Sadler's Lectures

This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient Stoic philosopher Seneca's Letters, this one looking at Letter 90 It focuses specifically on Seneca's engagement with another earlier Stoic philosopher, Posidonius, who developed theories about the development of human disciplines and technology (artes), having to do with wisdom and philosophy. Posidonius postulates a golden age in which human bein...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century philosopher and novelist William Gass' article "The Case Of The Obliging Stranger", which begins with a case that runs: "Imagine I approach a stranger on the street and say to him, "If you please, sir, I desire to perform an experiment with your aid." The stranger is obliging, and I lead him away. In a dark place conveniently by, I strike his...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century philosopher and novelist William Gass' article "The Case Of The Obliging Stranger", which begins with a case that runs: "Imagine I approach a stranger on the street and say to him, "If you please, sir, I desire to perform an experiment with your aid." The stranger is obliging, and I lead him away. In a dark place conveniently by, I strike his...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century philosopher and novelist William Gass' article "The Case Of The Obliging Stranger", which begins with a case that runs: "Imagine I approach a stranger on the street and say to him, "If you please, sir, I desire to perform an experiment with your aid." The stranger is obliging, and I lead him away. In a dark place conveniently by, I strike his...

This lecture discusses the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle' work, On Interpretation, focusing on his discussion near the end of the work bearing on what the contraries of affirmative, generally universal, proposition, actually are, since this is an issue that people often get confused over. Aristotle will resolve this partly by considering in propositions what is the case by essence (kath'heat...

This lecture discusses the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle' work, On Interpretation, focusing on his discussion of different ways in which something can be potential (dunamis) or possible (dunaton), terms that have multiple senses and are thus ambiguous. He distinguishes between rational and irrational possibilities, a difference which gets used by many later authors. He clarifies ways that po...

This lecture discusses the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle' work, On Interpretation, focusing on his discussion of modal propositions that include or reference necessity. He notes that there is an inverse relation between necessity and impossibility, that with necessity, contraries follow upon contradictories, and that possibility follows from necessity but not the converse. To support my ongo...

This lecture discusses the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle' work, On Interpretation, focusing on his discussion of what the implications of modal propositions are, that is, propositions that bear upon possibility, contingency, impossibility, and necessity. He identifies propositions of these sorts that imply each other. To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon site - www.patreon.com/sadler...

This lecture discusses the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle' work, On Interpretation, focusing on his discussion of modal terms such as possible (dunaton), contingent (endekhomenon), impossible (adunaton), and necessary (anankhaion) as they are used in propositions, where affirmations or negations possess truth or falsity. He also discusses what real and mistaken contradictions of these types o...

This lecture discusses the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle' work, On Interpretation, focusing on his discussion bearing on whether and when it is possible to combine multiple predicates into one predicate for a given subject in propositions. As it turns out, in some cases this is possible, but in many other cases starting with true propositions leads to a false proposition when the predicates...

This lecture discusses the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle' work, On Interpretation, focusing on his discussion of what have come to be called "modalities" such as necessity, contingency, possibility, and impossibility, with the truth values of future seemingly contingent propositions in mind, for example that a sea-battle will or will not take place tomorrow. One possible approach is to say t...

This lecture discusses the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle' work, On Interpretation, focusing on his discussion of what he calls propositions that contain "indefinite" subjects or predicates. These can be ambiguous and create problems for interpretation that do not arise when propositions are made universal or particular by using universal terms such as "all," "every" "no", "none", or when sin...

This lecture discusses the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle' work, On Interpretation, focusing on his discussion of contrary and contradictory propositions, both of which are ways in which propositions are opposed to each other, with contradictories being more opposed to each other than contraries. With contrary propositions, if they are universal, one of them must be false (and it is possible...

This lecture discusses the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle' work, On Interpretation, focusing on his discussion of universal and particular propositions. Universal (katholou) propositions will generally be indicated by terms like "all", "every" or "no" applied to the subject, and refer to an entire group or class of things. Particular propositions (kath' hekaston) apply to at least one individ...

This lecture discusses the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle' work, On Interpretation, focusing on his discussion of propositions (apophanseis), which are a common type of sentence (logos), characterized by being either true or false. Propositions are generally affirmations (kataphaseis) or denials (apophaseis), and are the main focus of the work On Interpretation. To support my ongoing work, go...

This lecture discusses the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle' work, On Interpretation, focusing on his discussion of nouns or names (omonata), verbs (rhemata) and sentences (logoi). Sentences are significant parts of speech, often composed of nouns and verbs, but not all of them are propositions (apophanseis), since they are not all affirmations or denials which have either truth or falsity to t...

This is part 2 of the recording of my invited talk at Christopher Newport University, "Plato, Persons, And The Highest Good". It focuses on the question of whether the highest good in Plato is personal (as it would be e.g. for Christian Platonists) or impersonal (as it's usually taken to be). Centering the discussion on the ascent to the highest Good in the Symposium, I also discuss portions of th...

This is part 1 of the recording of my invited talk at Christopher Newport University, "Plato, Persons, And The Highest Good". It focuses on the question of whether the highest good in Plato is personal (as it would be e.g. for Christian Platonists) or impersonal (as it's usually taken to be). Centering the discussion on the ascent to the highest Good in the Symposium, I also discuss portions of th...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century pessimist philosopher and environmentalist Peter Wessel Zapffe's "The Last Messiah" It focuses specifically on the final parts of the work, where he considers and rejects several possible solutions to the problem posed by modern society for the human animal beset by a surplus of consciousness and a tendency to fall into "cosmic panic" when rea...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century pessimist philosopher and environmentalist Peter Wessel Zapffe's "The Last Messiah" It focuses specifically on the third of the four "suppression mechanisms" that he identifies, which he calls "diversion". It might also be accurately called "distraction", and involves keeping our attention and consciousness occupied by a succession of changing...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century pessimist philosopher and environmentalist Peter Wessel Zapffe's "The Last Messiah" It focuses specifically on attachment as one of the four "suppression mechanisms" he discusses in the essay, which involves creating fixed points in or a wall around the shifting chaos of consciousness. This occurs at the individual, the interpersonal, and the...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century pessimist philosopher and environmentalist Peter Wessel Zapffe's "The Last Messiah" It focuses specifically on the first portion of the work, where he sets out the human condition as he sees it, where as a species the trait that was our great advantage, consciousness, has become too developed in us, leading ultimately to a "cosmic panic", whic...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 19th and 20th century existentialist philosopher Lev Shestov's book "All Things Are Possible" It focuses specifically on his interpretation and assessment of the Russian author Leo Tolstoy, who Shestov says is much more interesting in his vices and inconsistencies than in his virtues. Tolstoy was someone who didn't simply write but attempted to live out hi...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 19th and 20th century existentialist philosopher Lev Shestov's book "All Things Are Possible" It focuses specifically on his references to the work, thought, and life of Ivan Turgenev, a Russian author who was perhaps one of the most westernized of his generation. He also discusses the conflict between Turgenev and Tolstoy and what it represented. To suppo...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 19th and 20th century existentialist philosopher Lev Shestov's book "All Things Are Possible" It focuses specifically on his references to and evaluation of Anton Chekhov, who Shestov credits with a more realistic attitude towards philosophies than many other writers, namely that they are very helpful for characters to have and to articulate, but less so f...