Alain de Botton: A kinder, gentler philosophy of success - YouTube

Alain de Botton examines our ideas of success and failure -- and questions the assumptions underlying these two judgments. Is success always earned? Is failure? He makes an eloquent, witty case to move beyond snobbery to find true pleasure in our work.

Three Minute Philosophy - Immanuel Kant - YouTube

Today would’ve been the 287th birthday of iconic German philosopher Immanuel Kant, father of the Categorical Imperative. To celebrate, here’s a witty and illuminating 3-minute digest of his life’s work from the wonderful Three-Minute Philosophy series.

What is Philosophy? Professional Philosophers respond!

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The Fine, The Good, and the Meaningful

Can philosophy really offer advice on happiness? Certainly this was one of its traditional aspirations.

In the seventeenth-century, it was taken for granted that the philosopher’s job included talking about how to achieve a happy life.

When René Descartes was a schoolboy, one of the state-of-the-art textbooks he studied was a massive compendium of philosophy in four parts published in 1609 by the now forgotten scholastic philosopher Eustachius; it discussed logic and metaphysics and physics and psychology, but it also stated that “the final goal of a complete philosophical system is human happiness.”

This was following a long tradition, that stretched back through the middle ages, and indeed right back to classical times. The Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca wrote a treatise called De Vita Beata, “On the Happy Life”; and much earlier his Greek Stoic predecessors had offered many recommendations on how to live in a calm and balanced and tranquil way, how to achieve a “good flow of life”, as Zeno, the founder of Stoicism put it, in the third century before Christ.

Going back just a little earlier, Aristotle, the co-founder of Western philosophy along with Plato, gave lectures on ethics which described the goal of human life as what he called eudaimonia, that is to say, happiness or human fulfilment.

The Plato Code - We are all ignorant

What was Plato’s positive philosophy?

Plato depicted the brilliant talk of earlier philosophers, but never stepped forward to state his own views directly. Every reader wrestles with this problem of Platonic anonymity.

Most of us form some opinion of Plato’s central agenda and philosophy but, strictly speaking, this is more or less conjecture.

The range of possible views is illustrated by the minority, in both ancient and modern times, who concluded that Plato was a destructive sceptic with no positive views at all. For them, Plato was merely a brilliant provocateur. His final allegiance was to Socrates’ claim that we are altogether ignorant.

TPM: The Philosophers’ Magazine | The Plato Code

Dr Carl Sagan remembered - Visionary, philosopher and charismatic speaker, an inspiration to to his generation

The late, great Dr Carl Sagan, a professor of astronomy and space science at Cornell University and an adviser to Nasa, played a major role in setting up Seti, the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence.

However, he is probably best known to the public for the television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, and his books Pale Blue Dot and The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark.

As well as his research, he was a major science advocate and populariser, and a vociferous supporter of scepticism and rationality.

He was a visionary, philosopher and charismatic speaker, an inspiration to to his generation and hopefully, those that come on behind. A truly great human being and one that is sorely missed.