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	Ayn Rand has been listed as one of the Language and literature good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Article milestones Date Process Result March 20, 2006 Featured article candidate Not promoted April 7, 2006 Peer review Reviewed April 14, 2006 Good article nominee Listed May 2, 2006 Featured article candidate Not promoted June 4, 2006 Good article reassessment Delisted September 15, 2009 Good article nominee Listed April 20, 2010 Peer review Reviewed September 6, 2021 Guild of Copy Editors Copyedited April 11, 2022 Peer review Reviewed February 27, 2023 Featured article candidate Not promoted Facts from this article were featured on Misplaced Pages's Main Page in the "On this day..." column on March 6, 2017, March 6, 2022, and March 6, 2023. Current status: Former featured article candidate, current good article

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Influence on Israeli politicians

An editor has twice attempted to add material about Rand influencing various Israeli political figures. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but I've reverted the additions twice now because of the poor quality of the sourcing for these claims. Claims about living people need solid sourcing. That means third-party reliable sources for facts (not opinion pieces, blogs, etc.) or an explicit declaration by that person. These sources must actually say that Rand has been an influence on their political thinking. Sources that say they read her novels, identified with a particular character, etc., are not enough to claim political influence. Also, social media posts and interviews are acceptably only for what the person says about themselves, not as sources for claims they make about other people. --RL0919 (talk) 13:59, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

So this means, an article making inferences, such as so-and-so said x, y and z, and Rand said x, y and z, therefore so-and-so was apparently influenced by Rand, does not count and should be treated as speculation. -- Doctorx0079 (talk) 15:12, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

It looks like Ayalet Shaked may have said something specifically referencing Rand, but it's hard for me to tell as it's all in Hebrew. It's important to have English-language references here as this is English Misplaced Pages. -- Doctorx0079 (talk) 15:24, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I think Rand's influence on Shaked can be properly sourced. I've added her with The New York Times as the reference. --RL0919 (talk) 03:37, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

The influence that Rand has had on politicians outside the US is certainly of general interest. I have had *personal* conversations with Netanyahu on the matter. It can also be seen in following policy changes over recent decades. I think all references should remain, even if they "spoil" the appearance of a "perfect" article. This will allow editors to butress them with more of the "ironclad" references some seek.These references also appear unchallenged in Hebrew Misplaced Pages. They go much-much beyond so-and-so said x, y and z, and Rand said x, y and z ... Avisalon (talk) 06:40, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

@Avisalon: You need print references, preferably in English. User:RL0919 has given a good example of what to do. -- Doctorx0079 (talk) 14:17, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Yes, it would be so nice if all sources were in English... Avisalon (talk) 11:21, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

@Avisalon: Find some, like RL0919 did -- Doctorx0079 (talk) 15:19, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

To be clear, my concern is not about "the appearance of a 'perfect' article". Removing poorly sourced claims about living people is an English Misplaced Pages policy. I can't speak to what is on Hebrew Misplaced Pages, but over here it has been pretty common for someone to want to insert a claim about Rand influencing this or that person, with very poor evidence to support that claim. We try to get those resolved quickly, either removing the claim or finding a better source to support it. Leaving poorly sourced content in the hope that someone will improve it someday is not a good option for this type of material. --RL0919 (talk) 16:36, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Also, private conversations or emails are not the kind of thing that you are allowed to reference on Misplaced Pages. It's hearsay that can't be verified independently. Even if you are sure something is true, it must be verifiable before you can add it.-- Doctorx0079 (talk) 17:58, 29 July 2021 (UTC)

Conjecture in Bio

I think it'd be appropriate to delete the following passage from this article's biography, on grounds of conjecture and insufficient evidence:

"Although academic interest in her ideas has grown since her death, academic philosophers have generally ignored or rejected her philosophy because of her polemical approach and lack of methodological rigor."

It only cites a single source and may lead readers to believe Rand might not be as credible a philosopher as some of her contemporaries based solely on the opinions of two authors.

This is misleading, as Rand was one of the most influential and well-known philosophers of the twentieth century in the U.S., and her ideas are not widely "ignored" or "rejected" by today's academic philosophers. That said, they're certainly criticized by many socialists, communists, anarchists, and Marxists. This is to be expected, however, as Rand's ideas are antithetical to many of the presuppositions inherent in those schools of thought. Foucault's work, for example, might similarly be "rejected" or "ignored" by some modern academic philosophers—such as Thomas Sowell and Milton Friedman—but these would merely be their opinions.

