Instructor Bio
Ben Bayer is an instructor and fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute. He teaches in the Objectivist Academic Center, lectures and gives interviews for ARI. He writes for and is an associate editor of ARI’s online publication, New Ideal. Dr. Bayer holds a Ph.D. in philosophy and his writing focuses primarily on the application of philosophy to contemporary cultural and political controversies.
Dr. Bayer brings to ARI more than a decade of experience in teaching a wide range of philosophy courses at colleges and universities across the United States. He was a visiting assistant professor at Loyola University New Orleans for seven years, and previously taught at Metropolitan State University of Denver, Colorado College, Loyola University of Chicago, and the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
In his time as a professor, Dr. Bayer’s research focused on epistemology and metaphysics (especially, free will and determinism). He has published scholarly articles in American Philosophical Quarterly, Synthese, Philosophia, and Acta Analytica, among others. He has also contributed essays to Concepts and Their Role in Knowledge: Reflections on Objectivist Epistemology and Essays on Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead.”
Bayer was one of the two co-founders of the student publication The Undercurrent, for which he served as an editor and contributor between 2005 and 2016. He edited checkyourpremises.org, the blog of the Ayn Rand Society (a professional association affiliated with the American Philosophical Association), from 2016 to 2017.
Dr. Bayer received his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in 2007. He also completed the program of coursework in ARI’s Objectivist Graduate Center between 1997 and 2006.
Courses Taught
Free Preview! The Objectivist Academic Center (OAC)
OAC (Year 3): Philosophical Analysis and Communication
OAC (Year 2): Philosophy – Fundamental Questions
OAC (Year 1): Seminar on Objectivism
Objective Thinking
The Atlas Project
Experience
Fellow and Instructor
- Ayn Rand Institute2017 – present
Visiting Assistant Professor
- Loyola University New Orleans2010 – 2017
- Colorado College2008 – 2009
Lecturer
- Metropolitan State University of DenverSpring 2010
- Loyola University Chicago2007 – 2008
Selected Work
Book Chapters
Talks & Lectures
“Abortion and Individual Rights,” Ayn Rand Center Latin America webinar (with Gloria Alvarez), July 2020.
“A Mockery of Morality: The Doctrine of Original Sin,” Ayn Rand Center Latin America webinar, June 2020.
“Reason vs. Faith and Emotionalism,” Ayn Rand Conference Latin America, Buenos Aires, September 2019; Ayn Rand Conference Brazil, Porto Alegre, 2019; AynRandCon, Atlanta, October 2019.
“The Evil of Altruism,” Ayn Rand Conference Latin America, Buenos Aires, September 2019; Ayn Rand Conference Brazil, Porto Alegre, 2019; AynRandCon, Atlanta, October 2019.
“Better Living Through Concepts,” Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, September 2019.
“Free Will as a Subtheme in Atlas Shrugged,” OCON 2019.
“Atlas Shrugged as a Romantic Novel,” OCON 2019.
“Free Will and Individualism,” AynRandCon Europe, Prague 2018.
“Tribalism in Politics,” AynRandCon, Atlanta 2018.
“Ayn Rand’s Philosophy for Living on Earth,” OCON 2018.
“Thinking Like an Individualist,” OCON 2018.
“Being Objective about the News,” OCON 2017.
“Freedom for the Self-made Soul,” The Undercurrent Student Conference, Washington, DC, October 2014.
“Spreading Objectivism by Living It,” OCON, Las Vegas, NV, July 2014.
“History of the Concept of Free Will,” OCON, Chicago, IL, July 2013.
“Understanding Twentieth-Century Philosophy: The Case of Quine,” OCON, Boston, MA, July 2006.
“Understanding Twentieth-Century Philosophy: The Case of Quine,” OCON, Boston, MA, July 2006.
Courses
OAC Year 1 Seminar on Objectivism (as Discussion Leader), 2018 — Present
OAC Year 2 Philosophy Seminar, 2017 — Present
OAC Year 3 Philosophical Analysis and Communication, 2017 — Present
“The Atlas Project” (with Greg Salmieri), Fall 2017 — Spring 2018
Philosophical Themes in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged
Epistemology (Introductory and Intermediate)
Free Will and Determinism (Introductory and Intermediate)
Making Moral Decisions
History of Analytic Philosophy
History of Modern Philosophy
Philosophy of Language
Logic (Formal and Practical)
Blog Posts
Teaching Philosophy with Atlas Shrugged: Francisco vs. Hume on Reason and Emotion, April 2, 2016.
Recent Work on Epistemic Possibility and the Burden of Proof, February 22, 2016.
Response to Cummins on Rand at PBS, February 16, 2016.
Teaching Philosophy with Atlas Shrugged: Aristotle and Francisco on Ultimate Ends, February 9, 2016.
Updates to Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Entry on Ayn Rand, January 24, 2016.
The History of Objectivity in Light of Rand’s Epistemology and Ethics, January 9, 2016.
Scholarly Articles
“The Elusiveness of Doxastic Compatibilism,” American Philosophical Quarterly 52(3), 2015.
“Internalism Empowered: How to Bolster a Theory of Justification with a Direct Realist Theory of Awareness,” Acta Analytica, December 2012.
“A Role for Abstractionism in a Direct-Realist Foundationalism,” Synthese, June 2011.
Other scholarly articles
