[Lecture Six] Understanding Objectivism
by Dr. Leonard Peikoff
Total Time: 2 hours, 26 minutes
Course summary: In this course, Dr. Peikoff explores the proper methodology for understanding Objectivism, and philosophy more generally. The end goal in grasping any complex set of ideas, he notes, is to keep them tied to reality. This course features lecture material by Dr. Peikoff as well as exercises and demonstrations from the live audience. The main methodological topics covered are the need for concretization, the role of definitions in concept formation, the understanding of hierarchy, reduction of concepts to the perceptual level, and the role of context in epistemology. Peikoff also presents essential material on the main cognitive and methodological mistakes that can be made in attempting to understand Objectivism, namely empiricism and rationalism. The course concludes with a discussion of the importance of moral judgment. Read more »
In this lecture: This lecture examines the issue of the objective versus the subjective or intrinsic as the basis of understanding empiricism and rationalism. Peikoff demonstrates how to grasp the nature of the intrinsic and objective methods by chewing each idea thoroughly. He demonstrates with examples how the trichotomy appears in all areas of philosophy.
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 does the lack of automatic knowledge lead to for the subjectivist? |
| What is the “blurting out” method of starting to understand complicated topics? |
| Why is the trichotomy that Dr. Peikoff describes agnostic regarding the content of a person’s ideas? |
| Why must the intrinsicist reject purpose? Context? Optionality? |
| How does intrinsicism lead to overly harsh self-criticism? |
| What are the eight ways that consciousness contributes something to how we gain knowledge of the world? What does this mean about describing objectivity primarily as a method? |
Q&A Guide
Below is a list of questions from the audience taken from this lecture, along with (approximate) time stamps.
| 2:02:48 | Why couldn’t the two words distinguishing Objectivism from subjectivism and intrinsicism be “consciousness” and “identification”? |
| 2:03:26 | In the history of philosophy, can you name any intrinsicists who try not to be religious? |
| 2:04:36 | Could it be argued that intrinsicists are dishonest? Because some time in their life they must remember doing something in a rational manner, such as learning a musical instrument, learning mathematical tables, or a part in a school play. Surely they can see that they had to work at this; it didn’t just jump into their head. Why do they disregard this information? |
| 2:07:22 | [Peikoff regarding the confusion on when to speak up.] |
| 2:08:13 | Did you fall prey to the errors of intrinsicism or subjectivism when you started to study Objectivism? If so, which was most common, and how did you discover and avoid such errors in the future? |
| 2:09:14 | Don’t intrinsicists believe that honesty is inherent in man’s nature? |
| 2:10:00 | Why can’t Objectivism be summarized as “adherence with truth” since, if facts are not subjective and have one outcome, they constitute truth? |
| 2:10:57 | Why do you say that intrinsicism has been more influential than subjectivism? |
| 2:15:22 | If intrinsicism reads as authoritarianism and government represents authority, does it necessarily mean that, in order to govern or be a member of any form of government, one must be an intrinsicist? |
| 2:16:04 | Seems that intrinsicism leaves no room for the free will. Is it outright deterministic? |
| 2:16:59 | Is stupidity evil, or just bad? I don’t mean the case of brain damage, but the anti-conceptual mentalities who fail to choose to think in their childhood. |
| 2:19:01 | Is the use of the hierarchy purely deductive reasoning and in that sense rationalism? |
| 2:20:10 | Your method of thinking about ideas was developed in solving rationalism. Will it be effective for empiricism? |
| 2:20:32 | Sometimes the government forces Christian Scientists or other fundamentalists to submit their children to medical treatment for the good of the child. Does the government have the right to protect the child from the irrational parents or does it have the right to decide that the parents are irrational? |
| 2:21:48 | What is the difference between rationality, reason, and logic? |
| 2:22:51 | Would having purely spiritual goals, such as the achievement of happiness or one’s self-esteem as the ultimate end in life, be an example of the mind-body dichotomy? |
| 2:24:17 | (Someone submitted a question on a lie he told. “Confidential to”: Peikoff says on the basis of what was submitted that the lie was valid.) |
| 2:24:42 | If metaphysics comes first in the branches of philosophy, then why do the first items shift between metaphysics and epistemology? |
| 2:25:34 | If you had given Miss Rand last week’s homework, would her numbering have matched yours? |