Sadler's Lectures

This lecture discusses key ideas from the Renaissance-era philosopher, critic, and essayist Michel De Montaigne's work Essays, specifically his essay To Philosophise Is To Learn To Die It focuses upon his examination of pleasure as a motivation for human choices, commitments, and actions. Montaigne argues that rightly understood, there is a better and higher form of pleasure than simple base pleas...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the Renaissance-era philosopher, critic, and essayist Michel De Montaigne's work Essays, specifically his essay How We Weep And Laugh At The Same Thing It focuses upon the inconsistency of emotions we witness in a number of different people (including Montaigne himself), which should keep us from ascribing a fixed an immutable character to them. Montaigne expl...

This lecture discusses the 20th century philosopher and historian of ideas, Pierre Hadot, and focuses on chapter 4 of his book, Philosophy As a Way of Life. He discusses his examination of modes of prosokhē or attentiveness in the Christian philosophy (understood as a way of life) emerging in the late ancient period and extending into the middle ages To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon si...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the Renaissance-era philosopher, critic, and essayist Michel De Montaigne's work Essays, specifically his essay To Philosophise Is To Learn To Die It focuses upon his analysis of why people unnecessarily fear death, and how we can make death something familiar and thereby less scary to ourselves. To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon site - www.patreon....

This lecture discusses key ideas from the Renaissance-era philosopher, critic, and essayist Michel De Montaigne's work Essays, specifically his essay To Philosophise Is To Learn To Die It focuses upon the ways in which Montaigne understands life and death as being related to each other, as not merely opposites 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 Renaissance-era philosopher, critic, and essayist Michel De Montaigne's work Essays, specifically his essay Same Design, Different Outcomes It focuses upon his views that much of our lives are subject to fortune, so that events or consequences can go differently than our intentions or plans. This does not mean that we shouldn't do what seems most just, vir...

This lecture discusses the 20th century philosopher and historian of ideas, Pierre Hadot, and focuses on chapter 4 of his book, Philosophy As a Way of Life. He discusses how Christianity was explicitly identified by a number of early Christian thinkers as a "philosophy". This continued on through the middle ages, where Christian monasticism was also termed "Christian philosophy". Hadot points out...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient Stoic philosopher Seneca's Letters, this one looking at Letter 70, in which Seneca discusses whether or not ending one's life deliberately is permissible or not from a Stoic perspective. He considers a number of aspects of the question, arguing that what we should take into consideration is the quality of a life rather than its quantity. He refers...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient Stoic philosopher Seneca's Letters, this one looking at Letter 63, in which Seneca tells a friend who is grieving after the death of another friend that it is reasonable for him to grieve and even to cry tears, but that he should keep from excessively grieving. Seneca provides advice about how to regard and make use of the memories one has of frien...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th and 21st century philosopher and moral theorist, Alasdair MacIntyre's essay "Plain Persons and Moral Theory" It focuses upon MacIntyre's discussion of moral development and a person's life understood as a narrative 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...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th and 21st century philosopher and moral theorist, Alasdair MacIntyre's essay "Plain Persons and Moral Theory" It focuses upon the extent to which what MacIntyre calls "plain persons" need to be or become moral philosophers. He writes: "We can now say something more not only about how much of a moral philosopher the plain person has to be, but also abou...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient Stoic philosopher Seneca's Letters, this one looking at Letter 59, in which Seneca distinguishes between the senses that ordinary people and Stoics give to the terms pleasure (voluptas) and joy (gaudium), and discusses why it is that most people go wrong in the views they have about what will produce genuine joy for them, by contrast to the Stoic s...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient Stoic philosopher Seneca's Letters, this one looking at Letter 47, in which Seneca discusses how masters in the ancient would should regard and treat their slaves, namely in a familiar manner, as fellow human beings, housemates, lowborn friends, and even fellow slaves. He suggests that masters ought to remember that which people happen to be in the...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient Stoic philosopher Seneca's Letters, this one looking at Letter 30, in which Seneca uses the example of an aged friend Bassus who is approaching his own death in a good manner, as an opportunity to set out some ideas about how we can regard and prepare for our own inevitable death in a Stoic manner. To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon site...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient Stoic philosopher Seneca's Letters, this one looking at Letter 23, in which Seneca tells Lucilius that he wants him to learn how to attain and feel genuine lasting joy, which Stoicism teaches that we can do by focusing on what is actually within the scope of our control and agency, rather than on externals. To support my ongoing work, go to my Patr...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th and 21st century philosopher and moral theorist, Alasdair MacIntyre's essay "Plain Persons and Moral Theory" It focuses upon a generalized narrative that MacIntyre calls "the story of the decline and fall of the plain person", with four main "episodes". 1. The protagonist strives to answer the question "what is my good", but doesn't develop a temperat...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th and 21st century philosopher and moral theorist, Alasdair MacIntyre's essay "Plain Persons and Moral Theory" It focuses upon the relationships outlined between Goods, Rules, and Virtues -- as well as practices, inclinations, and the natural law -- in that text. To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon site - www.patreon.com/sadler If you'd like to...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient Stoic philosopher Seneca's Letters, this one looking at Letter 9, in which Seneca discusses why a Stoic would deliberately seek out friends, if it is really the case that virtue is sufficient for happiness. Seneca argues that even the legendary sage or perfectly wise person, while not needing friends for happiness, will still seek out friends when...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 19th century novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky's work,The Brothers Karamazov, focusing on the theme articulated by the Grand Inquisitor, namely that he is part of a movement of the "intelligent people" in league with the "intelligent spirit" who aim to "correct the deed" or "work" of God. They choose to take on the hardship and trouble of managing matters in orde...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient Stoic philosopher Seneca's Letters, this one looking at Letter 7, in which Seneca advises his interlocutor, using his own example, that we ought to avid and minimize our exposure to crowds, large groups, and the general public, because unless our characters are entirely secure, we not only put our moral development at risk but often enough backslid...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th Century American science-fiction short story writer and novelist, Philip K. Dick's novel The Man In The High Castle It focuses specifically on the discussion of and engagement with the Oracle (aka the Book of Changes or the I Jing) on the part of Juliana Frink and the Abendsens. Juliana is able to determine that Hawthorne Abendsen used the Oracle to w...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th and 21st century philosopher and moral theorist, Alasdair MacIntyre's essay "Plain Persons and Moral Theory" It focuses upon the interplay between several general questions asked and addressed by moral theory and corresponding particular questions asked and answered by ordinary people, within the scope and course of their lives. To support my ongoing...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th Century American science-fiction short story writer and novelist, Philip K. Dick's novel The Man In The High Castle It focuses specifically on the experience that Nobusuke Tagomi has when he concentrates on a piece of jewelry produced by the Edfrank company in the park, and finds himself transported to an alternate America in a world in which the Alli...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th and 21st century philosopher and moral theorist, Alasdair MacIntyre's essay "Plain Persons and Moral Theory" It focuses upon two important moral distinctions that MacIntyre argues are involved in developing "a capacity to become reflective about norms and goals". 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 20th and 21st century philosopher and moral theorist, Alasdair MacIntyre's essay "Plain Persons and Moral Theory" It focuses upon his contention that plain persons are often what he calls "proto-Aristotelians" in their broad commitments embodying moral theory, rather than simply neutral blank slates. MacIntyre writes: "[T]he plain person is funda­mentally...