Geoffrey Warnock on Kant: Section 1

[CommunistWarrior1917]

RIP Kant - the great initiator of German Idealism

[iiNDiTC]

HEGEL & MARX!

[mlbraun81]

It is a happy state of affairs that these types of programs do exist on Youtube nowadays.

[funkmastermoon]

...the sound is great. I love old media.

[donshery]

immanuel cunt is hard to understand, but i will do it, my uni exam is about him & hume - both so hard to understand! Descartes is a lot of fun btw.

[tenseman08]

@donshery lol...descartes and his demons

[sanmatteo12341]

I agree with hazywaz1,... even the Beeb doesn't make unashamedly philosophical programmes like this these days......Thank God for YouTube.... and thank God for Bryan Magee....( Even if the gentleman is an avowed atheist !! )

[gorgolyt]

@sanmatteo12341 they often broadcast good stuff on BBC4. that channel was almost cancelled recently due to almost nobody watching it, but fortunately it's survived for now. but you're correct that they don't seem to make such programmes any more, and it's a travesty. especially when you consider how inexpensive they are compared to their garish dramafests.

[hazywaz1]

This is why the internet is so important! No television channel would show this because it doesn't appeal to a mass audience. But like great literature, this sort of media should be readily available to those who seek it.

[sanmatteo12341]

Ahh.....Fascinating Stuff......Many Thanks For Uploading

[MsRapture16]

Learning about Kant, Mills, and Bentham right now for an online Ethics course...all these philosophers and their ideology is quite intriguing...even though I disagree wholeheartedly with a lot of what is being pushed based in their theory but it is nice to at least learn about something from a different perspective

[duncangray2011]

I DREAM OF THE HARVEST, FORTOLD IN ANIMAL FARM. when eh you enjoy democracy and self service, then you die. The worm leaders with body guards. What on gods green earth is the purpose of the machine? who does it serve? I would like to get them and hold them accountable. FOR IT MURDERS BABIES IN THE GRAVE.

[Malangsufi]

Once upon a time the TV producers assumed its audience had the IQ require to digest such shows, now all we see is MTV crap and shows about thugs and fake reality tv, tells alot about norm of the society now days.

[natkoyama]

To those that nostalgically complain that they don't have shows like this on TV anymore, isn't it clear that TV is itself becoming obsolete? Anyone with the internet can watch this at any time they want. There are some EGS and Yale lectures online, but I would love to see more people who know their shit making content like this for this era, this medium. As old and crusty as these geezers are, they are so much more informative and entertaining than the vast majority of my uni lectures were.

[godno1god]

Magee said that he only understood Kant by reading Schopenhauer. If you study modern brain science, then the idea of the brain organising and 'making' time is accepted. Check out the interview with Stuart Hameroff on the Skeptico web sight.

[godno1god]

The bbc wouldn't dare make a program like this today. The politicians would denounce it as 'elitist'! In the olden days, the bbc produced quality. Now it appeals to the lowest common demograph. Its sad.

[VVillowz]

The power of Kant compels you. The power of Kant compels you. The power of Kant compels you.

[Enersha27]

Immanuel was a real pissant

[4bysmal]

There is a Darth Vader like echo to their voices.

[amarsico]

my name is geoffrey warnock blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

[englisheschool]

نعم بالتاكيد لقد كان من اعظم الفلايفة في التاريخ

[englisheschool]

سام كمال

اعتقد انه من الغريب ان نجد تلفزيونا يبتث مثل هذا الربرنامج البتثقيفي

[bass109]

Jesus christ is prince of earth.

[RamboJohn0123]

I'd like programmes like these in Italian television.

[SherryVapors]

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you for all the posts in this series.

[OfficialJabberwocky]

Why isn't there a channel on TV for this?

[LooksAeterna]

Have they moved into a church for Kant, or why is there this acustic reverberation =:))

[BRussellspouts]

@Icannottolerateit Doesn't the knowledge that atoms are 99% empty space arrive via the senses? It certainly hasn't come to us by private revelation. Instead what we have are sophisticated tools for measurement which augment our senses, and which tell us what is going on at these different scales other than that to which we are evolutionarily accustomed. But these observations are nevertheless empirical, are they not?

[CallMeNumber8]

I hear you brothers :-D

I hate todays' TV too!

Let's philosophize about this...

