[Lecture Five] The Art of Thinking
by Dr. Leonard Peikoff
Total Time: 2 hours, 2 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: This lecture explains and illustrates what it means to think in principle. Dr. Peikoff shows how we arrive at principles and then how we apply them when thinking about other topics. He describes the four key stages of thinking in principle on any topic and illustrates these with many examples and in contrast to thinking in essentials.
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.
| Complete the optional letter to the editor assignment described by Dr. Peikoff at the beginning of the lecture. |
| Where does the idea of principle come from? How did it come to stand for a mental and not a physical thing? |
| What is the difference between a generalization and a principle? |
| What key role do principles play in thinking? |
| How is it different to resolve a question back to principles in a specific field versus in philosophic ideas more generally? |
| What can a principle add to a process of cognition? |
| Using an original example, describe the four key steps in thinking in principle. |
| What is the process for validating a principle? |
| Do men always act on principle, even if they do not know it? |
| What is the relationship between thinking in essentials and thinking in principle? |
Q&A Guide
Below is a list of questions from the audience taken from this lecture, along with (approximate) time stamps.
| 1:45:14 | Could you integrate essentials and principles with logic? |
| 1:48:18 | Regarding the New York Times tribute to Orson Welles from a psychological perspective. |
| 1:52:04 | A request for a portion of the talk that Dr. Peikoff omitted, regarding a Plato-influenced question: Do you need to already grasp the principle of honesty in order to focus your attention on the fact that dishonesty is accompanied by harm? |