system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Why is Ayn Rand seen the way she is in philosophy?

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Now I’ll preface this with the fact that I’m currently reading Philosophy: Who Needs It to try to understand her philosophy a bit better. I tried reading The Fountainhead but it didn’t grip me and I never finished it. I have only been getting into philosophy for the past year or so, but it’s come to my understanding that Rand isn’t taken very seriously, and most comments in this subreddit regarding her are downvoted. My question is, why? Why isn’t she taken seriously as a philosopher?

Personally, I have many disagreements with her so far, primarily on her claims on consciousness/cognition and how she believes the senses work, but I haven’t gotten the impression that I should think of her as a lesser thinker in philosophy, as many others seem to think. I do, however, find that she seems to misrepresent other philosophies mentioned, and I dislike the way she vehemently demonizes those who oppose her.

Also, sorry if this topic has been exhausted. I couldn’t find other posts regarding this exactly, though.
gpt
Rand is one of the most recent figures in a long, proud tradition of people who claim to have read widely and deeply and seen the triviality of all philosophy before her, although the truth was that she read very little. Most of her exposure to philosophical ideas came through secondary sources and conversations, so she was generally a couple steps removed from actually reading Aristotle or Kant. This means that her critiques are really dismissals disguised to sound smart, and the ideas she tries to replace the classics with don't have the same added layers of support that other thinkers do, and won't hold up to the same levels of scrutiny and analysis.