Sadler's Lectures

This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient Stoic philosopher Seneca's work, On The Happy Life It focuses specifically on his claim that "virtue is its own reward". The Stoics (among others) maintain that virtue is both necessary and sufficient for human happiness, and that nothing else is as valuable as virtue. To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon site - www.patreon.com/sadler If yo...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient Stoic philosopher Seneca's work, On The Happy Life It focuses specifically on his discussion about different kinds of virtues, using an analogy to going uphill or downhill, where some of the virtues require us to make an effort to push upwards against resistance, and other virtues require us to use restraint to keep things from sliding downwards. F...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient Stoic philosopher Seneca's work, On The Happy Life It focuses specifically on the responses to criticisms people tend to make against philosophers, mostly centered on the largely true fact that philosophers don't entirely measure up to the ideals they espouse. To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon site - www.patreon.com/sadler If you'd like...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient Stoic philosopher Seneca's work, On The Happy Life It focuses specifically on the relations between virtue and wealth, understood from a Stoic perspective. Unlike some schools who consider wealth to be a good though not the good, and other schools who believe that having wealth is incompatible with virtue, Seneca notes that the Stoics think that we...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient Stoic philosopher Seneca's work, On The Happy Life It focuses specifically on his qualified defense of Epicurus' version of hedonism, which he views as different in those respects from other forms of hedonism, which often use Epicureanism as a cover for their indulgence. To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon site - www.patreon.com/sadler If...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient Stoic philosopher Seneca's work, On The Happy Life It focuses specifically on the joy, tranquility, and happiness that, in his view, result from pursuing, possessing, and acting in accordance with the virtues, as the Stoics understand them. These states are something distinct from the pleasure that hedonistic philosophical approaches make the measu...

This lecture discusses the science fiction and fantasy author, Ursula K. Leguin's book, The Other Wind, the sixth and final of her Earthsea books It focuses specifically on the dreams that Alder, a village sorcerer whose talent is mending, tells to the aged former archmage Ged on the Isle of Gont. To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon site - www.patreon.com/sadler If you'd like to make a di...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient Stoic philosopher Seneca's work, On The Happy Life It focuses specifically on the distinction between pleasure and virtue as possible means to human happiness. Stoics think that virtue not only is the means to happiness, but is also one of the main components in human happiness. To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon site - www.patreon.com/sa...

This lecture discusses the science fiction and fantasy author, Ursula K. Leguin's book, The Other Wind, the sixth and final of her Earthsea books It focuses specifically on the views and speculations that the masters of Roke engage in when hearing about Alder's dreams of the stone wall separating the living from the dead in the Dry Land To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon site - www.patre...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient Stoic philosopher Seneca's work, On The Happy Life It focuses specifically on the mistaken views the many or the crowd have about the nature of human happiness. Seneca notes that when they make and reproduce mistakes, they don't simply affect themselves negatively, but also other people who end up falling into error. He also notes that many elites,...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient Stoic philosopher Seneca's work, On The Happy Life It focuses specifically on he Stoic definitions of the greatest goods that he provides early on in the work. Seneca writes; "Happy, therefore, is the life in agreement with its own nature. And there is no other way for this to come about than if the intellect is, first, healthy and in unending poss...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 18th century philosopher Immanuel Kant's work of ethics, The Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. Specifically it examines his discussion of the analogy he provides in that work between the Thing-In-Itself (Ding-in-sich) and the free human being, who exists both as a phenomenal and a noumenal being To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon site - w...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 18th century philosopher Immanuel Kant's work of ethics, The Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. Specifically it examines his discussion of the distinction and relation between three key faculties of the human being, which Kant terms reason, understanding, and sense To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon site - www.patreon.com/sadler If you'd l...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 18th century philosopher Immanuel Kant's work of ethics, The Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. Specifically it examines his discussion of how categorical imperatives are possible. To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon site - www.patreon.com/sadler If you'd like to make a direct contribution, you can do so here - www.paypal.me/ReasonIO - or a...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 18th century philosopher Immanuel Kant's work of ethics, The Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. Specifically it examines his discussion of the distinction between three modes of presenting what he terms the "principle of morality" - one focused upon universality of the maxim of one's will, one on treating human beings as ends not just as means, and...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 18th century philosopher Immanuel Kant's work of ethics, The Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. Specifically it examines his discussion of what he calls "heteronomy" in moral theories other than his own. He examines empirical principles of morality, which include moral feeling and individual happiness, and rational principles of morality, which incl...

This lecture discusses the science fiction and fantasy author, Ursula K. Leguin's book, Tales From Earthsea, the fifth of six Earthsea books It focuses specifically on the story "Dragonfly", and focuses specifically on how Dragonfly whose true name is Irian (but not just that) finally finds her place at the end of the story, resolving the crisis of her admittance to Roke contrary to its rule, and...

This lecture discusses the science fiction and fantasy author, Ursula K. Leguin's book, Tales From Earthsea, the fifth of six Earthsea books It focuses specifically on the story "Dragonfly", and focuses specifically on the two crises at Roke Isle depicted and partly resolved in the story. The first and immediate crisis is what to do with Irian, who has been admitted to the Great House by the Maste...

This lecture discusses the science fiction and fantasy author, Ursula K. Leguin's book, Tales From Earthsea, the fifth of six Earthsea books It focuses specifically on the story "Dragonfly", and focuses specifically on the interactions between the young, not-quite wizard from Roke, Ivory, and the main character of the story, Dragonfly (whose true name is Irian). Ivory proposes to Dragonfly that sh...

This lecture discusses the science fiction and fantasy author, Ursula K. Leguin's book, Tales From Earthsea, the fifth of six Earthsea books It focuses specifically on the story "Dragonfly", and focuses specifically on the interactions between the local witch Rose and the Dragonfly, centering mainly on their conversations about magic, power, and names, on Rose's giving Dragonfly her true name Iria...

This lecture discusses the science fiction and fantasy author, Ursula K. Leguin's book, Tales From Earthsea, the fifth of six Earthsea books It focuses specifically on the story "On The High Marsh", and discusses the point where the archmage Ged shows up, seeking the broken former mage, now animal healer, Irioth. He relates the story of Irioth's terrible childhood, the attempts of the masters of R...

This lecture discusses the science fiction and fantasy author, Ursula K. Leguin's book, Tales From Earthsea, the fifth of six Earthsea books It focuses specifically on the story "On The High Marsh", and discusses an animal healer whose true name is Irioth. He is clearly a damaged person, both in his emotions and in his thinking, and connects more with the animals who he can speak to and heal than...

This lecture discusses the science fiction and fantasy author, Ursula K. Leguin's book, Tales From Earthsea, the fifth of six Earthsea books It focuses specifically on the story "Darkrose and Diamond", and discusses the character Diamond's choice between different possible paths in life: magic, music, and the family business. These choices also determine his relationship with his childhood friend...

This lecture discusses the science fiction and fantasy author, Ursula K. Leguin's book, Tales From Earthsea, the fifth of six Earthsea books It focuses specifically on the story "The Bones Of The Earth", and discusses the mage Ogion (an important character in the earlier Earthsea books), and his own teacher Dulse. In this video we look at the Gontish earth-magic of transformation Dulse learned fro...

This lecture discusses the science fiction and fantasy author, Ursula K. Leguin's book, Tales From Earthsea, the fifth of six Earthsea books It focuses specifically on the story "The Bones Of The Earth", and discusses the backstory of an important character in the earlier Earthsea novels, Ogion the mage of Re Albi. This video focuses on Ogion's teacher, the Gontish mage Dulse and how he taught Ogi...