Center Hosts First Graduate Seminar

The Objectivist Center held its first Graduate Seminar on July 31 through August 7, at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York. It was a smashing success.

The planning process for the event started about a year beforehand. In the summer of 2003, David Kelley and William Thomas met with TOC sponsor Ashwin Vasan, who was interested in supporting programs for Objectivist graduate students. One fruit of this meeting was the Graduate Scholarships awarded this spring to Walter Foddis and Shawn Klein. In addition, Vasan, Thomas, and Kelley agreed that greater training for young Objectivist intellectuals would offer a huge benefit for advancing the philosophy. As a result of this meeting—and thanks to the support of Vasan and the Center's other members—Kelley and Thomas were recently able to hold the first Graduate Seminar in Objectivist Philosophy and Method.

Nine post-graduate students joined instructors Kelley and Thomas for seven days of intensive discussions of Objectivist literature, Objectivist arguments, and philosophical method. The students taking part were: Don Baldino, who is pursuing a Ph.D. in philosophy at Temple University; Christopher Baylor, who is beginning Ph.D. studies in political science at Boston College; Heather Demarest, a recent summa cum laude graduate of the University of Colorado who plans a Ph.D. in philosophy of science; Shawn Klein, who has been awarded a graduate scholarship to pursue his Ph.D. in philosophy at Arizona State University; Marcy Lascano and Jason Raibley, both of the Ph.D. program in philosophy at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst; Francisco Villalobos, who is working on his philosophy dissertation at the CUNY graduate center in New York; Michael Young, a Ph.D. student in philosophy at Brown University; and Joshua Zader, a Ph.D. student in clinical psychology at the University of New Mexico.

A key element of the seminar was the writing sample provided by each student. These short papers or excerpts challenged, analyzed, and augmented key positions in Objectivism. In crafting the course syllabus, Kelley matched up the papers with topics in philosophy that he planned to cover, ranging from basic principles of epistemology and metaphysics to ethics. The seminar sessions then dug into the substance of Objectivism on key topics in each field. Thomas's main contribution was to conduct discussions of Objectivism's politics and of the papers that addressed issues in politics and social ethics. The students were assigned readings in advance and had additional readings over the course of the week. The schedule allowed ample free time for reading and informal discussions, but of course there was never enough time once the intellectual sparks started flying.

Francisco Villalobos remarked that the sessions, which were mostly extended lectures by Kelley interspersed with active discussion with the students, reminded him of the breakthrough first Summer Seminar in 1990, which he had attended. Generally, the student reactions to the experience were enthusiastic. "I have never before experienced such unqualified support and encouragement," commented Don Baldino, who added that the seminar's philosophical content was "excellent. I gained a greater appreciation of Objectivism as an integrated system." "Overall, it was a great idea," said Heather Demarest, "and a fantastic experience."And in his Web log, Joshua Zader wrote that he would "strongly recommend (the seminar) to any graduate (or soon-to-be-graduate) student with a serious interest in Objectivism."

Though the Graduate Seminar last met on August 7, the learning continued as the students revised their essays and Kelley and Thomas prepared final evaluations. And the spirit of the seminar lives on in the reinforced relationships and strengthened community of scholars bringing objectivity and intellectual independence to the exploration and development of Ayn Rand's revolutionary philosophy.