Individualism in an Age of Tribalism

Onkar Ghate is the chief philosophy officer and a senior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute. He is the Institute’s resident expert on Objectivism and serves as its head trainer and editor. He has taught philosophy for over ten years at the Institute’s Objectivist Academic Center. Dr. Ghate is a contributing author to a number of books on Rand’s fiction and philosophy, including Essays on Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead”; Essays on Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged”; Why Businessmen Need Philosophy: The Capitalist’s Guide to the Ideas Behind Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged”; Concepts and Their Role in Knowledge: Reflections on Objectivist Epistemology; and “A Companion to Ayn Rand (Blackwell Companions to Philosophy).” His op-eds have appeared in venues that range across the ideological spectrum, from Huffington Post to CNN.com to Foxnews.com and Businessweek.com. He’s been interviewed on national and international radio, including NPR and BBC Radio, and has appeared as a television guest on CNBC, KCET, Fox News Channel and the CBS Evening News. A Canadian citizen, Dr. Ghate studied economics and philosophy as an undergraduate student at the University of Toronto and worked in the financial industry prior to joining ARI in 2000. He received his doctorate in philosophy in 1998 from the University of Calgary.

Tara Smith is a professor of philosophy at the University of Texas. Her main interests concern the nature of values and virtues, and the requirements of objective law. Dr. Smith is author of Judicial Review in an Objective Legal System (2015); Ayn Rand’s Normative Ethics: The Virtuous Egoist (2006); Viable Values: A Study of Life as the Root and Reward of Morality (2000); and Moral Rights and Political Freedom (1995) as well as a number of articles in such venues as The Journal of Philosophy, American Philosophical Quarterly, Law and Philosophy and Social Philosophy and Policy. Smith’s current research focuses on intellectual freedom. Dr. Smith is the BB&T Chair for the Study of Objectivism and holds the Anthem Foundation Fellowship. She is also a member of the board of directors of the Ayn Rand Institute.

Dr. Salmieri is a senior scholar of philosophy in the Salem Center at the University of Texas, Austin. He holds the Brigham Fellowship for the Study of Objectivism and is director of the Center’s Program for Objectivity in Thought, Action, and Enterprise. Dr. Salmieri is the co-editor of A Companion to Ayn Rand and Foundations of a Free Society.

Yaron Brook is chairman of the board of the Ayn Rand Institute. He wears many hats at the institute and travels extensively as ARI’s spokesman. Brook can be heard on The Yaron Brook Show, which airs live on YouTube and Speaker. He is also a frequent guest on national radio and television programs. An internationally sought-after speaker and debater, Brook also pens works that make one think. As coauthor, with Don Watkins, of the national best-seller Free Market Revolution: How Ayn Rand's Ideas Can End Big Government, Brook and Watkins argue that the answer to our current economic woes lies not in "trickle-down government" but in Rand's inspiring philosophy of capitalism and self-interest. Last year, Brook and Watkins released a new book, Equal Is Unfair: America's Misguided Fight Against Income Inequality, a book that shows the real key to making America a freer, fairer, more prosperous nation is to protect and celebrate the pursuit of success―not pull down the high fliers in the name of equality. Brook is also contributing author to Neoconservatism: An Obituary for an Idea, Winning the Unwinnable War: America’s Self-Crippled Response to Islamic Totalitarianism and Big Tent: The Story of the Conservative Revolution — As Told by the Thinkers and Doers Who Made It Happen. He was a columnist at Forbes.com, and his articles have been featured in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Investor’s Business Daily and many other publications. Brook was born and raised in Israel. He served as a first sergeant in Israeli military intelligence and earned a BSc in civil engineering from Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel. In 1987 he moved to the United States where he received his MBA and PhD in finance from the University of Texas at Austin; he became an American citizen in 2003. For seven years he was an award-winning finance professor at Santa Clara University, and in 1998 he co-founded BH Equity Research, a private equity and hedge fund manager, of which he is managing founder and director. Brook serves on the boards of the Ayn Rand Institute, the Clemson Institute for the Study of Capitalism and CEHE (Center for Excellence in Higher Education), and he is a member of the Association of Private Enterprise Education and the Mont Pelerin Society.

Harry Binswanger received his doctorate in philosophy from Columbia University in 1973 and has taught philosophy at Hunter College, the New School for Social Research and the University of Texas at Austin. Since 1994 he has taught courses on Ayn Rand’s philosophic system, ethics and epistemology at the Objectivist Academic Center. Dr. Binswanger is the author of How We Know, a book on the theory of knowledge. His previous books are The Biological Basis of Teleological Concepts and The Ayn Rand Lexicon. He is coeditor of the second expanded edition of Ayn Rand’s Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. He is a regular speaker at universities on Ayn Rand’s philosophy. A senior contributor at RealClearMarkets, he has also appeared on TV shows hosted by Glenn Beck, Geraldo Rivera and Judge Anthony Napolitano, as well as in two documentary films about Ayn Rand. He also moderates and writes for an email list on Objectivism and its application to today’s issues at www.hbletter.com. He has been a member of the Ayn Rand Institute’s board of directors since the organization’s inception. In Ayn Rand’s last years, Dr. Binswanger became her associate and friend.