Hubert Dreyfus Interview - Existentialism & Philosophy (1998)

Clips of Hubert Dreyfus discussing various topics.
00:00 Socrates & Plato on Knowledge
09:27 Aristotle on Knowledge
11:50 Inner Self & External World
32:39 Heidegger & Kierkegaard
35:51 Kierkegaard & the Infinite
37:52 Kierkegaard: The Temporal & Eternal
47:10 How Do We Encounter Reality?
51:43 Merleau-Ponty & the Intentional Arc
53:31 Meaning in Life - From Heidegger to Dostoyevsky
57:22 Getting in Contact with Reality
1:00:23 Sartre's Being & Nothingness
1:04:24 Human Nature - From Ancient Times to Pascal
1:12:04 Human Nature - From Kierkegaard to Sartre
1:19:31 Darwin & Human Nature
1:23:48 Science & Human Life
1:25:00 The Scientific View of Human Nature
1:27:20 Artificial Intelligence
1:39:15 Nietzsche & the Death of God
#philosophy #existentialism #epistemology

[@longcastle4863]

Thanks for providing the date of first broadcast. Ideas in science and philosophy changes so quickly these days, it’s good to know the intellectual milieu in which the conversation is occurring.

[@googlerj2959]

Thanks for uploading interesting interview.

[@m1ar1vin]

great upload, many thanks!

[@christopherwood9032]

Bert helped me so much , and continues to do so. I remember taking 4 classes on the existentialists (kiekegaard, Sartre, de Beauvoir, Nietzsche, and the death of god guys- Tillich, alitzer, etc. during undergrad and I would always listen to Bert on my free time like walking home from class. Bert brought the words out of the pages for me. Reading any of the existentialist can be a huge difficulty without a good expert- and Bert is definitely an expert when it comes to the existentialists. He is able to tell us what differs amongst them, the similar themes, and the philosophical moves made from writer to writer. Saved me a lot of trouble and connected many dots for me. Thanks Bert ❤

[@MD-lf3gt]

What a privilege to have had such a teacher. I thoroughly enjoyed this.

[@jmarz2600]

Wonderful episode.

[@gruelingraven]

This is great stuff.

[@lifecloud2]

Excellent! Thank you!

[@das.gegenmittel]

thank you

[@angelocaraballo3335]

When i first moved to san francisco, i travelled to brkeley on my first day off and snuck into the class he was teaching on existentialism in film and books (he was covering the brotehrs karamazov at the time)....BEST use of a day off everrrr!!!

[@Medic6581]

Awesome

[@arlingtonprintco1086]

Thanks for posting

[@longcastle4863]

The difference between Socrates, Nietzsche and Wittgenstein- in my over simplified opinion: Socrates: I don’t want your examples, I want your definitions. Nietzsche: all definitions are suspect. Wittgenstein: I don’t want your definitions, give me examples of how the things you’re talking about work.

[@hss12661]

Read J. Conant, "Some Socratic Aspects of Wittgenstein’s...". It is a short, yet interesting article exploring the similarities between Wittgenstein and some broadly "Socratic" notions.

[@jamespower5165]

Broadly agree. But a point that needs to be remembered is that Wittgenstein was a serious logicist and logician. Socrates and Nietzsche and Continental and Post Modern philosophers are not. So nothing he said was just hand-waving or expressing a mood. It ought to be placed in the proper context of hard logicism

[@hss12661]

@@jamespower5165 Wittgenstein was mainly a philosopher, not a logician (also, he abandoned logicism later in his career).

[@longcastle4863]

@@jamespower5165 I do not disagree with you about Wittgenstein being one of our great logical thinkers, but don’t you think that that skill in logic is partly what led Wittgenstein into viewing language as being something not fully bound by logic, but rather, something which operates under general rules, many, of which, are made up as it goes along?

[@erikbjorke5851]

@@longcastle4863Wittgenstein had to write the Tractatus in order to understand what is wrong with it. A C Grayling makes the point that the Tractatus has a strange place in the history of philosophy. Hardly anyone adheres to its arguments. It is an exercise in following a line of argument to see where it goes wrong. It is at the same time a positive argument in favor of logical atomism and is also intended to be self-refuting.

[@numericalcode]

It would have been great if Dreyfus could have reacted to modern neural networks.

