An Objectivist Etymological Inquiries in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged (1957) and The Fountainhead (1943): An Article

Abstract

How would we know what we know? Is reason a dependable wellspring of learning—or is it supplanted by
otherworldly disclosure or passionate instinct? Would we be able to be sure about our insight—or must we
generally stay in uncertainty?
Questions, for example, these are the territory of epistemology—the part of logic worried about the
hypothesis of learning. Furthermore, the appropriate responses depend significantly on one focal issue in
epistemology: that of the nature and legitimacy of ideas. In the event that our ideas allude to things existing
as a general rule, at that point our insight is genuine and solid. In the event that they don't, in any case—if
rather they are fanciful develops received by power or by the social show, at that point our insight is
unmerited and naturally undependable.