WHAT IS REALITY ABOUT AYN RAND part 2
REALITY
Your only choice, she continues, is whether your principles are true or false, rational or irrational, consistent or
contradictory. The only way to know which they are is to
integrate your principles.
What integrates them? Philosophy. A philosophic system
is an integrated view of existence. As a human being, you
have no choice about the fact that you need a philosophy.
Your only choice is whether you define your philosophy
by a conscious, rational, disciplined process of thought and
scrupulously logical deliberation—or let your subconscious accumulate a junk heap of unwarranted conclusions, false generalizations, undefined contradictions,
undigested slogans, unidentified wishes, doubts and fears,
thrown together by chance, but integrated by your subconscious into a kind of mongrel philosophy and fused
into a single, solid weight: self-doubt, like a ball and chain
in the place where your mind's wings should have grown.2
Philosophy, in Ayn Rand's view, is the fundamental force
shaping every man and culture. It is the science that guides
men's conceptual faculty, and thus every field of endeavor
that counts on this faculty. The deepest issues of philosophy
are the deepest root of men's thought (see chapter 4), their
action (see chapter 12), their history (see the Epilogue)—and,
therefore, of their triumphs, their disasters, their future.
Philosophy is a human need as real as the need of food.
It is a need of the mind, without which man cannot obtain
his food or anything else his life requires.
To satisfy this need, one must recognize that philosophy
is a system of ideas. By its nature as an integrating science, it
cannot be a grab bag of isolated issues. All philosophic questions are interrelated. One may not, therefore, raise any such
questions at random, without the requisite context. If one tries
the random approach, then questions (which one has no
means of answering) simply proliferate in all directions.
Suppose, for example, that you read an article by Ayn
Rand and glean from it only one general idea, with which,
you decide, you agree: man should be selfish. How, you must
soon ask, is this generality to be applied to concrete situations? What is selfishness? Does it mean doing whatever you
feel like doing? What if your feelings are irrational? But who Your only choice, she continues, is whether your principles are true or false, rational or irrational, consistent or
contradictory. The only way to know which they are is to
integrate your principles.
What integrates them? Philosophy. A philosophic system
is an integrated view of existence. As a human being, you
have no choice about the fact that you need a philosophy.
Your only choice is whether you define your philosophy
by a conscious, rational, disciplined process of thought and
scrupulously logical deliberation—or let your subconscious accumulate a junk heap of unwarranted conclusions, false generalizations, undefined contradictions,
undigested slogans, unidentified wishes, doubts and fears,
thrown together by chance, but integrated by your subconscious into a kind of mongrel philosophy and fused
into a single, solid weight: self-doubt, like a ball and chain
in the place where your mind's wings should have grown.2
Philosophy, in Ayn Rand's view, is the fundamental force
shaping every man and culture. It is the science that guides
men's conceptual faculty, and thus every field of endeavor
that counts on this faculty. The deepest issues of philosophy
are the deepest root of men's thought (see chapter 4), their
action (see chapter 12), their history (see the Epilogue)—and,
therefore, of their triumphs, their disasters, their future.
Philosophy is a human need as real as the need of food.
It is a need of the mind, without which man cannot obtain
his food or anything else his life requires.
To satisfy this need, one must recognize that philosophy
is a system of ideas. By its nature as an integrating science, it
cannot be a grab bag of isolated issues. All philosophic questions are interrelated. One may not, therefore, raise any such
questions at random, without the requisite context. If one tries
the random approach, then questions (which one has no
means of answering) simply proliferate in all directions.
Suppose, for example, that you read an article by Ayn
Rand and glean from it only one general idea, with which,
you decide, you agree: man should be selfish. How, you must
soon ask, is this generality to be applied to concrete situations? What is selfishness? Does it mean doing whatever you
feel like doing? What if your feelings are irrational?
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