Objectivism, the Aristotelian-based philosophy of reality, reason, and individual rights innovated by Ayn Rand, has explicit positions on all the major philosophical issues.  Concerning the question of the fundamenal nature of man, Objectivist philosophy is forthrightly anti-reductionist.  It stands against both reductive materialism (the belief that man is reducible to matter only) and reductive spiritualism (the belief that man is reducible to geist or consciousness only).  Objectivism recognizes, accepts, and embraces the human being as an integrated being of both material and spiritual aspects (and perhaps other aspects as well, since the philosophy of reality and reason does not arbitrarily reject other possible forms of existence, since it does not insist that the universe must be made up of only two kinds of existence any more than it has to be assumed to be reducible to or composed of only one kind of existence).

Correction, Please!

The claim that Objectivism is, at root, a philosophy of "materialism" is an absurd charge that has been decisively dealt with and put to rest by leading Objectivist scholars.  See quotes and references below.

To find out whether Objectivism accepts or rejects the ontology of materialism, one merely needs to find out what the founders of that philosophy have said on the subject -- from the horse’s mouth. If one relies on biased commentaries by the opponents of a philosophy, one is likely to get a distorted picture of that philosophy -- a picture containing misrepresentations instead of its actual positions.

It is not true, for example, that "Since it (Objectivism) claims that nothing exists but matter . . . . " as one writer with an anti-objective bias claimed (Is Objectivism Merely a Disguised Materialism? by Jonathan Dolhenty). There is no basis for this assumption in any Objectivist sources that I can find. No source or evidence or proof is given for this claim. Merely stating that Objectivism is a disguised form of materialism does not make it so. Indeed, since Objectivism rejects monism it avoids the fallacies of both reductive idealism and reductive materialism, and the false dichotomies they generate. A mis-statement or misrepresentation of a philosophy's position on an issue is of no cognitive relevance concerning that philosophy and must be dismissed out of hand.  However, the false claim provides an opportunity not only to demonstrate the fallacies involved in the underlying assumptions, but also to point out and document the actual position of Objectivism on this issue for the casual reader not familiar with it.

The monist assumes there can be only two alternatives when he poses the question: "If the intellect and ideas are material existents, along with everything else in the universe, then Objectivism would appear to fall into the Materialist camp. If, on the other hand, the intellect and ideas are non-material existents, and everything else in the universe is Idea or Thought, then Objectivism falls into the Idealist camp."

Note the monist fallacy in the false assumption that these two ifs are jointly exhaustive; they are not. A third if, for example, would be: If the intellect and ideas are non-material existents, and not everything else in the universe is either all matter or all thought, then Objectivism does not fall into either the idealist or materialist camp of the monist fallacy. But this possibility, the only one that makes any sense, is conveniently ignored.

It is not true (in the second if) that "everything else in the universe" has to be idea or thought; this is the idealist form of monism and is just as baseless and fallacious as the materialist version. Both the above ifs contain the monist fallacy, the first by trying to equate "everything in the universe" with matter only, and the second by trying to equate everything with non-material ideas or thoughts. I could ask, "Have you stopped beating your wife?" The question itself is an implicit assertion that you are a wife-beater, no matter what your answer. The attempt to identify the "non-material" (the intellect and ideas) with the non-natural is nowhere supported -- only smuggled in. The issue is not "matter" versus "non-matter"; the issue is natural versus supernatural (i.e., un-natural or non-existent). Again, the monist fallacy is to assume, without warrant, that it is either/or -- either the Universe is ultimately reducible to matter or ultimately reducible to some kind of consciousness. Although Objectivism upholds the Primacy of Existence (all of existence) and rejects the Primacy-of-Consciousness premise, it does not view consciousness as any less real than any other form of existence and, unlike materialism, does not seek to obliterate consciousness by reducing it to some mechanistic composite. Objectivism views consciousness as one kind of existence, a special kind of existence -- and, unlike the idealists, does not try to make the part responsible for the whole or the same as the whole.

