Onkar Ghate

Chief Philosophy Officer and Senior Fellow
Ayn Rand Institute

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Specialties

  • Ayn Rand Novels & Ideas
  • Education & Multiculturalism
  • Laissez Faire Capitalism
  • Objectivism
  • Philosophy
  • Religion & Morality

Onkar Ghate is chief philosophy officer and a senior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute. He is the Institute’s resident expert on Objectivism and serves as its senior trainer and editor. He has taught philosophy for over ten years at the Institute’s Objectivist Academic Center (now Ayn Rand University).

Dr. Ghate is a contributing author to a number of books on Rand’s fiction and philosophy, including Essays on Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead”; Essays on Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged“; Why Businessmen Need Philosophy: The Capitalist’s Guide to the Ideas Behind Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged”Concepts and Their Role in Knowledge: Reflections on Objectivist Epistemology; and “A Companion to Ayn Rand (Blackwell Companions to Philosophy).”

His op-eds have appeared in venues that range across the ideological spectrum, from Huffington Post to CNN.com to Foxnews.com and Businessweek.com. He’s been interviewed on national and international radio, including NPR and BBC Radio, and has appeared as a television guest on CNBC, KCET, Fox News Channel and the CBS Evening News.

A Canadian citizen, Dr. Ghate studied economics and philosophy as an undergraduate student at the University of Toronto and worked in the financial industry prior to joining ARI in 2000. He received his doctorate in philosophy in 1998 from the University of Calgary.

Career Roles

SENIOR FELLOW

  • Ayn Rand Institute
    2007 – present

CHIEF CONTENT OFFICER

  • Ayn Rand Institute
    2013 – present

INSTRUCTOR AND DEAN

  • Objectivist Academic Center
    2000 – present

Selected Works

BOOK CHAPTERS

“‘A Wall of Separation Between Church and State: Understanding the Principle’s Supporting Arguments and Far-Reaching Implications’ in Ayn Rand Society Philosophical Studies Volume 3 (forthcoming)

“‘Rand (contra Nozick) on Individual Rights and the Emergence and Justification of Government’ in Ayn Rand Society Philosophical StudiesVolume 3 (forthcoming)”

“A Being of Self-Made Soul” in “A Companion to Ayn Rand (Blackwell Companions to Philosophy) (eds. Allan Gotthelf and Gregory Salmieri)”  February 23, 2016

“A Free Mind and A Free Market Are Corollaries” in “A Companion to Ayn Rand (Blackwell Companions to Philosophy) (eds. Allan Gotthelf and Gregory Salmieri)”  February 23, 2016

“Natural Kinds and Rand’s Theory of Concepts: Reflections on Griffiths” in Concepts and Their Role in Knowledge: Reflections on Objectivist Epistemology (ed. Allan Gotthelf and James Lennox)June 03, 2013

“The Plight of Leo Kovalensky” in Essays on Ayn Rand’s “We the Living” February 17, 2012

EVENTS

“Rand on the Emergence and Justification of Government,” April 04, 2016, Association of Private Enterprise Education Conference 2016

“Education and Ideology: The Need to Be Free to Choose,” March 10, 2016, North Carolina Alliance for Public Charter Schools Conference 2016

“How the Republicans Are Making a Mockery of the Constitution,” November 14, 2015, AM560 Freedom Summit Chicago 2015

Charlie Hebdo, the West and the Need to Ridicule Religion,” July 04, 2015, Objectivist Summer Conference 2015

“Introduction to Objectivism,” March 28, 2015, Liberty League Freedom Forum 2015

“The Hobby Lobby Case: Why There’s No Such Thing as Religious Freedom,” February 05, 2015, University of North Carolina School of Law Federalist Society

TALKS & LECTURES

“The Separation of Church and State”

“Religion and Morality”

“A Study of Galt’s Speech”

Atlas Shrugged — America’s Second Declaration of Independence”

“Ayn Rand’s Ideas — An Introduction”

“Rethinking Selfishness: Ayn Rand’s New Conception of Egoism”

“The Moral and The Practical”