Leonard Peikoff

Leonard Sylvan Peikoff (/ˈpiːkɒf/; born October 15, 1933) is a Canadian American philosopher. He is an Objectivist and was a close associate of Ayn Rand, who designated him heir to her estate. Peikoff is a former professor of philosophy and host of a nationally syndicated radio talk show. He co-founded the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI) in 1985 and is the author of several books on philosophy.

Leonard Peikoff was born on October 15, 1933 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, to Samuel Peikoff, MD, a surgeon, and his wife Bessie, a band leader. He attended the University of Manitoba from 1950 to 1953 as a pre-med student. However, following his early discussions with Rand, he transferred to New York University to study philosophy, where he received his BA, MA, and PhD degrees in philosophy in 1954, 1957, and 1964, respectively. His doctoral dissertation adviser was the noted American pragmatist philosopher Sidney Hook, and his dissertation dealt with the metaphysical status of the law of noncontradiction. He taught philosophy for many years at various colleges.

Peikoff first met Ayn Rand through his cousin Barbara Branden (then Barbara Weidman) in California when he was 17. He reports that this meeting with Rand made him aware of the profound importance of philosophy. When Rand moved to New York City in 1951, Peikoff decided to study philosophy at New York University. While studying at NYU, he frequently discussed philosophy privately with Rand in depth across a range of issues.

Peikoff, along with Nathaniel Branden, Alan Greenspan, Barbara Branden, and a number of other close associates, who jokingly called themselves "The Collective", met frequently with Rand to discuss philosophy and politics, as well as to read and discuss Rand's then-forthcoming novel, Atlas Shrugged, in her Manhattan apartment. In 1958, Branden founded the Nathaniel Branden Lectures, later renamed the Nathaniel Branden Institute (NBI), to promote Objectivism through lectures and educational seminars around the United States. Peikoff was among NBI's first lecturers, teaching a course on the history of philosophy. By the early 1960s, NBI had representatives in multiple cities who replayed taped versions of the lectures to local audiences.

Discussions with Peikoff and Allan Gotthelf in the 1960s motivated Rand to complete an extended monograph on concept-formation, Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. Rand included Peikoff's essay critiquing the analytic–synthetic dichotomy when it was published in book form in 1979. Peikoff was also an active participant in Rand's 1969–71 workshops on the monograph, as well as subsequent, smaller philosophy workshops at Rand's apartment. Peikoff later used the transcripts of these workshops to create an expanded edition of Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, which he co-edited with Harry Binswanger.

Following the dissolution of NBI in 1968, Peikoff continued to give private lecture courses on a variety of topics to large Objectivist audiences, and recordings of these have been sold for many years. His lecture courses include: The History of Philosophy (in two "volumes" of lectures), An Introduction to Logic, The Art of Thinking, Induction in Physics and Philosophy, Moral Virtue, A Philosophy of Education, Understanding Objectivism, The Principles of Objective Communication, and Eight Great Plays. Rand endorsed his 1976 lecture series on Objectivism as the best exposition of her philosophy, the only one she knew to be accurate.

Peikoff's first book, The Ominous Parallels, was both an Objectivist explanation of the rise of the Third Reich and The Holocaust, and a warning that America was being led down the road to totalitarianism because of far-reaching philosophical and cultural parallels between the Weimar Republic and the present-day United States. In her introduction, Rand said it was the first book by an Objectivist philosopher other than herself.

Rand named Peikoff the legal heir to her estate. As the executor of Rand's will, Peikoff handles the copyrights to all of her works, with the exception of Anthem, which has passed into the public domain. He has supervised the editing and release of Rand's unpublished works in several volumes, which includes her letters, philosophical journals, and the fiction not published in her lifetime; he has also written forewords for all the current printings of her fiction. For several years, he continued Rand's tradition of lecturing annually at Boston's Ford Hall Forum, and his other lecture appearances have included an address to the cadets at West Point and another while cruising the Greek islands.