You're a LIFESAVER! I was so confused in my philosophy college course, but you explained everything perfectly and simplistically. Now, I'm no longer confused, and I have you to thank for it! I'm officially a subscribing member :) Must see more videos!! o_0
I am glad the videos are useful, and I appreciate the compliment. Out of curiosity, at which college or university are you studying? Thanks for watching and spread the word.
@@haugenmetaphilosophy National University, San Diego California. But prior to here, I went to school in good ole Texas. You are most welcome, btw, & I will most definitely spread the word. Please continue the amazing work, and never....ever change.
Thankyou. You made it really easy. Putting it simply like you did further enhances the text read. And your way of explaining it by giving such relatable daily lives examples makes the video worth watching. Also within 12 minutes is a plus point. Would love to see more of your videos.
Thank you so much for explaining with such a simplicity and real examples.. I was grinding for hours through multiple sources to somehow understand this.. and you made it look like a cakewalk! Thanks again.
Thank you! I am currently writing a paper on Russell's distinction and this video has really helped; also know that this is roughly the 5th video I've watched. I am trying to bring in the phenomenon of Blindsight into this discussion and I am curious how you think the Blindsight phenomenon works through Russell's distinction? (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blindsight) Given that these individuals are not conscious of their perception, it seems that their ability to make reliably accurate guesses about objects (e.g. lines, facial emotions, etc.) relies upon their knowledge by acquaintance of universals/concepts -- but, as you mentioned, this is somewhat interesting. (For the sake of argument/investigation, we can set aside the question as to whether blindsight knowledge is proper knowledge.) Time permitting, I would love to hear what you think! Thanks again for providing a wonderful video. Hello from SJSU, San Jose, California!
Well, one certainly does not have knowledge by acquaintance of the color itself. I doubt that the color is known through description as well. If you are going to claim that the individual does indeed know the color, you have an interesting question as to how. I am not entirely sure you can do so without doing violence to Russell’s view. After all, Russell claims that all knowledge begins with acquaintance-this much he is an empiricist. In order for the blind-sighted person to be able to have the universal, they must first have the perception. Even if they previously had the perceptions, but not currently, one is still left with the question of how the blind-sighted person makes correct judgments in current instances. That is to say, if you claim they have knowledge of the universal, you must explain how they make the judgment that the particular instance of the color is an instance of the universal when they are not acquainted with the particular instance. Either the blind-sighted person knows the color or not. Either way, there are implications for Russell’s view. If I were to make a video on this, this would likely be something I would make for my Patreon page. www.patreon.com/PhilosophyAnd
This is great! I wasn't sure if bringing in the case of blindsight was completely from left field -- your reply makes me feel more confident about my paper (especially given that it's due on Monday!). My initial goal was to do violence to Russell's view using blindsight, but the more I thought about it, the more confused I was as to how this violence would actually happen. There's no direct awareness of the color, so with Russell's view it seems that the blindsight-knowledge would have to be founded upon acquaintance with universals/concepts, and this gives rise to the issue you've mentioned. Does the blindsight-case not meet the criteria for knowledge by description because knowledge by description still requires access to sense-data? Perhaps the "violence" is that Russell's view cannot account for this kind of knowledge -- but, Russellians would counter that the blindsight individuals don't "know that they know" and so their claims remain mere guesses, no matter how accurate. In any case, my professor gave me the the 'go ahead' for this topic and I have an opportunity to re-write the paper later in this semester. If you're interested, I could send you a copy of the first draft once it's complete. Thanks again for your reply and too for the link to your Patreon page; doubtless a video on this topic would be well worth it! Cheers. -Andy
Good question. That depends on what you mean by ‘true’. Russell has his own account. I don’t want to simply answer your question with more videos, but neither do I wish to do violence to Russell’s view with a brief explanation. So, to choose the lesser of two evils, I think I must answer your question with further videos. This link should take you to the whole series I did on Russell’s book. ua-cam.com/video/7TXIkLUSSX0/v-deo.html
No contemporary philosophers take Russell seriously. Kindergarten level thought. I would recommended you give a talk on Deleuze but it may cause your brain to explode. You must have tenure. Shame.