[SirMelanin]

Immanuel kant was more of a logician and scientist than a speculative philosopher!! Human Knowledge has a realm. Just to acknowledge this (realm) gave incite to where he refused to visit due to his finite senses....so he keeps it neutral and inconclusive. "things within themselves"

[Israe5l]

Yeah, Kant is important. With him, anglo-american and continental philosophy split. And the issue was synthetic apriori. The problem with Kant is that he did not have an examle of the synthetic apriori (well, except mathemtaics. But that is not a strong case.) The continental with synthetic apriori went all over human science. While anglo-american remained skeptical.

[deadgoblin86]

Kant is the greatest? pah! Nietzsche danced circles around him

[BombaMolotov]

@deadgoblin86 Are you kidding? Nietzsche is a bunch of bullshit. Hume was a genius, and Nietzsche is a fool compared to him.

[FaaarLeft]

@BombaMolotov All the great thinkers were great in their own way. I personally hate the overconfident "system" philosophers. They often fell into contradiction, and their books are depressingly unreadable.

[Edivion]

@FaaarLeft As a philosophy student I can't agree with you more.

[deadgoblin86]

@BombaMolotov thats where you're very wrong. Hume was brilliant, but Nietzsche was by far the most original and incisive, btw you have Nietzsche to thank for the cross over between psychology & philosophy. Which books of N's have you read, anyhow?

[BombaMolotov]

@deadgoblin86 Beyond Good and Evil, The Genealogy of Morals, and Thus Spake Zarathustra. Hume and many others before Nietzsche took the matters of psychology into their hands. Nietzsche's most important work was on bullshit ethics and morals. Hume did a nice job at that and many other things.

[deadgoblin86]

@BombaMolotov I dont think you're taking the full essence of Nietzsches work seriously enough here. His work on morals is most well known, but more important is his focus on assertion being a part of truth rather than merely undeniability, that and his powerful reminder about having any preferences at all, he even questions (which no philosopher had done before him) Why truth above untruth? Or, to put it better 'It is no more than a moral prejudice that truth is worth more than appearance'.

[Icannottolerateit]

@deadgoblin86 "All credibility, all good conscience, all evidence of truth come only from the senses"

All atoms are 99% empty space, yet our senses would tell us otherwise.

Well the trust of sensual experience is a core principle behind his philosophy, so I trust we can all just ignore him now.

[deadgoblin86]

@BombaMolotov and most successfully is he able to highlight the very real condition that a 'philosopher's epistemology is linked very much to their attitude.

[seekfears]

google Doe's Account.

[COMMUNISTPHILOSOPHY]

was Kant an egalitarian and /or equalitarian? If every person were to follow Kant's categorical imperative a perfect egalitarian society would be the result or would it ahhhh hmm

[BuBBaGump014]

Kant's theory is far better than any that have come since him, especially the exercises in nihilism, scientism, and scholasticism that are now so common. Kant clearly distinguished his empirical realism from the "empirical idealism" of Berkley and Descartes. Knowledge is of objections that are ontologically independent of experience (transcendental) but epistemologically dependent on subjective experience. It's not that we don't (or can't) know the world, we just can't know it without the mind.

[SirMelanin]

@ whimsicaljoss.. Peace to Immanuel Kant for his epistemical research that revolutionized Philosophy, Physics, and Science, all with Mathematical certainty. For the Record: Immanuel Kant was not some gullible idealist. He perceived reality as nothing but objectional. This is confirmed by the Apriori Groundstate of Exp.The only exception was the metaphysical proofs of Pure Reason: God, Freedom, and Immortality; which he considered as beyond reproach to investigate from a Sensational Perspective.

[whimsicaljoss]

Ayn Rand called Kant the most evil man who ever lived, and objectivists tend to parrot that opinion. Rand had expressed contempt for all philosophers other than Aristotle, and objectivists tend to parrot that opinion. Ayn Rand tended to show her disagreements in a pretentious, rude way. Objectivists tend to mirror that habit. I expect they will be all over this series of videos, needling it.

[SirMelanin]

Check out all my comments on Kant pt 1...and tell me do you still disagree...and why?

[whimsicaljoss]

I've never read Kant's own words, only some written about him, so I would never claim to be an expert on his philosophy or to be in a position to debate someone about him. Without reading his arguments I can't say if I agree or disagree with you or not. My comment, I can say with certainty, was not directed at anything you have post, it was directed at someone else whose comment has since been removed. Best wishes.

