8‑Bit Philosophy: Plato, Sartre, Derrida & Other Thinkers Explained With Vintage Video Games

You thought video games were a waste of time? Well, think again. These 8‑bit video games can teach you phi­los­o­phy. Pla­to, Descartes, Niet­zsche, Der­ri­da and the rest. Cre­at­ed by Nap­kin Note Pro­duc­tions, 8‑Bit Phi­los­o­phy attempts to “com­mu­ni­cate even the most com­plex of philo­soph­i­cal con­cepts in a fun, easy-to-under­stand way.”

Launched in April, the series now fea­tures 15 episodes. The very first one used the 1986 Nin­ten­do game Zel­da to unpack Pla­to’s con­cept of the Real. Lat­er episodes grap­pled with Hegel’s con­cept of his­to­ry; Sartre’s notion of free­dom (above); and Niet­zsche’s thoughts on the lim­its of sci­ence (also above).

The most recent episode explores the phi­los­o­phy of Jacques Der­ri­da using scenes from the 1987 beat’ em up video game, Dou­ble Drag­on. Does that game ring a bell? It did­n’t for me either. Until I googled it and sud­den­ly remem­bered wast­ing count­less hours and quar­ters on it, almost three decades ago. It’s all com­ing back to me now.

You can watch all 15 episodes of 8‑Bit Phi­los­o­phy on YouTube. To play real vin­tage arcade games, see our post from last week: The Inter­net Arcade Lets You Play 900 Vin­tage Video Games in Your Web Brows­er (Free). And to get more immersed in phi­los­o­phy, see our col­lec­tion: 125 Free Online Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es.

via Crit­i­cal The­o­ry

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Alain de Botton’s School of Life Presents Ani­mat­ed Intro­duc­tions to Hei­deg­ger, The Sto­ics & Epi­cu­rus

Watch The Idea, the First Ani­mat­ed Film to Deal with Big, Philo­soph­i­cal Ideas (1932)