[Lecture Two] Advanced Seminars on Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand
by Dr. Leonard Peikoff
Total Time: 1 hour, 51 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: This lecture continues the discussion of the primacy of existence and its application to the concept of the metaphysically given.
Q&A Guide
Below is a list of questions from the audience taken from this lecture, along with (approximate) time stamps.
| 9:30 | One written question re: a confusion of the logical vs. the chronological order. |
| 17:00 | A claim that Peikoff’s view of the axioms is irreconcilable with the idea that causality is independent of consciousness. |
| 19:28 | Does Objectivism say that the universe always existed? |
| 21:28 | Is there a sense in which, within a primacy of consciousness viewpoint, the very concretes “consciousness” and “knowledge” and “truth” have the status of stolen concepts precisely because, for instance, consciousness is not being used to denote the grasp of an independent existence because they’re denying existence? |
| 25:00 | Don’t you get knowledge from introspection also? |
| 31:58 | Would observing a hunger pang be an example of introspection or extrospection? |
| 33:13 | Page 27: What are the exceptions to the primacy of consciousness in Western Philosophy? |
| 35:21 | Page 26: In discussing primacy of consciousness, are you taking the three different views—creating existence, controlling it, or perceiving it by a nonsensory means—or are they all tied into one? |
| 36:39 | Page 27: Why is it that men have tried to subordinate existence? |
| 39:40 | If consciousness is only the faculty of awareness, how and where does creativity come into this? |
| 41:41 | Why did you include the three forms of the primacy of consciousness if you wanted to eliminate polemics? |
| 55:53 | Can’t you attempt to prolong life? |
| 57:34 | Does a small infant have volition in reaching for a stove burner? |
| 59:16 | Can you evaluate both the effect of a tidal wave and a dictatorship dispassionately? |
| 1:04:20 | Page 37: Why did you use the qualifying “with the relevant circumstances” when referencing the mortality of living things? |
| 1:06:33 | Page 33: Is an act of choice the only act which could have been otherwise? |
| 1:09:40 | But a photon has to do one thing or another? |
| 1:10:46 | Pages 31, 36, 37: Can you elaborate on your statement that you cannot imagine a fact at variance with reality? |
| 1:14:37 | Page 39: Why didn’t you mention the malevolent universe premise in connection with rejecting reality? |
| 1:19:49 | Does a child really know the difference between the man made and the metaphysical at a young age (say 5)? |
| 1:25:00 | Does an idealistic (like Aristotle’s Prime Mover) or materialistic element in a philosophy mean that the philosophy rejects all of the axioms? |
| 1:30:51 | How to we know reality is directly given and not just our experience of reality? |
| 1:31:46 | Page 17: Are you drawing a distinction between what is directly observable and what is self-evident? |
| 1:33:20 | Page 4: Could you reconcile the phenomenon of hallucinations with this statement of Ayn Rand’s: “If that which you claim to perceive…”? |
| 1:36:51 | Do you arrive at the primacy of existence chronologically first, or do you arrive at the choice between the primacy of existence and the primacy of consciousness? |
| 1:39:20 | Is it correct of me to regard consciousness as an entity? |
| 1:43:16 | Where do Aristotle’s categories fit into Objectivism? |
| 1:46:19 | Would you comment on materialists I’ve heard who would say: “Listen, we don’t deny the existence of consciousness in the present world. What we say is that in time and at some point there were no consciousness ‘atoms,’ that everything was matter and in that sense consciousness is matter.” |
| 1:49:55 | If you put the atoms together and they lead to consciousness, doesn’t that mean that consciousness is determined? |