Philosophy -- A juggernaut of words ?

Recently, I was reading the book, "Philosophy- Who needs it ", by Ayn Rand.
This was my first formal literature on Philosophy. Previosuly , the philosophical aspects were analysed in form of non-fiction or fiction books.

Till now, I had never heard of the fight between different philosophy. Infact I never though that there are different philosophical thoughts in this world. I always thought that all the different philosophies are the mutually exclusive subsets of the whole equation of Philosophy.

It was in this book that I read that there are differen philosophers and most of them have a radically different philosophy of life, which is in contrast to the previous philosophical theory.

The philosophy has three main characters and lot of other supporting actors. The oldest one in this script is Aristotle, who is , supposedly, the first known philosopher who's written accounts are very well documented in the books.
His philosophy was based purely on reasoning. Reasoning the very basic aspects of life and understand, reasoning why good is good and why bad is bad and find a logical answer to that.
Aristotle -- 323BC,Greece.

The second lead role is done by Immanuel Kant, who is known as the father of modern Philosophy.
There was a confusion in the mind of people of this era, as to where does God exists, how was this world started, what is faith and how can faith co-exists with logic.
Kant wanted to provide answer to these question and that is what his philosophy was based on. In his , masterpeice work, "The Critique of Pure Reasoning", he tries to solve the old problem of relation of knowledge and faith.He was convinced that by properly fixing the limits of each he can suceed in furnishing a basis for honorable and enduring peace between them. He gives to knowledge , what belongs to it, the entire world of phenomena and conserves on the other hand, to faith , its eternal right to the interpretation of life and of the world from the standpoint of value.
Kant, 1724-1804, Russia


The third and the final lead actor in this act is Ayn Rand , who, also the author of the book, is a strong believer of the philosophy of Aristotle, i.e philosophy by reasoning, by logic and calls her philosophy, Objectivism. She doesnt believe in philosophy of Kant, infact she believes that Kant has been the worst person in the history of this world, by killing within the people, the power to think, for faith doesnt need logic, it just needs belief, a hope. She believes that Kant has tried to bring about a sad demise of capitalism and tried to propagate Socialism which is a most bizzare way of leading a country ahead. She is a stout believer of capitalism and doesnt believe in charity, helping poor, morality, guilt. She believes that a human being should be selfish, should be egoistic and should have dignity. She believes that we should not hold to hope so tightly that we have nothing left in our hand that the empty hope. And this is the philosophy she has put forward strongly in her two masterpeices -- Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.
She has divided the world in two parts, metaphysical, i.e nature, which is as it is, and it is accepted without any fight over its existence and the other part is human, which is what can be changed and understood based on the metaphysical aspect of the nature.
Ayn Rand-1905 -1982,Russia
I have just red The Fountainhead, and was impressed one aspect of her philosophy, the ego. I truely believe that every human being should possess some ego, a feeling of pride, for it retains your dignity, it retains some passion in you. If you let your ego die, you basically become a flame without fire. You dont have anything to prove, you kill your dignity. You become a puppet in the hands of other You enslave yourself to other's feeling. Your self is lost and you are a soul without desires. So, in order to keep your flame alive , to keep your desires awake and your dignity intact, I believe, as the Author Ayn Rand says, you should possess some Ego in yourself.

I still have lots of doubts like, should we encourage charity or should we support people who can support themselves, should we believe in the existence of God or should just the logic and reasoning play the complete part in our conscience and sub-conscience mind. But the asnwers to these questions cannot be found in a day or an year, it need generations of time and may still be left unanswered.


-ATG