Moreover, it suggests that Rand's ideas have gained popularity and influence since her death. On the contrary, she was much more influential in the U.S. during her time—having made several appearances on national television and having been the subject of multiple national newspaper articles—and is rarely discussed outside of right-wing libertarian circles today.

I'll leave the article as it appears today to field any objections that others might have. If no well-corroborated objections have been made by 11/9/22 (i.e., one week from today), I'll remove the passage.

All civil discourse (including dissent) is welcomed! 2601:249:1681:15E0:AC3C:6DE7:FFA3:2A (talk) 03:02, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

The lead section follows the general guidance that article leads should summarize material that is in the main body of the article, where issues are covered in more detail and with more sources. The body text cites multiple sources related to each of the concerns you raise.

The first claim you challenge, that "academic philosophers have generally ignored or rejected her philosophy" is cited in the lead to an encyclopedia article in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy – a recent, peer-reviewed tertiary source that reflects typical academic attitudes. Additional sources cited in the body text include another encyclopedia, a collection of academic essays by critics of Rand,, an academic book about Rand's reception in Eurpoe,, a book by journalist Eric Burns, and others. All these sources make claims of fact about how Rand is typically perceived in academia, and come from eight different authors whose own opinions about her vary.

Moving on to your second major point, the passage you are quoting never "suggests" an increase in "popularity and influence" since she died; it says that "academic interest in her ideas has grown since her death" (emphasis added). The source cited in the lead is the aforementioned collection of critical essays. This is also supported in the body by the citation of an academic book by history professor Jennifer Burns,, an academic book by Mimi Reisel Gladstein, and an encyclopedia article. Other sources have been cited in past iterations of the article, including an academic book by Chris Matthew Sciabarra, and journalism in The Chronicle of Higher Education and Lingua Franca. Beyond explicit sourcing, I note that the number of academic books discussing Rand during her lifetime can be counted on the fingers of one hand. In contrast, the article currently cites more than 20 such books published after her death, most of which are from the last 20 years. Also note that the APA-affiliated Ayn Rand Society and The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies were both founded after her death (facts that are stated and cited in the article).

Finally, whether her "popularity and influence" is greater or lesser now than during her living heyday is harder to discern (and the article makes no claim about that), but your statement that Rand "is rarely discussed outside of right-wing libertarian circles today" is clearly untrue. I will simply note that the list of sources currently in the article incudes books from the last decade by non-libertarians such as Lisa Duggan, Mikhail Kizilov, Cass Sunstein, and Gary Weiss, as well as others who do not have WP articles. If I started citing newspaper and magazine articles, the list could break this Talk page.

References

1. Badhwar, Neera & Long, Roderick T. (Fall 2020). Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). "Ayn Rand". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Archived from the original on March 24, 2022. Retrieved May 3, 2021.
2. Heyl, Jenny A. (1995). "Ayn Rand (1905–1982)". In Waithe, Mary Ellen (ed.). A History of Women Philosophers: Contemporary Women Philosophers, 1900–Today. Vol. 4. Boston: Kluwer Academic. pp. 207–224. ISBN 978-0-7923-2807-0.
3. Cocks, Neil, ed. (2020). Questioning Ayn Rand: Subjectivity, Political Economy, and the Arts. Palgrave Studies in Literature, Culture and Economics (Kindle ed.). Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 11. ISBN 978-3-030-53072-3.
4. Brühwiler, Claudia Franziska (2021). Out of a Gray Fog: Ayn Rand's Europe (Kindle ed.). Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books. p. 27. ISBN 978-1-79363-686-7.
5. Burns, Eric (2020). 1957: The Year that Launched the American Future. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. p. 259. ISBN 978-1-5381-3995-0.
6. Murnane, Ben (2018). Ayn Rand and the Posthuman: The Mind-Made Future. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 3. ISBN 978-3-319-90853-3.
7. Cleary, Skye C. (June 22, 2018). "Philosophy Shrugged: Ignoring Ayn Rand Won't Make Her Go Away". Aeon. Retrieved September 2, 2022.
8. Cocks, Neil, ed. (2020). Questioning Ayn Rand: Subjectivity, Political Economy, and the Arts. Palgrave Studies in Literature, Culture and Economics (Kindle ed.). Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 15. ISBN 978-3-030-53072-3.
9. Burns, Jennifer (2009). Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 295–296. ISBN 978-0-19-532487-7.
10. Gladstein, Mimi Reisel (2009). Ayn Rand. Major Conservative and Libertarian Thinkers. New York: Continuum. pp. 114–122. ISBN 978-0-8264-4513-1.
11. Salmieri, Gregory & Gotthelf, Allan (2005). "Rand, Ayn (1905–82)". In Shook, John R. (ed.). The Dictionary of Modern American Philosophers. Vol. 4. London: Thoemmes Continuum. pp. 1995–1999. ISBN 978-1-84371-037-0.
12. Sciabarra, Chris Matthew (2013). Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical (2nd ed.). University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press. ISBN 978-0-271-06374-4.
13. Sharlet, Jeff (April 9, 1999). "Ayn Rand Has Finally Caught the Attention of Scholars". The Chronicle of Higher Education. 45 (31): A17 – A18. Retrieved April 15, 2011.
14. McLemee, Scott (September 1999). "The Heirs Of Ayn Rand: Has Objectivism Gone Subjective?". Lingua Franca. Vol. 9, no. 6. pp. 45–55. Archived from the original on May 15, 2011. Retrieved April 15, 2011.

