Bowing to repeated listener requests for an Ayn Rand episode, on the eve of 6/9/13 the regular PEL foursome started our discussion, got tired after a couple of hours, and recorded some more on 6/13. We plan to edit the result heavily enough to reduce the amount of frustrated kvetching (“Is that actually supposed to be an argument? Why does she think just saying that and moving on is in any way adequate?”), but it’s not going to make objectivism fans happy, I can tell you. Know that we did make an honest attempt at engaging the material, though it was hard going, and not in the way that difficult passages in Heidegger are.
Rand offers up a foundationalist system that is is supposed to be in accord with modern science and based on empirically evident premises and clear reasoning from those that anyone who isn’t being self-deceptive or otherwise dense should be able to reproduce. Every perception we have reveals to us that the world exists (thus skepticism is incoherent and impossible as a practical matter), and a properly scientific understanding of concepts will show us that all legitimate tools of thought are based on abstractions from perceptual experience of concrete objects.
and interviewing her about it. She was a colleague of Dylan’s at St. John’s, and her book exhibits that love of etymology that has come up recently on PEL whenever Heidegger is mentioned, for which St. John’s is notorious. This is pretty much what you have to do to talk about Heraclitus, as there are no surviving full texts by the guy. He’s just quoted by other ancient writers. You can view all of his fragments 
I’m continuing to try to get some Rand thoughts related to The Fountainhead out of my system so that I won’t feel the need to bring them up while on the episode devoted to her more straightforwardly philosophical works. I also feel the periodic need for synthesis, to try to recap some ongoing themes in our episodes in a way that would require an overly long monologue if I tried to do this on the podcast itself. We’ve had a number of episodes now that weigh in on the development of the self. What I’ve often called the naive view of self is that advocated by 
, the earlier (and shorter) of her two main novels; she wrote it in the late 30s/early 40s (published 1943) before Atlas Shrugged or her expository philosophical pieces.
When I start responding to a comment on a previous post and find that my answer is getting longer than a paragraph, that means it’s time to either stop or to make a proper blog post out of it. This morning a newish (I guess) listener named Lewis posted 
There’s a claim I laid out from Deleuze in 
(1896) by 
I’ve been leaking tunes from this album on episodes 
As mentioned at the end of one of the recent episodes, Genevieve Arnold, who’s been good enough to do art for us both in last year’s PEL site redesign (like 
Perhaps you could start off with some traditional English 
or read 
or order 
. Get cracking now!
(1991). 
where he deals with the definition of terrorism. Note that he does, here, discuss states that use terrorism, and not just individuals. There’s even a section titled “Another Perspective” about Noam Chomsky. Jon gives some historical definitions and then also gives a tactical typology that places various actions on a spectrum from simply criminal activity to political activity with a corresponding type of response (i.e. law enforcement, law augmented with military force, military).
We briefly referred on 
, though the idea goes back to 
, a fat tome that graces many a wanna-be philosopher’s bookshelf (Mine included), likely not too far read. 
, which is the one I read, is his more recent work (2007), meant to expand upon the view of consciousness put forward in his earlier work.