Phil Hoyeck
@PAHoyeck • 17,929 subscribers
I teach philosophy. Part-time Amie Thomasson fan account.
Videos
![“How is consciousness possible? Human brains are basically like termite colonies—which are not conscious. A termite colony is made of maybe even a million termites—mindless little bugs [...] and not a single one of them knows anything about the larger project that they’re about. Well, your brain is really like a termite colony in that way. It’s composed of several [...] billion little neurons and each one of them is not even as smart as a termite, and yet their action produces Gaudi[’s basilica]. How do you get a Gaudi-type consciousness out of a brain which is like a termite colony?” —Daniel Dennett on the philosophy of consciousness](https://image.24vids.com/tw-2115209435945574818/amplify_video_thumb/2115209386352099330/img/W7SzQwLYv8SbI10o.jpg)
“How is consciousness possible? Human brains are basically like termite colonies—which are not conscious. A termite colony is made of maybe even a million termites—mindless little bugs [...] and not a single one of them knows anything about the larger project that they’re about. Well, your brain is really like a termite colony in that way. It’s composed of several [...] billion little neurons and each one of them is not even as smart as a termite, and yet their action produces Gaudi[’s basilica]. How do you get a Gaudi-type consciousness out of a brain which is like a termite colony?” —Daniel Dennett on the philosophy of consciousness
Phil Hoyeck66,893 views • 23 hours ago
“I think that Darwin’s ideas undo many of the biggest problems in philosophy. So many philosophers keep hammering away trying to find the essence of this or that when Darwin has shown us that nothing of any interest has an essence. It’s gradualism all the way.” —Daniel Dennett
Phil Hoyeck57,952 views • 21 days ago
Opponents of logical positivism like to quote A.J. Ayer’s quip to Bryan Magee that the problem with the philosophical movement is that “nearly all of it was false.” What they typically fail to note is that he immediately adds that it was still “true in spirit”! 1/🧵
Phil Hoyeck37,088 views • 15 days ago
I cannot express how wrongheaded I think this view of philosophy, and more generally of academic inquiry, is: “The essence of a good theory is that it grips you,” “The theory which is boring is a bad theory.” I think it’s the opposite. All good philosophy is very boring.
Phil Hoyeck27,577 views • 13 days ago
![“We learn language only through hearing it in observable situations; it’s a matter of observable behaviour. […] It’s the sentence—not the thought, not the meaning—that we have to go on. [...] Why don’t we stop with that?” —W.VO. Quine on skepticism about meaning](https://image.24vids.com/tw-2105468685033107864/amplify_video_thumb/2105467942120968193/img/yr5nAueln9Seg_8N.jpg)
Goosebumps. For all its faults, the Western philosophical tradition is still worth defending.
Phil Hoyeck50,424 views • 1 month ago
Star Trek: The Next Generation premiered 39 years ago today! To mark the occasion, here’s a clip from what might be the smartest episode of television ever aired, “The Measure of a Man” (S2 E9). I get students in my philosophy and science fiction class to watch it every year.
