Yaron Brook was scheduled to speak at an Ayn Rand Society session

[Guyau]

Good politics and good baiting (#50) from the Professor*

I arrived early and left late (to work around physical problem). The session was chaired by Allan Gotthelf.*

I recall a man handing out the brochures and placing them on chairs. I took one and retained it. Gotthelf’s choice in the matter was fine.

I do not recall seeing Gotthelf’s decline of Ed’s hand. It fits with something later.

I knew that an early session of ARS was on David Kelley’s book The Evidence of the Senses. I don’t think I had known David was among the founders. At any rate, I had not retained that, and did not retain either what Gotthelf said about it there.

I was seated at the front of the room far to one side. Will Thomas came over during intermission, and we talked there a good while. I remember some of that conversation, but not him asking a question in the session. Just forgot.

David’s question was long and labored (he seemed to be having trouble gathering his thoughts that day) and was far more than a question. I don’t recall if he spoke more than that once.

The announcement of Younkin’s book came from the floor, allowed by the Chair, as I recall from the vicinity of Prof. Long at the back of the (shallow) room.

When the session was over, I passed by the tables where Gotthelf and Khawaja (and perhaps Bloomfield) were still present, to greet David Kelley. I shook his hand. Noticed Prof. Seddon nearby and shook his hand also. I noticed Ed not far away. I extended my hand to him. We shook. I turned and headed to the door. Two steady eyes of a man still seated at the back of the room, someone I admire very much, were watching mine as I left. He may have seen more to what I had just done than I had known about.

The principals of ARS and I have remained on friendly terms all the same.

Good gossip too.

Something else was on my mind.*

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

PS

Concerning Prof. Gotthelf in wider view, the following information is from a biographical sketch in the festscrift for him titled Being, Nature, and Life in Aristotle (Cambridge 2010).*

Allan attended Stuyvesant High School in New York. He entered Brooklyn College at age 16, majoring in physics, but then switched to mathematics. That was in 1959. He read Atlas Shrugged in 1961, and this pulled him towards philosophy. He graduated in 1963 with mathematics as his major, philosophy as minor. His philosophy professors included Martin Lean and John Hospers. He earned an MA in mathematics at Penn State in one year, then entered the graduate program in philosophy at Columbia. His dissertation was on Aristotle’s conception of final causality, and a prize essay he wrote from it for the Review of Metaphysics is probably well known to some readers here.

Between 1980 and 2000, Allan played a central role in organizing conferences, workshops, and summer institutes that encouraged scholars of Aristotle’s philosophy to integrate the study of Aristotle’s biological works into their research. . . / A number of these conferences led to . . . publications credited with moving Aristotle’s biological writings to the center of Aristotle scholarship. (xiii)

From 2003 to now, having retired from teaching at The College of New Jersey, he has been visiting professor in History and Philosophy of Science at Pittsburgh, thanks to the Fellowship for the Study of Objectivism in that Department.

Earlier it was noted that his turn to philosophy from mathematics and science, and to Aristotle in particular, was due to the influence of Ayn Rand. Allan was among a number of young philosophers with whom Rand met regularly to discuss her more recently developed philosophical work, and throughout his career Allan has devoted the same energy and focus as he had devoted to putting Aristotle’s biological works “on the map” to putting Objectivism, Rand’s philosophy, on the contemporary philosophical map. He has been a prime mover behind the Ayn Rand Society,* which became affiliated with the APA Eastern Division in 1988, and his fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh is appropriately designed to support work both on Aristotle and Rand, and on the relationship between Rand’s philosophy and Aristotle’s. (xiv)

Vast light. Continued success.

[Robert Campbell]

According to my source, Allan Gotthelf made it appear that Nigel Ashford's placement of brochures on chairs violated some rule or rules of the Ayn Rand Society.

Only Dr. Gotthelf knows what many of these rules are, if they exist at all.

Robert Campbell

[Robert Campbell]

In response to another claim previously made by Mr. Boydstun, here is why Travis Norsen has been given an invite to an Ayn Rand Society session, despite being disinvited to OCON for several years running:

Allan Gotthelf is a personal friend of John McCaskey. He remains one in spite of Dr. McCaskey's recent expulsion from the Ayn Rand Institute.

If Dr. McCaskey were to insist that Dr. Gotthelf publicly criticize Leonard Peikoff for ordering the expulsion, they would presumably stop being friends.

In any event, Dr. Gotthelf has not publicly criticized Dr. Peikoff's decision to expel Dr. McCaskey. Just as for many years he has not made any public criticism of Dr. Peikoff on any other matter—not even Peikoff's involvement in ripping his book On Ayn Rand.

Dr. Campbell

[Robert Campbell]

David’s question was long and labored (he seemed to be having trouble gathering his thoughts that day) and was far more than a question. I don’t recall if he spoke more than that once.

According to my source, David Kelley's question in December 2007 was short and to the point, and Dr. Kelley made no other speech during the session.

Dr. Kelley's question at the session in December 2006 was roughly along the lines that Mr. Boydstun has described.

Robert Campbell