Rehtorical Analysis of Philosophy: Who Needs It

The speech "Philosophy: Who Needs It?" by Ayn Rand is addressed to the class of '74 at West Point. It was not a speech given at graduation but at an evening seminar hosted by the philosophy department. I'm not sure how famous Ayn Rand was at that time but I have a feeling that she had a tuff audience. First off, philosophy is not a very exciting subject for many, much less cadets and much less at a required evening lecture. However, I believe she did an excellent job presenting her argument that philosophy is a fundamental science that everyone should put forth a serious effort to learn. Her speech is a combination informative/persuasive speech. She is trying to inform/persuade her audience that an understanding of philosophy and its different schools of thought is vital to live fully. She uses logic very effectively and I doubt anyone would disagree with her claim if they put a little effort to follow her logic.

Ayn Rand closely follows the ancient Greek method of presenting. She begins with a narrative. And in this narrative she engages the audience by making them the main character of the story. She begins the story with, "Suppose that you are an astronaut whose spaceship gets out of control and crashes on an unknown planet?" This automatically engages the audience's imagination and gets them involved in her thinking process. She then continues with, "When you regain consciousness and find that you are not hurt badly, the first three questions in your mind would be: Where am I? How can I discover it? What should I do?" At this point a majority of the audience would agree that these are fundamental questions that should be asked in the scenario described. She has purposefully got the audience to think in a particular logical manner that she will then apply to her greater theme.

Her narrative ends with you, the astronaut, failing to seek out answers to these questions and instead deciding to let some alien creatures approaching tell you what to do and you are never heard from again. She then links her allegory to reality by claiming that this is the way most men live their lives, here, on earth. That is, evading the questions: Where am I (metaphysics)? How can I discover it (epistemology)? What should I do (ethics)? The answers to which underlie every human's thoughts, feelings, and actions (Ayn). She then uses these questions to guide her audience to the conclusion that only by studying the subject of philosophy can you correctly answer these questions, as they apply to living on earth.

Through out the body of her speech, she uses questions to engage her listeners and get them to follow a certain logical trail so they may begin to analyze the philosophies they have been obliviously integrating by their subconsciousness.