[Lecture Nine] Objective Communication
by Dr. Leonard Peikoff
Total Time: 2 hours, 28 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 Dr. Peikoff analyzing student papers on philosophic topics.
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.
| Prior to this lecture, students should read and analyze the selected student writing according to the principles discussed in the course. During the lecture, students should 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.
| 2:07:36 | What is the distinction between ontology and metaphysics? Why is the primacy of consciousness a metaphysical issue and not an ontological one? |
| 2:08:14 | Was the designation “primacy of consciousness” originated by Miss Rand? |
| 2:08:29 | Are the laws of contradiction and identity implicit in direct perception or are they deduced a posteriori? |
| 2:09:49 | How do you establish the standard of normalcy, for example, how do you know that a colorblind person is not normal? |
| 2:11:31 | Are characteristics of language, such as spelling, pronunciation, grammar, word meaning, etc., arbitrary? If not, by what standards can we call someone more or less educated, literate, refined, proper, etc. with respect to language? |
| 2:15:34 | Since epistemology is concerned with the specific details of an aspect of human consciousness, why is it not a branch of science, as, for example, psychology is? |
| 2:17:27 | Is it possible that any as yet unknown facts about how the mind or brain work would necessitate a change in the theory of epistemology? |
| 2:19:47 | In developing her theory of epistemology, was it necessary for Miss Rand to do more than introspect in order to obtain the basic facts? If not, how could she know that her theory is valid for all human beings? |
| 2:21:36 | Do you have some reason for not making up an outline and handing it out? |
| 2:22:37 | Regarding a question on legal philosophy and sanity. |
| 2:23:04 | How would Objectivism regard the experiment being conducted whereby female MENSA members are to be artificially inseminated with the sperm of Nobel Prize winners in an attempt to produce offspring of superior intellect? |
| 2:25:01 | Can you be an Objectivist only sometimes? |
| 2:26:57 | Have you and Miss Rand ever had a philosophical disagreement that lasted more than several hours? |