[Lecture Six] Advanced Seminars on Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand

by Dr. Leonard Peikoff

Total Time: 1 hour, 52 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: Continuing the discussion of Objectivist epistemology, Dr. Peikoff introduces the idea of conceptual hierarchy. He explains the distinction between first level and higher level concepts.

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Q&A Guide

Below is a list of questions from the audience taken from this lecture, along with (approximate) time stamps.

23:35	Doesn’t even a simple concept like “table” presuppose some concepts of consciousness, as the concept includes its intent?
29:34	Page 139: What’s the point of emphasizing the fact that the content of thought is measurable?
33:04	Are concepts of inner states first-level concepts?
1:04:01	What can’t you restrict a concept only to essential attributes?
1:05:33	Why don’t you use the word “meaning” with respect to concepts?
1:07:34	A question on “foils.”
1:10:46	Is the crow experiment known and, if not, shouldn’t we produce a formal scientific proof? Do you agree that scientifically proven facts should be used to give philosophy metaphysical “feet on the ground,” even if only for illustrative purposes?
1:32:09	A question on “the crow”
1:32:21	What gives rise to the economy of higher level concepts if you already squeeze the measurement out?
1:37:50	Is there anything else you can say about the universe as a whole other than the fact that it exists? Can you, for instance, say that the universe is finite or infinite or does that even make sense to ask?
1:41:52	Do you think it would be possible to teach concept formation to a computer?
1:44:57	Is a particular banana both a unit of the concept “banana” and the concept “fruit”?
1:46:58	You say that the choice to focus has to precede any idea, because that’s the act that brings you into commission as a conscious being. Don’t you need in some form the awareness or to grasp that it is desirable to be aware, otherwise why would you do it?