Philosophie mit einem Fuß

Ayn Rand wurde einmal gefragt, ob sie die Grundlagen ihrer Philosophie in Kurzform darstellen könne, während sie auf einem Fuß steht. Hier ist, was sie sagte:

1. METAPHYSIK: OBJEKTIVE REALITÄT

or “Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed” or “Wishing won’t make it so.”
Reality exists as an objective absolute—facts are facts, independent of man’s feelings, wishes, hopes or fears.

2. EPISTEMOLOGIE: REASON

or “You can’t eat your cake and have it, too.”
Reason (the faculty which identifies and integrates the material provided by man’s senses) is man’s only means of perceiving reality, his only source of knowledge, his only guide to action, and his basic means of survival.

3. ETHIK: EIGENINTERESSE

or “Man is an end in himself.”
Man—every man—is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others. He must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and of his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life.

4. POLITIK: KAPITALISMUS

or “Give me liberty or give me death.”
The ideal political-economic system is laissez-faire capitalism. It is a system where men deal with one another, not as victims and executioners, nor as masters and slaves, but as traders, by free, voluntary exchange to mutual benefit. It is a system where no man may obtain any values from others by resorting to physical force, and no man may initiate the use of physical force against others. The government acts only as a policeman that protects man’s rights; it uses physical force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use, such as criminals or foreign invaders. In a system of full capitalism, there should be (but, historically, has not yet been) a complete separation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of state and church.

SCHLUSSGEDANKEN

Wenn Sie diese Konzepte mit völliger Konsequenz als Grundlage Ihrer Überzeugungen vertreten würden, hätten Sie ein komplettes philosophisches System, das Ihnen als Leitfaden für Ihr Leben dienen könnte. Aber sie mit völliger Konsequenz zu vertreten - sie zu verstehen, zu definieren, zu beweisen und anzuwenden - erfordert Bände von Gedanken. Deshalb kann Philosophie nicht auf einem Bein stehend diskutiert werden - und auch nicht auf zwei Beinen stehend auf beiden Seiten des Zauns. Letzteres ist heute die vorherrschende philosophische Position, insbesondere im Bereich der Politik.

Copyright © 1962 by Times-Mirror Company
This article has been edited by The Atlas Society. It was originally published on June 17, 1962 in the Los Angeles Times as "Ayn Rand Ties Her Beliefs to Today's World"

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