[Lecture One] The Art of Thinking
by Dr. Leonard Peikoff
Total Time: 1 hour, 53 minutes
Course summary: In this course Dr. Peikoff explains what happens in the mind when one thinks and offers a structure for how to get better at thinking. He applies the key principles of Objectivist epistemology to everyday thinking. The course explains the mental process of changing one’s mind, the role of integration and essentialization in proper thinking, and the application of thinking in principle and what certainty means. Read more »
In this lecture: Dr. Peikoff begins this course by considering how we deal with adopting new ideas that present clashes with old ideas that we have held. He identifies the key issues in holding different contexts that suggest different answers to a question. He explains how an act of volitional adherence can help achieve clarity once one knows the truth on a subject. He describes the process of integrating new knowledge and dis-integrating old knowledge.
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.
| How is objectivity in thinking related to volition? |
| Why is it not possible simply to will oneself to believe an idea? |
| What is the difference between knowing an idea is correct and actually holding that idea as true in one’s mind? What effects arise from this difference? |
| At what stage of learning should one use the devil’s advocate method in interrogating an idea? |
| What does it mean to stop “gathering data” and “asking questions” about an incorrect idea? How does one do this? |
| Using an original example, discuss the way that someone might encounter clashing contexts on a specific point and the step-by-step means to resolve that. |
| How does automatization play a role in using volition to solidify an idea that one accepts? |
Q&A Guide
Below is a list of questions from the audience taken from this lecture, along with (approximate) time stamps.
| 1:09:48 | Subjectivists say that we come at every question with a subjective, built-in framework and our own private predilections, etc. and therefore that we can never get to know the real truth. Isn’t there some credence to that in light of what you’re saying, that you have these things built in and you have to push them aside? |
| 1:12:02 | Is a good way to disintegrate an idea to reduce it to absurdity? |
| 1:17:10 | Isn’t there a parallel here with psychotherapy? |
| 1:18:59 | Isn’t a lot of therapy de-automatizing? |
| 1:20:32 | How do you talk to other people when you’re in the process of beating down one of these alien contexts, but others who hold that same context are asking questions of you from that context, and it’s plausible to you and yet you know you’re beating it down? |
| 1:24:36 | Would you say that the ability to hold your own context in the face of an opposing context is what is meant by “strength of character”? |
| 1:26:50 | Where does the universe come from? |
| 1:29:46 | What’s outside the universe? |
| 1:32:08 | How can you explain why one man chose to think and another did not? |
| 1:34:27 | It’s always possible for us to be wrong and not know it. How do you know you’re not? |
| 1:45:09 | What did you mean by your use of the word “superstructure”? |
| 1:46:07 | Could the phenomenon of clashing contexts be tied in with people yearning for or advocating tolerance? |
| 1:47:47 | Does skepticism relate to people who really believe somehow implicitly in the primacy of consciousness? |
| 1:50:20 | When do you know that you’re sure enough? |