What "legitimate" philosophers did Ayn Rand draw upon?

Question

I'm not passing judgement on the legitimacy of Rand as a philospher, hence the quotation marks. However, it's a fact that objectivism is unlikely to be covered in a Philosophy 101 course. I don't think Rand herself would have claimed that her ideas were entirely original, so who was she influenced by?

Answer 1

Ayn Rand claimed only two intellectual predecessors in the history of philosophy: Aristotle, and to a lesser extent, Thomas Aquinas. She cites Aristotle as the greatest mind that ever lived. Aristotle invented the fields of logic and metaphysics. He can also be called the grandfather of science. She credits Thomas Aquinas as the man who reintroduced Aristotleanism back into western philosophy, and paved the way, intellectually, for the European Renaissance.

Her attitude towards most other philosophers were generally low.

She went to college very young, at 16, where she studied history and philosophy. For the final exam of her first philosophy class, she was asked to give an oral presentation on the philosophy of Plato. Her report was impeccable, but her professor pressed her as to why her tone was that of dismissal. She outlined her rebuttals of Plato, which were so thourough and complete, and impressed her professor so much, that he gave her the highest grade that was possible in the class. Not too bad for a girl at an age when most girls are more concerned about their hair and which guys likes them instead of the flaws in Platonic dualism.

Later on, she was discussing her philosophical beliefs with a cousin; who told her that her philosophy was nothing new and that it had already been done before. When she pressed him as to why, he introduced her to Friedrich Nietzsche. It is unknown if she was aquainted with him before hand, but it is known that during college she developed a fierce passion for Nietzsche's work. However, her relationship with Nietzsche's work cooled in a few years, and by the time she had begun writing, she had abandoned him completely. What she and Nietzsche had in common was an apreciation for individualism in ethics. But Nietzsche was the founder of existentialism, and Ayn Rand explicitly rejected the metaphysical and epistemological grounds on which existentialism is founded. She also rejected his political theory, which despite being anti-communist and anti-left, advocated a hierarchial caste-based society.

However, his influence on her left its mark. Despite the complexity of Nietzsche's philosophy, he had a poet's knack for writing, and his works are often considered some of the easiest in philosophy to read, especially compared to philosophers such as Kant, Hume, or Hegel, whose writing styles are considered byzantine in their complexity (outside of academic circles, Kant, Hume, and Hegel are unread and virtually unknown.) Ayn Rand duplicated Nietzsche's writing style, and a side by side analysis of Rand and Nietzsche's work reveals much similarities in writing styles.

Despite her passionate love for America, she thought the American philosophers were trash. She called Ralph Waldo Emerson a "very little mind". She thought John Rawls was an apologist for collectivism that tried to legitimize "collectivism-lite" which has become the guiding philosophy for the American left. Of all the philosophers, she reviled Karl Marx, G.W Hegel, and Immanual Kant in particular, the most. She describes Kant's philosophy as "the destruction of man's mind, of his confidence in the power of reason."She called him a "Monster" whose spectre hung over every person living. She considered Hegel the great refiner of Kant's work, and considered Marx the political culmination of Kantian philosophy. It's not hard to see why she had no love for Marx; the Bolshevik revolution occured while she was a teenager, and it was reported that she was standing in her father's store watching as armed Bolsheviks broke into the premises and announced that his shop was now property of the state.

For her political theory, she may bear many similarities to the Austrian school of Economics, but she herself was not an Austrian, and she hated the Libertarian movement. She and Ludwig Von Mises shared a cordial friendship. But she despised Freidrich Hayek. She had an initial friendship with Murray Rothbard, but those two had a falling out and ended up hating each other.

For her political predecessors, she expressed an admiration for Adam Smith, John Locke, and Thomas Jefferson. If not outright support for their philosophy, she did acknowledge their role in the creation of the United States, which in her opinion was the closest thing to a moral state that has ever existed. Her economic theories are most similar to the economic theories of Jean Baptiste-Say

Hope that answered some questions. Despite her reputation as a "pop philosopher" by ivory tower intellectuals, she is still my favorite writer of all time.

P.S thanks for the compliment, Yaoi Shonen-ai :)