It is also not true that Objectivists "hold that the universe is an unlimited material entity" or that "the material world is primary and that thoughts about this world are secondary." (Dolhenty op. cit.) Objectivism upholds the Primacy of Existence (all of reality) -- not the Primacy of Matter. Like Aristotle, Objectivists view the infinite as having potentiality but not actuality. Everything that exists is limited by its identity. Nothing and no one is unlimited. (The notion of a supernatural God, being unlimited or having unlimited attributes, violates the Law of Identity and therefore does not have a referent in the real world.)

I believe the statements in the following section by Dr. Leonard Peikoff (all from Chapter One of Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand) speak for themselves (with little elaboration from me) on the subject of materialism and properly document the actual position of the philosophy on that view. It is clear that whether one agrees or disagrees with Objectivism, it cannot be placed in either the idealist or materialist camp, and stands as a radical departure against both. It should become clear to anyone that the person who made the above bogus claims about the philosophy of reality and reason had done very little, if any, holmework about the subject.

Typically, many who seek to misrepresent the Objectivist position on this issue, by trying to charge that Objectivism stands for ontological materialism, make the mistake of assuming the false alternatives involved in monism -- and indeed are often just hawking their particular religious views, which they hold on faith and not by reason, but which they seek to smuggle into the discussion of philosophical issues. By trying to associate the natural exclusively with the matterial, such religionists hope to pave the way for their version of reductive spiritualism and supernaturalism. Since Objectivism rejects monism and the false alternatives of materialism and idealism/mysticism from the start, this dishonest tactic does not succeed.  It must only be pointed out.

The next few pages are an elaboration, with extensive quotations from original Objectivist source material, dealing in more detail with the Objectivist position on both the materialist and the idealist forms of monism.
 

Attempt to Attack Objectivism by Putting it in Either Monist Camp

The charge that Objectivism, explicitly or implicitly, is a philosophy of materialism generally comes from those who favor some variant of idealism, the belief that everything in the Universe is ultimately reducible to idea or spirit and that material objects are sort of condensed spirit. Ironically, Objectivism has been the target of left-wing materialists who attempt to claim that it implicitly accepts idealism and mysticism because of its recognition of the existence of consciousness! It seems that the materialists cannot imagine any alternative to their position except idealism, and the idealists cannot imagine any alternative to their position other than materialism. Each side seems almost obsessed with the other. Both are wrong, according to Objectivism. Objectivists see consciousness as a part of the natural universe, not as some fragment of an allegedly existing supernatural world. There is no mysticism implied in the honest recognition of the existence of awareness as such or humans’ unique volitional form of consciousness (in the process of concept formation) which we call the faculty of reason.

Man is neither a bodiless ghost nor a mindless robot. Man is an integrated being composed of both matter and spirit which function together as a unit. Objectivism rejects the view of ancient Oriental mysticism -- still widely believed in modern times -- that man is a divided being, composed of a "low" part (matter) and a "high" part (spirit) which are continually at war with each other as the "high" part seeks to "escape" the confines of the "low" part.. This is an enticing but false model based on primitive religious mythology, not scientific evidence. It appears to have entered Western culture by way of the Orphic mystery religion and the Dionysian cult associated with the Pythagoreans. It is the source of many of the false dichotomies in philosophy.

Objectivism rejects monism, the dogmum that everything in the Universe is ultimately reducible to only one kind of existence (either matter or spirit or whatever). There is nothing in the philosophy of Objectivism that precludes there being more than one kind of existence in the Universe. Monism is an unsupported assumption, mostly by religionists and modern philosophers, and it usually divides itself into two allegedly warring camps: materialism and idealism. Perhaps the most famous representative of materialism was Karl Marx, the Red Prussian; he claimed that man and society are nothing but matter in motion. Marx was a student of the philosophy of Hegel, who was an arch idealist who believed that man and history are the result of the working out of a disembodied Idea as it evolves through a dialectic process.

