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Reason and Emotion: Ayn Rand’s Answer to a 2,000-Year-Old Problem

by Dr. Edwin A. Locke
 
In this lecture, Dr. Locke briefly traces the historical roots of the mind-body dichotomy, from Pythagoras through Freud and Skinner. He then describes the various forms of this dichotomy, with reason versus emotion being the archetypical form. He contrasts current views with the Objectivist view, which shows that emotions are not antithetical to reason but rather stem from an individual’s conscious or subconscious ideas. Through a concrete series of examples, Dr. Locke demonstrates how alleged reason-emotion conflicts are actually conflicts between ideas (some of which are subconscious). He discusses different ways in which reason and emotion are related, and also draws a distinction between the functions of the faculties of emotion and cognition.

 

 

 

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