Examined Life
In Examined Life, filmmaker Astra Taylor accompanies some of today’s most influential thinkers on a series of unique excursions through places and spaces that hold particular resonance for them and their ideas.
Peter Singer’s thoughts on the ethics of consumption are amplified against the backdrop of Fifth Avenue’s posh boutiques. Slavoj Zizek questions current beliefs about the environment while sifting through a garbage dump. Michael Hardt ponders the nature of revolution while surrounded by symbols of wealth and leisure.
Judith Butler and a friend stroll through San Francisco’s Mission District questioning our culture’s fixation on individualism. And while driving through Manhattan, Cornel West—perhaps America’s best-known public intellectual—compares philosophy to jazz and blues, reminding us how intense and invigorating a life of the mind can be.
Offering privileged moments with great thinkers from fields ranging from moral philosophy to cultural theory, Examined Life reveals philosophy’s power to transform the way we see the world around us and imagine our place in it.
Watch the full documentary now (Please read FAQ No.10 before watching)
This was really great!!!!
Interesting views. It’s good to see.
good video, despite some douche bags…it seemed as though the most intelligent one of all works in a garbage dump
Paul V, interesting comment care to back it up with some insights into philosophy yourself? Did you really watch this?
I though this was excellent and will certainly watch it several times in the coming months, its excellent to see a documentary maker tackle a crucially important yet often inaccessible subject like this. In the modern world wisdom seems to be scorned upon in a bizzare and faux display of machismo and bravado that seems to stem from an egotistical refusal to learn or even consider alternative points of view.
All too often the media and social norms determine our ethical standards and this is where we need to improve our listening skills to both our inner voices and to intellectuals, rather than labelling them ‘douche bags’.
Never have I heard people talk so much, but say so little. I did not enjoy this documentary.
I agree with ben.
Hi, I really enjoy and are grateful for your posting of documentaries, but please don’t use or link to Megavideo, they only let you watch about an hour and tell you that you should wait another hour to watch the rest or that you should pay to see it now. It is really bothering and places like those should be boycotted, thank you.
sven, did you read FAQ no. 10 above the video link?
im pretty sure theres a way to bypass the time limit there.
@ Sven: There are ways to bypass it. I use the add-on for Firefox. Works like a charm! :-)
I agree with ben too. I think this film is ill-structured and confusing.
woohoo, the search for meaning is ‘fascisoid’
that first woman was hilariously pretentious
I think those of you who are saying you didn’t enjoy this video are perfect examples of what happens when we don’t have philosophy in high school. There is no reason for you to have not liked this unless you don’t like to actually question and think about life and your place in it.
That’s an interesting opinion, epicurean (i mean that literally; it interests me). what makes you say that? Couldn’t it be that we have already heard what these people have said and find such repeating of old ideas, rewording of simple thoughts, and blatant pretentiousness annoying? Couldn’t it be that its BECAUSE we have questioned many things extensively that the shallow linguistic gymnastics performed by these individuals to display intellectual superiority while avoiding at all costs saying anything at all is frustrating for us to see praised and ogled over? Couldn’t it be something else entirely? And why say something about high school philosophy? haha that just seems odd.
i mentioned high school because in lots of places they dont offer it at that age and that begins a life of not being interested in critical thought.
if what you are saying is true and thats why you dont like the film fine, but because you have heard it before doesnt make it a bad documentary.
I didnt see anyone other than the first lady being too pretentious. and i failed to see shallow linguistic gymnastics as you put it. they were using a language appropriate for the topic they were discussing, unlike you trying to use it right now to show that you are intelligent on purpose to show that its not because you are dumb that you didnt like it, which is fine.
Man, do these people lack communication skills. I enjoyed the doc, but I have to agree that for the most part nothing was being said. Loved Cornell West, but he wasn’t making any sense.
I guess this doc would be dammed by some parties for either excessively dumbing down topics or being overly pretentious. Hard to see how it can simultaneously do both though.
Personally I’m always working on my listening skills to try to draw as much from others as I can, maybe that’s why I consider this to be so good, and I’m only a casual philosophy reader.