[@andrewbowen2837]

I never thought of it until now, but Socrates was practicing Harold Garfinkel's ethnomethodology thousands of years prior

[@snowpants2212]

For Kierkegaard, does "unconditional" commitment require the impossibility of conflict in that commitment? For example, can I be unconditionally committed to both my wife and my son even if it's possible for their well-being to compete with each other's (and thereby call for conflicting actions on my part)? Perhaps such a dual commitment is only possible for me if, say, my wife is committed to my son in such a way that his well-being trumps hers *for her*, so that his well-being and hers could never actually be in fundamental conflict?

[@hughmac13]

RIP iTunes U. I have a few Dreyfus courses to which I had access through that now-defunct facility.

[@oliverjamito9902]

Students, Hosts, and our Beautiful resting Indeed is required! Resting while moving forward. Likewise How's thy conversations given unto thee all? While resting nor moving forward? What is gnashing of teeth? How's thy conversations given unto thee? So love my own WHO AM I? To ...remind and comes with comfort. I Am. Who are you? Shared thy I AM. Who love with patience, mercy, and grace! A FRIEND kind of love. A Friend. What is a FRIEND? Nor many have made God of life for the living unapproachable! A FRIEND

[@oliverjamito9902]

Pop love you without shame but with boldness! To remind thy FRIEND kind of love dwelling within thee! Remember thy lives was DESIRED 1ST and came with conversations just for thee! How's thy conversations given? Who owns thy conversations given? Pop as ye know? Look around many owns forgotten the True owner of the conversations given? From = COMES WITH REST NOR GNASHING OF TEETH SEPARATION. How's the LEADERS nor principalities who deceiveth sitting in high places upon the FOOTSTOOL CONVERSATIONS GIVEN? Trees! Given candles sticks. From Who walks in the midst of the CANDLE STICKS nor NATIONS. Visiting the RENOWNED. To remind...THE OWNER OF TIME. As ye all know? My ANGELS WHO PERSEVERE! TO HEAR "TO SAY A WORD "! THE little child "i" sitting with the AM. Who are missing ANGELS AND HEIRS? DON'T MIND THE WHO? ALREADY KNOWS MISSING? WHO AM I MISSING? Pop Gratitude and Honor for thy attending. What is attending? If ye LOVE ME! Attend unto my Sheep and Lions. Pop many will envy! Will say are you good? Even though from these old minds supposed to...Attend instead have brought forth for every child born in this world to be condemn ALREADY! Why? So can points fingers. Put an AXE upon the Root! Angels and Heirs will say, due time as time given will accomplish as intended.

[@oliverjamito9902]

What is GOOD unto all the wise nor RULERS OF HIS FOOTSTOOL? Keep watch! Students, Hosts, and our Beautiful remember shared i AM. Even creation can't exist without! Yes, scientists, technologies, mathematicians, nor men molding iron nor elements can't exist without! Yes including all DIGITAL! Indeed many will say WHO IS THAT? WHO IS THAT? WHO IS THAT? STUDENTS, HOSTS, AND OUR BEAUTIFUL WILL SAY, EVEN WHO IS THAT CAN'T EXIST WITHOUT SHARED HIS I...FILL IN THE BLANK. Some will say who are you? Asked all HIS SHARED "i" AM? Remember even to ask a question can't exist without? Honor and Gratitude Students, Hosts, and our Beautiful! Who are thy elders? Recognizing the mileage from our elders feet! Therefore can't complain but to keep up! Can learn from our elders. Likewise commanded to be able to determine. Our elders nor ...fill in the blank

[@waltdill927]

The aims, methods, and ultimate failure of Logical Positivism stand as commentary and cautionary tale respecting so much that is mentioned here. The ambition of LP was, still is, noble in some sense, and one respects theory in wishing it could have escaped its numerous entanglements and succeeded. But so much, poetry to science to mathematics, is a matter finally of what can only be attributed to "inspiration". Every generation is susceptible to the illusion that what was once the subject of learned speculation and debate is somehow more "valid" merely due to the fact that its content has become the common coin of everyday conversation. Consider the ubiquity of "Freud speak", or the tendency of the uneducated to claim "belief" in evolutionary theory or statistics, sans a fundamental acquaintance with either one or the other. Descartes, just in passing, left us with a "problem" that is not going away, even if it never truly was a problem to begin with. He did make a clear distinction between "the body that is thinking" (cogitans), and the "body that is thinking only" (cogito). We attempt to reimagine the result to our own delight, or peril.

[@Pompeii2020]

1:19:30 how about "the being that assigns meaning" as a stable nature?

[@RC-qf3mp]

It’s the condition of the possibility of being a historical (cultural) being that Dasein is a meaning/being questioner. It’s not a “nature” or “essence” in a platonic or Aristotelian sense. It’s an ontological structure. There could be aliens who are Dasein. And there could be wolf-child Homo sapiens who don’t acquire language and are fully human but not Dasein.

