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More oxford books @ www.OxfordeBook.comFore more urdu books visit www.4Urdu.com186WHO IS JOHN GALT? 1957–1968with, as with the route by which we got there: no circularity of reasoning,no begging the question, no smuggling in a premise under anothername, and so on.” 35 Rand helped him clarify his political views, movinghim to a libertarian position.Rand’s attack on modern philosophy was inspired by LeonardPeikoff, who for years had been telling her it was still the age of “prereason.”This was not a message she wanted to hear while toiling onher rationalist novel. After its publication, however, Peikoff seemed tohave a point. He identified Kant as the source of all error in modernthought, an opinion Isabel Paterson had also held. To Peikoff, Kant’sargument that the means of perception structured humans’ sense ofreality undermined objective reality, reason, and all absolutes. Kant’sideas had opened the philosophical gates to destructive ideas like relativismand existentialism, which created the poisonous atmosphere thatgreeted Atlas Shrugged. Rand began to listen more seriously to Peikoff’sopinions about philosophy.In a pivotal conversation, Peikoff argued that she had a significantcontribution to make. He told her that no philosopher had claimed herrendering of “existence is identity,” an idea she considered a self-evidentupdate of Aristotle. The deciding factor was her meeting with Hospers.Conversations with him convinced Rand that there were indeed enormousholes in the contemporary approach to philosophy. She decidedthat her ideas about the proper approach to universals and concept formationwere new and valuable. If she were to work them out systemicallyshe could prove “why conceptual knowledge can be as absoluteas perceptual evidence.” She had the feeling of “taking on a big assignment.”Imagining herself as an intellectual detective, chasing down thelogical errors and frauds perpetrated over the ages, she became increasinglyinterested in meeting professional philosophers. 36Hospers scheduled a meeting with Rand that included Martin Lean,a Wittgenstein expert and chair of the Philosophy Department atBrooklyn College. It was a rowdy session, with Rand even calling Leana “shyster” when he made a favorable comment about the USSR. Leanenjoyed their combat immensely, telling Rand afterward in a lengthy letter,“For my part I cannot recall having argued with anyone as intellectuallydynamic, challenging, and skilled as you since my . . . Fulbright yearat Oxford.” He admitted to some pretensions about his own dialectical