalism.[161]
The political figures who cite Rand as an influence are most often members of the United States Republican Party[162] despite Rand being a pro-choice atheist.[163] A 1987 article in The New York Times referred to her as the Reagan administration's "novelist laureate".[164] Republican Congressmen and conservative pundits have acknowledged her influence on their lives and recommended her novels.[165]
The late-2000s financial crisis spurred renewed interest in her works, especially Atlas Shrugged, which some saw as foreshadowing the crisis,[166] and opinion articles compared real-world events with the plot of the novel.[167] During this time, signs mentioning Rand and her fictional hero John Galt appeared at Tea Party protests.[168] There was also increased criticism of her ideas, especially from the political left, with critics blaming the economic crisis on her support of selfishness and free markets, particularly through her influence on Alan Greenspan.[169] For example, Mother Jones remarked that "Rand's particular genius has always been her ability to turn upside down traditional hierarchies and recast the wealthy, the talented, and the powerful as the oppressed",[163] while The Nation alleged similarities between the "moral syntax of Randianism" and fascism.[170]
Academic reaction[link]
During Rand's lifetime her work received little attention from academic scholars.[4] When the first academic book about Rand's philosophy appeared in 1971, its author declared writing about Rand "a treacherous undertaking" that could lead to "guilt by association" for taking her seriously.[171] A few articles about Rand's ideas appeared in academic journals prior to her death in 1982, many of them in The Personalist.[172] One of these was "On the Randian Argument" by respected libertarian philosopher Robert Nozick, who argued that her meta-ethical argument is unsound and fails to solve the is–ought problem posed by David Hume.[173] Some responses to Nozick by other academic philosophers were also published in The Personalist arguing that Nozick misstated Rand's case.[172] Academic consideration of Rand as a literary figure during her life was even more limited. Gladstein was unable to find any scholarly articles about Rand's novels when she began researching her in 1973, and only three such articles appeared during the rest of the 1970s.[174]
Since Rand's death, interest in her work has gradually increased.[175] Historian Jennifer Burns has identified "three overlapping waves" of scholarly interest in Rand, the most recent of which is "an explosion of scholarship" since the year 2000.[176] However, few universities currently include Rand or Objectivism as a philosophical specialty or research area, with many literature and philosophy departments dismissing her as a pop culture phenomenon rather than a subject for serious study.[177]
Academics Mimi Gladstein, Chris Sciabarra, Allan Gotthelf, Edwin A. Locke and Tara Smith have taught her work in academic institutions. Sciabarra co-edits the Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, a nonpartisan peer-reviewed journal dedicated to the study of Rand's philosophical and literary work.[178] In 1987 Gotthelf helped found the Ayn Rand Society, and has been active in sponsoring seminars about Rand and her ideas.[179] Smith has written several academic books and papers on Rand's ideas, including Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics: The Virtuous Egoist, a volume on Rand's ethical theory published by Cambridge University Press. Rand's ideas have also been made subjects of study at Clemson and Duke universities.[180] Scholars of English and American literature have largely ignored her work,[181] although attention to her literary work has increased since the 1990s.[182]
Some academic philosophers have criticized Rand for what they consider her lack of rigor and limited understanding of philosophical subject matter.[4][95] The Philosophical Lexicon, a satirical web site maintained by philosophers Daniel Dennett and Asbjørn Steglich-Petersen, defines a 'rand' as: "An angry tirade occasioned by mistaking philosophical disagreement for a personal attack and/or evidence of unspeakable moral corruption."[183] Chris Matthew Sciabarra has called into question the motives of some of Rand's critics because of the unusual hostility of their criticisms.[184] Sciabarra writes, "The left was infuriated by her anti-communist, pro-capitalist politics, whereas the right was disgusted with her atheism and civil libertarianism."[4]
Rand scholars Douglas Den Uyl and Douglas B. Rasmussen, while stressing the importance and originality of her thought, describe her style as "literary, hyperbolic and emotional."[185] Philosopher Jack Wheeler says that despite "the incessant bombast and continuous venting of Randian rage," Rand's ethics are "a most immense achievement, the study of which is vastly more fruitful than any other in contemporary thought."[186] In the Literary Encyclopedia entry for Rand written in 2001, John Lewis declared that "Rand wrote the most intellectually challenging fiction of her generation".[187] In a 1999 interview in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Rand scholar Chris Matthew Sciabarra commented, "I know they laugh at Rand," while forecasting a growth of interest in her work in the academic community.[188]
Objectivist movement[link]
Main article: Objectivist movement
In 1985, Rand's heir Leonard Peikoff established the Ayn Rand Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to spreading Rand's ideas and promoting her works. In 1990, philosopher David Kelley founded the Institute for Objectivist Studies, now known as The Atlas Society.[189] In 2001 historian John McCaskey organized the Anthem Foundation for Objectivist Scholarship, which provides grants for scholarly work on Objectivism in academia.[190] The charitable foundation of BB&T Corporation has also given grants for teaching Rand's ideas or works. The University of Texas at Austin, the University of Pittsburgh, and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill are among the schools that have received grants. In some cases these grants have been controversial due to their requiring research or teaching related to Rand.[191]
Selected works[link]
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Main article: Bibliography for Ayn Rand and Objectivism
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References[link]
- ^ Branden 1986, p. 71; Gladstein 1999, p. 9
- ^ Den Uyl & Rasmussen 1986, p. x; Sciabarra 1995, pp. 1–2; Kukathas 1998, p. 55; Badhwar & Long 2010.
- ^ a b c d e Gladstein 1999, pp. 117–119
- ^ a b c d Sciabarra 1995, pp. 1–2
- ^ Heller 2009, pp. 3–5; Britting 2004, pp. 2–3; Burns 2009, pp. 9
- ^ Branden 1986, pp. 35–39
- ^ Britting 2004, pp. 14–20
- ^ Burns 2009, p. 15
- ^ Sciabarra 1995, p. 77
- ^ Sciabarra 1999, pp. 5–8
- ^ Heller 2009, p. 41; Peikoff 1991, pp. 451–460
- ^ Britting 2004, pp. 17–18, 22–24
- ^ Britting 2004, pp. 17, 22
- ^ Heller 2009, p. 47; Britting 2004, p. 24
- ^ Sciabarra 1999, p. 1
- ^ a b Heller 2009, pp. 49–50
- ^ Britting 2004, p. 33
- ^ Gladstein 2009, p. 7; Heller 2009, p. 55
- ^ Rand said the origin of Ayn was Finnish (Rand 1995, p. 40), but some biographical sources question this, suggesting it may come from a Hebrew nickname. Heller 2009, pp. 55–57 provides a detailed discussion.
- ^ Heller 2009, p. 53
- ^ Heller 2009, pp. 57–60
- ^ Britting 2004, pp. 34–36
- ^ Britting 2004, pp. 35–40; Paxton 1998, pp. 74, 81, 84
- ^ Heller 2009, pp. 96–98; Britting 2004, pp. 43–44, 52
- ^ Britting 2004, pp. 40, 42
- ^ Heller 2009, pp. 76, 92
- ^ Heller 2009, pp. 78; Gladstein 2009, p. 87
- ^ Rand, Ayn (1995) [1936]. "Foreword". We the Living (60th Anniversary ed.). New York: Dutton. p. xviii. ISBN 0-525-94054-5. OCLC 32780458.
- ^ Gladstein 2009, p. 13
- ^ Ralston, Richard E. "Publishing We the Living". In Mayhew 2004, p. 141
- ^ Ralston, Richard E. "Publishing We the Living". In Mayhew 2004, p. 143
- ^ Paxton 1998, p. 104
- ^ Burns 2009, p. 50; Heller 2009, p. 102
- ^ Ralston, Richard E. "Publishing Anthem". In Mayhew 2005a, pp. 24–27
- ^ Britting 2004, p. 57
- ^ Burns 2009, p. 114; Heller 2009, p. 249; Branden 1986, pp. 188–189
- ^ Burns 2009, pp. 75–78
- ^ Britting 2004, pp. 61–78
- ^ Britting 2004, pp. 58–61
- ^ Burns 2009, p. 85
- ^ Burns 2009, p. 89
- ^ Burns 2009, p. 178; Heller 2009, pp. 304–305
- ^ Doherty 2007, p. 149; Branden 1986, pp. 180–181
- ^ Britting 2004, pp. 68–80; Branden 1986, pp. 183–198
- ^ Sciabarra 1995, p. 112; Heller 2009, p. 171
- ^ Burns 2009, pp. 100–101, 123
- ^ Burns 2009, pp. 130–131; Heller 2009, pp. 214–215
- ^ Mayhew 2005b, pp. 91–93
- ^ Mayhew 2005b, pp. 188–189
- ^ Mayhew 2005b, p. 83
- ^ Britting 2004, p. 71
- ^ Branden 1986, pp. 256–264, 331–343
- ^ Sciabarra 1995, p. 113; Mayhew 2005b, p. 78
- ^ Salmieri, Gregory. "Atlas Shrugged on the Role of the Mind in Man's Existence". In Mayhew 2009, p. 248
- ^ Gladstein 1999, p. 42
- ^ Burns 2009, p. 2
- ^ Younkins 2007, p. 1
- ^ Burns 2009, p. 178; Heller 2009, pp. 303–306
- ^ Gladstein 2009, pp. 105–106; Burns 2009, pp. 232–233
