This week Hank introduces skepticism, exploring everything from the nature of reality through the eyes of a 17th century philosopher and, of course, The Matrix. — PBS Digital Studios wants to get to know you better! If you have 10 minutes, we’d really appreciate it AND you’ll be entered for a chance to win a […]

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Our unit on the philosophy of religion and the existence of god continues with Thomas Aquinas. Today, we consider his first four arguments: the cosmological arguments. — Images and video via VideoBlocks or Wikimedia Commons, licensed under Creative Commons by 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ — Produced in collaboration with PBS Digital Studios: http://youtube.com/pbsdigitalstudios Help PBSDS win a […]

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This week Hank introduces skepticism, exploring everything from the nature of reality through the eyes of a 17th century philosopher and, of course, The Matrix. — PBS Digital Studios wants to get to know you better! If you have 10 minutes, we’d really appreciate it AND you’ll be entered for a chance to win a […]

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A short summary of the big three Greek philosophers. Consider joining the HHH CLUB! https://www.gofundme.com/2chw7a4

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Today Hank gains insight from that most philosophical of figures…Leonardo DiCaprio. In this episode, we’re talking about the process of philosophical discovery and questioning the relationship between appearance and reality by taking a look at Plato’s famous Myth of the Cave. All with a little help from our good pal Leo. — Images and video […]

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This week we explore final ethical theory in this unit: Aristotle’s virtue theory. Hank explains the Golden Mean, and how it exists as the midpoint between vices of excess and deficiency. We’ll also discuss moral exemplars, and introduce the concept of “eudaimonia.” Get your own Crash Course Philosophy mug or Chom Chom shirt from DFTBA: […]

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Today we explore the penultimate ethical theory in this unit: contractarianism. Hank explains Hobbes’ state of nature, and implicit and explicit contracts, as well as the Prisoner’s Dilemma, and the benefits, and costs, of violating contracts. Get your own Crash Course Philosophy mug or Chom Chom shirt from DFTBA: https://store.dftba.com/collections/crashcourse The Latest from PBS Digital […]

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Our next stop in our tour of the ethical lay of the land is utilitarianism. With a little help from Batman, Hank explains the principle of utility, and the difference between act and rule utilitarianism. Get your own Crash Course Philosophy mug or Chom Chom shirt from DFTBA: https://store.dftba.com/collections/crashcourse The Latest from PBS Digital Studios: […]

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Our next stop on our tour of ethics is Kant’s ethics. Today Hank explains hypothetical and categorical imperatives, the universalizability principle, autonomy, and what it means to treat people as ends-in-themselves, rather than as mere means. Get your own Crash Course Philosophy mug or Chom Chom shirt from DFTBA: https://store.dftba.com/collections/crashcourse The Latest from PBS Digital […]

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Our exploration of ethical theories continues with another theistic answer to the grounding problem: natural law theory. Thomas Aquinas’s version of this theory says that we all seek out what’s known as the basic goods and argued that instinct and reason come together to point us to the natural law. There are, of course, objections […]

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