Really cant see how the criticism can made that “nothing was said”, to what are you comparing this documentary? A through reading of ancient Greek philosophy perhaps?
I agree that Cornell West was both entertaining and confusing though.
I was actually listening very intently. What I heard from a number of these philosophers was a series of unnecessarily complicated sentences.
In fact, I suspect that on a number of occasions, they just strung together a series of impressive sounding words together and hoped that no one would notice that their “sentences” lacked any coherent thoughts.
Maybe I’m just too demanding, but I expect professional thinkers to be able to clearly express their ideas. And some of the thinkers featured in the doc were able to do just that.
However, others failed miserably. Nevertheless, I still enjoyed the doc because it was very different.
with a bunch of big random words that they were rendered completely meaningless. But, I guess everybody has their own interpretation of what some of these people said.
They were just words next to each other
Dammit, you need an edit function.
I found this very interesting. The title weighs down on this documentary in my view and is probably the reason why most people are posting negative comments.
There is just too much to be said on the topic and it could only be so long.
btw, what kind of structure di you all expect? There was enough mentioned to prompt any one to carry out their own reading in my opinion.
excellent film! question life (and everything for that matter) and you will see clearly the wisdom & understanding this film brings out. you don’t have to agree with all of the thoughts & conclusions. by thinking critically about the things of life we assume we understand and allowing for the possibility of being wrong, we open up levels of new understanding and awareness.
if you don’t “get” this film, start thinking & questioning.
Very Very nice pleasure to watch this docu.True some of the people in could have been left-out and given more time to ex Zivek – whoe have some very nice controversial ideas . . .and what up with the lack of european or even asian philosophers.
Its like the western society have taken the absolute ground to talk about meaning of life etc. and we are living in the most distinguished and superficial part of the world.
BlaaBla – give yourself a thought take a walk.
Other than very nice camera work and dynamic, plus different scenarios which kept the film a a good pace.
Good recommend ! power to the thinkers, power to you
amusing… we all have different opinions… food for thought..it isn’t a good documentary or a bad documentary, it’s simply a documentary:)
None of these philosophers are “pretentious”, most of them are very well read philosophers in academic circles (Peter Singer and Zizek, for example, are very well read philosophers) and I think Epicurean is correct in point out that this film is about critical think and major issues rather than overly sentimental, dramatic, and sensationalized documentary that distorts truth with rhetoric and sophistry. You guys don’t have to like the documentary, but if you criticize it for being “pretentious” or being a “linguistic gymnasium”, think about who your talking to. Your talking to people who studied philosophy thoroughly , and people who study philosophy learn to express themselves thoughtfully and emphasize on how they carefully choose words. Maybe most of you probably don’t like it, but I like listening to them because how they choose to speak is well thought out. I know it can be very dry, and if that it is the core of the problem then maybe the documentary isn’t for everyone. Also I don’t think it was “ill-structured”, the documentary was clearly about opinions and thoughts of different but influential philosophers. It wasn’t meant to be “structured”, it was merely a mini-survey of different school of thoughts.
I think they say a lot and give critical insights, and perhaps they tried to dumb it down as much as possible; I know this because if you actually read their books its very different from what they say in this documentary, and its much more complex and dry than the documentary itself put together. They don’t simply “talk”, they say things critically and thoughtfully; they’re not being pretentious because they’re not using sheer metaphors just to sound like the New-Age gurus who tell you to feel good about yourselves because your actually an immortal.
Some of the words they use may not be understood by most people because they’re either using words that specific and unique to their own school of thought. I listen to them and I had no difficulty understanding them, and this is because I read enough philosophy books to know what they are talking about. I’m not saying that you all should read philosophy, I am making the case that the documentary shouldn’t be criticized for jargon; For me these people weren’t just using Jargons, I think they were sticking to their profession, academic rigor, and their true selves; for them not using the words they were using would not clearly reflect their own philosophy from their own perspective. I think they express themselves more clearly and professionally than all professional thinkers of most documentary who tried to talk like layman.
