In an attempt to start rectifying a lamentable disparity in scholarship, we evince fruitful points of similarity and difference in the ideas of Simone de Beauvoir and Ayn Rand, paying particular attention to their views on long-term projects. Endorsing what might be called an “Ethic of Resolve,” Rand praises those who undertake sustained goal-directed actions such as careers. Beauvoir, however, endorses an “Ethic of Ambiguity” that makes her more skeptical about the prospects of carrying out lifelong projects without deluding oneself. (...) Our study teases apart the strengths and drawbacks of these views. (shrink)

In False Wisdom, Gary H. Merrill develops criteria for distinguishing genuine from pseudo-philosophy, and then applies his criteria to several case studies, including Ayn Rand, all of whom he finds to be pseudo-philosophers. While offering a mostly helpful overview of better and worse ways of doing philosophy, Merrill fails to motivate adequately his way of distinguishing pseudo-philosophy from mere philosophical vices, errors, or failings. He is inconsistent in his characterization of the criteria for pseudo-philosophy and his application of those criteria, (...) harbors a narrow conception of what counts as philosophy, and displays a lack of interpretive charity toward several thinkers. (shrink)

Neil Cocks’s collection Questioning Ayn Rand: Subjectivity, Political Economy, and the Arts engages Rand’s ideas from a standpoint that is philosophically postmodernist and politically adversarial; while the contributors occasionally make illuminating connections, their obscurantist style, their superfi cial engagement with Rand, and an impatience borne of hostility render the result disappointing. Claudia Brühwiler’s Out of a Gray Fog: Ayn Rand’s Europe, by contrast, provides a fascinating look at Rand’s European connections, her complex attitudes toward European culture, and the European reception (...) of her ideas, which serves as a useful corrective to the conventional narrative of Rand’s hostility to Europe and Europe’s hostility to Rand. (shrink)

This article examines how and why Ayn Rand uses fairy tales as intertexts in her novels. It argues that she evokes and revises fairy tales to exemplify the metaphysical values that her novels resist. For Rand, fairy tales like “Cinderella” are problematic because they typically endorse conventionality over the truly heroic. She therefore associates them with secondhanders and villains. She rejects their message that mindless conformity leads to happily-ever-after, and she exposes how fairy tales can be formidable vehicles for promoting (...) the senseless. She reinforces her point by contrasting them with her revisions of myths, which she associates with heroes. (shrink)