- ^ Burns 2009, pp. 236–237
- ^ Heller 2009, p. 303
- ^ Doherty 2007, pp. 237–238; Heller 2009, p. 329; Burns 2009, p. 235
- ^ Doherty 2007, p. 235; Burns 2009, p. 235
- ^ Branden 1986, pp. 315–316
- ^ Gladstein 1999, p. 14
- ^ Branden 1986, p. 318
- ^ Gladstein 1999, p. 16
- ^ Heller 2009, pp. 320–321
- ^ Burns 2009, pp. 228–229, 265; Heller 2009, p. 352
- ^ Rand 2005, p. 96; Burns 2009, p. 266
- ^ Burns 2009, p. 266; Heller 2009, p. 391
- ^ Heller 2009, pp. 362, 519
- ^ Burns 2009, pp. 204–206; Heller 2009, pp. 322–323
- ^ Britting 2004, p. 101
- ^ Branden 1986, pp. 344–358
- ^ Heller 2009, pp. 378–379
- ^ Heller 2009, p. 411
- ^ Branden 1986, pp. 386–389
- ^ Heller 2009, pp. 391–393
- ^ McConnell 2010, pp. 520-521
- ^ Branden 1986, pp. 392–395
- ^ Heller 2009, p. 406
- ^ Heller 2009, p. 410
- ^ Heller 2009, pp. 405, 410
- ^ Branden 1986, p. 403
- ^ Heller 2009, p. 400
- ^ Rand 1992, pp. 1170–1171
- ^ Peikoff 1991, pp. 2–3; Den Uyl & Rasmussen 1986, p. 224; Gladstein & Sciabarra 1999, p. 2
- ^ Den Uyl, Douglas J. & Rasmussen, Douglas B. "Ayn Rand's Realism". In Den Uyl & Rasmussen 1986, pp. 3–20
- ^ Peikoff 1991, pp. 38–39; Gotthelf 2000, p. 54
- ^ Rand 1964, p. 22
- ^ Rand 1982, pp. 62–63
- ^ Salmieri & Gotthelf 2005, p. 1997; Gladstein 1999, pp. 85–86
- ^ Rand 1989, p. 3
- ^ a b Kukathas 1998, p. 55
- ^ Rand 1964, p. 25; Badhwar & Long 2010; Peikoff 1991, pp. 207, 219
- ^ Badhwar & Long 2010
- ^ Rand 1992, p. 1023; Peikoff 1991, pp. 313–320
- ^ Peikoff 1991, pp. 350–352
- ^ Gotthelf 2000, pp. 91–92; Peikoff 1991, pp. 379–380
- ^ Peikoff 1991, pp. 369
- ^ Peikoff 1991, p. 367
- ^ Burns 2009, pp. 174–177, 209, 230–231; Den Uyl & Rasmussen 1986, pp. 225–226; Doherty 2007, pp. 189–190; Branden 1986, p. 252
- ^ Sciabarra 1995, pp. 266–267; Burns 2009, pp. 268–269
- ^ Sciabarra 1995, pp. 280–281; Peikoff 1991, pp. 371–372; Merrill 1991, p. 139
- ^ Sciabarra 1995, pp. 204–205
- ^ Peikoff 1991, p. 428
- ^ Sciabarra 1995, p. 207; Peikoff 1991, p. 437
- ^ Rand 1992, p. 1171
- ^ Sciabarra 1995, p. 12
- ^ Heller 2009, p. 42; Burns 2009, pp. 16, 22; Sciabarra 1995, pp. 100–106
- ^ Rand 1997, pp. 21; Burns 2009, pp. 24–25; Sciabarra 1998, pp. 136, 138–139
- ^ Merrill 1991, pp. 38–39; Sciabarra 1998, p. 135; Loiret-Prunet, Valerie. "Ayn Rand and Feminist Synthesis: Rereading We the Living". In Gladstein & Sciabarra 1999, p. 97
- ^ Badhwar & Long 2010; Sheaffer, Robert. "Rereading Rand on Gender in the Light of Paglia". In Gladstein & Sciabarra 1999, p. 313.
