Book Review: The Philosophic Thought of Ayn Rand

[legendre007]

Douglas Den Uyl appeared on C-SPAN when it broadcast parts of the Atlas Shrugged 50th anniversary conference that the Atlas Society organized. He pronounced his last name "Denial."

[legendre007]

Tibor Machan is pronounced "TEE-bore muh-KANN."

[Sparkygravity]

were the articles more descriptive, or how was criticism expressed.

It seems like the book might be worth owning for the introductions alone, a way to give a synopsis to the different areas of philosophy.

[XOmniverse]

The introductions to each section were fantastic.

Most of them analyzed her ideas and tried to find flaws in them. The best articles were the ones that attempted to provide solutions to these flaws that didn't fundamentally alter Rand's basic premises.

[Sparkygravity]

cool, nice review

[Hrithmus]

Good video, might pick up this book. Thanks.

[Sm0keAndM1rr0rs]

Was Ayn Rand ever exposed to the works of Spooner and Gustave De Molinari?

[XOmniverse]

I'm not sure. I don't think she ever mentioned either of them.

[PaulMcKeever]

Now, THAT's funny. :)

[soitoldhimno]

Where is the substance here? You say a lot of "this is good, this is bad, this is iffy," but no details about what the articles actually contain. Give us the facts and let us form our own opinions.

[XOmniverse]

If you want to form your own opinion of the book, you should read it. I'm not going to go into detail on each article and explain what I liked and disliked about each.

[soitoldhimno]

Then why bother making the video? When I say let us form our own opinions, I don't mean a full conclusion about the book itself, I mean about whether or not it's worth spending X dollars and Y hours to go read it. Isn't this the reason why people watch/read book reviews? You saying "good, bad, iffy, fantastic, shitty" whatever, isn't going to influence my decision in any way. In the same amount of time you put into this video, you could have instead done some actual analysis instead of....

[soitoldhimno]

....just emoting all over the place. Even just picking one chapter and discussing it in detail would have been more worthwhile. Your conclusions/appraisals, minus the facts, are meaningless to me.

[XOmniverse]

There are people who regularly watch my videos and who can derive value from my conclusions/appraisals because they already have a firm grasp of how I think and what I like and dislike.

I'm sorry that the video didn't have value for you, but it is what it is. If you don't like it, don't watch it.

[Moragauth]

Seems a lot of people have some sort of mentality that leads them to expect others to do all the work for them, as if they're entitled to it.

[BigDaddyBongos]

Yeah and a lot of people make their decisions on feelings. Even other people's feelings.

[grantsinmypants2]

Both you and soitoldhimno have valid points. I gained from watching this - but only because I've watched a lot of your other videos and read a lot of analyses of Rand.

However, for the uninitiated to XOmiverse or Rand herself (whom you seemed to be primarily addressing), perhaps you should have titled your video "My feelings about The Philosophic Thought of Ayn Rand."

[Moragauth]

I have this book. When I'm done with Man, Economy and State (omiting Power & the Market for the time being), I might delve into this. I have so much to read this year. :S

[EpistemicDuty]

Tibor Machan's book Ayn Rand is pretty good, especially his discussion on Rand's foundationalism.

[aaron0883]

Tibor Machan was the guy who I mentioned to you a little while ago

[D4Shawn]

I'm making my way through The Fountainhead at the moment. I'm enjoying it quite a bit.

Thanks for the review.

[EntertainedWatcher]

Kewl, I just listened to the first eight chapters today!