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Questions for “Philosophy and a Sense of Life” by Ayn Rand, found in The Romantic Manifesto
1) What is “metaphysics” (as used in this essay)?
2) Ayn Rand says that a “…sense of life is a pre-conceptual equivalent of metaphysics, an emotional, subconsciously integrated appraisal of man and of existence. It sets the nature of a man’s emotional responses and the essence of his character.” (Pg. 25, “Philosophy and a Sense of Life”, _The Romantic Manifesto_, Ayn Rand) What does it mean for something to be “preconceptual”? What does it mean for something to be “subconscious” as opposed to “conscious” ( in other words, what is the “subconscious” for Rand)? What does it mean for something to be “implicit” in your mind, as opposed to “explicit”? (You may want to refer to _The Ayn Rand Lexicon_ for some of these definitions.)
3) When discussing the concept of “sense of life”, Ayn Rand seems to speak of some part of the human mind that is not directly under one’s control. (“Whatever the case may be, his subconscious mechanism sums up his psychological activities, integrating his conclusions, reactions or evasions into an emotional sum that establishes a habitual pattern and becomes his automatic response to the world around him.”(Pg. 26, “Philosophy and Sense of Life”, _The Romantic Manifesto_ by Ayn Rand [emphasis added]) Try to reconcile her view that the “subconscious mechanism” is, in some sense, not directly under one’s control with the fact that Rand was clearly a proponent of volition and choice. (“The key to what you so recklessly call ‘human nature,’ the open secret you live with, yet dread to name, is the fact that man is a being of volitional consciousness. Reason does not work automatically...” (Galt’s Speech, Atlas Shrugged, See also entry on “Free Will” in Ayn Rand Lexicon)
4) A person who regards himself as an alcoholic will sometimes describe the urge to drink as difficult (or even impossible) to resist, such that once he has had one drink, he cannot resist drinking to excess. Ayn Rand says in “Philosophy and Sense of Life” that one’s “…subconscious mechanism sums up his psychological activities, integrating his conclusions, reactions or evasions into an emotional sum that establishes a habitual pattern and becomes his automatic response to the world around him.”(Pg. 26, “Philosophy and Sense of Life”, _The Romantic Manifesto_ by Ayn Rand [emphasis added]) Is the difficulty alcoholics have in resisting the temptation to drink to excess after having one drink an example of such a “habitual pattern”?
5) Consider this description of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder from a University of Florida web site:
“Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)…is characterized by recurrent and disturbing thoughts (called obsessions) and/or repetitive, ritualized behaviors that the person feels driven to perform (called compulsions). Obsessions can also take the form of intrusive images or unwanted impulses.
Common types of obsessions include concerns with contamination (e.g., fear of dirt germs, or illness), safety/harm (e.g., being responsible for a fire), unwanted acts of aggression (e.g., unwanted impulse to harm a loved one), unacceptable sexual or religious thoughts (e.g., sacrilegious images of Christ), and the need for symmetry or exactness.
Common compulsions include excessive cleaning (e.g., ritualized hand washing), checking, ordering and arranging rituals, counting, repeating routine activities (e.g., going in/out of a doorway), and hoarding (e.g., collecting useless items). While most compulsions are observable behaviors (e.g., hand washing), some are performed as unobservable mental rituals (e.g., silent recitation of nonsense words to vanquish a horrific image).” (http://www.ufocd.org/WhatIsOCD.htm )
Could Ayn Rand’s description in “Philosophy and Sense of Life” (that one’s “…subconscious mechanism sums up his psychological activities, integrating his conclusions, reactions or evasions into an emotional sum that establishes a habitual pattern and becomes his automatic response to the world around him.”(Pg. 26)) be a clue helping to explain how some people become Obsessive-Compulsives?
6) According to Ayn Rand in “Philosophy and a Sense of Life”, how is a sense of life formed? What is the key concept, in the formation of a sense of life? Is this key concept in the formation of a sense of life an ethical or metaphysical term?
7) What is a “metaphysical value judgment”?
8) What are some of the examples that Ayn Rand gives of the concept of “important” (as the concept is used in this essay)? Can you think of any others? What does the integrated sum of these “basic values” represent?
9) Does a man’s “sense of life”, his “implicit sense of values” that remains in his subconscious, necessarily have to match the philosophy that he explicitly embraces? Does the possibility of a variance between a man’s conscious philosophy and his subconscious “sense of life” explain why a person who embraces the self-sacrifice of Christianity or Socialism could, in his daily life, at least for a while, be successful at living (“successful” by the terms of Ayn Rand’s philosophy –a good career, decent friends, good wife/husband, etc.)?
10) Did Ayn Rand believe that a person’s “sense of life” is incapable of being changed? At the end of Ayn Rand’s novel “The Fountainhead”, the character of Dominique Francon has changed her mind regarding whether “the good”, as represented by people like Howard Roark, can succeed in this world. At the beginning of the novel, she is normally described as having a “malevolent universe premise” (http://www.cliffsnotes.com/WileyCDA/LitNote/The-Fountainhead.id-111,pageNum-48.html ). At the end, Dominique rejects this premise. Rand says in this essay, that: “Since it is an emotional sum, it [sense of life] cannot be changed by a direct act of will. It changes automatically, but only after a long process of psychological retraining, when and if a man changes his conscious philosophical premises.” (pg. 31, Second Full Para Down, “Philosophy and Sense of Life”, _The Romantic Manifesto_ by Ayn Rand) Does this mean that, at the end of the novel, Dominique Francon would have needed to engage in a “…long process of psychological retraining…” (or was she doing this throughout the novel)?
11) What two aspects of a man’s existence does Rand regard as the “…special province and expression of his sense of life…”? Does the concept of “love at first sight” have any legitimacy in Ayn Rand’s philosophy? A cynical person might say that “love at first sight” is really just “lust at first sight”, in other words, especially for men, love is initially based on the opposite sex’s physical appearance/anatomy, is this necessarily inconsistent with what Rand is saying here about it being “…a person’s sense of life that one falls in love –with that essential sum, that fundamental stand or way of facing existence, which is the essence of a personality.” (pg. 32, Third Full Para Down, “Philosophy and Sense of Life”, _The Romantic Manifesto_ by Ayn Rand)?
12) What religious myth does Ayn Rand mention as being a sort of allegory describing the subject matter of her essay, “Philosophy and Sense of Life”? Give an example from a religion of this myth. Do you agree or disagree with her assessment (provide reasons why or why not)?
