Harry Binswanger

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Image:Hb0516.jpg Harry Binswanger, Ph.D. (born in Richmond, Virginia, in 1944) is an American philosopher and writer. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in "Humanities and Engineering" from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (where he was instrumental in establishing the student group "Radicals for Capitalism") and his Ph.D. in philosophy from Columbia University. His doctoral dissertation, in the philosophy of biology, presented a new theory of the goal-directedness of living action, in opposition to the views of one of his dissertation advisers: Ernest Nagel. He taught philosophy at CUNY's Hunter College from 1972 to 1979 and at other New York City schools as well as at the University of Texas, Austin for a semester in 2002. Since 1997, he has operated a fee-based email discussion group on Objectivism [1].

Binswanger was a friend of Ayn Rand, and his subsequent philosophical work has been done in the Objectivist tradition. He edited the new material in the second edition of Ayn Rand's book, Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, published after her death in 1990 (the first edition was published in 1979) and frequently contributes to Objectivist publications. He also compiled The Ayn Rand Lexicon, a topical reference work on Rand's views. His own book, The Biological Basis of Teleological Concepts, was published in 1990. Since then, he has given several lecture courses developing Objectivist theories in metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of science. These include "Free Will", "Abstractions from Abstractions", "The Metaphysics of Consciousness", and "Consciousness as Identification."

He also published The Objectivist Forum (1980-87), and has put out a hardback collection of this newsletter.

Harry Binswanger is currently on the Board of Directors of the Ayn Rand Institute, and is a Professor at its Objectivist Academic Center.

Binswanger endorsed George W. Bush [2] (while nevertheless considering him a bad candidate) against John Kerry, in contrast to the endorsement of Kerry by another prominent advocate of Ayn Rand's philosophy, Leonard Peikoff. He is a supporter of completely open immigration [3].