Sadler's Lectures

Lectures on classic and contemporary philosophical texts and thinkers by Gregory B. Sadler
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Feb 23, 2025 • 13min

Alasdair MacIntyre, Plain Persons - Universal and Particular Moral Questions - Sadler's Lectures

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
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Feb 22, 2025 • 16min

Philip Dick, Man In The High Castle - Tagomi's Experience Of Alternate America - 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 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
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Feb 22, 2025 • 14min

Alasdair MacIntyre, Plain Persons - Two Key Moral Distinctions - Sadler's Lectures

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
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Feb 22, 2025 • 17min

Alasdair MacIntyre, Plain Persons - Plain Persons as Proto-Aristotelians - Sadler's Lectures

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
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Feb 21, 2025 • 20min

Philip Dick, Man In The High Castle - Wabi, Wu, And Frank's Jewelry - 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 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
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Feb 19, 2025 • 17min

Philip Dick, Man In The High Castle - The SD Attack On The Nippon Times Building - 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 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
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Feb 17, 2025 • 15min

Philip Dick, Man In The High Castle - Operation Dandelion And Resisting Evil - 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 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
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Feb 15, 2025 • 19min

Philip Dick, Man In The High Castle - Nazism, Insanity, And Evil - 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 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
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Feb 14, 2025 • 20min

Philip Dick, Man In The High Castle - Abendsen's Book, The Grasshopper Lies Heavy

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 alternate history novel "The Grasshopper Lies Heavy" which is read and referenced by a number of the characters in the work. The novel by Abendsen sets out a world in which the Axis lost the second world war, and the world was subsequently divided between Great Britain and the United States of America, with the British eventually winning. 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
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Feb 14, 2025 • 21min

Pierre Hadot, Philosophy As A Way Of Life - Ancient, Medieval, and Modern Philosophy

This lecture discusses the 20th century philosopher and historian of ideas, Pierre Hadot, and focuses on chapter 11 of his book, Philosophy As a Way of Life. He discusses the short history Hadot provides us with, in which ancient philosophy was oriented around what he calls "philosophy as a way of life", including Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy. Christian philosophy develops in west in two directions, that of the Church Fathers and monastic authors, where it remains philosophy as a way of life, and philosophy understood more and more as theory or as an instrument for theology, found in the Universities and taking the shape of Scholasticism. In the modern period, while there are still some philosophers and movements who go past that model of philosophy, the majority of it remains within that perspective. 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 Purchase Pierre Hadot's Philosophy as a Way of Life - amzn.to/39kPA8Y

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