Alfonso Jones

Not long after I met Rand, we began discussing some of the issues I was struggling with in my philosophy classes at UCLA. It became my custom to wrestle as hard as I could with positions held by thinkers such as Hume, or Decartes, or Plato, and by more obscure thinkers whom I was studying. If I thought a certain position was correct, I'd try to justify it; if I thought it was mistaken, I'd try to discover and name precisely why. If I was completely stuck, then I would take the problem to Rand. Often, I would bring my textbook with me, and show her the passage or passages that were creating problems for me, where, perhaps, I thought there was an error but could not identify it.

What usually happened was remarkable. Rand would read the relevant material, then give a non-stop presentatkon of how and where and why the philosopher had made mistakes, and what the correct answer should have been. And then -- and it was this that was more than remarkable, it was astonishing -- she would tell me what that thinker, because of what he had concluded on the subject, say, of metaphysics, would necessarily have concluded about epistemology, morality, politics, etc. And I never found her to be mistaken. Her power to see the world in a grain of sand was prodigious.

Rand understood this about herself; she knew that she could see vast implications in the smallest of signs.

Barbara

(I excerpted the quotes above from a longer post, found above...)

This is what I love about the writing of Ayn Rand - her ability to cut to the core, fundamental issue quickly.

Alfonso

Who Qualifies as being an Objectivist

by Roger E. Bissell

The real irony is that, even if I were accepted as an Objectivist, my philosophizing would not be accepted as part of Objectivism--even if it were compatible with Objectivism! I don't know how any ARI intellectual with a shred of self-esteem can swallow this notion, that the philosophizing of an Objectivist philosopher is nonetheless not Objectivism. I certainly can't. That is why I am completely opposed to the "Closed System" approach of ARI. Their attitude is more appropriate to the care and feeding of hothouse flowers than to a living, growing philosophy. Perhaps that is why they are so hesitant to publish anything other than 30 year old lectures and all the miscellanous items that Rand never intended for publication.

No, I am too independent for that. I will continue to regard myself as a rational individualist and as a neo-Randian, in the same sense that some contemporary philosophers regard themselves as neo-Aristotelians--not accepting all of Aristotle's (or Rand's) doctrines, but essentially in agreement with them.

Bravo! The "received text" emphasis is so strange. One almost expects to hear references to Rand's books and articles plus the Objectivist Newsletter, The Objectivist and The Ayn Rand Letter as "Scripture." Presumably the Branden writings would be deemed the "Satanic verses."

Alfonso (smiling - it's a joke!)

Anybody on this forum know the current status of the work in progress by Thomas and Kelley, "The Logical Structure of Objectivism?"

Alfonso

John,

I Googled it and came up with the following list of contents in the now defunct Full Context magazine.

SEPTEMBER 1990 (#1)

Interview with Dr. Petr Beckmann - Karen Reedstrom

About Access to Energy - Karen Reedstrom

Justice for the Constitution? - David Oyerly

Market Perspective: An Interview with Jim O'Donnell - Karen Reedstrom

Amen (poem) - Civilization

Compare and Judge for Yourself (unedited letter of resignation from The Intellectual Activist) - George Walsh

Commentary (an analysis of Peter Schwartz's editing of Walsh's letter) - David Oyerly

Summer Movie Reviews - David Oyerly

The web site to this wonderful place is down. Does anybody know what happened? Are archives available someplace? Is it possible to purchase back issues?

Michael

Interesting. I am looking at The Intellectual Activist, a bound volume containing the issues 1979 - 1991. There is no September 1990 issue. However, the November 1989 issue contains a letter to the reader - three fairly short paragraphs - indicating that "as you have adopted 'Fact and Value' as the basis of your editorial policy, please accept my resignation from the Board of Contributing Directors." (by George Walsh, of course)

Alfonso

The Passion of Barbara Branden

by Barbara Branden

(portion of long post deleted - it appears above anyhow!)

And so I wrote my book, and spent the happiest four years of my life doing so. As the writing progressed, it became the passion of my life, such that, toward the end, I found myself thinking one day: "I don’t care if the world is to end—as long as it doesn’t do so before I’ve written ‘The End.’" And what I had to say about Ayn Rand and Nathaniel Branden and Barbara Branden, I said. And so you read my book, most of you, and what you think, you think. Perhaps we all have done well, you and I.

And thank you for writing it, Barbara.

Alfonso

~ Jeez! I was aware a while back of the 'stalinization' in the CD-ROM (which I think too many nubees rely on for 'accuracy'), but this...airbrush-policy...seems to have reached ludicrous proportions (like, 'chickens coming home to roost'?) which any self-styled O'ist would have a prob with.

~ Not that I'm too involved in exegetic comparing of originals with later, er, copies ('para-copies'?), but, am I glad I have the originals of THE OBJECTIVIST NEWSLETTER (bound) and the whole volume-set of THE OBJECTIVIST (and FORUM).

~ Short of the rabid anti-Branden types, who really uses this cd to actually refer to anyway?

LLAP

J:D

Well, I do. I'm not a rabid anti-Branden type - actually neither rabid nor anti-Branden - and I find an electronic search often to be preferable to a physical one through pages... Want "all the occurrences of . . .?" Best way to get it.

Of course, wish we had the whole body of the various periodicals, etc... not the excised versions.

Alfonso.