History of Philosophy Audio Archive

In 1965, James Baldwin debated William F. Buckley on the following topic: "Has the American Dream been Achieved at the Expense of the American Negro?" Baldwin argued first in the Affirmative, followed by Buckley. I wanted to post this debate, not because I regard the terms of the debate as legitimate (I do not, and in case it isn't obvious, I think Baldwin is completely in the right) but because of the fact that despite its historicity, this debate is almost mythological in status in the sense that it is still, somehow, continuing in America. My thanks to OpenCulture and Aeon for providing the source material for the audio. https://www.openculture.com/2020/07/watch-the-famous-james-baldwin-william-f-buckley-debate-in-full-with-restored-audio-1965.html

ATHENA: Nothing that strikes a note of brutal conquest. Only peace- blessings, rising up from the earth and the heaving sea, and down the vaulting sky let the wind-gods breathe a wash of sunlight streaming through the land, and the yield of soil and grazing cattle flood our city's life with power and never flag with time. Make the seed of men live on, the more they worship you the more they thrive. I love them as a gardener loves his plants, these upright men, this breed fought free of grief. All that is yours to give. And I, in the trials of war where fighters burn for fame, will never endure the overthrow of Athens - all will praise her, victor city, pride of man. The Eumenides, 913-926, trans. Robert Fagles --- The wonderful Michael Davis did no fewer than five lectures on the final play in the Oresteia, the Eumenides (one of my all-time favorites) so I went ahead and slammed them into one giga-episode rather than just lazily uploading each one. Please remember to check out and subscribe to his page, which seems to have been recorded and A/V'd by some very skilled student volunteers. https://www.youtube.com/@thephilosophyoftragedy6720 Please enjoy yourself.

https://apnews.com/article/noam-chomsky-hospitalized-stroke-recovery-brazil-4fb6782abf6a7b6d0bbb30cefa05cede I learned yesterday that Noam Chomsky has had a massive stroke, one which has paralyzed the right side of his body and impaired his speech, from which he is now recovering. Coverage of this medical episode should be minimal, in order to give an opportunity for the family to traverse the recovery process in peace, as these scientific collaborators and friends of Chomsky describe here: https://youtu.be/KWKQIqzotLQ I hope that he recovers, but I also know that such a recovery is deeply unlikely, if not impossible. My strong wishes for recovery and privacy are with his family; I could not stop myself however, from reacting to the sudden and sad news with a profound sense of loss. This is what I had to say, brief and insufficient, about the man who gave first a scared child, and later a young scholar, so much truth during a time of so many lies. -- My gratitude to the Orion String Quartet for uploading this lovely performance of Beethoven's 13th String Quartet to IMSLP. The music is the fifth movement, the Cavatina. https://imslp.org/wiki/String_Quartet_No.13,_Op.130_(Beethoven,_Ludwig_van)

500 subscribers is a surprise and a delight. I started this thing just for myself and a small group of interested friends, and I'm really happy to see that 500 other fellow travelers are finding something to enjoy in all of this. As a thank-you, I performed a reading, in my own voice and in English translation, of Jean-Paul Sartre's 1945 work Existentialism is a Humanism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existentialism_Is_a_Humanism This is probably the single best philosophical introduction to Existentialism on the market - the best literary introduction is likely Dostoevsky's Notes from the Underground, which is absolutely wild, by the way. This text was very influential for me, and pushed me in my first year of college away from the Analytic tradition and towards Continental philosophy (Heidegger, Husserl, Foucault, Zizek, etc) which in hindsight I'm going to go ahead and say was a great move; no regrets. I don't agree with everything Sartre says in this, but if I only posted stuff I completely agreed with I'd be reduced to posting algebra or something. If you're keeping score at home, this is the text/translation I used: https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/works/exist/sartre.htm The photo is Sartre and the philosopher and feminist Simone de Beauvoir being in love and rebellion all that fun mid-century stuff that we can barely even imagine anymore. https://history.princeton.edu/sites/g/files/toruqf5351/files/european-intellectuals.png Anyway, thanks to all the subscribers for taking a shot on a new thing - I'm gonna keep this going and post more regularly. Keep your eyes peeled for wrapping the Greek Tragedy series, new content from Roy Casagranda, Noam Chomsky, and James Baldwin/Franz Fanon. I've received a few wonderful messages from subscribers. If you want to make my day (or chew me out) you can reach me at this email, feel free to send anything: williamengels@substack.com Enjoy.

