Philosophy Overdose

Gadamer on Language and Thought (1973)

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 12:00:00 -0000

This is a version of an upload from the old channel. The audio comes from a 1973 lecture on the extent that language determines thought. The translation is mine. More Short Clips: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhP9EhPApKE8v8UVlc7JuuNHwvhkaOvzc

Uploaded 23-06-21

More Gadamer: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhP9EhPApKE_MbPzGOh27qfdqiCaf7Uot

#Philosophy #Gadamer #Language

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Hannah Arendt on Ideology (1968)

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 11:47:30 -0000

A short clip of Hannah Arendt discussing ideology and the role it played in the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century. This comes from the Q and A section of a lecture on power and violence given at Bard College in 1968.

Uploaded 05-07-25

#philosophy #hannaharendt #politicalphilosophy #totalitarianism #politicaltheory #ideology

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Aldous Huxley on the Ultimate Revolution (1962)

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 11:00:00 -0000

Audio recording of a 1962 lecture by Aldous Huxley at UC Berkeley. He discusses some of the themes of his famous work Brave New World regarding authoritarian state control and the various methods of psychological manipulation.

Uploaded 19-08-25

#philosophy #aldoushuxley #bravenewworld #authoritarianism #totalitarianism #socialtheory #psychology

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Western Culture - Kwame Anthony Appiah (2016)

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 10:50:00 -0000

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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Can Machines Become Conscious? (2025)

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 10:00:00 -0000

David Chalmers and Michael Graziano discuss consciousness and AI with moderator Anil Ananthaswamy at Princeton University in 2025 as part of the Large AI Model Lecture Series.

Uploaded 27-03-25

00:00 Introduction
08:31 Discussion

#philosophy #artificialintelligence #consciousness #psychology #davidchalmers #philosophyofmind #debate

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The Virtual and The Real (David Chalmers)

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 09:52:30 -0000

Distinguished philosopher Dr. David Chalmers discusses some of the philosophical issues that arise regarding virtual reality technology in a lecture back in 2017 at the Community Library in Idaho.

Uploaded 12-12-25

#philosophy #epistemology #davidchalmers #metaphysics #virtualreality

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Nietzsche - Ressentiment, Power, and Values

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 09:06:00 -0000

In On the Genealogy of Morality, Nietzsche formulates a critique of moral values that is grounded in their psychological history. The phenomenon of ressentiment plays a central role in this critique. Yet, precisely what sort of psychological state ressentiment is, what it reveals about human psychology, and why it is well suited to affect beliefs about value, remain sources of considerable perplexity. In the lecture, Bernard Reginster sketches out some new answers to these questions.

Uploaded 14-07-21

This talk was given by Bernard Reginster (Brown University) in 2017 at Amherst College.

More Nietzsche: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhP9EhPApKE_ySvPE8kzFUkA5aO_cdKmb

#philosophy #nietzsche #historyofphilosophy

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Divine Command Theory and the Euthyphro Objection

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 09:00:00 -0000

Russ Shafer-Landau explains the Euthyphro Dilemma and why it presents a serious problem to Divine Command Theory. This comes from a talk on objective morality without God: https://youtu.be/50CQwa15R7A

Uploaded 03-04-26

#philosophy #ethics #metaethics #moralphilosophy #historyofphilosophy

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Is Liberty Possible? Charles Fried (1981)

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 08:55:00 -0000

Audio recording of two lectures by Charles Fried on liberty at Stanford University as part of his 1981 Tanner lectures on Human Values.

Uploaded 05-10-24

00:00 Lecture I
55:42 Lecture II

#philosophy #politicalphilosophy #politicaltheory #ethics #rawls

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Hannah Arendt on Power and Violence (1968)

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 08:00:00 -0000

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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Cavell and Skepticism - Hilary Putnam (2005)

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 07:57:30 -0000

A clip of Hilary Putnam discussing philosophical skepticism and the work of Stanley Cavell which comes from a 2005 conference celebrating the work of Hilary Putnam at the ENS (École Normale Supérieure) in Paris.

Uploaded 31-12-25

#philosophy #epistemology #skepticism #historyofphilosophy

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Gadamer on Schopenhauer (1991)

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 07:00:00 -0000

A very short clip of Gadamer discussing Schopenhauer. More details will be added at a later date. More Short Clips: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhP9EhPApKE8v8UVlc7JuuNHwvhkaOvzc

Uploaded 22-06-21

More Gadamer: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhP9EhPApKE_MbPzGOh27qfdqiCaf7Uot

#Philosophy #Gadamer #Schopenhauer

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Rights, Responsibility, and Animals - R. G. Frey (1991)

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 07:00:00 -0000

Professor Raymond G. Frey gives a lecture on rights, responsibility, and animal experimentation at a conference on the ethics of animal experimentation in 1991 at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University.

Uploaded 01-09-24

00:00 Morally Serious People
16:19 The Value of a Life
33:35 Marginal Cases
41:29 Rights
1:00:46 Questions

#philosophy #ethics #moralphilosophy #animalethics #utilitarianism

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Prerequisites of Language Acquisition - Noam Chomsky (1964)

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 06:02:30 -0000

Noam Chomsky discusses language and the innate structures of the mind in a 1964 lecture at UC Berkeley and sponsored by the Philosophy Colloquium.

Uploaded 09-07-25

00:00 Lecture
1:10:24 Q and A

Source: https://cla.berkeley.edu/item/?bndlid=26712

#philosophy #chomsky #epistemology #language #linguistics #psychology #mind

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Wittgenstein on the Mind - Norman Malcolm (1968)

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 06:00:00 -0000

Rare audio recording of a 1968 lecture by Norman Malcolm on Ludwig Wittgenstein's views about the nature of the mind. He explains why Wittgenstein rejected the notion of the mind as some mysterious inner thing which is private and hidden from view, and which somehow serves as the cause of outward behavior. On the other hand, he also explains why it cannot be identified with mere external behavior either. He goes on to discuss Wittgenstein’s view that there can be no explanation for why people go on in the same way and apply words in similar ways to new cases. For there can be no image, rule, or essence in the head which would be able to play that role and do the kind of work that one would need it to do.

Uploaded 19-11-25

#philosophy #wittgenstein #philosophyofmind #language #philosophyoflanguage #historyofphilosophy

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Is there Purpose in the Cosmos? (The Philosopher's Zone)

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 05:05:00 -0000

To many people, the notion that the universe has consciousness and purpose belongs back in the pre-scientific era. In this program, Philip Goff (Professor of Philosophy at Durham University) explores the possibility that cosmic purpose is defensible not only philosophically, but also scientifically. This comes from a 2023 episode of the ABC Radio National show, the Philosopher Zone, with David Rutledge.

Uploaded 07-11-24

#philosophy #consciousness #philosophyofmind #panpsychism #metaphysics #mind

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John Locke's Political Philosophy

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 05:00:00 -0000

After briefly discussing Thomas Hobbes, Professor Charles Anderson discusses the thought of John Locke. This comes from a course on Political, Economic, and Social Thought given at the University of Wisconsin many years ago.

Uploaded 18-06-21

00:00 Thomas Hobbes
21:50 John Locke

#philosophy #locke #politicalphilosophy #politicaltheory #historyofphilosophy #hobbes #philosopher

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The Absurdity of Moral Relativism and Subjectivism - A Polemic

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 04:07:30 -0000

Skeletons will dance, positions will be refuted. This is a re-upload from the previous channel. It was made in 2016. You may also like the following: https://youtu.be/DFHPH3m-KR8

Uploaded 11-06-21

#philosophy #relativism #ethics #postmodernism #historyofphilosophy

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Schopenhauer's Thought

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 04:00:00 -0000

Professor Christopher Janaway discusses some of the ideas of Arthur Schopenhauer. This comes from an episode on Schopenhauer and Wagner. More Short Clips: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhP9EhPApKE8v8UVlc7JuuNHwvhkaOvzc

Uploaded 19-06-21

#philosophy #schopenhauer ##pessimism

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Studies in Pessimism by Arthur Schopenhauer

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 03:10:00 -0000

Some wonderful Schopenhauerian prose from LibriVox and read by D.E. Wittkower.

Uploaded 29-06-21

Chapters:
00:00 Start
00:21 On the Sufferings of the World
33:58 On the Vanity of Existence
46:44 On Suicide
1:00:55 Immortality: a Dialogue
1:12:10 Psychological Observations
2:04:43 On Education
2:23:10 Of Women
2:59:35 On Noise
3:12:14 A Few Parables

#philosophy #schopenhauer #pessimism

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The Romantic Revolution in Politics and Morals - Isaiah Berlin (1969)

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 03:00:00 -0000

Audio recording of a 1969 lecture by Isaiah Berlin on the romantic revolution in politics and morals at Washington University in St Louis as part of the Assembly lecture series.

Uploaded 07-11-25

#philosophy #romanticism #isaiahberlin #intellectualhistory #history

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Words and Philosophy - Hugh Mellor (1978)

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 02:12:30 -0000

Audio recording of a series of six short ratio talks by Hugh Mellor back in 1978 on the use of words in philosophy. Among other things, he dispells the myth that important issues can be settled merely by definitions. He goes on to consider the abuse of words, as well as logical argument, jargon, and the liar paradox.

Uploaded 22-08-25

These talks were given by D. H. Mellor (David Hugh Mellor) and originally broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in 1978.

00:00 It All Depends What You Mean
05:15 Define Your Terms
10:18 Fictional Documentaries
15:19 What's Wrong With Jargon
20:08 On Being Illogical
25:07 The Liar Paradox

#philosophy #language #epistemology #philosophyoflanguage #rationality

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1 Romanticism - In Search of a Definition (Isaiah Berlin 1965)

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 02:00:00 -0000

Isaiah Berlin gives the 1st lecture in a series of 6 on Romanticism and its roots.

Uploaded 05-06-21

All 6 lectures: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhP9EhPApKE_9uxkmfSIt2JJK6oKbXmd-

For Berlin, the Romantics set in motion a vast, unparalleled revolution in humanity’s view of itself. They destroyed the traditional notions of objective truth and validity in ethics with incalculable, all-pervasive results. As he said of the Romantics elsewhere: “The world has never been the same since, and our politics and morals have been deeply transformed by them. Certainly this has been the most radical, and indeed dramatic, not to say terrifying, change in men’s outlook in modern times.”

In these brilliant lectures Berlin surveys the myriad attempts to define Romanticism, distills its essence, traces its developments from its first stirrings to its apotheosis, and shows how its lasting legacy permeates our own outlook. Combining the freshness and immediacy of the spoken word with Berlin’s inimitable eloquence and wit, the lectures range over a cast of the greatest thinkers and artists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, including Kant, Rousseau, Diderot, Schiller, Schlegel, Novalis, Goethe, Blake, Byron, and Beethoven. Berlin argues that the ideas and attitudes held by these and other figures helped to shape twentieth-century nationalism, existentialism, democracy, totalitarianism, and our ideas about heroic individuals, individual self-fulfillment, and the exalted place of art. This is the record of an intellectual bravura performance–of one of the century’s most influential philosophers dissecting and assessing a movement that changed the course of history. These Mellon lectures were delivered in Washington in 1965.

#philosophy #romanticcism #isaiahberlin

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Debate of the Century: What it Means to be Human (2002)

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 01:15:00 -0000

Dr. Peter Singer and Dr. Nigel M. de S. Cameron discuss what it means to be human in a 2002 debate moderated by Michael krasny and hosted by the Center for Bioethics and Culture. They consider various ethical issues surrounding life and death, including that of euthanasia, among various other things.

Uploaded 30-09-25

00:00 Introduction
07:20 Cameron's Opening
17:06 Singer's Opening
28:18 Back-and-Forth
1:01:57 Audience Questions
1:26:04 Singer's Closing
1:32:40 Cameron's Closing

#philosophy #ethics #petersinger #medicalethics #bioethics #moralphilosophy #debate

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Debate on Animal Rights (2009)

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 01:00:00 -0000

A short debate between philosophers Gary Francione and Jan Narveson on Radio Netherlands on the issue of animal rights from back in 2009. According to Jan, torturing animals is "pointless and weird," but not necessarily wrong.

Uploaded 10-10-24

#philosophy #ethics #moralphilosophy #animalethics #animalrights #debate

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Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 00:17:30 -0000

A reupload of something that I put together awhile back. The audio is from: https://youtu.be/v_hQpvQYhOI

Uploaded 14-06-21

Some relevant quotes:

"But how can a rule show me what I have to do at this point? Whatever I do is, on some interpretation, in accord with the rule...Any interpretation still hangs in the air along with what it interprets, and cannot give it any support. Interpretations by themselves do not determine meaning." Wittgenstein

"This was our paradox: no course of action could be determined by a rule, because any course of action can be made out to accord with the rule." Wittgenstein

"To think one is obeying a rule is not to obey a rule. Hence it is not possible to obey a rule 'privately': otherwise thinking one was obeying a rule would be the same thing as obeying it." Wittgenstein

#philosophy #wittgenstein #bryanmagee #language #searle

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Marx on Alienation

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 00:00:00 -0000

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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Kinds of Minds: Towards an Understanding of Consciousness

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 23:20:00 -0000

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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Donald Davidson on the Mental and Anomalous Monism - The Davies Discussion

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 23:00:00 -0000

Donald Davidson discusses his views on the mental with Martin Davies. The discussion centers around his paper Mental Events, where he argues for the view called anomalous monism in the philosophy of mind. This is from Philosophy International 1997. Note, this is a re-upload. The audio has also been slightly improved.

Uploaded 12-07-21

#philosophy #philosophyofmind #materialism #mind

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3 Space, Time and the "Analogies of Experiences" - Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (Dan Robinson)

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 22:22:30 -0000

Dan Robinson gives the 3rd lecture in a series of 8 on Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Kant's so-called "Copernican" revolution in metaphysics begins with the recognition of the observer's contribution to the observation. Thus, to the extent that Hume's empiricism restricts knowledge to experience, empiricism succeeds only by accepting the a priori grounding of experience itself.

Uploaded 04-06-21

This series looks at German Philosopher Immanuel Kant's seminal philosophical work 'The Critique of Pure Reason'. The lectures aim to outline and discuss some of the key philosophical issues raised in the book and to offer students and individuals thought provoking Kantian ideas surrounding metaphysics. Each lecture looks at particular questions raised in the work such as how do we know what we know and how do we find out about the world, dissects these questions with reference to Kant's work and discusses the broader philosophical implications. Anyone with an interest in Kant and philosophy will find these lectures thought provoking but accessible.

This is series of lectures was given in 2011 at Oxford. Note, the audio has been improved.

All 8 lectures: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhP9EhPApKE_OdgqNgL0AJX9-gwr4tmLw

#philosophy #kant #epistemology #metaphysics #empiricism #skepticism #historyofphilosophy

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5 David Hume on Personal Identity - Reid's Critique of Hume (Dan Robinson)

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 22:00:00 -0000

Professor Dan Robinson gives the fifth in a series of 8 lectures on Thomas Reid's critique of David Hume at Oxford in 2014. “There are some philosophers who imagine we are every moment intimately conscious of what we call our self; that we feel its existence and its continuance in existence; and are certain, beyond the evidence of a demonstration, both of its perfect identity and simplicity…For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception. When my perceptions are removed for any time, as by sound sleep, so long am I insensible of myself, and may truly be said not to exist. And were all my perceptions removed by death, and could I neither think, nor feel, nor see, nor love, nor hate, after the dissolution of my body, I should be entirely annihilated...”

