By Ayn Rand

This choice of essays was once the final paintings deliberate by way of Ayn Rand sooner than her dying in 1982. In it, she summarizes her view of philosophy and bargains with a wide spectrum of subject matters. in accordance with Ayn Rand, the alternative we make isn't even if to have a philosophy, yet which one to have: rational, awake, and for this reason sensible; or contradictory, unidentified, and finally deadly. Written with all of the readability and eloquence that experience positioned Ayn Rand's Objectivist philosophy within the mainstream of yank notion, those essays diversity over such easy concerns as schooling, morality, censorship, and inflation to turn out that philosophy is the elemental strength in all our lives.

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And how is it being put over? You will not find all the answers immediately, but you will acquire an invaluable characteristic: the ability to think in terms of essentials. Nothing is given to man automatically, neither knowledge, nor self-confidence, nor inner serenity, nor the right way to use his mind. Every value he needs or wants has to be discovered, learned and acquired—even the proper posture of his body. In this context, I want to say that I have always admired the posture of West Point graduates, a posture that projects man in proud, disciplined control of his body.

A battle of this kind requires special weapons. It has to be fought with a full understanding of your cause, a full confidence in yourself, and the fullest certainty of the moral rightness of both. Only philosophy can provide you with these weapons. The assignment I gave myself for tonight is not to sell you on my philosophy, but on philosophy as such. I have, however, been speaking implicitly of my philosophy in every sentence—since none of us and no statement can escape from philosophical premises.

The layman’s error, in regard to philosophy, is the tendency to accept consequences while ignoring their causes—to take the end result of a long sequence of thought as the given and to regard it as “self-evident” or as an irreducible primary, while negating its preconditions. Examples can be seen all around us, particularly in politics. There are liberals who want to preserve individual freedom while denying its source: individual rights. There are religious conservatives who claim to advocate capitalism while attacking its root: reason.

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