Sadler's Lectures

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 one of the main characters of the work, the dealer in American antiquities, Robert Childan, who is a person beset by multiple ambiguities. He accepts the racial hierarchy imposed by the Nazis and the Japanese,...

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 one of the main characters in the novel, Frank Frink who was a Jewish American soldier who has lived and worked in the Pacific States of America for the last 15 years. The novel begins with him in a crisis due...

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 one of the main characters of the work, the Abwehr (Naval Counter-Intelligence) captain and agent Rudolph Wegner, who we are first introduced to under his disguise as Victor Baynes, a Swedish businessman who is...

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 one of the most central characters in the work, one who arguably provides the most consistent moral perspective throughout the novel, Nobusuke Tagomi, who is a Trade Mission official in the Pacific States of Am...

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 commerce that develops in Americana artifacts collected by Japanese elites. One of the main characters of the work, Robert Childan owns a shop that provides such artifacts. What is supposed to give these th...

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 role that the ancient Chinese work and practice of divination, The Book Of Changes (Yi Jing/I Ching), generally referred to as "The Oracle". It is used by a number of the characters in the Pacific States of...

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 power struggles going on within the Third Reich of the alternate history in the 1960s, as the current chancellor and Führer Martin Bormann dies. The main Nazi leaders who are in the running for becoming the...

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 how Frank Frink and Ed McCarthy begin their Edfrank Custom Jewelry company after Frink is fired by Harlan Wyndam-Matson from his company where Frank has been producing fake American artifacts. They blackmail Wy...

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 alternative history world that is the setting for the work, one in which the Axis powers of Germany, Japan, and Italy won World War 2 against France, Britain, and the USSR, and then attacked the United Stat...

This lecture discusses the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle' work, the Poetics, focusing on his discussion near the end of the work focused upon the question whether tragedy or epic is superior as a poetic genre. Aristotle argues that tragedy is the superior genre. 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...

This lecture discusses the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle' work, the Poetics, focusing on his views on what by his time had come to be called "problems" (problemata) mainly of criticism and their "solutions" (luseis) when it comes to poetry, particularly epic poetry. Aristotle's view is that many of these can be addressed by looking carefully at the language and the meanings in passages or co...

This lecture discusses the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle' work, the Poetics, focusing on his discussion of Epic poetry, including what elements it shares with tragedy, what makes it good, and why Homer is the paradigm for excellent epic poetry 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.paypa...

This lecture discusses the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle' work, the Poetics, focusing on his discussion about the fourth dimension of tragedy, lexis, generally translated as "diction" or "style". Aristotle provides some guidelines for how to produce excellence in lexis in tragedy and epic poetry. This involves balancing the needs of clarity and non-banality in the language one selects, which...

This lecture discusses the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle' work, the Poetics, focusing on his discussion of lexis, usually translated as "diction" or "style", which is the fourth of six dimensions of tragedy that he identifies, and also quite important for epic poetry as well. After an initial discussion of modes of language, Aristotle distinguishes a number of parts of lexis, including eleme...

This lecture discusses the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle' work, the Poetics, focusing on his short history of the development of tragedy as a dramatic form until its main potential has been realized, focusing on multiple aspects of its ongoing development across generations of tragedians To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon site - www.patreon.com/sadler If you'd like to make a direct...

This lecture discusses the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle' work, the Poetics, focusing on his discussion of the development of modes of poetic works, including comedy, tragedy, epic, dithyramb, among others. Aristotle explains that these develop out of the human capacity for mimesis or imitation, an aspect in which human beings excel other animals To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the mid-20th century symposium on falsification and theology called the "University Discussion" which can be found in the volume New Essays in Philosophical Theology It focuses specifically on Flew's last contribution to the symposium, in which he discusses whether Hare's and Mitchell's suggested parables and interpretations really do provide an adequate respo...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the mid-20th century symposium on falsification and theology called the "University Discussion" which can be found in the volume New Essays in Philosophical Theology It focuses specifically on a third parable, the agent who the resistance fighter meets, that Mitchell offers as an analogy to what goes on with religious believers when they encounter situations t...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the mid-20th century symposium on falsification and theology called the "University Discussion" which can be found in the volume New Essays in Philosophical Theology It focuses specifically on Hare's response to the challenge that Flew articulated about the "death by a thousand qualifications" when people make statements using religious language. Hare proposes...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the mid-20th century symposium on falsification and theology called the "University Discussion" which can be found in the volume New Essays in Philosophical Theology It focuses specifically on Anthony Flew's first contribution to the discussion, which starts with a revised version of John Wisdom's parable of the invisible gardener from his article Gods. Flew a...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century philosopher Karl Popper's article "Towards A Rational Theory Of Tradition", found in his book Conjectures and Refutations. It focuses specifically on his discussion of the various social functions that traditions play in human life, a significant part of which is to provide predictability. Popper also discusses why utopian and idealist plans t...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century philosopher Karl Popper's article "Towards A Rational Theory Of Tradition", found in his book Conjectures and Refutations. It focuses specifically on his distinction between traditions and institutions within social life, and how individuals interact with and are often conditioned by both of them To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon si...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century philosopher Karl Popper's article "Towards A Rational Theory Of Tradition", found in his book Conjectures and Refutations. It focuses specifically on what he thinks the key tasks of social science or theory are. Among these are studying the unintended and often undesired consequences of human choices, actions, and policies. Another important t...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century philosopher Karl Popper's article "Towards A Rational Theory Of Tradition", found in his book Conjectures and Refutations. It focuses specifically on his discussion of how science develops historically. Popper does not think that observation and the "scientific method" taught in classes and textbooks is really at the core of what science is an...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century philosopher Karl Popper's article "Towards A Rational Theory Of Tradition", found in his book Conjectures and Refutations. It focuses specifically on the differing attitudes towards tradition that he distinguishes. These include an uncritical acceptance and advocacy of tradition but also a type of rationalism uncritically hostile to tradition...