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This article is from the Ayn Rand's Philosophy of Objectivism FAQ, by Chris Walker cwalker@aquila.ece.utexas.edu with numerous contributions by
others.
05 Ayn Rand on Aristotle
There has been and is a "life or death" battle for man's mind thoughout
Western history. The choice that Western man has faced is the fundamental
philosophy to guide his life--to choose reason or faith, live in
accord with reality or a "higher" dimension, seek happiness on this
earth or sacrifice one's life in the name of duty, live as a
free, sovereign individual or as a slave.
This battle is embodied in the conflict between the views of Aristotle
and Plato.
Ayn Rand put her lot with Aristotle.
"Aristotle's philosophy was the intellect's Declaration of Independence.
Aristotle, the father of logic, should be given the title of the world's
first intellectual, in the purest and noblest sense of that word. No
matter what remnants of Platonism did exist in Aristotle's system, his
incomparable achievement lay in the fact that he defined the basic
principles of a rational view of existence and of man's consciousness:
that there is only one reality, the one which man perceives--that it
exists as an objective absolute (which means: independently of the
consciousness, the wishes or the feelings of any perceiver)--that the
task of man's consciousness is to perceive, not to create, reality--that
abstractions are man's method of integrating his sensory material--that
man's mind is his only tool of knowledge--that A is A.
If we consider the fact that to this day everything that makes us
civilized beings, every rational value that we possess -- including the
birth of science, the industrial revolution, the creation of the
United States, even of the structure of our language -- is the result
of Aristotle's influence, of the degree to which, explicitly or
implicitly, men accepted his epistemological principles, we would
have to say: never have so many owed so much to one man."
Quoted from "For the New Intellectual, HC(20),pb(22)" from "The Ayn Rand
Lexicon", p35
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