Welcome to the Objectivism Seminar! We are now working through Ayn Rand's important monograph on concept formation, Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, Expanded Second Edition. We hope to thoroughly digest the main work as well as all of the supplementary material. Please join in! (See below for the current schedule.)

We've recently wrapped up our tour of Dr. Peikoff's book, The Ominous Parallels. The parallels were indeed striking given the acceleration toward statism that political events are showing. You can access the 15 sessions as podcasts, below!

Before that, we worked through Dr. Leonard Peikoff's seminal summary, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand in 53 detailed sessions which you can access as podcasts, below.

Join in from our TalkShoe Page (also get RSS feeds for podcast subscriptions, etc.) as we work through Ayn Rand's book, Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology:

• Monday February 15, 8:00-9:00pm Mountain: ITOE Session 3: Chapter 2, Concept-Formation (Here are the Session 3 Questions)
• . . .

Nice that you could join us! Here's what you need to do:

1. Go buy Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, Expanded Second Edition ($14).
2. Visit our page on the TalkShoe conference calling service and download and familiarize yourself with TalkShoe's free "TalkShoe Live! Pro" software, which will allow you to call in for free using your computer (your regular phone will work, too, but you may incur toll costs).
3. Read the Frequently Asked Questions, which has more detailed instructions on installing and using TalkShoe.
4. Watch the area above for the session schedule and agendas.

Truly living well calls for engaging fundamental philosophical ideas and integrating their use into our everyday lives, our everyday actions, our way of being—into our souls. Unfortunately, it is all too easy to get busy with all the urgent things around us, and we can drift, distracted and disintegrated. For those of us who want an ongoing practice in such engagement (and those who want to explore the need for that in the first place), I have created The Objectivism Seminar.

The Objectivism Seminar is a weekly online conference call to systematically work through the philosophy of Ayn Rand via the books of prominent Rand scholars. These moderated, one-hour sessions will be recorded and podcast to allow review, catch-up, and even disconnected participation. The idea is to give people—new and experienced alike—a forum to chew through key Objectivist works and tour the complete system, further clarifying, integrating, and grounding their grasp of the ideas.

Because it is an ongoing seminar, we will have incentive to keep up with the steady schedule of study and stay equipped to consider fresh angles, concretizations, challenges, and applications from other participants. And because life is so full for many of us, I am purposefully keeping the reading load light and the method of participation unobtrusive. The plan is that we will spend almost as much time discussing the ideas as reading about them. Study like this is productive for both experienced students of Objectivism and those new to Rand's ideas: I've read all of these books, some several times, and I would expect to get at least as much out of this as someone going through them for the first time.

If you are interested, please look over the FAQ below and join in!


Q: What is The Objectivism Seminar?
A: The Objectivism Seminar is a weekly online conference call to systematically work through the philosophy of Ayn Rand via the books of prominent Rand scholars. These moderated one-hour sessions will be recorded and podcast to allow review, catch-up, and even disconnected participation.

Q: How much does it cost?
A: Nothing! (Well, there's your time, and the cost of whatever book we're reading. :^)

Q: Do I have to be an Objectivist to participate?
A: No. The purpose of the seminar is to give people a means to critically engage Objectivism and improve their understanding of the philosophy. Anybody who is polite and honest in this effort is welcome; anybody who disrupts others in that endeavor is not. (The process of examining ideas can be challenging enough that we certainly don't need to have someone being rude or beating us up psychologically while we do it!)

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