Allan and Joan Mitchell Blumenthal's lectures on music (1974)


Recommended Posts

Roger,

David Kelley's review of OPAR, in the old IOS Newsletter, is understated in its criticisms but makes some good points.

Robert Campbell

The review is available online at:

http://www.objectivistcenter.org/cth--37-Peikoffs_Summa.aspx

Enjoy,

Bill P

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I just finished transcribing lectures 11 and 12 of the Blumenthals' music lectures. Very good stuff. I recommend it highly.

I'm now transcribing Peikoff's 1976 course, "The Philosophy of Objectivism." I plan to use MS Word's "comment" function -- or maybe a two-column format -- to do a side-by-side comparison of these lectures with the actual text of OPAR (1991), which was based on these lectures, but with quite a bit of re-writing and re-organizing. Also, I will do footnote critiques of the passages where I think Peikoff went off course, or is simply wrong in both 1976 and 1991. His book has been out for nearly 20 years, and there still isn't a decent, in-depth critique of it. In my spare time, I will gradually try to remedy that lack. Also, if anyone knows of a review of OPAR that they think does justice to it, without swallowing it whole, I'd like to read it.

REB

one should also do a cross comparison with Branden's lecture series...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks, guys--those are good sources. Here are two more, (1) a review by Nicholas Dykes, posted at Thomas Gramstad's Post-Objectivism web site:

Dykes review of OPAR

and (2) a review by David Gordon in The Journal of Libertarian Studies:

Gordon review of OPAR

All 4 now,

REB

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 year later...

I have listened to both versions of the Blumenthal music course -- all of the course as originally delivered and then a couple patches of the re-done lectures produced much later. I can't speak to whether the sound quality of the musical excerpts is better in the revised lecture series, but I infinitely prefer the first version, with Allan Blumenthal's humor and the audience reactions. I don't see what was added by having both Joan and Allan delivering the lectures in the re-do, somewhat monotonously; although I suppose they may have updated some of their observations and commentary. But the revised version is nowhere near as engaging as the lectures as originally recorded, and it is a shame that the original version of the lectures became unavailable after LFB began carrying the revised set. I haven't noticed even the latter being available in more recent years, though I could easily be wrong about that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

REB--Gordon strikes you as the kind of fair-minded critic of OPAR you're looking for? Whenever he can give the least-charitable reading to Peikoff he does, and he is riled from the get-go by the plainest metaphysics because he doesn't want to believe that you can't tuck God into the very beginning of thought about what self-evidency and the like. His critique is worth reading but I doubt there's a passage in the book that he wouldn't go at hammer and tong if some paid him enough to justify spending so much time on the book. Gordon also found zilch of any value in Ominous Parallels, although he granted, I think, that Peikoff was at least clear.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now