Objective Communication
by Dr. Leonard Peikoff
- 10 lectures, 25 hours
- Recorded in 1980
In this course, Dr. Leonard Peikoff explores the nature of intellectual communication. The course blends student work and examples with Peikoff’s own commentary to elicit the principles of effective communication in writing, speaking, and arguing. In these lectures, he identifies the essential issues unique to the nature of each method of presenting ideas and offers guidance about how to craft one’s thinking around the specific way one will deliver it to an audience.
Download the entire course (1.22 GB) to listen in the audio player of your choice—or listen online starting with Lecture One below. If listening to the course from this website, be sure to make a note of the current lecture and timestamp before leaving so that you can easily resume where you left off.
Study Guide
This course includes a study guide, featuring questions and other material designed to help you digest the course content. This material accompanies the individual lectures and is also available below as a PDF.
Lecture Guide
Summaries of the lecture content are provided below for your reference and convenience.
| Lecture 1 | In this lecture, Dr. Peikoff presents the essential philosophic bases of communication in Objectivist epistemology. He explains how communication is affected by the nature of our conceptual awareness as well as the fact that knowledge is conceptual and contextual. From these observations, he develops four principles that should guide all communication. Ayn Rand participates in this lecture’s question and answer session. |
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| Lecture 2 | In this lecture, Dr. Peikoff applies the principles from the first lecture to Ayn Rand’s lecture “Philosophy: Who Needs It?” He explores how Rand used motivation, delimitation, concretization, and structure to communicate successfully to the West Point students. He also considers a paper on “Certainty” as a means of illustrating issues with the quality of argument in a communication, specifically rationalism. |
| Lecture 3 | This lecture uses two pieces on the draft to explore how to achieve a self-contained presentation of an idea through the use of proper delimitation. Dr. Peikoff combines his points on this issue with those he made on the topic of rationalism to explain the question of objectivity in regard to communication. He works through examples provided in class to illustrate these points. |
| Lecture 4 | In this lecture, Dr. Peikoff explains how the principles of communication apply specifically to extemporaneous speaking. He discusses how the questions of pace, exactness of formulations, monitoring the audience, and notes all apply to oral presentations. The lecture also features more written examples to illustrate the broader principles discussed in the course. |
| Lecture 5 | This session features students doing extemporaneous presentations followed by analysis from Dr. Peikoff. |
| Lecture 6 | This session features students doing extemporaneous presentations followed by analysis from Dr. Peikoff. |
| Lecture 7 | Dr. Peikoff explains the principles of communication in the context of arguments. He explains how to know when you should argue a point, how to identify and not concede an opponent’s premises, choosing a point to answer, and avoiding spurious facts. The lecture concludes with a mock debate featuring Dr. Peikoff and Harry Binswanger as well as a student debate, both with analysis by Dr. Peikoff. |
| Lecture 8 | This session features Dr. Peikoff and students doing spontaneous arguments followed by analysis from Dr. Peikoff. |
| Lecture 9 | This session features Dr. Peikoff analyzing student papers on philosophic topics. |
| Lecture 10 | This session features Dr. Peikoff analyzing student papers on philosophic topics. |