Open Culture » Philosophy

The Monty Python Philosophy Football Match Revisited

Dan Colman — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 19:33:37 +0000

We take you back to a classic Monty Python skit. The scene is the 1972 Munich Olympics. The event is a football/soccer match, pitting German philosophers against Greek philosophers. On the one side, the Germans — Hegel, Nietzsche, Kant, Marx and, um, Franz Beckenbauer. On the other side, Archimedes, Socrates, Plato and the rest of the gang. The referee? Confucius. On May 9, this match will be recreated by The Philosophy Shop, a group dedicated to promoting philosophy among primary schoolchildren. The Telegraph gives you more details. (FYI, the Monty Python clip is now added to our YouTube Favorites.)

The Monty Python Philosophy Football Match Revisited is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

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Philosophy: A Guide to Happiness

Dan Colman — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 07:25:58 +0000

Since the late 1990’s, Alain de Botton has been breaking down difficult philosophical and literary ideas and seeing how they apply to people’s everyday lives. He did this with his 1997 bestseller, How Proust Can Change Your Life. And he took things a step further with his television series called Philosophy: A Guide to Happiness. The episode above delves into Nietzsche’s belief that happiness only comes about with great effort and hardship. In the remaining five episodes, de Botton gets into Socrates on self confidence, Seneca on anger, Epicurus on happiness, Montaigne on self-esteem, and Schopenhauer on love. Each episode runs about 25 minutes. You can also find all six episodes neatly displayed on one page here.

Philosophy: A Guide to Happiness is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

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Bertrand Russell on God

Dan Colman — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 06:56:26 +0000

Bertrand Russell, the Nobel Prize-winning philosopher, mathematician and peace activist, died 40 years ago today. And so, above, we rewind the video tape to 1959, to Russell explaining why he doesn’t believe in God. This was a viewpoint that he otherwise elaborated upon in his well-known lecture/essay, Why I Am Not a Christian. For more vintage Bertrand Russell, you can check out another wide-ranging BBC interview with Russell flagged by one of our faithful readers, Mike S. Find it in three parts here, here and here. To be sure, some readers won’t share Russell’s views on religion. But don’t take umbrage. Just remember, we offer media from across the divide too..

Update: Another reader sent us a nice addition to the video above. Here, you can listen to a famous 1948 debate between Bertrand Russell and Father Frederick C. Copleston, Jesuit Catholic priest and professor of philosophy. It was aired on the BBC. You can listen to the audio below.

Bertrand Russell on God is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

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A.C. Grayling on “Teaching the Controversy”

Dan Colman — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 17:47:02 +0000

In this clip from Richard Dawkins’ YouTube Channel, philosopher A.C. Grayling offers an argument for why intelligent design should’t be taught alongside evolution in the classroom. Some will agree with his position, and some won’t. And probably few will have no opinion. If you have reactions to Grayling’s argument, please state them civilly and intelligently in the comments below.

via @courosa

A.C. Grayling on “Teaching the Controversy” is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

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Michael Sandel: Our Bodies in the Marketplace

Dan Colman — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 07:41:58 +0000

Last year, Michael Sandel made a splash when he put online his popular Harvard philosophy course, Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? Over the past 30 years, more than 14,000 Harvard students have taken his course. And now you can access the course online at no cost. (Details here.) In recent days, Sandel has surfaced one again, this time on Philosophy Bites (iTunes – Feed - Web Site), a British podcast that features top philosophers being interviewed on bite-sized topics. In this conversation (listen here or below), Sandel and Nigel Warburton tackle some big questions: What are the limits of free market thinking, especially when it comes to what we can do with our bodies in the marketplace? Can we sell blood consensually? Perhaps. But what about selling our kidneys on the open market? Or “renting wombs”? (There are whole villages in India where women act as “paid surrogates” for Western couples.) Or what about consensual prostitution? Or engaging, however willingly, in degrading forms of wage labor? Are these inherent freedoms, as some free market/libertarian thinkers might hold? Or do these acts violate our collective sense of the “good life”? And do they diminish our freedoms in some kind of larger sense? The conversation gets more heated (in a good way) as it goes along. Give it some time, hang with it, and see what you think. For more philosophy, see our collection of Free Philosophy Courses.

