Objectivist Studies Flourishing at TOC

When the Institute for Objectivist Studies became The Objectivist Center, responsibility for continuing to develop Objectivist scholarship fell to the center's Research and Training Division, headed by David Kelley and William R Thomas.

"We have three basic goals for our projects: expansion, training, and promotion," says Thomas. "We want to expand and enrich Objectivism as a philosophical system by sponsoring new scholarly research, breaking new ground, taking on difficult and interesting questions. We want to help train scholars, intellectuals, and public advocates who are committed to advancing this philosophy, giving them the thinking and speaking skills—and the knowledge of Objectivism—that they need to be effective as philosophers and public intellectuals. Finally, we want to increase awareness of and support for Objectivism among the academic mainstream. When we succeed in getting Rand into the average university's introduction to philosophy—as a figure who must be contended with—we'll know we've arrived."

Even with the center's growth over the past few years, not all these goals can be achieved at once. "At this time," Kelley noted in a recent report to the center's trustees, "the Expansion and Training objectives have higher priority than Promotion. Before we can have any significant impact on mainstream scholars, we must develop the technical aspects of Objectivist ideas in a way that relates to the issues of concern to scholars; and we must have a critical mass of trained Objectivist intellectuals."

Teaching Speakers to Speak

The division's year-round training activities involve two major programs: the Effective Communication Workshop and the Internet-based Cyberseminar in Objectivist Studies.

The Effective Communication Workshop was offered on an open-application basis for the first time this fall, meeting over the November 5-7 weekend at TOC's offices and Vassar College. It was taught by Kelley and Thomas, along with writing consultant Susan McCloskey. The participants included the center's new communications manager, Patrick Stephens, Montessori teacher Wayne Anderson, businesswoman and Camp IndeCon founder Hannelore Bugby, writer and bookseller Scott Orbach, and computer programmer and philosopher Diana Hsieh. The workshop consistently receives rave reviews from participants, who develop their potential as public speakers over the course of an intensive weekend of practice, criticism, and instruction. (For the details of previous workshops, see "IOS Takes Communication Workshop on the Road, in Navigator Vol. 2, No. 10, June 1999; and "Thoughts That Breath and Burn" in Vol. 2, No. 8, April 1999.)

Of course, there are many seminars, books, and clubs that offer a training in rhetorical and presentation skills. So, what makes the ECW distinctive? "First of all," says Kelley, "we relate the common techniques to underlying principles of the Objectivist epistemology. That makes the familiar techniques intelligible—and suggests new ones that aren't taught elsewhere. Secondly, we are concerned with the students' ability to present Objectivist ideas accurately and in terms of essentials, so we give extensive feedback on the substance of presentations, not just the manner in which the ideas are conveyed."

Stephens commented on his experience at the workshop: "As communications manager for the center, I attended hoping to improve my speaking skills and to see how the workshop contributed to the center's outreach goals. The results were more than I had hoped for. Not only did I get valuable instruction, but I rediscovered the most powerful tool for communicating Objectivism: Objectivists themselves. If all Objectivists were the polished and capable communicators that the graduates of these workshops are, a cultural revolution would be well under way."

The next Effective Communication Workshop will be February 4-6, 2000, and once again in Poughkeepsie, Further offerings are tentatively planned for late spring and next fall. If you are interested in this invaluable experience of self-enrichment, check out the Effective Communication Workshop advertisement on the TOC Web site or call TOC offices for an application and more information.

Teaching Thinkers to Think

Since mid-September, TOC's senior fellow, Rockford College philosophy professor Stephen Hicks, has been leading the fall 1999 Cyberseminar in Objectivist Studies. This Internet-based seminar brings together promising students and scholars to study topics in philosophy and intellectual history from an Objectivist standpoint, employing a distinctively Objectivist method of analysis. The topic Hicks chose for the cyberseminar's fall term is "The Continental Origins of Postmodernism," focusing on four twentieth-century thinkers who represent steps on the road to the postmodernist anti-Enlightenment outlook that now dominates the humanities in American universities: Martin Heidegger, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, and Richard Rorty. Heidegger, a German existentialist, advocated nothingness as the ultimate something. Foucault, a French historian, taught that every social interaction or event (especially speech) is an act of force and that intellectual debates are thus really conflicts over power. Derrida, a French literary theorist, denies that there is objective meaning in language, which he treats as "the free play of signs." Rorty, an American philosopher who agrees that objectivity and truth are outmoded notions, has been a prominent defender of pragmatism.

In studying these thinkers, the cyberseminar participants have aimed to set aside their preconceptions and see for themselves what each author actually says in certain well-known, representative essays. In discussions aimed at identifying the essential elements of each thinker's work, participants have found that postmodernism rests on a complex, multifaceted lineage, and that this contemporary outlook, despite its errors of content and method, poses fresh challenges to Objectivist ideas. Cyberseminar discussions have generated food for thought on topics such as the axioms of existence and identity, the role of power in social relations, and the relationship between reason and madness.

There are fifteen active participants in the fall cyberseminar; six additional faculty members have also elected to take part. Participants are required to write two short essays over the course of the seminar, discussing particular works. Six or seven participants are expected to comment on each piece over the course of two weeks. As moderator, William R Thomas encourages participants to write concisely and to the point, so that cyberseminar posts address the issues in an orderly, productive manner. During the most recent cyberseminar, Hicks added a summarizing essay every three weeks, drawing together the themes raised in the comments on the work under discussion.

The cyberseminar will begin a new term in late January as Hicks leads a discussion of the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900). Because Nietzsche's thought influenced Ayn Rand, and because he is often interpreted as advocating a form of egoism that is similar to Rand's, Nietzsche is a figure of especial interest for Objectivists. In addition, the burgeoning field of Nietzsche scholarship may provide an audience that, in due course, will find studies of Rand appealing.

Advancing Objectivism

The primary vehicles that the Research and Training division uses for the Expansion of Objectivism are the Objectivist Studies academic monograph series, the research work of TOC's staff, and the annual Advanced Seminar in Objectivist Studies. TOC will be reporting news about monograph publications and ongoing staff research projects as they come to fruition.

The 2000 Advanced Seminar is currently in the process of being planned by an advisory committee comprising Kelley, Thomas, philosopher Carolyn Ray, and mathematician and TOC advisor David Ross. It will be held at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver just prior to the summer seminar, which begins on that campus July 1. Kelley notes that "although the Advanced Seminar serves a training function for its participants, its primary goal will be to survey and discuss areas of Objectivism that need further development and to provide critical feedback for scholars presenting new ideas." Thomas adds: "By encouraging scholars working within the Objectivist method to write up their research and present it at the Advanced Seminar, we hope to provide a gateway for the creation of new extensions and applications of Objectivism in philosophical scholarship." The schedule and format of the Advanced Seminar will depend on the research papers that are selected for presentation, but it is expected that the overall duration will be 2-3 days.

The Advanced Seminar is offered free to qualified scholars and students; admission is limited to maintain the graduate-seminar atmosphere of open discussion and a shared intellectual context. Application information for the seminar will be made available at the same time as Summer Seminar applications. Readers who are interested in proposing an Advanced Seminar presentation will find a request for proposals on The Objectivist Center Web site. The deadline for Advanced Seminar presentation proposals is February 1.