I should state that Brentino did go to university in Gemany – it was only to get an important post that he went to Vienna.

I still think he would have found it very hard to get an important position in the Geman system.

Rand did read Nietzsche – but this element in Nietzsche did not win out within him (this will confuse those who think that Rand was a follower of Nietzsche – actually if the above quote is what Nietzsche should have been then, in the end, Nietzsche was not a follower of Nietzsche).

The element in Nietzche that celebrates human achievement and virtue is what he calls “Athena” (after the Green Goddess of achievement and humans at their best).

But this is not the dominant theme in Nietzche – for example he even denies free will (the human capacity of choice – the basis of Athena).

To Nietzche the two real powers are Appolo (the “illusion” of morality and so on) and Dionysius (instint – wallowing in filth and so on).

And he chooses Dionysius (to him, in some moods, humans can not really choose at all – see above).

Ayn Rand may be a follower of Athena (in an athiest sense) – but Nietzsche (most of the time) is NOT.

Also people who associate Rand with Nietzsche also overlook the influence of ARISTOTLE upon her (this is astonishing – given the number of times Rand mentions Aristotle).

German education (unlike Austrian university education) downplayed Aristotle (because Aristotelianism was associated with the Catholic Church).

I believe this led to a fatal lack of balance (of realism – with both a big and a small “R”) in German philosophical thought – including that of Nietzsche.

I would argue that Carl Menger (the Founder of the Austrian School of Economics) was operating from a different PHILOSOPHICAL foundation from the German “Historical School” economists of his time (and that this led to the “war of method”).

Someone like Franz Branteno (who greatly influenced Menger philosophically) would have had problems emerging in the German educational system.

By the way – Rand is not “trapped” by numbers, she uses them as a way of getting the reader’s attention (at several levels).

Again this goes back to classical ideas of how a speaker can engage the attention of hearers.

Words are a tool and Ayn Rand, only too well, understood how this tool was being abused to perform bad things and yet cause those actions to be acknowledged as (politically~quasi-)good…

In the John Galt Speech using the phrase “It’s only human” she pinpoints how three simple good words can hide a multiplex of lies and distortions…. and more:

When used in such a way – short memorable (stock) phrases skew language towards the political…becoming a social hint to act in a certain fashion.., and later as a warning to toe the line. It’s not that the language is bad or lacking – it is that the context is changed in pursuit of subtle manipulation.

“It’s only human” is perfectly acceptable as a phrase to use to define all the limits of humankind, both good and bad, up, down and squirly. Ayn Rand was pointing up that it was pschologically manipulative to use it in the way described. Ace has a post on something similar at the moment (Thought)