The Intrinsic, the Subjective, and the Objective (Part 1)

At our 2001 Summer Seminar Dr. David Ross offered this engaging overview of one of Ayn Rand's most important contributions to philosophy: the objective, subjective, intrinsic trichotomy. Objectivity is under attack from many directions today, but what is objectivity? And what viewpoints stand opposed to it?

In forming her philosophy of objectivism, Ayn Rand insightfully identified instrinsicism and subjectivism as the two essential philosophical approaches that stand against the objective approach. Using examples from cinema, biology, ethics, and the culinary arts, Dr. Ross presents the basics of instrinsicism and subjectivism, both as philosophical approaches and as thinking styles. And he demonstrates how this distinction is useful in identifying philosophical and psycho-epistemological errors as well as in elucidating the nature of objectivity itself.

 Listen to Part 2 of The Intrinsic, the Subjective, and the Objective

David Ross received his PhD in mathematics from New York University and presently is a professor in the Center for Applied and Computational Mathematics at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Dr. Ross conducts research in computational physics and mathematical biology. He was previously a mathematician at Kodak Research Labs. He is the author of Mathematical Models and Photographic Science, he holds several patents, and has been a frequent lecturer at Atlas Society conferences.

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