2005 Summer Seminar

Summer Seminar in Schenectady

The Objectivist Center held its Sixteenth Annual Summer Seminar at UnionCollege in Schenectady, New York from July 9 through July 16. (See here for more information, including the conference program and special information for seminar participants only, such as lecture notes and slides.)

Once again, the Center presented a varied program featuring philosophy and Objectivist education, political and cultural analysis, applied Objectivism, and art and aesthetic analysis. Throughout it all, there was plenty of time for seeing old friends and making new ones, as well as exploring the area.

The philosophy track offered a wide range of courses. David Kelley and William R Thomas presented a six-part course on objectivity. Shawn Klein taught the “Basics of Objectivism” course And presentations on non-Objectivist philosophers and their relationship to Objectivism included Stephen Hicks on Friedrich Nietzsche and William E. Perry on Jose Ortega y Gasset.

A major focus of the seminar was the symposium on the philosophy of science, with Glenn Fletcher lecturing on “Objectivism and the Philosophy of Science,” Tibor Machan on “Physics and Common Sense,” Dr. Lyman Hazelton on “Randomness and Chaos,” and Dr. Christopher Robinson on “Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto: Accidents and Errors in Discovery.” The symposium was well attended and received high marks in the evaluations from participants.

For the first time in the history of the event David Kelley did not deliver the “State of the Culture Address.” Edward Hudgins did so in his new role as executive director. Hudgins focused on “Objectivism’s Future in America,” pointing out that the red- and blue-state divide is much more complex than people realize. He further noted that there are many opportunities for Objectivism to gain traction in sub-groups both from the Left and from the Right.

Political and cultural presentations included: Machan on Leo Strauss and his relationship to the neo-conservative movement; Christopher Baylor on “The American Media vs. Capitalism”; Dr. Madeleine Cosman on the health crisis posed by illegal immigration; Don Krause on the Sarbanes-Oxley Act; Milo Schield on epidemiology abuse; David Mayer in a two-part presentation on separation of powers; Bert Ely on the least-bad taxes; Hudgins on Cicero and his effect on the American Founders; and Patrick Stephens on “Sex, Drugs, and Human Enhancement.”

The arts were not neglected. Michael Shapiro made a two-part presentation on Objectivist musical aesthetics. Michael Newberry talked about “A Quest for Sensuality, Truth, and Exaltation through Art” and exhibited and sold some of his paintings. Douglas Wagoner presented “Three Twentieth-Century Piano Concertos.”

Applied Objectivism also received its due. Jackie Hazelton presented her Objectivist Ten Commandments and spoke about an Objectivist approach to weight control. Thomas discussed his thoughts on friends and families from an Objectivist perspective. Marsha Enright talked about “Rand as a Psychologist,” while Schield presented his views on “Statistical Literacy for Critical Thinking.” John Davis spoke about the appropriate role of “Rites, Rituals, and Ceremonies,” including examples. And Cosman gave a tour de force in “Dagny Shoots and Flies.”

Duncan Scott showed clips from the Objectivist History Project in a presentation entitled “Objectivism: the Long-Range Perspective” and interviewed Dr. Nathaniel Branden before a large audience as part of the Project. Scott also screened the film Night of January 16, which he calls Rand’s other forgotten film. Speaking of films, Kerry O’Quinn presented his proposed Anthem project—he is making a serious attempt to do a movie of that Rand classic.

For the first time, the Advanced Seminar was presented as a portion of the regular Summer Seminar. See the article about that part of the program in this edition of Logbook.

The free day found the group scattered far and wide in the area, rafting, boating, caving, dining, and enjoying the many experiences offered in the Albany-Schenectady area.

As always, the Summer Seminar saw a rich variety of informal, participant-sponsored seminars. People gathered in the common room for talk ranging from discussions on epistemology to personal story-telling, all while playing Uno and Texas Hold ’Em poker, and renewing old friendships and making new ones.

The Sponsors Dinner was held at the River Stone Manor, where the evening featured a delightful meal and talks by Kelley and Hudgins.

The closing banquet capped the week with a nice dinner and dancing into the night. For further entertainment, Mike Shapiro provided an irreverent look at the events with a glance into an unusual future for the Center.

At its conclusion, the seminar drew enthusiastic reviews. Cathy Buckwalter is a long-time Objectivist but first-time attendee of the Summer Seminar. She commented: “Had a great, invigorating, intellectually and spiritually enervating time. Lots of fun, too! Nice to see Objectivists still have a sense of humor.”

Center supporter Jerry Biggers noted, “I found the TOC Summer Seminar to be an exhilarating and intellectually stimulating experience.”

And long-time attendee Jeff Filo said, “The seminar has been the highlight of my July for the last ten years.”

Don’t miss next year’s seminar!

Advanced Seminar Held in New Format

The Advanced Seminar is a graduate-level gathering to discuss original work on technical issues in Objectivism, with admission by application. Previously held as a separate event prior to the Summer Seminar, it was offered this year as a three-session “seminar within the seminar.” The topics ranged from Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead to theories of human nature. As in the past, the scholarly papers were distributed to participants in advance and the sessions themselves, moderated by senior fellow David Kelley, were devoted to critical discussion and debate.

Jason Walker, a graduate student in philosophy at the University of Wisconsin, led off with his paper on reductionism in the philosophy of science and its bearing on the relationship between consciousness and the brain. Unlike the many philosophical and religious doctrines that assume a dichotomy between mind and body, Objectivism sees them as integrated aspects of human nature. But there is still a narrower question: what exactly is the relation between consciousness and the brain? Reductionism (or physicalism, as it is sometimes called) is the view that the phenomena of conscious thought and experience can be fully explained by neural causes. Walker argued that this view is compatible with the reality and causal efficacy of the mind—claims that many of the participants challenged in the course of a probing discussion.

The session exemplified the purpose of the Advanced Seminar. The goal, says William R Thomas, director of programs, “is to encourage the development of a high-quality scholarly literature on philosophical topics that is written from an Objectivist perspective and of a community of scholars working in and around these ideas.”

In the second session, psychologist Christopher Robinson, who teaches at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, reviewed recent arguments and evidence for innate dispositions in humans. As Steven Pinker observed in his widely read book The Blank Slate, the pendulum in psychology has swung from the view that human nature is highly plastic, determined by a person’s environment and life history, as behaviorists once claimed, to the view that many features are innate, the product of evolutionary selection. In this context, Robinson addressed two complex and controversial areas, gender identity (the sense of oneself as male or female) and sexual preference, arguing that both of these are largely if not entirely innate. The paper and discussion focused on the strength of the evidence, on what it did and did not prove, and on what it implied about the nature of emotions.

The final session dealt with Lester Hunt’s paper, “Thus Spoke Howard Roark: The Transformation of Nietzschean Ideas in The Fountainhead.” Hunt is a philosophy professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and author of Nietzsche and the Origin of Virtue, among other works. Despite the similarities between Ayn Rand and Friedrich Nietzsche in their rejection of altruism and pity as moral ideals and their exalted sense of human achievement, Rand rejected Nietzsche’s view that the noble self seeks power. Hunt showed how thoroughly The Fountainhead exposes the corruption of power-seeking on all levels, moral, spiritual, and practical.

Since the Advanced Seminar was held as a “seminar within a seminar,” regular attendees of the Summer Seminar were able to attend but not to participate in the discussion. A number of them commented positively on this opportunity to see inside the workings of the Advanced Seminar.