In none of these cases are the sources listed exhaustive. More could be provided, but that would probably be citation overkill. --RL0919 (talk) 07:45, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Organization of criticism

This is a followup to a comment made by Vanamonde93 at WP:Featured article candidates/Ayn Rand/archive2 § Comments from Vanamonde, but I thought it might be more useful to discuss here. A recent change that I made is part of the reason for the distribution of critical material across five sub-sections, as I was trying to avoid a criticism section. I do see your point, and I admit that in some ways the article was more logically organized before my change. However, I think the solution here is solving the other problem that you mentioned: in many places the text mentions the existence of reviews or critique rather than summarizing their substance. I feel like if the criticisms were more usefully summarized, then they could be more directly connected to Rand's ideas, and the current structure would feel less disjointed. Thoughts?      — Freoh 15:39, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

I wondered if your edit was related to the FAC or not, so thanks for clearing that up for me. From my side of things, I don't object to your change in general. I think combining aesthetics into the same subsection as metaphysics and epistemology is a bit awkward – I would probably split aesthetics into its own subsection. Otherwise, I have no problem with distributing the previous "Criticisms" subsection into a different structure. --RL0919 (talk) 17:08, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

Fair enough. I put aesthetics there because it seemed like a short section on its own and because of the quote about the "selective re-creation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value-judgments", but feel free to restructure.      — Freoh 17:26, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

Regarding the inclusion of the name Alice O’Connor

I’m not aware of any instance of that name ever being used to identify her. Ayn Rand is more than a pen name, it is the name used to refer to her by everyone, including her protege Leonard Peikoff and those in the Ayn Rand Institute.

I propose that this article eliminate the name “Alice O’Connor”, and change the phrase “pen name” to better reflect reality. 2600:4040:59D1:9A00:51F6:6504:AD45:E767 (talk) 22:04, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

That "Ayn Rand" was a pen name was known in her lifetime; she said it was a pen name herself in multiple letters to fans that are reproduced in Letters of Ayn Rand. --RL0919 (talk) 22:58, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

Is "Saint Petersburg Governorate" necessary?

@SuperSkaterDude45 has reverted my edit, but I am not sure why he considers the subdivision necessary. Thedarkknightli (talk) 01:40, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

@Thedarkknightli: First level subdivisions are generally included in infoboxes. This is consistent with other articles on philosophers such as Friedrich Engels and Blaise Pascal for example. I see no reason why Rand should be an exception to this for a removal that really has no basis other than it being "unnecessary". SuperSkaterDude45 (talk) 02:03, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

two comments on the lead

First, as a well-sourced, GA article, the body of the article should be the source of everything in the lead. This seems to be the case here, so I would suggest moving the references down to the appropriate section, or else removing them if they are already cited below.

Second, in the first sentence, should "writer and philosopher" be changed to was a "novelist and popular philosopher" or "novelist-philosopher"? According to the article, which does call her a "popular philosopher", she has no training in philosophy, little interest in its history, and no engagement with contemporary philosophy. "Novelist-philosopher" is what is used in the SEP article. Or, Tolstoy, who similarly wrote long philosophical novels as well as more directly philosophical tracts, is simply called a "writer". Oh, and possibly "public intellectual" should be somewhere in there too.

Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 19:33, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

The items cited in the lead are cited because of past challenges to the content. This is in keeping with WP:CITELEAD.