Given your preference for Deleuze and your derisive comments towards Russell, I can only presume you are caught up in the Continental and Analytic animosity to which some have succumbed. Regardless, resorting to insults-as opposed to substantive thought-towards Russell or myself is beneath you, Deleuze, Russell, and the discipline of philosophy itself. Should you decide to comment further, I expect better.
@@haugenmetaphilosophy Not here to meet your expectations or definition of philosophy itself (ugh), simply to enjoy your vids - which I do. But Russell? C'mon. Suggesting Deleuze is substantive, no? Never enough room to stretch out in the "comment" forum but would likely enjoy an old fashioned tete a tete. I know I would learn much, you seem a bit zippered in though. It is a shame in that I am missing out on your thoughts on Spinoza, Kant, Wittgenstein, or even Foucault. You know, the heavy lifters. Russell seems too light for you. Hell, Whitehead would be a giant step up. Better?
You say you are not here to meet my expectations, but at the same time your behavior suggests that I am expected to meet yours or suffer your insults. That is all that you have offered: insults. You have not offered reason or basic manners. I expect both. You say that you cannot offer substantive thought in a comments section. I am inclined to agree that it is at least difficult to do so. Consequently, if you cannot offer substantive thought in the comments section, be polite. You may think that your comments are playful banter. I do not know you well enough for that to be playful, and I am increasingly less inclined to want to get to become familiar with you. It is not hard to be polite and yet convey what you wish to convey. Something like the following would be appropriate: “Thank you for the videos. I enjoy watching them. However, I am not the biggest fan of Bertrand Russell. I have found his work to be less stimulating that Kant, Deleuze, Spinoza, and some others. I believe I and others would greatly benefit from any videos you could create explaining their views.” This is much more polite than, “I would recommended you give a talk on Deleuze but it may cause your brain to explode. You must have tenure. Shame.” You say that I should produce videos on other philosophers. This would be nice. However, you seem to be unaware of the reason I produce these videos and the amount of time and effort required to produce them. Insisting that I create videos for your purposes regardless of mine, especially considering the effort required to produce them, is a bit too demanding to say the least. I have noticed from your channel that you have merely collected other videos but produced none of your own. It seems that you are willing to expect other people to produce videos to entertain you and meet your own standards of what amounts to be good philosophy, but you are unwilling or unable to produce your own. I suggest one of two things: either that you be willing to meet your own expectations that you impose on others, or you change your expectations. If you are unwilling to follow either suggestion, I invite you to unsubscribe and watch some other channel. Your manner, your insults, and your general approach to dealing with people online is unwelcome here.
@@haugenmetaphilosophy Point taken. Strip away my projection of frustration and what remains is a desire to hear people who do what you do help me wade through thinkers who are difficult. When you speak I understand and can follow your points (mostly). Clearly you know your stuff, have dedicated the time, all that is laudable in a thinker. I have read philosophy for 45 years now, yet get lost or differ from other's interps, i.e. read The Critique three times and am still unsure - but I know there is something incredible lurking on those pages. Can't even get through Hegel. Deleuze? Forget about it, but everyone seems to love him! I am afraid I will run out of earth-time having missed vital thought. I was hoping you (and others) could somehow help. So I try pissing people off (trolling?). When I write nice things no one responds. If I'd said "Good job on Berkeley" you would have skimmed passed it, no? They only give us 10-20 words after all. Bad strategy, I realize now, thanks to you. But desperate times..... However, I have insulted you and I sincerely regret it. For real. Nearly 100% of folks leave the planet without ever realizing their own minds, so this is not pity, just.....Desperation? Fear?
