[Lecture Nine] Understanding Objectivism

by Dr. Leonard Peikoff

Total Time: 2 hours, 24 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 reviews the eight major issues in philosophy raised by the earlier discussions and explains the Objectivist approach and methodology on those questions. It illuminates how Objectivist approaches dealing with ideas, thinking, understanding, and writing. The lecture concludes by revisiting the question from the first lecture concerning the role of philosophy in everyday life using examples from student responses.

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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 does the Objectivist view of mind-body integration affect its view of the role of ideas? Of definitions?

What does this mind-body integration do when one is in a process of thinking about abstractions?

How does the Objectivist methodology approach the role of induction and deduction?

What is the answer that Dr. Peikoff provides for the “problem” of induction?

Using a novel example, explain the role of integration and delimitation in the process of induction.

How does the Objectivist methodology approach the role and status of axioms?

How does the Objectivist methodology, especially its perspective on induction, play a crucial role in understanding certainty?

What is the unique approach suggested by Objectivist when it comes to polemics? Using a novel example, present an outline sketch of this approach

Q&A Guide

Below is a list of questions from the audience taken from this lecture, along with (approximate) time stamps.

1:56:50	I’m puzzled by your holding up statistics as an example of an empiricist approach. The statistics I know is a branch of mathematics and is deductive, etc., just as any part of mathematics. Is this the statistics you had in mind?
1:57:41	Why is it called the law of gravity as opposed to the theory of gravity, as in the theory of evolution or the theory of relativity?
1:58:54	Can you explain why it is only my philosophy teachers who insist that Einstein disproved Newton? Every science professor I’ve spoken to about this agrees with you.
2:00:37	[Saving a question about the objective-subjective-intrinsicist views and art. Will answer next week.]
2:01:08	Re: a long paper in defense of mathematics: Peikoff did not say that a mathematician tries to reduce to the fewest principles because he’s insecure, but that rationalists do that. However, he did make the statement that mathematics is “the easiest subject in the world” and wants to correct that and not be heard as coming out against it. What he meant was that, as a pattern of knowledge, as a model of knowledge, deduction, however complicated, it is not comparable to induction, which requires a complexity of context and integration that has no parallel in deduction.
2:02:09	Ayn Rand once said that the attribute that most distinguished her was not intelligence but honesty. Could she have been referring to a concept that subsumes the virtue of honesty and also the lack of any “innocent dishonesty” such as rationalism?
2:06:24	Two weeks ago you answered a question about a hypothetical man who took the law into his own hands, killing his daughter’s murderer (who had been freed on a legal technicality). You said that the father was wrong to do it, although you sympathized with his motive. What about Howard Roark and the jury that acquitted him? Please do not answer this in lectures 10 or 11 because a friend is coming to those lectures and he hasn’t read The Fountainhead yet.
2:09:07	When specifying the non-defining characteristic of a concept, do they always have to be universal or can such terms as “most” apply?
2:11:11	All of the items you mentioned concerning the identity of consciousness—conceptualizing, choice, etc.—would have to be grasped by a process of introspection of one’s own consciousness. This would have to be, since one does not have any direct awareness of any other consciousness, except by observation of human behavior. By what technique or method can one know that, upon introspection, one is not just observing something particular to one’s own consciousness, but something in general to man’s consciousness?
2:15:11	Although intrinsicists say that consciousness can contribute nothing to the process of learning, are they not acting on their implicit acceptance of the primacy of consciousness?
2:16:22	Today there has been an abandonment of thinking, not simply a turn to empiricism vs. rationalism, but a default in thinking as such.
2:17:40	Would you say that empiricists and rationalists share the following things: the value of understanding, the quest for truth, honesty, and the importance of ideas?
2:18:40	Does an intrinsicist end up as a subjectivist?
2:18:51	Would you say a few words on why Kant is a subjectivist or intrinsicist and not the other?
2:20:12	The topic “the nature of man” does not seem to fall in ethics because it is the foundation of ethics. It does not seem to fall under metaphysics because it’s too specialized. And it’s certainly not part of epistemology. Would you classify it as a separate branch of philosophy in addition to the other major branches?
2:21:19	Would you consider writing a detailed explanation of the virtue of honesty in the manner in which Miss Rand explained it to you in that three-hour discussion sometime in the future?
2:21:47	Isn’t there a great danger in viewing an abstract philosophic principle in the “truck-like” fashion, because our abstraction is so far removed from the perceptual level we must constantly keep in mind the uncertainty associated with it along with its enormous power, as you might not understand the context to which your abstraction applies, viewing it in that “truck-like” fashion subverts this proper way of keeping concepts in your mind?