Preliminaries - Objectivist Epistemology in Outline: Lesson 1

The first day of the course is devoted to the nature of consciousness in general and perception in particular. The instructor distinguishes consciousness as a state of awareness from other states and activities of the faculty of consciousness and explains the difference between form and object and the error of conflating the two. By differentiating perception from sensation, perceptual judgment and other states, the course clarifies what information is and is not given in perception and how perception is infallible.

This course was recorded at the 2006 Objectivist Summer Conference in Boston, MA.

Lesson 1 of 4 in Objectivist Epistemology in Outline

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[henryemrich]

The scallop thing was both extremely weird, and informative.

[williamhyman]

Thank you Greg you'd love an African Safari.. This perception vs visual abilities plays off in every hunt a predator attempts.. Its absolutely beautiful.. Awesome lecture..

[GeorgWilde]

You know -nothing- *something* Jon Snow. - Ayn Rand

[gykyqew]

44:09 perceptual judgment
50:00visualuzation
1:06:00 q&a

[jameswiblishauser]

I like this lecturer. On to his next video.

[tennoio]

The part about perseption really helped me solve the free will problem that i couldn't get away from. This is gold. Thank you!

[SmilesUEver]

His constant swallowing is irritating.

[williamhyman]

Thank you Greg wow perceptions are about particulars.. Awesome..

[davidste]

Thanks for the lesson. There is a part of Howard Roark's speech that has always bugged me. "A mans spirit, however, is his self. That entity which is his consciousness."
But consciousness seems to be a faculty or attribute, not an entity. Anyone?

[jmarz]

Rand's Epistemology was largely derived from William James' "Principles of Psychology." Below are quotes taken from Chapter 4 of James' book, "Some Problems of Philosophy."


"The problem convenient to take up next in order will be that of the difference between thoughts and things. Things are known to us by our senses, and are called 'presentations' by some authors, to distinguish them from the ideas or 'representations' which we may have when our senses are closed, I myself have grown accustomed to the words 'percept' and 'concept' in treating of the contrast, but concepts flow out of percepts and into them again, they are so interlaced, and our life rests on them so interchangeably and undiscriminatingly, that it is often difficult to impart quickly to beginners a clear notion of the difference meant.... [per Objectivism, Abstractions from Concretes]

.... Each concept means just what it singly means, and nothing else, and if the conceiver does not know whether he means this or means that, it shows that his concept is imperfectly formed. The perceptual flux as such, on the contrary, means nothing, and is but what it immediately [per Objectivism, Percepts are givens]

....The intellectual life of man consists almost wholly in his substitution of a conceptual order for the perceptual order in which his experience originally comes....

....Trains of concepts unmixed with percepts, grow frequent In the adult mind, and parts of these conceptual trains arrest our attention just as parts of the perceptual flow did, giving rise to concepts of a higher order of abstractness...." [per Objectivism, Abstractions from Abstractions]

[JD-jlyy]

Ayn Rand's ""philosophy"" is disgusting and has made the world a worse place.