Epistemology Archives

Harry Binswanger

Member, Board of Directors

Logic: The Cashing-In

5 Lessons

5h 5m

Level

Intermediate

Completed 0%

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...

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Jason Rheins

Kant’s Philosophy (Part 1): Theoretical Philosophy

3 Lessons

4h 25m

Level

Advanced

Completed 0%

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...

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Gregory Salmieri

Senior Scholar of Philosophy at the Salem Center, University of Texas at Austin

Objectivist Epistemology in Outline

4 Lessons

6h 3m

Level

Advanced

Completed 0%

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...

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Leonard Peikoff

Ayn Rand’s Foremost Student and Today’s Leading Expert on Objectivism

The DIM Hypothesis II

6 Lessons

9h 2m

Level

Advanced

Completed 0%

In this six-lecture course recorded in July of 2010 at the Objectivist summer conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, Leonard Peikoff discusses the final parts of his then book-in-progress The DIM Hypothesis, published in 2012. Here is...

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Leonard Peikoff

Ayn Rand’s Foremost Student and Today’s Leading Expert on Objectivism

The DIM Hypothesis I

6 Lessons

9h 34m

Level

Advanced

Completed 0%

In this six-lecture course recorded in July of 2007 at the Objectivist summer conference in Telluride, Colorado, Leonard Peikoff discusses the first parts of his then book-in-progress The DIM Hypothesis, published in 2012. Here is a...

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Harry Binswanger

Member, Board of Directors

Free Will

2 Lessons

3h 4m

Level

Intermediate

Completed 0%

Ayn Rand is the first philosopher to recognize that the free will is at the root of not only ethics but also epistemology. By identifying that “Man is a being of volitional consciousness,” that one’s choice...

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Tara Smith

Professor of Philosophy University of Texas at Austin

Rationality and Objectivity

5 Lessons

4h 57m

Level

Intermediate

Completed 0%

Though rationality and objectivity are central to Objectivism, Objectivists’ understanding of these concepts is often sketchy. In this course, Dr. Smith deepens your understanding of exactly what rationality and objectivity consist of. It identifies the...

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Gregory Salmieri

Ben Bayer

Objective Thinking

6 Lessons

8h 19m

Level

Intermediate

Completed 0%

If you are an honest person, you are not content to hold beliefs subjectively—because of accidental features of your psychology or circumstances. You aspire to be objective—to conform all of your thinking to the facts....

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Onkar Ghate

Chief Philosophy Officer & Senior Fellow

Seize the Reins of Your Mind

2 Lessons

1h 26m

Level

Beginner

Completed 0%

Available with Spanish subtitles! ¡Disponible con subtítulos en español! Many educated people today dismiss free will as an illusion and instead view themselves and other people as determined by their environment and their genetics. Objectivism offers a...

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Leonard Peikoff

Ayn Rand’s Foremost Student and Today’s Leading Expert on Objectivism

Induction in Physics and Philosophy

7 Lessons

13h 14m

Level

Advanced

Completed 0%

These historic lectures present, for the first time, the solution to the problem of induction, and thereby complete, in every essential respect, the validation of reason. Dr. Peikoff begins by identifying the axioms of induction and...

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Harry Binswanger

Member, Board of Directors

Psycho-Epistemology II

2 Lessons

3h 5m

Level

Advanced

Completed 0%

Ayn Rand defined psycho-epistemology as “the study of man’s cognitive processes from the aspect of the interaction between the conscious mind and the automatic functions of the subconscious.” In these lectures extending material presented in “Psycho-Epistemology I”,...

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Leonard Peikoff

Ayn Rand’s Foremost Student and Today’s Leading Expert on Objectivism

Principles of Grammar

8 Lessons

18h 59m

Level

Intermediate

Completed 0%

Grammar is the science that studies the methods of combining words into sentences. Discover how this normally dry subject is transformed into an engrossing epistemological field of study. Learn why a mastery of the principles...

