01a. What is Philosophy?: Part 1/2.

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I'm Hank Green, and you and I are about to embark on a journey. A journey of inquiry, into the whole world. Your world.

In an effort to figure out: what gives it meaning, what makes it beautiful, where its evils come from, and ultimately, what is the very nature of reality itself.

And along the way, we're going to question every aspect of your own personal life -- why you do what you do, why you think what you think, why you feel what you feel.

Now, if you've joined me on Crash Course before, you might say, we've learned about all that stuff before -- in psychology, and biology, and anatomy and physiology. And it's true: Science can definitely help us understand our thoughts, feelings, and actions.

But on this particular journey, we're going to be exploring aspects of the human condition that can't be explained only by hormones or neurotransmitters, by personal experiences or hereditary conditions. Because, all of those chemicals and experiences that make us who we are, can actually raise as many questions as they answer.

Like, if all of my decisions really are just the result of, say, how I was raised, and what chemicals I have flowing in my brain, then are any of my choices actually free? And if I'm not truly free to make my own decisions, or choose my own actions, then how can I be held accountable for them?

Yeah. It's going to be that kind of journey. Rather than just looking at the world and describing what we see, we'll be evaluating it. We will take nothing as a given, set our assumptions aside -- or at least, try really hard to – and do our best to see the world as if we've never seen it before.

And for what it's worth, we'll also be talking about Batman, and what Dick Grayson can teach us about the concept of identity. And we'll learn how The Matrix can you help understand the life and writing of Rene Descartes. Also we'll try to answer unanswerable questions, and puzzle over paradoxes that have plagued geniuses for thousands of years.

It's going to be hard, and enlightening, and frustrating, and if I do my job properly, it'll stick with you long after you and I have parted ways. Because: We are going to do…philosophy!

[Theme Music]

These days, people use the word “philosophy” to describe some opinion they might have, or the approach they take to a certain topic. Like, you might have a “philosophy” when it comes to golf. Though...I personally do not. But we're going to use this word more narrowly, to describe a way of approaching the world that traces its roots back to ancient Greece, 500 years before the Common Era.

This was a time of great intellectual movement around the world. Buddhism and Jainism were developing in Asia, at the same time philosophical thought was emerging in Greece. There, scholars were tangled up in a distinction they were just beginning to make – between philos and mythos – or what we'd now roughly call science and storytelling.

At that time, there were bards, like Homer, who were trying to understand and explain the world through stories, while the earliest philosophers were using methods that were more analytical and scientific -- although they didn't really have the concept of “science” back then.

So philosophia – literally "the love of wisdom" – was a new way of trying to make sense of the world. When the earliest philosophers used the word “philosophy,” they basically meant, “the academic study of anything.” Which, like, I guess could include golf. But at what we might call the first universities in the western world – Plato's Academy, and its rival, Aristotle's Lyceum — math, biology, physics, poetry, political science, and astronomy were all considered to be philosophy. Eventually, scholars began thinking of these fields differently -- as separate disciplines. Studies that had strong empirical elements came to be considered science -- a search for answers.

But philosophy came to be understood more as a way of thinking about questions. Big questions. And today, twenty-five hundred years after the ancient Greeks first brought them up, philosophers still love asking questions -- oftentimes, the same questions -- and they don't mind that they never get an answer.

So. What are these big questions that have managed to intrigue -- and stump -- philosophers for so long? One of the first might best be phrased as: What is the world like? Sounds simple enough to answer, right Like, just look around! See all the stuff?

Well, this is what the world is like. But the philosophical approach isn't just based on observation -- it has other, much more complex questions packed inside it. When a philosopher wonders what the world is like, she might really be asking: What's the nature of reality?

Like, is the world just made up of matter and energy, or is there something else going on? And if it is just matter and energy, then where did it all come from? Is there a God? And if so, what is he, she, or it like? And for that matter, when you're asking about the world, can you also be asking about the nature of yourself, as a citizen of the world.

So…what kind of being am I? Do I have a soul? Is there something immaterial about me that will survive after I die?

All of these questions are ways of exploring what philosophers call metaphysics – one of the three main branches of philosophy -- an effort to understand the fundamental nature of the world, of the universe, and of being.

Now, if those questions aren't heady enough for you, we, as students of philosophy, also have a whole separate set of questions, that are about how we know the answers to any of this stuff.

This particular strain of philosophy, which is like knowing about knowing, is epistemology -- literally the study of knowledge -- the second major field of philosophy. And it poses questions like: Is the world really what I think it is? Like, really, is everything I see and think and experience…is it actually…true? If it isn't, then, what is true? And what's the best way to go about figuring out the truth? Is science the best way?

Or are there more ethereal paths to Truth, paths that science can never really travel? And let's say that, after a lot of searching and question-asking, I begin to develop some ideas -- an inkling about what might be true. Then…how do I know if I'm right? How will I ever know I'm wrong? Can I ever be certain about anything? Now, at this point I wouldn't blame you if you're thinking: “Am I real?” “Do I...do I know anything?”