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Have you read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand? If yes, you might remember this moment of Hank Rearden's enlightenment: "He lay still, alone in the silence of his office. He knew that the meaning of his mills had ceased to exist, and the fullness of the knowledge left no room for the pain of regretting an illusion. He had seen, in a final image, the soul and essence of his enemies: the mindless face of the thug with the club. It was not the face itself that made him draw back in horror, but the professors, the philosophers, the moralists, the mystics who had released that face upon the world."

Ayn Rand firmly believed that philosophy shapes human action. I agree with that and frequently quote her on this one: "The present state of the world is not the proof of philosophy’s impotence, but the proof of philosophy’s power. It is philosophy that has brought men to this state – it is only philosophy that can lead them out."




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