This is my sixth response to the “Objecting to Objectivism” show, hosted by Matt Dillahunty and Russell Glasser from the Atheist Experience show in Austin, Texas. If you would like to read my previous responses about inaccuracies in their presentation of Objectivism or why I’m even writing this, links will be included at the bottom of this post. For now, though, I will continue as promised and point out a couple of the most ridiculous statements made by the two on the show. Not only are they completely false and show that the two don’t understand much about Objectivism, but they might even be enough evidence by themselves to prove that the two haven’t even opened the Ayn Rand books they were criticizing.

What did they state?  Two whoppers:

1.) Ayn Rand never read Immanuel Kant.
2.) Ayn Rand often disparaged philosophy in her writing, including writing a book against it titled “Philosophy: Who Needs It.”

Anyone familiar with Ayn Rand’s non-fiction now understands why, in my last post, I said I saved the most “groan-worthy” statements for last. Arguing against these two statements is the equivalent of arguing the sky is blue. All of the evidence points in the exact opposite direction, and all one has to do to find that evidence is open their eyes and look. Still, not everybody has read Ayn Rand and might be willing to take Dillahunty and Glasser’s word for it, so for them I’ll lay out the facts.

Judge this book by its cover

A little after minute 84, Matt Dillahunty said the following (emphasis mine):

She tried to disguise philosophy as art while deriding philosophy. She wrote a book or something about “Philosophy, Who Needs It” and she consistently railed against the ideas of various philosophers including some reportedly, like Kant, she had never even read.

If there is one thing one can gather from the Ayn Rand’s Philosophy: Who Needs It, it’s the fact that Ayn Rand understood the incredible important role that philosophy plays in every individual’s life. Here’s a small snippet from the first chapter:

Philosophy studies the fundamental nature of existence, of man, and of man’s relationship to existence. As against the special sciences, which deal only with particular aspects, philosophy deals with those aspects of the universe which pertain to everything that exists. In the realm of cognition, the special sciences are the trees, but philosophy is the soil which makes the forest possible.

and:

A philosophic system is an integrated view of existence. As a human being, you have no choice about the fact that you need a philosophy. Your only choice is whether you define your philosophy by a conscious, rational, disciplined process of thought and scrupulously logical deliberation—or let your subconscious accumulate a junk heap of unwarranted conclusions, false generalizations, undefined contradictions, undigested slogans, unidentified wishes, doubts and fears, thrown together by chance, but integrated by your subconscious into a kind of mongrel philosophy and fused into a single, solid weight: self-doubt, like a ball and chain in the place where your mind’s wings should have grown.

Ayn Rand believed that philosophy was a life-or-death matter that should be given serious consideration and thought. Just look at what she compared philosophy to: Soil which makes the special sciences possible, and wings to let your mind fly high (or stay grounded like her ball-and-chain example). And these are just two paragraphs written by Ayn Rand. She commented on the importance of philosophy repeatedly in her writing, in this book and others. And, oh yeah, she was a philosopher.  Have either Glasser or Dillahunty read anything she wrote?

“You can’t judge a book by its cover” is a popular saying, and it would appear that it could be applied here. Anybody who only reads the cover of “Philosophy: Who Needs It” might think that Ayn Rand was, as Dillahunty stated, deriding philosophy. Perhaps the two hosts just read the cover? No, I don’t think they even read that. You see, most book covers have two sides, a front and back. If they had bothered to just read the back of the book (while being very careful not to crack the book open) they would have probably seen this:

For anyone who can’t see the image in their browser, it’s a scan of the back of my copy of “Philosophy: Who Needs It,” which states the following:

Who needs philosophy? Ayn Rand’s answer: Everyone.

Despite the title’s clever twist, this is still a book you can judge by its cover.

Did Ayn Rand read Kant?

I’ll need to use the same Dillahunty quote, but with a different emphasis:

She tried to disguise philosophy as art while deriding philosophy. She wrote a book or something about “Philosophy, Who Needs It” and she consistently railed against the ideas of various philosophers including some reportedly, like Kant, she had never even read.

