Karl Popper - A Way Around the Problem of Induction

It is commonly thought that science proceeds by interpreting "free-floating" evidences which leads the scientist to a theory that would adequately interpret these evidences. This process is known as induction. However, is this process of induction ever justified?

The problem of induction is better explained by Wikipedia and Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

This is Popper's way around the problem of induction.

Part 1:
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=feUA5qkzOjs
Part 2:
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=WZ_DJsenkek

Bernard Williams - Unavoidable Human Prejudice

Bernard Williams is an English moral philosopher of 20th century. He is well known for being critical of utilitarianism. He is described to be "analytic philosopher with the soul of a humanist" and is an avid admirer of Friedrich Nietzsche. He is well-known for questioning orthodoxies and traditional claims made in ethics. Williams also is an atheist.

Gilbert Ryle said that Williams "understands what you're going to say better than you understand it yourself, and sees all the possible objections to it, all the possible answers to all the possible objections, before you've got to the end of your sentence."

In this talk, Williams talks about unavoidable human prejudice and Singerian utilitarianism.

Part 1:
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=D9xtDbW3p74
Part 2:
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=5bC9AHjMQFc
Part 3:
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=YjdtGXLVUME
Part 4:
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=QlCI2GyJq6w
Part 5:
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=FaMhaL5Hxvw
Part 6:
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=u6k1DoWAKTA
Part 7:
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=toMVIRnwxnA
Part 8:
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=IqFUoOk5m50
Part 9:
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=jUflDOahW_E

John Searle: Beyond Dualism

John Searle is an American philosopher interested in philosophy of mind.

Here are some key elements of Searle's position.

* Rejects computational theory of mind with his Chinese Room argument.
* Rejects Cartesian dualism. Probably rejects property dualism as well.
* Study of consciousness using scientific method IS possible. This is very much against previously conceived notion that goes something like "consciousness is known subjectively only, thus scientific inquiry from third person perspective cannot explain consciousness."
* Reduction of consciousness to neurobiological phenomena is not strictly possible since nuerobiological phenomena loses the qualitative feel of subjectivity. One must tackle this problem directly without eliminating consciousness.
* Rejects epiphenomenalism, so he admits free will is real. I think he now takes somewhat agnostic position on this issue.

Part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRwOuE7IJoA
Part 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctniu92XvzI
Part 3:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFg4ikxHjY4
Part 4:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5U8HrlHb70
Part 5:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buvUPUwojiM
Part 6:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnnOz5wCl8M
Part 7:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MP-RegfGdA

John Searle on Ludwig Wittgenstein

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Bryan Magee talks to John Searle about the legacy of Ludwig Wittgenstein; ranging from his early work, the Tractatus, to his posthumously published, Philosophical Investigations.

John Searle

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

John Bickle on Neuroscience and Reductionism

"Bickle works in philosophy of neuroscience, philosophy of science, and cellular mechanisms of cognition and consciousness. He is noted for his "new wave reductionism" presented in his 1998 MIT Press book, Psychoneural Reduction: The New Wave. His second book, Philosophy and Neuroscience: A Ruthlessly Reductive Account, published in June 2003 by Kluwer Academic Publishers, brings recent research from "molecular and cellular cognition" to the attention of cognitive scientists and philosophers of mind and science. He is also co-author of the 5th edition of Understanding Scientific Reasoning (with Ronald N. Giere and Robert Mauldin). Bickle also edits an annual special issue of the journal Synthese on philosophy and neuroscience.

Bickle is Professor and Head of the Department of Philosophy and Professor in the Neuroscience Graduate Program. He is the founding editor of the Studies in Brain and Mind Book Series, from Springer Publishers."
from Department of Philosophy at University of Cincinnati Website

Part 1
Part 2

Žižek!

"Slavoj Zizek is a Slovenian-born political philosopher and cultural critic. He was described by Terry Eagleton as the "most formidably brilliant" recent theorist to have emerged from Continental Europe. Zizek's work is infamously idiosyncratic. It features striking dialectical reversals of received common sense; a ubiquitous sense of humour; a patented disrespect towards the modern distinction between high and low culture; and the examination of examples taken from the most diverse cultural and political fields. Yet Zizek's work, as he warns us, has a very serious philosophical content and intention. Zizek challenges many of the founding assumptions of today's left-liberal academy, including the elevation of difference or otherness to ends in themselves, the reading of the Western Enlightenment as implicitly totalitarian, and the pervasive skepticism towards any context-transcendent notions of truth or the good. One feature of Zizek's work is its singular philosophical and political reconsideration of German idealist philosophy (Kant, Schelling and Hegel). Zizek has also reinvigorated Jacques Lacan's challenging psychoanalytic theory, controversially reading him as a thinker who carries forward founding modernist commitments to the Cartesian subject and the liberating potential of self-reflective agency, if not self-transparency. Zizek's works since 1997 have become more and more explicitly political, contesting the widespread consensus that we live in a post-ideological or post-political world, and defending the possibility of lasting changes to the new world order of globalization, the end of history, or the war on terror."
from The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

I am no fan of Žižek nor do I agree with many things he says, but his influence is certainly impossible to ignore. This is a documentary dedicated to Žižek.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7

A Brief Introduction to Idealism

George Berkeley

Idealism is a monistic doctrine that says the world is only mental, and all of the reality exists as ideas.

Here is a video that explains what idealism is under 2 minutes.