- ^ Burns 2009, pp. 41, 68; Heller 2009, p. 42; Merrill 1991, pp. 47–49
- ^ Burns 2009, pp. 303–304; Sciabarra 1998, pp. 135, 137–138; Mayhew, Robert. "We the Living '36 and '59". In Mayhew 2004, p. 205.
- ^ Rand 1971, p. 4
- ^ Walsh 2000
- ^ Seddon 2003, pp. 63–81
- ^ Rand 2005, p. 166
- ^ Rand, Ayn (1999). "The Left: Old and New". Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution. Edited by Peter Schwartz. New York: Meridian. p. 62. ISBN 0-452-01184-1. OCLC 39281836.
- ^ Rand 1971, p. 1
- ^ Rand 1995, pp. 10, 13–14
- ^ a b Branden 1986, pp. 122–124
- ^ a b Pruette, Lorine (May 16, 1943). "Battle Against Evil". The New York Times: p. BR7. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F20610FD3D5C167B93C4A8178ED85F478485F9. Retrieved April 15, 2011. Reprinted in McGrath, Charles, ed. (1998). Books of the Century. New York: Times Books. pp. 135–136. ISBN 0-8129-2965-9. OCLC 38439024.
- ^ Paxton 1998, p. 120; Britting 2004, p. 87
- ^ Berliner, Michael S. "Reviews of We the Living". In Mayhew 2004, pp. 147–151
- ^ Berliner, Michael S. "Reviews of Anthem". In Mayhew 2005a, pp. 55–60
- ^ a b c Berliner, Michael S. "The Fountainhead Reviews". In Mayhew 2006, pp. 77–82
- ^ Rand 1995, p. 74
- ^ a b Berliner, Michael S. "The Atlas Shrugged Reviews". In Mayhew 2009, pp. 133–137
- ^ Chambers, Whittaker (December 8, 1957). "Big Sister is Watching You". National Review: 594–596. http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/222482/big-sister-watching-you/flashback. Retrieved April 15, 2011.
- ^ O'Connor, Flannery (1979). Fitzgerald, Sally. ed. The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. p. 398. ISBN 0-374-52104-2. OCLC 18175642.
- ^ a b Gladstein 1999, p. 119
- ^ Burns 2009, pp. 193–194
- ^ Hook, Sidney (April 9, 1961). "Each Man for Himself". The New York Times Book Review: p. 28. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F70914F83B5B147A93CBA9178FD85F458685F9. Retrieved April 15, 2011.
- ^ Vidal, Gore (1962). "Two Immoralists: Orville Prescott and Ayn Rand". Rocking the Boat. Boston: Little, Brown. p. 234. OCLC 291123. Reprinted from Esquire, July 1961.
- ^ Rothstein, Edward (February 2, 2005). "Considering the Last Romantic, Ayn Rand, at 100". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/02/books/02rand.html?pagewanted=all. Retrieved April 15, 2011.
- ^ Clark, Leslie (February 17, 2007). "The philosophical art of looking out number one". The Herald. http://www.heraldscotland.com/the-philosophical-art-of-looking-out-number-one-1.835066. Retrieved April 2, 2010.
- ^ Corsello, Andrew (October 27, 2009). "The Bitch is Back". GQ (Condé Nast Publications). http://www.gq.com/entertainment/books/200911/ayn-rand-dick-books-fountainhead?printable=true. Retrieved April 9, 2011.
- ^ a b Doherty 2007, p. 11
- ^ a b Gladstein 2009, p. 122
- ^ Burns 2009, pp. 2, 299n.3
- ^ Gladstein 2003, pp. 384–386; Delbroy, Bibek (2006). "Ayn Rand—The Indian Connection". In Machan, Tibor R. Ayn Rand at 100. New Delhi, India: Pragun Publications. pp. 2–4. ISBN 81-89645-57-9. OCLC 76829742. ; Cohen, David (December 7, 2001). "A growing concern". The Guardian (London). http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2001/dec/07/internationaleducationnews.highereducation. Retrieved April 15, 2011.