[OhNoEuthyphro]

Those who can do, those who can't teach.

[Rico8458]

everything after aristotle are sophists.

[iamnotapie]

Oh wow you're such an individual.

[Rico8458]

actually philosophy ended with aristotle

[alukkkard]

WTF are you talking about? Explain urself please since many will disagree with u

[Rico8458]

kant the master.

[archdeaconj]

It is Kants successor, Schopenhauer, who really reconciles free will with the Newtonian, deterministic-mechanistic world of the physical sciences. For Schopenhauer, it is not that our behaviour too is causally determined but that both our behaviour and what we have always thought of as causally determined actions in the physical world are manifestation of will.

[archdeaconj]

Kants predecessors had tended to downgrade science, says Warnock. Compared with what? He has been talking about a conflict between science and religion. Yet Warnock now goes on to talk of a conflict between science and philosophy, more precisely between the scientific method and the philosophical method, the latter being the use of reason and logic to attain to truth.

[tristramshandy3]

My favorite author also peaked late in life- Laurence Sterne wrote "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman", the greatest book ever written in the English language, over a nine year period during the last years of his life.

There's still hope!

[Nostatementinthename]

*were

[Nostatementinthename]

Both Kierkegaard and Nietzsche was academics.

[amuell144]

SirMelanin seems like a douche

[SirMelanin]

suck ur mother!!!

[SirMelanin]

Now Who's next. Please do not reply, unless you have read Kant's works seriously; from when he was a student of Knutzen and Crusius, to Professorship. Transcendentalism combines reason and exp. via the medium of Space and Time. I suggest all rookies start off with Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz and the Godless Hume before you even think of approaching the Philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Kant seperated pure reason ( a priori) from the incredible metaphysical things : God, immotality, and Freedom

[maablack]

nice overview but you have never read

[SirMelanin]

The "Critique of Pure Reason" took the mind to the boundry of its own knowledge-- The Apriori, which is the foundation that makes experience possible. These inescapable categories encompass all sensation, perception, and conception of the subject "Being" who eventually becomes the Apperceptive "I who Thinks"

[caipearce]

a priori knowledge is actually, by definition not concerned with experience and is certainly not the foundation for a posteriori knowledge gleaned through the phenomen of sensory perception; it a category of knowledge concerned only with reason, hence the title of the work 'Critique of pure REASON'. why would you write about something you know nothing about?

[SirMelanin]

The Apriori, does indeed mean Pure Reason or Knowledge before Experience. REsulting into the ideas of: QUANTITY, QUALITY, RELATION, and MODALITY and there subsequents; which all comprise the 12 pure categories. Last time my uninformed ass lol checked these were pure reasonable Ideas but also precepts of Empirical realities. And according To Kant they were Transcendental.. The bridge between Reason and alll Experience; and were there is no Objective form needed to justify them being Absolutes.

[victor1eremita]

hmm, mcgee is mistaken. Schopenhauer and Nietzsche were both academics. In fact, Schopenhauer was notorious for scheduling his classes at the very same times as Hegel's, with the result that no one showed up for his lectures! hehe.

[ja773r]

he didnt say they were not academics. he said they were not academic philosophers. nietzsche was certainly academic but not an academic philosopher.

[barrywinehousexp]

I'd like to vouch for the cogency of the comments on Friedrich W. Nietzsche below, as made by koulac and sirac1925 in relation to the subject of this program. Great video.

[begins632]

A program equal to this is now on BBC radio. Go to BBC home page and search for "Bragg". You should find Melvyn Bragg and "In Our Time" program. The previous programs can be heard on the BBC podcast pages.

[carlsunshine]

i think the point that warnock is attempting to put across is more an issue of logical positivism. How he defines his terms is loose, or 'indeterminate' if you will and, as the contemporary flexist philosopher Dr Louie Sponge would argue, he condemns himself to a terminology suited only to a pastry chef at a pastry convention

[sirac1925]

i take Nietszche seriously. i know Nietzche was against Kant in the following way:,.... not necassarily against Kant himself, but against 'kantian pretensions' in the German academia of the time.

why they say Kant is regarded as the greatest, and not Hegel in that bracket (for his works were as volumious, if not more)...i don't know. But i know the classic 3 are Kant Hegel and Schopenhauer

[koulac]

Nietzsche, not an academic? Perhaps not Philosophy, but rather Philology. during the period of 1869 and 1879 between the ages of 24 and 34.. Rather pointless to claim that academia in Kant's history is significant to his philosophy. Unless of course this is a premise for his philosophy.. If anyone can enlighten me to this death-knell of pretence in philosophy.

