Sadler's Lectures

This is part 2 of the the recording of my invited Saint Anselm Lecture, given in 2008 at Saint Anselm College. Here is the abstract of the paper: One important divine attribute Saint Anselm examines and treats is that of simplicity. His treatment brings out some surprising features of simplicity itself which escape the frameworks of the logic of created being, providing us a fuller, albeit still v...

This is part 1 of the the recording of my invited Saint Anselm Lecture, given in 2008 at Saint Anselm College. Here is the abstract of the paper: One important divine attribute Saint Anselm examines and treats is that of simplicity. His treatment brings out some surprising features of simplicity itself which escape the frameworks of the logic of created being, providing us a fuller, albeit still v...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th and 21st century philosopher and moral theorist, Alasdair MacIntyre's work After Virtue It focuses upon chapter 3, specifically on his discussion of on the types of "characters" - social roles emblematic of a culture -- typical of late modern Emotivist culture. These are the rich aesthete, the manager, and the therapist. To support my ongoing work, go...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th and 21st century philosopher and moral theorist, Alasdair MacIntyre's work After Virtue It focuses upon chapter 3, specifically on his discussion of MacIntyre's analysis of the key and distinctive aspects of Emotivism as a moral theory. Emotivism was presented originally as a meta-ethical theory, but as MacIntyre notes, it develops into its own ethica...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th and 21st century philosopher and moral theorist, Alasdair MacIntyre's work After Virtue It focuses upon chapter 2, specifically on his discussion of the distinction between the meaning and the use of moral language, using several examples. This will become particularly important in his analysis of Emotivism as a moral theory in the following chapter....

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century African-American philosopher, theologian, and civil rights leader, Martin Luther King Jr.'s work "Letter From A Birmingham Jail" This episode examines King's conception of "racial justice" as a goal or end for non-violent action. To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon site - www.patreon.com/sadler If you'd like to make a direct contribut...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century African-American philosopher, theologian, and civil rights leader, Martin Luther King Jr.'s work "Letter From A Birmingham Jail" This episode examines King's discussion of how non-violent direct action is supposed to work, and what effects it is intended to have on aggressors, the larger public, and the oppressed community To support my ongoin...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century African-American philosopher, theologian, and civil rights leader, Martin Luther King Jr.'s work "Letter From A Birmingham Jail". This episode examines King's discussion and reinterpretation of the classical distinction between just and unjust laws. To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon site - www.patreon.com/sadler If you'd like to mak...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century African-American philosopher, theologian, and civil rights leader, Martin Luther King Jr.'s work "Letter From A Birmingham Jail" This episode examines King's depiction and analysis of racism and segregation as fundamentally wrong and illegitimate forms of inequality in America To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon site - www.patreon.com...

This is the recording from my invited talk on philosophical resources for understanding and managing anger, which was part of my alma mater Lakeland University's Thinkhaus talk series, given up at the Mead Public Library in Sheboygan, WI. The original recording from 2017 was made by a local high school AV club, which unfortunately didn't do a great job with sound, lighting, video, or editing, so I...

This is my relatively short talk given during the 2025 Plato's Academy multidisciplinary conference: The Philosophy of Love And Relationships. I was invited to approach the topic of the difficulties involved in the highest, fullest, and most paradigmatic form of friendship that Aristotle In the course of my presentation, I discuss the importance and influence of the distinction between three diffe...

This lecture, discussing the nature of "moral choice" or "deliberate choice" in Aristotle's moral theory, was delivered during the 7th Felician Ethics Conference at Felician College (Rutherford, NJ). In it, I discuss what I label the "Standard Interpretation" of prohairesis, which ties it explicitly to deliberation about means towards ends -- an interpretation stemming from focusing on Aristotle's...

This is the invited presentation I provided for the attendees of the Stoicon-X Brisbane conference in Australia held in October 2019. It discusses Epictetus' advice to remind ourselves that we want to maintain or keep our "prohairesis" - our faculty of choice - in accordance with nature. For those who would like more information about Epictetus' conception of prohairesis, or about the Stoic notion...

This is the recording of my short presentation and the Q&A at the second Conversations With Modern Stoicism event, hosted in June 2025 by Phil Yanov. Asked to give a short and provocative presentation about an issue that arises in the everyday applications of Stoicism, we decided on the topic of grief and grieving I first discuss what we can call a "standard Stoic take" on grief, which they unders...

This is the talk I was invited to provide for Stoicon-X New England 2020. I take the recent case of a fired Lidl communications worker who claimed that he was unjustly fired on account of his Stoicism. I use this case as a starting point to discuss what sorts of conduct would actually be characteristic of a follower of Stoicism in the workplace, and what resources and advice Stoic philosophy can p...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 19th century philosophers and social theorists, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, articulated in their work The Communist Manifesto. This episode examines the Marxist critique of other forms of Socialism articulated in the third part of the Communist manifesto, as well as the Marxist argument that only their program can adequately address the condition of th...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 19th century philosophers and social theorists, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, articulated in their work The Communist Manifesto. This episode examines what Marx and Engels envision the role of the Communist Party to be in relation to leadership of, and the development of class consciousness in, the Proletariat. They also address some of the objections ma...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 19th century philosophers and social theorists, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, articulated in their work The Communist Manifesto. This episode examines Marx and Engel's description of the formation and emergence of the revolutionary class in industrial capitalism, the Proletariat To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon site - www.patreon.com/sadler I...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 19th century philosophers and social theorists, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, articulated in their work The Communist Manifesto. This episode examines what Marx and Engels envision the role of the Communist Party to be in relation to leadership of, and the development of class consciousness in, the Proletariat. They also address some of the objections ma...

Divine Justice, Mercy, and Intercession: The Innovative Structure of Anselm’s Prayers by Lectures on classic and contemporary philosophical texts and thinkers by Gregory B. Sadler

This is my portion of a panel discussion, reading my paper a panel presentation, "Is God's Justice Unmerciful in St. Anselm's Cur Deus Homo?," delivered at the 2014 American Catholic Philosophical Association, hosted by the Institute for Saint Anselm Studies Can God be entirely and supremely just and also entirely merciful, without these two characteristics ending up in contradiction with each oth...

This lecture is a talk given at the 5th Saint Anselm conference, sponsored by the Institute for Saint Anselm Studies at Saint Anselm College in April 2014. I discuss Anselm's views on marriage, conjugal love, sexual desire, activity, and pleasure. Anselm lives and writes just before a flowering of monastic writing upon marriage and conjugal love, and has only fragmentary discussions of these topic...

In this talk, given in the course of Franciscan University of Steubenville's 2013 Annual Conference on Christian Philosophy, I set out what could be St. Anselm's response to the guiding question of the conference: "Must Morality be Grounded on God". In typical Anselmian manner, I say, Yes and No, and go on to discuss how Anselm would envision the possibility of a purely secular de-Christianized mo...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century philosopher and novelist Ayn Rand's book The Virtue of Selfishness, in particular the chapter "The Ethics of Emergencies" This focuses specifically on her discussion about what an emergency is, why bad ethics results from taking emergency cases as normative, and when one ought to be willing to risk one's own life or values for during an emerge...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century philosopher and novelist Ayn Rand's book The Virtue of Selfishness, in particular the chapter "The Objectivist Ethics" This focuses specifically on her discussion of how love and friendship are properly understood selfish or self-centered relations to other people To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon site - www.patreon.com/sadler If yo...