Gregory B. Sadler's Blog: Gregory B. Sadler on Medium, page 55

Stoicism and Personal Relationships (part 2 of 2)

Two weeks back, I wrote a post discussing a seemingly harsh passage from Epictetus' little handbook, the Enchiridion: If you kiss your child, or your wife, say that you only kiss things which are human, and thus you will not be disturbed if either of them dies. I brought up a few other passages from Epictetus' Discourses, which paint a fuller and significantly more even picture of a Stoic perspective on personal relationships, one which acknowledges natural affection as, well. . . . n...

Happy Birthday, Rene Descartes

Today would be the 416th birthday of the great French philosopher, one of the veritable fathers of modern thought, Rene Descartes.  As with Thomas Hobbes, whose birthday I marked in a blog post nearly a year ago, I -- and I think many other philosophers -- have a complex, ambiguous attitude towards and appreciation of Descartes' works, assumptions, and impact upon the world -- an ambivalence bearing upon his philosophy as a systematic whole.  I lead undergraduates through the luminous passage...

Stoicism and Personal Relationships (part 1 of 2)

Practically every time I've taught Stoic philosophy -- whether in an Ancient Philosophy class, or more often in an Ethics or an Introduction to Philosophy class -- among other texts, I've assigned my students Epictetus' Enchiridion , literally, the "Handbook" -- a selection of passages compiled from the much longer set of his Discourses, those hopefully being more or less representative sample of Epictetus' oral teachings, recorded by one of his pupils and friends.  Invariably, perhaps because...

Six Dimensions to Anger in Aristotle

A week ago, I gave a talk at Marist College (slides and handouts, video coming soon), opening the cover, rifling through the pages, almost reading a few passages -- so to speak -- from a not-yet-existent book I'm in process of writing.  It still lacks a title or an introduction.  The organization of chapters, even their ordering, shifts occasionally, attaining new configurations as the research, reflection and writing continue.   But, the subject matter remains a constant -- Anger, and Aristo...

Self-Promotion: How Much is Too Much (part 3 of 3)

Back last year, I wrote two pieces (part 1 and part 2) tackling a question raised by a Chronicle of Higher Education piece, The art and science of academic self-promotion, examining the key questions posed by it:  How much self-promotion is too much?  Can a line be drawn, and if so, how?  Is it a matterof ahrd and fast rules?  Or can it be more adequately understood -- as I think it can -- in terms of virtues and vices of character?

I'd framed it in terms of several of Aristotle's promising di...

How to Almost Get Moral Dispositions Right

This week, in two face-to-face installments, supplemented and supported by a variety of handouts, summaries located in our Course Management System, and even two lecture videos from previous Ethics classes (#1 and #2), I've been leading my students through the dully dry, compendiously ennumerational, Victorian-tinged prose of Jeremy Bentham's Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation — an exercise in demonstrating to them that a book ought not be judged by its cover, nor even b...

Twitter and Facebook Addictive? New Boundaries for Temperance

Those who have come across posts from my Facebook author page, my Twitter feed, or my other blog Virtue Ethics Digest, know that I have a penchant for pointing out instances where results of research publicized by putatively cutting-edge brain scientists, psychologists, or other cognitive and social scientists do little more than reintroduce -- often without adequate reference or reflection -- topics and truths developed long ago within traditions of moral philosophy, particularly those...

The Cardinal Virtues in Plato's Republic, bk. 4

Last week, I led my Ethics students about as far as they are likely to go this semester — at least accompanied by myself — into the heart of Plato's Republic, that dense and lengthy tome often assigned and maligned for a whole host of classes in various disciplines.  It is, in point of fact, one of the great early works of western literature — imaginative, motley as democracy with perspectives, crammed with ideas whose entire importance one cannot realize upon first or even perhaps on tenth r...

Change of Plans

I've let Virtue Ethics Digest sit fallow over more than one winter month, while I finished out my first semester teaching Ethics and Intro to Philosophy at a new (and better) institution, then journeyed out to the Midwest to vacation with my wife, my children, my family and hers — all currently in the process of blending — and afterwards threw myself into preparation for several sections of Ethics this semester, rethinking and reworking material, using the course management system to begin...

Conan the Barbarian, Mark II

Spoiler Alert -- tongue in cheek, because for reasons I will soon set out, what I'll inevitably reveal about the plot and events of the new Conan movie are unlikely to ruin anyone's movie-going or -watching experience.  But on the off-chance that someone hasn't yet seen the movie who has been hankering to do so, and would be shocked or disappointed to learn what occurs in the face of dangers braved by Conan and his compatriots. . . well, they'll want to stop reading here, or at the break just...