Uploaded 19-06-21

Under “David Hume”, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy begins with, “The most important philosopher ever to write in English”. His most formidable contemporary critic was the fellow Scot, Thomas Reid, the major architect of so-called Scottish Common Sense Philosophy. The most significant features of Hume’s work, as understood by Reid, are the representive theory of perception, the nature of causation and causal concepts, the nature of personal identity and the foundations of morality. Each of these topics is presented in a pair of lectures, the first summarizing Hume’s position and the second Reid’s critique of that position.

All Lectures: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhP9EhPApKE9nki7CXFPi7PMOi5W2g2-q

#philosophy #davidhume #epistemology #personalidentity #empiricism #skepticism #historyofphilosophy

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The Guts of the Frankfurt School: Reexamining Marx and the Marriage with Freud (Marcuse and Bryan Magee)

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 21:25:00 -0000

The full interview can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U23Ho0m_Sv0

Uploaded 03-06-21

#philosophy #bryanmagee #marx #freud #politicaltheory #politicalphilosophy #marxism #historyofphilosophy

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Is Mind Distinct from Body?

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 21:06:00 -0000

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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Wittgenstein vs Socrates on Definitions and Explanations (James Klagge)

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 21:00:00 -0000

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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Philosophy and Our Mental Life - Hilary Putnam (1973)

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 20:27:30 -0000

Audio recording of a 1973 lecture by Hilary Putnam as part of a symposium on "Computers and the Mind" at the University of California (Berkeley).

Uploaded 16-06-21

The question which troubles laymen, and which has long troubled philosophers, even if it is somewhat disguised by today's analytic style of writing philosophy, is this: Are we made of matter or soul-stuff? To put it as bluntly as possible, are we just material beings, or are we "something more"? In this talk, Hilary Putnam argues that this whole question rests on false assumptions. His purpose is not to dismiss the question, however, so much as to speak to the real concern which is behind the question. The real concern is, he thinks, with the autonomy of our mental life. People are worried that we may be debunked, that our behavior may be exposed as really explained by something mechanical. In this talk, part of what Hilary Putnam wants to do is to argue that this can't happen. Mentality is a real and autonomous feature of our world. But even more important is the fact that this whole question has nothing to do with our substance. Strange as it may seem to common sense and to sophisticated intuition alike, the question of the autonomy of our mental life does not hinge on and has nothing to do with that all too popular, all too old question about matter or soul-stuff. We could be made of Swiss cheese and it wouldn't matter.

00:00 Searle Intro
01:47 Lecture

#philosophy #philosophyofmind #consciousness #philosophyofscience #mind

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5 Idealisms and their Refutations - Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (Dan Robinson)

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 20:00:00 -0000

Dan Robinson gives the 5th lecture in a series of 8 on Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. The very possibility of self-awareness (an "inner sense" with content) requires an awareness of an external world by way of "outer sense". Only through awareness of stable elements in the external world is self-consciousness possible.

Uploaded 05-06-21

This series looks at German Philosopher Immanuel Kant's seminal philosophical work 'The Critique of Pure Reason'. The lectures aim to outline and discuss some of the key philosophical issues raised in the book and to offer students and individuals thought provoking Kantian ideas surrounding metaphysics. Each lecture looks at particular questions raised in the work such as how do we know what we know and how do we find out about the world, dissects these questions with reference to Kant's work and discusses the broader philosophical implications. Anyone with an interest in Kant and philosophy will find these lectures thought provoking but accessible.

This is series of lectures was given in 2011 at Oxford. Note, the audio has been improved.

All 8 lectures: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhP9EhPApKE_OdgqNgL0AJX9-gwr4tmLw

#philosophy #kant #epistemology #metaphysics #empiricism #skepticism #historyofphilosophy

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Political Equality

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 19:30:00 -0000

A clip of Ronald Dworkin discussing the notion of political equality which comes from a longer talk on the paradoxes of equality at Queen's University as part of the 1982 Chancellor Dunning Trust Lecture series. Read more on this topic: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/equality/

Uploaded 22-04-25

#philosophy #politicalphilosophy #politicaltheory #ethics

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The Hiddenness of God (Peter van Inwagen)

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 19:00:00 -0000

Audio recording of a lecture by Peter van Inwagen on the problem of divine hiddenness at Calvin College back in 2004. This was the second of his Jellema lectures. His first lecture can be found here: https://youtu.be/nNEweeN32QI

Uploaded 18-02-26

#philosophy #philosophyofreligion #agnosticism #atheism #theism #epistemology

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Is God an Unnecessary Hypothesis?

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 18:00:00 -0000

Audio recording of a lecture by Peter van Inwagen on whether God is an unnecessary hypothesis at Calvin College back in 2004. This was the first of his Jellema lectures. His second lecture can be found here: https://youtu.be/izD-w3CCN98

Uploaded 27-07-25

#philosophy #philosophyofreligion #agnosticism #atheism #theism #epistemology

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Hilary Putnam on Science and Non-Science (1977)

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 17:32:30 -0000

A short clip of Hilary Putnam discussing science and the demarcation project in a 1977 interview with Bryan Magee on the philosophy of science. This is version of an upload from the other channel. The full interview can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJB2q8ufAgk

Uploaded 25-06-21

#philosophy #epistemology #bryanmagee #philosophyofscience #science

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Death by Thomas Nagel

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 17:00:00 -0000

A reading of Thomas Nagel's 1970 article on death. The voice is AI, but modeled on Bryan Magee.

Uploaded 30-12-24

#philosophy #death #ethics

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Political Liberalism and its End

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 16:35:00 -0000

Political liberalism has been extraordinarily successful, freeing the individual from custom, tribe, and tradition. The self-interested, self-directing individual has triumphed. But that great achievement may have come at a heavy cost. Unacceptable levels of inequality and the rise of a new global ruling class are two symptoms of a political system being lauded as the natural end point of history.

Uploaded 20-06-21

This is from an episode of the podcast Philosopher's Zone from a few years back with guest Patrick Deneen. More Philosopher's Zone: https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/philosopherszone/

#philosophy #politicalphilosophy #liberalism #politicaltheory #rawls #johnrawls #historyofphilosophy

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Hannah Arendt on Eichmann, Banality, Guilt and Obedience (1964)

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 16:00:00 -0000

Clips of Hannah Arendt from a 1964 interview with Joachim Fest. This is a version of a previous upload. The translation is my own. More Arendt: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhP9EhPApKE-07vAVTFEuiDvqli1y8f0U

Uploaded 04-07-21

#philosophy #hannaharendt #politicaltheory #totalitarianism

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4 The Restrained Romantics - Kant, Schiller and Fichte (Isaiah Berlin 1965)

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 15:37:30 -0000

Isaiah Berlin gives the 4th lecture in a series of 6 on Romanticism and its roots.

Uploaded 06-06-21

All 6 lectures: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhP9EhPApKE_9uxkmfSIt2JJK6oKbXmd-

For Berlin, the Romantics set in motion a vast, unparalleled revolution in humanity’s view of itself. They destroyed the traditional notions of objective truth and validity in ethics with incalculable, all-pervasive results. As he said of the Romantics elsewhere: “The world has never been the same since, and our politics and morals have been deeply transformed by them. Certainly this has been the most radical, and indeed dramatic, not to say terrifying, change in men’s outlook in modern times.”

In these brilliant lectures Berlin surveys the myriad attempts to define Romanticism, distills its essence, traces its developments from its first stirrings to its apotheosis, and shows how its lasting legacy permeates our own outlook. Combining the freshness and immediacy of the spoken word with Berlin’s inimitable eloquence and wit, the lectures range over a cast of the greatest thinkers and artists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, including Kant, Rousseau, Diderot, Schiller, Schlegel, Novalis, Goethe, Blake, Byron, and Beethoven. Berlin argues that the ideas and attitudes held by these and other figures helped to shape twentieth-century nationalism, existentialism, democracy, totalitarianism, and our ideas about heroic individuals, individual self-fulfillment, and the exalted place of art. This is the record of an intellectual bravura performance–of one of the century’s most influential philosophers dissecting and assessing a movement that changed the course of history. These Mellon lectures were delivered in Washington in 1965.

00:00 Intro
00:53 Kant
25:42 Schiller
47:34 Fichte

#philosophy #romanticism #kant #isaiahberlin

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Rawls vs Nozick (Ronald Dworkin)

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 15:00:00 -0000

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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Husserl's Phenomenology - Marvin Farber (1959)

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 14:40:00 -0000

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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2 Reid and Common Sense Realism - Reid's Critique of Hume (Dan Robinson)

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 14:00:00 -0000

Professor Dan Robinson gives the second in a series of 8 lectures on Thomas Reid's critique of David Hume at Oxford in 2014. Is it the case that every simple idea is a “copy” of a simple impression? Hume is but the latest to deny that we have direct access to the external world. The “ideal” theory, relegating ideas to a mental realm whose occupants are but “copies” of some indefinite thing, is the sure path to skepticism and is at variance with the proper methods of science.

Uploaded 19-06-21

Under “David Hume”, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy begins with, “The most important philosopher ever to write in English”. His most formidable contemporary critic was the fellow Scot, Thomas Reid, the major architect of so-called Scottish Common Sense Philosophy. The most significant features of Hume’s work, as understood by Reid, are the representive theory of perception, the nature of causation and causal concepts, the nature of personal identity and the foundations of morality. Each of these topics is presented in a pair of lectures, the first summarizing Hume’s position and the second Reid’s critique of that position.

All Lectures: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhP9EhPApKE9nki7CXFPi7PMOi5W2g2-q

#philosophy #davidhume #epistemology #skepticism #perception #philosophyofmind #historyofphilosophy

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Nietzsche on the Value of Truth - Ken Gemes

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 13:42:30 -0000

Audio recording of the second lecture by Ken Gemes on Nietzsche. Nietzsche claims that with the rejection of religious underpinning of the value of truth (e.g. truth as God’s word and as something absolute), we can now raise the question of why and to what extent we should value truth. He argues that our need for meaning conflicts with our will to truth because such a will tends to destroy all mythologies including the mythology of value – our will to truth reveals that values are not objectively 'out there' in the world, but are merely our own projections onto the world. This knowledge eviscerates the world of meaning. This does not mean that Nietzsche rejects the value of truth. He instead rejects the notion, inherited from the Judeo-Christian worldview, that truth is an unconditional value. Such a notion of truth, destructive of all myth and meaning, is unliveable. The very claim that the truth is valuable, even if not unconditionally valuable, is itself one of those myths that help give life meaning.

Uploaded 07-06-21

You can find the previous talk here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHShypzrqGw

Note, this is a re-upload.

00:00 Talk
46:53 Q and A

#nietzsche #philosophy #ethics #historyofphilosophy

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Intro to the Philosophy of Mathematics (Ray Monk)

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 13:00:00 -0000

A good introduction to the philosophy of mathematics by Ray Monk. He considers the issue of the nature of mathematical truth - what mathematics is actually about - and discusses the views of Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Frege and Russell. What is mathematics about? Is mathematics something discovered or is it something invented or constructed by us? If numbers and mathematical objects are mere mental constructs, something invented by us, then why does mathematics work so well and seem to describe the world? On the other hand, if mathematical entities are "out there" in some sense waiting to be discovered, then what is their status and how do we get knowledge of them? After all, you can't see or touch numbers and other mathematical objects. And unlike ordinary empirical truths, mathematical truths seem to have a quite different and special status: they are a priori, necessary, eternal, universal, and absolutely certain. And this is why from the time of Plato onward, people have regarded mathematical truths as an ideal. In this talk, some of the ways in which philosophers have tried to account for the special nature of mathematical truth. (My Summary)

Uploaded 06-06-21

Another good introduction to the philosophy of mathematics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyXWnGFKTkg

More advanced talk on philosophy of mathematics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucPhfzCvKnE

#philosophy #epistemology #mathematics #kant #historyofphilosophy #metaphysics #philosopher #wittgenstein

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Wittgenstein - The Unsayable and Limits of Thought

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 12:45:00 -0000

In this clip, Ray Monk, Barry Smith, and Marie McGinn discuss the early Wittgenstein's thought in regards to the famous last proposition of the Tractatus: "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." This clip comes from an episode of the podcast In Our Time a few years back. For more information and the full episode, go to: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0054945

Uploaded 15-06-21

More Short Clips: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhP9EhPApKE8v8UVlc7JuuNHwvhkaOvzc

#philosophy #wittgenstein #epistemology

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5 Varieties of Philosophical Skepticism - Hilary Putnam

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 12:00:00 -0000

In this fifth lecture, James Conant continues to discuss and contrast Cartesian skepticism with Kantian skepticism, and does so by discussing the work of Hilary Putnam and John McDowell.

Uploaded 02-07-21

In this series of lectures on varieties of philosophical skepticism, James Conant distinguishes between two forms of philosophical skepticism: Cartesian skepticism and Kantian skepticism. He discusses their general structure and shows how they're related. This sheds light on issues in various different areas, including within the philosophy of perception, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of language. Some of the philosophers discussed throughout this course include Wittgenstein, Sellars, Hilary Putnam, Kripke, C.I. Lewis, John McDowell, and Stanley Cavell.

This series of lectures was given in 2005 at the Department of Philosophy at the University of Bergen, Norway. Note, the audio has been slightly edited and improved.

"In McDowell’s view the key assumption responsible for the disaster is the idea that there has to be an interface between our cognitive powers and the external world – or, to put the same point differently, the idea that our cognitive powers cannot reach all the way to the objects themselves." Hilary Putnam

All lectures: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhP9EhPApKE8muoMpX8qQ-14zKnYPc5VI

#philosophy #epistemology #skepticism #philosophyofmind #putnam #historyofphilosophy

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G. A. Cohen does Isaiah Berlin (1991)

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 11:47:30 -0000

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

Uploaded 28-06-25

#philosophy #isaiahberlin

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Sidgwick's Ethics - Peter Singer (2017)

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 11:00:00 -0000

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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The Afterlife: How People Who Don’t Yet Exist Matter More to Us than People Who Do

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 10:50:00 -0000

Samuel Scheffler (University Professor of Philosophy and Law at New York University) delivers the first of his 2012 Tanner lectures at Berkeley with commentary from Susan R. Wolf (Edna J. Koury Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill). Note, the introduction has been edited out.

Uploaded 04-05-26

00:00 Lecture
59:50 Susan Wolf
1:15:53 Response

#philosophy #ethics #moralphilosophy

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Sidney Morgenbesser on Naturalism (1966)

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 10:00:00 -0000

Audio recording of a 1966 lecture given by Sidney Morgenbesser on philosophical naturalism at the Cooper Union Forum as part of a series on Philosophy for Modern Man.

Uploaded 06-07-25

#philosophy #determinism #atheism #freewill #causality #epistemology #science

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Alvin Goldman on Freedom and Determinism (1982)

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 09:52:30 -0000

Alvin Goldman discusses some of the philosophical problems regarding free will, determinism, and fatalism in a 1982 interview conducted by Wayne J. Pond in a segment of the show Soundings at the National Humanities Center.

Uploaded 01-10-24

#philosophy #freewill #determinism #causality #causation #metaphysics

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On Genealogy (Genealogical Debunking/Skepticism)

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 09:06:00 -0000

We suffer from genealogical anxiety when we worry that the contingent origins of our representations, once revealed, will somehow undermine or cast doubt on those representations. Is such anxiety ever rational? Many have apparently thought so, from pre-Socratic critics of Greek theology to contemporary evolutionary debunkers of morality. One strategy for vindicating critical genealogies is to see them as undermining the epistemic standing of our representations—the justification of our beliefs, the aptness of our concepts, and so on. In this talk, Amia Srinivasan argues that this strategy is not as promising as it might first seem. Instead, she suggests that critical genealogies can wield a sort of meta-epistemic power; in so far as we wish to resist the genealogical critic, we are under pressure to see ourselves as the beneficiaries of a certain kind of good luck: what she calls genealogical luck. But there is also a resolutely non-epistemic way of understanding the power of critical genealogies, one that is essential, she argues, for understanding the genealogical projects of various theorists, including Nietzsche and Catharine MacKinnon. For critical genealogies can reveal what it is that our representations do—and what we, in turn, might do with them.

