Sadler's Lectures

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century philosophical short story writer, essayist, and poet Jorge Luis Borges's story "The Cult Of The Phoenix" which can be found in Collected Fictions. It focuses on the story of a cult or sect called by names like "Cult of the Phoenix", "People of the Practice" or "People of the Secret". The group is compared against others like Jews and Roma, and...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century philosophical short story writer, essayist, and poet Jorge Luis Borges's story "Averröes’ Search" which can be found in Collected Fictions. It focuses on the islamic philosopher's failure to determine the meanings of "comedy" and "tragedy" in his commentary on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. Even after seeing and hearing about several instanc...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century philosophical short story writer, essayist, and poet Jorge Luis Borges's story "Averröes’ Search" which can be found in Collected Fictions. It focuses on a fictional characterization of the Islamic philosopher Ibn-Rushd, also known as Averroes in the Latin West, who's work on his commentary on Aristotle is interrupted by a dinner and conversa...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century philosophical short story writer, essayist, and poet Jorge Luis Borges's story "The Zahir" which can be found in Collected Fictions. It focuses on the effect that the Zahir exerts on the Borges of the story. He received it as a coin given in change purchasing a brandy. He then deliberately loses it, and strives not to think about it, but event...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century philosophical short story writer, essayist, and poet Jorge Luis Borges's story "The Zahir" which can be found in Collected Fictions. It focuses on how the Borges of the story ends up getting the Zahir as a bit of change when drinking brandy after the wake of the socialite Teodelina. As a coin, it provokes some reflections upon money, interchan...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century philosophical short story writer, essayist, and poet Jorge Luis Borges's story "The Circular Ruins" which can be found in Collected Fictions. It focuses on the narrative and the key philosophical themes of this tale. It centers on a sorcerer who has the desire to dream another human being into reality, which he does at the abandoned temple of...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century philosophical short story writer, essayist, and poet Jorge Luis Borges's story "Three Versions Of Judas" which can be found in Collected Fictions. It focuses on the evolving views on the character and salvific role of Judas progressively developed by a fictional Danish theologian Nils Runeberg, articulated in his works Kristus och Judas [Chris...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century philosophical short story writer, essayist, and poet Jorge Luis Borges's story "The Library Of Babel" which can be found in Collected Fictions. It focuses on the interpretation by denizens of the library explaining the books and the universe. A number of different sects and cults arise, some of which are successfully stamped out by the authori...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century philosophical short story writer, essayist, and poet Jorge Luis Borges's story "The Library Of Babel" which can be found in Collected Fictions. It focuses on the structure of the library in which human beings live their entire lives. The library is composed primarily of hexagonal cells, each of which contains bookshelves filled with volumes co...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century philosophical short story writer, essayist, and poet Jorge Luis Borges's story "The Theme Of The Traitor And The Hero" which can be found in Collected Fictions. It focuses on the several narrative frames to the story. In the deepest, a hero of the Irish revolts Fergus Kilpatrick is revealed as being a traitor to the cause, by his old friend an...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century philosophical short story writer, essayist, and poet Jorge Luis Borges's story "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" which can be found in Collected Fictions. It focuses on how the fictional world of Tlön, in the space of a decade, captivates the people of Earth and begins to disintegrate the reality of our own world, replacing Earth and its cultures w...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century philosophical short story writer, essayist, and poet Jorge Luis Borges's story "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" which can be found in Collected Fictions. It focuses on the philosophical idealism that characterizes the cultures and civilization of Tlön's countries, and the difficulty of framing a heretical or paradoxical materialism. The solution t...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century philosophical short story writer, essayist, and poet Jorge Luis Borges's story "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" which can be found in Collected Fictions. It focuses on the ways in which the assumption of philosophical idealism, reflected in the very languages of the world of Tlön, affect not just the mindsets of the people, but even the discipline...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century philosophical short story writer, essayist, and poet Jorge Luis Borges's story "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" which can be found in Collected Fictions. It focuses on the discovery of a vast centuries-long project to produce, first a fictional country (Uqbar), and then a fantasy world (Tlön), carried out by a number of experts whose coordinate wo...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century philosophical short story writer, essayist, and poet Jorge Luis Borges's story "Funes, His Memory" which can be found in Collected Fictions. It narrates encounters with and speculates about the mind and projects of a young man who, after an accident, possesses a perfect memory and capacity of perception. This renders him capable of all sorts o...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century philosophical short story writer, essayist, and poet Jorge Luis Borges's story "The Garden of Forking Paths" which can be found in Collected Fictions. It focuses on the narrative at the center of the larger story, the production of a labyrinth as a novel by Ts'ui Pen, and its translation, editing, and explanation by the sinologist Dr. Stephen...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century philosophical short story writer, essayist, and poet Jorge Luis Borges's story "The Garden of Forking Paths" which can be found in Collected Fictions. It focuses on the narrative of the spy or secret agent genre which provides the outer shell of the more metaphysical narrative nested within it. This story centers around a Chinese spy for the G...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century philosophical short story writer, essayist, and poet Jorge Luis Borges's story "The House Of Asterion" which can be found in Collected Fictions. It focuses on the perspective of the legendary minotaur of Crete, who lives within the labyrinth, his house, which has fourteen or infinite doors To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon site - ww...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century philosophical short story writer, essayist, and poet Jorge Luis Borges's story "The Lottery In Babylon" which can be found in Collected Fictions. The narrator of the story, a citizen of Babylon, discusses the complex history of the Lottery, the Company that administers it, and the multiple philosophical interpretations of both of these. The Lo...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient philosopher Plato's work, The Republic, in particular book 1. Specifically it provides some needed context for the concepts of knowledge or crafts that get used in the arguments Socrates uses against Polemarchus and Thrasymachus To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon site - www.patreon.com/sadler If you'd like to make a direct contribution, y...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient philosopher Plato's work, The Republic, in particular book 1. Specifically it examines the Sophist Thrasymachus' definition of justice as "the advantage of the stronger" 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 at BuyMeACo...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient philosopher Plato's work, The Republic, in particular book 1. Specifically it examines specifically the "traditional" conception of justice articulated by Polemarchus there -- a view which says justice is doing good to friends and bad to enemies. To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon site - www.patreon.com/sadler If you'd like to make a dire...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient philosopher Plato's work, The Republic, in particular book 1. Specifically it examines the early discussion between Socrates and Cephalus, in which they are thinking about the relationship between wealth, good character, and happiness. To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon site - www.patreon.com/sadler If you'd like to make a direct contribu...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century analytic philosopher John Wisdom's essay in the philosophy of religion, "Gods", found in his collection "Philosophy and Psychoanalysis". It focuses specifically on his discussion towards the end of the work, where Wisdom draws some implications of the earlier points in the article for the reasonableness or propriety of belief in gods. He also...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century analytic philosopher John Wisdom's essay in the philosophy of religion, "Gods", found in his collection "Philosophy and Psychoanalysis". It focuses specifically on his discussion of what he calls the "connecting technique", that is of noting features that different matters have in common, as well as of disconnecting and of noting unspoken or i...