A Brief Note on Robbins, Rand, and Atheism

by Geoffrey Allan Plauché on August 14, 2008 @ 11:58 pm · 0 comments

in Ayn Rand, Featured Posts, Personal News, philosophy, religion

From Gary North’s obituary for John Robbins:

Robbins first came to the attention of libertarians because of his self-published book, Answer to Ayn Rand (1974). He did not object to her defense of the free market. He objected to her epistemology, which rested on atheism.

I can see why he would think that, since for Christians God is at the level of metaphysics and ontology, in a sense prior to epistemology. However, while I can’t speak for Rand herself, for me at least my epistemology does not rest on my atheism. Rather, it is more the other way around. My atheism rests in part on my epistemological views (which inform and are informed by my metaphysical views, to be sure), but I (and I think Rand too) do not first assume God doesn’t exist and then develop my epistemology on that basis.

Related Posts

  1. Ayn Rand and Apriorism
  2. Against Idealism: Ayn Rand and Johannes Daubert vs. Husserl’s Ideas I
  3. My dissertation is completed, approved and now online
  4. Update
  5. Rand on the Relationship between Values and Virtues
Print This Post Print This Post

Leave a Comment

Read This Before Leaving a Comment

Please make sure your comments follow these guidelines:

  • Real names preferred but not required.
  • Anonymous comments will be moderated and may not be published.
  • Comment moderation is enabled, so your comment may take some time to appear. Don\'t panic or start suspecting foul play if it doesn\'t appear immediately.
  • Strive for the ideal speech situation: civility, mutual understanding, no eristic debating tactics, no ad hominems, no foul language.

Comments that do not adhere to the last item above will be deleted or marked as SPAM at my discretion.

 

You can use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

» Comments RSS Feed


Twitter Users
Enter your personal information in the form or sign in with your Twitter account by clicking the button below.

Powered by WP Hashcash

Previous post:

Next post: