Objectivist Round-up, October 2026

1. Objectivist philosopher Greg Salmieri discusses how he learned about Ayn Rand and decided to become a philosopher.

2. Ayn Rand Institute archivist Brandon Lisi discusses Rand, Communism and Hollywood.

3. The Ayn Rand Center in Austin just started construction. Expected opening date is 2028.

4. Objectivist philosopher Ben Bayer has a review essay on Bart Ehrman’s new book on Christianity and Altruism. I haven’t had time to read it, but Bayer links to a recent Master’s Thesis Defining Altruism by one John Clarke looks quite interesting.

--Neil Parille

Objectivist Round-up, Mid-September

1. Yaron Brook is asked if it's reasonable to use the new weight loss drugs considering that (according to the questioner) the mechanism for their result isn't known. Brook says nothing wrong with that because you don't need to know the causal relationship to conclude that something works. I guess he hasn't learned the basics of Objectivist epistemology as explained by Ayn Rand and Leonard Peikoff. Both Rand and Peikoff famously said that it was irrational to conclude that smoking tobacco "caused" cancer before the mechanism was discovered.

2. Jerry Kirkpatrick has a new book, Epistemological Foundations of the Free Society: Ayn Rand’s Theory of Universals Applied to Science, Sigmund Freud’s Psychology, and Ludwig von Mises’s Economics.

3. The latest from the Ayn Rand Archives is that they will put up typewritten transcripts of Rand's papers over the next "few years." As I've said before, I'll believe it when I see it.

 --Neil Parille 

Objectivist Round-up, Mid-August

1. Someone posted what Leonard Peikoff said years ago on his podcast concerning Alan Greenspan (the context was the apparent admission by Greenspan that free enterprise and de-regulation were in part responsible for the 2008 economic crash):

This is a question on which I have deliberately been silent for decades, and I'm not going to go into a torrent of denunciation here, but I will say something briefly.

All I can do is give you some observed facts through the years. In the 1950s, which is when I knew Alan, he was a totally different person from what he obviously is today. He's just not the same person now. I'll give you a personal biographical touch that I guess would be relevant here. In the early days, when both Alan and I were getting to know Ayn Rand, she observed that there was a difference between us, that we both committed a certain error in opposite directions. I gave too much emphasis to the moral and not enough to the practical, and Alan gave too much emphasis to the practical and not enough to the moral. She told us we each had to work to correct this error and not separate mind and body.

Objectivist Round-up, August 2026

1. The Ayn Rand Institute Press just published a new booklet, I Chose to be An American: Ayn Rand’s Immigration Story. A few points:

a. The book references Barbara Branden’s interviews with Rand in 1960 and 1961 and makes the curious statement, “Factual details drawn from these interviews depend upon the accuracy of Rand’s later recollection. While many such details are likely reliable (especially basic family and biographical facts), memory is fallible.” Rand was 55 to 56 years old when she gave these interviews and in good health. I wonder why the authors think her recollections on the facts of her life are only “likely reliable”? And are Rand’s recollections on things other than “basic family and biographical facts” (whatever those are) unreliable? Shoshana Milgram Knapp (Rand’s future biographer) once wrote that Rand might have been wrong in saying that one of her philosophy professors was Nicholas Lossky, so this is likely what the authors are referencing. Chris Sciabarra has a response to Knapp in the second edition of Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical.

b. The authors report that Rand adopted her name “Ayn Rand” in America after she arrived in 1925. “Rand’s sister Natasha refers to her as ‘Lil Rand’ in a letter dated February 26, 1926. Over a month later, Rand’s sister Nora addresses her as ‘Ayn Rand’ in a letter dated April 11, 1926. This is the first time the name appears in their documented correspondence.” Unfortunately, no information is provided as to why she adopted this name. Rand once said that her name was a shortened version of her Russian name (Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum), but during the PARC Wars, a couple native speakers said that’s not possible.

Objectivist Round-up, mid July 2026 Update

1. Harry Binswanger recently said that he realized by 1969 that Alan Greenspan was departing from Objectivism. As Greg Nyquist noted, Rand didn’t seem to think so because she attended his swearing in ceremony in 1975 as President Ford’s Chairman of Board of Economic Advisors. Based on what Binswanger wrote, it appears that Binswanger’s big issue with Greenspan is that he wrote a supportive blurb for Barbara Branden’s 1986 biography of Rand, The Passion of Ayn Rand. As long-time readers of the blog know, Branden’s biography was labeled one long “arbitrary assertion” by Leonard Peikoff and Peter Schwartz. According to David Kelley, Peikoff said Branden’s claim that Rand and Nathaniel Branden had an affair was an arbitrary assertion. In any event, 1986 is forty years ago. Rand’s affair with Branden and certain unfortunate sides to her personality (her temper and grandiosity) would have come out eventually. I think at the end of the day, Branden did Objectivism a favor. Would forty years of continued dissimulation by the Ayn Rand Institute about Rand’s life done the movement any good? (ARI writers will still occasionally “trash” the Branden biography and subsequent ones, but mostly by challenging their interpretation of Rand’s ideas and not their description of Rand’s life and personality.)

Objectivist Round-up, mid-July 2026

1. As readers know, Carl Barney and Craig Biddle have been in litigation for a while now. Barney has gone on an internet offensive recently asserting that Biddle stole $9 million from him.

Craig originally drafted an Advisement Agreement that he, Sarah [Biddle], Lenny Esmond (our joint accountant at the time), and I signed. The Agreement required OSI to maintain these funds in a segregated investment account. Use of the funds required my approval; without my approval the “funds may not be used”.

On January 26, 2024, Craig confirmed: “The funds are held in trust by OSI, not grants to OSI”—emphasis added.

In the same exchange, Craig wrote: “They are held in trust and may be used only with Carl’s and Lenny’s permission.”

In January 2026, having become concerned with the Biddles’ behavior, I directed OSI to transfer the trust funds and demanded an accounting. Craig refused. On January 12, 2026, using money from the trust, Craig filed suit to seize the $9 million.

In any event, the episode has caused Barney to rethink his view of human nature.

For much of my life, I believed that people were fundamentally good. I was inclined to trust. I wanted to see the best in others. In many cases, that openness served me well, but that belief carried a cost.

Two long-term and personal relationships ended in profound betrayal. People I trusted personally and financially proved themselves dishonest. Those experiences forced me to reexamine my longstanding assumption. 

I assume Barney is referring to Biddle and Yaron Brook.

Objectivist Round-up, July 2026

1. The Ayn Rand Institute has a preview of OCON 2026, which is being held this month.

2. With a deal between the United States and Iran seemingly imminent (which best I can tell pretty much maintains the status quo ante), the ARI is outraged. Yaron Brook is calling for Trump to be impeached for failing to obtain congressional approval. He’s calling for the CIA and the Mossad to infiltrate the Iranian military to start a coup. Netanyahu has to go as well. Not too long ago he said Netanyahu was doing a good job.

3. Speaking of Brook, he now says he fears an alliance between the Left and Islamism. He’s calling for Europeans to vote for Center and Center Right parties because of this. A year or two ago he said that Islamism in Europe had been defeated with the defeat of ISIS.