In-Depth Look
(Click on the full screen icon 
for easier viewing.)
What is Philosophy?
In this video I'm going to introduce to you the five branches of philosophy. I'm also going to do my best to inform you of my own basic stance in regards to philosophy. The point of this is not to try and convert you to think differently than the author and perhaps lean more in my direction on some of the issues he brings up in his book. Rather, I want you to feel a little bit more informed as to how I, the teacher, am approaching these problems and themes in Gaarder’s book so that if you come across something in what I say that doesn't quite seem to gel with what you’ve interpreted of Gaarder’s work Yourself that you might have a better sense of where I might be slightly deviating from the text or his message. This is most especially the case in the “In-Depth Look” videos where I’ll be sharing a few further tidbits about the histories of the philosophers and ideas Gaarder shares, many of which will be shaped by my own thinking on these subjects. I will of course do all I can to try and share Gaarder’s work with a sense of Integrity to it. However, it is the fate of all thinkers to portray things or Reason them out in a manner that makes most sense to them, and I'm no less guilty of this and any other.
Also, I want you to know that what philosophy is or what it ought to look like tends to significantly differ from person to person. The truth is that philosophy is quite different from most any other discipline because there is no one way to correctly talk about it or share results of one's findings or one's line of thinking with other professionals in the field. In fact, we ought to be very skeptical about there even really being a field of philosophy at all. If anything, philosophy would perhaps best be understood as a meta-discipline, a discipline about and in this way above other disciplines, or a field where we can assess and frame the nature of all other fields. If it isn't clear what I mean by this, never mind it for now and be patient as we will be talking about it a lot throughout the course, giving you more than enough time to dwell on it and decide for yourself what I mean by this.