[@CarlosElio82]

I am grateful for wisdom. I subscribed to the channel. I see two views of existence. The defined and the undefined. The defined view claims that a complete design antecedes existence. Plato argues that all knowledge exists in the child, and religious belief claim a divinity as the source of everything. The purpose of existence is to understand the design and follow the instructions. The undefined view claims that there is no antecedent design, that the present, at whatever speed you see the expansion, is something new in the universe. The defined view accords with a deterministic universe, while the undefined with a probabilistic one. Calvinists believe that not a single blade of grass grows unless it is determined so by God. Quantum mechanics believes in the noise of uncertainties. Heidegger views the universe as a Markov chain. The present conditions are the arena where Being will play out its role in life. Time and Being blend together.

[@syedadeelhussain2691]

Existentialism really took off in France under Sartre leading that school of thought. Since his demise, the existentialist philosophy has lost steam. Why isn't Hume mentioned distinctly? He was an existentialist.

[@elliotgosnold9651]

he wasn't

[@michaelknight4041]

All the greatest existentialists rejected label.

[@BenjaminJDunn]

Principles or causal mechanisms?

[@2009Artteacher]

Thanks a brief explanation of the historical concepts of philosophy by an intelligent reader and teacher of philosophy. What always bothers me is why existentialists stick their flag in previous authors' work and claim it existentially for themselves ( ego ) as Nietzsche is most often given credit for the “ Death of God “. Hegel wrote of the death of God in academia before Nietzsche, Nietzsche then personified it in his Gay Science. Just like presocratic philosophers. Parmendias first explored “ esse” essence, existence, and being. In time.

[@robertburatt5981]

But Socrates did create a "rule" for expertise, that of defining some fundamental principle. However, since you used the word "knowledge " , then one would have to identify the fundamental principle(s) constituting "knowledge ". It don't end there, because one would then have to identify the fundamental principle(s) that underlying the test-if you will, to "prove" expertise or knowledge, and so on. It's an intellectual trap that contradicts itself because there cannot be a "first principle" !

[@halleuz1550]

I believe preciously little of this stuff, but I don't know anybody who can explain it better than Dreyfus. May he rest in peace.

[@hss12661]

"I believe..." Why so?

[@halleuz1550]

@@hss12661 Why not?

[@hss12661]

​@@halleuz1550 I think that the pragmatist idea that the very possibility of taking a disengaged, theorethical stance is grounded in a mode of being which involves actively participating in the world which Dreyfus finds in Heidegger is just prima facie true, at least to me, so I'm suprised that one could be interested in what Dreyfus has to say and be mostly skeptical about it.

[@RC-qf3mp]

@@hss12661well, if it’s “prima facia true”, then the question arises as to the conditions that make possible that truth. And whether subsequent discoveries can render those truths false. Is the usefulness of the hammer in my mind, my brain, some kind of illusion, just because the hammer analyzed under natural science theory and methods is a blob of wood and metal with objective properties and no usefulness? There are deep consequences to recognizing the truth of our everyday experience. And Dreyfus dropped much of the “pragmatist” angle in the subsequent decade. Heidegger wasn’t a pragmatist, although Rorty liked to think so.

[@halleuz1550]

@@hss12661 Finding something interesting, and well-explained and believing it are two very different things. That's something which is clear from a disengaged, theoretical perspective. BTW, I resent how Descartes is commonly misrepresented. He was very clearly and carefully aware of our engaged, everyday mode of living. Just read the Meditations. He knew that we couldn't live our lives entirely in the philosophical, reflective mode. His point was just that only in this latter mode we have a chance of finding out the truth. And as a corollary, from the theoretical perspective we can understand our everyday mode, but not vice versa. Heidegger has that reversed. Insists that the reverse order is the correct one. IMHO that's his big mistake. Plato and Descartes were right all along.

[@Nephelokokkygia1215]

1:08-9:27 The most Heideggerian explanation of Plato ever 😂

[@nowhereman6019]

He had me right up until the end where he said that science and philosophy should not intersect and that there is no way to create meaning within a scientific framework. I very much disagree with this. The biological human is the framework on which the human being is built. We should use science to help us understand how and why we act and think the way we do. In particular, why do we even crave meaning to begin with? No animal creates meaning or seems to need it, so why are we different? I feel like building a wall between science and philosophy is a huge mistake. It's a false dualism ala Mind and Body or Subject and Object.

[@Allen1029]

Rules are emergent from examples.

