Gregory B. Sadler's Blog: Gregory B. Sadler on Medium, page 49

10 Philosophical Texts I'd Bring to a Desert Island

A bit over a year ago, a longstanding friend and colleague -- someone I actually went to college with -- asked me a question so intriguing that I ended up sitting down and recording a 20-minute YouTube video answering it in detail.

He wrote me:  If you could bring ten philosophical works to be stranded with on the proverbial desert island, which ten would they be, and why?  


Approaching The QuestionIt's a great question to raise, since it provokes one -- especially a scholar and teach...

Anselm on Divine Power and Greatness

Recently, the web-comic xkcd put out a one-panel one-liner that caught my immediate attention as a sometime scholar working on Anselm of Canterbury.  He's often credited with originating the "ontological argument," in some important senses a misattribution, since that term comes into use much later, in the 18th century, and since Anselm's "unum argumentum" is actually nearly the whole of the Proslogion , not just the second chapter -- there's even more to be said, but those are topics for...

Philosophical Foundations Enrolling!

I’m making a plug here in Goodreads for a class I'm very excited about - the 8-weeks online Philosophical Foundations course for the Global Center for Advanced Studies (GCAS). It’s presently enrolling, and officially starts April 9. Enrollment runs through the first week, up to April 16.

Here's a short video about the class - https://youtu.be/5hwj6fkRYPk

Here’s another video in which I discuss the class with the Director of GCAS, Creston Davis. https://youtu.be/E9JPCCw1glQ

If you'd like to see the syllabus for the course, you can see it here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-m...

For assistance in registering for the class — for credit or to audit — email MOODLE@thegcas.com indicating that you’d like to take Philosophical Foundations with me. Or for even easier registration, you can use this link - https://globalcenterforadvancedstudie...

Understanding Anger - Lecture 3: Plato on Anger

The series "Understanding Anger" continued with the third installment -- a lecture focused now not on literary or religious texts, as the previous two were, but on a philosophical perspective upon the emotion of anger.  At least in Western Philosophy, Plato is one of the first philosophers to devote sustained -- though not exactly systematic -- attention to anger in his works.

To be sure, there were a few pre-Socratic philosophers who made isolated, though interesting remarks about anger,...

A New Series of Talks: "Reconsidering. . . "

I've been involved in so much philosophy-related activity of various sorts lately, that I've not had the time to write here about quite a bit of it, which might lend a mistaken impression of precisely the opposite -- that nothing has been going on! 

Last night, at the Kingston Library, we held the second of a new series of monthly community discussions -- the "Reconsidering . . ." series, this one called "Reconsidering Charlie Hebdo:  Free Speech, Violence and Offense in Context".&n...

Understanding Anger - Lecture 2: Jewish Scriptures

Last Saturday, at the Kingston Library, we had a very well-attended second session of the new year-long monthly lecture series - Understanding Anger.  The previous session had focused on anger through the lens of Greek tragedy and epic.  This one looked at this prevalent and perennial passion through multiple perspectives afforded by another key source for Western thought and culture -- the Jewish Scriptures.

As always, there's many more people interested than can attend -- sometimes...

Appointment to the Faculty of GCAS

I'm happy to announce that the Global Center for Advanced Studies (GCAS) has recently appointed me to their faculty.  I'm hoping to offer me first course with them starting in April, and then start developing additional courses to be offered later during the 2015 year.

GCAS is a new educational institution -- and a new kind of educational institution -- something that is sorely needed in our deeply damaged educational landscape.  They have brought together a faculty that includes int...

Valentines Day - Time to Give Some Thought

Valentine's Day is coming up this week.  While I've got a talk scheduled for the morning -- the next one in my Understanding Anger series -- my brilliant and beautiful wife lined up an excellent finish for the evening, attending a musical performance, the Felice Brothers, who are playing right here in town.  So. . .  I've got to devote some thought to what contribution I can make to our Valentine's day.

If you're like me -- and if you're reading this blog, there's a good chance...

Understanding Anger - A New Lecture Series

Last year we (that is, ReasonIO) partnered with our local library -- the historic Kingston Library (a lot in this town is historic, given its age and earlier importance, but the library really does deserve that epithet!) -- to offer a lecture series, about Philosophy but suited for the general public, spanning the entire twelve months of 2014.  It focused on eleven Existentialist writers, and was called, aptly enough, Glimpses into Existence (here's the playlist of sessions).

It turned ou...

Half-Hour Hegel Series: Ready for Sense Certainty

For nearly a year, I've been engaged in a rather long-term and massive project which I don't think I've mentioned previously here on this blog -- the Half Hour Hegel video series.  By the end of December, I'd managed to make it to a minor milestone -- small in comparison, that is, to the amount of work that is still waiting to be done! -- I'd shot, edited, and released all of the videos for the Preface and the Introduction to Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's early masterwork, the Phenomen...