Sadler's Lectures

This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient Stoic philosopher Seneca's Letters, this one looking at Letter 109 It focuses specifically on whether or not a wise person, according to the Stoics, would want or need to be involved with other people, particularly other wise people, to which his answer (perhaps surprisingly to some) is yes. He provides some reasonings for the position he articulat...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient Stoic philosopher Seneca's Letters, this one looking at Letter 99 In this letter, after a brief introductory paragraph, Seneca reproduces a letter sent to a different correspondent Marullus when he had lost a young child. Although Seneca says that his goal is not to console but rather to offer criticism, he in effect does both of these, offering a...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient Stoic philosopher Seneca's Letters, this one looking at Letter 6 It focuses specifically on how we make moral progress, and that we ought to want to share that progress with our friends. He also clarifies that when we learn something we ought to want to share that as well with our friends. A better way to do this than simply learning precepts is to...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient Stoic philosopher Seneca's Letters, this one looking at Letter 3 It focuses specifically on Seneca discussing a paradox of calling someone a friend but not trusting them with information. This leads Seneca to say that his correspondent, Lucilius doesn't seem to know what genuine friendship really is or involves, and to make a distinction between th...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 19th century philosopher, essayist, and theologian, Søren Kierkegaard's review essay "The Present Age" contained in his review of Two Ages: The Age of Revolution and the Present Age It focuses specifically on what Kierkegaard calls the "nullification of the passionate disjunction between being silent and speaking', which is "chattering". To support my ongo...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the modern philosopher Thomas Hobbes' work Leviathan It focuses specifically on first part of chapter 8 where he discusses what he calls "intellectual virtues", meaning the abilities of the mind that people praise, which he frames in terms of "wit", and distinguishes into natural and artificial. Natural wit in turn is divided into fancy which focuses upon simi...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the modern philosopher Thomas Hobbes' work Leviathan It focuses specifically on chapter 7, where he identifies and discusses what he calls the ends of mental and verbal discourse, and clarifies when the discourse people engage in results in mere opinion or produces something more reliable that that, i.e. knowledge or science. To support my ongoing work, go to...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the modern philosopher Thomas Hobbes' work Leviathan It focuses specifically on on the second part of chapter 6, where Hobbes tells us that the basic passions are diversified into a number of other passions in four main manners. 1. called from the opinion men have of the likelihood of attaining what they desire 2. from the object loved or hated 3. from the con...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the modern philosopher Thomas Hobbes' work Leviathan It focuses specifically on chapter 6, in which Hobbes develops his basic philosophy of human and animal action, which stems from the senses and movements of the body, and then flows into endeavor of appetite and aversion. These then give rise to other affects such as love, contempt, and hatred, joy and grief...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the modern philosopher Thomas Hobbes' work Leviathan It focuses specifically on chapter 5, where he examines in detail what reason or reasoning is, and what science is. Hobbes views reasoning as something analogous to "reckoning" by adding and subtracting sums, not just of numbers, but of many other things as well, in particular names, conjunctions of them int...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the modern philosopher Thomas Hobbes' work Leviathan It focuses specifically on chapter 4, where a number of different sorts of "names" (or terms) are distinguished, as well as how those names can be combined into "consequences", and have their significations clarified through definitions. To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon site - www.patreon.com/sad...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the modern philosopher Thomas Hobbes' work Leviathan It focuses specifically on chapters 3 and 4, where Hobbes discusses mental and verbal discourse, that is the train of thoughts in our minds and the verbal expressions of those thoughts. Hobbes also notes that when our train of thoughts is not motivated by some desire or passion, it tends to be looser and les...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the modern philosopher Thomas Hobbes' work Leviathan It focuses specifically on chapters 1 and 2 of the work, where he develops a clearly committed empiricist and materialist epistemology, which begins with sense perception which then gives rise to imagination and memory, which can also then lead to dreams, experience, and other more complex phenomena. To supp...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century American science fiction and fantasy author Poul Anderson's essay "Of Thud And Blunder", which begins by parodying a passage of swords and sorcery fantasy. While making exceptions for L. Sprague de Camp, Fritz Leiber, and J.R.R. Tolkein, Anderson criticizes many of the heroic, historical, or swords & sorcery fantasy fiction for engaging in bad...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient philosopher and statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero's work, On The Nature Of The Gods, which critically examines Epicurean, Stoic, and Skeptic perspectives on matters of theology and cosmology Specifically it focuses upon the presentation of Stoic cosmology and theology by Quintus Lucilius Balbus in book 2, and in particular on his discussion of how th...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient philosopher and statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero's work, On The Nature Of The Gods, which critically examines Epicurean, Stoic, and Skeptic perspectives on matters of theology and cosmology Specifically it focuses upon he presentation of Stoic cosmology and theology by Quintus Lucilius Balbus in book 2, and in particular on his discussion of the que...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient philosopher and statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero's work, On The Nature Of The Gods, which critically examines Epicurean, Stoic, and Skeptic perspectives on matters of theology and cosmology Specifically it focuses upon the presentation of Stoic cosmology and theology by Quintus Lucilius Balbus in book 2, and in particular on his discussion of how di...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient philosopher and statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero's work, On The Nature Of The Gods, which critically examines Epicurean, Stoic, and Skeptic perspectives on matters of theology and cosmology Specifically it focuses upon the presentation of Stoic cosmology and theology by Quintus Lucilius Balbus in book 2, and in particular on his discussion of how th...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient philosopher and statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero's work, On The Nature Of The Gods, which critically examines Epicurean, Stoic, and Skeptic perspectives on matters of theology and cosmology Specifically it focuses upon the presentation of Stoic cosmology and theology by Quintus Lucilius Balbus in book 2, and in particular on his discussion of the st...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient philosopher and statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero's work, On The Nature Of The Gods, which critically examines Epicurean, Stoic, and Skeptic perspectives on matters of theology and cosmology Specifically it focuses upon the presentation of Stoic cosmology and theology by Quintus Lucilius Balbus in book 2, and in particular on his discussion of the di...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient philosopher and statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero's work, On The Nature Of The Gods, which critically examines Epicurean, Stoic, and Skeptic perspectives on matters of theology and cosmology Specifically it focuses upon the presentation of Stoic cosmology and theology by Quintus Lucilius Balbus in book 2, and in particular on his discussion of the St...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient philosopher and statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero's work, On The Nature Of The Gods, which critically examines Epicurean, Stoic, and Skeptic perspectives on matters of theology and cosmology Specifically it focuses upon the presentation of Stoic cosmology and theology by Quintus Lucilius Balbus in book 2, and in particular on his discussion of how be...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient philosopher and statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero's work, On The Nature Of The Gods, which critically examines Epicurean, Stoic, and Skeptic perspectives on matters of theology and cosmology Specifically it focuses upon the presentation of Stoic cosmology and theology by Quintus Lucilius Balbus in book 2, and in particular on his discussion of the va...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient philosopher and statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero's work, On The Nature Of The Gods, which critically examines Epicurean, Stoic, and Skeptic perspectives on matters of theology and cosmology Specifically it focuses upon the presentation of Stoic cosmology and theology by Quintus Lucilius Balbus in book 2, and in particular on his discussion of the pe...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient philosopher and statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero's work, On The Nature Of The Gods, which critically examines Epicurean, Stoic, and Skeptic perspectives on matters of theology and cosmology Specifically it focuses upon the presentation of Stoic cosmology and theology by Quintus Lucilius Balbus in book 2, and in particular on his discussion of a numb...