[Lecture Eight] Objectivism: The State of the Art
by Dr. Leonard Peikoff
Total Time: 1 hour, 25 minutes
Course summary: In preparing the material for his treatise, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, Dr. Leonard Peikoff confronted unique problems and challenges in how properly to systematize the material. Based on his earlier comprehensive course on Objectivism in 1976, Dr. Peikoff had to question whether he had developed the content to the most precise and accurate formulations. In completing this process, he arrived at new insights that allowed him to present the material more clearly and to demonstrate the proofs for them. He reviews this material in this course. Read more »
In this lecture: A dedicated question and answer session with Dr. Peikoff.
Q&A Guide
Below is a list of questions from the audience taken from this lecture, along with (approximate) time stamps.
| 1:15 | Regarding integration, are you saying that you should be able to take, in effect, any idea at random and connect it to any other idea at random? Where would you start, what would you connect it to, and are you saying that if you don’t do that the idea isn’t knowledge, even if on its terms you can prove of reduce the idea to the perceptual level? |
| 13:14 | If to be good is to be good all the time and to be evil only sometimes is to be evil, does that mean that those who have told an occasional lie, etc. are evil people? |
| 22:54 | How can you conceptualize the universe if a concept is an integration of two or more concretes and there’s only one universe? |
| 24:33 | What is your opinion on the metaphysical status of consciousness? |
| 27:19 | If Americans were to follow carefully the principles of Objectivism and the Soviets were to follow completely the principles of Marxism, would the two have to fight to the death? |
| 29:33 | Can you condemn a savage as much as you can a civilized American or Western European for the same behavior? |
| 31:47 | How would Objectivism apply to the issue of capital punishment? |
| 34:03 | Do you know of any examples of concepts that have come into vogue in recent years? |
| 35:18 | Could you distinguish “thinking in principles,” “thinking in essentials,” and “thinking in fundamentals,” along with an example to clarify? |
| 38:53 | Please distinguish between “principles” and “moral values.” |
| 39:44 | You once said that context is a type of hierarchy… |
| 40:43 | Why did Ayn Rand in her later years write cultural commentary rather than more fiction or more abstract philosophy? |
| 45:08 | Why did you leave out the concept “unit” when you discussed “existent,” “entity,” and “identity”? Isn’t that important? |
| 46:53 | Is there a hierarchical structure in the process of learning moral virtues? Do some virtues logically come before others in the learning process? |
| 48:46 | How is pride related to self-esteem? |
| 49:29 | Are some virtues more important than others? |
| 50:52 | Is it correct to say that an error that harms another person is more serious than one that harms oneself? |
| 52:56 | Do you believe that a formalized presentation of Objectivism will hasten the spread of Objectivism in the academic world? |
| 56:32 | Normally when talking to people they are in favor of religion because it offers a morality. How should one talk to such people in terms of Objectivism? |
| 57:41 | In regard to Dr. Locke’s discussion on the denial of evil, was there any other philosophic idea that you would want to add by way of explaining this denial? |
| 1:02:47 | Could a commune work if everyone in it was an Aristotelian? |
| 1:05:15 | How do you distinguish the concept “reality” from the concept “existence”? |
| 1:07:50 | Why aren’t you teaching at a university? |
| 1:09:31 | How did Ayn Rand deal with the issue of her own morality in the final days of her life? |
| 1:12:12 | What do you think of the idea that civilization grew out of the absolutism of Judaism and Christianity? |
| 1:13:56 | How do you get volition as a corollary of consciousness? |
| 1:14:49 | Did you mean to imply by the chart you had on the board that consciousness as such was inherent in existence (because everything was a derivation of existence)? |
| 1:16:18 | How has your life changed with having a child, positively and negatively? What made the biggest impact on you? |
| 1:17:45 | The precision and clarity of your writings and lectures are well-documented and continuously discussed. What explains this? Were there specific skills you practiced to develop this ability? |