[yumYumgwy]

tv is much better these days. We are moving toward specialized channels. History channel, discovery channel, The military channel are all evidence of this. Sooner or later there will be a philosophy channel for with Kant week.

[mountebank1]

wtf you on about tv is much better these days

it's fucking terrible

how many times does the history channel repeat itself

it gives you the conclusion before its even started with no real finish

ThiS is real tv

tv nowadays is for the retarded, half the stuff on tv is taught at highschool level

they should have a history + channel for the none stupid

[jimbopumbapigsticks]

@mountebank1 The History channel is basically the Nazi channel with maybe something about the Romans every now and again.

[dedbusted]

Doubt it. All those channels you mentioned were great when they started years ago, but they are now popularized, dumbed-down, and watered down for a general, wider audience.

[IzzyIsou]

It is a sad state of affairs that these types of programs do not exist on TV anymore.

[Roelandvinken]

it's that corrosion of civilisation and culture Socrates talked about 2500 years ago.

[IzzyIsou]

After the computer, TV is probably one of the most relevant inventions in modern history, and what do we use it for? Worshipping Tila Tequila, Paris Hilton, Ashton Kutcher... what a simple and systematic way to dumb the masses - not the masses don't want to be dumbed down.

[Mithicus]

Its all part of the Geist -(go Hegel!!)

[dedbusted]

TV is not significant at all. It has only been used for propaganda. Running water, in-door plumbing, medicines, refrigeration, are important. I consider radio superior to TV because it develops language skills in the listener more. Images that take place on TV is less significant than the power of creating images in the mind when one listens to radio. Think about good students who can listen and understand a professor's lecture while a lesser student relies on a handout.

[IzzyIsou]

That's all well and good, but no Seinfeld?

[eidderdown]

You could read it another way. It's a great state of affairs that we have the Internet which allows us to watch these programmes and much more.

[silurian1980]

@IzzyIsou

It's amazing how true your statement is. What's more tragic is that many people hear your cry and agree with you but the programme policy makers have no interest in producing such material.

[Rabbitthat]

@IzzyIsou We don't need this stuff on TV anymore. We have youtube, so we have choice. :)

All this will start getting made again, because you only need about 50,000 people to subscribe to your shows on youtube before you can get sponsorship and pay for yourself.

[COMMUNISTPHILOSOPHY]

@IzzyIsou maybe the capitalists will allow them to come back again, and lie to the uneducated that they are champions of true democracy

[Theophilosxxv]

@IzzyIsou What is also sad is that, to date, some 54 thousand people have only viewed part 1 of this interview. The numbers drop sharply with the 2nd part, and then again with the 3rd, 4th and 5th. Kant's whole philosophy cannot be adequately condensed into a programme of less than one hour, yet people think it's just fine if you watch 1/5 of it.

[scottvska]

@IzzyIsou Even better, we have scatological cartoons, rap videos and American Idol.

[IzzyIsou]

@scottvska You're forgetting the crowning achievement: reality shows about foul people and their materiialistic world views.

[philonaut]

this is brilliant.

[tvido1]

The CI!!!!

[QuentinVole]

I had the privilege of chatting with Prof Magee last year - he looks unchanged from this 1987 TV series. He agreed that, sadly, it's hard to imagine a series like this being commissioned today, but apparently reruns are very popular in Iran!

[archdeaconj]

I'm presuming you mean reruns of series like this one, not of popular Iranian programmes. The Iranians are remarkably well-versed in Western philosophy. You are more likely to have a debate about Kant with an intelligent, educated Iranian than with an intelligent, educated Brit.

[scatteredrhymes]

Awesome vids!

[xXhanniballecterJXx]

Immanuel Kant was a real pissant who was very rarely stable...

[Daywalker11226]

was kants ethics were intentioned base or duty based?

[blunthelloblunthello]

They were duty-based, or "deontological."

[GeorgesBarras]

Though some of his ideas do betray hints of consequentialism.

[deepdivestudios]

I am working on a model for "intelligent being". I call the project "Sapien 4.0". Sapien 1.0 is unintelligent life: protozoa, plants, etc.. Sapien 2.0 is intelligent life, up to but not including humans. Sapien 3.0 represents homo-sapien, and Sapien 4.0 is the next evolution after humans. It is partly artistic expression, but also based on actual scientific concepts. I invite you to check it out and let me know what you think.