Michael Sandel: Our Bodies in the Marketplace is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

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Philosophers Don’t Die Pretty

Dan Colman — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:28:51 +0000

Courtesy of Simon Critchley, who teaches philosophy at The New School for Social Research…

Philosophers Don’t Die Pretty is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

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Anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss Remembered

Dan Colman — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 01:52:12 +0000

News broke today that Claude Lévi-Strauss, one of France’s towering intellectuals, has died. He was 100 years old. The New York Times has a lengthy obit that covers the career of the anthropologist who brought us “structuralism” and helped us look at diverse cultures in new ways. NPR has also aired a short piece (in audio) that highlights Lévi-Strauss’ intellectual accomplishments. You can listen below.

Audible Starter Kit: Get 3 Audiobooks, Plus a Free Phillips Spark 2GB MP3 Player

Anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss Remembered is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

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Michael Sandel on Justice: Lecture III

Dan Colman — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 06:03:19 +0000

Lecture 3 of Michael Sandel’s ever popular course on Justice is now online. Here’s the summary of material covered by the newly added lecture. It’s provided by Harvard’s course web site:

Part 1 -- FREE TO CHOOSE: With humorous references to Bill Gates and Michael Jordan, Sandel introduces the libertarian notion that redistributive taxation—taxing the rich to give to the poor—is akin to forced labor.

PART 2 -- WHO OWNS ME?: Students first discuss the arguments behind redistributive taxation. If you live in a society that has a system of progressive taxation, aren’t you obligated to pay your taxes? Don’t many rich people often acquire their wealth through sheer luck or family fortune? A group of students dubbed “Team Libertarian” volunteers to defend the libertarian philosophy against these objections.

Michael Sandel on Justice: Lecture III is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

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Should You Give to Harvard?

Dan Colman — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 07:03:18 +0000

That’s the question that The Ethicist asks in The New York Times. Below, I present the issue and part of the answer. Read through it all and tell us where you stand on the issue.

The Issue

The fiscal year for major university endowments ended June 30, and schools have been reporting their results: not good. In the Harvard-Yale portfolio game, the latter was down 24.6 percent, while its rival lost even more, 27.3 percent. If you are an Ivy alum, this might seem a good moment to donate to your alma mater, to help rebuild its battered portfolio. But should you, given the power of education to improve people’s lives?

The Argument

Do not donate to Harvard. To do so is to offer more pie to a portly fellow while the gaunt and hungry press their faces to the window (at some sort of metaphoric college cafeteria, anyway). Even after last year’s losses, Harvard’s endowment exceeds $26 billion, the largest of any American university, greater than the G.D.P. of Estonia. By contrast, among historically black colleges and universities, Howard has the largest endowment, about $420 million, a mere 1.6 percent the size of Harvard’s. (Donors gave Harvard more than $600 million just this fiscal year.) The best-endowed community college,Valencia, in Orlando, Fla., has around $67 million, or 0.26 percent of Harvard’s wealth. This is not to deny that Harvard does fine work or could find ways to spend the money but to assert that other schools have a greater need and a greater moral claim to your benevolence… More here.

Should You Give to Harvard? is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

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Justice: Putting a Price Tag on Life & How to Measure Pleasure

Dan Colman — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 15:47:56 +0000

Harvard has rolled out Week 2 of Michael Sandel’s course on Justice. Courtesy of the course web site, here’s a synopsis of what you can expect from Episode 2. New lectures are getting rolled out weekly. Check the Harvard web site for new additions.

Part 1 -- PUTTING A PRICE TAG ON LIFE: Sandel presents some contemporary cases in which cost-benefit analysis was used to put a dollar value on human life. The cases give rise to several objections to the utilitarian logic of seeking “the greatest good for the greatest number.” Is it possible to sum up and compare all values using a common measure like money?

Part 2 -- HOW TO MEASURE PLEASURE: Sandel introduces J. S. Mill, a utilitarian philosopher who argues that seeking “the greatest good for the greatest number” is compatible with protecting individual rights, and that utilitarianism can make room for a distinction between higher and lower pleasures. Sandel tests this theory by playing video clips from three very different forms of entertainment: Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the reality show Fear Factor, and The Simpsons.

Justice: Putting a Price Tag on Life & How to Measure Pleasure is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

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