Sadler's Lectures

This is part 3 of the recording of my talk at the Fourteenth Annual Marquette Summer Seminar on Aristotle and the Aristotelian Tradition, "The Significance of Thumos in Platonic and Aristotelian Moral Psychology". An important difference between the Platonist tradition and the Aristotelian is the status accorded to thumos in their respective moral psychologies. In very broad strokes, the Platonic tradition consistently follows and reinterprets Plato’s tripartite conception of the soul, maintaining thumos one of three main parts of the soul, distinct from, in between, and interacting a rational part and the appetites. Thumos has a clear scope and proper function in Plato’s texts and those of later Platonists. In Aristotle’s moral psychology, thumos has a more restricted status, for the most part reinterpreted as one main mode of desire or affectivity (orexis). By contrast to other moral psychologies, e.g. that of the Stoics who treat thumos as just one emotion or passion among others, thumos in Aristotle and the Aristotelian tradition retains a distinctiveness from other, lower forms of affectivity, evidenced by discussions like that of akrasia due to thumos in N.E. 7 or that of thumos as one of the main causes for human actions in Rhet. 1. The status, function, and proper education of thumos remained a matter of contention and reinterpretation through antiquity, evidenced by discussions bearing upon thumos, for example in Plutarch, Galen, Philo, among others. My paper first outlines Plato’s treatment of thumos, drawing primarily upon Republic and Timaeus. It then sets out an Aristotelian account of thumos reinterpreted as a main mode of orexis, central to anger (orge), friendship, and other affective states, drawing mainly upon the two Ethics, the Politics, and the Rhetoric. Similarities and continuities between Plato’s and Aristotle’s positions are stressed, particularly the need to understand, orient, and educate thumos. Both positions are briefly contrasted against other interpretations which do not accord thumos a distinctive status, including Stoic thought. The paper also briefly discusses selected later reinterpretations of and controversies about thumos in the ongoing Platonic and Aristotelian traditions. 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 3500 philosophy videos in my main YouTube channel - www.youtube.com/user/gbisadler

This is part 2 of the recording of my talk at the Fourteenth Annual Marquette Summer Seminar on Aristotle and the Aristotelian Tradition, "The Significance of Thumos in Platonic and Aristotelian Moral Psychology". An important difference between the Platonist tradition and the Aristotelian is the status accorded to thumos in their respective moral psychologies. In very broad strokes, the Platonic tradition consistently follows and reinterprets Plato’s tripartite conception of the soul, maintaining thumos one of three main parts of the soul, distinct from, in between, and interacting a rational part and the appetites. Thumos has a clear scope and proper function in Plato’s texts and those of later Platonists. In Aristotle’s moral psychology, thumos has a more restricted status, for the most part reinterpreted as one main mode of desire or affectivity (orexis). By contrast to other moral psychologies, e.g. that of the Stoics who treat thumos as just one emotion or passion among others, thumos in Aristotle and the Aristotelian tradition retains a distinctiveness from other, lower forms of affectivity, evidenced by discussions like that of akrasia due to thumos in N.E. 7 or that of thumos as one of the main causes for human actions in Rhet. 1. The status, function, and proper education of thumos remained a matter of contention and reinterpretation through antiquity, evidenced by discussions bearing upon thumos, for example in Plutarch, Galen, Philo, among others. My paper first outlines Plato’s treatment of thumos, drawing primarily upon Republic and Timaeus. It then sets out an Aristotelian account of thumos reinterpreted as a main mode of orexis, central to anger (orge), friendship, and other affective states, drawing mainly upon the two Ethics, the Politics, and the Rhetoric. Similarities and continuities between Plato’s and Aristotle’s positions are stressed, particularly the need to understand, orient, and educate thumos. Both positions are briefly contrasted against other interpretations which do not accord thumos a distinctive status, including Stoic thought. The paper also briefly discusses selected later reinterpretations of and controversies about thumos in the ongoing Platonic and Aristotelian traditions. 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 3500 philosophy videos in my main YouTube channel - www.youtube.com/user/gbisadler

