Derick Sivers's Ted Talk: An Analysis

When watching Derick Sivers Ted Talk titled “Keep goals to yourself” it appears to be a detailed explanation and example of causation, the philosophical theory created by Plato. Merriam-Webster defines causation as “the act or process of causing something to happen or exist” (Stephanie, 2014). When put into standard form an inductive argument becomes apparent. Sivers overall claim throughout his Ted Talk is that by keeping your goals to yourself you are more likely to complete that goal compared to someone that told people about their goal. When we undertake a critical analysis of his claim it is clear that Sivers has confused causation with correlation. According to Merriam-Webster correlation is “the relationship between things that happen or change together” (Stephanie, 2014). To claim that there is a causal link between speaking your goals to other people and actually completing this goal would be the fallacy of Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc.

He elaborates this by discussing his four causes; material, formal, efficient and final. He also introduced the idea of causal necessity, which is the idea that one event following another is not sufficient for the first to cause the second (Fine, 1987). Sivers claims that if you keep your goals to yourself then you will likely complete said goal, however, through Aristotle's theory of Causal Necessity it is apparent that this is not accurate as keeping goals to yourself is not the sole reason for completion or success of that set goal. It is highly likely that other factors such as personal traits for example resilience, aptitude and determination can impact a person’s ability to complete a goal regardless of whether they have told people about