Ayn Rand Society session on Integrity at the January meeting of the APA in New York City on January 9

On Wednesday January 9th from 7:00 to 10:00pm, the Ayn Rand Society will have a session in New York City as part of the American Philosophical Society’s (APA) Eastern Division Meeting.

This year our topic is the virtue of integrity, and the panel is built around a new paper by Carrie-Ann Biondi (Marymount Manhattan College) on “Being Integrated: A Labor of Self-Love.”

The paper will be followed by comments by Christian Miller (Wake Forest University) and me. As is typical for such sessions, Carrie-Ann will have the opportunity to respond to our comments, and plenty of time will be left for discussion with the audience.

I’m looking forward to the session. Rand had a distinctive perspective on the self and on the role of integrity in forming and sustaining a self. I know from conversations with Carrie Ann that she has much illuminating to say on Rand in general and on this subject in particular. Christian takes virtue and integrity in particular very seriously but comes at it from a wholly different philosophical perspective, so it will be fascinating to see what points of agreement and disagreement he raises. I expect that my own comments will focus on issues of Rand-interpretation or on connecting the themes Carrie-Ann raises to texts she doesn’t deal with directly.

As is the Society’s practice, members and contributors will have access to the paper and comments (and to Carrie-Ann’s responses) as soon as they are available. We hope that we will also see some of you at the session itself, though (as with all events at APA meetings), the session will only be open to people registered for the whole conference. I expect that will include most of our members who are in the greater New York area, but that it will not include many contributors.