How Any Idiot Can Memorize The Entire History of Philosophy

Philosophy can be insufferably hard. It doesn’t have to be. Dr. Paul Maxwell breaks down the ENTIRE history of philosophy in 30 minutes.

[ctrlaltdelicious]

I‘m only 4 minutes in and no matter where this takes me, I have already learned so much that I wanted to express my deepest thankfulness

[thattimestampguy]

1:45
Metaphysics: Study of The World outside of Physical Reality
Epistemology: The Study of What We Know and How We Can Know It.
Axiology: The Study of Values

3:50 Pre Modern Post
Pre-Modernism: Metaphysical, Pre-Socratics [All Is ....] [Chaos and Order]
5:38 What is Rightness? Essence?
7:54 Expression of Virtue, Moderation of Virtue, Balanced Righteousness.

_The Epistemic Shift --> The Enlightenment_ Method studied
10:10
13:14 Morality: Is from Ought?
14:03 The World as it is vs The World as it is perceived.
16:08 Common Rules of Perception, Universal Rules
17:25 Rationality, Cyclical Revolution, Future Reality Pull, Dialectic
19:14 Reason Into Bliss

20:53 After Hegel:
Homogeneity vs Individualism

Reason and Religion
Fixed and Authentic

22:55
Pre-Modernism: Be What You Are
Modernism: Figure Out What You Are
Post-Modernism: Be What You Believe You Are 24:17 Machiavellian

26:00 An Age of Competing Modernities
27:09 Revelation

[jeffvera]

Ok, this is some fantastic content, but I'm going to need each minute of this video to be broken down into their own 27 minute segments.

[stevecrawford]

Thank you for the "Map of Meaning Making".   There are some of us who would love if you had a conversation with Paul VanderKlay..  I appreciate your project and hope you continue your pedagogy.

[JH.K]

Nicely done. Now we need a summary for the History of Eastern Philosophy.

[ReinisInkens]

My God, I finally understand what Hegel was on about. You, sir, are a magician, well done. Excellent content!

[zaidsheikh]

Meta-physics(universe), epistemology(knowledge) and Axialogy(values)
Pre-modern, modern, post-modern
Pre-Socrates, (eliatics(unity) and mylegions(change))
Socrates(what is right)
Plato(ideas over materials/rt reasoning)
Aristotle(why should you act rightly)
St.Augistine(incorporated Plato in Christianity)
Thomas Equanis(Aristotle into Christianity/Saqrementology)
Enlightenment (thinking for oneself/method over ultimate philosophy)
Renee Decartes (doubt everything, even doubt itself/I think therefore I am/epistemic shift) Rationalism
David Hume (impressions over Causality/is doesn't entail ought) Imperissism
Caunt (numinal vs phenomenal, transcendental)
Hegal (Rationale Dialectic thesis, anti thesis, synthesis) religion to ethics to aesthetics
Soren Kierkegaard (Aesthetics to ethics to religion)
Post-modernism ( consequences of the holocaust Axialogy comes before all else)
Can we ever be enchanted with the world again?

[jameshose]

wow one of the best philosophy videos i’ve ever seen - for the layperson like me, with only a half assed knowledge of this vast subject, this overview, listened to intently & with a quieted mind, pulled together all the most important points i’ve always heard about and basically or even vaguely understood, and put them in the proper order and context - every word he says is necessary and ingeniously placed for maximum absorption into my hitherto clouded noggin

[lunacatt]

The best video on YouTube--ever. My note is that you could mention the evolutionary and the Nietzschean philosopher's attempt on post-modernism that goes from epistemology to metaphysics then to axiology based on that metaphysics (my understanding).

Thank you for making this video, truly.

[adeelali]

Man! I knew some of this already, but this video gave me some new insights especially when explaining the epistemic shift from metaphysics to epistemology. Thank you brother!

[SimonaDrvek]

I can't believe that I already took three philosophy courses at uni, and only thanks to your video, I finally understood the infamous Hegel! Thank you for this!

[Eternalised]

So glad you mentioned Kierkegaard. Excellent summary

[SteveFergBitbucket]

An overview of the history of philosophy from a Christian perspective. Paul Maxwell made this video in 2019, after teaching philosophy at Moody Bible Institute. In 2021 he published a well-reviewed book ("The Trauma of Doctrine: New Calvinism, Religious Abuse, and the Experience of God") and announced that he was no longer a Christian. On his web site he now describes himself as a free thinker. He clearly went thru a difficult deconversion process, and we wish him all the best in his new life.

[amacnaughton]

Fantastic. Thank you so much for this. As someone intensely interested in philosophy but with no formal background, it's hard sometimes to know where to start. Just like the paradox of the information superhighway is that it can sometimes provide too much information, which is overwhelming, the more one gains a superficial knowledge of philosophy, the harder it becomes to know where to begin a deep dive. I really appreciate this comprehensive summary!