Uploaded 13-07-21

This talk was given by Amia Srinivasan in 2019 as part of The Aristotelian Society. For more information: www.aristoteliansociety.org.uk

#philosophy #epistemology #skepticism #nietzsche #foucault

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Creativity in Science - Ernest Nagel (1968)

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 09:00:00 -0000

Audio recording of a public lecture by professor Ernest Nagel on the nature of creativity, particularly in connection with science. This talk was given at the Cooper Union Forum in 1968.

Uploaded 11-12-25

#philosophy #science #philosophyofscience #historyofscience #psychology

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The Right to Death - Antony Flew (1980)

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 08:55:00 -0000

Audio recording of a lecture given by the English philosopher Antony Flew on voluntary euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide at the Australian National University back in 1980.

Uploaded 30-03-25

#philosophy #ethics #medicalethics #moralphilosophy #bioethics

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Reasons, Rationality, and Heuristics - Emma Borg (2024)

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Professor Emma Borg gives the second lecture in a series on "Reasons for Action" as part of the 2024 Frege Lectures in theoretical philosophy at the University of Tartu.

Uploaded 08-04-25

Do people generally do what they do on the basis of the reasons they have for acting? The standard philosophical answer - common-sense psychology or folk psychology - says yes. But recently the idea that humans are generally rational, reasons-responsive beings has come under considerable pressure, as a number of empirical findings (often in the fields of social, comparative, and developmental psychology) seem to suggest that, on the contrary, people are often blind to reasons, acting on gut feelings and intuitions, and are subject to various biases and other errors of reasoning. Although these empirical findings are now well-known (reaching beyond the ivory tower into the public consciousness), Emma Borg suggests that the precise problem for common-sense psychology remains unclear. There are (at least) three different arguments that could be made based on the empirical data. In her lectures, Emma Borg explains these three arguments and argues that the proponent of the common-sense view has responses to each of them. She concludes that the case against common-sense psychology can be rejected, and that we should hold on to the notion that action (of a typical adult) involves acting based on reasons.

Emma Borg is Professor of Philosophy at the Institute of Philosophy, University of London. Her main research interests are the philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and business ethics. Borg is the author of Minimal Semantics (2004) and Pursuing Meaning (2012), as well as two forthcoming books: A Very Short Introduction to Meaning and Acting for Reasons: In Defence of Common-Sense Psychology (all published by Oxford University Press). The latter book is also the basis for her Frege Lectures.

00:00 Talk
1:16:47 Q and A

#philosophy #epistemology #psychology #rationality

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Justice for Hedgehogs - Ronald Dworkin (2011)

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 07:57:30 -0000

Audio recording of a lecture by Ronald M. Dworkin on his book "Justice for Hedgehogs" at the Carnegie Council in 2011. The title is a reference to the Ancient Greek poet Archilochus who wrote that "the fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing." Ronald Dworkin argues for one big thing: the unity of value.

Uploaded 13-09-25

#philosophy #politicalphilosophy #ethics #moralphilosophy #jurisprudence

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Fallibilism's Payoff - Catherine Elgin

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 07:00:00 -0000

Catherine Elgin discusses fallibilism in a 2016 lecture at the University of Edinburgh. Elgin's talk "True Enough": https://youtu.be/P5pKJGXuCNE

Uploaded 24-07-25

#philosophy #epistemology #skepticism #science

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Knowledge and Scepticism - General Philosophy (Peter Millican)

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 07:00:00 -0000

In this lecture on General Philosophy, Professor Peter Millican discusses the traditional analysis of knowledge, Gettier cases, externalism, scepticism, and the ethics of belief. This comes from a 2010 series on General Philosophy. The slides have been added.

Uploaded 08-06-21

This series of lectures was delivered by Peter Millican to first-year philosophy students at the University of Oxford. The lectures comprise of the 8-week General Philosophy course, delivered to first year undergraduates. These lectures aim to provide a thorough introduction to many philosophical topics and to get students and others interested in thinking about key areas of philosophy. Taking a chronological view of the history of philosophy, each lecture is split into 3 or 4 sections which outline a particular philosophical problem and how different philosophers have attempted to resolve the issue. Individuals interested in the 'big' questions about life such as how we perceive the world, who we are in the world and whether we are free to act will find this series informative, comprehensive and accessible. Source: https://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/series/general-philosophy

More lectures on General Philosophy: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhP9EhPApKE_xo2wvkm6qPZrUlAiRNHXb

#philosophy #epistemology #skepticism #historyofphilosophy

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Reason, Tone and Judgment - Raimond Gaita (2013)

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 06:02:30 -0000

Professor Raimond Gaita gives the first talk in a series on 'Prejudice, Reason and Understanding' at the Australian National University as part of the Freilich Foundation's Eminent Lecturer Series back in 2013.

Uploaded 27-04-25

Some years ago, Mirko Bagaric, then Professor and Dean of Law at Deakin University in Melbourne, published in the Age an opinion piece in which he argued that we should torture people in certain circumstances if doing so would save many lives. His article provoked incredulity amongst some people: what had seemed to them to be undiscussable and which they believed had partly defined their political culture just because it was undiscussable, was again “on the agenda”. Bagaric was in his turn incredulous that people could be so lacking in respect for rational discussion as to believe that some matters were undiscussable or unthinkable, and that they could be so morally and politically irresponsible as to deem undiscussable something that could potentially save thousands of lives. In the first two lectures, Raimond Gaita tries to bring out what he takes to be most serious in the incredulity voiced by Bagaric and his critics in order to explore what it shows about political discourse that aspires to be a conversation of citizens. He will explore why the ideal that even in ethics and politics, reliable and sound cognitive achievements is best achieved in a tone-free zone, is widespread amongst philosophers, at least in the analytical tradition. He will suggest that attractive as it may be as an elaboration of how best to rise to the claims of reason, it erodes the kind of judgment and sobriety necessary to critical thought about ethics and politics and thereby impoverishes our understanding of what the distinction between legitimate illegitimate persuasion comes to in those realms. It erodes entirely, he will argue, the conditions necessary for the conversation of citizens.

In these lectures, Raimond Gaita explores an ideal of a democratic politics as ‘a conversation of citizens’. Reflection germane to the topic goes back at least to the time of Socrates. In Plato’s Gorgias, whose bitter political tone has often been noted, Socrates says to an aspiring young orator that he is good at oratory but bad a conversation. He meant, in part, that oratory betrays a trust intrinsic to real 'conversation’ that one’s partner in conversation will respect ones need to be legitimately persuaded to a belief – that she will not exploit her skills and one’s vulnerability to them, for example. For that reason, Socrates did not look upon oratory as a morally neutral skill that could serve good or bad ends. He regarded it, as many now regard spin, as rotten through and through. More often than not, belief requires trust and so an inquiry into persuasion which honors that trust, will be in part an inquiry into how to discipline trust so that it becomes the expression of good judgment rather than gullibility, for example. Reason, its limits, judgment, trust, sobriety, and realism as these show themselves in ethics and politics is the topic.

00:00 Talk
40:04 Q and A

#philosophy #ethics #moralphilosophy

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Nietzsche on Nihilism and the Death of God - Ken Gemes

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 06:00:00 -0000

Audio recording of the first of two lectures by Ken Gemes on Nietzsche. In this first talk, Ken Gemes introduces Nietzsche as the philosopher of the death of God. Nietzsche claims that we have not yet fully understood the ramifications of the modern rejection of belief in God. Giving up the belief in God undermines all our values, though many cling to those values in the absence of God or of any other justificatory basis for those values. When we truly appreciate the meaning of the death of God, we will, says Nietzsche, lapse into nihilism; the inability to find any foundation for values and meaning in the world. This Nietzsche presciently predicts as the future of Europe for the next two hundred years. Nietzsche does not endorse nihilism but seeks to move beyond it to a new affirmation of this world, the one and only world. But what does Nietzsche mean exactly by nihilism? This is discussed in the talk.

Uploaded 07-06-21

The next lecture by Ken Gemes on Nietzsche: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ejV1cHZL58

Note, this is a re-upload.

00:00 Talk
31:42 Q and A

#philosophy #nietzsche #nihilism #atheism #historyofphilosophy

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6 Varieties of Philosophical Skepticism - John McDowell's Mind and World

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 05:05:00 -0000

In this sixth lecture, James Conant continues to discuss the Kantian problematic, and does so by discussing the work of John McDowell. He particularly focuses on the case of perception and then of action and intentions. In the case of perception, the problem involves avoiding the myth of the Given without thereby falling into an empty kind of coherentism or idealism.

Uploaded 03-07-21

In this series of lectures on varieties of philosophical skepticism, James Conant distinguishes between two forms of philosophical skepticism: Cartesian skepticism and Kantian skepticism. He discusses their general structure and shows how they're related. This sheds light on issues in various different areas, including within the philosophy of perception, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of language. Some of the philosophers discussed throughout this course include Wittgenstein, Sellars, Hilary Putnam, Kripke, C.I. Lewis, John McDowell, and Stanley Cavell.

This series of lectures was given in 2005 at the Department of Philosophy at the University of Bergen, Norway. Note, the audio has been slightly edited and improved.

"When Kant describes the understanding as a faculty of spontaneity, that reflects his view of the relation between reason and freedom: rational necessitation is not just compatible with freedom but constitutive of it. In a slogan, the space of reasons is the realm of freedom. But if our freedom in empirical thinking is total, in particular if it is not constrained from outside the conceptual sphere, that can seem to threaten the very possibility that judgements of experience might be grounded in a way that relates them to a reality external to thought. And surely there must be such grounding if experience is to be a source of knowledge, and more generally, if the bearing of empirical judgements on reality is to be intelligibly in place in our picture at all. The more we play up the connection between reason and freedom, the more we risk losing our grip on how exercises of concepts can constitute warranted judgements about the world. What we wanted to conceive as exercises of concepts threaten to degenerate into moves in a self-contained game." McDowell

"The idea of the Given is the idea that the space of reasons, the space of justifications or warrants, extends more widely than the conceptual sphere." McDowell

00:00 Introduction
07:33 Perception
49:05 Action

All lectures: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhP9EhPApKE8muoMpX8qQ-14zKnYPc5VI

#philosophy #epistemology #skepticism #philosophyofmind #kant #historyofphilosophy

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Does Time Really Pass? (Simon Prosser on the Illusion of Passage)

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 05:00:00 -0000

We are all familiar with the notion that time passes, but what does this mean? In this talk, Dr Simon Prosser argues that time does not pass. He begins by outlining some philosophical theories of temporal passage (A-theories of time, including presentism and the growing block view), along with a class of theories according to which time does not objectively pass (the B-theory of time, what's called eternalism or the block universe). He then goes over traditional problems for the notion of passage, including McTaggart's argument, the issue of the rate of passage, and the argument that passage is incompatible with modern physics (particularly with Einstein's special theory of relativity). He then goes on to argue that, despite appearances to the contrary, it is not actually possible to experience time passing. But because the best reason for thinking that time passes is our experience of it, we no longer have any good reason for thinking that time actually passes. If this is right, then it is an important project for philosophers and psychologists to explain why it seems to us that time passes when it doesn't really do so.

Uploaded 05-07-21

This was given at Durham University in 2012.

Read more about the nature of time and some of the philosophical issues which arise: https://iep.utm.edu/time/

00:00 Introduction
01:39 A-Series and B-Series
04:35 The A-Theory of Time
05:34 The B-Theory of Time
08:05 The Ontology of the A and B Theories
11:13 Four Arguments Against Passage
11:44 McTaggart's Paradox
15:23 The Rate of Passage
17:27 Einstein's Theory of Relativity
20:07 Final Argument
20:58 Could we Build a Device that detects Passage?
23:07 Why No Physical Device can detect Passage
25:25 Eddington on Experiencing Passage
29:42 The Impossibility of Experiencing Passage
39:56 Time does not Pass
43:55 Summary

#philosophy #time #philosophyoftime #metaphysics #epistemology #historyofphilosophy

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The Hallmark of a Philosophical Question (Isaiah Berlin and Bryan Magee)

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 04:07:30 -0000

A very short clip of Isaiah Berlin in conversation with Bryan Magee. This is from a 1977 program on philosophy. The full interview can be found here: https://youtu.be/RDgw6ydB6lU

Uploaded 03-06-21

#philosophy #isaiahberlin #bryanmagee #historyofphilosophy

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Deep Blue's Victory: Dennett and Dreyfus on AI (1997)

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 04:00:00 -0000

A news segment on Deep Blue's victory over world champion Garry Kasparov in 1997, which features commentary from both Daniel Dennett and Hubert Dreyfus on the possible significance for our understanding of artificial intelligence and ourselves as rational, conscious, intelligent beings.

Uploaded 24-12-24

#philosophy #artificialintelligence #dennett #chess #consciousness #debate

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Thomas Kuhn Speaking (1995)

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 03:10:00 -0000

Audio recording of a short clip of Thomas Kuhn talking about his famous book 'The Structure of Scientific Revolutions'. This is an excerpt from: "an intellectual autobiography in the form of an interview, conducted by Aristides Baltas, Kostas Gavroglu, and Vassiliki Kindi in Athens in the fall of 1995" (Kuhn, The Road since Structure, ed. James Conant and John Haugeland, University of Chicago, 2000).

Uploaded 24-06-21

#philosophy #philosophyofscience #kuhn #science #historyofphilosophy

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Isaiah Berlin Interview on Freedom (1974)

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 03:00:00 -0000

This is from an episode of the podcast Philosopher's Zone from a few years back. For more about the Philosopher's Zone: https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/philosopherszone/

Uploaded 15-06-21

#philosophy #isaiahberlin #freedom #kant #determinism #causality #freewill #historyofphilosophy

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James Rachels on Darwin and Animal Ethics (1991)

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 02:12:30 -0000

Audio recording of a 1991 lecture by James W. Rachels on Darwin and animal ethics at a conference on the ethics of animal experimentation at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University.

Uploaded 01-09-24

00:00 Darwin
33:34 Animal Rights
57:23 Questions

#philosophy #darwin #ethics #moralphilosophy #animalethics #animalrights

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6 Concepts, Judgment and Deduction of the Categories - Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (Dan Robinson)

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 02:00:00 -0000

Dan Robinson gives the 6th lecture in a series of 8 on Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Empiricists have no explanation for how we move from "mere forms of thought" to objective concepts. The conditions necessary for the knowledge of an object require a priori categories as the enabling conditions of all human understanding.

Uploaded 05-06-21

This series looks at German Philosopher Immanuel Kant's seminal philosophical work 'The Critique of Pure Reason'. The lectures aim to outline and discuss some of the key philosophical issues raised in the book and to offer students and individuals thought provoking Kantian ideas surrounding metaphysics. Each lecture looks at particular questions raised in the work such as how do we know what we know and how do we find out about the world, dissects these questions with reference to Kant's work and discusses the broader philosophical implications. Anyone with an interest in Kant and philosophy will find these lectures thought provoking but accessible.

This is series of lectures was given in 2011 at Oxford. Note, the audio has been improved.

All 8 lectures: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhP9EhPApKE_OdgqNgL0AJX9-gwr4tmLw

#philosophy #kant #epistemology #metaphysics #empiricism #skepticism #historyofphilosophy

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Resurrection of the Body? Physicalism and the Possibility of Life After Death

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 01:15:00 -0000

Can a Christian be a physicalist? And is there a coherent story to tell about how a physical entity can survive bodily death? In this talk, Rebekah Rice evaluates proposals by Christian philosophers who have answered "yes" to both questions and have gone on to propose theories about the possibility of resurrection given physicalism. Rebekah Rice, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Seattle Pacific University, gave this lecture back in 2012.

