Every Philosopher's Theory of Reality Explained in 17 Minutes

How much of what you see is really there? Eight of the best-known answers, ranked from the one that takes the least away to the one that takes nearly everything: Democritus, Plato and Aristotle, Descartes, Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Zhuangzi and Nick Bostrom. 0:00 The cup in front of you 1:17 Democritus 2:46 Plato and Aristotle 5:23 René Descartes 7:17 George Berkeley 9:35 David Hume 11:08 Immanuel Kant 12:48 Zhuangzi 13:55 Nick Bostrom 14:58 The bottom of the scale Where every quote comes from Democritus, fragment on convention and atoms, tr. Charles M. Bakewell, Source Book in Ancient Philosophy (1907) Plato, Republic VII, the cave (tr. Benjamin Jowett) Aristotle, Metaphysics I.9 (tr. W. D. Ross) René Descartes, Meditations I and II (tr. Elizabeth S. Haldane and G. R. T. Ross); Discourse on the Method, Part IV (tr. John Veitch) George Berkeley, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (1710), sections 3 and 23 James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, 1763 David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, sections 36 and 58; A Treatise of Human Nature, Book I, Part IV, Section VII; "deadborn from the press," My Own Life (1776) Immanuel Kant, Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, preface and section 13 (tr. Paul Carus) Zhuangzi, chapter II, the butterfly dream (tr. Herbert A. Giles, 1889) Nick Bostrom, "Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?", Philosophical Quarterly 53 (2003) Life and dates: the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Leucippus engraving: Wellcome Collection, CC BY 4.0. All other images are public domain or CC0. Music and sound effects: Epidemic Sound.