Objectivism rejects both materialism and idealism in ontology, and views them as false alternatives. In fact, even a cursory examination of the Objectivist philosophy reveals that Ayn Rand and Leonard Peikoff have explicitly rejected metaphysical materialism as well as idealism. Let’s look at the objective evidence, beginning with a quotation from Dr. Peikoff on Objectivism's rejection of idealism and the belief in a contrarian supernatural universe "above" our natural world. Objectivism's position on materialism will be illuminated by the context provided by its views on metaphysical idealism:
 

Objectivism vs. the "Mystics of Spirit" (Idealists)

"The idealists -- figures such as Plato, Plotinus, Augustine, Hegel -- regard reality as a spiritual dimension transcending and controlling the world of nature, which latter is regarded as deficient, ephemeral, imperfect -- in any event, as only partly real. Since 'spiritual,' in fact, has no meaning other than 'pertaining to consciousness,' the content of true reality in this view is invariably some function or form of consciousness (e.g., Plato's abstractions, Augustine's God. Hegel's Ideas). This approach amounts to the primacy of consciousness and thus, as Ayn Rand puts it, to the advocacy of consciousness without existence.

"In regard to epistemology, Ayn Rand describes the idealists as mystics. 'mystics of spirit.' They are mystics because they hold that knowledge (of true reality) derives not from sense perception or from reasoning based on it, but from an otherworldly source, such as revelations or the equivalent.

"The more sophisticated versions of idealism rest on technical analyses of the nature of percepts or concepts . . . . The unsophisticated but popular version of idealism, which typically upholds a personalized other dimension, is religion. Essential to all versions of the creed, however -- and to countless kindred movements -- is the belief in the supernatural."

It has become fashionable in recent decades to attempt to redefine the supernatural as a sort of "extension" of the natural world instead of presenting it as the traditional perfected state or "higher" dimension. But, the supernatural is not and cannot be merely an extension of the natural world, for then it would be only a part of the natural world itself and would not contradict the natural world; thus, it would defeat the purpose of those who wish for "another dimension" of perfect, motionless, flawless forms to compare and contrast to the imperfect world we see around us. (Let us not forget that the psychological purpose of invoking belief in a supernatural world or Being is to denigrate this world and ourselves by comparison; people are more easily controlled if they have swallowed a guilt trip, knowing that they can never measure up to any supernatural -- unnatural -- paragon.)

Peikoff goes on to point out that if the concept of the supernatural is to have any meaning at all, it would have to be a form of existence beyond existence, a thing beyond entities, a something beyond identity. But this contradicts the inescapable laws of reality and thought -- such as the Law of Identity and its corollaries. As Peikoff puts it, "The idea of the 'supernatural' is an assault on everything man knows about reality. It is a contradiction of every essential of a rational metaphysics. It represents a rejection of the basic axioms of philosophy (or, in the case of primitive men, a failure to grasp them)."

Is God the designer of the universe? Not if A is A. The alternative to "design" is not "chance"; it is causality.

Can miracles be performed? A miracle does not mean merely something unusual. A miracle would require the violation of the metaphysically given, some natural law or fact of reality. If a woman gives birth to twins, that is unusual; if she would give birth to elephants, that would be a miracle! A miracle is an action not possible to the entities involved by their natures. Any true "miracle" would require the violation of the Law of Identity.

In every attempt, the notion of the supernatural clashes with the facts and laws of reality and the preconditions of thought. Peikoff observes, "The point is broader than religion. It is inherent in any advocacy of a transcendent dimension. Any attempt to defend or define the supernatural must necessarily collapse in fallacies. There is no logic that will lead one from the facts of this world to a realm contradicting them; there is no concept formed by observation of nature that will serve to characterize its antithesis. Inference from the natural can lead only to more of the natural , i.e., to limited, finite, entities acting and interacting in accordance with their identities. Such entities do not fulfill the requirements of 'God' or even of 'poltergeist.' As far as reason and logic are concerned, existence exists, and only existence exists."
 