[ruckin]

This was really great. Listened to it half a dozen times. I Need to sketch it out. Would be cool if you were able to do this on a deeper three hr level to encompass loads more as a summary and include a sketch. I would definitely pay for that if you ever did it. Thanks again. Been following philosophy for two years and in 30 mins I learned more than from all I read. Was able to connect the dots a lot more and that helps w context

[terabyter]

This is the greatest thing ever. Can you do one for History?

[kmelons]

My notes of what he said

3 categories of philosophy
1. Metaphysics: the study of ultimate reality. Explains not only the material, but the conditions in which the material exists. Concepts of being and immaterial vs material are kinds of metaphysics.
2. Epistemology: the study of knowledge. What we can know; how we can know; the right and wrong ways of knowing. Logic and evidence are kinds of epistemology.
3. Axiology: the study of value. Aesthetics (study of beauty and ugliness) and ethics (study of right and wrong) fall under this category.


Second set of 3 words which constitute the story of philosophy
1. Pre-modernism. “I am, therefore I think.” Focus on metaphysical claims. Socrates -> Plato -> Aristotle and Greek thoughts about essences and the forms transforming Christian thought with explanations of the Trinity.
2. Modernism: Began with Descartes “I think, therefore I am.” Focus on epistemological claims. Enlightenment, scientific revolution, and Industrial Revolution propels it. David Hume “is doesn’t entail aught.”; impressions vs ideas. Rationalism (Descartes and reason) vs Empiricism (Hume and experience). Kant combined these two ideas saying there’s an inherent separation between the objective reality vs our interpretation of it. Hegel critiques this and argues that the ultimate reality makes itself known to our interpretations through rationality, BUT, with a dialectic view of generational thesis / antithesis’ about the way the world works changes and improves over time. Thesis + antithesis = synthesis, -> pattern repeats; the rational dialectic. In the ideal, utopian future, all humans with come to the same conclusions, and agree on everything, making the objective and subjective worlds identical. Hegel’s opinions created detractors (pro individuality) and defenders (pro homogenous cultures, intro to Marxism). Hegel argued the ideal route for each man, as well as society, was religious -> ethical -> aesthetic. Kierkegaard countered this by saying he had it all backwards.
3. Postmodernism: focus on axiological claims. It was rooted in Hegelian existentialism but was jolted into existence with the Holocaust. Some philosophers thought the Nazi party (a combination of Darwinism -> Eugenics + Marxism) was the inevitable consequence of the Enlightenment, where the postmodernist’s inability to seemetaphysical realities; their disenchantment with the immaterial and focus on the material; allowed the Nazis to dehumanize the Jews because the Nazis were a slave to the myth of rationality that was in reality a way of masking their attempt to gain political power. Postmodernists were left with a choice to prevent a second Holocaust: return to the metaphysical focus of souls and the inherent value of humans, or focus on axiology and justice. In the world today, because of the mix of modernism and postmodernism disenchanting us with metaphysics, with the value and dignity of people and the soul beyond unjustified axiology, that dictates a principle of radical doubt which never allows the justification of metaphysics. People crave it, that meaning, that transcendent understanding of reality, but it’s simply either privatized or shunned due to the nature of our philosophical landscape. So what direction so we go? How do we become enchanted with the world again? The Christian worldview speculates that the only way to begin metaphysics is not to speculate about the metaphysical world but to have the metaphysical world reach out to you

[erikkostiuk]

Very well done. I think you missed three important moves that are informative and important in the beginnings of philosophy. 1. After the Pre-Socratics, the Sophists presented a skeptical, relativistic challenge to philosophy, which was an early move towards epistemology. In a sense this was presaging the move towards the Modern period. 2. Socrates and his "Socratic Turn" was a move towards axiology, as he emphasized ethics and values. 3. Plato shifted Socrates' axiological emphasis. He was grappling with the challenges between the Eleatics and Milesians, and found a compromise. There was an unchanging eternal realm of forms (the truth in the Eleatic school), but the world of the senses was an ever-changing flux (the truth in the Milesian school). He thus resolved the paradox with a two-layered metaphysics.

[JorgeOstos]

I really NEED a transcript of this Dr. Maxwell! AWESOME!

[NoZAutonomy]

Usually, I speed up lectures, podcasts etc by 25%. This time however I needed to slow it down 25% because every idea and explanation you utter is so meaty and juicy that I need a little longer to digest them.

This video is super helpful for a clear mindmap of philosophy as a whole. I would mix up philosopher's names and their respective ideas but this made it much easier for me to organize it all - and in such a short time. Thank you sincerely.