Sadler's Lectures

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century existentialist and feminist philosopher, novelist, essayist, and playwright Simone de Beauvoir's book, The Ethics of Ambiguity It focuses specifically on what she calls the "paradox of action" which imposes itself upon human beings, which is "no action can be generated for man without it being immediately generated against men". To support my...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century existentialist and feminist philosopher, novelist, essayist, and playwright Simone de Beauvoir's book, The Ethics of Ambiguity It focuses specifically on what she terms "sophisms", that is plausible but ultimately bad arguments, that conservatives make about freedom in order to justify remaining in and even reinforcing situations of oppression...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century existentialist and feminist philosopher, novelist, essayist, and playwright Simone de Beauvoir's book, The Ethics of Ambiguity It focuses specifically on what she terms the "situation of oppression", which divides the human world into camps or clans. The oppressed can make use of their freedom to revolt against a harmony from which they are ex...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century existentialist and feminist philosopher, novelist, essayist, and playwright Simone de Beauvoir's book, The Ethics of Ambiguity It focuses specifically on her discussion of several main areas of what she calls "constructive human activities", namely philosophy, art, science, and technics (technology and techniques) and how they figure into the...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century existentialist and feminist philosopher, novelist, essayist, and playwright Simone de Beauvoir's book, The Ethics of Ambiguity It focuses specifically on her analysis of what he terms the "aesthetic attitude" early on in part 3 of the work. This is a use of one's freedom that is inauthentic, because it adopts a detached contemplative stance to...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century existentialist and feminist philosopher, novelist, essayist, and playwright Simone de Beauvoir's book, The Ethics of Ambiguity It focuses specifically on her explanation of what it means for a person to "will themselves free" and to "will that there be being", which concludes her discussions in part 2 of the work. As it happens, both of these...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century existentialist and feminist philosopher, novelist, essayist, and playwright Simone de Beauvoir's book, The Ethics of Ambiguity It focuses specifically on ways in which certain intellectuals can fall into an inauthentic existence that attempts to escape the ambiguity of existence. She discusses two different forms that this takes: critical thou...

This is part 1 of the recording of the invited inaugural Feast Day Of Saint Thomas lecture given at Mount Angel Abbey and Seminary. The full recording includes my lecture, Thomas Aquinas, Multiple Thomisms, and Christian Philosophy, a response by associate dean and professor Justin Shaun Coyle, and my answers to his and others' questions. Thomas Aquinas' works, thought, and approach have been view...

This is part 5 of the recording of the invited inaugural Feast Day Of Saint Thomas lecture given at Mount Angel Abbey and Seminary. The full recording includes my lecture, Thomas Aquinas, Multiple Thomisms, and Christian Philosophy, a response by associate dean and professor Justin Shaun Coyle, and my answers to his and others' questions. Thomas Aquinas' works, thought, and approach have been view...

This is part 4 of the recording of the invited inaugural Feast Day Of Saint Thomas lecture given at Mount Angel Abbey and Seminary. The full recording includes my lecture, Thomas Aquinas, Multiple Thomisms, and Christian Philosophy, a response by associate dean and professor Justin Shaun Coyle, and my answers to his and others' questions. Thomas Aquinas' works, thought, and approach have been view...

This is part 3 of the recording of the invited inaugural Feast Day Of Saint Thomas lecture given at Mount Angel Abbey and Seminary. The full recording includes my lecture, Thomas Aquinas, Multiple Thomisms, and Christian Philosophy, a response by associate dean and professor Justin Shaun Coyle, and my answers to his and others' questions. Thomas Aquinas' works, thought, and approach have been view...

This is part 2 of the recording of the invited inaugural Feast Day Of Saint Thomas lecture given at Mount Angel Abbey and Seminary. The full recording includes my lecture, Thomas Aquinas, Multiple Thomisms, and Christian Philosophy, a response by associate dean and professor Justin Shaun Coyle, and my answers to his and others' questions. Thomas Aquinas' works, thought, and approach have been view...

