Culture And Society

“Sargon of Akkad” Interviews Yaron Brook

In this wide-ranging episode of The Thinkery Podcast, Carl Benjamin (known on YouTube as “Sargon of Akkad”), interviews Yaron Brook. Among the many topics covered are: Why Adam Smith’s conventional morality undermines the case for capitalism; why Ayn Rand is not a “liberal” or a “conservative”; communism as the secularization of Christianity; the need for rational education; the essence of morality.
ARI News

Test Your Knowledge with ARI Campus Quizzes

Did you know that many of the courses on ARI Campus have multiple-choice quizzes embedded in the lessons? In this post we’ll focus on courses by Leonard Peikoff, while in a subsequent post we’ll look at material from other instructors.
Culture And Society

Onkar Ghate on Free Will

What is free will? In this episode of Yaron Brook’s Living Objectivism, Onkar Ghate, senior fellow and chief content officer at the Ayn Rand Institute, calls in to discuss Ayn Rand’s unique perspective on the nature of free will; the validation of free will; why determinism is self-refuting and incoherent; free will as axiomatic; why free will is associated with mysticism; Objectivism on materialism and idealism; the nature and significance of the primary choice, and other issues.
ARI News

Meet the Interns: Sam Weaver

Sam Weaver will be a senior this year at Davidson College in North Carolina, majoring in English and minoring in philosophy. He is also a second-year student in the Objectivist Academic Center.
ARI News

Meet the Interns: Grace Gumina

Grace Gumina is a senior, double majoring in French and international relations at Grand Valley State University in Michigan. Gumina explains why she was inspired to study French: “I took French in high school and loved it, so I decided to continue on in college. I think it’s very important to learn another language in today’s increasingly connected world.” She decided to also pursue international relations due to an interest in global politics and history.
ARI News

Meet the Interns: Zach Johnson

Zach Johnson is a philosophy major at St. John’s University in New York City. Johnson, a senior, says he became a philosophy major because he is “interested in the connection between ethics and metaphysics, conceptions of human beings, free markets, and the thought of Friedrich Nietzsche. I’m also interested in logic, Friedrich Hayek, and education’s role in social change.” He explains that he had “great English teachers, especially in high school,” who inspired him to read even more philosophic texts. “I was stunned by Plato’s Republic, along with Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil and Thus Spoke Zarathustra. I’ve been hooked ever since.”

Further Reading

Ayn Rand | 1957
For the New Intellectual

The Moral Meaning of Capitalism

An industrialist who works for nothing but his own profit guiltlessly proclaims his refusal to be sacrificed for the “public good.”
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Ayn Rand | 1961
The Virtue of Selfishness

The Objectivist Ethics

What is morality? Why does man need it? — and how the answers to these questions give rise to an ethics of rational self-interest.
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