Philosophy Overdose

One important reason Marx thought the revolution was inevitable was that in a capitalist society the labor force was alienated. But what is alienation? Jonathan Wolff briefly explains what Marx meant by alienated labor, as well as Marx's controversial vision of what non-alienated labor might be like. This comes from an episode of Philosophy Bites from a few years back: http://www.philosophybites.com/

Uploaded 08-07-21

#philosophy #marx #politicalphilosophy



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In this introductory program on the mind-body problem from 1998, the relation between mind and body is discussed by various philosophers (including W. V. Quine, David Chalmers, Paul Churchland, Daniel Dennett, Hilary Putnam, Hubert Dreyfus, Charles Taylor, John Searle, and Nicholas Jolley). Among other things, they discuss Descartes' dualism, Thomas Hobbes' materialism, Gilbert Ryle's behaviorism, the Turing Test, the Chinese Room, and reductionism. This comes from the 1998 Εxαminϵd Life series.

Uploaded 30-06-24

#philosophy #consciousness #metaphysics #philosophyofmind #materialism #mind #descartes



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Ronald Dworkin gives a very brief, introductory overview of John Rawls' "A Theory of Justice" and Robert Nozick's "Anarchy, State, and Utopia" in an interview with Bryan Magee from 1977. Although both wrote very influential works of political philosophy, they came to quite different conclusions. Rawls famously put forward a novel argument for his position which made use of a thought experiment involving a hypothetical contract. Unlike other social contract theories though, Rawls added the further twist that the bargainers must be ignorant about certain facts about themselves which could bias them in their own favor (e.g. their race, gender, class, age, talents, etc.). In this way, ignorance is used as a device to guarantee impartiality in deciding how societies should be structured. After all, one cannot rig things to benefit oneself at the expense of others if one doesn't know what one's personal interests are or what one's position in society will be. Rawls argued that behind this so-called "veil of ignorance" people would agree to two principles, the most interesting being the difference principle, which states that economic inequalities can only be justified if they are to the benefit of the worst off in society. However, such a view was rejected by Nozick, who argued from a starting point of absolute rights of property which cannot be violated without one's consent. Despite such a strong principle, Nozick argued that there can still be a kind of minimal state, what he called a "night-watchman state", which protects property and person. One way to think of the difference in views between Rawls and Nozick (albeit this may be overly simplistic and even misleading in certain respects) is that while Nozick privileges liberty and rights over equality and fairness, Rawls instead privileges that of equality and fairness. (My Summary)

Uploaded 15-06-21

This clip is of Ronald Dworkin discussing the political thought of John Rawls and Robert Nozick in a 1977 interview with Bryan Magee. It is an upload from the previous channel.

The full interview can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gySLm3Z1OvA

00:00 John Rawls
12:13 Robert Nozick

#philosophy #politicalphilosophy #politicaltheory #rawls #bryanmagee #historyofphilosophy



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G. A. Cohen impersonates Sir Isaiah Berlin in this short clip from 1991.

Uploaded 28-06-25

#philosophy #isaiahberlin



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Wittgenstein described some of his views as being the opposite of Socrates'. Socrates famously sought essential definitions for concepts such as Truth, Justice, Knowledge, Goodness, Beauty, etc. This search for the definition or essential nature of things (i.e. the necessary and sufficient conditions for a given concept) is the very paradigm of philosophical or conceptual analysis. But according to Wittgenstein, such abstract terms do not have or do not need to have an underlying essence which all the particular instances have in common. We understand the meaning of such terms enough to be able to use them, even if we cannot spell out their precise conditions. Indeed, things of the same kind need not share any underlying universal or common nature, but only a variety of overlapping similarities, which Wittgenstein famously called "family resemblances". In this way, Wittgenstein was something of a nominalist, rejecting essentialism. So too, while Socrates was always looking for deeper explanations, Wittgenstein was quite skeptical of this sort of intellectualism. For although the unexamined life is not worth living, the endlessly examined life is something that isn't even livable.

Uploaded 10-06-21

This talk was given by James Klagge at the Wittgenstein Archive at Bergen, University of Bergen, Norway, March 6, 2012. It is a re-upload.

#philosophy #wittgenstein #socrates #plato #historyofphilosophy #epistemology



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Audio recording of a 2016 lecture by the philosopher and cultural theorist Kwame Anthony Appiah on culture as part of his Reith Lectures on Mistaken Identities. He says the idea of "Western civilization" or "Western culture" is a mistaken one and that we should abandon it. He uncovers the history of the idea from its roots at the time of the Crusades to its modern incarnation in the second half of the 20th century. However, we have very little culturally in common with our forebears in say the England of Chaucer's time. And indeed, much of the knowledge supposedly at the heart of Western civilisation was actually transmitted via Islamic scholarship. No one, he argues, can claim exclusive ownership of culture.

Uploaded 14-10-25

This lecture was given by Kwame Anthony Appiah at New York University in 2016 as part of his Reith Lectures on Mistaken Identities.

00:00 Talk
29:45 Q and A

#philosophy #politicaltheory #socialphilosophy #culturalcritique



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Daniel C. Dennett reads from his 1996 book on kinds of minds.

Uploaded 10-12-24

00:00 Know Your Own Mind
02:39 Kinds of Minds and How We Know
05:11 We Mind-Havers, We 'Minders'
13:57 Words and Minds
21:53 Problem of Incommunicative Minds
36:50 The Intentional Systems Approach
54:10 Adopting the Intentional Stance
1:20:04 From Sensitivity to Sentience
1:37:25 The Media and the Messages
1:54:23 My Body has a Mind of Its Own
2:01:10 The Tower of Generate-and-Test
2:17:49 The Search for Sentience
2:29:21 From Phototaxis to Metaphysics
2:42:55 Making Things to Think With
3:00:29 Talking to Ourselves
3:08:41 Our Consciousness, Their Minds
3:18:58 Relation between Pain, Suffering and Consciousness

#philosophy #consciousness #dennett #philosophyofmind #mind



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Audio recording of part of 1968 lecture by Hannah Arendt at Bard College on power and violence. Note, the beginning of the lecture is missing.

Uploaded 11-06-21

00:00 Talk
18:46 Q and A

You can find more Arendt here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhP9EhPApKE-07vAVTFEuiDvqli1y8f0U

#philosophy #hannaharendt #politicaltheory #politicalphilosophy



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In this talk, Peter Singer discusses and defends Henry Sidgwick's consequentialist ethics. This was the Routledge lecture in philosophy given at the University of Cambridge in 2017 under the title 'The Point of View of the Universe: Defending Sidgwick's Ethics'. Professor Singer discusses various forms of utilitarianism, some of the main arguments against each, as well as some of the responses. Read more about utilitarianism and consequentialism: https://iep.utm.edu/consequentialism-utilitarianism/

Uploaded 24-04-25

Sidgwick's Methods of Ethics: http://www.laits.utexas.edu/poltheory/sidgwick/me/index.html

#philosophy #ethics #utilitarianism #moralphilosophy #metaethics #petersinger



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Audio recording of a 1959 lecture given by Marvin Farber on Edmund Husserl and Phenomenology as part of a series on Creative Thinking at the Cooper Union Forum.

Uploaded 24-09-24

#philosophy #husserl #phenomenology #epistemology #historyofphilosophy



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