[erutuFoNtsaPoN]

sweet.

[jml4000]

We don't have very many TV shows like this in America anymore because America is a nation of anti-intellectualism. It pains me to say that, I love my country; but most TV networks won't air anything like this unless they can somehow relaqte Kant and enlightenment philosiphy with wet t-shirt contests and monster trucks.

[Mrmikeshelton]

or more likely, if they could find some sort of sex scandal in his life or some other type of dirty gossip. Nobody tries to discredit someone else's ideas anymore, they just try to drag the person's reputation through the mud.

[maokly]

Thanx for posting this

[peteb06]

You wrinkly old bastard! Kant/Cunt is brilliant. makes philosophy so much more interesting. Kicks Descartes ass.

[1974freud]

well said

[vikalik]

kant is a babe.

[tk137]

There should be at least one cable TV chennel broadcasting programs like these. We live in the most technologically advanced society in philosophical ignorance!

[natedaug1]

@tk137 Totally man.

[Howieeeeex]

@tk137 I disagree, we do not live with a Philosophical ignorance, we live in a culture composed of general ignorance, and unfortunately 'proud of it'. (y)... makes it a hell of a lot easier to be, or seem, intelligent though, which i guess is the only up side.. and a down side come to think. No there's nothing good... oh welll... now its back to you Shelley.

[showylee1980]

why don't we have these kind of programmes any more? only the pathetic reality shows....

[KontrolVoltage]

agreed!

[munkybrain]

well a large amount of people now judge the merit of television on how mind numbing it is. Or rather, they don't judge the merit of it at all.

Also, enlightenment and elevation of the soul is now underrated, because of how much easier it is to simply act as your culture and societly dictates. I suppose we are all the victims of the television stations' war to make the most money; they make the most money by making the most easy television

[ZombieJesusBrainz]

If you can't see the philosophy in reality television: you lack imagination.

Why rely on Television to give you things?

Would you expect to just be given ideas by a novel?

[philosoisgrt]

I see your point but you cant argue that this would not be a great thing to watch on tv.

[sufjams]

Well, some of us revel in discourse such as what we see here, and lack the company with which to practice it ourselves.

That aside, it would be nice to have a personal use for the television one purchases for their family, lol.

[morfo1010]

I use to live in Mexico, there they have a great cultural channels on public TV, here on USA there is just PBS and some other channels, but not even close to the level I saw there, so we supposed to be the great evolved country, so are we?

[philosoisgrt]

you right in sayin that ..but sadly i think americas claim as "the greatest evolved country" simply means we just have more money..and the money system it uses is purely un-ethical which in my view it totally contradicts the claim of being "great"

[Thealmostguy]

@showylee1980 Are they pathetic or do you simply perceive them to be so? Nah, you're right they suck ass.

[universityaffairs]

@showylee1980 Because reality shows make money and philosophy and though doesn't.

[lovegarbage]

@showylee1980 I agree. Television use to be a place where serious thought and ideas were propagated. The rot seemed to start around thime of Clinton and Blair during which time serious current affairs and 'academic' programming disappeared almost completely. I can only wonder why.

[grahamlaur]

@showylee1980 I think the demographic that watches television these days consists of two groups: a) uneducated people and b) old people.  Hence you get an unhealthy mixture of loathsome reality shows and reruns of unfunny old sitcoms like I Love Lucy, M.A.S.H and Andy Griffifth. Everyone else gets their information and entertainment on the internet.

[natedaug1]

@showylee1980 agreed.

[dfthompson]

Seems very clear to me. Kant was concerned with the apparent conflict between seemingly determinist science and our sense that our actions are appropriate objects of praise or blame - which implies that our actions aren't determined by outside forces but are in our control. He was also concerned with the status of philosophy - does it yield real knowledge? Pretty much the standard view of Kant.

[Toxiferin]

It is almost impossible to follw, but the intro was great.

[odaynal]

Kant is of course a very important philosopher - perhaps one of the most important ever - though you would not necessarily recognize that from this video.

Sir Geoffrey Warnock is boring - he simply doesn't come alight. Compare Magee's conversations with Freddie Ayer, which are IMHO charming and entertaining even to someone who knew nothing about the subject.

Personal rating: 2 stars