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Aristotle's metaphysics—his view of the fundamental nature of reality—was a brilliant and (for the most part) this-worldly attempt at avoiding two incorrect positions: Greek materialism, according to which every aspect of reality is reducible to matter; and Platonism, which held that what is real is a supernatural, non-material world of forms.

Aristotle’s Poetics is one of the seminal works in the history of esthetics, and remarkably close to Ayn Rand’s literary esthetics in essentials. This course is an introduction to the Poetics, with an eye on its similarities to and differences from the Objectivist esthetics.

In this lecture on ethics in education, Ayn Rand describes the role of Romantic art in a young person’s development of normative concepts and a “moral sense of life,” as well as the moral and psychological consequences of the disappearance of Romantic art from modern Western culture.

Ayn Rand's epochal novel, first published in 1957, has been a continual bestseller as well as an intellectual landmark. It is the story of a man who said that he would stop the motor of the world—and did. Was he a destroyer or the greatest of liberators? Why did he have to fight his battle, not against his enemies but against those who needed him most—and his...See More

Read by Scott Brick. Unabridged, professional reading. The incomparable novel about the men of the mind on strike against the creed of self-sacrifice. This is the complete, unabridged CD audiobook.

Read by Scott Brick. Unabridged, professional reading. The incomparable novel about the men of the mind on strike against the creed of self-sacrifice.

America, Ayn Rand once declared, “is culturally bankrupt”—it “is a country without voice or defense—a country sold out and abandoned by her intellectual bodyguards.” Thompson’s talk will show how Atlas Shrugged provides a philosophically mute America with a philosophical voice, the purpose of which was to launch a moral revolution. The novel’s characters and themes...See More

Ayn Rand stated the theme of "Atlas Shrugged" as: "the role of the mind in man's existence - and, as corollary, the demonstration of a new moral philosophy: the morality of rational self-interest." This course discusses the manner in which the novel demonstrates a new moral philosophy. It follows the protagonists as they induce the philosophy from the events of the...See More

Finally, a study guide to "Atlas Shrugged" and it is of value to both beginners and advanced students. (Booklet; 133 pages)

The theme of "Atlas Shrugged" is "The role of the mind in man's existence." In this talk, Dr. Salmieri discusses two essential aspects of this role as they are dramatized in the novel. First, the mind is the faculty that makes possible the production of the material values we need to survive. Second, it is the faculty by which we conceive and pursue the values that...See More