What is Philosophy?

What is philosophy? What's the value of philosophy? How should we think philosophically? What are some book recommendations for philosophical reasoning? I answer these questions and more.

0:00 Introduction
0:24 Body of knowledge
2:27 Way of thinking
3:13 Philosophy as dispositional
6:03 Branches of philosophy
9:14 Important sub-branches of philosophy
12:06 The value of philosophy
19:30 Map of philosophy
20:49 Book recommendations for thinking philosophically
32:46 Concluding remarks

[WisdomisPower-inminute-dnno]

The way this community engages with these topics is inspiring. I've been covering similar ground in my videos.

[brunoarruda]

It's been a while that I've been looking for book recommendations precisely related to that. I was hoping for just 2 or 3, though, now I feel overwhelmed. Thank you anyway!

[glof]

I found “How to Read A Book” by Mortimer Adler (agnostic Thomist most of his life) to be very helpful when dissecting philosophical texts

[hunterweaver]

Can’t wait for those upcoming videos!! 😃

[keepitprofessional]

Hey Joe! Enjoyed the video tremendously. I have a request for the topic of the next video: Occasionalism and other explanations for the nature of causality. I would love it if you would do an analysis!

[theoutsiderhumanist]

I have a canned response to this! Gonna dig through my Twitter bookmarks for it...

Philosophy is discourse characterized by rational, critical, or creative engagement with the concepts basic to some field of behavior or experience of reflective, interested beings. I arbitrarily made up this definition and it is beautiful and valid.

[zarla]

Nice! Btw Joe what do you think about Gale-Pruss cosmological argument? It looks really interesting to me

[timhorton]

Awesome, awesome introduction video. I think I might be using this as my go-to video for people trying to better understand the discipline I study.

[igaraparana]

Hello there, I happened upon one of your videos quite by accident, and am glad I did. You're obviously very brilliant, and at such a young age too! I have no formal training in philosophy, and am a dabbler in a number of areas, so much of your material is beyond me, but I was very interested to see you advance an argument for atheism supported by animal suffering, and it was clear how that profound issue had hit you like a ton of bricks just as it did with me. Watching things like David Attenborough's various productions isn't the same afterwards, and the allegedly imperative nature of conservation, which I held and I think most people just hold reflexively, feels terribly hollow. Should we hope that indeed overfishing does empty the oceans of all the fish?

[pierre]

Hi Joe do you think that any premises of stage 1 of the contingency argument (PSR -> NB) can be rationally doubted?

[pattube]

Thanks, great list! I notice you placed Knowledge, Reality, and Value: A Mostly Common Sense Guide to Philosophy (Huemer) on your Q&A page, but I didn't see it in this video or perhaps I missed it?

[crabking]

Thanks for the book recommendation section. I wanted a book which would give an introduction to logic. I have philosophy of religion questions. I have an objection to the skeptical theist position, but I'm not sure if it's a sound argument. It goes something like this. 1. If there is an omnipotent, omniscient, morally perfect being, they are capable of telling us their reasons for allowing evil, and they would be morally obligated in telling those reasons. 2. Those reasons have not been made known. 3. Therefore, such a being does not exist. My justification for premise 1 is an analogy of a parent sending their child away so that they can escape a third world country. If the child is three years old, the parents don't need to make those reasons known. But if the child is 15, and if the parents have the time, then they better make those reasons known. Because God is omnipotent, he could make us more intelligent so that we could understand those reasons if we aren't capable of doing such at the moment. My justification for premise 2 is just responding to theodicies and defenses like the free will defense, so if some theist wanted to point to such defenses, I'd try and show that they're flawed. This is a simplification of the objection and I wanted to know if this was sound. My second question is what are good objections to theist views on universals and mereology, more specifically, the Thomist view. I was trying to undermine the PSR using a sort of mereological nihilist view, but I was also trying to object to the theist view using sort of an Eastern philosophy(more specifically a Mahayana Buddhist sort of objection) to show how the limited/weak version of the PSR doesn't apply to every day cause and effect. Would this be valid? Sorry for the long comment.

[joshuaphilip]

So people who hate Philosophy hate "the love of wisdom"? Bet, I'm using that.

[jimmyfaulkner]

Great video! Thank you very much for it. I have a question for you and this has been pondering my mind recently. One of my physicist friends recently said the reason why he is critical and opposed to the discipline of philosophy is because he sees science as the only and best way to discover truth and knowledge. He also gave a second objection to philosophy and he claimed that philosophy makes no progress while science is always advancing and making progress. He therefore concluded that philosophy at best is worthless and useless and at worst actively harmful towards science and can get in the way.

The last point especially interested. Since you are much more experienced with philosophy and much smarter than me, I was wondering do you think my friend is right; especially on the philosophy making no progress argument? Are there any examples of philosophy making progress in either of its branches within the overall discipline such as aesthetics, ethics, epistemology, logic, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of language, and so on. Cheers! and thanks again for the video (I learnt a lot) 😊

[benjaminbethel]

Hey Joe. I can't afford books right now, but do you know where can I download stuff to read about topic's like these!

[pbgaming]

what should i read first ? Philosophers toolkit or logic a concise introduction

[HbmdE]

Just a layman modus
thoughts question
philosphy and psychology are partly mingled, right. And go in some of the same areas like consciousnes, language.
Is Kierkegaard and Witgenstein littlebit reaching out to psychology, and e.g Jung to philosophy with archytypes and collective consciousness ?
Is existentialism and phenomenology reaching out to psychology and is virtue philosophy also touching psychology how to be-how people behave.

What about being articulate like Joe, expressing well your self "If you can speak and write, to be articulate, you can be anything " And, " Schools should teach people to write and be articulate and world opens up to them automatically" ( - famous psycholgist )
This is what Witgenstein was up to with communication philosphy > what is good life> to communicate well., Lump emotion intelligence to this, and what you get.<whats that?

Online debate you need to have that ability to speak and formulate things fast, not so when you write a book. So Its not all philosophy but communication skills where you need to be fast articulate, maybe sangvinik not melancholic phlegmatic type thinker who could make the breakthroughs behind the curtains.

This what you need in life so there be unifying theory, mastering life ( and grow to be the best possible you :) reason, emotion, will (to meaning), relating with the outside world people relationship, expressing yourself, (faith?)

also verbal expression in the relationship ladies sport as relationship is to do with the emotions and fast spoken conversation. we should combine these skills and practise were we are not so good.

[ObsidianTeen]

"So, for instance, there may be transtemporal causal relations that obtain between the successive states of an object’s life."

Say that A causes B -- A-->B. Is the causal relation just "-->" or is it "A-->B"? Does the causal relation obtain because of A, B, both, nothing, or something else? If both, then wouldn't both the cause and putative effect have to exist already for the relation to obtain, rendering the "cause" futile since the effect exists already? Or does A cause the relation to obtain, which implies A-->(-->) or A-->(A-->B), both of which seem absurd? ("A caused the causing"!?)

And what in "A-->B" is doing the causing? A? Or is the "causing" something that obtains because of A (or A and B)?

It's all confusing.

[ExistenceUniversity]

I'd recommend the book "Philosophy: Who Needs it?" By Ayn Rand.