The Survival Value of Great False Art
by Dr. Leonard Peikoff
Total Time: 1 hour, 42 minutes
By exploring works of great literature that have philosophically false content, Dr. Leonard Peikoff explores how one can benefit from any great work of art. Using literary analysis of plot, characterization, theme, and style, Peikoff illustrates the way that great art helps to shape and tune the use of consciousness and thought processes for the better.
Study Guide
This material is designed to help you digest the lecture content. You can also download a printable PDF version below.
| What does it mean for art to have value in life? |
| Why is the diversion of light entertainment or amusement not the same as the value of art? |
| What process in all art works provides new cognitive material or perspectives? |
| Why is perceptual grasp of philosophic ideas so essential? |
| How does great art help you in everyday thinking? |
| What technique does art specifically teach man in his cognition? |
| What is stylization and how does it move from art to life? |
| What tools of essentializing does one learn from art? |
Q&A Guide
Below is a list of questions from the audience taken from this lecture, along with (approximate) time stamps.
| 1:02:01 | You’ve talked about the role of stylization in art. How would you apply it to a visual art such as architecture, especially when architects today are forced to deal with such arbitrary concretes as zoning codes, building codes, ADA rules, etc.? |
| 1:04:25 | You said that great art helps you see the world in essentialized terms. You must know that there are some people who already do this better than others. My question is: do you think that great art is more important for people who have not developed this capacity, in order to help them develop it more fully? |
| 1:06:33 | I was wondering if you could comment on the style of Ernest Hemingway and, specifically, For Whom the Bell Tolls? |
| 1:07:30 | Would you discuss your selected reading list? |
| 1:27:35 | Can we say that great art is defined as “art whose every element is intensely integrated to the theme of the work”? |
| 1:29:16 | Would you add to your fiction list a partial list of philosophers we should read as intellectual ammunition? |
| 1:30:56 | Do you agree that Tolstoy is the greatest novelist ever, apart from Ayn Rand? |
| 1:32:04 | In regard to your not thinking much about American literature, what about Sinclair Lewis? What about Thomas Hardy and Vladimir Nabokov? |
| 1:33:44 | Since fiction writers are observers of essentials, does Ayn Rand’s epistemology come from her approach as a novelist or from her philosophic mind? |
| 1:34:21 | What translators of Russian literature do you recommend? |
| 1:34:49 | What about Schiller? |
| 1:35:09 | What is the connection between great art and induction? |
| 1:36:14 | Can great art teach a young mind to think inductively? |
| 1:36:35 | Can immersion in great art significantly curtail rationalist tendencies? |
| 1:36:52 | What about great art in the movies? |
| 1:40:47 | What is the status of the Atlas Shrugged movie? |