I apologize for not responding sooner. I am impressed you have expressed regret for your previous communication. It is a sign of graciousness that is rare amongst internet denizens. I am also grateful for the compliment. I hope I know what I am doing. In graduate school all my colleagues and I had the same unspoken fear: “They will find out I am a fraud!” I have never truly lost this fear. I aim for providing plain and uncomplicated explanations of various philosophical views; I often worry I am simplifying too much. It is a balancing act that I suspect I will never completely execute. For what it is worth, I also sometimes lose what a particular author is trying to communicate whether the author is Kant, another major figure, or a commentator on some major figure. One often wonders whether the fault is with the audience or the author. While I think Kant is an amazing philosopher, I do not think his approach to writing is so laudable. I once enrolled in a seminar on Kant in graduate school (by the by, it was excellent). The professor is an expert on Kant, Heidegger, and Karl Reinhold. He told us that philosophy students in Germany study Kant in the English translation since the English translation is easier to understand. Considering that Kant is German and the Critique was originally written in German (I believe), this should tell you something. I have also had my own particular struggles; my copy of the Critique has more scratch notes than can be comprehended by my past self or present. If you are not sure whether you understand Kant, you are in good company. The fracture between Analytic Philosophy and Continental philosophy can be traced back to different interpretations of his work. As I understand it, there are various schools within Continental philosophy with differing, contrary, and equally justifiable approaches to understanding the Critique. Perhaps this is its charm. It has been said more than once that a mark of good philosophy is that it leaves room for further research. In that sense, Kant may be more successful than Plato. I have not succeeded in understanding Hegel. It has been some time, but some things I have learned are beyond my comprehension. You say that you are afraid that you will run out of Earth time and miss vital thought. I must inform you that you are right. It is certainly the case that you will run out of time without encountering all human thought. The amount of vital human thought is, in my cynical judgment, significantly less than the amount of human thought. Even so, any individual person could not comprehend it all. If we were to take the Stanford Encyclopedia as a measure of all vital human thought, no single person could comprehend it all. (I am not suggesting it is the measure of all vital human thought, but I think it contains at least some). It is, after all, the combined work of a large and ever growing list of professionals. I do not seriously entertain the thought that any one person could encapsulate the work of even a quarter of that list. This, however, is not bad news. This merely means that you will always have something interesting, challenging, frustrating, and gratifying, to read no matter how long your stay on this tiny blue dot. What is real, and what we have thought is real, is so much more interesting and expansive than any piece of fiction. You are right that I would not have much to respond with a “Good job on Berkeley”. I hope my past interactions would show that I would, at least, say “Thank you”. I do respond to questions, at least to an extent. I am happy to respond to questions provided I have enough time. My time cannot be completely devoted to my UA-cam channel, but I hope I can provide at least a helpful amount. Your last few sentences troubles me, to be honest, more than any of your previous comments. There are several ways to interpret them; however, the one I find most plausible is that they express a certain fear. If I am mistaken, I hope you understand that I am merely giving it my best attempt. Having said that, it seems you fear not knowing what you really believe, or that you fear not knowing what you really hope is true. I am more than willing to discuss this with you. I understand that such a discussion may not be something you want to carry out through a public comments forum. I think UA-cam allows for some sort of private messaging. If you would like to discuss this fear further, please let me know. It is part of what I do as a teacher. Thank you for your kind words. Thank you for watching. I hope to hear from you further.
You're a LIFESAVER! I was so confused in my philosophy college course, but you explained everything perfectly and simplistically. Now, I'm no longer confused, and I have you to thank for it! I'm officially a subscribing member :) Must see more videos!! o_0
I am glad the videos are useful, and I appreciate the compliment. Out of curiosity, at which college or university are you studying?
Thanks for watching and spread the word.
@@haugenmetaphilosophy National University, San Diego California. But prior to here, I went to school in good ole Texas.
You are most welcome, btw, & I will most definitely spread the word. Please continue the amazing work, and never....ever change.
thanks very much! that was really nicely explained. appreciate it.
Thanks matey, that was super helpful and I loved seeing the Japenese Tea Garden.