Uploaded 06-10-25

00:00 Lecture
49:45 Q and A

#philosophy #metaphysics #philosophyofmind #philosophyofreligion #personalidentity #materialism

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Two Kinds of Freedom: Negative vs Positive

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 01:00:00 -0000

Another re-upload of something that I put together awhile ago about Isaiah Berlin's famous distinction between the notion of positive versus negative liberty, and the related liberal conception of freedom.

Uploaded 03-06-21

#philosophy #isaiahberlin #politicaltheory #politicalphilosophy #historyofphilosophy

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Hegel and his Heirs

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 00:17:30 -0000

Robert Harrison and Adrian Daub discuss Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and his heirs a few years back in an episode of Entitled Opinions, a KZSU Stanford University program. http://french-italian.stanford.edu/op...

Uploaded 28-06-21

Hegel was one of the most important and influential 19th century German philosophers, best known for his dialectic, absolute idealism, and historicism, among various other things. The Hegelian dialectic is the process in which everything changes, based on the triad: thesis-antithesis-synthesis. Hegel's idealism rejected the Kantian notion of the thing-in-itself and instead embraced a monistic vision of the world in which everything forms an organic, interconnected, rational whole. Nothing is true or real except the whole. Not only a thinker of totality, Hegel was a historicist thinker who rejected the notion that ideas are static and fixed (e.g. the concepts of human nature and morality, as well as the concept of reason itself). Things can only be understood by understanding their historical context, which, for Hegel, is a process which changes and develops, and which has an underlying meaning or significance. So not only is there history in reason, but there is reason in history. For Hegel, history progresses towards its endpoint of ever greater freedom, driven by alienation, that of constant conflict and struggle by way of this dialectical process. (My Description)

#philosophy #hegel #metaphysics

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Animal Selves and the Good - Christine Korsgaard (2016)

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 00:00:00 -0000

A common defense of the various and sometimes cruel ways in which human beings use the other animals is that human beings are just more important than the other animals are: what happens to human beings matters more. In this lecture, Christine Korsgaard begins by arguing that the trouble with this claim is not so much that it is false, as that it makes almost no sense at all. The difficulty rests in the fact that everything that is important must be important to someone. A defense of this claim requires nothing less than a theory of why there is such a thing as “the good” at all. She will sketch such a theory and then raise some objections to it, which will take us into an examination of the relation between having a self and having a good. Although it is not true that some creatures are “more important” than others, it is true that the fact that some creatures have less of a self means that things may be, in a general way, less important to them.

Uploaded 15-04-25

This talk was given by Christine M. Korsgaard (Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Philosophy at Harvard) at the University of Berkeley as part of the 2016 Howison Lectures in Philosophy.

00:00 Talk
56:02 Q and A

#philosophy #ethics #moralphilosophy #animalethics

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Reasons for Action: Introducing Common-Sense Psychology - Emma Borg (2024)

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 00:00:00 -0000

Professor Emma Borg gives the first lecture in a series on "Reasons for Action" as part of the 2024 Frege Lectures in theoretical philosophy at the University of Tartu.

Uploaded 08-04-25

Do people generally do what they do on the basis of the reasons they have for acting? The standard philosophical answer - common-sense psychology or folk psychology - says yes. But recently the idea that humans are generally rational, reasons-responsive beings has come under considerable pressure, as a number of empirical findings (often in the fields of social, comparative, and developmental psychology) seem to suggest that, on the contrary, people are often blind to reasons, acting on gut feelings and intuitions, and are subject to various biases and other errors of reasoning. Although these empirical findings are now well-known (reaching beyond the ivory tower into the public consciousness), Emma Borg suggests that the precise problem for common-sense psychology remains unclear. There are (at least) three different arguments that could be made based on the empirical data. In her lectures, Emma Borg explains these three arguments and argues that the proponent of the common-sense view has responses to each of them. She concludes that the case against common-sense psychology can be rejected, and that we should hold on to the notion that action (of a typical adult) involves acting based on reasons.

Emma Borg is Professor of Philosophy at the Institute of Philosophy, University of London. Her main research interests are the philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and business ethics. Borg is the author of Minimal Semantics (2004) and Pursuing Meaning (2012), as well as two forthcoming books: A Very Short Introduction to Meaning and Acting for Reasons: In Defence of Common-Sense Psychology (all published by Oxford University Press). The latter book is also the basis for her Frege Lectures.

00:00 Intro
03:18 Talk
1:05:13 Q and A

#philosophy #epistemology #psychology #rationality

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Reason and Feeling in Ethics - Brand Blanshard (1966)

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 23:20:00 -0000

Audio recording of a 1966 lecture by Brand Blanshard on reason and ethics given at Wheaton College (Massachusetts).

Uploaded 27-06-25

#philosophy #ethics #moralphilosophy #utilitarianism #historyofphilosophy

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Science and Free Will - Herbert Feigl (1963)

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 23:00:00 -0000

Audio recording of a lecture given by professor Herbert Feigl on free will and science at Coffman Union in 1963 at the University of Minnesota. After introducing the traditional problem of free will, he goes on to discuss how determinism and indeterminism fit into our conception of science. He then goes on to argue that free will is not only consistent with determinism, but it seems to presuppose it. He thereby tries to dissolve the traditional issue by showing the underlying compatibility between free will and that of causal determinism.

Uploaded 12-01-25

#philosophy #determinism #science #freewill #causality #causation #philosophyofscience

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4 Synthetic A Priori Judgments - Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (Dan Robinson)

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 23:00:00 -0000

Dan Robinson gives the 4th lecture in a series of 8 on Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Kant claims that, "our sense representation is not a representation of things in themselves, but of the way in which they appear to us. Hence it follows that the propositions of geometry... cannot be referred with the assurance to actual objects; but rather that they are necessarily valid of space... [and] space is nothing else than the form of all external appearances". [Prolegomena 286-287]

Uploaded 05-06-21

This series looks at German Philosopher Immanuel Kant's seminal philosophical work 'The Critique of Pure Reason'. The lectures aim to outline and discuss some of the key philosophical issues raised in the book and to offer students and individuals thought provoking Kantian ideas surrounding metaphysics. Each lecture looks at particular questions raised in the work such as how do we know what we know and how do we find out about the world, dissects these questions with reference to Kant's work and discusses the broader philosophical implications. Anyone with an interest in Kant and philosophy will find these lectures thought provoking but accessible.

This is series of lectures was given in 2011 at Oxford. Note, the audio has been improved.

All 8 lectures: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhP9EhPApKE_OdgqNgL0AJX9-gwr4tmLw

#philosophy #kant #epistemology #metaphysics #empiricism #skepticism #historyofphilosophy

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Argument for Vegetarianism - James Rachels (1991)

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 22:22:30 -0000

A clip of Professor James Rachels presenting a version of his "basic argument for vegetarianism" in the context of why Raymond Frey should be a vegetarian by his own principles. This comes from a 1991 lecture on Darwin and animal ethics at Georgetown University. The full video can be found here: https://youtu.be/NBjOqexaFys

Uploaded 30-09-24

#philosophy #ethics #moralphilosophy #animalethics #animalrights

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Donald Davidson on Knowledge and Perception - The Martin Discussion

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 22:00:00 -0000

Donald Davidson discusses his views on epistemology and perception with Michael Martin. Among other things, he discusses the traditional definition of knowledge as justified true belief, coherentism about truth and knowledge, John McDowell's criticism, the notion of qualia, his rejection of any epistemic intermediary between the world and our beliefs about it, how he can account for perceptual illusions and hallucinations, and his own externalist account of perceptual beliefs and how they are justified.

Uploaded 11-07-21

This is from Philosophy International 1997. It is also a re-upload.

#philosophy #epistemology #perception #skepticism #philosophyofmind

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3 David Hume on Causation - Reid's Critique of Hume (Dan Robinson)

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 22:00:00 -0000

Professor Dan Robinson gives the third in a series of 8 lectures on Thomas Reid's critique of David Hume at Oxford in 2014. Causality arises from a habit of the mind formed by repeated experiences. “There is nothing in any objects to persuade us, that they are either always remote or always contiguous; and when from experience and observation we discover, that their relation in this particular is invariable, we, always conclude there is some secret cause, which separates or unites them…”

Uploaded 19-06-21

Under “David Hume”, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy begins with, “The most important philosopher ever to write in English”. His most formidable contemporary critic was the fellow Scot, Thomas Reid, the major architect of so-called Scottish Common Sense Philosophy. The most significant features of Hume’s work, as understood by Reid, are the representive theory of perception, the nature of causation and causal concepts, the nature of personal identity and the foundations of morality. Each of these topics is presented in a pair of lectures, the first summarizing Hume’s position and the second Reid’s critique of that position.

All Lectures: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhP9EhPApKE9nki7CXFPi7PMOi5W2g2-q

#philosophy #davidhume #causation #skepticism #causality #historyofphilosophy

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Ernest Nagel on Current Issues in Philosophy of Science (1962)

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 21:25:00 -0000

Audio recording of a 1962 lecture given by professor Ernest Nagel at Yale on the current issues in the philosophy of science.

Uploaded 01-01-25

#philosophy #science #philosophyofscience #epistemology

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Heidegger and Existentialism (1967)

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 21:06:00 -0000

Leo Rauch gives a lecture on Existentialism and Heidegger in 1967 at the Cooper Union Forum as part of a series on Forces in American Philosophy.

Uploaded 09-07-24

#philosophy #existentialism #heidegger #sartre #historyofphilosophy

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Gadamer on Language and Understanding (1970)

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 21:00:00 -0000

Clips of Hans-Georg Gadamer from a 1970 lecture on language and understanding. This is a version of an upload from the other channel. The translation is my own. More Gadamer: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhP9EhPApKE_MbPzGOh27qfdqiCaf7Uot
More Short Clips: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhP9EhPApKE8v8UVlc7JuuNHwvhkaOvzc

Uploaded 02-07-21

#Philosophy #Gadamer #Language

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Philosophy of Mathematics and Frege - Michael Dummett (1994)

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 21:00:00 -0000

Audio recording of a 1994 lecture by Michael Dummett on Frege and the philosophy of mathematics at the LSE on the occasion of his Lakatos Award for an outstanding contribution to the philosophy of science.

Uploaded 03-06-21

For a good intro to the philosophy of mathematics, check out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhX1ouUjDHE and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyXWnGFKTkg

#philosophy #epistemology #mathematics #frege #kant #historyofphilosophy

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Derek Parfit on Personal Identity (1996)

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 20:27:30 -0000

This comes from a 1996 program called Brainspotting. Read more on personal identity: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-personal/

Uploaded 30-06-21

#philosophy #parfit #personalidentity #metaphysics

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Reconciling Subjectivity and Substance: Hegel's Critique of Pure Personhood

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 20:00:00 -0000

This is a talk given by Jonathan Hand in 2019 at St. John's college.

Uploaded 22-06-21

#philosophy #hegel

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Plato and Aristotle on Aesthetics

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 20:00:00 -0000

A few introductory clips about Plato and Aristotle on aesthetics. This comes from a program on aesthetics and the philosophy of art in a series on great ideas in philosophy a few years back. These clips feature Alexander Nehamas and Arthur Danto.

Uploaded 20-08-24

#philosophy #aesthetics #plato #aristotle

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Pragmatism and Truth - Rorty, Putnam, and Conant (2002)

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 19:30:00 -0000

Audio recording of a discussion between Richard Rorty, Hilary Putnam, and James Conant on pragmatism and truth. This comes from an episode of Odyssey on WBEZ Chicago from back in 2002 with host Gretchen Helfrich. Note, this is a reupload.

Uploaded 06-06-21

#philosophy #epistemology #rorty #pragmatism #historyofphilosophy #debate

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Walter Kaufmann on Oedipus and the Death of Tragedy (1974)

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 19:00:00 -0000

Audio recording of professor Walter Kaufmann discussing Sophocles' Oedipus Rex and some of its philosophical aspects, as well as the death of tragedy, in a lecture given at Concordia University in 1974.

Uploaded 10-12-25

You may also be interested in the following: https://youtu.be/IAsIccIBWJM

00:00 Lecture
59:10 Q and A

#philosophy #aesthetics #literature #tragedy #greektragedy

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Frank Jackson on the Knowledge Argument

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 19:00:00 -0000

A clip of Frank Jackson discussing his famous knowledge argument involving Mary and why he ended up changing his mind about it. This clip comes from an interview with Alan Saunders back in 2012.

Uploaded 28-03-26

#philosophy #philosophyofmind #consciousness #metaphysics #materialism

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True Enough

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 18:00:00 -0000

A talk given by Catherine Elgin on her book "True Enough", the development of an epistemology that explains how science and art embody and convey understanding. Philosophy valorizes truth, holding that there can never be epistemically good reasons to accept a known falsehood, or to accept modes of justification that are not truth conducive. How can this stance account for the epistemic standing of science, which unabashedly relies on models, idealizations, and thought experiments that are known not to be true? In True Enough, Catherine Elgin argues that we should not assume that the inaccuracy of models and idealizations constitutes an inadequacy. To the contrary, their divergence from truth or representational accuracy fosters their epistemic functioning. When effective, models and idealizations are, Elgin contends, felicitous falsehoods that exemplify features of the phenomena they bear on. Because works of art deploy the same sorts of felicitous falsehoods, she argues, they also advance understanding.

Uploaded 07-07-21

Elgin develops a holistic epistemology that focuses on the understanding of broad ranges of phenomena rather than knowledge of individual facts. Epistemic acceptability, she maintains, is a matter not of truth-conduciveness, but of what would be reflectively endorsed by the members of an idealized epistemic community—a quasi-Kantian realm of epistemic ends.

Catherine's book: https://books.google.com/books/about/True_Enough.html?id=SWc6DwAAQBAJ&source=kp_book_description

#philosophy #epistemology #science #philosophyofscience

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Iris Murdoch on the Sublime and the Beautiful Revisited (1959)

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 18:00:00 -0000

Audio recording of a 1959 lecture by Iris Murdoch at Yale as part of the Bergen lecture series.

Uploaded 26-12-24

#philosophy #aesthetics #literature

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Jerry Fodor Interview on Philosophy of Mind

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 17:32:30 -0000

Audio recording of an interview with the philosopher and cognitive scientist Jerry Fodor from a few years back. Fodor discusses various approaches and issues in contemporary philosophy of mind. Among other things, he discusses Noam Chomsky's attempt to dissolve the mind-body problem, functionalism and computationalism, David Hume's representationalist and associationist approach, physicalism/materialism, intentionality, the problem of consciousness, creativity, imagination, and the science of the mind.

Uploaded 23-06-21

Note, this is a reupload. More details will be added later.

00:00 Materialism and Chomsky
03:05 Functionalism
05:18 Hume's Contribution
09:47 Computationalism vs Assocationism
11:39 Rationality and Computation
17:50 Consciousness
19:30 Creativity and Imagination
25:36 Role of Philosophers

#philosophy #philosophyofmind #consciousness #hume #intentionality #historyofphilosophy #mind

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The Legacy of John Rawls

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 17:00:00 -0000

The legacy of the political philosopher John Rawls is discussed by Michael Sandel (Harvard University), Steve Macedo (Princeton University), and Anthony Laden (the University of Illinois Chicago) with host Gretchen Helfrich in an episode of Odyssey from Chicago Public Radio back in 2002.

Uploaded 11-04-26

#philosophy #politicalphilosophy #politicaltheory #rawls #johnrawls #ethics

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What Is Rationality, Anyway?