- ^ Riggenbach, Jeff (Fall 2004). "Ayn Rand's Influence on American Popular Fiction". The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies 6 (1): 91–144. http://www.aynrandstudies.com/jars/archives/jars6-1/jars6_1jriggenbach.pdf. Retrieved April 20, 2011.
- ^ Sciabarra 2004, pp. 8–11
- ^ Sciabarra, Chris Matthew (Fall 2002). "Rand, Rush, and Rock". The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies 4 (1): 161–185. http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sciabarra/essays/rush.htm. Retrieved April 20, 2011.
- ^ Burns 2009, pp. 168–171
- ^ Burns 2009, p. 298; Branden 1986, p. 419
- ^ Rubin, Harriet (September 15, 2007). "Ayn Rand's Literature of Capitalism". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/15/business/15atlas.html?_r=3&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print. Retrieved April 15, 2011.
- ^ Sciabarra 2004, pp. 4–5
- ^ Sciabarra 2004, p. 3
- ^ Alex Chadwick (host), Nick Gillespie (contributor) (February 2, 2005). "Book Bag: Marking the Ayn Rand Centennial". Day to Day. National Public Radio. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4475441.
- ^ Gladstein 1999, p. 128
- ^ Wozniak, Maurice D., ed. (2001). Krause-Minkus Standard Catalog of U.S. Stamps (5th ed.). Krause Publications. p. 380. ISBN 0-87349-321-4. OCLC 48663542.
- ^ Burns 2009, p. 258; Rand 2005, p. 73
- ^ Burns 2009, p. 4; Gladstein 2009, pp. 107–108, 124
- ^ Powell, Jim (May 1996). "Rose Wilder Lane, Isabel Paterson, and Ayn Rand: Three Women Who Inspired the Modern Libertarian Movement". The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty 46 (5): 322. http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/rose-wilder-lane-isabel-paterson-and-ayn-rand-three-women-who-inspired-the-modern-libertarian-movement/. Retrieved April 15, 2011.
- ^ Branden 1986, p. 414
- ^ Burns 2009, p. 4
- ^ Burns 2004
- ^ Doherty 2009, pp. 54
- ^ a b Benfer, Amy (July/August 2009). "And the Rand Played On". Mother Jones. http://motherjones.com/media/2009/07/and-rand-played. Retrieved April 15, 2011.
- ^ Burns 2009, p. 279
- ^ Gladstein 2009, p. 124; Heller 2009, p. xi; Doherty 2009, p. 51; Burns 2009, p. 283
- ^ Burns 2009, pp. 283–284; Doherty 2009, pp. 51–52; Gladstein 2009, p. 125
- ^ Gladstein 2009, p. 125; Doherty 2009, pp. 54
- ^ Doherty 2009, pp. 51–52
- ^ Burns 2009, p. 283
- ^ Robin, Corey (June 7, 2010). "Garbage and Gravitas". The Nation. http://www.thenation.com/article/garbage-and-gravitas. Retrieved April 15, 2011.
- ^ O'Neill 1977, p. 3
- ^ a b Gladstein 1999, p. 115
- ^ Nozick, Robert (Spring 1971). "On the Randian Argument". The Personalist 52: 282–304.
- ^ Gladstein 2003, pp. 373–374, 379–381
- ^ Gladstein 2009, pp. 114–122; Salmieri & Gotthelf 2005, p. 1995; McLemee, Scott (September 1999). "The Heirs Of Ayn Rand: Has Objectivism Gone Subjective?". Lingua Franca 9 (6): 45–55. http://linguafranca.mirror.theinfo.org/9909/rand.html. Retrieved April 15, 2011.
- ^ Burns 2009, pp. 295–296
- ^ Gladstein 2009, p. 116
- ^ Gladstein 2009, p. 118
- ^ Gotthelf 2000, pp. 2, 25
- ^ Harvey, Benjamin (May 15, 2005). "Ayn Rand at 100: An 'ism' struts its stuff". Rutland Herald. Columbia News Service. http://www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050515/NEWS/505150346/1014. Retrieved June 4, 2009.
- ^ Gladstein 2003, p. 375
- ^ Gladstein 2003, pp. 384–391
- ^ Dennett, Daniel; Steglich-Petersen, Asbjørn (2008). "The Philosophical Lexicon: R". http://www.philosophicallexicon.com/#R. Retrieved August 2, 2009.
