Leonard Peikoff - Understanding Objectivism: A Guide to Learning Ayn Rands Philosophy

UNDERSTANDING OBJECTIVISM

LECTURES BY

EDITED BY

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA:

Peikoff, Leonard.

Understanding objectivism: a guide to learning Ayn Rands philosophy of objectivism/edited by
Michael S. Berliner.

p. cm.

ISBN: 978-1-101-57733-2

1. Objectivism (Philosophy) I. Berliner, Michael S. II. Title.

B945.R234P45 2012

191dc23 2011044769

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Philosophy, and particularly Objectivism, is supposed to be an aid in life; and if its chewed and concretized, thats how it functions. And thats the main reason I wanted to give this course on understanding Objectivism. Objectivism should help you to enjoy life. It should help to make you glad that youre alive.

Leonard Peikoff, from Understanding Objectivism, Lecture Eleven

O n October 4, 1983, Leonard Peikoff presented the first lecture in his course Understanding Objectivism. Dr. Peikoffs lectures continued for another ten weeks, live at the Hotel Roosevelt in New York City. Beginning in early 1984, the course was offered on tape to audiences in more than a hundred cities throughout the United States and Canada and in numerous other countries. Understanding Objectivism is still in use today, with a number of the lectures included in the curriculum of the Ayn Rand Institutes Objectivist Academic Center.

This courseand this bookshould not be considered an introduction to Objectivism. As Dr. Peikoff stresses in the opening lecture, it presupposes familiarity with Ayn Rands works. [I]f you dont know anything about Objectivism, this is the wrong lecture to be at.

The focus is on thinking methods: the right and wrong methods for trying to understand philosophy in general and for understanding and validating Objectivism in particular. But there is a dividend, as Dr. Peikoff put it, which is to get clear on some specific idea that we are applying the method to. The teaching of a method to understand Objectivism necessitates the chewing of its essential ideas (for example, objectivity and life as the standard of value), and thus considerable time is spent on the content of Objectivism and Objectivism as a philosophical system.

Because the course was offered orally and much of it extemporaneously, a significant amount of editing was required to make it more amenable to the reading audience, but I tried to retain the less formal tone of the original oral discourse. I hasten to add, however, that I did not edit for philosophical content. I eliminated repetition, colloquial and conversational expressions, and even some material that was time-sensitivethat is, relevant to the live audience but not to readersand I made some grammatical changes. I also eliminated (as repetitive or off topic) some questions and answers from the Q&A sessions following each lecture, and I moved some questions and answers to the lectures that contained those topics. All punctuation is mine, because I had access only to the tape recording, not to any original manuscripts. A word-for-word transcript of the tape recording of the course resides in the Ayn Rand Archives.

Michael S. Berliner

P eople have often asked for a written version of my oral lecture courses, on the premisewith which I agreethat written lectures are much more accessible to the student. Writing, however, is in this context virtually a different language from speaking; a raw transcript of an extemporaneous speech, however excellent, is almost always filled with defects and confusions of one sort or anotherand so is frequently boring as well. To turn a lecture course into an accurate, clear, and valuable book, a huge amount of time-consuming editing is required, a task that can be performed only by an individual with the necessary motivation, knowledge of the subject, and editorial skills. My own age and priorities make it impossible for me to undertake such a task.

I have therefore decided to authorize several individuals who possess the necessary qualifications to edit and bring out in book form certain of my courses, and to do so entirely without my participation. Although I have confidence in these editors to the extent that I know them, I have had no part in their work at any stageno guiding discussions, no reading of transcripts, not even a glance at early drafts or final copy. Even a glance might reveal errors, and I could not then evade the need to read more, and so on, which is precisely what is out of the question.