 The short version is that in metaphysics, metaphysics is the science of what is, it's the study of what is. Einrand held that reality is what it is. Sounds obvious, but a lot of philosophers think that reality is in a sense a creation of our own consciousness. Or it's a creation of somebody else's consciousness, God or whatever. But for reality is what it is. A is A, to quote Aristotle. The law of identity holds, the law of causality holds, things act according to their own identity and the identity is firm. So that's metaphysics. In epistemology, the study of knowledge, she held that reality is knowable. It's knowable through reason, through our senses and through our reasoning faculty, our faculty of reason. It's not knowable through your emotions. It's not knowable through revelation. And it's not as modern philosophy would teach us, unknowable. Most modern philosophers believe, we don't know what reality really is. We just know what we pretend reality is or we make up reality. And so she was a huge advocate of reason, of the ability of human beings to understand no reality, abstract format, create, you know, form concepts from it and ultimately manipulate nature for our own means. And then of course, the question is, who reasons? Just like we don't have a collective stomach, so nobody else can eat for you. We don't have a collective brain. There's no collective consciousness. Nobody can eat for you. And it's also true that nobody can think for you. You have to do your own thinking. Indeed, she argues that the life depends on you doing your own thinking. So for Rand, the individual is the unit that matters, because it is the unit that thinks, it is the unit that's alive. And so her morality, her ethical code is an ethics of, it's an ethics of egoism. It's an ethics of self interest. The purpose of your life is your life. It's your flourishing. It's your survival. It's ultimately your happiness. Indeed, your moral purpose of your life is your own happiness. To contrast with the common view, which the ethical purpose of your life is to sacrifice for others, particularly if they're needy, particularly if they're weak. So everybody else is important, you're not. For Rand, you're important. Your relationship with everybody else is dictated by you, by your life, by your values. Other people are value because they contribute to your life. So she was not a believer in sacrificing to others, but she was also not a believer in sacrificing other people to you. Every individual is an end in himself. Every individual is striving to happiness. Sacrifice is not appropriate in terms of human interaction. The way human beings should interact is through the process of trade with a spiritual material. And then the question is, okay, the next kind of issue in philosophy is politics. Well, if the purpose of your life is your happiness, what political system is most appropriate for individuals seeking their happiness? Well, here you have to answer the question, well, how do you seek your happiness? The appropriate way for human beings to seek happiness is by using their mind, by using their reason. It is their means of survival. It is their faculty of knowing the world. Every value that we have is a product of human reason. Somebody's reasoning, somebody's thinking, everything we have around us, somebody thought and produced. So what is the enemy of reasoning, of thinking, of using your mind? Well, force, coercion, authority. So how do we create a political system where we don't have force, coercion, authority? That's, we have to have the concept of individual rights, which basically bridges morality to politics. So Jessica says, your life is yours. You have the freedom to pursue the values that you deem necessary for your survival, rationally using reason. Nobody can use force against you. That's the meaning of rights. The right to life is the right to pursue your values, free of coercion. And of course, the political system that institutionalizes individual rights is capitalism. The system in which the government's only job is the protection of individual rights. So she rejects socialism or any kind of statism where the state is more important than the individual, where the state imposes its well individual. So fascism, the mixed economy, statism, the world is what we have today. All those political systems she rejects, she believes in a pure form of capitalism, the only kind of form of capitalism, capitalism, where the only role of government is to protect your rights and your life. And on top of that, she also has a theory of aesthetics of art, why it's important for your life, why art is crucial, why you shouldn't live without art, and what is good art, what is bad art, and how does art fulfill the need. But in that sense, she's one of the few philosophers in human history that has a view on all the key questions in philosophy. She's a system builder. She's not just a like Locke who's primarily a political philosopher, but she has a view and an original view and a new view on pretty much every key question the philosophers have been asking for the last 3000 years. What we need today, what I call the new intellectual, would be any man or woman who is willing to think. Meaning any man or woman who knows that man's life must be guided by reason, by the intellect, not by feelings, wishes, wins or mystic revelations. Any man or woman who values his life and who does not want to give in to today's cult of the stare, cynicism and impotence and does not intend to give up the world to the dark ages and to the role of the collectivist Okay. All right. Before we go on, reminder, please like the show. We've got 163 live listeners right now. 30 likes. That should be at least 100. I figured at least 100 of you actually like the show. 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