The activities of the institute also include providing intellectuals for public lectures, distributing free Ayn Rand books to professors and students, offering internships to undergraduate students, and financial aid for graduate programs.

The foremost activities of the ARI were founding Objectivist Student Clubs in colleges across the United States of America and organizing essay writing contests about Ayn Rand novels. However, the ARI design a series of activities that promote the knowledge of the concept in the educational system.

Objectivism has not been formally recognized in academics as a philosophical system.

The controversy that Objectivism should be open to changes from the principles laid out by Ayn Rand led to the loss of some members of the ARI Board of Directors like David Kelly who left and established a similar institute called the Atlas Society. The Ayn Rand institute maintains that the fundamental principles of Objectivism will not be changed from how it was originally set out by Ayn Rand but that new applications of her ideas are possible and acceptable. In Rand’s own words, Objectivism is “the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity and reason as his only absolute”. It was developed by Ayn Rand but given a more comprehensive structure by her associate Leonard Peikoff. The philosophy of Objectivism is anchored on the tenets of individualism, reality as an existence independent of the consciousness of the mind, and laissez-faire capitalism as the best social system. As the name implies, the major aim of the institute is the promotion of Objectivism. The complete name of the institute reads, The Ayn Rand Institute: Center for the Advancement of Objectivism. Peikoff contributed to the ideological aspect of the institute while Ed Snider a business tycoon contributed to the financial aspect by attracting financial support. Leonard Peikoff was Ayn Rand’s associate who later became her legal heir. Its founders were Leonard Peikoff and Ed Snider. The institute was established as a non-profit organization in the year 1985, three years after the death of Ayn Rand. The Ayn Rand Institute, also known by the acronym ARI, is an institute established in honor of Russian-American writer Ayn Rand with the aim of advancing Objectivism: a philosophical system developed by Ayn Rand in her lifetime.įull Name: The Ayn Rand Institute: The Center for the Advancement of Objectivism

Pearl by Kelly Rand