[Lecture Eight] The Art of Thinking
by Dr. Leonard Peikoff
Total Time: 1 hour, 55 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: Q&A Session
Q&A Guide
Below is a list of questions from the audience taken from this lecture, along with (approximate) time stamps.
| 1:05 | Would you tell about your experiences lecturing on philosophy to your daughter Kira’s first grade class? |
| 7:31 | What were Ayn Rand’s five editing steps? |
| 11:57 | Could you say something about teaching creativity the way you have in this course on thinking? |
| 15:11 | What do you think of De Bona? |
| 15:42 | If you’ve never heard a question before, how can you know what context it comes from? |
| 18:20 | Is it just to purchase data from someone who holds a corrupt viewpoint? |
| 28:42 | When you integrate a narrower principle to a broader one, what process are you using? |
| 30:31 | If a writer uses a phrase like “free enterprise” or “individual rights,” which the rest of his writing makes impossible, how do you interpret him? |
| 32:30 | You had a class that met at your house once a month for 2–3 years while working on your book [Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand]. How did this improve the book? |
| 37:05 | Did any of the questions from these sessions point to topics that may be addressed at some other time? |
| 38:11 | Would you be willing to share some of these with a PhD candidate who could write a thesis on them? |
| 38:38 | You said that if intellectual questions keep haunting you, even though you know clearly that they come from a context that’s false and you can prove the valid context, at a certain point you have to say “to hell with these questions” and trust that they will just atrophy in time. Does this apply to emotions as well? |
| 46:59 | In all your discussion with academic philosophers over the years, what are the reasons they give for not accepting Objectivism as an academic philosophy? |
| 54:07 | Is “fundamental” a metaphysical concept as used here? |
| 57:27 | Statistics is the science of probability, of dealing with aggregate data. True, it does not say anything about a specific individual. But it is based on actual real group data and is used to varying degrees by virtually every profession, business, and science is crucial to their success. [various examples] What epistemological status does this “information” have? It is not witchcraft, guesswork, mysticism, or total ignorance. It works in enabling businesses and scientists to have some practical success, otherwise they would fail. What do you call this? Aggregate knowledge? Partial knowledge? Data? Information? |
| 1:10:14 | Is the refusal to recognize essential distinctions a form of evasion and thus a form of non-integration? Take the advocates of the “many factors” view of historical causation who refuse to distinguish the essential cause (philosophy) from its consequences — psychology, great leaders, etc. Do you regard that as evasion? |
| 1:14:46 | Should we invest in a more visual presentation of our philosophy? |
| 1:18:43 | Do you have any hints or leads as to the next steps in induction? |
| 1:19:40 | Is “meaningless” the same as “the arbitrary”? |
| 1:22:57 | By “motivation” are you talking about someone’s philosophic or psychological motivations? |
| 1:29:55 | What is the relationship between evaluating a statement as certain and evaluating it as “true”? |
| 1:31:10 | Regarding a clipping from the New York Times, Wednesday, May 27th, regarding troubles USPS is having getting machines to recognize zip codes: “Teaching Computers to Recognize Letters and Numbers.” |
| 1:37:57 | I have heard it rumored that The Fountainhead movie is being re-made. Is this true? If so, are you involved in this project and in what capacity? |
| 1:39:27 | Have you changed your mind about your voting plans that you gave at the Ford Hall Forum? |
| 1:43:21 | Would you comment on the recent attempt to get a constitutional amendment prohibiting flag-burning? |
| 1:44:50 | Is it altruism for a graduate student to try to convert a Marxist professor? |
| 1:47:08 | How has your book been doing in the market? What plans do you have for Ayn Rand’s estate? |
| 1:51:08 | Can you say anything about a possible biography? |
| 1:52:03 | Are you still working on your fiction book? |