Sadler's Lectures

This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient Stoic philosopher Seneca's Letters, this one looking at Letter 7, in which Seneca advises his interlocutor, using his own example, that we ought to avid and minimize our exposure to crowds, large groups, and the general public, because unless our characters are entirely secure, we not only put our moral development at risk but often enough backslide, morally speaking. 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 BuyMeACoffee - www.buymeacoffee.com/A4quYdWoM You can find over 3000 philosophy videos in my main YouTube channel - www.youtube.com/user/gbisadler

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 discussion of and engagement with the Oracle (aka the Book of Changes or the I Jing) on the part of Juliana Frink and the Abendsens. Juliana is able to determine that Hawthorne Abendsen used the Oracle to write his alternate history novel The Grasshopper Lies Heavy. This then raises a question: Why would the Oracle choose to write a book? The answer is that through that, it reveals the truth about the world that is the setting for the novel, namely that the world in which the Axis powers won World War II is not the true or real world 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 BuyMeACoffee - www.buymeacoffee.com/A4quYdWoM You can find over 3000 philosophy videos in my main YouTube channel - www.youtube.com/user/gbisadler You can get a copy of Man In The High Castle here - https://amzn.to/45yJ2ie

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th and 21st century philosopher and moral theorist, Alasdair MacIntyre's essay "Plain Persons and Moral Theory" It focuses upon the interplay between several general questions asked and addressed by moral theory and corresponding particular questions asked and answered by ordinary people, within the scope and course of their lives. 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 BuyMeACoffee - www.buymeacoffee.com/A4quYdWoM You can find over 3,000 philosophy videos in my main YouTube channel - www.youtube.com/user/gbisadler You can find MacIntyre's essay "Plain Persons and Moral Theory" here - https://amzn.to/3KUbXVf

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 experience that Nobusuke Tagomi has when he concentrates on a piece of jewelry produced by the Edfrank company in the park, and finds himself transported to an alternate America in a world in which the Allies won the war instead of losing it. The experience allows him to recenter himself from his trauma resulting from killing the two SD Kommandos in the Nippon Times Building. 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 BuyMeACoffee - www.buymeacoffee.com/A4quYdWoM You can find over 3000 philosophy videos in my main YouTube channel - www.youtube.com/user/gbisadler You can get a copy of Man In The High Castle here - https://amzn.to/45yJ2ie

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th and 21st century philosopher and moral theorist, Alasdair MacIntyre's essay "Plain Persons and Moral Theory" It focuses upon two important moral distinctions that MacIntyre argues are involved in developing "a capacity to become reflective about norms and goals". 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 BuyMeACoffee - www.buymeacoffee.com/A4quYdWoM You can find over 3,000 philosophy videos in my main YouTube channel - www.youtube.com/user/gbisadler You can find MacIntyre's essay "Plain Persons and Moral Theory" here - https://amzn.to/3KUbXVf

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th and 21st century philosopher and moral theorist, Alasdair MacIntyre's essay "Plain Persons and Moral Theory" It focuses upon his contention that plain persons are often what he calls "proto-Aristotelians" in their broad commitments embodying moral theory, rather than simply neutral blank slates. MacIntyre writes: "[T]he plain person is funda­mentally a proto-Aristotelian. What is the force of 'fundamentally 'here? What it conveys can be expressed in three claims, first that every human being either lives out her or his life in a narrative form which is structured in terms of a telos, of virtues and of rules in an Aristotelian mode or has disrupted that narrative by committing her or himself to some other way of life, which is best understood as an alternative designed to avoid or escape from an Aristotelian mode of life, so that the lives of those who understand themselves, explicitly or much more probably implicitly, in terms set by Kant or Reid or Sidgwick or Sartre, are still informed by this rejected alternative. Secondly, I have told the story of the decline and fall of the plain person as the narrative of a single life. But the story could have been told, and I have told it elsewhere (in After Virtue), as a claim about the narrative history of a set of successive periods in West.em culture from the sixteenth to the twentieth century. This partial mirroring of the fate of individuals in the history of the larger social order and of the fate of that larger order in the narratives of individual lives testifies to the inseparability of the two stories. Thirdly, as these first two claims imply, I am also committed to holding that every human being is potentially a fully-fledged and not merely a proto-Aristotelian and that the frustration of that potentiality is among his or her morally important characteristics. We should therefore expect to find, within those who have not been allowed to develop, or have not themselves allowed their lives to develop, an Aristotelian form, a crucial and ineliminable tension between that in them which is and that which is not, Aristotelian. The standard modem anti-Aristotelian self will be a particular kind of divided self, exhibiting that complexity so characteristic of and so prized by modernity." 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 BuyMeACoffee - www.buymeacoffee.com/A4quYdWoM You can find over 3,000 philosophy videos in my main YouTube channel - www.youtube.com/user/gbisadler You can find MacIntyre's essay "Plain Persons and Moral Theory" here - https://amzn.to/3KUbXVf

