[Lecture One] Advanced Seminars on Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand
by Dr. Leonard Peikoff
Total Time: 1 hour, 54 minutes
Course summary: In this course, Dr. Peikoff presented material from his then-new book, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand. The manuscript had its earliest roots in Peikoff’s comprehensive 1976 lecture course on Objectivism. As he worked on the material for publication, he discovered new connections and implications of major ideas in the philosophy as well as new insights on its integrated, hierarchical structure. Peikoff used these seminars to discuss what he learned in the process and to demonstrate how it would allow students of Objectivism to gain a new understanding of the philosophy. Read more »
In this lecture: In this opening lecture, Dr. Peikoff discusses the nature of his new book and then analyzes the first chapter, specifically on the axioms, causality, the primacy of existence, and the mind-body question.
Q&A Guide
Below is a list of questions from the audience taken from this lecture, along with (approximate) time stamps.
| 52:14 | What does metaphysical mean? I understand that it means “before physics” and that’s how it came about, but the way you’re using it is like it’s an absolute in nature not to be changed. |
| 52:43 | Why is consciousness considered a metaphysical axiom and not an epistemological one? |
| 56:04 | Could you explain the relationship between logical and natural necessity? |
| 58:49 | You say that the concept of existence does not specify that the physical world exists. I don’t understand that sentence. |
| 1:03:47 | Existence differentiates a thing from nothing. What does “differentiate” mean there? |
| 1:06:29 | On the issue of metaphysical vs. other types of grudges, suppose that they’re very angry at the man-made evils or irrational behavior of others, but, for whatever reason, those others are in power at the present time. Is that a metaphysical grudge? |
| 1:08:55 | Would you distinguish between the fact and the concept of existence? |
| 1:10:14 | What is meant by “implicit knowledge”? |
| 1:18:00 | Does that mean that certain axioms pertain only to metaphysics and epistemology and, if so, when you get further down the line, what are the foundations? Would that be a “principle” or a “fundamental” or what? |
| 1:19:35 | If philosophy developed as a science, would the axioms be more or less universally accepted such as they have been in mathematics? |
| 1:31:38 | Please distinguish between philosophy and science in such a way that I’ll know immediately whether something is science or philosophy. |
| 1:34:38 | How is the sentence “a consciousness conscious of nothing but itself” a contradiction in terms? Why doesn’t that require concepts of consciousness? |
| 1:38:48 | Would you give an example of reducing an entity that’s considered in the extended sense to aspects of entities in the primary sense? |
| 1:43:15 | Does “action” include non-physical actions like “values cause emotion”? |
| 1:45:22 | Would you say that inherent in the concept of action is the concept of time? |
| 1:46:56 | Would it be proper to say that the cause of an action is a combination of the nature of the entity as well as antecedent factors? |