Objectivism vs. the "Mystics of Muscle" (Materialists)

In brief, since Objectivism accepts reason as man's only means of knowledge, it rejects idealism and supernaturalism. This does not mean that Objectivists are materialists, however. Just as idealism amounts to advocating consciousness without existence, Objectivism sees materialism as advocating existence without consciousness. Neither side, according to Objectivism, faces reality head on. Peikoff lays it all out as follows:

"Materialists -- men such as Democritus, Hobbes, Marx, Skinner -- champion nature but deny the reality or efficacy of consciousness. Consciousness, in this view, is either a myth or a useless byproduct of brain or other motions. In Objectivist terms, this amounts to the advocacy of existence without consciousness. It is the denial of man's faculty of cognition and therefore of all knowledge."

Like idealists, materialists reject the faculty of reason and are therefore seen as mystics by Ayn Rand. The materialists see man as a determined being, but determined by material forces here on Earth instead of ideas in another dimension. Objectivism rejects determinism of either variety.

"Despite their implicit mysticism, materialists typically declare that their viewpoint constitutes the only scientific or naturalistic approach to philosophy. The belief in consciousness, they explain, implies supernaturalism. This claim represents a capitulation to idealism. For centuries the idealists maintained that the soul is a divine fragment or mystic ingredient longing to escape the ‘prison of the flesh’; the idealists invented the false alternative of consciousness versus science . The materialists simply take over this false alternative, then promote the other side of it. This amounts to rejecting arbitrarily the possibility of a naturalistic view of consciousness."

Note that Objectivism embraces a naturalistic view of consciousness, not a materialistic view, and certainly not a supernatural view. Both the idealists and the materialists attempt, without evidence or warrant, to equate this natural world with "matter" only; Objectivism, however, does not fall into this error. Each side, of the idealist/materialist argument, for its own motives, makes the mistake of assuming that consciousness is somehow not of this world but of a supernatural (i.e., non-natural) realm in another dimension; the only difference is that while idealists claim that the other dimension exists, the materialists claim that it doesn't. Both sides reject consciousness as being a legitimate part of this natural world. Peikoff writes:

"The facts, however, belie any equation of consciousness with mysticism. Consciousness is an attribute of perceived entities here on Earth. It is a faculty possessed under definite conditions by a certain group of living organisms. It is directly observable (by introspection). It has a specific nature, including specific physical organs, and acts accordingly, i.e., lawfully. It has a life-sustaining function: to perceive the facts of nature and thereby enable the organisms that possess it to act successfully. In all this there is nothing unnatural or supernatural. There is no basis for the suggestion that consciousness is separable from matter -- let alone opposed to it -- no hint of immortality, no kinship with any alleged transcendent realm.

"Like the faculty of vision (which is one of its aspects), and like the body, the faculty of awareness is wholly this-worldly. The soul, as Aristotle was the first (and so far one of the few) to understand, is not man's ticket to another reality; it is a development of and within nature. It is a biological datum open to observation, conceptualization, and scientific study."

Dr. Peikoff, an official spokesman of the philosophy of Objectivism, goes on to demolish (easily) the relatively feeble arguments of materialists in regard to their objections to consciousness:

"Materialists sometimes argue that consciousness is unnatural on the grounds that it cannot be perceived by extrospection, has no shape, color, or smell, cannot be handled, weighed, or put in a test tube, (all of which applies equally to the faculty of vision). One may just as well argue that the eyeball is unreal because it cannot be perceived by introspection, does not have the qualities of a process of awareness (such as intensity or scope of integration), and cannot theorize about itself, suffer neurotic problems, or fall in love. These two arguments are interchangeable. It makes no more sense arbitrarily to legislate features of matter as the standard of existents and then deny consciousness, than to do the reverse. The facts are that matter exists and so does consciousness, the faculty of perceiving it.

