Sadler's Lectures

Sadler's Lectures

I'm that YouTube Philosophy Guy! Find more than 3,000 videos in my main channel. Support my video and podcast work! https://www.patreon.com/sadler or https://www.buymeacoffee.com/A4quYdWoM Learn more about this podcast channel - https://youtu.be/qRvL0gqlyrw and https://gregorybsadler.substack.com/p/the-sadlers-lectures-podcast Due to popular demand - and with the work underwritten by my Patreon supporters - I have been converting my videos into MP3 files listeners can listen to anywhere they want! I have a second podcast, Mind & Desire, publishing original episodes on a variety of topics in philosophy, which you can find here - https://gregorybsadler.substack.com/podcast

Episodes

August 8, 2026 12 mins
This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient philosopher and biographer Plutarch's short work On Moral Virtue This episode focuses specifically on his criticisms of the Stoic understanding of what the emotions are, how they work, how they arise, and how they influence us human beings in our choices and actions You can find the copy of the text I am using for this sequence on Plutarch's On Moral Virtue here - amzn.to/3gpyrS3 ...
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This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient philosopher and biographer Plutarch's short work On Moral Virtue This episode focuses specifically on how conflicts can arise within the intellectual or reasoning part of the human soul, between different lines of reasoning (logoi) arriving at different judgements about the matters in question. At times, one line of reasoning can be given additional force because of the emotions in...
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This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient philosopher and biographer Plutarch's short work On Moral Virtue This episode focuses specifically on his discussion of the Stoic doctrine of the "good emotional states" (eupatheiai), which are rational desire (boulēsis), caution (eulabeia), and joy (kharis). Some of the points Plutarch makes seem a bit off-target in this section, as far as the Stoic doctrine goes, but we do learn ...
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This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient philosopher and biographer Plutarch's short work On Moral Virtue This episode focuses specifically on his critical examination of what the Stoics call the hegemonikon, translated as "the ruling part" of the human soul. As opposed to a Platonist or Aristotelean moral psychology, in which there is a higher rational part of the human soul, and a lower irrational part of the soul, the ...
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This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient philosopher and biographer Plutarch's short work On Moral Virtue This episode focuses specifically on the distinction he draws between the vice of intemperance (akolasia) and the other bad, but not vicious moral state of lack of self-control (akrasia). Similarly to his treatment of the virtue of temperance and the state of self control, he notes that the two main parts of the human...
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This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient philosopher and biographer Plutarch's short work On Moral Virtue This episode focuses specifically on the distinction he draws between temperance (sophrosunē), which is a virtue, and self-control (enkrateia), which is not a virtue but is a good state. Both of them involve two parts of the human soul, the rational and irrational part. In both of them, the rational part is in good co...
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This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient philosopher and biographer Plutarch's short work On Moral Virtue This episode focuses specifically on his discussion of two distinct uses of the faculty of reason human beings have. One use focuses on things that are by necessity and remain the same, that exist absolutely, and this is scientific or theoretical reason. The other use focuses on things that are relative to us, which i...
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This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient philosopher and biographer Plutarch's short work On Moral Virtue This episode focuses specifically on his discussion about how virtue is a mean, which bears some similarities with the Aristotelian position on the matter, but also several significant differences of emphasis You can find the copy of the text I am using for this sequence on Plutarch's On Moral Virtue here - https://a...
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This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient philosopher and biographer Plutarch's short work On Moral Virtue This episode focuses specifically on the section where Plutarch discusses what he takes moral or ethical virtue to actually be. He frames it in terms of a quality of the irrational part of the soul that has been established within it as a habit formed or shaped by the rational part of the soul. For Plutarch, the goal...
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This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient philosopher and biographer Plutarch's short work On Moral Virtue This episode focuses specifically on how what he calls the irrational part of the soul (which encompasses the spirited part and the appetitive part, and is the part that feels or has passions) ought to be subjected to and persuaded by the rational part of the human soul. When this is the case, then the person has or a...
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This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient philosopher and biographer Plutarch's short work On Moral Virtue This episode focuses specifically on his discussion, early on in the work, of the composite nature of the human soul, which includes a rational part and an irrational part, the latter of which is further divided into a spirited (thumoeides) part and an appetitive part (epithumia). This will be relatively familiar to m...
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This lecture discusses key ideas from the ancient philosopher and biographer Plutarch's short work On Moral Virtue This episode focuses specifically on his discussion of what he takes to be mistaken conceptions of the virtues found in the works of the philosophers Menedemus, Ariston, Zeno, and Chysippus, so that he can contrast his own middle-Platonist perspective against them. There are two main ways he thinks they get matters wr...
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This lecture discusses key ideas from American philosopher Derick Parfit's book Reasons And Persons, specifically the chapter titled "The Repugnant Conclusion". Specifically it examines he actual "repugnant conclusion" that his extended argument leads to, which is that it would be better to have a population that is very large but in which people's lives would have a very low quality of life, or a low amount of what makes life wo...
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This lecture discusses key ideas from American philosopher Derick Parfit's book Reasons And Persons, specifically the chapter titled "The Repugnant Conclusion". Specifically it examines his further development of the overall argument in that chapter, looking at how population growth over time could in multiple ways lower the quality of life or the overall happiness for members of a given population. He projects two future populat...
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This lecture discusses key ideas from American philosopher Derick Parfit's book Reasons And Persons, specifically the chapter titled "The Repugnant Conclusion". Specifically it examines the effects that population growth could be conceived or experienced to have upon the individual happiness or quality of life of the population either in the present or the future. In many cases increasing the population will lead to a lowering of...
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This lecture discusses key ideas John Searle's article "Minds, Brains, & Programs", first published in The Behavioral And Brain Sciences In 1980, considered to be an important contribution to theorizing about the possibility and nature of artificial intelligence, not least by introducing his famous "Chinese Room" thought experiment. Specifically it examines his discussion near the end of his initial contribution, which sets o...
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This lecture discusses key ideas John Searle's article "Minds, Brains, & Programs", first published in The Behavioral And Brain Sciences In 1980, considered to be an important contribution to theorizing about the possibility and nature of artificial intelligence, not least by introducing his famous "Chinese Room" thought experiment. Specifically it examines his discussion bearing on whether digital computers running programs ...
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This lecture discusses key ideas John Searle's article "Minds, Brains, & Programs", first published in The Behavioral And Brain Sciences In 1980, considered to be an important contribution to theorizing about the possibility and nature of artificial intelligence, not least by introducing his famous "Chinese Room" thought experiment. Specifically it examines Searle's responses to a number of different replies variously defendi...
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This lecture discusses key ideas John Searle's article "Minds, Brains, & Programs", first published in The Behavioral And Brain Sciences In 1980, considered to be an important contribution to theorizing about the possibility and nature of artificial intelligence, not least by introducing his famous "Chinese Room" thought experiment. Specifically it examines his response to one of the replies made by proponents of strong AI cl...
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Mark as Played
This lecture discusses key ideas John Searle's article "Minds, Brains, & Programs", first published in The Behavioral And Brain Sciences In 1980, considered to be an important contribution to theorizing about the possibility and nature of artificial intelligence, not least by introducing his famous "Chinese Room" thought experiment. Specifically it examines the clarifications about the notion of "understanding" Searle thinks ...
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