This is part 1 of the recording of my talk at the Fourteenth Annual Marquette Summer Seminar on Aristotle and the Aristotelian Tradition, "The Significance of Thumos in Platonic and Aristotelian Moral Psychology". An important difference between the Platonist tradition and the Aristotelian is the status accorded to thumos in their respective moral psychologies. In very broad strokes, the Platonic tradition consistently follows and reinterprets Plato’s tripartite conception of the soul, maintaining thumos one of three main parts of the soul, distinct from, in between, and interacting a rational part and the appetites. Thumos has a clear scope and proper function in Plato’s texts and those of later Platonists. In Aristotle’s moral psychology, thumos has a more restricted status, for the most part reinterpreted as one main mode of desire or affectivity (orexis). By contrast to other moral psychologies, e.g. that of the Stoics who treat thumos as just one emotion or passion among others, thumos in Aristotle and the Aristotelian tradition retains a distinctiveness from other, lower forms of affectivity, evidenced by discussions like that of akrasia due to thumos in N.E. 7 or that of thumos as one of the main causes for human actions in Rhet. 1. The status, function, and proper education of thumos remained a matter of contention and reinterpretation through antiquity, evidenced by discussions bearing upon thumos, for example in Plutarch, Galen, Philo, among others. My paper first outlines Plato’s treatment of thumos, drawing primarily upon Republic and Timaeus. It then sets out an Aristotelian account of thumos reinterpreted as a main mode of orexis, central to anger (orge), friendship, and other affective states, drawing mainly upon the two Ethics, the Politics, and the Rhetoric. Similarities and continuities between Plato’s and Aristotle’s positions are stressed, particularly the need to understand, orient, and educate thumos. Both positions are briefly contrasted against other interpretations which do not accord thumos a distinctive status, including Stoic thought. The paper also briefly discusses selected later reinterpretations of and controversies about thumos in the ongoing Platonic and Aristotelian traditions. 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 3500 philosophy videos in my main YouTube channel - www.youtube.com/user/gbisadler

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century philosophical short story writer, essayist, and poet Jorge Luis Borges's essay "The Wall And The Books" which can be found in his collection Other Inquisitions It speculates about the connections between two key themes marking the reign of the first Qin dynasty emperor, Shih Huang Ti, who ordered that all books before him be burned and the enclosure of the empire by a great wall. 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 4000 philosophy videos in my main YouTube channel - www.youtube.com/user/gbisadler Get Borges' Other Inquisitions here - https://amzn.to/4br9pul

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century philosophical short story writer, essayist, and poet Jorge Luis Borges's essay "The Analytical Language Of John Wilkins" which can be found in his collection Other Inquisitions. It explains the idea behind this rather utopian scheme to remodel language along completely rational and systematic lines in his work An Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language . He also compares Wilkins' project with a classification listing of animals in a fictional "Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge", and with a classification scheme of the Bibliographical Institute of Brussels. As a side-note, Michel Foucault famously incorporated and commented on Borges' fictional list of animals in his work The Order Of Things. 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 4000 philosophy videos in my main YouTube channel - www.youtube.com/user/gbisadler Get Borges' Other Inquisitions here - https://amzn.to/4br9pul

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century philosophical short story writer, essayist, and poet Jorge Luis Borges's essay "On Chesterton" which can be found in his collection Other Inquisitions It sets out and explores some of the interesting traits of an author who he references fairly often in his stories and essays 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 4000 philosophy videos in my main YouTube channel - www.youtube.com/user/gbisadler Get Borges' Other Inquisitions here - https://amzn.to/4br9pul

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century philosophical short story writer, essayist, and poet Jorge Luis Borges's essay "The Enigma Of Edward FitzGerald" which can be found in his collection Other Inquisitions It discusses the polymath Omar Khayyám, who among other contributions in multiple fields, authored a number of quatrains, many centuries later loosely translated and arranged by the English poet Edward FitzGerald into a book known as the The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Borges advances the idea that the poet of that Rubaiyat is in a sense both of them, and neither Omar nor Edward. 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 4000 philosophy videos in my main YouTube channel - www.youtube.com/user/gbisadler Get Borges' Other Inquisitions here - https://amzn.to/4br9pul