I think the documentary is for philosophy students or people who are familiar philosophy; If most people dislike it because its all “talk” maybe you haven’t listened enough or maybe you should read a little bit more philosophy before you ever listen to them again. I’m not blaming people for not learning philosophy, I’m blaming people for blaming philosopher who were simply being themselves.
This video isn’t that good.
I have spent the majority of my life thinking and coming up with my own philosophy. At each stage of an idea I attempt to tear it apart from it’s assumptions to all possible counter arguments. I also provide justification and if possible evidence and logical arguments.
If goal is to turn a lump of carbon into a flawless cut diamond, you can’t get there unless you discard something.
These people seem like they have a lot of ideas bouncing around but haven’t refined them to the point that they can explain them in detail and without hesitation.
I would say that these people are just rambling about some unrefined ideas, but it may just be me that prefers people to get to the point. It may also be a by product of the lack of focus the film makers chose by just having a general discussion of philosophy.
it means so much to realize it’s okay to think about life with such passion and in such depth!! i suppose this means i’m a philosopher :)wow! i shed tears of relief when i first heard cornel west going off in the beginning.
very inspiring. i wish they taught philosophy when i was in high school. critical thought is not encouraged in the christian youth group scene, where it’s not hip to think, it’s hip to speak in tongues…haha oh boy
I really enjoyed this documentary, thanks! Although, I am not (yet) very widely read in philosophy and I didn’t understand what some of them were saying, especially Zizek and the first lady. Zizek may be well read, but I do sometimes doubt if what he’s saying really makes sense (I’ve tried to read his books and always get the same feeling). Anyway, great doc. Judith Butler I’d not really heard of, and what she said was probably the most interesting.
he doesn’t “work at the dump” dummy. Zizek is a well known contemporary philosopher.
PS. for a definition of pretentious see Shane’s post: “I have spent the majority of my life thinking and coming up with my own philosophy. At each stage of an idea I attempt to tear it apart from it’s assumptions to all possible counter arguments. I also provide justification and if possible evidence and logical arguments.” good for you, try opening your mind to philosophy outside of your own. you might just learn something that you haven’t already taught yourself.
“If goal is to turn a lump of carbon into a flawless cut diamond, you can’t get there unless you discard something.” what?
“they have a lot of ideas bouncing around but haven’t refined them to the point that they can explain them in detail and without hesitation.” just because you’ve never heard of these people because you were to busy developing your own impenetrable, flawless, rationally justified philosophy doesn’t mean they don’t know how to explain them it means that not all ideas can be boiled down. when it takes hundreds of pages to communicate an idea sometimes its not possible to just “get to the point.” just because they don’t spoon feed it to you doesn’t mean their ideas are not worth while. I dare you to try read Zizek you pompous, self-styled armchair philosopher.
Hve we come to an age where people expressing intelligence and critical thinking skills is pretentious? I’m far from the sharpest knife in the drawer so I really enjoy listening to smart people speak there mind. If you go about labeling people pretentious are you really allowing yourself to really absorb the wisdom they are sharing. I thought they all had interesting things to say and I quite enjoyed the film.
I stopped watching the documentary when the guy said we have “moral obligations”, actually if i don’t give a sh*t, its because i want to take care of only myself and/or want others less fortunate to die. My moral obligation is to myself. Is it ethical that i have to save money and think about another person? How ******, thinks he can walk on 5th avenue in a cheap *** t-shirt, speaking his bullcr*p theories.
The second woman interviewed made up at least five words. I started counting after a while.
If you think this documentary is “pretentious”, or, worse, if you think that there is “nothing being said”, to put it bluntly most of this went over your head. This documentary almost barrages you with interesting concepts and ideas in every other sentence.
It’s a very difficult documentary, though: you must be familiar with a wide range of ideas in order to fully grasp the concepts they refer to. Very few in this documentary hold back their vocabularies. If you don’t have the necessary familiarity with the ideas referred to in this video, I can understand how you’d want to dismiss the enormous wall you must overcome by saying something like “they talk a lot and say so little.”
Honestly wanted some one to run up and shoot the first Lady in the face.
Zizek seemed to be the only one with anything novel to say, though his obsession with all things Faecal is starting to bother me.
