Intensive Seminar on Objectivism Part I: Foundations | 2025

The Intensive Seminar on Objectivism compresses what was a two-year course into a single year. It is aimed at students who want a challenging and intensive study of Objectivism as a system of philosophy and how some of Rand’s key ideas compare and contrast with those of other philosophers. Each part of the intensive course is two quarters long and corresponds to a year of the original course, so the workload is roughly double that of a standard ARU course. 

The purpose of the Intensive Seminar is to help you learn how to better understand various principles of Objectivism and philosophical issues more generally, including the subject of philosophy and the fact that Objectivism’s principles often address long-standing philosophical issues and approaches. Part I focuses on foundational issues. Part II focuses on the guidance Objectivism offers in epistemology, ethics, and politics.

The cash value of gaining a better understanding of the principles of Objectivism, including some of its advice about proper philosophical methodology, is that the philosophy can become more fully an aid to your own life: to your thinking, including to your thinking about the intellectual world at large, to your work, and to your happiness. 

Prerequisites or Corequisites: None. 100-level courses have “Objectivism through Ayn Rand’s Fiction” or the “Intensive Seminar on Objectivism” as a corequisite.

Part II has Part I as a prerequisite.

Please note: Students who complete Part I but not Part II will receive 6 credits, but will not fulfill the Objectivism Seminar requirement. This is because key concepts in Objectivism are still to be covered in Part II. Students who fail to complete Part II of the intensive seminar must take the 16-Week Objectivism Seminar course to fulfill the ARU Certificate requirements.

Course Start Date: October 23, 2024