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 he new and original American jewelry produced by the Edfrank Custom Jewelry company and placed on consignment with Robert Childan's American Artistic Handcrafts, Inc. store. Childan gives Paul Kasoura one of the pieces, and there is a very interesting exchange between the two of them. Paul asserts that Frank Frink's jewelry is without aesthetic value, particularly wabi, but possesses a higher transcendent value of wu, placed in the artifact by its maker. Paul then proposes to Robert that the pieces can be used to mass-produce a line of copies for poor people in South America, which places Robert in a crisis that demands a decision be made. 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 BuyMeACoffee - www.buymeacoffee.com/A4quYdWoM You can find over 3000 philosophy videos in my main YouTube channel - www.youtube.com/user/gbisadler You can get a copy of Man In The High Castle here - https://amzn.to/45yJ2ie

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 key sub-plots in the novel, the Sicherheitsdienst or SD commando attack on the Nippon Times Building, aimed at capturing the Abwehr operative Rudolph Wegner. This takes place while Wegner is meeting with General Tedeki and Nobusuke Tagomi to reveal Operation Dandelion. Tagomi kills the two SD agents who manage to reach their room, and then later confronts the Reichscounsul Reiss over the attack. 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 BuyMeACoffee - www.buymeacoffee.com/A4quYdWoM You can find over 3000 philosophy videos in my main YouTube channel - www.youtube.com/user/gbisadler You can get a copy of Man In The High Castle here - https://amzn.to/45yJ2ie

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 a plot-point only revealed in the last third of the book, but which has been set up as Tagomi organizes a meeting between the Swedish Baynes (actually the Abwehr agent Wegner) and retired Japanese general Tedeki). Baynes/Wegner reveals the existence and readiness of a Nazi plot for attaining world domination, Operation Dandelion, which involves a massive nuclear attack on Japan. This poses a dilemma, since Goebels, who is in process of consolidating his power, is in favor of Operation Dandelion, but Heydrich and the SD/SS are against the operation. Wegner suggests that the Japanese government should support the "most malignant part of German society", Heydrich and the police. This means collaborating with evil in order to prevent evil of a different sort and on a greater scale. 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 BuyMeACoffee - www.buymeacoffee.com/A4quYdWoM You can find over 3000 philosophy videos in my main YouTube channel - www.youtube.com/user/gbisadler You can get a copy of Man In The High Castle here - https://amzn.to/45yJ2ie

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 interconnection between Nazism, various modes of insanity, and the evil they engage in and impose upon the world. We look at this through the eyes of non-Nazi characters (for the most part), including Robert Childan, Juliana Frink, Nobusuke Tagomi, Joe Cinnadella, and Rudolph Wegner. 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 BuyMeACoffee - www.buymeacoffee.com/A4quYdWoM You can find over 3000 philosophy videos in my main YouTube channel - www.youtube.com/user/gbisadler You can get a copy of Man In The High Castle here - https://amzn.to/45yJ2ie