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 17:00:00 -0000

Dr. Peter Dennis gives a public lecture on the nature of rationality at the LSE in 2015. Peter Dennis is an LSE Fellow in the Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method and a Forum for European Philosophy Fellow.

Uploaded 01-03-25

00:00 Talk
54:04 Q and A

#philosophy #rationality #epistemology

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John Searle Interview on Perception and Philosophy of Mind

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 16:35:00 -0000

One of America’s most prominent philosophers says his field has been tilting at windmills for nearly 400 years. Representationalism (or indirect realism)---the idea that we don’t directly perceive external objects in the world, but only our own inner mental images or representations of objects---has bedeviled philosophy ever since Descartes, and now is mucking up neuroscience as well, John Searle alleges. He has long defended the “naive” alternative that our senses do actually give us direct access to external reality, and he fires his latest salvo in his new book “Seeing Things as They Are: A Theory of Perception”. John is well-known for his no nonsense approach to philosophical problems, and there was plenty of straight talk here as he discussed his theory of perception, the subjective-objective divide, the scientific study of consciousness, and his dog Tarski.

Uploaded 26-06-21

This interview was given a few years back by Robert Pollie which I quite like from a podcast called the 7th Avenue Project: www.7thavenueproject.com.

#philosophy #epistemology #philosophyofmind #perception #consciousness #skepticism #mind

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Quine on the Limits of Knowledge (1973)

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 16:00:00 -0000

Audio recording of a 1973 lecture by Willard Van Orman Quine on the question of whether there are any limits to knowledge. Note, this is reupload. More details will be added later.

Uploaded 04-07-21

#philosophy #epistemology #quine #philosophyofscience #historyofphilosophy

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Theories of Welfare - Ethics and Society Course

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 16:00:00 -0000

The nature of well-being is discussed in this introductory lecture from a 2023 course on Ethics and Society by Professor Samuel Zincke Elgin at UCSD, the University of California (UC San Diego).

Uploaded 28-12-25

#philosophy #ethics #moralphilosophy #utilitarianism #hedonism

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Revising Logic - Graham Priest

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 15:37:30 -0000

A re-upload of a talk which was given by Graham Priest on revising logic at a conference on paradox and logical revision at the University of Munich back in 2012.

Uploaded 15-06-25

#philosophy #rationality #epistemology

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2 Varieties of Philosophical Skepticism - Cartesian and Kantian Skepticism

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 15:00:00 -0000

In this second lecture (note, it's actually the third because the second wasn't recorded), James Conant continues to give examples of Cartesian skepticism in various other areas of philosophy and discusses some of the differences with Kantian skepticism. Note, because Kantian skepticism was introduced and discussed in the previous session, and there's no recording, it might be a bit difficult at first to understand what Kantian skepticism precisely is. However, this will definitely become clear as the lectures go on.

Uploaded 26-06-21

In this series of lectures on varieties of philosophical skepticism, James Conant distinguishes between two forms of philosophical skepticism: Cartesian skepticism and Kantian skepticism. He discusses their general structure and shows how they're related. This sheds light on issues in various different areas, including within the philosophy of perception, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of language. Some of the philosophers discussed throughout this course include Wittgenstein, Sellars, Hilary Putnam, Kripke, C.I. Lewis, John McDowell, and Stanley Cavell.

This series of lectures was given in 2005 at the Department of Philosophy at the University of Bergen, Norway. Note, the audio has been slightly edited and improved.

"There are never any sure signs by means of which being awake can be distinguished from being asleep." Descartes

"The a priori conditions of a possible experience in general are at the same time conditions of the possibility of objects of experience. Now I maintain that the categories ... are nothing but the conditions of thought in a possible experience ... And without such unity no thoroughgoing, universal, and therefore necessary, unity of consciousness would be met with in the manifold of perceptions. These perceptions would not then belong to any experience, consequently would be without an object, merely a blind play of representations, less even than a dream." Immanuel Kant

00:00 Introduction
01:31 Where one is possible, so is the other
03:29 Philosophy of Law
05:27 Skepticism for any Area of Philosophy
07:37 Testimony
13:21 Personal Identity
17:01 The Past
19:51 Reference
24:00 Move to Kantian Problematic
33:55 Why these Two Labels?
45:45 Is Kantian Skepticism a Kind of Skepticism?
51:33 Features of Both

All lectures: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhP9EhPApKE8muoMpX8qQ-14zKnYPc5VI

#philosophy #epistemology #skepticism #kant #historyofphilosophy

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What Is Probability? Difficulties Understanding Probability

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 15:00:00 -0000

Professor David Wallace discusses the nature of probability and some of the philosophical puzzles that arise regarding how to understand and make sense of probability. He begins by distinguishing between subjective probabilities (which are about our beliefs) and objective probabilities (which are about the world itself). He then goes on to discuss various interpretations of probability and some of the difficulties that arise for each. This comes from a talk given in a series on the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics back in 2015 at Oxford.

Uploaded 04-06-21

00:00 Concepts of Probability
01:04 Subjective Probability
02:14 More-Objective Probabilities
03:49 Very Objective Probabilities
05:52 Two Questions about Objective Probability
08:40 Frequentism
13:52 Probability from Symmetry
16:59 Probability as Primitive
18:10 The "Why" Question
20:10 The Principal Principle
24:43 A Dearth of Solutions to the Why Question

#philosophy #probability #epistemology #philosophyofscience #historyofphilosophy

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Hume on the Argument from Design

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 14:40:00 -0000

Michael Levine discusses David Hume on the teleological argument or the argument from design with Alan Saunders in this clip from an episode of the Philosopher's Zone from back in 2011. Michael Levine was Professor of Philosophy at the University of Western Australia.

Uploaded 14-03-26

This clip comes from an episode of the Philosopher's Zone, an ABC Radio National program, from back in 2011.

The Philosopher's Zone: https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/philosopherszone

#philosophy #davidhume #philosophyofreligion #theism #atheism #agnosticism #historyofphilosophy

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6 Reid on Personal Identity - Reid's Critique of Hume (Dan Robinson)

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 14:00:00 -0000

Professor Dan Robinson gives the sixth in a series of 8 lectures on Thomas Reid's critique of David Hume at Oxford in 2014. In the third of his Essays on The Intellectual Powers of Man, Reid devotes the fourth chapter to the concept of 'identity', and the sixth chapter to Locke's theory of 'personal identity'. This latter chapter is widely regarded as a definitive refutation of the thesis that personal identity is no more than memories of a certain sort, less a “bundle of perceptions”. As he says, “This conviction of one’s own identity is utterly necessary for all exercise of reason. The operations of reason—whether practical reasoning about what to do or speculative reasoning in the building up of a theory—are made up of successive parts. In any reasoning that I perform, the early parts are the foundation of the later ones, and if I didn’t have the conviction that the early parts are propositions that I have approved or written down, I would have no reason to proceed to the later parts in any theoretical or practical project whatever”.

Uploaded 19-06-21

Under “David Hume”, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy begins with, “The most important philosopher ever to write in English”. His most formidable contemporary critic was the fellow Scot, Thomas Reid, the major architect of so-called Scottish Common Sense Philosophy. The most significant features of Hume’s work, as understood by Reid, are the representive theory of perception, the nature of causation and causal concepts, the nature of personal identity and the foundations of morality. Each of these topics is presented in a pair of lectures, the first summarizing Hume’s position and the second Reid’s critique of that position.

All Lectures: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhP9EhPApKE9nki7CXFPi7PMOi5W2g2-q

#philosophy #davidhume #personalidentity #skepticism #historyofphilosophy

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Karl Popper on Observation and Induction (1989)

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 14:00:00 -0000

A reupload of audio recording of Karl Popper discussing his views on observation and induction, specifically how knowledge and science do not start from observation, but that all observation itself is theory-laden. Indeed, as he explains, the view that all knowledge and science rests on observation leads to induction, which Popper famously rejected due to the so-called problem of induction, first formulated by David Hume. As such, Popper didn't think that induction played any justificatory role in science at all, which is precisely why he ended up with his famous falsificationist view that theories and hypotheses can only be refuted or falsified (i.e. via deduction), but they can never be proven true or positively supported with observational evidence (i.e. via induction). These clips all come from a 1989 interview on falsificationism and some of the main criticisms. It is a re-upload of something that I put together a while ago. More details will be added later.

Uploaded 13-07-25

#philosophy #karlpopper #epistemology #science #philosophyofscience

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Isaiah Berlin on Freedom (1962)

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 13:42:30 -0000

A short clip of Isaiah Berlin discussing freedom, touching on his famous distinction between negative and positive freedom.

Uploaded 10-07-21

Isaiah Berlin interview on freedom: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSBf5LJ0hnc
Isaiah Berlin interview on liberalism and pluralism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxn55CXTgKo

#philosophy #isaiahberlin #politicalphilosophy #freedom

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Nationhood - Kwame Anthony Appiah (2016)

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 13:00:00 -0000

Audio recording of a 2016 lecture by the philosopher and cultural theorist Kwame Anthony Appiah as part of his Reith Lectures on Mistaken Identities. He argues against a mythical, romantic view of nationhood, saying instead it should rest on a commitment to shared values. He explores the history of the idea, born in the 19th century, that there are peoples who are bound together by an ancient common spirit and that each of these nations is entitled to its own state. He says this idea is a mistaken one, illustrating his argument through the life story of the writer who took the pen name Italo Svevo - meaning literally Italian Swabian. He was born a citizen of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and became a citizen of the new republic of Italy, all without leaving his home city of Trieste. Appiah argues that states exist as a set of shared beliefs rather than membership of some sort of mythical and ancient group.

Uploaded 13-10-25

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

00:00 Talk
31:19 Q and A

#philosophy #politicalphilosophy #politicaltheory #nationalism

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7 The "Self" and Synthetic Unity of Apperception - Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (Dan Robinson)

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 13:00:00 -0000

Dan Robinson gives the 7th lecture in a series of 8 on Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Kant argues that: "The synthetic unity of consciousness is... an objective condition of all knowledge. It is not merely a condition that I myself require in knowing an object, but is a condition under which every intuition must stand in order to become an object for me".

Uploaded 05-06-21

This series looks at German Philosopher Immanuel Kant's seminal philosophical work 'The Critique of Pure Reason'. The lectures aim to outline and discuss some of the key philosophical issues raised in the book and to offer students and individuals thought provoking Kantian ideas surrounding metaphysics. Each lecture looks at particular questions raised in the work such as how do we know what we know and how do we find out about the world, dissects these questions with reference to Kant's work and discusses the broader philosophical implications. Anyone with an interest in Kant and philosophy will find these lectures thought provoking but accessible.

This is series of lectures was given in 2011 at Oxford. Note, the audio has been improved.

All 8 lectures: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhP9EhPApKE_OdgqNgL0AJX9-gwr4tmLw

#philosophy #kant #epistemology #metaphysics #personalidentity #empiricism #skepticism #historyofphilosophy

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Real Direct Realism

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 12:45:00 -0000

Galen Strawson delivers a lecture on the philosophy of perception at the Marc Sanders Foundation back in 2014.

Uploaded 17-11-25

More on these philosophical issues regarding the nature of perception: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/perception-problem/ and https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/perception-episprob/

00:00 Lecture
52:11 Discussion

#philosophy #epistemology #perception #skepticism #philosophyofmind

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Same-Sex Marriage Arguments

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 12:00:00 -0000

Professor Martha Nussbaum discusses the main arguments against same-sex marriage in a clip which comes from a 2010 lecture at the Harvard Book Store on her book, From Disgust to Humanity: Sexual Orientation and Constitutional Law. Although this topic would've seemed out of date a decade ago, it seems increasingly less so in the current socio-political climate.

Uploaded 14-12-25

#philosophy #ethics #socialissues #law #debate

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Kant's Moral Philosophy

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 12:00:00 -0000

A few introductory clips on Kant's ethics and his famous principle of the categorical imperative. Among some of the featured speakers include James Rachels, Gilbert Harman, and Stephen Toulmin. These clips all come from the 1998 Εxαminϵd Life series.

Uploaded 25-09-24

#philosophy #kant #ethics #moralphilosophy

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Romanticism, Politics, and Ethics - Isaiah Berlin (1963)

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 11:47:30 -0000

Audio recording of Isaiah Berlin delivering the 1963 Alexander S. Keller lecture on romanticism, politics, and ethics at the University of Hartford.

Uploaded 16-03-25

#philosophy #romanticism #isaiahberlin #ethics #intellectualhistory

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The Truth is Terrible - Nietzsche's Idea of an Aesthetic Justification for Existence

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 11:00:00 -0000

Brian Leiter discusses the thought of Nietzsche at Davidson College a few years back. The truth is terrible, Nietzsche tells us. There is no God, the universe lacks any ultimate meaning or purpose, and is filled with gratuitous pointless suffering. Our only relief comes with nonexistence upon death. Even the existence of the self, free will, objective value, and absolute truth and knowledge are wholly illusory. All forms and qualities are but mere human conventions, subjective expressions of our competing drives. The unquenchable desire for objectivity is the drive to transcend our finite bodily existence and grab hold of something universal, absolute, unchanging, and God-like. But there simply is none. So it is all too easy to become disillusioned and fall into an abyss of anguish and despair, turning away from existence and the drives, as suggested by the pessimistic philosophy of Schopenhauer. But Nietzsche urges against this turning away from life. For Nietzsche, existence is justified, but only as an aesthetic phenomenon. But what does this mean exactly? Brian Leiter explains. (My Summary)

Uploaded 04-06-21

More Nietzsche: https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhP9EhPApKE_ySvPE8kzFUkA5aO_cdKmb

#philosophy #nietzsche #ethics #historyofphilosophy

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Beginning of 'The Absurd' by Thomas Nagel

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 11:00:00 -0000

A reading of the beginning of Thomas Nagel's 1971 article "The Absurd", which I've always quite liked.

Uploaded 01-12-24

#philosophy #existentialism #ethics

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Political Philosophy and John Rawls

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 10:50:00 -0000

Audio recording of a lecture by Jonathan Wolff on John Rawls' political philosophy. After discussing the detrimental influence of logical positivism on ethical and political discourse, Jonathan Wolff goes on to explain John Rawls' famous contractarian conception of justice. Rawls' argument takes the form of a thought experiment involving a hypothetical contract in which people are made 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 way to guarantee impartiality in deciding how societies should be set up. After all, one cannot rig things up to benefit oneself if one doesn't know what one's interests are or what one's position in society will be. Rawls argued that people behind this so-called "veil of ignorance" would agree to two principles of justice: the liberty principle and the difference principle. Jonathan Wolf explains these principles and the main arguments for and against them. (My Summary)

Uploaded 06-06-21

Note, this is re-upload. More details about this talk will be added at a later date.

More Political Philosophy: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhP9EhPApKE_O1dkCOqsUke_0QUkX80A-

#philosophy #politicalphilosophy #rawls #johnrawls #politicaltheory #historyofphilosophy

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On Anger

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 10:00:00 -0000

A clip of Martha Nussbaum discussing the nature of anger and her radical view that anger is always normatively flawed. This comes from a lecture Martha Nussbaum gave on anger back in 2013 at the University of Chicago.

Uploaded 19-04-25

#philosophy #anger #psychology #emotions #ethics

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The Supremacy of Method - Ernest Nagel (1973)

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 10:00:00 -0000

Audio recording of a 1973 lecture by Ernest Nagel on the supremacy of method at Columbia University.

Uploaded 19-03-26

#philosophy #science #epistemology #philosophyofscience #skepticism #relativism #historyofphilosophy

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2 The Broader Philosophical Context - Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (Dan Robinson)

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 09:52:30 -0000

Dan Robinson gives the 2nd lecture in a series of 8 on Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. The significant advances in physics in the 17th century stood in vivid contrast to the stagnation of traditional metaphysics, but why should metaphysics be conceived as a "science" in the first place?

