(FYI this post follows from a TikTok video here)
Congratulations on getting this far traveller, your curiosity has served you well.
Heads up - there’s a 0% chance that any sort of philosophical resources list I put together will be in any way complete.
What follows below are some other places I would recommend to keep reading/watching if you’re interested. By all means, there will be fantastic channels, websites, books and so on that I do not mention here that may be better than what is below. Follow your interest! These are just some I like.
BIG CAVEAT
REMEMBER there are, in a sense, two kinds of philosophy content you can consume.
There’s the ‘original’ source of the ideas or arguments - the primary source
Then there’s second-hand presentation/discussion of the ideas, by someone else, who has read the source (and normally many others) on your behalf - the secondary source*
The primary source might be, say, On Liberty by J S Mill - which is essentially a long philosophical essay using utilitarianism to make conclusions about the state and the individual.
If you search a YouTube video on J S Mill, summarising his work On Liberty, you are consuming a secondary source, as you’re hearing about his ideas filtered through someone else’s brain (and in some sense, even with my description above, you’re doing the same. Other people might summarise it differently, you see?)
Obviously the vast majority of content on philosophy is a secondary source.
Now most often this is a very good thing (I mean, almost all my TikToks fall into the second category, so I’d be a hypocrite if I said it was bad). If done right, this kind of content can render clarity on old obscure ideas (or modern obscure ones), contextualise them, make them accessible, digestible, and so on. After all, this is why we like teachers, and don’t just hand people books and tell them to go educate themselves. Plus, the first rendition of an idea might not be the best, the idea might transcend the original source, rendering it kind of irrelevant.
But of course, people can give really bad interpretations. And everyone is subject to their own biases. Consciously or otherwise, they might give you a sense of what a philosopher said that persuades to a different viewpoint than you may have had if you had just looked at the primary source.
So don’t forget that reading the original primary source has value too, and ultimately, if you want to really form your own opinion on a source or particular author (as opposed to an idea, which again, often transcends authors), reading the original is something you probably should do at some point.
OK caveats done, SO
YouTube Channels
ContraPoints - when she releases a video it’s like a national holiday for me. She describes herself as an ex-philosopher, but I think she’s actually a modern one.
Philosophy Tube - amazing video essays applying philosophy to modern issues and debates. If I can make content half as good as this in a few years, I’ll be a happy bunny
Ted-Ed’s series on The Big Questions - I’ve watched most of these and they’re great - wonderfully animated, short bite-sized bits.
My rogue suggestion here: Like Stories of Old - he uses film and TV to discuss broad topics within Philosophy and Psychology. Start with this one (which Gervais himself said was brilliant)
I’ve heard good things about Wireless Philosophy too, though haven’t watched a significant portion of their content
Serious Lectures
There are loads of genuine Philosophy lectures online. Two courses which I’d check out are by Marianne Talbot from Oxford University:
Critical reasoning for Beginners
Beyond this, you can find lots on YouTube, university websites etc as you’d expect.
Podcasts
I don’t listen to any Philosophy podcasts. Sorry. I’m a bad person.
Websites/people who want to read things
This website goes over the basics, and is called, well, Philosophybasics
Every single actual philosopher I know uses one or both of these websites to sanity-check/kick start research. I use the Stanford one all the time:
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
This website - TheDailyIdea is dedicated to documenting resources, so, probably would have made sense to start off the page with it but here you go.
Book recommendations are on another page on this site, where I mention some of my favourite philosophy ones. Thankyouuuuu
*I recognise almost any ‘original’ philosophical work in some sense discusses old ideas so really one could argue about this definition (I mean are there any original ideas? Really?) and if you’re the type to read the asterisk having had this thought, then you know there’s an element of truth to what I’m saying here. A video on J S Mill and On Liberty itself offer different value education wise.