As to the phrasing of the opening description, this has been the subject of many past discussions, including multiple RFCs. In the past, 'writer' has been preferred over 'novelist' since she also has notable work as a playwright and screenwriter. This was last discussed in a 2018 RFC. As to 'philosopher', attempts to change this have typically brought forth commenters who want the term to be removed entirely or modified in a way that casts her in a negative light ('amateur philosopher', 'pseudo-philosopher', etc). For this faction, any other modification is unacceptable. That made it difficult to get a consensus for a modifier like 'popular' that could be interpreted as flattering. It has been a number of years since the last big row over it, so you are welcome to give it a try, but I would not expect much good to come from it. --RL0919 (talk) 05:29, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

Hi @RL0919,

Thanks for the clarification about the citations. When I see these in the lead of a well-developed article, I tend to suspect unproductive drive-by editing or a well-meaning, but unnecessary, addition.

With respect to the title "philosopher," I wonder if the issue is a misframing of the question, namely, framing it in terms of the quality of her ideas, rather than in terms of her training and profession. With respect to the first question, Misplaced Pages should not take any position. With respect to the second, it is just a neutral matter of fact that she does not fall into this category.

I should add that this is not in any way specific to her. Lots of scholars and intellectuals weigh in on philosophical issues without thereby becoming philosophers, e.g., Einstein, Christopher Hitchens, Antonin Scalia, John Maynard Keynes, Lenin, Marilynne Robinson, and I could go on.

Exceptions I can think of are all internationally renown scholars in other disciplines such as Chomsky and Amartya Sen. Rand is also internationally known and admired by many, but she chose to publish for a popular audience without the validating scrutiny of the philosophical community. And – hey! – in this way, she reached a larger audience than what most philosophers would dare to dream. But what this makes her is a public intellectual or perhaps a social critic or something of that kind.

Anyways, I have zero interest in a protracted debate over a basically harmless misclassification. I just don't see why anyone would dispute the fact unless, for them, "philosopher" is an evaluative term. Which, even aside from Misplaced Pages policy, it is not. There are plenty of entirely legitimate philosophers whose ideas are widely regarded as terrible or even borderline incoherent. In some circles it is even a term of disparagement, as in the phrase "to wax philosophical."

I'll leave this up for a while so that others have a chance to chime in. I have not worked on this page, and I have no intention of changing the lead without consensus.

Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 18:11, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

With so many watchers, I expected more people to weigh in.

If no one speaks up to the contrary, I'm going to go with public intellectual. This covers her essays on philosophical topics as well as her political interventions, her salon, her involvement with the Objectivist movement, and so forth.

Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 15:51, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

I held back from immediate reply to see if anyone else wanted to comment, but if you are suggesting that you will change the description of 'philosopher' to 'public intellectual', then I definitely object. There have been multiple discussions about this, and it has been shown repeatedly that she is called a philosopher in many reliable sources. We are supposed to follow sources, not the personal views of editors about whether she is or is not a philosopher. --RL0919 (talk) 17:54, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

But there is no shortage of reliable sources describing her, just as an objective matter of fact, in extremely unflattering terms. Her profession, however, was no more (for instance) neoliberal ideologue than it was philosopher—even though she is at least as notable as being the former according to many journalists, pundits, and academics.

EDIT: I'm sure there are other (good) policies that would prohibit "neolibral ideologue" from the lead. Please let me point out instead that reliable sources (per Misplaced Pages standards) regard her claim to being a philosopher as a joke, which some sources say explicitly and others consider it too obvious to bear mention. Misplaced Pages's standards for reliability are in many respects quite low, so this fact about what's been published in no way decides the question. But it does help to demonstrate that what is in question is a matter of subjective assessment.

Perhaps readers would be best served by a sentence along the lines of "A highly polarizing figure, Rand is regarded by some as among the 20th century's greatest philosophers; many academics, however, just as confidently dismiss her work almost entirely." This (or something like it) could follow the first sentence describing her as a writer and public intellectual. Then a paragraph break could optionally be added to set off the rest of what is currently the first paragraph.

I'm not committed to this particular wording – especially if I seem to be taking a stand! – but it is supported by the article. One of the most notable things about Rand is the extreme disagreement about the character of her accomplishments. (The staggering 51 archived talk pages, I assume, attest to this in abundance.) Where there is widespread disagreement among reliable sources, Misplaced Pages should report that, rather than take a side—as I am sure we agree in principle.

Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 19:27, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

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