Philosophy

Objectivism is a set of scientific claims about reality. Scientists study reality—the same reality that is open to everyone—and discover facts about reality that, in principle, every thinking person can verify independently. Sometimes defenders of the Closed position say things like “because Rand owns Objectivism” or “This is a matter of respecting intellectual property rights” […]

Objectivist philosophy is a set of propositions identifying facts of reality. To the extent those identifications are new to philosophy, they are discoveries. They are very much not inventions or creations. For example: That human concept-formation involves measurement omission. Ayn Rand did not “invent” that. Another example: That integrity is a virtue. Rand did not

Lecture Eight: What are the lessons of 20th-century philosophy? Has the Enlightenment been a success or a failure? Do we need to build on the Modern world’s successes — or return to a better, Pre-modern intellectual and cultural world — or, rejecting both, accept a disquieting Postmodern future? Themes: History as “philosophy teaching by example.”

Lecture Four: Have women and minorities made progress — or is that an illusion? Catharine MacKinnon argues that “Protecting pornography means protecting sexual abuse as speech” in order to maintain the subordination of women. Derrick Bell says “Racial equality is, in fact, not a realistic goal” and so blacks need a new strategy. Themes: Feminism’s

From a 2020 interview: Jennifer Grossman [55:40]: Voicing an opinion that differs even slightly from the consensus can result in termination, cancellation, ostracism. So should one play the game of just kind of going along, or taking a principled stand, damn the consequences, justice? Howard Roark and John Galt did filing and struggling and obscurity.

Lecture Six: Do claims to knowledge and morality merely mask power? Foucault argues that sex rhetoric has “a tactical role to play in a transformation into discourse, a technology of power.” And Derrida asserts that “the revolution against reason can be made only within it.” Themes: Power as substrate. Structuralism and Post-structuralism. Dekonstruction. Postmodernism. Alexis