This is part 1 of the recording of the invited inaugural Feast Day Of Saint Thomas lecture given at Mount Angel Abbey and Seminary. The full recording includes my lecture, Thomas Aquinas, Multiple Thomisms, and Christian Philosophy, a response by associate dean and professor Justin Shaun Coyle, and my answers to his and others' questions. Thomas Aquinas' works, thought, and approach have been view...

This lecture discusses the French Existentialist philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre's play, No Exit, and focuses on the various ways in which the three characters attempt to find some manner of making their situation, trapped with each other for eternity, livable for themselves. Inez Serrano speaks of the situation as one beset with traps, and Joseph Garcin uses the metaphor of webs, but they do consid...

This lecture discusses the French Existentialist philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre's play, No Exit, and focuses on the third of the main characters within the drama, Estelle Rigaut, who is a younger woman originally from the lower classes who married her way into upper class society, and who seems to be attracted to Garcin, when in reality she depends on men for maintaining her self-image. It turns ou...

This lecture discusses the French Existentialist philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre's play, No Exit, and focuses on one of the central characters trapped in the room with the other two, Inez Seranno, a postal clerk who describes herself as cruel, and who behaves sadistically towards the others. A lesbian, she pursued her cousin's wife and turned her against her husband, and she attempts to seduce Estel...

This lecture discusses the French Existentialist philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre's play, No Exit, and focuses on on one of the three main characters stuck together in the afterlife, Joseph Garcin, a newspaper man who claims that he was executed for desertion over his being a pacifist. He also cheated on his wife. As it turns out, he is actually at heart a coward. He also proposes solutions for the s...

This lecture discusses the French Existentialist philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre's play, No Exit, and focuses on the setting of the work, which is a particular version of hell where some of the dead, specifically three people, Joseph Garcin, Inèz Serrano, and Estelle Rigault, are condemned to be for eternity. Each of the three portrays or betrays themselves as being a certain type of person, and the...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the Utilitarian philosopher, Jeremy Bentham's work, Offenses Against Oneself, a posthumously published part of his Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. Here we examine the range of other perceived sexual offenses Bentham discusses and evaluates, all of which involve the feature "that they consist in procuring certain sensations by means of...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the Utilitarian philosopher, Jeremy Bentham's work, Offenses Against Oneself, a posthumously published part of his Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. Here we examine some of the problems that arise out of punishing same-sex relationships using what Bentham calls the "political sanction", i.e. legislation and enforcement.. One of these, w...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the Utilitarian philosopher, Jeremy Bentham's work, Offenses Against Oneself, a posthumously published part of his Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. Here we examine the motive of antipathy, which means feeling pleasure in someone else's pain or feeling pain in someone else's pleasure in Bentham's work, and the role it plays in much of t...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the Utilitarian philosopher, Jeremy Bentham's work, Offenses Against Oneself, a posthumously published part of his Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. Here we examine some of the arguments that were being made in favor of prohibiting or punishing male-male sexual relationships on the basis that allowing them would in effect deprive women...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the Utilitarian philosopher, Jeremy Bentham's work, Offenses Against Oneself, a posthumously published part of his Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. Here we examine some of the arguments people make for prohibiting or punishing male-male sexual relationships and activity on the basis of it leading to a decline in population. These argum...

This lecture discusses key ideas from the Utilitarian philosopher, Jeremy Bentham's work, Offenses Against Oneself, a posthumously published part of his Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. Here we examine some of the common reasons people give in his times and society for prohibiting or punishing male-male sexual relationships and activity. He considers first whether there is...

In this invited lecture at Marist College, hosted by the Catholic Studies Program as part of their Marcelin Lecture Series, I narrate some of the key points and developments in the story of how we ended up with the current list of the Seven Deadly Sins, which are: Gluttony, Lust, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, and Pride. Originally, these start out as the Eight Capital Vices, a list which includes sad...