Synopsis: Orestes, the son of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon is in a real pickle. His mother has conspired with her new boy-toy/husband Aegisthus to murder Agamemnon, who is now dead and whose grave Orestes and his sister Elektra are on their way to visit. In the slack years since the murder both Orestes and Elektra have grown up and come of age. The problem for Orestes/Elektra (and Hamlet, incidentally) is will they: A) do nothing and take no vengeance for my father, which would upset Zeus and Apollo especially, orrrrr B) do I kill my mom, which Zeus/Apollo would like, but which the Furies (avenging spirits especially of wronged women) will definitely not like. No surprises here; he's gonna go with B. By the way, if you've wondered where the "Elektra Complex" (the gender-inverse of the Oedipus complex) comes from, this is it, although Sophocles is much more explicit about Elektra's role than Aeschylus who relegates her to a more minor status. --- Original video: https://youtu.be/zlun2zJIQHA?si=6XevB1nsKs9Bu078 Original writing: williamengels.substack.com Enjoy.

He had no way to flee or right his destiny- our never-ending, all embracing net, I cast it wide for the royal haul, I coil him round and round in the wealth, the robes of doom, and then I strike him once, twice, and at each stroke he cries in agony- he buckles at the knees and crashes here! ... So he goes down, and the life is bursting out of him great sprays of blood, and the murderous shower wounds me, dyes me black and I, I revel like the Earth when the spring rains come down, the blessed gifts of god, and the new green spear splits the sheath and rips to birth in glory! ... It is right, and more than right. He flooded the vessel of our proud house with misery, with the vintage of the curse and now he drains the dregs. My lord is home at last. -Clytemnestra, Agamemnon, 1401-1423, trans R. Fagles. --- Original YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiyEzRZtxXGU Thumbnail Photo: The Mask of Agamemnon Original writing: williamengels.substack.com Enjoy.

In this episode, Michael Davis discusses the first work in Aeschylus' trilogy, the Agamemnon. Short story short: Agamemnon wants to go do the Trojan War because his brother Menelaus got cucked by Paris, who ran off with his wife Helen back to Troy. Unfortunately the God Poseidon is on the side of the Trojans and so when Agamemnon is getting ready to launch his fleet the sea becomes stormy and impassable. To counteract this, Agamemnon decides that he will sacrifice his daughter, Iphigenia, to the gods so that the storm will be quelled, so he has her bound and sacrificed like a sheep. 10 years later, Agamemnon returns home triumphant. His wife, Clytemnestra however, is pretty unhappy about the fact that her husband slaughtered their daughter and has had a decade to plot her revenge... --- The link to the entire playlist is here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiyEzRZtxXGU My original writing &c is here: williamengels.substack.com The cover photo is Herbert Gustave Schmalz "Iphigenia" Enjoy.

Lectures by Michael Davis, Professor of Philosophy, delivered in the fall semester of 2018 at Sarah Lawrence College. Davis works primarily in Greek philosophy, in moral and political philosophy, and in what might be called the “poetics” of philosophy. He is the translator, with Seth Benardete, of Aristotle's On Poetics and has written on a variety of philosophers from Plato to Heidegger and of literary figures from Homer and the Greek tragedians to Saul Bellow and Tom Stoppard. More information about Davis is available at michaelpeterdavis.com. More philosophical content can be found at www.thinkinvisible.com. Videos edited by Sebastian Soper and Alexandre Legrand. The above is taken from the video description, which is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0w1jqwoiwk --- Original writing: williamengels.substack.com Enjoy.

I've taken a few of Professor Sugrue's lectures and stitched them together to make a complete, one-stop shopping guide to Plato's Republic that is pleasant to listen to, interesting, and intellectually rich. Reuploaded to include Books VI-X. Professor Sugrue passed away in the last year; part of my effort here is a memorial. --- Original video link: https://youtu.be/8rf3uqDj00A Original writing: williamengels.substack.com --- Enjoy

Advisory: This episode is INTENSE and it is not suitable for children. Discusses violence against women and children as well as warfare and torture. Chris Hedges is one of my living heroes; to the extent that anyone can tell the truth in this blizzard of lies we are all trying to survive, it's him. --- Original video here: https://youtu.be/OGCFVc-5yTM?si=HhqMk3G2tLHg_yqN Thanks to MediaSanctuary for hosting these talks, it makes a huge difference. https://www.youtube.com/@mediasanctuary --- My writing lives here: https://williamengels.substack.com/