Phil Hoyeck31,123 views • 1 month ago
![“I was struck by the tremendous difference between the attitude of physicists toward physics and the attitude of some psychologists toward psychology. What interested me so much was the following: Einstein […], made certain predictions, and then repeatedly said, ‘If this prediction should turn out wrong, then my theory is false.’ Now try to think of something similar about Freud.” —Karl Popper on philosophy, science, and pseudo-science](https://image.24vids.com/tw-2098947638385049811/amplify_video_thumb/2098947415655206912/img/F_XdmT8NiQPpTb0g.jpg)
“I was struck by the tremendous difference between the attitude of physicists toward physics and the attitude of some psychologists toward psychology. What interested me so much was the following: Einstein […], made certain predictions, and then repeatedly said, ‘If this prediction should turn out wrong, then my theory is false.’ Now try to think of something similar about Freud.” —Karl Popper on philosophy, science, and pseudo-science
Phil Hoyeck42,378 views • 1 month ago
![“Wittgenstein thought that the only language which, strictly speaking, made sense was [...] fact-stating language. [...] He thought that the really important things were unsayable, were unstatable. He thought that ethics, religion, aesthetics were in the realm of the unsayable. [...] It isn't that we can't do them justice; [it's that] we can't say anything meaningful about them.” —John Searle on Wittgenstein's early philosophy](https://image.24vids.com/tw-2102159853967856039/amplify_video_thumb/2102158622058827776/img/mNIU9V2RtJLsPsOl.jpg)
“Wittgenstein thought that the only language which, strictly speaking, made sense was [...] fact-stating language. [...] He thought that the really important things were unsayable, were unstatable. He thought that ethics, religion, aesthetics were in the realm of the unsayable. [...] It isn't that we can't do them justice; [it's that] we can't say anything meaningful about them.” —John Searle on Wittgenstein's early philosophy
Phil Hoyeck23,477 views • 1 month ago
![“Our own access to what’s going on in our minds is very impoverished. […] The sense—which was overpoweringly obvious to somebody like John Locke or Descartes—that the mind is transparent to itself […] has been completely overthrown.” —Daniel Dennett on knowledge of the mind](https://image.24vids.com/tw-2108624454062371271/amplify_video_thumb/2108623778234195968/img/-3ZmMSRTQdfmB3aQ.jpg)
“Our own access to what’s going on in our minds is very impoverished. […] The sense—which was overpoweringly obvious to somebody like John Locke or Descartes—that the mind is transparent to itself […] has been completely overthrown.” —Daniel Dennett on knowledge of the mind
Phil Hoyeck13,025 views • 19 days ago
![“When Newton published [his theory of gravitation], quite a lot of other scientists were disappointed. They wanted to know what gravity was, and Newton apparently didn't tell them what it was; he told them what it did. Then Hume came along and said that actually, the kind of thing Newton did was the only kind of thing the human mind could ever do.” —Simon Blackburn on the philosophy of science](https://image.24vids.com/tw-2047854311825121542/amplify_video_thumb/2047854059781271554/img/FVaOtAWxaacqLxTk.jpg)
“When Newton published [his theory of gravitation], quite a lot of other scientists were disappointed. They wanted to know what gravity was, and Newton apparently didn't tell them what it was; he told them what it did. Then Hume came along and said that actually, the kind of thing Newton did was the only kind of thing the human mind could ever do.” —Simon Blackburn on the philosophy of science
Phil Hoyeck88,900 views • 6 months ago
![“Wittgenstein, and also the group of philosophers in Vienna called the Vienna Circle, condemned what they called ‘metaphysics.’ And metaphysics, in their view, consisted at least partly in any attempt to describe the world in non-scientific terms. They thought that this was the only world there is, and that science was a matter of forming theories about it which were verified by observation. Any assumption of a superior world, a world inhabited by God or anything of that sort, was nonsensical. [Russell] was always concerned to justify science [...]. In [his] last book, he sets out the set of assumptions that require to be made if belief in scientific theories is to be justified and makes it quite clear that these assumptions, as it were, had to be taken on faith.” —A.J. Ayer on Bertrand Russell’s philosophy](https://image.24vids.com/tw-2091583235721478359/amplify_video_thumb/2091581655865516032/img/nqDX4SZaePmKztg4.jpg)
“Wittgenstein, and also the group of philosophers in Vienna called the Vienna Circle, condemned what they called ‘metaphysics.’ And metaphysics, in their view, consisted at least partly in any attempt to describe the world in non-scientific terms. They thought that this was the only world there is, and that science was a matter of forming theories about it which were verified by observation. Any assumption of a superior world, a world inhabited by God or anything of that sort, was nonsensical. [Russell] was always concerned to justify science [...]. In [his] last book, he sets out the set of assumptions that require to be made if belief in scientific theories is to be justified and makes it quite clear that these assumptions, as it were, had to be taken on faith.” —A.J. Ayer on Bertrand Russell’s philosophy
Phil Hoyeck35,876 views • 2 months ago
![“What makes the self is a whole big collection of memories and projects and plans and likes and dislikes. […] Now, what holds that all together? Nothing!” —Daniel Dennett on the nature of personal identity](https://image.24vids.com/tw-1998503917106376999/amplify_video_thumb/1998503721492250624/img/Pe49t_cCPp0E_O3R.jpg)