Old Peikoff courses at knockdown prices

[9thdoctor]

These are like 1/20th the old rates.

https://estore.aynrand.org/c/7/leonard-peikoff

[caroljane]

That is kind of sad. in those lectures should be the best of his "sense of life". He said recently, that his great pleasure was in teaching and talking, whereas writing was a torture, even though apparently his latest book is an essentialization of his lectures over many years,

[9thdoctor]

That is kind of sad. in those lectures should be the best of his "sense of life". He said recently, that his great pleasure was in teaching and talking, whereas writing was a torture, even though apparently his latest book is an essentialization of his lectures over many years,

Huh? He's probably just trying to maximize revenue. Why's it sad?

[caroljane]

That is kind of sad. in those lectures should be the best of his "sense of life". He said recently, that his great pleasure was in teaching and talking, whereas writing was a torture, even though apparently his latest book is an essentialization of his lectures over many years,

Huh? He's probably just trying to maximize revenue. Why's it sad?

I don't know really. It just feels sad to me, maybe that he is trying to maximise revenue, from the long past intellectual exuberance of his salad days.

[PDS]

I agree with Daunce. It's sad for the same reason that conducting a garage sale is sad.

"I played lots of good rounds of golf with those clubs, but now my back won't let me play anymore. Go ahead and sell em Mildred... try to get 100 bucks but give em away if you have to...." etc., etc.

[Jerry Biggers]

What do you guys know about the reasons for this "sale?" Is it because they are shedding their Peikoviana, or did they just realize that their tape/CD prices were grossly overpriced?

Whatever the case, these really are drastic reductions. Some of them are still not worth it (see for example, his "Certainty in Thought and Action," and his "Why should one act on principle?") because they do not live up to their titles. But at these prices, find out for yourself why I say that. Maybe I missed his points in these two lectures, but I don't think so.

Generally, though, these are worth listening to, especially his course sets. One caveat emptor, his "Advanced Lectures on OPAR" are actually his first presentation of the draft material for his yet-to-be-published OPAR, given to attendees at summer seminars in 1990 or 1989 in Pennsylvania at the Second Renaissance/ARI summer seminars. This is quite obvious when listening to the first lecture in the set. It could more accurately be entitled "My commentary on my re-write of my original 1976 taped course, The Philosophy of Objectivism, preparing it for print publication." Still interesting, but hardly living up to its new title.

[9thdoctor]

What do you guys know about the reasons for this "sale?" Is it because they are shedding their Peikoviana, or did they just realize that their tape/CD prices were grossly overpriced?

I suspect that part of their thought process is that they realize people are going to put this stuff up for free as bit-torrents, and that there's just no stopping it. So, if they keep the prices low, they'll actually get more revenue because it won't make sense for anyone to go through the trouble.