Sadler's Lectures

This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient Middle Platonist philosopher and biographer Plutarch's essay On Being A Busybody This episode focuses specifically on his discussions bearing on the role lack or loss of self-control (akrasia in Greek) plays in the sort of problematic curiosity he criticizes in this work. Plutarch claims that lack of self control is just as evident in this curiosit...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient Middle Platonist philosopher and biographer Plutarch's essay On Being A Busybody This episode focuses specifically on one of the general practices he suggests to wean oneself away from this vice, namely deliberately redirecting one's attention from the usual objects of morbid curiosity towards better, or at least less bad objects. A person ought to...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient Middle Platonist philosopher and biographer Plutarch's essay On Being A Busybody This episode focuses specifically on one of the features of the sort of curiosity or inquisitiveness central to being a busybody, namely that the person exhibiting it attempts to dig into other people's secrets, to find out bad things they would rather keep private, mo...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient Middle Platonist philosopher and biographer Plutarch's essay On Being A Busybody This episode focuses specifically on why the sort of curiosity, inquisitiveness, meddlesomeness, or being a busybody he discusses is actually a vicious disposition, rather than something good. It involves a desire to learn about the troubles, problems, or bad things (k...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th and 21st century philosopher and moral theorist, Alasdair MacIntyre's short address "Designing Our Descendants: Seven Traits for the Future", a presentation to the 1978 general meeting at the Hastings Center. MacIntyre first discusses how intentionally designing descendants is a matter that has political dimensions, then sets out seven key traits that...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th Century American science-fiction short story writer and novelist, Philip K. Dick's novel Ubik It focuses specifically on the mysterious and miraculous substance Ubik that gets referenced in advertisements at the start of every chapter of the work (except the final one) as well as by Runciter in a video Joe Chip sees in his apartment. Ubik turns out to...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th Century American science-fiction short story writer and novelist, Philip K. Dick's novel Ubik It focuses specifically on the city of Des Moines, Iowa, where Glen Runciter's body has been transported for his memorial. As it turns out, the team of surviving inertials (since by then Wendy and Al have died) are all there, and Joe Chip has to travel there...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th Century American science-fiction short story writer and novelist, Philip K. Dick's novel Ubik It focuses specifically on the many points in the novel, after the surprise attack on Glen Runciter, Joe Chip, and the entire team of the inertials, where a seemingly dead and in cold-pac Runciter breaks through into the "reality" of those who think themselve...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th Century American science-fiction short story writer and novelist, Philip K. Dick's novel Ubik It focuses specifically on the experience of bone-chilling cold, exhaustion and fatigue, and eventual death of a particularly gruesome sort that several of the characters experience once they are in cold-pac and in half-life. At first, they think that it is b...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th Century American science-fiction short story writer and novelist, Philip K. Dick's novel Ubik It focuses specifically on one main theme of the novel, which is the characters noticing a pattern of objects at first being spoiled or worn out, then reverting to earlier obsolete forms, eventually affecting not just individual objects or even rooms but enti...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th Century American science-fiction short story writer and novelist, Philip K. Dick's novel Ubik It focuses specifically on the ambush that Ray Hollis engineers, using Stanton Mick's company, based on the moon, as a potential new client for Runciter Associates. Glen Runciter, Joe Chip, and a team of 11 inertials (anti-psionic talents) fly to the location...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th Century American science-fiction short story writer and novelist, Philip K. Dick's novel Ubik It focuses specifically on the team of eleven "inertials," that is anti-psionic talents assembled by Glen Runciter to go to the lunar location of businessman Stanton Mick's company, and do a job eliminating the effects of various psionic talents, likely emplo...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th Century American science-fiction short story writer and novelist, Philip K. Dick's novel Ubik It focuses specifically on one of the seemingly background characters who turns out to be very important by the end of the story, Ella Hyde Runciter, who died at just 20 years old and has been in half-life for decades. She and other "responsible half-lifers"...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th Century American science-fiction short story writer and novelist, Philip K. Dick's novel Ubik It focuses specifically on one of the characters who is seemingly minor early on in the novel, but who turns out to be a character of major importance within the plot. Jory Miller is a young man in half-life who "eats" other people in half-life in the morator...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th Century American science-fiction short story writer and novelist, Philip K. Dick's novel Ubik It focuses specifically on one important character we meet early on in the work, Pat Conley, who has a seemingly new psionic talent, the ability to go back and change the past, which then alters the present, allowing her to nullify the talents of precogs in a...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th Century American science-fiction short story writer and novelist, Philip K. Dick's novel Ubik It focuses specifically on one of the most central characters of the novel, Joe Chip, who we get introduced to in chapter 3 and who features in every chapter of the novel subsequent to that. We discuss in particular his role as a "tester" of psionic and anti-...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th Century American science-fiction short story writer and novelist, Philip K. Dick's novel Ubik It focuses specifically on one of the important characters we meet early on in the work, Glen Runciter, the aged but very dynamic head of Runicter Associates, a "prudence organization", which he heads, getting advice from his dead wife in cold-pac half-life w...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th Century American science-fiction short story writer and novelist, Philip K. Dick's novel Ubik It focuses specifically on one of the characters we meet early on in the work, the owner of the Beloved Brethren Moratorium in Zurich, Switzerland, Herbert Schönheit Von Vogelsang. He seems to be a rather unctuous, somewhat cringing business owner type, cate...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th Century American science-fiction short story writer and novelist, Philip K. Dick's novel Ubik It focuses specifically on the role that "prudence organizations", that is companies that employ anti-psionic talents or "inertials" to block or combat psionic talents, play in the world of the novel. These prudence organizations also belong to a "society" wh...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th Century American science-fiction short story writer and novelist, Philip K. Dick's novel Ubik It focuses specifically on one of the main aspects of the worldbuilding in the novel, namely that there are intelligent machines of all sorts that serve human beings, but mostly for a price. They charge for their services, and often banter with, and take posi...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th Century American science-fiction short story writer and novelist, Philip K. Dick's novel Ubik It focuses specifically on one of the central themes involved in the plot and worldbuilding of the story, namely the existence of psionic talents such as telepathy and precognition, and the existence of anti-psionic talents (called inertials) that nullify tho...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th Century American science-fiction short story writer and novelist, Philip K. Dick's novel Ubik It focuses specifically on one of the key features of the narrative world Dick develops in the story, namely the technology of Cold-Pac, which allows people who have experienced bodily death to be kept at cold temperatures and have their brains and thereby co...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th Century American science-fiction short story writer and novelist, Philip K. Dick's novel Ubik It focuses specifically on the advertisement copy framing Ubik as a variety of different commodities and services that begin nearly each chapter of the novel. Most of them also include cautions that the product must only be used as directed. And the final one...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century German philosopher, sociologist of knowledge, and phenomenologist, Max Scheler's work Ressentiment, which provides an interpretation of Friedrich Nietzsche's concept of that same name. It focuses on his discussion near the end of the third part of the work "Christian Morality and Ressentment", about whether Christian morality, based upon love,...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century German philosopher, sociologist of knowledge, and phenomenologist, Max Scheler's work Ressentiment, which provides an interpretation of Friedrich Nietzsche's concept of that same name. It focuses on his discussion in the third part of the work "Christian Morality and Ressentment" providing an assessment of Nietzsche's criticisms of and charges...