[Lecture Five] Objective Communication
by Dr. Leonard Peikoff
Total Time: 2 hours, 16 minutes
Course summary: 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. Read more »
In this lecture: This session features students doing extemporaneous presentations followed by analysis from Dr. Peikoff.
Study Guide
This material is designed to help you digest the lecture content. You can also download below a PDF study guide for the entire course.
| During this lecture, students should pause the recording after the student presentations and make observations, based on the course material, as to the qualities of the presentation. Students should then compare their observations to those of Dr. Peikoff. |
Q&A Guide
Below is a list of questions from the audience taken from this lecture, along with (approximate) time stamps.
| 1:48:15 | Can the rules you were teaching about objective communication also apply in personal, 1-to-1 talks between just two people, or would that kind of verbal exchange in which mutual understanding is a primary goal have to be taught in a different kind of class than this one? |
| 1:50:00 | Is the purpose of presenting contrasting views partly to defeat the opposing view? If so, is a presentation most effective when you do present opposing views? |
| 1:55:25 | Would you repeat and clarify the two traps one can fall into when defending ideas today? |
| 1:57:44 | Is it the case that some articles can be good as both written and oral presentations? I was thinking of Ayn Rand’s “Philosophy: Who Needs It,” which, although prepared for oral delivery, seemed great as an article. |
| 1:58:28 | You said last week that audiences are sympathetic. Have you ever spoken to what you thought to be a hostile group and won them over? |
| 2:01:02 | Why did you say that writing on epistemology is tricky? |
| 2:02:49 | In lecture 2, you said, “if you do not know what you’re doing, you will not be too active, therefore you will not be happy.” This is incomplete. I submit as evidence Washington, D.C., where far too many politicians do not know what they are doing, are much too active, and, therefore, are making all of us very unhappy. I suggest that it should instead be: “you must recognize that you don’t know what you’re doing, once you know that you don’t know what you’re doing you won’t be too active, and therefore you won’t be too happy.” Do you agree? |
| 2:03:59 | How would you refute the following: if your loved ones are worth dying for, what good to them will you be dead? |
| 2:05:42 | Last week you said that there are varying degrees of reality, but not of existence? |
| 2:08:01 | How can you as an advocate of selfishness justify risking your life to save those of your children in a burning building? |
| 2:10:12 | Often a reader or listener will be unconvinced by a presentation on first reading or hearing. He will have to check the context against his other knowledge. What implication does this have on adhering to the principles of objective communication? For example, a writer or speaker might want to make sure the audience stays motivated even after reading or listening, so that the audience will go back to the material. How does one have such a lasting impression on the audience? For instance, does one need a powerful motivating ending? |
| 2:11:33 | When communicating on a philosophic topic to a lay audience, how much can one reasonably expect the audience to be convinced on a first reading or listening? |
| 2:12:29 | What is the value of learning via the spoken word vs. the written word? That is, what benefits can one receive by listening to an oral presentation, especially when comparable written material is available? Or, to put it another way: what benefits can the speaker convey to his audience in oral presentations that the audience cannot acquire from the equivalent written material? |
| 2:14:43 | What do you think about practicing one’s oral presentation in front of a mirror or before a friend? |
| 2:15:40 | When a speaker is pedantic, is it because he is ignoring the differences between oral and written presentation? |