Program
General Sessions
Concurrent Sessions
Meals
4:00 – 7:00 PMThe Atrium (CBA 3.400)Registration and Check-In
Details forthcoming.
7:00 – 9:00 PMThe Atrium (CBA 3.400)Welcoming Remarks by Tal Tsfany and Opening Reception
Meet and mingle with fellow attendees at the official opening of AynRandCon-USA 2024! Includes light fare.
9:00 – 10:30 AMCBA 3.202 "Legacy Hall" Ben BayerUnderstanding “For the New Intellectual”
“For the New Intellectual” was Ayn Rand’s first published major work of nonfiction philosophical commentary, but also one of her richest. In this session, we’ll work to understand why she chose to cover the subject of the essay after writing Atlas Shrugged, explore some of its essential advice for intellectuals, and think about how this advice would apply to today’s intellectual scene.
Click here to download the homework for this session. If you submit your work by the listed deadline, your assignment might be selected for discussion during the conference!
11:00 AM – 12:00 PMCBA 3.202 "Legacy Hall" Greg SalmieriKeynote: The Objectivity of Valuing
In The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand described “the act of valuing” as “your soul’s single basic function.” Elsewhere she describes values (even ultimate ends) as being chosen by reason, and speaks of valuing as something one has to learn how to do. This talk expands upon this idea of valuing as an activity. It stresses the centrality of valuing in life as such (including plant and animal life), and explains how, in a human being, valuing is a rational process.
This means that (contra traditional philosophical views, according to which values are dictated to reason either by external reality or by our emotions), we each have to form the values by which we direct our lives. Such values are objective when they’re formed rationally, based on the valuer’s knowledge of his own nature, of the causes by which he can achieve the values, and of how they contribute to a self-sustaining life of his choosing. The talk will stress the rational creativity involved in forming and pursuing values. It will discuss the components of the activity of valuing, and the role in it of moral principles.
This talk will be free and open to the public.
1:30 – 2:30 PMCBA 3.202 "Legacy Hall" Jason RheinsThe Origins of Enlightenment: Some Lessons from the Hellenic Era
In this talk we begin from the notion that an enlightenment is the intellectual achievement of a culture wherein all aspects of nature and society come under the judgment of human reason informed by experience. We then turn to the so-called Greek Enlightenment of the 5th-4th BCE and ask what made it intellectually possible. More precisely, we will focus on the key roles of the metaphysical concepts of “φύσις” (phusis) and “νόμος” (nomos), i.e., “nature” and “convention,” in making possible inquiry capable of both questioning the basis of existing human institutions and reimagining more rational alternatives and the epistemic roles of empirical investigation and philosophical interrogation in furnishing such inquiry with both questions and answers.
2:50 – 3:50 PMCBA 3.202 "Legacy Hall" Jason Rheins, Greg Salmieri, Tara SmithPanel on Reason as a Cultural Force
What does it mean for a culture to value and to practice reason, and what are the results? How can this value when embraced by a community feed on itself, attracting and inspiring the best people and the best within each of them? Where do we see this phenomenon in history and around the world today? What are the main obstacles to its spread, and how can it overcome them? In what ways (and in what parts) of our own culture is reason most valued, and in what areas is this this value most absent or under attack? What can we do as individuals to immerse ourselves in a culture of reason and to be a force for its spread?
9:00 –10:30 AMGSB 2.120 Ben Bayer and Jason Rheins What Christianity Did and Did Not Contribute to Western Civilization
Recent thinkers championed by conservatives have urged that Christianity is the essential driving force of some of the great values of Western civilization. While it’s doubtless that it’s had an impact, there’s a need to critically explore the nature of that impact, both for better and for worse. In this workshop we’ll discuss some of the major claims, especially as advanced by Tom Holland’s book Dominion, about Christianity’s alleged contribution to morality, politics, and science.
9:00 –10:30 AMCBA 3.202 "Legacy Hall" Tara Smith The State of Conceptual Thinking in Contemporary Culture
We live in an era of astonishing intellectual feats and we benefit daily from their material results. At the same time, cultural commentators have been increasingly warning of intellectual decay, pointing to trends in people’s reading habits and attention spans, superficial modes of communication, and staleness in the arts, among many other indicators of apparent decline.
Fifty-plus years after Ayn Rand decried the anti-conceptual mentality, where do we stand today? This seminar will take a measure of contemporary culture’s cognitive condition. We will begin by surveying the good and the bad. To the extent that we do find anti-conceptual currents, we will proceed to ask: what are the causes? What are the costs? And what might be effective means of combatting these, in one’s own thinking as well as in society around us?
11:00 AM –12:30 PMGSB 2.120 Jason RheinsCongenital Frailties of the European Enlightenment: A Case Study
In this workshop we will closely read short excerpts from D’Alembert’s Introduction to the Encyclopédie to get a sense of what the severely impoverished or even dysfunctional states of the fundamental branches of philosophy (metaphysics, epistemology, ethics) were at the political-theoretical highpoint of the Enlightenment.
11:00 AM – 12:30 PMCBA 3.202 "Legacy Hall" Gena Gorlin and Greg Salmieri
The Producer’s Mindset
The Producer’s Mindset
What is a producer’s psycho-epistemology and worldview? Where do we find it most manifest in the culture today? How can we foster it in ourselves? Readings to include the “Techno-Optimist Manifesto” and some of Gena’s work on the builder’s mindset.
2:00 – 3:30 PMCBA 3.202 "Legacy Hall" Ben Bayer, Gena Gorlin, Greg SalmieriQ&A Panel on Objectivism
After reflecting on the conference, here is your chance to ask any questions you have about Ayn Rand’s philosophy, Objectivism.
Objectivist Conferences / Ayn Rand® Institute reserves the right to make necessary adjustments to the schedule. Speakers, talks and events will be added periodically, as they are confirmed.
