Description
Atlas Shrugged has been aptly described as “a hymn to logic.” But today, logic textbooks contain only sterile, formalistic diversions from real-life issues. In this course, given at Objectivist Summer Conference 2018 (OCON), Harry Binswanger instead focuses on the most personally important — and most neglected — topic in logic: concepts. It is proper conceptualization, Binswanger argues, not facility with syllogisms, that makes the difference between clarity and confusion, rational and irrational functioning, adhering to reality and wandering through dreamland. Drawing on Ayn Rand’s revolutionary identifications in logic, these five classes focus on the proper formation, definition, maintenance, and use of concepts. Emphasis is given to working on practical exercises. The course is based on the material in chapters six and seven of How We Know: Epistemology on an Objectivist Foundation, and it builds on Binswanger’s OCON 2016 and 2017 courses, The Foundations of Knowledge and Concepts and Propositions.