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century philosophical short story writer, essayist, and poet Jorge Luis Borges's essay "Kafka And His Precursors", in which he first examines the idea of literary precursors, and then identifies and briefly discusses six precursors to the works of Franz Kafka, in his view. These are: Zeno's paradoxes of motion an apologue by Han Yu the writings of Kierkegaard Browning's poem "Fears and Scruples" a short story by Léon Bloy Lord Dunsany's short story "Carcassonne" 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 4000 philosophy videos in my main YouTube channel - www.youtube.com/user/gbisadler Get Borges' Other Inquisitions here - https://amzn.to/4br9pul

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century philosophical short story writer, essayist, and poet Jorge Luis Borges's story "The Immortal" which can be found in Collected Fictions. It focuses on on the last parts of the story, after the narrator has found the city of the immortals and become an immortal himself. As it turns out, immortality is not everything mortals lacking it imagine it to be, and the meaning of the endless life they enjoy gets diminished. They decide to seek out the river that grants mortality, and the narrator succeeds in finding it 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 4000 philosophy videos in my main YouTube channel - www.youtube.com/user/gbisadler Get Borges' Collected Fictions here - https://amzn.to/3xZnwHA

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century philosophical short story writer, essayist, and poet Jorge Luis Borges's story "The Immortal" which can be found in Collected Fictions. It focuses on the first portion of the narrative, in which the narrator relates a story about finding out about a river that grants immortality and a city where the immortals are reputed to live. He leads an expedition to try to find the city, and ultimately succeeds, but the city, accessed via a labyrinth, turns out to be quite different than expected. He also finds who the immortals are, and ends up joining them. 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 4000 philosophy videos in my main YouTube channel - www.youtube.com/user/gbisadler Get Borges' Collected Fictions here - https://amzn.to/3xZnwHA

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century philosophical short story writer, essayist, and poet Jorge Luis Borges's story "Borges and I" which can be found in Collected Fictions. Borges writes about and contrasts himself against the "other Borges", the one who does the writing and to whom things happen. Borges and the other Borges share much in common and are intimately connected, but not in ways that Borges is particularly happy about. 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 4000 philosophy videos in my main YouTube channel - www.youtube.com/user/gbisadler Get Borges' Collected Fictions here - https://amzn.to/3xZnwHA

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 in the conclusion, which looks at a question that arises for existentialists, namely whether existentialist ethics is individualistic or not. As it turns out, the answer depends on what conception one is relying upon of "individualism", and de Beauvoir provides important clarifications about the senses in which existentialism does focus upon individuals 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 3500 philosophy videos in my main YouTube channel - www.youtube.com/user/gbisadler Purchase De Beauvoir's Ethics of Ambiguity - amzn.to/32IbKya

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 in the section "Ambiguity", looking at her discussions about how violence should be evaluated from an existentialist ethical 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 3500 philosophy videos in my main YouTube channel - www.youtube.com/user/gbisadler Purchase De Beauvoir's Ethics of Ambiguity - amzn.to/32IbKya

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 in the section "Ambiguity" of what existentialist ethics is. In her view, it isn't an ethics that can be summed up in absolute principles, but has to be understood as a method. 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 3500 philosophy videos in my main YouTube channel - www.youtube.com/user/gbisadler Purchase De Beauvoir's Ethics of Ambiguity - amzn.to/32IbKya

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 in the section "Ambiguity", which looks at the distinction she draws between absurdity and ambiguity as characteristic of human existence, and whether or not ambiguity rules out treating anything whatsoever as an absolute or not 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 3500 philosophy videos in my main YouTube channel - www.youtube.com/user/gbisadler Purchase De Beauvoir's Ethics of Ambiguity - amzn.to/32IbKya