Everything that matters about her screams ILE out loud. From her appearance to her argumentation, reasoning, theoretical concepts, social role - everything I can think of. Less so are only some superficial details, which actually come from her theoretical constructions, not viscerally type-related (this seems to be a common assumption among the users). This is what ILEs actually do as a hobby, build the models of the inner workings - or rather find the principles behind, even if not consistently - of physical reality, society, and anything they have an interest in. Their conclusions are often very varied in themes, I'd dare to say hardly finding two immediately similar, especially coming from different historical contexts. Strong individualist and adamantly opposed to any kind of intellectual or social parasitism, or collective (herd) thinking. Liked to dispute and discuss ideas all the time; dry logical arguments, does not follow any current of thought.
Maybe one thing that comes to my mind does not fit the big picture: finishing her works, sounds like a pain in the ass for an ILE... It is a bit unconceivable an ILE to spend so much in going through and polishing such a tedious work - especially fiction! - instead of generating ideas. Not that I dug for everything about her, though, what I know so far is sufficient to make a strong opinion.
---
FTR: I can see where she comes from when she rejected part of Kant, he did not acknowledge factual analytic knowledge as valid. Kant lacked analytic a posteriory as a valid from of judgment. He called what we "just is" as "
intuition" (more precisely empirical intuition IIRC) -
in my understanding closed to what in Socionics is understood by Se, just to have an idea of what I'm talking about. He believes that anything empirical that "just is" is rather unverifiable, being impossible to demonstrate - and in a way he's right, though this way he rejects that the perception of the object and only the object (no addition made by the predicate) is possible, thing that is the pivotal concept of Rand's Objectivism. (the other three forms are qualified by him as "truth") This inconsistency expands over the analytic-synthetic distinction, because on one hand (initially) he acknowledges that synthetic and a posteriori are exclusively experimental, and the remaining two are rational, on the other hand mixing the two he created two anomalies, based on his definitions: the one he acknowledged is both synthetic and necessary (admitted as weird by him, but still valid), but he rejected the other entirely, therefore rejecting the value of the source empirical basic knowledge used for a priori judgments (what Rand is sure of).
I think this great inconsistency can be summed up in:
acknowledging that synthetic valid judgments can be both necessary and contingent, still rejecting this for analytic judgments - suggesting here and there that they are in all circumstances necessary, because he could find no valid case where they defy this rule, like it happened in the case of synthetic a priori judgments (mathematical-like). Ayn Rand rejects this distinction IMO precisely because of this sedimented definition of the analytic attribute, which became a rule of thumb along Kant's work (again, all this mess merely springing from the fact he could not find such example that he could label other than intuition!). Because of this conviction, Kant basically forbade in advance Rand rand to include her
existents - "A is A", identity - in his system, except with the condition of being human conventions or subjective insights.
Rejecting the analytic/synthetic distinction is one solution, however not the wise one, IMO, though not necessarily unreasonable. I'm saying that because if analytic judgments are necessarily purely rational, then because of the contradictions between its definition and the one of existents (predicate adds nothing, though still empirical), for an objectivist they will be false, they would have had a different meaning than if they could possibly be empirical as well. The whole distinction fails in this light, actually. The other solution would have been to redefine the understanding of analytic - and in fact a true redefinition is not even necessary based on the Critique alone IMO, because this extended understanding of the analytic was not even supposed to be so, was not in the definition, but it just stuck with Kant based on lacking real applicability of the other way around (contingency); an ad interim becoming status quo. I think Rand chose the former because of a different understanding - or I may say a misunderstanding - of Kant's necessity, or something else that generated both her choice and this understanding of necessity of hers.
Consequently, I see her rejection of this distinction actually an intimate and extremely accurate understanding for Kant's reasoning, unlike a number of other thinkers. Only a stern rigor and conceptual fitness could make her understand that incompatibility between her existents and the meaning of analytic/synthetic in its final form established by Kant, IMO. One may argue this could rather point towards SeTi than NeTi (she's too sure of the perception of objects alone), I personally differ for different reasons:
- having that to her the identification actually happens, the object actually *exists*, similarily to the facts, which surprisingly are acknowledged by Kant. This makes it a logical conclusion instead of an irrational conviction which would necessitate Se;
- for Se types this whole hasle is meaningless - things are what they are, there's no point in justifying them philosophically, at least not to a such extreme extent;
- having her impulsive personality and unlike Se types, she is convinced that the human understanding is the source of our misery and blames Kant for what she perceives as misguidance of our spirit - why would a Se type whine about how an old fart cursed us through philosophical means, instead of taking fate in her hands by earthly means? Where is her self-reliance? She is fighting against some mere concepts...
Originally Posted by Gilly
4w5 sp/sx
traits she may have, it seems like a phenomenon she may have noticed was beneficial for survival, and got carried away by making a whole philosophy to support it. Like an outsider would. Many SLEs might be rational egoists themselves, but that is a story as old as dirt. While she makes it out to be some grand discovery and has to label it. Basically, she talks too much. lol. That may be simplifying it, but I can't put it any other way.
because it's based on work and values 
- 
(as per tcaudilllg)
) That's Gulenko-code for Ni-creative. Just throwing LIE out there.