Uploaded 04-06-21

This series looks at German Philosopher Immanuel Kant's seminal philosophical work 'The Critique of Pure Reason'. The lectures aim to outline and discuss some of the key philosophical issues raised in the book and to offer students and individuals thought provoking Kantian ideas surrounding metaphysics. Each lecture looks at particular questions raised in the work such as how do we know what we know and how do we find out about the world, dissects these questions with reference to Kant's work and discusses the broader philosophical implications. Anyone with an interest in Kant and philosophy will find these lectures thought provoking but accessible.

This is series of lectures was given in 2011 at Oxford. Note, the audio has been improved.

All 8 lectures: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhP9EhPApKE_OdgqNgL0AJX9-gwr4tmLw

#philosophy #kant #epistemology #metaphysics #skepticism #empiricism #historyofphilosophy

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The Most Interesting Take On Socrates?

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 09:06:00 -0000

Agnes Callard (Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Chicago) explains what she takes to be Socrates's main contribution to philosophy as a possible theme for a future book. She does this through the example of William James's "The Will to Believe" and his famous dispute with William K. Clifford.

Uploaded 13-07-21

Note, this is a reupload. The clip comes from an interview with Into the Coast. For more information and the whole interview, go to: https://www.intothecoast.com/agnes-callard

#philosophy #socrates #epistemology #williamjames

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Russell-Copleston Debate on God's Existence (1948)

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 09:00:00 -0000

Bertrand Russell and Frederick Copleston debate the existence of God in this famous radio debate from 1948. Copleston here presents the argument from contingency, which is a kind of cosmological argument for God's existence. It is now in the public domain. Note, the audio has been improved.

Uploaded 09-06-21

Frederick Copleston on Schopenhauer: https://youtu.be/6x8ydL5Jp70
Peter Millican on God and Morality: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOTvCtv9ht8
Simone de Beauvoir on God and Existentialism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJnWHVwvYSQ

#philosophy #bertrandrussell #theism #atheism #god #philosophyofreligion #historyofphilosophy #debate

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Gadamer on Augustine on Time (1987)

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 09:00:00 -0000

A short clip of Hans-Georg Gadamer discussing Augustine on time. This is re-upload. The translation is mine.

Uploaded 03-06-21

More Gadamer: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhP9EhPApKE_MbPzGOh27qfdqiCaf7Uot

#philosophy #gadamer #time

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Killing Civilians in War (Jeff McMahan)

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 08:55:00 -0000

When is it permissible to kill civilians in war? Jeff McMahan discusses the ethics of killing civilians in war in a talk at Ohio State University back in 2008. More on the morality of war: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/war/

Uploaded 15-04-25

#philosophy #ethics #justwar #moralphilosophy #war

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Free Will - General Philosophy (Peter Millican)

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In this lecture on General Philosophy, Professor Peter Millican discusses free will and the problem of moral responsibility. This comes from a 2010 series on General Philosophy. The slides have been added.

Uploaded 08-06-21

This series of lectures was delivered by Peter Millican to first-year philosophy students at the University of Oxford. The lectures comprise of the 8-week General Philosophy course, delivered to first year undergraduates. These lectures aim to provide a thorough introduction to many philosophical topics and to get students and others interested in thinking about key areas of philosophy. Taking a chronological view of the history of philosophy, each lecture is split into 3 or 4 sections which outline a particular philosophical problem and how different philosophers have attempted to resolve the issue. Individuals interested in the 'big' questions about life such as how we perceive the world, who we are in the world and whether we are free to act will find this series informative, comprehensive and accessible.

More lectures on General Philosophy: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhP9EhPApKE_xo2wvkm6qPZrUlAiRNHXb

Source: https://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/series/general-philosophy

#philosophy #freewill #determinism #causality #causation #mind #metaphysics #psychology

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The Loss of Absolute Authority - Hannah Arendt (1972)

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Hannah Arendt believed that the will of the totalitarian ruler occupied the place left vacant by the absolute authority over the world attributed to God during the Middle Ages. With the collapse of the divinely ordained Kingships and the authority exercised by the Catholic church in the name of God, what would replace the authority of God in the world? How would such authority be constituted, who would act in its name, and what rules would it follow? Arendt believed that these questions missed the point. She welcomed the disappearance of absolute authority from the world in the name of the plurality of citizens whose power could now come forward. Only the power created by the collective decisions of citizens coming together to act on matters of public interest could establish a valid and just authority. Of course, this meant that there could be no return to the stability of the past. But it also meant that, as citizens, we assume responsibility ourselves for what happens in the world.

Uploaded 29-04-25

These clips come from a 1972 conference on Arendt's work at York University.

#philosophy #hannaharendt #politicaltheory #totalitarianism #authority

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Concepts vs Percepts (Ray Monk)

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 07:57:30 -0000

A short, somewhat random clip of Ray Monk discussing the distinction between concepts and percepts (or "intuitions" in the Kantian jargon), as well as some of the possible implications for modern science and beyond. More Short Clips: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhP9EhPApKE8v8UVlc7JuuNHwvhkaOvzc

Uploaded 21-06-21

This is from a talk given by Ray Monk a few years back on the philosophical landscape of 1905, which can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yfwFoVlcMk

#philosophy #epistemology #kant #historyofphilosophy

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The Evolution of "Why" as the Key to Free Will - Daniel Dennett

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 07:00:00 -0000

Professor Daniel Dennett gives a public lecture on evolution and free will at Stanford University in 2009.

Uploaded 05-01-25

#philosophy #freewill #dennett #darwin #causality #materialism #philosophyofmind #causation #mind

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8 The Paralogisms and Antinomies of Pure Reason - Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (Dan Robinson)

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 07:00:00 -0000

Dan Robinson gives the final lecture in a series of 8 on Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Reason, properly disciplined, draws permissible inferences from the resulting concepts of the understanding. The outcome is knowledge. When rightly employed, the perceptual and cognitive powers match up the right way with the real world and ground the knowledge-claims of the developed sciences. However, there is a strong tendency to stretch these processes beyond the permissible boundaries and seek what Kant refers to as "transcendental ideas" that go beyond the realm of actual or possible experience.

Uploaded 05-06-21

This series looks at German Philosopher Immanuel Kant's seminal philosophical work 'The Critique of Pure Reason'. The lectures aim to outline and discuss some of the key philosophical issues raised in the book and to offer students and individuals thought provoking Kantian ideas surrounding metaphysics. Each lecture looks at particular questions raised in the work such as how do we know what we know and how do we find out about the world, dissects these questions with reference to Kant's work and discusses the broader philosophical implications. Anyone with an interest in Kant and philosophy will find these lectures thought provoking but accessible.

This is series of lectures was given in 2011 at Oxford. Note, the audio has improved.

All 8 lectures: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhP9EhPApKE_OdgqNgL0AJX9-gwr4tmLw

#philosophy #kant #epistemology #metaphysics #skepticism #historyofphilosophy

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Merleau-Ponty on the World of Perception and the World of Science (1948)

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 07:00:00 -0000

Merleau-Ponty gives a talk on the world of perception and the world of science. This comes from a series of radio talks given in 1948 on the world of perception. The translation is my own.

Uploaded 06-07-21

#philosophy #phenomenology #perception #historyofphilosophy

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4 Reid on Causation and Active Powers - Reid's Critique of Hume (Dan Robinson)

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 06:02:30 -0000

Professor Dan Robinson gives the fourth in a series of 8 lectures on Thomas Reid's critique of David Hume at Oxford in 2014. “It is evident that a power is a quality, and therefore can’t exist without a subject to which it belongs…This (Humean) suggestion— There exists some power that cannot be attributed to any thing, any subject, which has the power —is an absurdity…No principle seems to have been more universally acknowledged by mankind ever since the first dawn of reason than that every change we observe in nature must have a cause…Another argument to show that all men have a notion or idea of active power is that there are many mental operations—performed by everyone who has a mind, and necessary in the ordinary conduct of life—which presuppose that we have active power”.

Uploaded 19-06-21

Under “David Hume”, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy begins with, “The most important philosopher ever to write in English”. His most formidable contemporary critic was the fellow Scot, Thomas Reid, the major architect of so-called Scottish Common Sense Philosophy. The most significant features of Hume’s work, as understood by Reid, are the representive theory of perception, the nature of causation and causal concepts, the nature of personal identity and the foundations of morality. Each of these topics is presented in a pair of lectures, the first summarizing Hume’s position and the second Reid’s critique of that position.

All Lectures: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhP9EhPApKE9nki7CXFPi7PMOi5W2g2-q

#philosophy #davidhume #causation #causality #historyofphilosophy

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John Locke - Antony Flew (1977)

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 06:00:00 -0000

Audio recording of a short program in which Antony Flew discusses the life and thought of the great 17th-century British empiricist philosopher, John Locke. This comes from a 1977 series of programs on western philosophy.

Uploaded 12-10-25

#philosophy #epistemology #locke #historyofphilosophy

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Chomsky on the "Limits" of Knowledge (1977)

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 06:00:00 -0000

A few clips of Noam Chomsky discussing the limits of knowledge and thought in a 1977 interview with Bryan Magee, and sounding like a dyed-in-the-wool Kantian in the process. This is a version of an upload from the previous channel. The full interview can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxvSQnmcYLo

Uploaded 30-06-21

Chomsky-Foucault Debate on Justice and Human Nature: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpVQ3l5P0A4

#Philosophy #Chomsky #BryanMagee

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Karl Popper on the Open Society (1974)

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 05:05:00 -0000

A short of clip of Karl Popper discussing the Open Society from a 1974 interview. The translation is mine. For more Popper: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhP9EhPApKE_VarWCx1d_Uogn_GxsVf-o

Uploaded 16-06-21

#philosophy #karlpopper #politicaltheory #politicalphilosophy #opensociety

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What Justifies the State?

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 05:00:00 -0000

An episode from the 1998 Εxαmined Life series.

Uploaded 14-11-25

#philosophy #politicalphilosophy #politicaltheory #historyofphilosophy

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What Distinguishes a Person from a Word? The Thought of C. S. Peirce

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 05:00:00 -0000

A lecture given on the thought of Charles Sanders Peirce by Grant Franks in 2017 at St. John's College.

Uploaded 13-06-21

#philosophy #epistemology #philosophyofmind #kant #historyofphilosophy #mind

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Robert Nozick on Karl Popper's Anti-Inductivism (2001)

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 04:07:30 -0000

Audio recording of Robert Nozick presenting an argument against Karl Popper's anti-inductivist view of scientific knowledge in a clip from a 2001 interview by Juliαn Sαnchez on Nozick's most recent book "Invariances: The Structure of the Objective World".

Uploaded 21-12-25

#philosophy #karlpopper #epistemology #science #nozick

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Baruch Spinoza - Anthony Quinton (1977)

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 04:00:00 -0000

Audio recording of a short program in which Anthony Quinton discusses the life and thought of the great 17th-century rationalist philosopher, Baruch Spinoza. This comes from a 1977 series of programs on the moulders of western philosophy.

Uploaded 22-10-24

#philosophy #spinoza #metaphysics #philosopher #historyofphilosophy

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Gadamer on Education and Tradition (1979)

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 04:00:00 -0000

Audio recording of a 1979 lecture by Hans-Georg Gadamer on tradition and education that was delivered in English at the University of Dallas.

Uploaded 29-04-26

#philosophy #gadamer #historyofphilosophy

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A Reasonable Structure for Animal Rights - Christine Korsgaard

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 03:10:00 -0000

In this talk, Professor Christine Korsgaard discusses the nature of rights, especially from a Kantian perspective and within the context of non-human animals. This was the Guelph Lecture in Philosophy given by Professor Christine M. Korsgaard at the University of Guelph back in 2014.

Uploaded 25-04-25

00:00 Talk
59:37 Q and A

#philosophy #ethics #moralphilosophy #animalethics #kant #animalrights

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8 Reid on the Principle of Morals - Reid's Critique of Hume (Dan Robinson)

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 03:00:00 -0000

Professor Dan Robinson gives the final lecture in a series of 8 lectures on Thomas Reid's critique of David Hume at Oxford in 2014. “Like all other sciences, morals must have first principles, and all moral reasoning is based on them... In all rational belief, the thing believed is either a first principle or something inferred by valid reasoning from first principles”. As for utility, “Suppose that mice rescue the distressed person by chewing through the cords that bound him. Is there moral goodness in this act of the mice?” Beyond the armchair and other precincts of untrammeled speculation, one finds that, there is little purchase on a morality of pleasure and utility. Indded, “If what we call ‘moral judgment’ isn’t really a judgment but merely a feeling, it follows that the moral principles that we have been taught to consider as an immutable law to all intelligent beings have no basis except an arbitrary structure and fabric in the constitution of the human mind…Thus, by a change in our structure immoral things could become moral…There are beings who can’t perceive mathematical truths; but no defect, no error of understanding, can make what is true to be false”.

Uploaded 20-06-21

Under “David Hume”, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy begins with, “The most important philosopher ever to write in English”. His most formidable contemporary critic was the fellow Scot, Thomas Reid, the major architect of so-called Scottish Common Sense Philosophy. The most significant features of Hume’s work, as understood by Reid, are the representive theory of perception, the nature of causation and causal concepts, the nature of personal identity and the foundations of morality. Each of these topics is presented in a pair of lectures, the first summarizing Hume’s position and the second Reid’s critique of that position.

All Lectures: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhP9EhPApKE9nki7CXFPi7PMOi5W2g2-q

#philosophy #davidhume #ethics #moralphilosophy #historyofphilosophy

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Anti-Natalism Interview with David Benatar (2024)

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 03:00:00 -0000

Audio recording of David Benatar discussing his anti-natalist views in a short interview with Andy Park in a 2024 episode of this ABC Radio National program called The Drawing Room. David Benatar is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. You can find more information about the program here: https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/drawingroom

Uploaded 15-11-24

You can read more about antinatalism here: https://iep.utm.edu/anti-natalism

#philosophy #ethics #pessimism #moralphilosophy

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Evolution vs Ethics - Peter Singer

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 02:12:30 -0000

Professor Peter Singer delivers a public lecture at the University of Sydney in 2011 on whether understanding evolution helps us to understand ethics and morality. This was part of the Sydney Ideas series and ABC's Big Ideas series. It was co-presented with Think Global School.

Uploaded 30-01-25

00:00 Lecture
48:38 Q and A

#philosophy #ethics #moralphilosophy #evolution #petersinger #utilitarianism

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The Claims of Theology - A. J. Ayer (1973)

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 02:00:00 -0000

Audio recording of a 1973 lecture by Sir Alfred Ayer. He begins by examining the traditional arguments for the existence of God, tracing grounds for belief and reasons for skepticism. He then goes on to consider whether God is necessary for morality. And after exploring the relation between morality and God, he then goes on to consider some of the implications for free will and responsibility.

Uploaded 07-09-24

00:00 Introduction
06:00 Necessary Being
16:12 Design and Purpose
24:11 Morality
38:18 Free Will
50:45 Pragmatic Considerations

#philosophy #epistemology #atheism #ayer #theism #philosophyofreligion #religion

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Free Will Pessimism

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 02:00:00 -0000

A short clip of Galen Strawson discussing his master argument against the very possibility of free will and moral responsibility; one which applies whether or not determinism is true. This comes from an episode of the In Our Time podcast a few years back on the topic of free will. For more information and full episodes, go to: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qykl

Uploaded 09-02-26

"The _causa sui_ is the best self-contradiction that has been conceived so far; it is a sort of rape and perversion of logic. But the extravagant pride of man has managed to entangle itself profoundly and frightfully with just this nonsense. The desire for 'freedom of the will' in the superlative metaphysical sense, which still holds sway, unfortunately, in the minds of the half-educated; the desire to bear the entire and ultimate responsibility for one’s actions oneself, and to absolve God, the world, ancestors, chance, and society involves nothing less than to be precisely this _causa sui_ and, with more than Baron Munchhausen’s audacity, to pull oneself up into existence by the hair, out of the swamps of nothingness." -Nietzsche

#philosophy #freewill #determinism #causality #causation #metaphysics

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David Papineau on Consciousness

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 01:15:00 -0000

David Papineau discusses consciousness from a materialist perspective and why dualist intuitions won't go away in an interview with Joe Gelonesi in an episode of the Philosopher's Zone, an ABC Radio National program from 2015.

