The things YouTube is good for. It has inspired me to return to philosophy. I recently found a wonderful collection of lectures and interviews online on YouTube. One is the channel called Philosophy Overdose. It features interviews by Bryan Magee with leading scholars that are great introductions into various subjects. There are also nice lectures by Thelma Z. Lavine. It is older material, from the seventies and eighties but still great.

It makes me wonder if the generations growing up now will still get familiar with all of these thoughts. Is anyone still reading the great works? I hope that through these films on YouTube more interest will grow.

Here is an example of a discussion about Wittgenstein. I find his ideas about language very convincing, and I base my own thinking about language on them (or at least how I understand it).

Interestingly, this led me to an interview with Noam Chomsky, a great language scientist (although I think I am unconvinced about some of his ideas, or maybe I just don’t understand them) who basically says that Wittgensteins ideas were not that important for his own development and rather points to some contemporaries of Wittgenstein with similar but more precise ideas.

Is that not an amazing aspect of these times? We have access to the thinking of so many great minds. And YouTube is the main channel that offers it to us. I should get a paid account.

Update: I found another gem: an interview by Bryan Magee with Noam Chomsky, see below. In here he makes perfect sense. The 45 years since the interview in 1978 have proven Chomsky right on many things. Still, I wonder if anyone is actually still taking time to go back to the original works of Chomsky. And for those interested in games, there is a wonderful bit on them from around 32 minutes.