[Lecture Ten] Objectivism Through Induction
by Dr. Leonard Peikoff
Total Time: 1 hour, 28 minutes
Course summary: In this course, Dr. Peikoff demonstrates how to grasp philosophic ideas and principles in the same way that they were discovered—through induction from the facts of reality. Working through a process of generalizing from observed facts, Peikoff shows how a student can come to grasp and validate key ideas in Objectivist philosophy. Key concepts covered in the course include the idea of objectivity in both knowledge and values, egoism, reason as man’s means of survival, and the metaphysical status of sex. Read more »
In this lecture: This lecture focuses on the question of how we induce the objectivity of values. It builds on the earlier lecture on inducing the idea of objectivity more generally. It concludes with an extensive question period on topics throughout the course.
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.
| What is the importance of the valuer in understanding the nature of value? |
| What does it mean that the good is an aspect of man’s relationship to reality? |
| What might have Ayn Rand known about values, her own values specifically, long before she understood the nature of concept formation? |
| Expound on what it means to say that ethics is hypothetical. How does that apply to the status of values? What might it leave out? |
| What does it mean to have an ultimate goal that is tied to or mandated by reality? |
| If one reached the induction of life as the standard of value, show how it would be necessary to re-examine all values to understand the objectivity of values. How did Ayn Rand integrate these values with her discovery of life as the standard? |
| How would one integrate the understanding of the objectivity of concepts with that of values? What is the analogy that ties the two together? |
| What is the vital importance of the principle of the objectivity of values? In contrast to what? |
| Why are causal connections so important to inductions? |
Q&A Guide
Below is a list of questions from the audience taken from this lecture, along with (approximate) time stamps.
| 43:23 | Is it correct to say that the fundamental source of or means to all knowledge is induction and that every deductive knowledge is derived from previously induced principles, i.e., induction is more basic than deduction? |
| 44:26 | Is it necessary to identify causal connections in order to make a valid induction in either science or philosophy? |
| 52:20 | What could you add to my summary to make it briefer or more useful? |
| 56:21 | You often lay out a full classification during an induction. In the force lecture you discussed types of initiatory force, and you named: crimes, government force, nonprosecutable crimes. Or things that thwart your desires: force, reality, refusal of others to cooperate. Or types of paralysis: body, mind, externally-caused, self-caused, etc. I found these helpful and, when doing the homework, I often miss the fact that a differentiation is needed at a given point. And even if I see the need, rarely can I lay out a complete classification of the cases as you do discuss how you know that differentiation is needed at a specific point and how you know that you’ve covered all the cases. |
| 1:03:47 | When you use the genus, why do you proceed by breaking it down into two opposing categories? You associate this method, you say, with rationalism. |
| 1:04:58 | Does the course supersede the advice you gave in Understanding Objectivism, specifically with regard to concretizing, which is really small potatoes compared to a full inductive derivation? So is concretization of principles any more than a therapeutic device from an earlier stage of curing rationalism, which is now superseded? |
| 1:07:39 | A question for a rationalist: Why does validity matter in human life? |
| 1:09:20 | What is the distinction between validation and proof? |
| 1:10:50 | I know rationalists who are taking your case and are fitting their inductive material within their rationalist framework. They seem to be going around inducing but are really deducing and being rationalistic, mimicking induction while still being rationalists. I fear that primarily inductive thinkers will starve out of the Objectivist movement upon your death. How do you see the future of Objectivist intellectuals in this regard? |
| 1:13:58 | Has there been a shift in Objectivist thinking on the issue of volition? Many years ago volition was viewed not as an axiom but as something that needed to be proved, and in one of your lectures on the history of philosophy you gave a proof. What caused this shift in thinking and is there anything in Ayn Rand’s writings that gives a clue as to her view? |
| 1:16:59 | A friend of mine asked a question on the nature of justice that I can’t answer. Her concern is that many kids have irrational parents, go to terrible schools, and generally grow up in a destructive environment. She says this isn’t fair, hence the need for government intervention. What do you have to say about that? |
| 1:21:30 | How can you keep your integrity in an immoral world? How do you build a business and at the same time maintain your integrity when 50-90% of your customers and associates have no philosophy? How do you willingly pay taxes when such a large portion of the national budget is allocated toward handouts and subsidies? Don’t you have to compromise your integrity when you deal with irrational people? |
| 1:24:19 | What we induce as a proposition, isn’t it then indispensable to have not only a theory of concepts, but a theory of propositions, what they return to in reality, how they are formed, etc.? |