Aristotle

Aristotle’s Lyceum by Robert Mayhew

In this talk, after a quick look at the life of Aristotle and his establishment of a philosophical school at the Lyceum, Dr. Mayhew will describe the grounds and buildings of the Lyceum, its use as a school of philosophy, and the possible reasons for its steady decline as a cultural influence in the centuries following Aristotle’s death. A brief account of some of the Aristotelians who came after him (e.g. Theophrastus and Eudemus) will be included.

Recorded live at Ayn Rand Con Europe 2023

Man’s Life as the Standard of Value in the Ethics of Ayn Rand and Aristotle by Gregory Salmieri

“Man’s life,” wrote Ayn Rand, “is the standard of morality.” Aristotle was the first to identify the proper standard of morality as the distinctly human form of life—the life of a rational animal. But Rand and Aristotle have importantly different views of what the human form of life is—in particular, about why reason is a value and how it relates to the faculties and the needs that human beings share with other living things. This talk explores the similarities and differences between these two ethicists.

Recorded live at Ayn Rand Con Europe 2023

Panel Discussion: Objectivism and Ancient Greek Philosophy with Robert Mayhew, Gregory Salmieri and Aaron Smith

Today’s earlier sessions were about Ayn Rand’s philosophy, Objectivism. In this panel we reflect on this philosophy in light of the nature of philosophy as a discipline and its origins in the thinkers of Ancient Athens. What is philosophy and why did it first arise in Ancient Greece and flower in Athens? What is the special significance of Socrates and Plato? Why did Rand see her “only philosophical debt“ as being to Aristotle and in what sense is her philosophy Aristotelian? What are the other philosophic systems from antiquity and how does Objectivism relate to them?

Recorded live at Ayn Rand Con Europe 2023

Aristotle and the Romantic Manifesto by Robert Mayhew

In the Romantic Manifesto, Ayn Rand reports that before she heard the name “Aristotle,” she had accepted his principle “that fiction is of greater philosophical importance than history, because history represents things only as they are, while fiction represents them ‘as they might be and ought to be.’” The aim of this talk is to explain the role of this principle in Aristotle’s esthetics and Ayn Rand’s, and to note other parallels between the Poetics and Romantic Manifesto.

Recorded live on June 27, 2019 in Cleveland, OH.

What Is Killing Western Civilization? with Douglas Murray, Claire Fox and Yaron Brook

Cultural observers have often noted that Europe — and, more broadly, Western civilization — despite historically unprecedented success, is in danger of losing itself. But what exactly is being lost, and why? And what can be done about it?

In a recent panel discussion entitled “What Is Killing Western Civilization?,” Yaron Brook (chairman of the board of the Ayn Rand Institute) and Douglas Murray (author of The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam) met at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers lecture theatre in central London to discuss the future of Western civilization in the context of its own identity crisis and the growing trend of immigration to the West from those outside it — and, in some cases, hostile to it. The panel, moderated by Claire Fox (director and founder of Academy of Ideas), addressed such questions as:

  • What is Western civilization?
  • What is the nature of the crisis that the West faces?
  • How should one think about immigration in today’s world?

Free Speech, Free Minds, Free Markets with Yaron Brook, Dave Rubin and Eric Weinstein

A conversation about freedom, between Yaron Brook, Dave Rubin and Eric Weinstein.