I am glad you enjoyed it. Thanks for watching and spread the word.
Thankyou. You made it really easy. Putting it simply like you did further enhances the text read. And your way of explaining it by giving such relatable daily lives examples makes the video worth watching. Also within 12 minutes is a plus point. Would love to see more of your videos.
already subsribed your channel sir.
You literally saved my semester. haha In all honesty you have simplified a topic that had be baffled me for a bit. thank you
I’m glad it helped. Thanks for watching.
Great explanation! Thank you for making this.
I appreciate the compliment. Thanks for watching and spread the word.
Thank you so much for explaining with such a simplicity and real examples..
I was grinding for hours through multiple sources to somehow understand this.. and you made it look like a cakewalk! Thanks again.
I am glad you enjoyed it. Thanks for watching and spread the word.
Thanks for sharing this.
You’re welcome. Thanks for watching and spread the word.
This was such great help for me! Thank you :)
I am glad you found it helpful. Thanks for watching and spread the word.
looool the man in the background 9:05
Yeah. Shooting that video taught me the value of going to locations at hours of low visitation.
Nice video!
Thank you for the compliment, and thanks for watching.
You are so good, very lucidly you explained this
I appreciate the compliment. Thanks for watching and spread the word.
@@haugenmetaphilosophy yes sure I will tell my friends to watch it
Thank you! I am currently writing a paper on Russell's distinction and this video has really helped; also know that this is roughly the 5th video I've watched. I am trying to bring in the phenomenon of Blindsight into this discussion and I am curious how you think the Blindsight phenomenon works through Russell's distinction? (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blindsight) Given that these individuals are not conscious of their perception, it seems that their ability to make reliably accurate guesses about objects (e.g. lines, facial emotions, etc.) relies upon their knowledge by acquaintance of universals/concepts -- but, as you mentioned, this is somewhat interesting. (For the sake of argument/investigation, we can set aside the question as to whether blindsight knowledge is proper knowledge.) Time permitting, I would love to hear what you think! Thanks again for providing a wonderful video. Hello from SJSU, San Jose, California!
Well, one certainly does not have knowledge by acquaintance of the color itself. I doubt that the color is known through description as well. If you are going to claim that the individual does indeed know the color, you have an interesting question as to how. I am not entirely sure you can do so without doing violence to Russell’s view. After all, Russell claims that all knowledge begins with acquaintance-this much he is an empiricist. In order for the blind-sighted person to be able to have the universal, they must first have the perception. Even if they previously had the perceptions, but not currently, one is still left with the question of how the blind-sighted person makes correct judgments in current instances. That is to say, if you claim they have knowledge of the universal, you must explain how they make the judgment that the particular instance of the color is an instance of the universal when they are not acquainted with the particular instance. Either the blind-sighted person knows the color or not. Either way, there are implications for Russell’s view. If I were to make a video on this, this would likely be something I would make for my Patreon page.
www.patreon.com/PhilosophyAnd
This is great! I wasn't sure if bringing in the case of blindsight was completely from left field -- your reply makes me feel more confident about my paper (especially given that it's due on Monday!). My initial goal was to do violence to Russell's view using blindsight, but the more I thought about it, the more confused I was as to how this violence would actually happen. There's no direct awareness of the color, so with Russell's view it seems that the blindsight-knowledge would have to be founded upon acquaintance with universals/concepts, and this gives rise to the issue you've mentioned. Does the blindsight-case not meet the criteria for knowledge by description because knowledge by description still requires access to sense-data? Perhaps the "violence" is that Russell's view cannot account for this kind of knowledge -- but, Russellians would counter that the blindsight individuals don't "know that they know" and so their claims remain mere guesses, no matter how accurate. In any case, my professor gave me the the 'go ahead' for this topic and I have an opportunity to re-write the paper later in this semester. If you're interested, I could send you a copy of the first draft once it's complete. Thanks again for your reply and too for the link to your Patreon page; doubtless a video on this topic would be well worth it! Cheers.