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Harry Binswanger

Member, Board of Directors

Psycho-Epistemology I

3 Lessons

3h 22m

Level

Advanced

Completed 0%

Ayn Rand defined psycho-epistemology as “the study of man’s cognitive processes from the aspect of the interaction between the conscious mind and the automatic functions of the subconscious.” In these illuminating lectures on this new science, Harry...

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Leonard Peikoff

Ayn Rand’s Foremost Student and Today’s Leading Expert on Objectivism

Writing: A Mini-Course

2 Lessons

3h 43m

Level

Intermediate

Completed 0%

Learning to write, Dr. Peikoff explains, requires not only an understanding of the proper principles, but also the ability to apply those principles to one's actual writing. These lectures feature exercises on six different aspects of...

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Harry Binswanger

Member, Board of Directors

Logic: The Method of Reason

6 Lessons

5h 50m

Level

Advanced

Completed 0%

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...

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Leonard Peikoff

Ayn Rand’s Foremost Student and Today’s Leading Expert on Objectivism

Introduction to Logic

10 Lessons

26h 53m

Level

Intermediate

Completed 0%

This course covers the standard topics taught in introductory courses in Aristotelian logic. It defines the principles of valid reasoning, and discusses prevalent logical fallacies. It formalizes the steps by which one derives conclusions from...

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Harry Binswanger

Member, Board of Directors

Emotions

2 Lessons

3h 25m

Level

Intermediate

Completed 0%

A proper view of man requires a thorough understanding of not only reason, but also emotion—and of the relation between the two. Philosophers who teach that emotions bypass the mind, claiming that emotions are either...

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Leonard Peikoff

Ayn Rand’s Foremost Student and Today’s Leading Expert on Objectivism

The Art of Thinking

8 Lessons

14h 27m

Level

Advanced

Completed 0%

Do you want to improve your method of thinking? This is a course on what to do with your mind during the act of thought, when to do it and how to do it. Leonard Peikoff...

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Subtitled

Leonard Peikoff

Ayn Rand’s Foremost Student and Today’s Leading Expert on Objectivism

Judging, Feeling and Not Being Moralistic

2 Lessons

3h 57m

Level

Intermediate

Completed 0%

Available with Spanish subtitles! ¡Disponible con subtítulos en español! Dr. Leonard Peikoff offers an intensive analysis of the process of evaluative judgment, applying the enormously abstract subject of morality to difficult cases. These lectures are invaluable guides...

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Subtitled

Leonard Peikoff

Ayn Rand’s Foremost Student and Today’s Leading Expert on Objectivism

Certainty and Happiness: Achieving Success in Thought and Action

1 Lesson

2h 2m

Level

Beginner

Completed 0%

Available with Spanish subtitles! ¡Disponible con subtítulos en español! Dr. Peikoff’s analysis of the contrast between Objectivism’s “philosophy of success” and the culturally dominant “philosophy of failure”; and the fundamental error shared by the enemies of certainty...

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Leonard Peikoff

Ayn Rand’s Foremost Student and Today’s Leading Expert on Objectivism

Leonard Peikoff at the Ford Hall Forum

14 Lessons

20h 29m

Level

Beginner

Completed 0%

In 1961, Ayn Rand received a speaking invitation from the Ford Hall Forum, a group that sponsors free public lectures on social and political issues. She spoke there almost every year until her death. From 1982...

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Harry Binswanger

Member, Board of Directors

Concepts and Propositions

6 Lessons

5h 43m

Level

Advanced

Completed 0%

Ayn Rand’s theory of concepts is revolutionary in the field of philosophy and it forms the backbone of the Objectivist theory of knowledge. In this course, given at Objectivist Summer Conference 2017 (OCON), Harry Binswanger...

