Philosophy: Everything you need, in 5 minutes

I’d always wanted to do a talk about my curious path through the world of philosophy. I’ve studied philosophy my whole life, trying very hard to undo the bad lessons I was taught while getting a degree in the Philosophy Department in college. Thanks to Ignite Seattle I got my chance.

So here’s Everything You Need to Know About Philosophy in 5 short minutes.

I’m half-way done with a follow up essay on this same topic, as I didn’t get my main points quite right in this delivery. And it’s fun to see me have a spaceout moment right at the end. I really could not remember the big closing I’d practiced a dozen times, so I had to wrap up without it.

Let me know what you think. Maybe someday I’ll get a second chance at this one.

Or view on youtube non-embedded.

9 Responses to “Philosophy: Everything you need, in 5 minutes”

  1. Smaranda

    Pure awesomeness, Scott! It’s even better without the big ending – whatever that was…

    Reply
  2. Adrian Cho

    Very entertaining, Scott. If you hadn’t mentioned about the big ending I don’t think anyone could have known it was missing.

    Reply
  3. Kaala Souza

    Hi Scott,
    Thanks for posting this video even though you missed the big ending (I too wouldn’t have known unless you mentioned it). Funny timing on this video for me because this morning, out of the blue, I started reading Aristotle’s On the Soul on my iphone with my coffee. Heady stuff. I realized (again) just how little I know. Your Socrates reference made me actually feel smarter for knowing that I don’t know :)

    Question: What about absolute right and wrong? Does it exist or are the concepts relative? With existentialism saying there is no ONE meaning to life and we all have to find our way does that leave what is true and what is false up for grabs as well?

    You don’t really have to answer this but I think I had to ask to help my own brain try and deal with the concept.

    Thanks again!
    Kaala

    Reply
  4. Michał Paluchowski

    I’ll wait for the essay to get the best of your message. It’s a wide and broad topic, which as a matter of fact is best explored by experience. Obviously presentations like yours help as triggers to start asking questions to oneself.

    Like you noted yourself, delivery could’ve been better, but I think it was challenging enough anyway trying to fit such huge matters into a 5 minute talk. Good job :)

    Reply
  5. Annie

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    Thx,
    Annie

    Reply
  6. Faeeza

    What a wonderful summary, that real people can understand! I really enjoyed this.

    Reply
  7. Bruce Meyer

    Pretty good in several parts. I’d want to encourage you to back off the Eastern POV thing, though. Everything else in all of your (Scott’s) work and life that really works for you is, in fact, very specific and contrete and, well, binary. Profit and loss, communicating or not, cramming it into five minutes or not, good job or not, you get the picture. That’s why India didn’t build dams or develop the web or build the stock exchange, until all those things were imported under the cloak of secrecy of the binary driven Judeo-Christian and ancient Greek realist metaphysics. In particular, the Christian metaphysics that set the stage for the modern era, which the whole modern era through today had to either accept or accommodate, and not only that, but had to do it continually from then on.

    Reply

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