-Andy
That sounds fine. See if you can attach the paper to a message through UA-cam. If not, simply copy and paste the body of the text to a message.
Can knowledge by description be untrue or is it simply not knowledge if that is the case (unbeknownst to the subject)?
Good question. That depends on what you mean by ‘true’. Russell has his own account. I don’t want to simply answer your question with more videos, but neither do I wish to do violence to Russell’s view with a brief explanation. So, to choose the lesser of two evils, I think I must answer your question with further videos. This link should take you to the whole series I did on Russell’s book.
ua-cam.com/video/7TXIkLUSSX0/v-deo.html
No contemporary philosophers take Russell seriously. Kindergarten level thought. I would recommended you give a talk on Deleuze but it may cause your brain to explode. You must have tenure. Shame.
Given your preference for Deleuze and your derisive comments towards Russell, I can only presume you are caught up in the Continental and Analytic animosity to which some have succumbed. Regardless, resorting to insults-as opposed to substantive thought-towards Russell or myself is beneath you, Deleuze, Russell, and the discipline of philosophy itself. Should you decide to comment further, I expect better.
@@haugenmetaphilosophy Not here to meet your expectations or definition of philosophy itself (ugh), simply to enjoy your vids - which I do. But Russell? C'mon. Suggesting Deleuze is substantive, no?
Never enough room to stretch out in the "comment" forum but would likely enjoy an old fashioned tete a tete. I know I would learn much, you seem a bit zippered in though. It is a shame in that I am missing out on your thoughts on Spinoza, Kant, Wittgenstein, or even Foucault. You know, the heavy lifters. Russell seems too light for you. Hell, Whitehead would be a giant step up. Better?
You say you are not here to meet my expectations, but at the same time your behavior suggests that I am expected to meet yours or suffer your insults. That is all that you have offered: insults. You have not offered reason or basic manners. I expect both. You say that you cannot offer substantive thought in a comments section. I am inclined to agree that it is at least difficult to do so. Consequently, if you cannot offer substantive thought in the comments section, be polite. You may think that your comments are playful banter. I do not know you well enough for that to be playful, and I am increasingly less inclined to want to get to become familiar with you.
It is not hard to be polite and yet convey what you wish to convey. Something like the following would be appropriate: “Thank you for the videos. I enjoy watching them. However, I am not the biggest fan of Bertrand Russell. I have found his work to be less stimulating that Kant, Deleuze, Spinoza, and some others. I believe I and others would greatly benefit from any videos you could create explaining their views.” This is much more polite than, “I would recommended you give a talk on Deleuze but it may cause your brain to explode. You must have tenure. Shame.”
You say that I should produce videos on other philosophers. This would be nice. However, you seem to be unaware of the reason I produce these videos and the amount of time and effort required to produce them. Insisting that I create videos for your purposes regardless of mine, especially considering the effort required to produce them, is a bit too demanding to say the least. I have noticed from your channel that you have merely collected other videos but produced none of your own. It seems that you are willing to expect other people to produce videos to entertain you and meet your own standards of what amounts to be good philosophy, but you are unwilling or unable to produce your own.
I suggest one of two things: either that you be willing to meet your own expectations that you impose on others, or you change your expectations.
If you are unwilling to follow either suggestion, I invite you to unsubscribe and watch some other channel. Your manner, your insults, and your general approach to dealing with people online is unwelcome here.
@@haugenmetaphilosophy Point taken. Strip away my projection of frustration and what remains is a desire to hear people who do what you do help me wade through thinkers who are difficult. When you speak I understand and can follow your points (mostly). Clearly you know your stuff, have dedicated the time, all that is laudable in a thinker. I have read philosophy for 45 years now, yet get lost or differ from other's interps, i.e. read The Critique three times and am still unsure - but I know there is something incredible lurking on those pages. Can't even get through Hegel. Deleuze? Forget about it, but everyone seems to love him! I am afraid I will run out of earth-time having missed vital thought. I was hoping you (and others) could somehow help. So I try pissing people off (trolling?). When I write nice things no one responds. If I'd said "Good job on Berkeley" you would have skimmed passed it, no? They only give us 10-20 words after all. Bad strategy, I realize now, thanks to you. But desperate times.....