[@goodtothinkwith]

The first 1.5 hours of this is brilliant and wonderful. But the comments on AI haven’t aged well. Minsky was wrong. He’s right about that. But he had no idea what was coming.

[@RenatusChristoph]

Kant said that kantcepts are rules!

[@yuryakseenov9766]

I Love You Zuch Brin Draper

[@oliverjamito9902]

What is meaningless? Reason shared HIS "i" Am. Asked my pop Who are you? Indeed. As ye all see my pop is attending unto our OWN. Likewise remember without LOVING by choice. My pop will not be attending...love you Pop! If ye LOVE me attend unto my Sheep. What is who am I? Tumbleweeds. Unto all the shared I AM remind...

[@creepingdoubt]

It's shocking how a philosopher such as Dreyfus could interpret the life of Martin Luther King in so shallow a manner. King "lost his way"? On the contrary, he deepened and expanded the path he believed he needed to follow -- and it turned out, he discovered, he'd been following all along. His sense of justice in the civil rights movement applied to the Vietnam war. Protesting the Vietnam War wasn't a departure from his beliefs, but an extension of them. The world changed, so he changed to meet it and believed he had a powerful enough moral sense to cope with and speak to a changing society -- headed toward terrible error in Vietnam. He turned out to be right. Also, I'm stunned by Dreyfus' laziness in suggesting that King defined himself at THE leader of the Black people. He never thought of himself as the sole legitimate leader or the only leader with the correct view. He believed he had A -- one -- correct view that was worth adopting. He always knew there were other Black leaders with other points of view. A philosopher shouldn't select examples without respecting the people who lived the lives he's selecting in order to demonstrate a point. To oversimplify a life calls your philosophical usefulness into question. Your thinking has grown so abstract that you've grown detached from lived, suffered life.

[@RC-qf3mp]

Keep your pants on. Dreyfus is only mentioning MLK as an example of a Kierkegaardian interpretation/phenomenon. You are also misunderstanding the Kierkegaardian/Dreyfus meaning of “define”. It’s complicated and this is just a interview, not a book, essay or lecture. The point is that something can be your unconditional commitment, that defines for you -shapes for you- the meaning of your life. That’s not the same as publicly announcing yourself as a leader or prophet. It’s not about public persona at all. It’s basically a quasi religious concept in Kierkegaard and what Dreyfus is trying to get at by using examples in our own culture and history. Dreyfus is NOT criticizing MLK’s decision to protest Vietnam. The point- in teaching Kierkegaardian themes- is that this new cause unsettles or disrupts MLKs self-concept/identity as the leader of black people in the US civil rights movement. MLK is interesting here because he succeeded with respect to his unconditional commitment, rather than losing the cause, or losing his commitment, the commitment itself was lost to him-he’d won! And so moving on to Vietnam as a new cause transforms or changes his identity. Sure, you can say that he becomes committed to civil rights or human rights more general, but Dreyfus would still be correct that the identity with respect to the black movement would be “lost”. Dreyfus is surely not criticizing MLK for his stance on Vietnam. Or using another example- if you devote your life to being an Olympic swimmer and winning a gold medal, this could be how you define yourself and what gives meaning to your life. If you actually win the medal, you can become lost and have to find some new source of meanings. Obviously, being “lost” here isn’t a pejorative and somebody winning a medal is a winner, not a loser. But such a person loses their way as somebody striving to become an Olympic gold medal winner and needs to find a new source of meaning. Analogously, MLK “lost his way” because he won on the black civil rights issue and so has to find something new (Vietnam).

[@creepingdoubt]

@@RC-qf3mp Keep your condescension in your pants, instead of waving it around. Dr. King won a Nobel Peace Prize, but he certainly didn't win the struggle for Black equality. That struggle was still going on the day his head was blown off. He certainly didn't win that day, did he? Whatever you say he won didn't stop James Earl Ray, so Dr. King didn't win a reprieve from murderous racism, did he? How would you and Dreyfus like to win and be exposed to bullets? He hadn't "lost his way" and his life took on even more meaning in the losing of it. You and Dreyfus need to find white examples to support your arguments. Leave Black suffering and leadership alone. You don't understand either the suffering or the leaders. Meanwhile, see if Kierkegaard and Heidegger can help you to make better white people. The world needs them. I realize Dreyfus has passed away, but with your understanding I dare say you'd be willing to take up the slack.

[@nealpobrien]

Dreyfus was just making a point about identity regarding Kierkegaard defining human meaning partly by your social role. Fair point though, King's role changed for the better, King became a spiritual world leader. So Dreyfus didn't choose the best phrase, but he was just trying to give an example.

