After the publication of Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand realized that she would have to identify the philosophy that made her heroes possible. She termed it Objectivism and described it as "a philosophy for living on earth." Rand's theory holds that man gains knowledge only through reason. The "Objectivism in Action" section of the Introduction to the Novel offers further insight into Rand's belief system.
Rand offered private courses on both fiction and nonfiction writing and, in 1958, helped start an institute that teaches her philosophy. For the remaining years of her life, Rand devoted herself to nonfiction writing, penning, and editing a number of articles for her periodicals. These articles later appeared in numerous philosophic collections and dealt with topics including ethics (The Virtue of Selfishness), politics (Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal), aesthetics (The Romantic Manifesto), and the theory of knowledge (Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology). At the time of her death in 1982, Rand was working on a television miniseries of Atlas Shrugged.
