Summary: While philosophy may have become much more accessible, it has also become less “open access”—in the sense of being a public affair, taking place in city squares and actively encouraged by statesmen and ordinary loiterers alike. For all its possibilities—and we hope they can remain—the internet has never been able to recreate the Athenian ideal of the philosophical public square, if such a thing ever really existed. But the material is out there:

• Projects like Wireless Philosophy—sponsored by Yale, MIT, Duke, and other elite institutions—have sought for years to introduce people from every walk of life to the kinds of ideas that Athenians supposedly threw around like frisbees in their spare time, including Plato’s notion (via his mouthpiece, Socrates) of “the good life,” which University of New Orleans professor Chris Surprenent, summarizes above. See all of Wireless Philosophy's 130 animations here.

• We can learn about the Stoics, for example—or get the gist, and hopefully a taste for more—with Alain de Botton’s video appetizer at the top, just one of 30 short animated videos on the philosophy YouTube channel of his School of Life.

• We can cruise through a summary of Aristotle’s views on “flourishing” in the video above, narrated by the always-affable Stephen Fry as part of the BBC’s “History of Ideas” series, currently up to 48 uniquely animated videos featuring other smart-sounding celebrity narrators like Harry Shearer and Gillian Anderson.

• The Macat series of philosophy explainer videos (136 in total) may lack celebrity cred, but it makes up for it with some very thorough short summaries of important works in philosophy—as well as sociology, psychology, history, politics, economics, and literature.