Objectivist Round-up, April 2025

1. Carl Barney has funded The Leonard Peikoff Library, a website containing all of Leonard Peikoff’s lectures and courses.

2. Ayn Rand Institute (ARI) philosopher Greg Salmieri is asked how much of Kant Rand read.  He says he doesn’t know because we don’t have any books by Kant that she “marked up.”  Salmieri says that Rand likely learned a lot about Kant from Peikoff and she may have studied the various arguments in the Critique of Pure Reason with him.  Brook asks Salmieri about Rand’s take on Kant and he says it’s correct albeit on a high level.

3. The Ayn Rand Fan Club has a typically insightful discussion of Objectivity in Objectivism.  There is an interesting quote from Peikoff who says, in effect, that people couldn’t think rationally before Rand wrote Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology.  

4. For whatever reason, many ARI-associated Objectivists have now decided that the Russia/Ukraine war is of existential importance and the United States must go full-bore into supporting Ukraine.  They seem to have combined their dislike of Trump with their dislike of Russia.  Putting aside the merits of all this, the ARI has forgotten the semi-isolationism of Rand and Peikoff.  (For example, in The Ominous Parallels, heavily edited by Rand, Peikoff praised those who wanted to keep the US out of World War Two and said President Roosevelt manipulated the US into an unjust war with Japan.)

ARI Speaks for Rand (by Neil Parille)

The Ayn Rand Institute’s (ARI) Chief Philosophy Officer Onkar Ghate and philosopher Ben Bayer have a new video, Why the Ayn Rand Institute Comments on Current Events.  The discussion is defensive, trying to justify the large amount of time spent on current affairs, including topics that Rand didn’t — or couldn’t have — commented on such as Israel, immigration, Donald Trump, COVID and Ukraine.  These topics get at least as much attention as Rand’s philosophy.  For example, the on-line journal of the ARI (New Ideal), lists 277 articles on Objectivism and Philosophy versus 330 articles on Culture and Politics.

Ghate and Bayer dutifully report that the ARI does not claim to speak for Ayn Rand.  This is incorrect, e.g.  “The Anti-Intellectuality of Donald Trump: Why Ayn Rand Would Have Despised a President Trump.”  Not only that, but the founder of the ARI (Leonard Peikoff) has repeatedly claimed to speak for Rand.

One thing I find interesting is that of four issues the ARI seems most concerned about – abortion, immigration, Israel (and the greater Middle East), and Donald Trump  – Rand wrote  about only one (abortion).  Bayer admits that these positions often get criticism from some ARI supporters. Consider immigration. Although ARI doesn’t seem to have an official position on the question, their denizens tend to support what is called “open immigration.”  A person should be free to enter and reside in the United States (or any other country) so long as he doesn’t have a criminal background.*  (ARI supporter Harry Binswanger opposes screening, saying the border between two countries should be no different than the border between New York and Connecticut.)