
Sadler's Lectures
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Latest episodes

Feb 27, 2025 • 15min
Alasdair MacIntyre, Plain Persons - Goods, Rules, and Virtues - 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 relationships outlined between Goods, Rules, and Virtues -- as well as practices, inclinations, and the natural law -- in that text.
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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

Feb 26, 2025 • 20min
Seneca, Letter 9 - Self-Sufficiency And Friendship - Sadler's Lectures
This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient Stoic philosopher Seneca's Letters, this one looking at Letter 9, in which Seneca discusses why a Stoic would deliberately seek out friends, if it is really the case that virtue is sufficient for happiness. Seneca argues that even the legendary sage or perfectly wise person, while not needing friends for happiness, will still seek out friends when possible
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Feb 26, 2025 • 16min
Fyodor Dostoevsky, Brothers Karamazov - Correcting God's Work - Sadler's Lectures
This lecture discusses key ideas from the 19th century novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky's work,The Brothers Karamazov, focusing on the theme articulated by the Grand Inquisitor, namely that he is part of a movement of the "intelligent people" in league with the "intelligent spirit" who aim to "correct the deed" or "work" of God. They choose to take on the hardship and trouble of managing matters in order to someday provide happiness to the majority of humanity
Specifically it examines This lecture discusses key ideas from the 19th century novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky's work,The Brothers Karamazov, focusing on the fifth chapter of the fifth book, titled "The Grand Inquisitor", during which Ivan and Alyosha are engaged in philosophical discussion.
Specifically it examines the Grand Inquisitor's explanation to Christ about how he and his colleagues have decided to free humanity of the burden of freedom.
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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
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Feb 24, 2025 • 13min
Seneca, Letter 7 - Why We Should Distrust Crowds - 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

Feb 23, 2025 • 17min
Philip Dick, Man In The High Castle - The Oracle, The Book, And The Real World - 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 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

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

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

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

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

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