Uploaded 04-04-26

For more information and additional episodes of the Philosopher's Zone, go to: https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/philosopherszone

#philosophy #philosophyofmind #consciousness #metaphysics #materialism

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The Making of a Philosopher - What is Meant by 'Can't'? (Isaiah Berlin)

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 01:00:00 -0000

A very short clip of Isaiah Berlin in conversation with Bryan Magee from a 1977 program on philosophy which can be found here: https://youtu.be/RDgw6ydB6lU

Uploaded 04-06-21

#philosophy #isaiahberlin #bryanmagee #historyofphilosophy

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Wittgenstein's Notion of Family Resemblance

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 01:00:00 -0000

Audio from: https://youtu.be/v_hQpvQYhOI

Uploaded 03-06-21

More Short Clips: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhP9EhPApKE8v8UVlc7JuuNHwvhkaOvzc

You may also want to check out the following on Wittgenstein vs Socrates: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lp8KXhYlhsg

#philosophy #wittgenstein #bryanmagee #historyofphilosophy

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1 The "Representational" Theory of Knowledge - Reid's Critique of Hume (Dan Robinson)

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 00:17:30 -0000

Professor Dan Robinson gives the first in a series of 8 lectures on Thomas Reid's critique of David Hume at Oxford in 2014. Hume defends the thesis according to which “ALL THE PERCEPTIONS OF THE HUMAN MIND RESOLVE THEMSELVES INTO…IMPRESSIONS AND IDEAS”. Accordingly, “We may prosecute this enquiry to what length we please; where we shall always find, that every idea which we examine is copied from a similar impression”.

Uploaded 19-06-21

Under “David Hume”, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy begins with, “The most important philosopher ever to write in English”. His most formidable contemporary critic was the fellow Scot, Thomas Reid, the major architect of so-called Scottish Common Sense Philosophy. The most significant features of Hume’s work, as understood by Reid, are the representive theory of perception, the nature of causation and causal concepts, the nature of personal identity and the foundations of morality. Each of these topics is presented in a pair of lectures, the first summarizing Hume’s position and the second Reid’s critique of that position.

All Lectures: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhP9EhPApKE9nki7CXFPi7PMOi5W2g2-q

#philosophy #davidhume #epistemology #perception #empiricism #skepticism #philosophyofmind #historyofphilosophy

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2 Romanticism - First Attack on Enlightenment (Isaiah Berlin 1965)

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 00:00:00 -0000

Isaiah Berlin gives the 2nd lecture in a series of 6 on Romanticism and its roots.

Uploaded 05-06-21

All 6 lectures: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhP9EhPApKE_9uxkmfSIt2JJK6oKbXmd-

For Berlin, the Romantics set in motion a vast, unparalleled revolution in humanity’s view of itself. They destroyed the traditional notions of objective truth and validity in ethics with incalculable, all-pervasive results. As he said of the Romantics elsewhere: “The world has never been the same since, and our politics and morals have been deeply transformed by them. Certainly this has been the most radical, and indeed dramatic, not to say terrifying, change in men’s outlook in modern times.”

In these brilliant lectures Berlin surveys the myriad attempts to define Romanticism, distills its essence, traces its developments from its first stirrings to its apotheosis, and shows how its lasting legacy permeates our own outlook. Combining the freshness and immediacy of the spoken word with Berlin’s inimitable eloquence and wit, the lectures range over a cast of the greatest thinkers and artists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, including Kant, Rousseau, Diderot, Schiller, Schlegel, Novalis, Goethe, Blake, Byron, and Beethoven. Berlin argues that the ideas and attitudes held by these and other figures helped to shape twentieth-century nationalism, existentialism, democracy, totalitarianism, and our ideas about heroic individuals, individual self-fulfillment, and the exalted place of art. This is the record of an intellectual bravura performance–of one of the century’s most influential philosophers dissecting and assessing a movement that changed the course of history. These Mellon lectures were delivered in Washington in 1965.

00:00 Program for the Lectures
01:07 Enlightenment Tradition
22:44 Montesquieu and Relativism
26:42 David Hume and Skepticism
32:07 Germans and Sour Grapes
44:32 Hamann and Counter-Enlightenment

#Philosophy #Romanticism #IsaiahBerlin

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Marx and Morality (Minerva)

Fri, 09 Oct 2026 23:20:00 -0000

Morality is often considered to be ahistorical. In this episode of the Minerva podcast, the focus is on Marx, who, following Hegel, disagrees with this conception of morality. The guest is David Marjoribanks. His research focuses on the theories of ideology and the implications for morality in Marx and post-Marxism. He argues that ethical norms are not transcendent, but are already there, embodied within our social practice. Critique, he thinks, is the holding to account of practice to its professed ideals.

Uploaded 25-06-21

Joshi Gottlieb discusses Marx and Morality with David Marjoribanks. Note, this is a re-upload. It comes from an episode of the Minerva Podcast a few years back and I thought it was quite good. For more information and additional episodes, go to: http://www.minerva-podcast.com

#philosophy #hegel #marx #ethics #historyofphilosophy #marxism

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Simone de Beauvoir on Existentialism and God (1959)

Fri, 09 Oct 2026 23:00:00 -0000

A version of a video from the old channel. This comes from a 1959 interview with Wilfrid Lemoyne from Radio-Canada. The translation is my mine. More Short Clips: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhP9EhPApKE8v8UVlc7JuuNHwvhkaOvzc

Uploaded 13-06-21

Existentialists take human existence and the human condition to be a fundamental issue. They tend to be radical individualists who privilege our lived experience and choice. They focus on themes such as: freedom, authenticity, the individual, meaning, anxiety, alienation, death, dread, the absurd, contingency, and nihilism. They often are also suspicious of any fixed, pre-determined human nature, objective/universal values, and abstract philosophical systems. Some of the most important existentialist thinkers (or at least thinkers associated with existentialism) include Jean-Paul Sartre, Martin Heidegger, Søren Kierkegaard, Simone de Beauvoir, Friedrich Nietzsche, Dostoyevsky, Albert Camus, and Karl Jaspers. (My Description)

#philosophy #existentialism #sartre

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Perception, Abstraction and Idealism - General Philosophy (Peter Millican)

Fri, 09 Oct 2026 22:22:30 -0000

In this lecture on General Philosophy, Professor Peter Millican discusses the problem of perception, the distinction between primary and secondary qualities, resemblance, abstraction, and idealism. This comes from a 2010 series on General Philosophy. The slides have been added.

Uploaded 08-06-21

This series of lectures was delivered by Peter Millican to first-year philosophy students at the University of Oxford. The lectures comprise of the 8-week General Philosophy course, delivered to first year undergraduates. These lectures aim to provide a thorough introduction to many philosophical topics and to get students and others interested in thinking about key areas of philosophy. Taking a chronological view of the history of philosophy, each lecture is split into 3 or 4 sections which outline a particular philosophical problem and how different philosophers have attempted to resolve the issue. Individuals interested in the 'big' questions about life such as how we perceive the world, who we are in the world and whether we are free to act will find this series informative, comprehensive and accessible.

More lectures on General Philosophy: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhP9EhPApKE_xo2wvkm6qPZrUlAiRNHXb

Source: https://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/series/general-philosophy

00:00 Intro to Primary and Secondary Qualities
01:04 The Mechanisms of Perception
02:41 What are Objects Like?
04:20 Locke and Corpuscularianism
07:47 Pains, Colours, and Shapes
09:24 A Problematic Text
11:03 In Objects, or Just In the Mind?
14:29 Why Resemblance?
16:01 Can an Idea Resemble an Object?
18:41 Structural Resemblance?
21:44 Solidity
23:42 Hume’s Criticism
25:11 Empiricism and Understanding
26:23 The Attack on Abstraction
29:25 The Case for Idealism
30:26 “Something I Know Not What”
35:16 Locke’s Indirect Realism
36:13 An Unacceptable Interpretation
38:30 Sense Data
39:08 How To Prove the Causal Link?
40:50 Phenomenalism
43:20 Direct Realism
45:59 Is a Lockean View Defensible?
48:29 Explanatory Realism

#philosophy #epistemology #perception #skepticism #philosophyofmind #historyofphilosophy

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Ernest Nagel on the Philosophy of Science (1954)

Fri, 09 Oct 2026 22:00:00 -0000

Audio recording of a 1954 lecture given by Professor Ernest Nagel on the philosophy of science at the Cooper Union Forum.

Uploaded 06-09-25

#philosophy #philosophyofscience #epistemology #science

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What is an Emotion?

Fri, 09 Oct 2026 21:25:00 -0000

Jesse Prinz and Jerome Neu discuss and debate the nature of emotions. This comes from an episode of Odyssey on WBEZ Chicago from quite a few years back (early 2000s) with host Gretchen Helfrich. Read more about emotion: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/emotion/

Uploaded 18-06-21

#philosophy #psychology #emotions #williamjames #spinoza #debate

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Karl Popper and John Eccles in Discussion (1971)

Fri, 09 Oct 2026 21:06:00 -0000

Sir Karl Popper and Sir John Eccles discuss various topics in a 1971 discussion with Dutch philosopher Fons Elders. Among other things, they discuss the nature of science, Popper's falsifiability criterion, the notion of truth, determinism, the conscious self, Popper's three worlds, reductionism, and a few social-political issues.

Uploaded 20-07-24

#philosophy #epistemology #karlpopper #science #eccles #philosophyofscience #debate

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4 Varieties of Philosophical Skepticism - Kantian Skepticism

Fri, 09 Oct 2026 21:00:00 -0000

In this fourth lecture, James Conant continues to discuss and contrast Cartesian skepticism with Kantian skepticism, but particularly focuses on Kantian issues of perception and knowledge, and continues to discuss such via the work of C. I. Lewis. Unfortunately the audio isn't that good in this session.

Uploaded 29-06-21

In this series of lectures on varieties of philosophical skepticism, James Conant distinguishes between two forms of philosophical skepticism: Cartesian skepticism and Kantian skepticism. He discusses their general structure and shows how they're related. This sheds light on issues in various different areas, including within the philosophy of perception, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of language. Some of the philosophers discussed throughout this course include Wittgenstein, Sellars, Hilary Putnam, Kripke, C.I. Lewis, John McDowell, and Stanley Cavell.

This series of lectures was given in 2005 at the Department of Philosophy at the University of Bergen, Norway. Note, the audio has been slightly edited and improved.

“The pure concept and the content of the given are mutually independent; neither limits the other." C.I. Lewis

"If there be no datum given to the mind, then knowledge must be contentless and arbitrary; there would be nothing which it must be true to. And if there be no interpretation or construction which the mind itself imposes, then thought is rendered superfluous, the possibility of error becomes inexplicable, and the distinction of true and false is in danger of becoming meaningless." C.I. Lewis

All lectures: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhP9EhPApKE8muoMpX8qQ-14zKnYPc5VI

#philosophy #epistemology #kant #skepticism #historyofphilosophy

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7 Hume’s “Sentimentalist” Theory of Morals - Reid's Critique of Hume (Dan Robinson)

Fri, 09 Oct 2026 20:27:30 -0000

Professor Dan Robinson gives the seventh in a series of 8 lectures on Thomas Reid's critique of David Hume at Oxford in 2014. In his Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals [1751], Hume states: “The final sentence, it is probable, which pronounces characters and actions amiable or odious, praise-worthy or blameable; that which stamps on them the mark of honour or infamy, approbation or censure; that which renders morality an active principle and constitutes virtue our happiness, and vice our misery; it is probable, I say, that this final sentence depends on some internal sense or feeling, which nature has made universal in the whole species”. The ruling motives are shaped by considerations of utility. “The rage and violence of public war; what is it but a suspension of justice among the warring parties, who perceive, that this virtue is now no longer of any USE or advantage to them? The laws of war, which then succeed to those of equity and justice, are rules calculated for the ADVANTAGE and UTILITY…”

Uploaded 20-06-21

Under “David Hume”, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy begins with, “The most important philosopher ever to write in English”. His most formidable contemporary critic was the fellow Scot, Thomas Reid, the major architect of so-called Scottish Common Sense Philosophy. The most significant features of Hume’s work, as understood by Reid, are the representive theory of perception, the nature of causation and causal concepts, the nature of personal identity and the foundations of morality. Each of these topics is presented in a pair of lectures, the first summarizing Hume’s position and the second Reid’s critique of that position.

All Lectures: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhP9EhPApKE9nki7CXFPi7PMOi5W2g2-q

#philosophy #davidhume #ethics #moralphilosophy #historyofphilosophy

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Honderich vs Penrose on Consciousness (1999)

Fri, 09 Oct 2026 20:00:00 -0000

Ted Honderich pushes Sir Roger Penrose about his view about consciousness and whether it involves a relation of identity, presenting something of a dilemma in the process. These clips come from a 1999 exchange on consciousness in an episode of the In Our Time podcast with Melvyn Brαgg. For more information and full episodes of In Our Time, go to: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qykl

Uploaded 05-04-26

#philosophy #philosophyofmind #consciousness #metaphysics #materialism

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The Thought of Philippa Foot

Fri, 09 Oct 2026 19:30:00 -0000

Alex Voorhoeve and Sarah Broadie discuss the work of the renowned philosopher Philippa Foot at the LSE back in 2013. They discuss her work on the following philosophical issues. Is morality objective? Why should one be moral? And may we kill one to save others?

Uploaded 30-03-25

00:00 Life and Philosophical Style
15:05 Moral Subjectivism
26:05 Why Be Moral?
38:40 The Trolley Problem
50:45 Discussion

#philosophy #ethics #metaethics #moralphilosophy

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Foundations of Liberal Equality 1 - Ronald Dworkin (1988)

Fri, 09 Oct 2026 19:00:00 -0000

Audio recording of a lecture by Ronald M. Dworkin as part of his 1988 Tanner lectures on human values at Stanford University on the foundations of liberalism. This was the first of his Tanner lectures. Note, this is a re-upload.

Uploaded 22-09-25

00:00 Lecture
1:04:07 Q and A

#philosophy #politicalphilosophy #ethics #politicaltheory #liberalism #moralphilosophy

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Hilary Putnam on Negative Theology (1997)

Fri, 09 Oct 2026 18:00:00 -0000

Audio recording of a lecture by Hilary Putnam at Calvin College back in 1997. He discusses negative theology and some of its paradoxes, as well as the famous Jewish philosopher Maimonides.

Uploaded 31-08-24

#philosophy #maimonides #philosophyofreligion #epistemology #historyofphilosophy

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1 Just What is Kant's "Project"? - Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (Dan Robinson)

Fri, 09 Oct 2026 17:32:30 -0000

Dan Robinson gives the 1st lecture in a series of 8 on Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Both sense and reason are limited. Kant must identify the proper mission and domain of each, as well as the manner in which their separate functions come to be integrated in what is finally the inter-subjectively settled knowledge of science.

