[Lecture Three] The Philosophy of Objectivism
by Dr. Leonard Peikoff
Total Time: 2 hours, 43 minutes
Course summary: This twelve lecture course presents the entire theoretical structure and key ideas of Objectivism. It covers all the major branches of philosophy and how Objectivism answers the essential questions in those areas. Ayn Rand attended the lectures and participated in a majority of the question and answer sessions after the lectures. Peikoff later used this material as the basis of his definitive book on Objectivism. Read more »
In this lecture: In this lecture, Dr. Peikoff explores the most fundamental steps in human cognition by explaining how we acquire the first material for thought. He discusses the question of the validity of the senses and the nature of free will as well as the concept of objectivity. The lecture also discusses the most basic issue in epistemology of reason versus mysticism.
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.
| Human consciousness is conceptual and it is not automatic. |
| Why is it so important to begin with the perspective that consciousness has identity? |
| Using examples, explain why all forms of mysticism ultimately reduce to emotionalism? |
| Describe the difference between the level of consciousness that is called sensation and perception? Why is one philosophically prior and one chronologically prior, and why does the concept “entity” help explain that? |
| What is the basic argument for the validity of the senses? |
| According to Objectivism what is the basic form of man’s power of choice? |
| Describe and differentiate the state of focus of a human mind. |
| What does it mean to say that the choice to focus is the primary choice? |
| What does it mean to say that the primary choice does not have a reason versus saying all his other choices do have reasons? |
| How is the state of evasion fundamentally different from the on versus off state of one’s mental focus? |
| Describe how the exercise of volition does not depend on the extent of a man’s knowledge. |
| What are the basic requirements that describe what is objective in epistemology? |
| Contrast the intrinsic and subjective approaches with the objective approach. |
Q&A Guide
Below is a list of questions from the audience taken from this lecture, along with (approximate) time stamps.
| 2:13:17 | Where do the categories of intrinsic and subjective fit under or contrast with the categories of “mind and muscle” mysticism? |
| 2:17:13 | Would you please repeat your definition of “validate” and contrast it with “to prove”? |
| 2:20:12 | Please define art. Does it mean when you say “the art of non-contradictory identification” an esthetic art? |
| 2:20:58 | What is the definition of “entity”? |
| 2:23:56 | Is one’s consciousness an entity? |
| 2:24:55 | Is fire an entity? |
| 2:25:38 | Is it possible for energy to be considered an entity? |
| 2:26:37 | Could you give a conceptual dividing line between the questions of metaphysics and the questions of physics? |
| 2:28:44 | Would you explain the meaning of the statement “if what you perceive does not exist, what you possess is not consciousness”? Is someone who is hallucinating pink elephants perceiving them by means other than consciousness, or is he not perceiving them in the sense meant here? |
| 2:31:51 | In sensory deprivation tests, where a person is enclosed in a windowless waterproof suit and suspended in water, because the only existence he is conscious of is his own breathing, is whatever else that is going on in his consciousness unconscious because he is conscious only of consciousness itself? |
| 2:34:10 | Is “infinity” an impossible concept, or is this true only metaphysically? In what sense is infinity valid? Is it valid epistemologically as an infinite capacity to know? |
| 2:36:25 | In the “Metaphysical vs. the Man-made,” Miss Rand refers to man-made evils and then adds parenthetically that there are no others. Would it not be proper to refer to diseases, earthquakes, hurricanes, and such as natural or metaphysical evils? |
| 2:37:32 | Is it always true that any axiom must be used in any attempt to deny or disprove it? Does this apply to mathematical axioms? |
| 2:38:26 | It seems one cannot prove that there is or is not such a thing as volition. Behaviorists claim that if you knew all the inherited characteristics and experiences of an individual that you could predict their decisions. If we can’t prove that that isn’t so, doesn’t that make volition and, for that matter, determinism an article of faith, i.e., not proven empirically? |
| 2:42:07 | In light of the medical evidence linking cigarette smoking to cancer, is it anti-life and therefore objectively immoral to smoke cigarettes? |