AYN RAND ABOUT REALITY

                                                   

                                                                                                    REALITY 

Philosophy is not a bauble of the intellect, but a power from which no man can abstain. 

Anyone can say that he dispenses with a view of reality, 

knowledge, the good, but no one can implement this credo. The reason is that man, by his nature as a conceptual being, cannot function at all without some form of philosophy 

to serve as his guide. 

Ayn Rand discusses the role of philosophy in her West 

Point lecture "Philosophy: Who Needs It." Without abstract 

ideas, she says, 

you would not be able to deal with concrete, particular, 

real-life problems. You would be in the position of a newborn infant, to whom every object is a unique, unprecedented phenomenon. The difference between his mental 

state and yours lies in the number of conceptual integrations your mind has performed. 

You have no choice about the necessity to integrate 

your observations, your experiences, your knowledge into 

abstract ideas, i.e., into principles.