Rand discussing the influence of Aristotelian/Platonic philosophy on writing

For a nonfiction writing course I was asked to read a chapter from Ayn Rand’s The Art of Nonfiction. The chapter was entitled Creating an Outline, and I was shocked by the amount of overlap between this chapter and our discussions last week on Plato and Aristotle. Rand is highly critical of Plato in many respects. One section of the chapter was called The Platonic Approach to Logical Order, and in it Rand makes the claim that to a Platonist “there is a dangerous misconception that there is … only one possible logical order of presentation.” Rejecting this view, Rand, who referred to her philosophy as Aristotelian, asserts that “the principles behind determining the order of an outline are abstractions subsuming a vast number of concretes. You can establish rules about these principles, but not about the use of concretes. No set of principles can give you one logical order.” What I found particularly interesting about Rand’s perspective was her belief that one’s philosophical perspective is capable of determining how one will perform even the minutest of tasks, such as writing an outline. I backtracked to the chapter that came before, which we were not required to read, and I stumbled upon this explanatory passage: “I have often said that the whole history of philosophy is a duel between Plato and Aristotle, and that this conflict is present in every issue” [italics mine]. Rand saw one’s view of the relationship between abstract principles and concrete particulars as highly definitive. For an Aristotelian these things do not exist apart from each other, and for a Platonist, archetypes or universals do exist apart from their concrete manifestations.

It became even more relevant when Rand then delved into Aristotles four causes, specifically his conception of the final and efficient cause:

"By final causation, Aristotle meant that a purpose is set in advance, and then the steps required to achieve it are determined…To do anything, you must know what you want to achieve. For instance, if you decide to drive to Chicago, the roads you select, the amount of gas, etc., will be determined by that goal. But to get there, you will have to start a process of efficient causation, which includes filling the gas tank, starting the car, steering, etc. But the whole process will be a chain of actions you have selected in order to achieve a certain process, namely, to get to Chicago."

Regardless of whether Rand’s analysis of these ideas is bias towards Aristotle or under-researched, she puts into perspective just how important even one’s most abstract convictions are. They affect how one thinks. Therefore they will affect how one writes, talks, votes, and any other action. Philosophy affects one’s entire world-view (whether consciously accepted or not). Likewise, a certain philosophy, if accepted by a society, would greatly change the way it views, and thus interacts with its world. Philosophy has (and has exercised) the power to shape the world.