From the University of Edinburgh on Thinking

[KevinW]

Thinking for yourself (intellectual autonomy) from the University of Edinburgh.

There are subtitles. Click "Youtube" to go to the video, and click on the "CC" button to select the subtitles for the video if you find him difficult to follow along.


Link: www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lnESFTTGss

This is a brief, 4 minute video on intellectual autonomy that I think is very similar to what we talked about in Ms. Boyd's class. He talks about Immanuel Kant, the German philosopher from the Enlightenment era, and his view of "sapere aude!"—meaning, dare to know/dare to be wise.

Kant's view on knowledge was simple: do not trust what others say, because that is not knowledge; knowledge is found on your own. And that, is intellectual autonomy.


There were several more videos, though, that argued the opposite by Thomas Reid: We humans are social creatures, and intellectually, we should follow the social norm. But I did not upload them as they weren't immediately relevant.


From Coursera.org, Introduction to Philosophy, Week 5.

[esther]

I like his point. It is similar to how i think about knowledge and studying. I really dont like how people make me to study a specific subject, because i really dont find it interesting. I also forget about it reallyquickly. In the other hand,if i try to study by myself without anyone forcing me to, then i learn alot and have fun with it.

[deeksha]

Hello!!

[misatonakano]

Hello

[deeksha]

hi

[sorn]

I really like his point. But I think that the society will at last force us to follow what other people think because we are human and that is how our parents and people around us had taught us to be. But I think that the most important point is that if you have a dream or a goal in life, you should walk on that path so that you can complete your goal without having other distractions or follow the trend.

[sergeyfen]

It was interesting to listen to points that he has mentioned. But in our society we always gonna follow certain things that we sort of doubt. We always tend to follow the majority, i mean we dont always follow the majority but if we have no other choices we do. We were raised that way, i think its sort of our nature to follow the society. Its not always though sometimes we stuck on our opinions which sort of good, but if we always follow our instincts, eventually well be come consistent and will be blinded.

[yeajinchoi]

Hm. That's interesting. I really liked the quote that guy said; "it's okay to trust people but it's not okay to blindly trust people.". I think it's an accurate way to describe the society. Al throughout this transcendentalist course, I kept thinking what if the society is right? what if the majority has the same opinion as you? This video just answered my question.

Also, the quote "sapere aude" - dare to be wise, is very interesting. We have a similar saying in Korean as well.

[KevinW]

Apr 28, 2013 3:18:58 GMT -5 yeajinchoi said:

Hm. That's interesting. I really liked the quote that guy said; "it's okay to trust people but it's not okay to blindly trust people.". I think it's an accurate way to describe the society. Al throughout this transcendentalist course, I kept thinking what if the society is right? what if the majority has the same opinion as you? This video just answered my question.

Also, the quote "sapere aude" - dare to be wise, is very interesting. We have a similar saying in Korean as well.

What's the saying in Korean?

[deeksha]

hello!!