BAD Philosophy Videos! (Philosophy Tube on Kant's Philosophy)

"The problems with short intro philosophy video."

Professor Moeller is teaching a course on Kant. He was searching things about Kant on YouTube to see what would come up.

And Professor thought he came across a very bad example of a short introductory philosophy video from Philosophy Tube, a very famous YouTuber, whom I ("the producer") previously actually watched before exams for reviewing purposes, or even as a main source of learning introductory philosophy. I am curious to know how bad can this 5 minute video be.
#philosophy #kant #philosopher

Therefore, we decided to make this video, hope you enjoy it!

A following up video:
Commodification of Philosophy: Professors vs Influencers

(video mentioned):
The Problem with Sam Harris' "Morality":

(Beginner's Guide to Kant's Metaphysics & Epistemology | Philosophy Tube):

Kant's Philosophy | Why we Need a New Enlightenment:

Kant’s Ethics: Homophobia, Child Killing--and Derek Chauvin:

Dr Hans-Georg Moeller is a professor in the Philosophy and Religious Studies Program at the University of Macau.

PS: We understand Philosophy Tube has changed to a new identity and name. This happened a day after this video had been out, we could not foresee it.
And in this video, we are commenting on the content of an old but still very popular video from Philosophy Tube (in which, philosophy tube still identified as a man and OLLY), we are trying to address how a short popular philosophy explainer video can sometimes have many problems.

[uncleeric]

I think the most important point is made near the end, here: Watching someone else's interpretive gloss on YouTube is no substitute for working through the actual text and studying commentaries by qualified professional scholars. This is true not only for philosophy, but for many other subjects, as well.

[olindblo]

You should do the same with other pop philosophy videos on Kant, e.g. School of Life and such.

[Qzou]

Three years ago I was inspired by Philosophy Tube and decided to switch my study to philosophy. Honestly back then I didn’t quite follow Prof. Mueller’s arguments and didn’t see the significance. Now after three years of studying, I do see the problems clearly, and how crucial it is to point out those lazy mistakes, because they could seriously damage Kant’s system of philosophy. It’s a nice feeling to have this growth :) thank you professor.

[Rowoool]

I love that youtube's standards for philosophy videos are so low that I was just shocked to actually hear one from a professor talking about something in his field. Imagine that

[officeofpeaceinformation]

you know when you've found the remotest corners of YouTube when you stumble on a debunking bad Kant videos video.

[grantbartley]

You are right to call out such sloppy use of concepts. Just because something is made to be popular doesn't mean it has to be inaccurate.

[Painocus]

I feel like a lot of the problems here arise from a trend I've seen in English translations and commentary of Kant to use very imprecise and inconsistant language. Marx translations have the same problem. I feel English is very badly equiped to handle German philosophical language without confusion. I ran into this problem myself when I tried to translate Mainländer a while back. I found distinctions that were really obvious in my very limited German and my native Norwegian to be very hard to make clear in English, especially when it came to things like consciousness.

[FundFreedom]

I think the important thing when speaking on Kant is pronouncing the word as "Kunt, " and then saying that word as often as possible. Great job, Wanderer

[peterjones]

Thank you. This should be a series - since there's no shortage of bad philosophy videos.

[APaleDot]

As a fan of Philosophy Tube, I think these critiques are fair.
You can't excuse the video because it's pop philosophy or just an introduction, or because it was made 5 years ago.
You can introduce a philosopher and his ideas in a fun, entertaining way without misusing language or equivocating between certain ideas which are fundamental to their philosophy.
As for the timing of the video, it makes no difference that it was 5 years ago because when you make a video, you are responsible for accuracy of that video. If PT had waited and done more research or maybe passed the script by some experts on Kant, these errors wouldn't be there. My point is that it is incumbent on the video creator to use the resources they have available to ensure the accuracy of the video, and if they don't have the resources to do that, then they first need to acquire those resources.

[InsertPhilosophyHere]

Philosophy Tube, and all the other cartoon philosophy channels, are sad jokes.

[LindaDanvers]

I find it rather annoying that Philosophy Tube's obsessive fans are now going after any creator they can find who criticised anything PT ever did prior to coming out. This vid and most others critiquing PT's work or behaviour were made before PT came out. These people honestly did not know and if they had known they could not have correctly gendered PT, because that would have meant outing PT.
And this video on Kant is not the only one of PT's vids that could have been worded better or even researched better. Witchcraft, Gender, & Marxism contains sources that have been debunked by historians. Feel free to check this with actual historians. You may want to discuss PT's Sexwork with actual sex workers and sex worker advocates as well.
PT switched from actual educational content to performance art a few years ago, but even before this switch, you should not take these vids as a substitute for actual university classes. At best, they are introductions that at times could be more accurately worded as this vid explains. At worst, they contain problematic sources and claims. So enjoy PT's vids for what they are - pop education mixed with performance art - but remain critical. Let them inspire you to critically look into certain subjects, but do not uncritically take them for gospel truth.

[Senumunu]

to many people are looking for ways to export their criticial thinking to others.
critiques like this were needed waaay earlier. im glad they are finally here.

[geoffreyhughes]

This is why Wikipedia and YouTube are not used as sources.

[addy_hits]

Having the Stroszek DVD on display is a pimp move

[CarlyonProduction]

Rich drama school kids.
Prerequisite for becoming a leftube star.

[YisYtruth]

This was one of PT's first videos. It's very rough. I'd love to see a critique of one of their later, more polished videos.

Great presentation, by the way.

[sebastienmorin]

I do appreciate the criticism you are laying here, and I'm very grateful I learnt a thing or two about Kant thanks to your video. But I think that you don't emphasize enough that there's a clear distinction between being a scholar, giving a lecture in front of students, and being a youtuber who is trying to be both entertaining and a source of, if not knowledge, at the very least curiosity towards a particular subject.

I have a master in sociology of culture and art (in France), but I can swallow a gross generalisation of a specific concept when I see one, IF it helps the general subject to be digestable for an audience that doesn't know jack about sociology or is sociology curious at best. I'm not saying that was the case for that particular video of PT, I'm not versed enough in philosophy and the only Kant I read was about art. But I know I don't expect Bourdieu's level of semantic in a Contra Points video, is what I'm trying to say.

Though, I can understand that the nuances you express here, and the skepticism you want the audience of PT to have are absolutely legit, I still think that calling it "BAD Philosophy Videos" doesn't help anyone. Because with any vulgarisation, you need to drop some nuances.

[jonathanbailey]

I always wondered why Philosophy Tube didn't just talk about them (time and space) as the 'conditions of possibility' for experience at all.

Really good explanation here by the way! And a very apt analysis of the common mistakes that anglophone philosophers make concerning Kant.

[drew]

Your explanations are really clear and understandable. Thank you for clarifying some of these concepts. Your focus on the accuracy of language is excellent and much appreciated.