- ^ Sciabarra 1995, pp. 9–14
- ^ Den Uyl & Rasmussen 1978, p. 203
- ^ Wheeler, Jack. "Rand and Aristotle". In Den Uyl & Rasmussen 1986, p. 96
- ^ Lewis, John David (October 20, 2001). "Ayn Rand". The Literary Encyclopedia. http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3705. Retrieved August 2, 2009.
- ^ Sharlet, Jeff (April 9, 1999). "Ayn Rand Has Finally Caught the Attention of Scholars". The Chronicle of Higher Education 45 (31): A17–A18. http://chronicle.com/article/Ayn-Rand-Has-Finally-Caught/20237/. Retrieved April 15, 2011.
- ^ Burns 2009, pp. 280–281; Gladstein 2009, pp. 19, 114
- ^ Gladstein 2009, p. 117
- ^ Gladstein 2009, pp. 116–117; Burns 2009, p. 297
Works cited[link]
- Badhwar, Neera; Long, Roderick T. (June 8, 2010). "Ayn Rand". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ayn-rand/. Retrieved June 16, 2010.
- Branden, Barbara (1986). The Passion of Ayn Rand. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company. ISBN 0-385-19171-5. OCLC 12614728.
- Britting, Jeff (2004). Ayn Rand. Overlook Illustrated Lives series. New York: Overlook Duckworth. ISBN 1-58567-406-0. OCLC 56413971.
- Burns, Jennifer (November 2004). "Godless Capitalism: Ayn Rand and the Conservative Movement". Modern Intellectual History 1 (3): 359-385. DOI:10.1017/S1479244304000216.
- Burns, Jennifer (2009). Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-532487-7. OCLC 313665028.
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- Doherty, Brian (December 2009). "She's Back!". Reason 41 (7): 51–58. http://reason.com/archives/2009/11/09/ayn-rand-is-back/singlepage. Retrieved April 15, 2011.
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- Gotthelf, Allan (2000). On Ayn Rand. Wadsworth Philosophers Series. Belmont, California: Wadsworth Publishing. ISBN 0-534-57625-7. OCLC 43668181.
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- Ayn Rand Biographical FAQ from the Objectivism Reference Center
- Frequently Asked Questions About Ayn Rand from the Ayn Rand Institute
- What's Living and Dead in Ayn Rand's Moral and Political Thought by the Cato Institute
- Works by or about Ayn Rand in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
- Works by Ayn Rand at Project Gutenberg
- Rand's papers at The Library of Congress
- Ayn Rand Lexicon – searchable database
- Ayn Rand at C-SPAN's American Writers: A Journey Through History
- Ayn Rand entry in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Ayn Rand entry by Neera K. Badhwar and Roderick T. Long in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, October 4, 2010
- Ayn Rand at the Internet Movie Database
- Works by Ayn Rand on Open Library at the Internet Archive
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| Persondata | |
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| Name | Rand, Ayn |
| Alternative names | Rosenbaum, Alisa Zinov'yevna; Алиса Зиновьевна Розенбаум (Russian) |
| Short description | novelist, philosopher, playwright, screenwriter |
| Date of birth | February 2, 1905 |
| Place of birth | Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire |
| Date of death | March 6, 1982 |
| Place of death | New York City |
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Ayn Rand ( /ˈaɪn ˈrænd/; born Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum, February 2 [O.S. January 20] 1905 – March 6, 1982) was a Russian-American novelist, philosopher, playwright, and screenwriter. She is known for her two best-selling novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged and for developing a philosophical system she called Objectivism.
Born and educated in Russia, Rand moved to the United States in 1926. She worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood and had a play produced on Broadway in 1935–1936. After two initially unsuccessful early novels, she achieved fame with her 1943 novel The Fountainhead. In 1957, she published her best-known work, the philosophical novel Atlas Shrugged. Afterward she turned to nonfiction to promote her philosophy, publishing her own magazines and releasing several collections of essays until her death in 1982.
Rand advocated reason as the only means of acquiring knowledge and rejected all forms of faith and religion. She supported rational and ethical egoism, and rejected ethical altruism. In politics, she condemned the initiation of force as immoral and opposed all forms of collectivism and statism, instead supporting laissez-faire capitalism, which she believed was the only social system that protected individual rights. She promoted romantic realism in art. She was sharply critical of the philosophers and philosophical traditions known to her besides Aristotle.