However, I have insulted you and I sincerely regret it. For real.
Nearly 100% of folks leave the planet without ever realizing their own minds, so this is not pity, just.....Desperation? Fear?
I apologize for not responding sooner. I am impressed you have expressed regret for your previous communication. It is a sign of graciousness that is rare amongst internet denizens.
I am also grateful for the compliment. I hope I know what I am doing. In graduate school all my colleagues and I had the same unspoken fear: “They will find out I am a fraud!” I have never truly lost this fear. I aim for providing plain and uncomplicated explanations of various philosophical views; I often worry I am simplifying too much. It is a balancing act that I suspect I will never completely execute.
For what it is worth, I also sometimes lose what a particular author is trying to communicate whether the author is Kant, another major figure, or a commentator on some major figure. One often wonders whether the fault is with the audience or the author. While I think Kant is an amazing philosopher, I do not think his approach to writing is so laudable. I once enrolled in a seminar on Kant in graduate school (by the by, it was excellent). The professor is an expert on Kant, Heidegger, and Karl Reinhold. He told us that philosophy students in Germany study Kant in the English translation since the English translation is easier to understand. Considering that Kant is German and the Critique was originally written in German (I believe), this should tell you something. I have also had my own particular struggles; my copy of the Critique has more scratch notes than can be comprehended by my past self or present. If you are not sure whether you understand Kant, you are in good company. The fracture between Analytic Philosophy and Continental philosophy can be traced back to different interpretations of his work. As I understand it, there are various schools within Continental philosophy with differing, contrary, and equally justifiable approaches to understanding the Critique. Perhaps this is its charm. It has been said more than once that a mark of good philosophy is that it leaves room for further research. In that sense, Kant may be more successful than Plato.
I have not succeeded in understanding Hegel. It has been some time, but some things I have learned are beyond my comprehension.
You say that you are afraid that you will run out of Earth time and miss vital thought. I must inform you that you are right. It is certainly the case that you will run out of time without encountering all human thought. The amount of vital human thought is, in my cynical judgment, significantly less than the amount of human thought. Even so, any individual person could not comprehend it all. If we were to take the Stanford Encyclopedia as a measure of all vital human thought, no single person could comprehend it all. (I am not suggesting it is the measure of all vital human thought, but I think it contains at least some). It is, after all, the combined work of a large and ever growing list of professionals. I do not seriously entertain the thought that any one person could encapsulate the work of even a quarter of that list.
This, however, is not bad news. This merely means that you will always have something interesting, challenging, frustrating, and gratifying, to read no matter how long your stay on this tiny blue dot. What is real, and what we have thought is real, is so much more interesting and expansive than any piece of fiction.
You are right that I would not have much to respond with a “Good job on Berkeley”. I hope my past interactions would show that I would, at least, say “Thank you”. I do respond to questions, at least to an extent. I am happy to respond to questions provided I have enough time. My time cannot be completely devoted to my UA-cam channel, but I hope I can provide at least a helpful amount.
Your last few sentences troubles me, to be honest, more than any of your previous comments. There are several ways to interpret them; however, the one I find most plausible is that they express a certain fear. If I am mistaken, I hope you understand that I am merely giving it my best attempt. Having said that, it seems you fear not knowing what you really believe, or that you fear not knowing what you really hope is true. I am more than willing to discuss this with you. I understand that such a discussion may not be something you want to carry out through a public comments forum. I think UA-cam allows for some sort of private messaging. If you would like to discuss this fear further, please let me know. It is part of what I do as a teacher.
Thank you for your kind words. Thank you for watching. I hope to hear from you further.