[@creepingdoubt]

@@nealpobrien Dreyfus was intellectually and morally lazy. If a Black thinker were so offhandedly imprecise, white philosophers wouldn't make excuses for him as readily as you do Dreyfus.

[@RC-qf3mp]

@@creepingdoubtDreyfus wasn’t imprecise. You just didn’t understand what he was saying. Get a grip. He wrote and lectured about this same exact point in many other lectures and essays and books. It’s just an example about Kierkegaard, not mlk, but used other language than “lost his way” which is ambiguous, esp for people like you who don’t understand Kierkegaard or the point he’s making. You sound like a snowflake who is very eager to be offended so he can virtue signal about it. And if Dreyfus were black and said the same thing, then he’d be black man using MLK as a good example of a phenomenon Kierkegaard discusses. And you’d be misunderstanding just the same. Dreyfus’ skin color has nothing to do with your ignorance.

[@BinaryDood]

philosophical thinking about neural networks in 1998...

[@johnwest3518]

16/17

[@johnwest3518]

INNER WORLD

[@richardzellers]

Disappointed that he gives weak analogy with tying shoelaces and rules. He says after you learn the rules not there. I call BS.

[@RenatusChristoph]

Yes, and it's not a fitting analogy to the socratic aporia of Plato. It is - like Heidegger's critique in 'Being and Time' on the question of being beginning with a quote from 'The Sophist' - a misrepresentation.

[@rustyshimstock8653]

Son of Terre Haute, Indiana.

[@oliverjamito9902]

If the HEIRS comes unto thee will say who are you? Nor some will say who are you? I AM...OLIVER JAMITO BORN DECEMBER 29 1976 SIGNITURE. The New Day. A Child is born. The poor rich young ruler and nations resting upon HIS SHOULDER. Heirs and Angels will say Amen and Hallelujah!

[@oliverjamito9902]

Pop some will say What is a burning bush? Yet not being consumed! How? Be awake and keep watch! Nor who among able without being consumed? Remember Who's ways are not thy ways. As HIS ways are Above. For many do not seek nor seek after God the little child "i" sitting with the AM. 1. What is a men? Nor became to existence? Pop all thy lives was DESIRED 1ST. And came with conversations with the 1. Nor what is a Covenant without to share with another? Like the little child "i" sitting with the AM. Covenant. How else the creation is HELD. Nor commanded the SUN nor the Moon to persevere. But men seasons changes at anytime! Who do not persevere? Reason commanded the HEIRS to provide free space and room to grow! From here grows! Time given unto all the Who am I? Time given likewise will accomplish as intended. Even these principalities who sitting in high places knows? For WHOM Time is given For! Heirs and Angels who persevere knows the commands given since...likewise to keep watch at these...exalted themselves above the OWNER of the Footstool and HEAVEN ABOVE. Murmuring among themselves. We do not need God of life for the living or the Messiah the Savior! Is like...BRING ALL in front! Angels who persevere will say SOOTHE OR GRIEVE the Comforter! Same measure will be given. Remember gnashing of teeth separation from conversations with the 1. Without rest! How's thy conversations given? From who love with patience, mercy, and grace! To remind and comes with comfort of all thy Worth! Creation what is thy worth? None existence without thy SHARED I AM! HERE YE ALL ARE IN FRONT! FEET RESTING UPON THE NEW VERY TIP OF TIME. LIKEWISE THE MILEAGE FROM THY FEET IS RECOGNIZE! At least I can do is to washed thy FEET and wiping thy tears from your eyes. Gratitude and Honor knows belongs?

[@oliverjamito9902]

Honor and Gratitude unto all the shared "i" Am scientists,technologies, mathematicians, nor men molding iron nor elements. Clarity, coherence, adequacy, evidence, and witnesses has to be distributed freely and truly receives. Resting upon the NEW Permanent Foundation no one can uproot nor shaken but here to stay for good. Sustained! While many looking for sustainable. Yet these same minds leading astray my Heirs innocents little ones to a place of no return nor extinction! Pop as ye see Noone seeks...Yeshua Jesus Christ said becareful NOT TO OFFEND 1 of these innocents little ones. For 1 will visit. Who is that? Heirs and Angels will say why say Who's that? Keep watch! Remember Who deceiveth even the very elect can be DECIEVE! Who steals? Why who deceiveth steals? Trying to steal the Olive...not knowing ends HERE! Even the END KNOWS THE ALPHA. In Front and Last.

[@christopherhamilton3621]

What are you trying to say here? You’re babbling…