Talk:List of philosophers (R–Z)

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Is there concensus to add Rand as a philosopher? We know there is evidence that she is, and that she is not considered to be a philosopher. we know that some people regard her 'philosophy' as poorly argued (Nozick) and that most of her writing is not philosophical as much as ideological. so let's just do a simple vote.

• No Rand is not a philosopher any more than Robert Fulghum is a philosopher or George Orwell is a philosopher. They all have produced popular philosophically oriented texts, but they are not philosophers.--Buridan 15:42, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

• Yes Rand is a philosopher. But this isn't a matter of a "vote" - it is a matter of a valid, verifiable source

Encyclopedia of Ethics by Lawrence C. Becker (Routledge 2001), p. 1440.

Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Routledge, 1999).

Philosophy of Education: An Encyclopedia, edited by J. J. Chambliss (Garland 1996), p. 302.

Encarta article on Ayn Rand

Steve 16:41, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

• Yes She may not be recognized in mainstream academia to your satisfaction, but she does meet the requirements set forth in Wikipedia:Notability. She's considered to be a philosopher by enough people that she can be presented as such by Wikipedia.  The Transhumanist   09:48, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
• No Rand's childish screeds are ignored by all but a tiny-if-vocal minority of the philosophical community. The remainder don't view her as a philosopher-whom-they-disagree with; they regard her as an intellectual fraud and a cult-leader. The Routledge entry cited above was only created after a lobbying effort by her followers; the other entries are trivial; the Oxford Companion to Philosophy and the Stanford Encyclopedia both ignore her; the the Penguin Dictionary of Phil. refers to her as a "writer" with a "so-called philosophy." User:Jod
• Irrelevant I've added a warning to the page. That loads of people try to convince others that she is a philosopher is sufficient for inclusion on this extremely diverse list. It's an overstatement to say she's ignored by philosophers. Anthony Quinton describes her as an amateur philosopher in the 'popular philosophy' entry of The Oxford Companion to Philosophy and, if I remember correctly, the second edition of the same book features a preface or introduction in which Ted Honderich (I think) goes out of his way to mention how glad he is not to have included her therein. That's not ignoring. That's (rightly) concluding that she's not worth anyone's time. KSchutte 01:09, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

That's still ignoring her qua philosopher, which is the only sense releveant here: none of them see fit to discuss any of her proposed theories. It's as true as claiming that a large segment of analytic philosophy ignored Heidegger, which is not incompatible with them occasionally going out of their way to remark that he wrote nonsense; or claiming that historians and anthropologists ignore Erich von Daniken, which allows that they might still note that he's a crackpot and sigh with relief that his fringe of followers are waning.

Is this really a question? Rand has been recognized as a philosopher, even if with disdain, by the philosophical community for quite some time. Even Christina Hoff Sommers, who is not known for countenancing those she hates, included Rand in book of introductory readings in ethics. Rand is certainly a philosopher. The debate is over whether she was any good. But guess what? The same debate rages over a number of philosophers. Postmodern Beatnik 20:08, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Does Anyone Check These Links?

When people are added to this list, are the wikilinks checked to make sure they actually link to a page on the philosopher in question? I just had to fix the link to Michael Tye, who didn't have an article until last week. Until now, his link has been referring to an Australian mosaic artist. Let's be a little more rigorous, people! Postmodern Beatnik 20:08, 16 July 2007 (UTC)