"Materialists sometimes regard the concept of 'consciousness' as unscientific on the grounds that it cannot be defined. This overlooks the fact that there cannot be an infinite regress of definitions. All definitions reduce ultimately to certain primary concepts, which can be specified only ostensively; axiomatic concepts necessarily belong to this category. The concept of 'matter,' by contrast, is not an axiomatic concept and does require a definition, which it does not yet have; it requires an analytical definition that will integrate the facts of energy, particle theory, and more. To provide such a definition is not, however, the task of philosophy, which makes no specialized study of matter, but of physics. As far as philosophic usage is concerned, 'matter' denotes merely the objects of extrospection or, more precisely, that of which all such objects are made. In this usage, the concept of 'matter,' like that of 'consciousness,' can be specified only ostensively."

It should also be observed that the demand for a formal definition of a primary concept such as consciousness is an example of the Fallacy of the Stolen Concept, an error rampant in modern philosophy.

To those materialists who are in denial about the existence of consciousness -- due either to an inappropriate methodology ("physics") or to simple prejudice -- Dr. Peikoff makes the following cogent points:

"There is no valid reason to reject consciousness or to struggle to reduce it to matter; not if such reduction means the attempt to define it out of existence. Even if, someday, consciousness were to be explained scientifically as a product of physical conditions, this would not alter any observed fact. It would not alter the fact that, given those conditions, the attributes and functions of consciousness are what they are. Nor would it alter the fact that in many respects these attributes and functions are unique; they are different from anything observed in unconscious entities. Nor would it alter the fact that one can discover the conditions of consciousness, as of anything else one seeks to know, only through the exercise of consciousness.

"The monist insistence that, despite the observed facts, reality (or man) can have only one constituent, is groundless; it is an example of rewriting reality. The materialist equation of physics with science is equally groundless. Science is systematic knowledge gained by the use of reason based on observation. In using reason, however, one must study each specific subject matter by the methods and techniques suited to its nature. One cannot study history by the methods of chemistry, biology by the methods of economics, or psychology by the methods of physics.

"At the dawn of philosophy, the ancient Pythagoreans in an excess of enthusiasm attempted, senselessly, to equate mathematics with cognition and to construe the universe as 'numbers.' The modern behaviorists, with far less excuse, commit the same error in regard to physics.

"'I want,' the behaviorist says in effect, 'to deal with entities I can weigh and measure just as the physicist does. If consciousness exists, my dream of making psychology a branch of physics is destroyed. Consciousness upsets my program, my goal, my ideal. Therefore, consciousness is unreal.' In this statement, a desire is being used to wipe out a fact of reality. The primacy of consciousness is being used -- to deny consciousness!"

As in so many other cases, we see error resulting from the vain attempt to make reality conform to subjective wishes instead of making our knowledge conform to the facts of reality.

Of the three metaphysical viewpoints considered -- idealism, materialism, and Objectivism -- Objectivism is the only one of the three that accepts all of reality as a natural whole -- instead of trying to reduce it to one fundamental ingredient (matter or geist) or ignoring aspects of reality that do not conform to the favored ingredient or preconceived model. As with Aristotle, Objectivism embraces one reality -- this reality that we see, smell, and touch, and rejects the notion of any "other" existence "besides" or "above" this reality. Rejecting the assumptions of monism, Objectivism embraces all of reality (including both matter and consciousness) instead of trying to identify everything with only one part or one ingredient of the whole. Objectivism escapes from the false alternatives spawned by this conflict between these false assumptions about the real world in which we live.

Materialism does not accept ALL of reality -- only the material part of it. Idealism imagines that there is something MORE than reality -- "another" reality somehow existing "outside of" or "above" everything. Of these three views, only Objectivism accepts ALL of reality (including matter and consciousness and whatever else) and ONLY reality.

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For those who may be interested in exploring these and similar issues more fully, I offer my own brief essay as a short introduction in which I deal in plain terms with certain fundamental aspects of reality in its most general sense, click on this link.  My views have been influenced by certain ideas from such thinkers as Aristotle, Aquinas, and Rand and are in that general tradition.