Concepts, though fundamental, are only tools—only means to an end. The end is the practical, productive, rational use of your mind to achieve your values, secure your survival, and enhance your life. That is the...
Ayn Rand stated the theme of Atlas Shrugged as: “the role of the mind in man’s existence—and, as corollary, the demonstration of a new moral philosophy: the morality of rational self-interest.” This course discusses the manner...
This multi-session workshop is open to students and alumni of the Objectivist Academic Center, and those they refer who are serious students of Objectivism but who have not, as yet, joined the OAC. The bootcamp...
This is an invitation-only live course (Oct. 2021 – Jun. 2022) of Ayn Rand University, a new kind of university which provides advanced live courses in philosophy and communication from an Objectivist perspective. ARU courses include...
In this collection of talks spanning more than a decade, Leonard Peikoff reflects on a wide range of topics of significant importance to his life, both personally and professionally. Several of these discussions are informal:...
Free, unregulated financial markets serve the vital function of providing capital to the producers. Yet, through the ages, banking and other financial activities have been viewed as corrupt and exploitative. From the money-changers of the...
Available with Spanish subtitles!
¡Disponible con subtítulos en español!
In 1962, Ayn Rand was invited to write a weekly column for the Los Angeles Times. Her first column was a brief introduction to her philosophy, Objectivism. In...
No thinker has had a greater influence on philosophy in the last two centuries than Immanuel Kant. Building on his metaphysics and epistemology, Kant proposed an ethics that dispensed with the need for a divine...
No thinker has had a greater influence on philosophy in the last two centuries than Immanuel Kant. This course presents the historical context in which Kant developed his metaphysics and epistemology and explains his most...
In this Summer 2021 seminar, graduate students and young professionals in philosophy examine the best secondary literature on Ayn Rand's epistemology, and do an intensive chapter-by-chapter reading of her Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology.
This course is...
Ayn Rand held that “philosophy is primarily epistemology,” the “science devoted to the discovery of the proper methods of acquiring and validating knowledge.” This class surveys Rand’s “new approach to epistemology” — the most original...
In these lectures, Leonard Peikoff argues that a great work of art has life-serving values to offer even when its philosophic content is untrue. Through analysis of some great works of literature, and a number...
Yaron Brook is chairman of the board of the Ayn Rand Institute. He wears many hats at the institute and travels extensively as ARI’s spokesman.
Brook can be heard on The Yaron Brook Show, which airs live on YouTube and Speaker. He is also a frequent guest on national radio and television programs.
An internationally sought-after speaker and debater, Brook also pens works that make one think. As coauthor, with Don Watkins, of the national best-seller Free Market Revolution: How Ayn Rand's Ideas Can End Big Government, Brook and Watkins argue that the answer to our current economic woes lies not in "trickle-down government" but in Rand's inspiring philosophy of capitalism and self-interest. Last year, Brook and Watkins released a new book, Equal Is Unfair: America's Misguided Fight Against Income Inequality, a book that shows the real key to making America a freer, fairer, more prosperous nation is to protect and celebrate the pursuit of success―not pull down the high fliers in the name of equality. Brook is also contributing author to Neoconservatism: An Obituary for an Idea, Winning the Unwinnable War: America’s Self-Crippled Response to Islamic Totalitarianism and Big Tent: The Story of the Conservative Revolution — As Told by the Thinkers and Doers Who Made It Happen. He was a columnist at Forbes.com, and his articles have been featured in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Investor’s Business Daily and many other publications.
Brook was born and raised in Israel. He served as a first sergeant in Israeli military intelligence and earned a BSc in civil engineering from Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel. In 1987 he moved to the United States where he received his MBA and PhD in finance from the University of Texas at Austin; he became an American citizen in 2003. For seven years he was an award-winning finance professor at Santa Clara University, and in 1998 he co-founded BH Equity Research, a private equity and hedge fund manager, of which he is managing founder and director.
Brook serves on the boards of the Ayn Rand Institute, the Clemson Institute for the Study of Capitalism and CEHE (Center for Excellence in Higher Education), and he is a member of the Association of Private Enterprise Education and the Mont Pelerin Society.
Subtitled
Tara Smith
Professor of Philosophy University of Texas at Austin
Available with Spanish subtitles!
¡Disponible con subtítulos en español!
The idea that a person ought to be selfish is so alien to our culture that when people learn that Ayn Rand upheld a morality of selfishness they...