Socrates on Self-Confidence : Philosophy Documentary
Part 1 of the 6 part series “Philosophy: A Guide to Happiness”. Exploring why so many of us go along with the crowd rather than stand up for what we believe in.
Tags: Alain de Botton | Channel 4 Documentary | Greek | Happiness | Life | Socrates
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6 Responses to “Socrates on Self-Confidence : Philosophy Documentary”.
I was hoping for the best, since, as part of a series, this video might lend itself to hours of enjoyment. However, when the narrator chose to focus on his view that Socrates was “ugly”, I immediately clicked off. This is not an educational video and should not be on this site.
Hmmm, I don’t think watching the first 2 minutes of a documentary gives you the right to decide whether it is worthy of being on the site or not, maybe you should try watching the entire program. In my opinion this series is a great introduction to philosophy for people who might otherwise consider the subject to be uninteresting or beyond their reach. Since philosophy can be such an important area of study anything that gets more of us to investigate it is worthwhile.
Surely if Socrates was a grotesquely ugly as his friends claimed then we should be told about it in a story about his life. Whether we like it or not, the way we look plays an important role in shaping the path our lives take and ignoring such things when talking about philosophy would be foolish.
According to Wikipedia, philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, truth, beauty, law, justice, validity, mind, and language.
Ric
I agree with Ric. I watched this series on tv in 2000, and read the accompanying book “The Consolations of Philosophy”. While I didn’t agree with everything Alain de Botton said, I liked his style and between this tv series and Jostein Gaarder’s novel “Sophie’s World” I became intrigued enough by philosophy to go back to university in 2002 to study it as a mature student.
Nate, watch the rest of the episode and see what you think. It’s not exactly heavy philosophy or anything, but the series serves as a good introduction to how some philosophical ideas and lives can assist us in living our own lives.
Also, Ric – I posted those three “Human, All Too Human” episodes on my own blog after having found them here. They are indeed excellent. I’ll link your blog in my blogroll by way of thanks.
Great site. Keep up the good work.
Hey Ric,
Just got your comment on my blog. It is surely a small world! Where are you located yourself?
Also, out of interest, what do you use to run this blog? Mine is on WordPress but I can’t figure out how to embed larger Google videos, or to allow fullscreen with them. There seems to be just one method for adding videos to my WordPress blog, and it leaves them in a tiny pane.
Not that I’ve done much with my blog since setting it up, but I’ll soon have more time to spend blathering on it and would like to be able to embed videos at a larger size.
Ciarán.
Hi Wormbent,
I’ve sent you a PM.
Ric
I think this is a brilliant, enlightening and inspiring series,
although I disagree with some of the conclusions of as well the maker of it, as the philosophers who’s lives and opinions are portrayed.
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