Samuel L Jackson philosopher weren’t bad either, didn’t have much to say but he said it damn well.
‘you have served the people and the people’s superstitions, all you famous philosophers! – you have not served truth! And it is precisely for that reason that they paid you reverence…you have always been obstinate and cunning, like the ***, as the people’s advocate…in the towns dwell the well-fed famous philosophers…they always, as asses, pull – the people’s cart!’
I’m familiar with a wide variety of ideas and I’ve seen a very large amount of documentaries and while I don’t fully think they were talking nonsense, most of them (up until 40 minutes, when I turned it off) seemed to share the same ‘philosophy’ behind the green agenda (which ‘magically’ works oh-so-well with the economic downturn), that we must stop being haves in order to help the have-nots and thereby lower our own standard of living. The optimistic person would say such a thing could help everyone become a have but it’s my guess that the goal is to lower the standard of living for everyone.
We should not just question the idea, no matter where it comes from, but also the idea-maker because we are all being led down a dark path while kept to our ‘bread and circuses’, Hegelian dialectics and Plato’s cave. We’re told to let the stars guide us because we’ve fallen under the spell of the holy wood (hollywood) and we listen in awe when those on altars speak (via religion, politics and theater).
greed is not healthy. hate is bad for the complexion. i cant speak for him but im pretty sure my man j would not aprove of your callousness. but f him…seriously…whats wrong with not polluting the only habital place we know about? and we dont need you not to have…we just need to stop dropping 20 g’s on a jdam upgrade kit…i mean thats alot of money to blow somthing up…at this point we could prolly find a kid to do it for like 200 bucks.
buying into hate will cloud your person..soon we will have to start making tough choices…jobs going over seas or to the robots…no more jobs…lower the standard of living for everyone. unless we can offset the lack of funds with usefull services provided by the public to the public. like schools or roads or armys or cops or firmen or churches etc etc….we made it nice for the top 1%. they can kick down….or we could always take it, if thats what it comes down too…not out of hat but born of necessity.
Thoroughly enjoyed this video. I liked that you took philosophical considerations to real life issues, it’s not just in the hallowed halls of Academia.I like that you didn’t try to tie everything up in a neat little bow. There are recurring themes commonalities but it’s not forced into a box. I liked that with many of the big questions there aren’t pat answers, just well considered discussion.
I don’t agree with some of the previous comments regarding being too complex in explanation. I think that the points are simply and elegantly stated to be accessible.
Thank you for making this film. Rita
My impressions after watching the first 30 minutes of the movie. I think that philosophy is a quite unattractive subject by itself to many people. The goal of a movie about philosophy should be to make these ideas more accessible and understandable, inspire to learn more, find something relevant to a real everyday life etc., instead of showing all these perhaps great, but extremely abstract ideas. Those who really want to learn something about philosophy should take books instead of 90-minute movie, while a movie must target only novices in this field.
The first woman was talking sh*%e. The emperor has no clothes.
The first woman was pretentious, we should all agree on that, however I think one of the main aims of the film was to make people observe the method as well. It was a beautifully made film and it was important that each person who spoke, seemed normal and realistic and someone you can imagine having a conversation with (the first woman being an exception). Apart from the summary at the top, you dont really know that these people are ‘professional thinkers’(whatever that means).
You don’t always agree with what your friends might say or the way they say it, but you respect their words and that then adds to building your view of them, your relationship and objectively, the world and society you live in.
Nothing was said? What did you want them to say? The nature of philosophy has always been, the exploration of things, and this was an example of people doing that; those who spoke, the viewers of the film and the film makers themselves. Look at it all as a whole…it would have been simply written down if not all aspects were important.
And just to say, we are all ‘professional thinkers’, we should not attach meaning to such terms, which can later result in intellectual segregation. This will only result in limiting our thoughts.
Intro my eyes glossed over. First woman interviewed has a “word vomit” going on. Lot of of big words in a stream of thoughts, but has no point.
I didn’t watch the rest of it because if the rest of it was like that it would have been a waste of time trying to follow it.