WHAT IS REALITY ABOUT AYN RAND part 2

                                                        REALITY

16:38 (0 minutes ago) 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?