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Harry Binswanger

Member, Board of Directors

The Foundations of Knowledge

6 Lessons

5h 40m

Level

Advanced

Completed 0%

What is knowledge? What does it depend upon? What are the means of acquiring it? In this course, given at Objectivist Summer Conference 2016 (OCON), Harry Binswanger answers these questions and, in doing so, explains...

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Leonard Peikoff

Ayn Rand’s Foremost Student and Today’s Leading Expert on Objectivism

Advanced Seminars on Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand

15 Lessons

25h 27m

Level

Advanced

Completed 0%

In this course, originally a series of advanced seminars given in 1990 and 1991, Leonard Peikoff discusses the content and process of writing his then forthcoming book Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (OPAR). Although...

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Leonard Peikoff

Ayn Rand’s Foremost Student and Today’s Leading Expert on Objectivism

Unity in Epistemology and Ethics

4 Lessons

7h 0m

Level

Advanced

Completed 0%

In these advanced talks, originally given in 1996, Leonard Peikoff discusses the significance and implications of the principle that all knowledge is interconnected. Peikoff makes the case for the unity of knowledge in great detail...

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Leonard Peikoff

Ayn Rand’s Foremost Student and Today’s Leading Expert on Objectivism

Objectivism Through Induction

12 Lessons

18h 14m

Level

Advanced

Completed 0%

This course, originally given by Leonard Peikoff in 1997, teaches you the method of learning Objectivism’s principles that Ayn Rand used to discover them — the only method (in Rand’s words) of discovering and validating...

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Subtitled

Leonard Peikoff

Ayn Rand’s Foremost Student and Today’s Leading Expert on Objectivism

Understanding Objectivism

12 Lessons

25h 44m

Level

Advanced

Completed 0%

Available with Spanish subtitles! ¡Disponible con subtítulos en español! This course, originally given by Leonard Peikoff in 1983, is addressed to those who are sympathetic to Ayn Rand’s philosophy, but who experience difficulty in completely digesting it...

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Leonard Peikoff

Ayn Rand’s Foremost Student and Today’s Leading Expert on Objectivism

History of Philosophy

50 Lessons

36h 38m

Level

Intermediate

Completed 0%

This course was adapted from a series of lectures on the history of Western philosophy, given by Leonard Peikoff to fans of Ayn Rand in the early 1970s. Peikoff holds that a knowledge of the...

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Leonard Peikoff

Ayn Rand’s Foremost Student and Today’s Leading Expert on Objectivism

Philosophy of Education

4 Lessons

6h 50m

Level

Intermediate

Completed 0%

This course presents an account of the philosophy of education from an Objectivist perspective, addressing such questions as: What is education? What is its basic purpose? What subjects should children be learning in school? How...

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Leonard Peikoff

Ayn Rand’s Foremost Student and Today’s Leading Expert on Objectivism

Objective Communication

10 Lessons

25h 6m

Level

Intermediate

Completed 0%

If you want to convey your thoughts clearly — in a report for work, a speech for school or a discussion with friends — this course offers valuable advice from an Objectivist perspective. Drawing on...

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Subtitled

Ayn Rand

Originator of the Philosophy of Objectivism

Philosophy: Who Needs It

1 Lesson

0h 36m

Level

Beginner

Completed 0%

Available with Spanish subtitles! ¡Disponible con subtítulos en español! What is philosophy — and how is it relevant to my life? Ayn Rand answered these questions in her address to the senior class of the United States...

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Leonard Peikoff

Ayn Rand’s Foremost Student and Today’s Leading Expert on Objectivism

Objectivism: The State of the Art

8 Lessons

11h 29m

Level

Advanced

Completed 0%

This series of lectures was given by Leonard Peikoff in 1987, partway through the writing of his book Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand. The book is an edited version of Peikoff’s 1976 lecture course...

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Subtitled

Ayn Rand

Originator of the Philosophy of Objectivism

Introducing Objectivism

1 Lesson

0h 9m

Level

Beginner

Completed 0%

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...

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Topic: Epistemology