John Hospers vs. Rand

I was reading about John Hospers. He was a philosopher who was apparently friendly with Rand but then stopped being friendly.

I came across this description of their interaction from Wikipedia:

Objectivismradio showsAyn RandHuman Conduct
Barbara BrandennonfictionAtlas ShruggedmoralpoliticalepistemologyArt and Sense of LifeHarvard

The last sentence makes it sound like Rand got mad about some criticism from someone trying to be a neutral moderator. The source cited is “Branden, Barbara, The Passion of Ayn Rand. ibid. p. 324.” I don’t think Barbara Branden is a good source. Regardless, what does she say? After talking about Rand and Hospers’ relationship and areas of agreement, Branden says:

Their major area of disagreement was on issues of epistemology. The disagreements were often heated, and Ayn easily grew angry.

“Ayn easily grew angry” is framing to make Ayn seem unreasonable.

“Her sudden anger was bewildering,” John said.

A definition for “bewildering”: “confusing or perplexing: there is a bewildering array of holidays to choose from.” If John admits he was confused or perplexed by her anger, then that means that he didn’t understand its cause or source, which means he shouldn’t assume that Rand became angry easily (I’m guessing he claimed, or would agree with, Branden’s description of the anger as coming easily).

“She was like a different person. But I was always totally fascinated. . . . those compelling eyes that you can’t get away from and don’t want to get away from—they could be completely benign and benevolent, and a moment later totally merciless. . . .

Hospers supposedly likes Rand, but then criticizes her for not showing mercy. Atlas Shrugged:

mercy,cause

And another Atlas Shrugged quote:

justice.

Objectivism is not really into mercy . . . anyways, more quotes from Branden’s book:

She had a marvelous smile, which melted me many times. . . . I would see this towering intellect, and then, at times, a vulnerable little girl. . . . I loved her, very much. . . . Now, although more than twenty years have passed, it still seems like yesterday, and I can’t imagine my life without that experience—it was an emotional and intellectual high which never abated. . . . She gave me a renewed faith in my own profession, when she made it clear that it’s not military or political leaders who make history, it’s the men of ideas. I missed her enormously . . . I still do.”

So what happened?

As with so many of the people who were important in her life, Ayn broke with John Hospers.

“As with so many of the people who were important in her life” is framing by Branden trying to portray Rand as someone who just serially breaks with people as part of a pattern. We’re being asked to fill in the gaps and think that Rand’s behavior here must be unreasonable.

At his invitation, she gave a talk at a meeting of the American Society of Aesthetics at Harvard, for which he was Program Chairman; her subject was "Art as Sense of Life." John's assignment, as commentator on her speech, was to present a critical analysis. Ayn took violent exception to his criticisms and he never saw her again.

Nothing about the substance of the criticisms?!

Also “John's assignment, as commentator on her speech” is trying to indicate that Hospers was merely trying to reasonably serve out his role. Then Rand got super mad (“violent exception”), which Branden wants us to think is unreasonable.

I found a different account of what happened from Harry Binswanger, one of Rand’s close associates. He wrote it while refuting a different Rand-bashing account of the same event:

Note that even this defense from Hospers is problematic. “I could not simply say how great her remarks were and then sit down,” sounds like an excuse for attacking Rand’s remarks, though it’s ambiguous. Does he mean he couldn’t just sit down socially (because his role demanded he be contrary and critical) or intellectually (because he actually had disagreements he felt he needed to express)? If he means socially, then that basically becomes a confession of what Binswanger is about to accuse him of. If he means intellectually, it should have been possible to express his disagreement or criticism in a respectful way that Rand would not have taken exception to, so I’m suspicious of Hospers. Anyways Binswanger gives his first-hand account now:

Well, as it happens, I was present at that talk. I was 18 years old, had only been introduced to Objectivism 7 months earlier, and was entirely unfamiliar with ideas about decorum and moral sanction. Nonetheless, I was stunned by the hostile manner of Hospers’ comments. I remember, verbatim how he began one of his “comments”: “Surely,” he said in a really sneering way, “Miss Rand doesn’t expect us to believe that a painting of a landscape can [here I’m unsure of the exact wording] convey a view about man’s relation to existence.”

I find Binswanger’s account credible partially because he remembers enough detail to remember which parts he doesn’t exactly remember (as indicated by “[here I’m unsure of the exact wording]”).

Tangent: this sounds like a disagreement between Hospers and Rand about an important thing besides epistemology, contrary to what some sources claim.

“gentle and earnest” is a big contrast to other framings of the event!

This sounds plausible. 🙁

Apparently, Ayn Rand got the message, too, because she broke with Hospers afterwards, and I’m pretty sure it was over this betrayal.

This is a very different picture than “Hospers offered some criticisms while serving in the role of a moderator and Rand unreasonably went nuclear and cut him off.” Binswanger’s account strikes me as the true one. I wish we had some video or recording of the event though, because I’d like to judge for myself!

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