Sadler's Lectures

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...

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 "logic(s)" of disputes about the existence or nature of gods. By this, Wisdom has in mind the type of appeals or argumentation that people can us...

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 the parable of the invisible gardener found in section 6 of the essay, the most often read and anthologized part of it. Wisdom develops this parable in order to br...

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 the different sources of questions that people could have or be motivated by in disputes about whether or not god(s) exist. One of these sources is experiential an...

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 how we ought to understand the differences in perspective of theists and atheists in modern times. These differences are not, in Wisdom's view, about matters that...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the early 20th century weird and horror story writer, H.P. Lovecraft's short story "The Call of Cthulhu", a classic work of cosmic horror and absolutely central to what will later come to be called the Cthulhu mythos. It focuses specifically on the encounter with the Great Old One Cthulhu narrated within the story. To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the early 20th century weird and horror story writer, H.P. Lovecraft's short story "The Call of Cthulhu", a classic work of cosmic horror and absolutely central to what will later come to be called the Cthulhu mythos. It focuses specifically on one of the key settings referenced in the work, the vast city of R'Lyeh, where Cthulhu and other Great Old Ones lie d...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the early 20th century weird and horror story writer, H.P. Lovecraft's short story "The Call of Cthulhu", a classic work of cosmic horror and absolutely central to what will later come to be called the Cthulhu mythos. It focuses specifically on the entities called the Great Old Ones, of which Cthulhu is one, and even has a role as their "priest". Many of the g...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the early 20th century weird and horror story writer, H.P. Lovecraft's short story "The Call of Cthulhu", a classic work of cosmic horror and absolutely central to what will later come to be called the Cthulhu mythos. It focuses specifically on what we learn of the cult of Cthulhu (and to a lesser extent) the other Great Old Ones, which according to the inform...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the early 20th century weird and horror story writer, H.P. Lovecraft's short story "The Call of Cthulhu", a classic work of cosmic horror and absolutely central to what will later come to be called the Cthulhu mythos. It focuses specifically on the images of the Great Old One Cthulhu that appear in the story. Some of these are bas-reliefs produced by human bei...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the early 20th century weird and horror story writer, H.P. Lovecraft's short story "The Call of Cthulhu", a classic work of cosmic horror and absolutely central to what will later come to be called the Cthulhu mythos. It focuses specifically on the third part of the story, which includes an account originally written down by 2nd mate Johansen of the boat Emma,...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the early 20th century weird and horror story writer, H.P. Lovecraft's short story "The Call of Cthulhu", a classic work of cosmic horror and absolutely central to what will later come to be called the Cthulhu mythos. It focuses specifically on the account provided by Inspector Legrasse to the American Archeological Society which explains how he came by the id...