Ayn Rand did not like Immanuel Kant, and she let people know. Often. She is probably his biggest, most thorough critic. Why? Her first quote in the “Immanuel Kant” section of the Ayn Rand Lexicon says it all:

On every fundamental issue, Kant’s philosophy is the exact opposite of Objectivism.

But did she ever read Kant’s writings? If she hadn’t, it would seem very strange that she would be so vocal about someone of which she had no first-hand knowledge, and it would cast serious doubt about many of the assertions she made about him. How could she even know that Kant was the exact opposite of Objectivism?

And for that matter, who wrote the parts of her books in which she quoted from Kant?

What’s the truth? This question immediately made me think of the following quote from Francisco d’Anconia in Atlas Shrugged:

I’ll give you a hint. Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think that you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.

Ayn Rand either read Immanuel Kant’s writings, or she didn’t. I don’t have a hidden-video of Ayn Rand reading Immanuel Kant nor a notorized statement from her stating that she has read any of his books. If you think that Ayn Rand made up everything she wrote or said about Immanuel Kant, or got it second-handed, or if you think that the parts of her books in which she references Immanuel Kant weren’t really written by her, I don’t know what to say to convince you otherwise.

I want to add one thing, though. In “The Letters of Ayn Rand,” a book which includes many letters that Ayn Rand wrote to a number of people, there is some correspondence between Ayn Rand and John Hospers. In the first of those letters printed in the book, she answers what she feels is a challenge to her knowledge of Kant’s philosophy. She responded:

When I characterize or summarize any theory, I expect to be able to demonstrate the validity of my estimate to anyone in the field who cares to challenge it. Or, in colloquial terms: when I talk, I know what I’m talking about. Have I given you grounds to accuse me of ignorance or of rash judgments? If so, please name these grounds. The fact that I reach conclusions opposite to the generally accepted trend, is not one of them.

She can’t defend herself today, but she was definitely prepared to do so then.

“Reportedly”

Yes, I know that Matt Dillahunty used the word “reportedly” when saying that Ayn Rand had never read Kant. And technically, what he said is true. I looked at the Wikipedia page for Ayn Rand and found the following:

According to Fred Seddon, author of Ayn Rand, Objectivists, and the History of Philosophy (2003), Nathaniel Branden stated that Rand never read any of Kant’s works.

Does this fact absolve Dillahunty for making, or at least repeating, what is obviously a false statement? No. Anyone concerned with the truth needs more than one person to attribute and back something up, especially when that one person says flies in the face of the facts that he or she has already seen. If Dillahunty was familiar with Ayn Rand’s writings at all, he would know — as a solid, indesputable fact — that Ayn Rand quoted Immanuel Kant. He would combine that fact with the fact that one must have read Kant in order to quote Kant, and he would know that Ayn Rand had, indeed, read Immanuel Kant. That would be the truth, and nobody could tell him otherwise.

Or, he may not be familiar with Ayn Rand’s writings, in which case someone could tell him that Ayn Rand never read Immanuel Kant and he’d believe it.

In closing

I said this would be my last post on this issue, but while listening to the video again this evening I came across two small things I missed the first time I listened, and they are too big not to include in this series. They’re not even about Ayn Rand so much as they are about basis upon on which the hosts are criticizing Objectivism. Just a few choice quotes (and in-context, too) that anybody who has read this far might want to hear. I’ll repeat those and offering some closing comments next.

Part 1: Objecting to Objectivism – The King’s Rational Self-Interest?
Part 2: Objecting to Objectivism – Cooperation
Part 3: Objecting to Objectivism – Objective Reality
Part 4: Objecting to Objectivism – The Train Scene
Part 5: Objecting to Objectivism – Teaching, Altruism, and the Profit Motive
Part 6: Objecting to Objectivism – Did Ayn Rand Read Kant?
Part 7: Objecting to Objectivism: Matt Doesn’t Like the Book He Didn’t Read