Uploaded 04-06-21

This series looks at German Philosopher Immanuel Kant's seminal philosophical work 'The Critique of Pure Reason'. The lectures aim to outline and discuss some of the key philosophical issues raised in the book and to offer students and individuals thought provoking Kantian ideas surrounding metaphysics. Each lecture looks at particular questions raised in the work such as how do we know what we know and how do we find out about the world, dissects these questions with reference to Kant's work and discusses the broader philosophical implications. Anyone with an interest in Kant and philosophy will find these lectures thought provoking but accessible.

This is series of lectures was given in 2011 at Oxford. Note, audio has been improved.

All 8 lectures: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhP9EhPApKE_OdgqNgL0AJX9-gwr4tmLw

#philosophy #kant #epistemology #metaphysics #empiricism #hume #skepticism #historyofphilosophy

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The Continuum of Personhood

Fri, 09 Oct 2026 17:00:00 -0000

A clip of Max Charlesworth's ABC Boyer Lecture in 1989 on Life, Death, Genes and Ethics.

Uploaded 07-01-25

#philosophy #ethics #moralphilosophy

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Bas van Fraassen on Empiricism (1990)

Fri, 09 Oct 2026 16:35:00 -0000

Audio recording of a lecture by Bas van Fraassen on the nature of empiricism at Calvin College back in 1990.

Uploaded 07-02-25

#philosophy #epistemology #empiricism #philosophyofscience #historyofphilosophy

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God and Morality - General Philosophy (2018 Peter Millican)

Fri, 09 Oct 2026 16:00:00 -0000

In this lecture on General Philosophy, Professor Peter Millican discusses God and morality. Among other things, he discusses the hypothesis of God, the fine-tuning argument from design, the Euthyphro dilemma, divine command theory, and the problem of evil. This comes from a 2018 series on General Philosophy.

Uploaded 05-07-21

This series of 8 lectures on General Philosophy was delivered to first year Oxford University undergraduates in Michaelmas term 2018. The lectures cover six main topics: Knowledge and Scepticism, Induction, Mind and Body, Personal Identity, Free Will, God and Evil. But they set these topics within a much broader context, encompassing humanity’s history of discovery about the natural world (both in physics and biology), and our place within it (linked to issues of both evolution and morality). Main themes of the lectures are: (1) Introduction and views of the cosmos from Genesis to Descartes; (2) Humanity’s place in the scientific picture of the world; (3) Scepticism and the problem of induction; (4) More on induction and facing up to scepticism; (5) The mind and personal identity; (6) Identity, self-interest, morality, and free will; (7) Free will, causality, explanation, and moral responsibility; (8) God and morality.

More lectures on General Philosophy: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhP9EhPApKE_xo2wvkm6qPZrUlAiRNHXb

Source: https://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/series/general-philosophy-2018

#philosophy #theism #atheism #moralphilosophy #ethics #philosophyofreligion

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Hannah Arendt on Modernity (1964)

Fri, 09 Oct 2026 15:37:30 -0000

A clip of Hannah Arendt from her 1964 interview with Günter Gaus. Among other things, she discusses the dethroning of the community spirit by the modern age and with it the prime importance of the political and the shrinkage of the public realm, which is associated with the uprooting of the masses and the resulting isolation and atomism in the modern world (something which, by the way, she thought made possible totalitarianism in the 20th century, both from the right and the left). She also touches on the labor-consumption process, the public sphere, and the increasing inability to act publicly in the modern world.

Uploaded 03-06-21

Full Interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVSRJC4KAiE

#philosophy #hannaharendt #politicaltheory #politicalphilosophy

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Metaphilosophy and Russell vs Wittgenstein on Judgment

Fri, 09 Oct 2026 15:00:00 -0000

After a brief discussion of the nature of philosophy and the origins of analytic philosophy, Fraser MacBride discusses Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein on the nature of relations and the structure of judgment or belief, how our thought relates to external objects in the world. Among the topics discussed include metaphilosophy and the history of analytic philosophy, F. H. Bradley's infamous regress argument against the reality of relations, Russell's correspondence theory of truth and various accounts of judgment, including his famous multiple relation theory.

Uploaded 17-06-21

"The question of relations is one of the most important that arise in philosophy, as most other issues turn on it: monism and pluralism; the question of whether anything is wholly true except the whole of truth, or wholly real except the whole of reality; idealism and realism, in some of their forms; perhaps the very existence of philosophy as a subject distinct from science and possessing a method of its own.” Bertrand Russell

#Philosophy #Wittgenstein #BertrandRussell

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Plato on Knowledge - The Meno and Theaetetus (History of Philosophy)

Fri, 09 Oct 2026 14:40:00 -0000

Peter Adamson discusses Plato's dialogues the Meno and the Theaetetus, which address various epistemological topics, including Meno's paradox, Plato's theory of recollection, the nature of knowledge, relativism, and the difference between knowledge and true belief (e.g. what must be added to a true belief to turn it into knowledge, and why knowledge is more valuable than mere true belief). This comes from Peter Adamson's amazing podcast on the History of Philosophy from a few years back, which can be found here: https://www.historyofphilosophy.net

Uploaded 24-06-21

00:00 The Meno
14:59 Theaetetus

#philosophy #plato #epistemology #socrates #historyofphilosophy

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3 The True Fathers of Romanticism (Isaiah Berlin 1965)

Fri, 09 Oct 2026 14:00:00 -0000

Isaiah Berlin gives the 3rd lecture in a series of 6 on Romanticism and its roots.

Uploaded 06-06-21

All 6 lectures: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhP9EhPApKE_9uxkmfSIt2JJK6oKbXmd-

For Berlin, the Romantics set in motion a vast, unparalleled revolution in humanity’s view of itself. They destroyed the traditional notions of objective truth and validity in ethics with incalculable, all-pervasive results. As he said of the Romantics elsewhere: “The world has never been the same since, and our politics and morals have been deeply transformed by them. Certainly this has been the most radical, and indeed dramatic, not to say terrifying, change in men’s outlook in modern times.”

In these brilliant lectures Berlin surveys the myriad attempts to define Romanticism, distills its essence, traces its developments from its first stirrings to its apotheosis, and shows how its lasting legacy permeates our own outlook. Combining the freshness and immediacy of the spoken word with Berlin’s inimitable eloquence and wit, the lectures range over a cast of the greatest thinkers and artists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, including Kant, Rousseau, Diderot, Schiller, Schlegel, Novalis, Goethe, Blake, Byron, and Beethoven. Berlin argues that the ideas and attitudes held by these and other figures helped to shape twentieth-century nationalism, existentialism, democracy, totalitarianism, and our ideas about heroic individuals, individual self-fulfillment, and the exalted place of art. This is the record of an intellectual bravura performance–of one of the century’s most influential philosophers dissecting and assessing a movement that changed the course of history. These Mellon lectures were delivered in Washington in 1965.

00:00 Hamann and Others
29:10 Herder

#Philosophy #Romanticism #IsaiahBerlin

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The Problem of Self-Knowledge

Fri, 09 Oct 2026 13:42:30 -0000

A talk given by Barry Smith a few years back on the nature of self-knowledge (i.e. knowledge of one's own inner states of mind) and some of the philosophical problems that arise. He discusses some of the main metaphysical and epistemological issues, especially in relation to knowledge of other minds and other kinds of knowledge. Among other things, he touches on the symmetries vs asymmetries, the Cartesian versus behaviorist conception, and issues of authority, objectivity, and skepticism, including Davidsonian interpretation, and even a bit on Wittgenstein's famous private language argument. This talk was given at the École Normale Supérieure (ENS) in Paris back in 2005.

Uploaded 16-06-21

More on self-knowledge: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/self-knowledge/

00:00 Start of Talk
06:18 Asymmetries
12:10 Authority
16:29 Symmetries
19:15 The Central Problem
23:22 Cartesianism vs Behaviorism
33:45 Inner Perceptual Model
35:55 Transparency
40:21 Consciousness
45:57 Publicity and Objectivity
50:53 Knowing Others: Davidson
57:24 Objectivity vs Authority
1:00:55 Insufficient Answers to Problem

#philosophy #epistemology #philosophyofmind #metaphysics #skepticism #mind

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Foundations of Liberal Equality 2 - Ronald Dworkin (1988)

Fri, 09 Oct 2026 13:00:00 -0000

Audio recording of a lecture by Ronald M. Dworkin as part of his 1988 Tanner lectures on human values at Stanford University on the foundations of liberalism. This was the second of his Tanner lectures. Note, this is a re-upload.

Uploaded 22-09-25

00:00 Lecture
1:07:14 Q and A

#philosophy #ethics #politicalphilosophy #moralphilosophy #politicaltheory #liberalism

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The Experience Machine

Fri, 09 Oct 2026 12:45:00 -0000

A clip of professor Shelly Kagan discussing the famous thought experiment of the experience machine which comes from Robert Nozick and which serves as an argument against hedonism about well-being. This comes from a lecture on death given at the Southern Methodist University back in 2013.

Uploaded 08-12-25

More on the nature of well-being: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/well-being/

#philosophy #hedonism #ethics #nozick #moralphilosophy

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Isaiah Berlin Interview on Value Pluralism and Liberalism (1997)

Fri, 09 Oct 2026 12:00:00 -0000

Clips of Göran Rosenberg interviewing Isaiah Berlin in 1997, a few months before Berlin's death. More Isaiah Berlin: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhP9EhPApKE-z227nn_-_PKw5lGfojOcg

Uploaded 03-07-21

Isaiah Berlin's lectures on Romanticism: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhP9EhPApKE_9uxkmfSIt2JJK6oKbXmd-

00:00 Value Pluralism
12:38 Liberalism
24:13 Negative vs Positive Freedom
30:10 Nationalism
34:19 Tolerance and Meaning

#Romanticism #IsaiahBerlin #Liberalism

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Nelson Goodman Interview (1989) - Induction, Worldmaking, Symbols, and Art

Fri, 09 Oct 2026 11:47:30 -0000

In this interview, Nelson Goodman begins by discussing induction and his famous contribution to the problem of induction, then his non-realist notion of 'worldmaking' which replaces the traditional view of truth as a correspondence to an objective world. Next he discusses his understanding of symbols and some of the general consequences, especially for art and aesthetics, including the replacement of traditional notions like that of truth, certainty, and knowledge. This interview was given in Rome in 1989. Note, this is a reupload. More details will be added at a later date.

Uploaded 08-07-21

You can find Goodman's "Ways of Worldmaking" here: https://archive.org/details/GoodmanWaysOfWorldmaking/

#philosophy #epistemology #aesthetics #causality #science #causation #philosophyofscience #skepticism #historyofphilosophy

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5 Unbridled Romanticism - Fichte, Schelling, and Symbols (Isaiah Berlin 1965)

Fri, 09 Oct 2026 11:00:00 -0000

Isaiah Berlin gives the 5th lecture in a series of 6 on Romanticism and its roots.

Uploaded 06-06-21

All 6 lectures: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhP9EhPApKE_9uxkmfSIt2JJK6oKbXmd-

For Berlin, the Romantics set in motion a vast, unparalleled revolution in humanity’s view of itself. They destroyed the traditional notions of objective truth and validity in ethics with incalculable, all-pervasive results. As he said of the Romantics elsewhere: “The world has never been the same since, and our politics and morals have been deeply transformed by them. Certainly this has been the most radical, and indeed dramatic, not to say terrifying, change in men’s outlook in modern times.”

In these brilliant lectures Berlin surveys the myriad attempts to define Romanticism, distills its essence, traces its developments from its first stirrings to its apotheosis, and shows how its lasting legacy permeates our own outlook. Combining the freshness and immediacy of the spoken word with Berlin’s inimitable eloquence and wit, the lectures range over a cast of the greatest thinkers and artists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, including Kant, Rousseau, Diderot, Schiller, Schlegel, Novalis, Goethe, Blake, Byron, and Beethoven. Berlin argues that the ideas and attitudes held by these and other figures helped to shape twentieth-century nationalism, existentialism, democracy, totalitarianism, and our ideas about heroic individuals, individual self-fulfillment, and the exalted place of art. This is the record of an intellectual bravura performance–of one of the century’s most influential philosophers dissecting and assessing a movement that changed the course of history. These Mellon lectures were delivered in Washington in 1965.

00:00 Three Great Trends
00:50 Fichte
09:58 Schelling
16:02 Symbolism
21:44 Depth
26:33 Nostalgia
31:07 Paranoia
37:13 French Revolution

#Romanticism #IsaiahBerlin #Fichte

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Karl Popper on What Philosophy Isn't and Philosophical Prejudices

Fri, 09 Oct 2026 10:50:00 -0000

Audio recording of a few clips of Karl Popper discussing his conception of philosophy. Note, this is reupload, and the translation is my own. More details will be added later.

Uploaded 04-07-21

You can find more Popper: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhP9EhPApKE_VarWCx1d_Uogn_GxsVf-o

#philosophy #karlpopper #historyofphilosophy

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6 Romanticism - The Lasting Effects (Isaiah Berlin 1965)

Fri, 09 Oct 2026 10:00:00 -0000

Isaiah Berlin gives the 6th and final lecture in a series of 6 on Romanticism and its roots.

Uploaded 06-06-21

All 6 lectures: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhP9EhPApKE_9uxkmfSIt2JJK6oKbXmd-

For Berlin, the Romantics set in motion a vast, unparalleled revolution in humanity’s view of itself. They destroyed the traditional notions of objective truth and validity in ethics with incalculable, all-pervasive results. As he said of the Romantics elsewhere: “The world has never been the same since, and our politics and morals have been deeply transformed by them. Certainly this has been the most radical, and indeed dramatic, not to say terrifying, change in men’s outlook in modern times.”

In these brilliant lectures Berlin surveys the myriad attempts to define Romanticism, distills its essence, traces its developments from its first stirrings to its apotheosis, and shows how its lasting legacy permeates our own outlook. Combining the freshness and immediacy of the spoken word with Berlin’s inimitable eloquence and wit, the lectures range over a cast of the greatest thinkers and artists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, including Kant, Rousseau, Diderot, Schiller, Schlegel, Novalis, Goethe, Blake, Byron, and Beethoven. Berlin argues that the ideas and attitudes held by these and other figures helped to shape twentieth-century nationalism, existentialism, democracy, totalitarianism, and our ideas about heroic individuals, individual self-fulfillment, and the exalted place of art. This is the record of an intellectual bravura performance–of one of the century’s most influential philosophers dissecting and assessing a movement that changed the course of history. These Mellon lectures were delivered in Washington in 1965.

00:00 The Tradition
02:38 Romantic Attack
08:21 Myths and Art
15:20 Politics and Other Spheres
23:35 Music
31:23 Who Were They?
51:48 Transformation of Values
58:49 Existentialism
1:06:03 Fascism
1:07:08 Artistic Model of Life
1:08:05 What we owe to Romanticism

#Philosophy #Romanticism #IsaiahBerlin

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Personal Identity and the Self

Fri, 09 Oct 2026 09:52:30 -0000

This is a pretty good introductory talk on personal identity and some of the philosophical issues that arise surrounding it. The lecturer is Patrick Stokes of Deakin University and was given at the Ethics Centre. This comes from an episode of the podcast The Philosopher's Zone from a few years back titled "Personal identity: a primer".

Uploaded 27-06-21

The lecturer Patrick Stokes: http://www.patrickstokes.com
The Philosopher's Zone: https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/philosopherszone
The Ethics Centre: http://www.ethics.org.au/home

#philosophy #personalidentity #philosophyofmind #metaphysics #mind

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So You Think That There is a Mind-Independent Physical Reality...

Fri, 09 Oct 2026 09:06:00 -0000

A short but rather amusing clip of Dan Robinson discussing Berkeley's subjective idealism in a lecture on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason and the Refutation of Idealism. This is a re-upload from the former channel. Full Lecture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sa2_1zXTR-g

Uploaded 13-07-21

#Philosophy #Epistemology #Idealism

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